nd after an absence of fifteen months,
in which Milton had seen much of the world, read the characters of
famous men, examined the policy of different countries, and made more
extensive improvements than travellers of an inferior genius, and less
penetration, can be supposed to do in double the time. Soon after his
return he took a handsome house in Aldersgate-street, and undertook
the education of his sister's two sons, upon a plan of his own. In
this kind of scholastic solitude he continued some time, but he was
not so much immersed in academical studies, as to stand an indifferent
spectator of what was acted upon the public theatre of his country.
The nation was in great ferment in 1641, and the clamour against
episcopacy running very high, Milton who discovered how much inferior
in eloquence and learning the puritan teachers were to the bishops,
engaged warmly with the former in support of the common cause, and
exercised all the power of which he was capable, in endeavouring to
overthrow the prelatical establishment, and accordingly published five
tracts relating to church government; they were all printed at London
in 4to. The first was intitled, Reformation touching Church Discipline
in England, and the Causes that have hitherto hindered it: two books
written to a friend. The second was of Prelatical Episcopacy, and
whether it may be deducted from Apostolical Times, by virtue of those
Testimonies which are alledged to that purpose in some late treatises;
one whereof goes under the name of James Usher archbishop of Armagh.
The third was the Reason of Church Government urged against the
Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, in two books. The fourth was
Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus; and
the fifth an Apology for a Pamphlet called, a Modest Confutation of
the Animadversions upon the Remonstrants against Smectymnuus; or as
the title page is in some copies, an Apology for Smectymnuus, with the
Reason of Church Government, by John Milton.

In the year 1643 Milton married the daughter of Richard Powel, Esq; of
Forrest-hill in Oxfordshire; who not long after obtaining leave of her
husband to pay a visit to her father in the country, but, upon
repeated messages to her, refusing to return, Milton seemed disposed
to marry another, and in 1644 published the Doctrine and Discipline of
Divorce; the Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce, and the year
following his Tetrachordon and Colasterion. Mr.