ce, and the second of contemplative, though not
gloomy, retirement, and the last is a lament for a lost friend, Edward
King, who perished at sea. _Arcades_ and _Comus_ are masques set to music
by Henry Lawes, having for their motives respectively family affection
and maiden purity. Had he written nothing else these would have given him
a place among the immortals. In 1638 he completed his education by a
period of travel in France and Italy, where he visited Grotius at Paris,
and Galileo at Florence. The news of impending troubles in Church and
State brought him home the following year, and with his return may be
said to close the first of three well-marked divisions into which his
life falls. These may be called (1) the period of preparation and of the
early poems; (2) the period of controversy, and of the prose writings;
and (3) the period of retirement and of the later poems. Soon after his
return M. settled in London, and employed himself in teaching his
nephews, Edward and John Phillips, turning over in his mind at the same
time various subjects as the possible theme for the great poem which, as
the chief object of his life, he looked forward to writing. But he was
soon to be called away to far other matters, and to be plunged into the
controversies and practical business which were to absorb his energies
for the next 20 years. The works of this period fall into three
classes--(1) those directed against Episcopacy, including _Reformation of
Church Discipline in England_ (1641), and his answers to the writings of
Bishop Hall (_q.v._), and in defence of _Smectymnuus_ (_see_ under
Calamy); (2) those relating to divorce, including _The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce_ (1643), and _The Four Chief Places of Scripture
which treat of Marriage_ (1645); and (3) those on political and
miscellaneous questions, including the _Tractate on Education_ (1644),
_Areopagitica_ (1644), _A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_
(his greatest prose work), _Eikonoklastes_, an answer to the _Eikon
Basilike_ of Dr. Gauden (_q.v._), _The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_
(1649), in defence of the execution of Charles I., which led to the
furious controversy with Salmasius, the writing of _Pro Populo Anglicano
Defensio_ (1650), the second _Defensio_ (1654), which carried his name
over Europe, and _The Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free
Commonwealth_, written on the eve of the Restoration. In 1643 M. had _m._
Mary Powell, the _dau.