r's family,
and that Mary had previously made an impression upon him. If not, his
was the most preposterously precipitate of poets' marriages; for a month
after leaving home he presented a mistress to his astounded nephews and
housekeeper. The newly-wedded pair were accompanied or quickly followed
by a bevy of the bride's friends and relatives, who danced and sang and
feasted for a week in the quiet Puritan house, then departed--and after
a few weeks Milton finds himself moved to compose his tract on the
"Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce."

How many weeks? The story seemed a straightforward one until Professor
Masson remarked what had before escaped attention. According to
Phillips, an inmate of the house at the period--"By that time she had
for a month, or thereabouts, led a philosophical life (after having been
used to a great house, and much company and joviality), her friends,
possibly incited by her own desire, made earnest suit by letter to have
her company the remaining part of the summer, which was granted, on
condition of her return at the time appointed, Michaelmas or thereabout.
Michaelmas being come, and no news of his wife's return, he sent for her
by letter, and receiving no answer sent several other letters, which
were also unanswered, so that at last he dispatched down a
foot-messenger; but the messenger came back without an answer. He
thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again after such a
repulse, and accordingly wrote two treatises," &c. Here we are
distinctly assured that Mary Milton's desertion of her husband, about
Michaelmas, was the occasion of his treatise on divorce. It follows
that Milton's tract must have been written after Michaelmas. But the
copy in the British Museum belonged to the bookseller Thomason, who
always inscribed the date of publication on every tract in his
collection, when it was known to him, and his date, as Professor Masson
discovered, is August 1. Must we believe that Phillips's account is a
misrepresentation? Must we, in Pattison's words, "suppose that Milton
was occupying himself with a vehement and impassioned argument in favour
of divorce for incompatibility of temper, during the honeymoon"? It
would certainly seem so, and if Milton is to be vindicated it can only
be by attention to traits in his character, invisible on its surface,
but plainly discoverable in his actions.

The grandeur of Milton's poetry, and the dignity and austerity of his
priva