The Life of John Milton 16431649 Author:David Masson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. MILTON UNHAPPY IN HIS MARRIAGE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TRACT: TWO EDITIONS OF IT. We left Milton in his house in Aldersgate Street in or about 1643,... more » waiting for the promised return of his recently- wedded wife at Michaelmas, and meanwhile comfortable enough, with his books, his pupils, and the quiet companionship of his old father. We are now seven or eight months beyond that point in our general History. What had happened in the Aldersgate household in the interval? A tremendous thing had happened. Milton had come to desire a divorce from his wife, and had written and published a Tract on Divorce, partly in the interest of his own private case, but really also with a view to suggest to the mind of England, then likely to be receptive of new ideas, certain thoughts on the whole subject of the English law of Marriage which had resulted from reflection on his own experience. Here is the story:— " Michaelmas [Sept. 29, 1643] being come," says Phillips, " 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 despatched down " a foot-messenger [to Forest Hill] with a letter, desiring her " return. But the messenger came back not only without an " answer, at least a satisfactory one, but, to the best of my " remembrance, reported that he was dismissed with some " sort of contempt. This proceeding, in all probability, was " grounded upon no other cause but this—viz.: that, the " family being generally addicted to the Cavalier party, as " they called it, and some of them possibly engaged in the" King's service, who by this time had his head-quarters " at Oxford and was in some prospect of success, they " began to repent them of having matched the eldest " daughte...« less