Philips observes, and
would have his readers believe, that the reason of his wife's aversion
to return to him was the contrariety of their state principles. The
lady being educated in loyal notions, possibly imagined, that if ever
the regal power should flourish again, her being connected with a
person so obnoxious to the King, would hurt her father's interest;
this Mr. Philips alledges, but, with submission to his authority, I
dissent from his opinion. Had she been afraid of marrying a man of
Milton's principles, the reason was equally strong before as after
marriage, and her father must have seen it in that light; but the true
reason, or at least a more rational one, seems to be, that she had no
great affection for Milton's person.

Milton was a stern man, and as he was so much devoted to study, he was
perhaps too negligent in those endearments and tender intercourses of
love which a wife has a right to expect. No lady ever yet was fond of
a scholar, who could not join the lover with it; and he who expects to
secure the affections of his wife by the force of his understanding
only, will find himself miserably mistaken: indeed it is no wonder
that women who are formed for tenderness, and whose highest excellence
is delicacy, should pay no great reverence to a proud scholar, who
considers the endearments of his wife, and the caresses of his
children as pleasures unworthy of him. It is agreed by all the
biographers of Milton, that he was not very tender in his disposition;
he was rather boldly honourable, than delicately kind; and Mr. Dryden
seems to insinuate, that he was not much subject to love. "His rhimes,
says he, flow stiff from him, and that too at an age when love makes
every man a rhymster, tho' not a poet. There are, methinks, in
Milton's love-sonnets more of art than nature; he seems to have
considered the passion philosophically, rather than felt it
intimately."

In reading Milton's gallantry the breast will glow, but feel no
palpitations; we admire the poetry, but do not melt with tenderness;
and want of feeling in an author seldom fails to leave the reader
cold; but from whatever cause his aversion proceeded, she was at last
prevailed upon by her relations, who could foresee the dangers of a
matrimonial quarrel, to make a submission, and she was again received
with tenderness.

Mr. Philips has thus related the story.--'It was then generally
thought, says he, that Milton had a design of marrying one of