her mother's fault. Milton was not a sour man,
and though perhaps too apt to insist upon repentance preceding
forgiveness, yet when it did so he could forgive divinely. In a very
short time the whole family of Powells, whom the war had reduced to low
estate, were living under his roof in the Barbican, whither he moved on
the Aldersgate house proving too small for his varied belongings. The
poet's father also lived with his son.

Mrs. Milton had four children, three of whom, all daughters, lived to
grow up. The mother died in childbirth in 1652, being then twenty-six
years of age.

The _Areopagitica_, _a Speech for Unlicensed Printing_, followed the
divorce pamphlet, but it also fell upon deaf ears. Of all religious
sects the Presbyterians, who were then dominant, are perhaps the least
likely to forego the privilege of interference in the affairs of others.
Instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, instead
of 'a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth House, another from the west
end of Paul's,' there was appointed a commission of twenty Presbyterians
to act as State Licensers. Then was Milton's soul stirred within him to
a noble rage. His was a threefold protest--as a citizen of a State he
fondly hoped had been free, as an author, and as a reader. As a citizen
he protested against so unnecessary and improper an interference. It is
not, he cried, 'the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop,
that will make us a happy nation,' but the practice of virtue, and virtue
means freedom to choose. Milton was a manly politician, and detested
with his whole soul grandmotherly legislation. 'He who is not trusted
with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing
to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself
reputed in the commonwealth wherein he was born, for other than a fool or
a foreigner.' 'They are not skilful considerers of human things who
imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin.' 'And were I the
chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as
much the forcible hindrance of evil doing.' These are texts upon which
sermons, not inapplicable to our own day, might be preached. Milton has
made our first parent so peculiarly his own, that any observations of his
about Adam are interesting. 'Many there be that complain of Divine
Providence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God
gav