ject must
be unsatisfactory to legislators, who have usually deemed his sublime
idealism fitter for the societies of the blest than for the imperfect
communities of mankind. When his "doctrine and discipline" shall have
been sanctioned by lawgivers, we may be sure that the world is already
much better, or much worse.

As the girl-wife vanishes from Milton's household her place is taken by
the venerable figure of his father. The aged man had removed with his
son Christopher to Reading, probably before August, 1641, when the birth
of a child of his name--Christopher's offspring as it should
seem--appears in the Reading register. Christopher was to exemplify the
law of reversion to a primitive type. Though not yet a Roman Catholic
like his grandfather, he had retrograded into Royalism, without becoming
on that account estranged from his elder brother. The surrender of
Reading to the Parliamentary forces in April, 1643, involved his
"dissettlement," and the migration of his father to the house of John,
with whom he was moreover better in accord in religion and politics.
Little external change resulted, "the old gentleman," says Phillips,
"being wholly retired to his rest and devotion, with the least trouble
imaginable." About the same time the household received other additions
in the shape of pupils, admitted, Phillips is careful to assure us, by
way of favour, as M. Jourdain selected stuffs for his friends. Milton's
pamphlet was perhaps not yet published, or not generally known to be
his, or his friends were indifferent to public sentiment. Opinion was
unquestionably against Milton, nor can he have profited much by the
support, however practical, of a certain Mrs. Attaway, who thought that
"she, for her part, would look more into it, for she had an unsanctified
husband, that did not walk in the way of Sion, nor speak the language of
Canaan," and by and by actually did what Milton only talked of doing. We
have already seen that he had incurred danger of prosecution from the
Stationers' Company, and in July, 1644, he was denounced by name from
the pulpit by a divine of much note, Herbert Palmer, author of a book
long attributed to Bacon. But, if criticised, he was read. By 1645 his
Divorce tract was in the third edition, and he had added three more
pamphlets--one to prove that the revered Martin Bucer had agreed with
him; two, the "Tetrachordon" and "Colasterion," directed against his
principal opponents, Palmer, Featley, C