83

Milton as a Parliamentarian; his sonnet, "When the Assault was
intended to the City," November, 1642; goes on a visit to the
Powell family in Oxfordshire, and returns with Mary Powell as his
wife, May and June, 1643; his domestic unhappiness; Mary Milton
leaves him, and refuses to return, July to September, 1643;
publication of his "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," August,
1643, and February, 1644; his father comes to live with him; he
takes additional pupils; his system of education; he courts the
daughter of Dr. Davis; his wife, alarmed, returns, and is
reconciled to him, August, 1645; he removes to the Barbican,
September, 1645; publication of his collected poems, January,
1646; he receives his wife's relatives under his roof; death of
his father, March, 1647; he writes "The Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates," February, 1649; becomes Latin Secretary to the
Commonwealth, March, 1649.

CHAPTER V. 104

Milton's duties as Latin Secretary; he drafts manifesto on the
state of Ireland; occasionally employed as licenser of the press;
commissioned to answer "Eikon Basilike"; controversy on the
authorship of this work; Milton's "Eikonoklastes" published,
October, 1649; Salmasius and his "Defensio Regia pro Carolo I.";
Milton undertakes to answer Salmasius, February, 1650; publication
of his "Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio," March, 1651; character and
complete controversial success of this work; Milton becomes
totally blind, March, 1652; his wife dies, leaving him three
daughters, May, 1652; his controversy with Morus and other
defenders of Salmasius, 1652-1655; his characters of the eminent
men of the Commonwealth; adheres to Cromwell; his views on
politics; general character of his official writings: his marriage
to Elizabeth Woodcock, and death of his wife, November,
1656-March, 1658; his nephews; his friends and recreations.

CHAPTER VI. 128

Milton's poetical projects after his return from Italy; drafts of
"Paradise Lost" among them; the poem originally designed as a
masque or miracle-play; commenced as an epic in 1658; its
composition speedily interrupted by ecclesiastical and political