THE LIFE of MILTON. 401 oinred reafons againft licenfing ; and at his own requeft Was difg ciarged that office." For neither was the licenfees name Mabol3 but Gilbert Mabbot ; neither was he difcharged from his office till May 1749, about five years afterwards, tho' probably he might be fwayed by Milton's arguments, as every ingenuous perfon mutt, who perufi s and confiders them. And in 1645 was published a colleCtion: of hi: poems, Latin and Englifh, the principal of which are On the morning of Chrill's nativity, L'Allegro, .11 Penferofo, Lycidas, the &c. &c, and if he had left noother monuments of his poetical genius behind him, thefe would have been fufficient to have render'd his name immortal. Bt.t without doubt hiS' Doarine Of Divorce and the maintenaue of it principally engaged his thoughts at this period ; and whetNief others were convinced or not by his arguments, he was certainly con- vinced hirnfelf that he was in the right ; and sa a proof of it he deterg mined to marry again, and made his addreffes to a young lady of great wit and beauty, one of the daughters of Dr. Davis. But intet- ligenle of this coming to his wife, and the then declining Elate of the king's caufe, and confequently of the circuinftances of jfintice PoWell's family, caufed them to fet all engines on work to reflore the wife' agairi to her hufband. And his friends too for different reaforie feem to have been as defirous of bringing about a reconciliation as per's, and this method of effecting it was concerted between them. He had a relation one Blackborough, living in the lane of St. Martina Le Grand, whom he often visited ; and one day when he was vifiting there, it was contrived that the wife fhould be ready in another rooms and as he was thinking of nothing lefs, he was furprifed to fee her, whom he had expe&ed never to have feen any more, falling down upon he knees at his feet, and imploring his forgivenefs with tears. At fira he fhowed fome figns of averfion, but he continued not long inexorable ; hi wife's intreaties, and the interceffion of friends on both fides foon wrought upon his generous nature, and procured a happy reconciliation with an a& of oblivion of all that was pall., But he did not take his wife home immediately ; it was agreed that the ihouid remain at a friend's, till the houfe, that he hid newly tako113, N ar rt cm/ Fi
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