-4.og TgE LIFE OF MILTON. was fitted for their reception ; for fome other gentlemen of his ao, quaintance, having obferved the great fuccefs of his method of edu. ration, had recommended their tons to his care ; and his houfe in Alderfgate-flreet not being large enough, he had taken a larger in Barbican : and till this could be got ready, the place pitched upon for his wife's abode was the widow Webber's houfe in St. Clement's Church-yard, whofe fecond daughter had been married to the other brother many years before. The part, that Milton aeled in this whole affair, flowed plainly that he had a fpirit capable of the thong. eft refentment, but yet more inclinable to pity and forgivenefs; and neither in this was any injury done to the other lady, whom he was cunning, for the is faid to have been always averfe from the ino- ficm, not daring I fuppofe to venture in marriage with a man who was known to have a wife fill living. He might not think himfelf goo at liberty as before, while his wife continued obItinate ; for his moll plaufible argument for divorce proceeds upon a fuppofition, that the thing be done with mutual content. After his wife's return his family was increafed not only with chil- dren, but alto with his wife's relations, her father and mother, her brothers and fillers, coming to live with him in the general dillrefs and ruin of the royal party ; and he was fo far from relenting their former ill treatment of him, that he generoufly proteded them, and entertained them very hofpitably, till their affairs were accommodated ?brio' his intereil with the prevailing faction. And then upon their removal, and the death of his own father, his houfe looked again like the houfe of the Mules : but his ftudies had like to have been inter- rupted by a call to public bufinefs ; for about this time there was a 4efign of constituting him Adjutant General in the army under Sir William Waller ; but the new modeling of the army loon following, that design was laid afide. And not long after, his great houfe in Barbican being now too Ire for his family, he quitted it for a fmaller in High Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he profecut- rd his fludies till the King's trial and death, when the Prelbyterians tivelairning tragically againit the execution, and aliening that
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