Milton, upon the Restoration, was in hiding, it is said, at a friend's house in Bartholomew Close. He was well concealed; for the proclamation for his apprehension, and that of Goodwin, says, "The said John Milton and John Goodwin are so fled, or so obscure themselves, that no endeavours used for their apprehension can take effect, whereby they may be brought to legal trial, and deservedly receive condign punishment for their treasons and offences." Johnson thinks that the escape of Milton was favoured. Unquestionably his judicial murder would have been the most disgraceful act of the restored government. It is said that in 1650 Milton saved the royalist Davenant, and that in 1660 Davenant saved the republican Milton. Milton's Iconoclastes' and 'Defensio' were burnt by the common hangman; but he was rendered safe by the Act of Indemnity.

We have thus very hastily and imperfectly traced Milton through his public life. In the remaining fourteen years he was perhaps happier than in the confident and cheerful thoughts of his active existence. He was then truly "like a star, and dwelt apart." He was wholly devoted to the accomplishment of those great labours which he had shadowed forth in his youth. He clung to London with an abiding love, and from 1660 to 1665 he lived in Holborn and Jewin Street. During this period he completed 'Paradise Lost.' When the great plague broke out he found a retreat at Chalfont. From this period his abode, up to the time

of his death in 1674, was in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields. It was here that Dryden visited him. Aubrey records this visit; and amongst "his familiar learned acquaintance" mentions "Jo. Dryden, Esq., Poet Laureat, who very much admired him, and went to him to have leave to put his 'Paradise Lost' into a drama in rhyme. Mr. Milton received him civilly, and told him he would give him leave to tag his verses."

LUCY HUTCHINSON.

THE Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson' is a book to be loved. In many passages it is tedious-a record of petty strategies of partisan warfare-and, more dreary still, of factious jealousies and polemical hatreds. The absolute truth of the book is fatal, in one direction, to our hero-worship. The leaders of the Great Rebellion, in such minute details, appear as mere schemers as rival agents at a borough election; and the most fervent in professions of religious zeal are as bitter in their revenges as the heroes of a hundred scalps. But there arises out of the book, and is evermore associated with it, the calm quiet shadow of a woman of exquisite purity, of wondrous constancy, of untiring affection,-Lucy Hutchinson, its writer.

John Hutchinson is at Richmond, lodging at the house of his music-master. He is twenty-two years of age. The village is full of "good company," for the young Princes are being educated in the palace, and many "ingenious persons entertained themselves at that place." The musicmaster's house is the resort of the king's musicians; "and divers of the gentlemen and ladies that were

affected with music came thither to hear." There was a little girl "tabled" in the same house with John Hutchinson, who was taking lessons of the lutanist- a charming child, full of vivacity and intelligence. She told John she had an elder sister—a studious and retiring person-who was gone with her mother, Lady Apsley, into Wiltshire -and Lucy was going to be married, she thought. The little girl ever talked of Lucy--and the gentleman talked of Lucy-and one day a song was sung which Lucy had written-and John and the vivacious child walked, another day, to Lady Apsley's house, and there, in a closet, were Lucy's Latin books. Mr. Hutchinson grew in love with Lucy's image; and when the talk was more rife that she was about to be married-and some said that she was indeed married-he became unhappy -and " began to believe there was some magic in the place, which enchanted men out of their right senses; but the sick heart could not be chid nor advised into health." At length Lucy and her mother came home; and Lucy was not married. Then John and Lucy wandered by the pleasant banks of the Thames, in that spring-time of 1638, and a "mutual friendship" grew up between them. Lucy now talked to him of her early life; how she had been born in the Tower of London, of which her late father, Sir John Apsley, was the governor; how her mother was the benefactress of the prisoners, and delighted to mitigate the hard fortune of the noble and learned, and especially

Sir Walter Raleigh, by every needful help to his studies and amusements; how she herself grew serious amongst these scenes, and delighted in nothing but reading, and would never practise her lute or harpsichords, and absolutely hated her needle. John was of a like serious temper. Their fate was determined.

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The spring is far advanced into summer. On a certain day, the friends on both sides meet to conclude the terms of the marriage. Lucy is not to be seen. She has taken the small-pox. She is very near death. At length John is permitted to speak to his betrothed. Tremblingly and mournfully she comes into his presence. She is the most deformed person that could be seen." Who could tell the result in words so touching as Lucy's own? "He was nothing troubled at it, but married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her; though she was longer than ordinary before she recovered to be as well as before."

They were married on the 3rd of July, 1638.

In the autumn of 1641, John and Lucy Hutchinson are living in their own house of Owthorpe, in Nottinghamshire. They have two sons. They are "peaceful and happy." John has dedicated two years since his marriage to the study of "school divinity." He has convinced himself of "the