On the whole, it is certain that one consequence of the outcry about Milton's treatise among the London Presbyterians, and especially among the city clergy and the Divines of the Assembly, was to drive Milton more arid more into the society of those who had begun to dislike and to dread the ascendancy of the Presbyterians. Finding himself, almost from the first publication of the treatise, as he tells us, in "a world of disesteem" on account of it, he naturally held intercourse more and more with those who, though they may not have approved of his particular heresy, yet, as being themselves voted heretics on other accounts, were more easy in their judgments of all extreme opinions. I believe, in fact, that, could Milton's acquaintanceships in London from the winter of 1643- 4 onwards be traced and recovered, they would be found to have been chiefly among the Independents, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, and other Tolerationists. What were the religious opinions of the Lady Margaret Ley, that "woman of great wit and ingenuity," and her husband Captain Hobson, "a very accomplished gentleman," with both of whom he was so intimate about this time, and who, as Phillips tells us, "had a particular honour for him and took much delight in his company," must be left to conjecture. [Footnote: It has been in my mind whether the Captain Hobson who was the Lady Ley's husband, and whom Dagdale describes as "… Hobson of… in the Isle of Wight, Esq.," can by possibility have been the same person as the Baptist preacher, Paul Hobson, who was also a Captain in the Parliamentary Army, and who figures much in Edwards's Gangræna and in other books of the time, under the express name of "Captain Hobson," as a leading Sectary, though Edwards will have it that he was originally "a tailor from Buckinghamshire" (antè, p. 148). The supposition seems so absurd that I hardly like to mention that I spent hours in turning over Paul Hobson's published sermons and Baptist treatises in case I might come on any confirmation of it—which I did not.]
From Milton's Sonnet to the Lady Margaret one may safely infer at least that she was a woman of liberal principles as well as wit. Probably her house was the resort of a good many of what would now be called the "advanced" or "strong-minded" Christians of both sexes then in London; and Milton may there have extended his acquaintance with such, and have even been an object of peculiar interest to some of one sex, as "that handsome, fair gentleman, now talking to Lady Margaret, who is a great scholar and a poet, and whose wife has left him shamefully, so that he wants to be divorced from her, and has written a book which quite proves it." Milton's acquaintance with Roger Williams, at all events, is almost certainly to be dated from Williams's visit to England in 1643-4, when he was writing his Bloody Tenent; and if Milton, at the same time, did not become acquainted with John Goodwin of Coleman Street, it would be a wonder.
STORY OF MRS. ATTAWAY.
We must, I am sorry to say, descend lower in the society of London, in and about 1644, than the Lady Margaret Ley's drawing-room, or the level of marked men like Williams and Goodwin, if we would understand how Milton's Divorce opinion had begun to operate, and with what consequences of its operation his name was associated. The reader may remember a Mrs. Attaway, mentioned by us among both the Baptists and the Seekers, and as perhaps the most noted of all the women-preachers in London (antè, pp. 149, 153). She was, it seems, a "lace-woman, dwelling in Bell Alley in Coleman Street," and preaching on week-day afternoons in that neighbourhood, with occasional excursions to other parts of the city where rooms could be had. Sometimes other "preaching-women" were with her, and the gatherings, though at first of her own sex only, soon attracted curious persons of the other. From the descriptions of what passed in some of them, it would appear that, though the meetings were for worship, and there were regular discourses by Mrs. Attaway and others, free talk and criticism was permitted to all present, so that the conventicle took on sometimes the aspect of a religious debating society. Well, Mrs. Attaway, among others, had got hold of Milton's Divorce Treatise, and had been reading it. "Two gentlemen of the Inns of Court, civil and well-disposed men," who had gone "out of novelty" to hear her, afterwards told Gangræna Edwards of some "discourse they had had with her." Among other passages she "spoke to them of Master Milton's Doctrine of Divorce, and asked them what they thought of it; saying "it was a point to be considered of, and 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." Edwards does not give the date of this conversation with Mrs. Attaway; and, though presumably in 1644, it may have been later. He evidently introduces it, however, in order to implicate Milton in the subsequent break-down, which he also reports, of the poor woman morally. For, if Mr. Edwards is to be believed, Mrs. Attaway did "look more into" Milton's doctrine, and at length acted upon it. Some time in 1645 she abjured her "unsanctified husband" Mr. Attaway, who, besides being unsanctified, was then absent in the army, leaving her alone in her lace-shop, and transferred herself to a man named William Jenney, an occasional preacher, who was much more sanctified, and was also on the spot. Mr. Jenney had, unfortunately, a wife already, some children by her, and one expected; but ho too had been meditating on the Divorce Doctrine, and had used his Christian liberty. Mr. Edwards had been most particular in his investigations. He had actually procured from a sure hand the copies of two letters-taken from the original letters, and compared by a minister with the originals—one of William Jenney to his wife since he went away with Mistress Attaway, the other of Mistress Attaway to William Jenney before his going away." He refrains from printing the letters verbatim, as they were too long; but he gives extracts. "I thought good to write to you these few lines," writes Jenney to the deserted Mrs. Jenney, Feb. 15, 1645, "to tell you that, because you have been to me rather a disturber of my body and soul than to be a meet help for me—— but I silence! And, for looking for me to come to you again, I shall never come to you again any more. I shall send unto you never no more concerning anything." If this actually was Jenney's letter, Mrs. Attaway was worth ten of him, and deserved a better second. "Dearest friend and well-beloved in the Lord," so she had begun the letter sent to him while he was still Mrs. Jenney's, and which had got into Mrs. Jenney's hands, "I am unspeakably sorry in respect of thy sufferings, I being the object that occasioned it." The sufferings were Mrs. Jenney's bastings of him because he was always with Mrs. Attaway. In good time, Mrs. Attaway goes on to say, he would be delivered from these. "When Jehoshaphat knew not what to do, he looked to the Lord. Let us look to Him, believing confidently in Him with the faith of Jesus; and no question but we shall be delivered. In the mean season I shall give up my heart and affections to thee in the Lord; and, whatsoever I have or am in Him which is our Head, thou shalt command it." The event, according to Edwards, was that Mr. Jenney and Mrs. Attaway eloped together, Mrs. Attaway having persuaded Jenney that she should never die, but that, in obedience to a heavenly message, they must go to Jerusalem, and repair that city in anticipation of the bringing of all the Saints to it in ships to be sent from Tarshish. I suspect they went only to Jericho. [Footnote: This story of Mrs. Attaway is from Edwards's Gangræna, Part II. pp. 31, 32, 113- 115; Fresh Discovery, appended to Second Part of Gangræna, p. 9; and Third Part of Gangræna, pp. 25-27 and 188. See also Baillie's Dissuasive, Part II. pp. l00 and 123-4.]
All this on the faith of Mr. Edwards's statements in the Gangræna. But really one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead two hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more nauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of 1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the receipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter, that could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote: Richard Baxter, as he himself tells us, sent communications from the country to Edwards. His correspondents were legion, but he concealed their names.] Yet there was a kind of coarse business-like conscientiousness in the toad; and, though he was credulous and unscrupulous in his collections of scandal, I do not believe he invented documents or lied deliberately. I do not doubt, therefore, that Mrs. Attaway, whether she went ultimately to Jericho or to Jerusalem, did know of Milton's Divorce Doctrine, and had extracted suggestions from it suitable to her circumstances. For, indeed, the Doctrine was likely to find not a few whose circumstances it suited. Mr. Edwards's book is strewn with instances of persons who had even found out a tantamount doctrine for themselves—men who had left their wives, or wanted to do so, and wives who had left their husbands, and who, without having seen Milton's treatise, defended their act or their wish on grounds of religion and natural law. Nay, in the frenzy of inquiry which had taken possession of the English mind, everything appertaining to Marriage and the Marriage-institution was being plucked up for fundamental re- investigation. There were actually persons who were occupying themselves intently with questioning the forbidden degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity in marriage, and who had not only come to the easy conclusion that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is perfectly legitimate, but had worked out a general theologico-physiological speculation to the effect that the marriage of near relatives is in all cases peculiarly proper, and perhaps the more proper in proportion to the nearness of the relationship. This, I imagine, was a very small sect. [Footnote: But, unless Edwards and Baillie were both wrong, there was some such sect. See Gangræna, Part III. p. 187, and, more particularly, Baillie's Dissuasive, Part II. pp. 100 and 122-3.]
Let us re-ascend into more pleasant air. There was one rather notable person in London, of the highly respectable sort, though, decidedly among the free opinionists, whose acquaintance Milton did make about this time, if he had not made it before, and who must be specially introduced to the reader. This was SAMUEL HARTLIB.
SAMUEL HARTLIB: JOHN DURIE: JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, AND HIS SPECULATIONS ABOUT A REFORMED EDUCATION—PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY.
Everybody knew Hartlib. He was a foreigner by birth, being the son of a Polish merchant, of German extraction, who had left Poland when that country fell under Jesuit rule, and had settled in Elbing in Prussia in very good circumstances. Twice married before to Polish ladies, this merchant had married, in Prussia, for his third wife, the daughter of a wealthy English merchant of Dantzic; and thus our Hartlib, their son, though Prussian-born and with Polish connexions, could reckon himself half-English. The date of his birth was probably about the beginning of the century, i.e. he may have been eight or ten years older than Milton. He appears to have first visited England in or about 1628, and from that time, though he made frequent journeys to the Continent, London had been his head-quarters. Here, with a residence in the City, he had carried on business as a "merchant," with extensive foreign correspondences, and very respectable family connexions. One of his aunts (sisters of his mother) had married a Mr. Clark, the son of a former Lord Mayor of London, and afterwards a Sir Richard Smith, Knight and Privy Councillor, and again a Sir Edward Savage. The other aunt had married a country gentleman, named Peak. A cousin of Hartlib's, the daughter of the first and wealthier aunt, Lady Smith, became the wife of Sir Anthony Irby, M.P. for Boston in the Long Parliament. But it did not require such family connexions to make Hartlib at home in English society. The character of the man would have made him at home anywhere. He was one of those persons, now styled "philanthropists" or "friends of progress," who take an interest in every question or project of their time promising social improvement, have always some iron in the fire, are constantly forming committees or writing letters to persons of influence, and altogether live for the public. By the common consent of all who have explored the intellectual and social history of England in the seventeenth century, he is one of the most interesting and memorable figures of that whole period. He is interesting both for what he did himself and also on account of the number and intimacy of his contacts with other interesting people. [Footnote: Memoir of Hartlib by H. Dircks, pp 2-6, where there are extracts from an autobiographical letter of Hartlib to Worthington, written in 1660. "The Diary and Correspondence of Dr. John Worthington," edited by James Crossley, Esq., F.S.A. (Chetham Society), contains many letters from Hartlib to Worthington, between 1655 and 1662, but not this one. Mr. Crossley's Diary and Correspondence of Worthington, so far as it has gone, is one of the best edited books known to me, the footnotes being very nuggets of biographical lore; and it is to be regretted that the connected notices of Worthington, Hartlib, and Durie, postponed by Mr. Crossley until the work should be completed, have not yet appeared.]
An early friend of Hartlib, associated with him long before the date at which we are now arrived, was that John Durie of whom, and his famous scheme for a union of all the Protestant Churches of Europe, we have already had to take some account (Vol. II. pp. 367-8 and 517-8). Their intimacy must have begun in Hartlib's native town of Elbing in Prussia, where, I now find, Durie was residing in 1628, as minister to the English company of merchants in the town, and where, in that very year, I also now find, Durie had the great idea of his life first suggested to him by the Swedish Dr. Godeman. [Footnote: The proof is in statements of Hartlib's own in a Tract of his published in 1641 under the title of "A Briefe Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure Ecclesiasticall Peace amongst Protestants.">[ Among Durie's first disciples in the idea must certainly have been Hartlib; and it does not seem improbable that, when Hartlib left Prussia, in or about 1628, to settle in England, it was with an understanding that he was to be an agent or missionary for Durie's idea among the English. That he did so act, and that he was little less of an enthusiast for Durie's idea than Durie himself, there is the most positive evidence. Thus, in a series of letters, preserved in the State Paper Office, from Durie abroad to the diplomatist Sir Thomas Roe, of various dates between April 1633 and Feb. 1637-8, there is incessant mention of Hartlib. In the first of these letters, dated from Heilbron April 2/12, 1633, Durie, among other things, begs Roe "to help Mr. Hartlib with a Petition of Divines of those quarters concerning an Edition of a Body of Divinity gathered out of English authors, a work which will be exceeding profitable, but will require divers agents and an exact ordering of the work." In a subsequent letter Durie speaks of having sent Roe, "by Mr. Hartlib, whose industry is specially recommended," an important proposition made by the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstiern; and in still later letters Roe is requested by Durie to show Hartlib not only Durie's letters to himself, but also letters about the progress of his scheme which he has enclosed to Roe for the Archbishop of Canterbury (Abbot) and the Bishop of London (Laud). At this point, accordingly, July 20, 1633, there is a letter of Roe's to the Archbishop, from which it appears that Hartlib was made the bearer of Durie's letter to his Grace. Roe recommends the blessed work in which Durie is engaged, says that it seems to him and Durie that "there is nothing wanting but the public declaration of his Majesty and the Church of England" in its favour, and beseeches the Archbishop "to give his countenance to the bearer," described in the margin as "Mr. Hartlib, a Prussian." As Abbot was then within fifteen days of his death, nothing can have come of the application to him; and, as we already know, his successor Laud was a far less hopeful subject for Durie's idea, even though recommended by Roe and explained by Hartlib. In fact, he thought it mischievous moonshine; and, instead of giving Durie the encouragement which he wanted, he wrote to the English agent at Frankfort, instructing him to show Durie no countenance whatever. Durie felt the rebuff sorely. In England, he writes, he must depend now chiefly on Roe, who could still do much privately, apart from Laud's approbation. "Mr. Hartlib will send anything to Durie which Roe would have communicated to him in a secret way." So in June 1634; and fourteen months later (Aug. 1635) Durie, who had meanwhile removed to the Hague, again writes to Roe and again relies on Hartlib. The Dutch, he says, are slow to take up his scheme; and he can think of nothing better in the circumstances than that Roe in England should collect "all the advices and comments of the best divines of the age" on the subject, and have them printed. His very best agent in such a business would be Hartlib, "a man well known, beloved and trusted by all sides, a man exceeding painful, diligent and cordially affected to these endeavours, and one that for such works had lost himself by too much charity." On independent grounds it would be well to find him "some place suitable for his abilities, which might rid him of the undeserved necessities whereunto his public-heartedness had brought him;" but in this special employment he would be invaluable, being "furnished with the Polish, Dutch, English, and Latin languages, perfectly honest and trusty, discreet, and well versed in affairs." In the same strain in subsequent letters. Thus, from Amsterdam Dec. 7/17, Roe is thanked for having bestowed some gratuity on Hartlib, and Hartlib is described as, next to Roe, "the man in the world whom Durie loves and honours most for his virtues and good offices in Durie's cause." At the same time Durie "prays God to free Hartlib from his straits and set him a little on horseback," and adds, "His spirit is so large that it has lost itself in zeal to good things." Again, from Amsterdam Jan 25/Feb 4, 1635-6, Durie writes to Roe and encloses a letter to be sent to his (Durie's) diocesan in Hartlib's behalf. "Mr. Hartlib," Durie says to Roe, "has furnished his lordship (the diocesan) with intelligence from foreign parts for two or three years, and has not yet got any consideration. Perhaps his lordship knows not how Hartlib has fallen into decay for being too charitable to poor scholars, and for undertaking too freely the work of schooling and education of children. If Hartlib and Roe were not in England, Durie would despair of doing any good." The diocesan referred to is probably Juxon, Bishop of London; but, two years later, we find Roe recommending Durie's business and Hartlib personally to another prelate, Bishop Morton of Durham. Writing from St. Martin's Lane, Feb. 17, 1637-8, Sir Thomas "presents the Bishop with a letter from Mr. Durie, and one from Durie to the writer, from which the Bishop may collect his state, and his constant resolution to pursue his business as long as God gives him bread to eat. Such a spirit the writer has never met, daunted with nothing, and only relying upon Providence. … Sir Thomas in Michaelmas term sent the Bishop a great packet from Samuel Hartlib, correspondent of Durie, an excellent man, and of the same spirit. If the Bishop like his way, Hartlib will constantly write to him, and send all the passages both of learning and public affairs, no man having better information, especially in re literariâ." [Footnote: The quotations in this paragraph are from the late Mr. Brace's accurate abstracts of Durie's and Roe's letters (sixteen in all) given in the six volumes of Calendars of the Domestic State Papers from 1633 to 1638.]
These letters enable us to see Hartlib as he was in 1637, a Prussian naturalized in London, between thirty and forty years of age, nominally a merchant of some kind, but in reality a man of various hobbies, and conducting a general news-agency, partly as a means of income and partly from sheer zeal in certain public causes interesting to himself. His zeal in this way, and in private benevolences to needy scholars and inventors, had even outrun prudence; so that, though he could reckon his means at between 300_l_. and 400_l_. a year, [Footnote: This appears from the letter of his to Worthington, of date Aug. 3, 1660, quoted in Dircks's Memoir (p. 4), where he says, "Let it not seem a paradox to you, if I tell you, as long as I have lived in England, by wonderful providences, I have spent yearly out of my own betwixt 300_l._ and 400_l._ sterling a year.">[ that had not sufficed for his openhandedness. Durie's great project for a reconciliation of the Calvinists and Lutherans, and a union of all the Protestant Churches of Europe on some broad basis of mutual tolerance or concession, had hitherto been his hobby in chief. He had other hobbies, however, of a more literary nature, and of late he had been undertaking too freely some work appertaining to "the schooling and education of children."