it was by his advice that the author of Paradise Lost once more entered into the bonds of wedlock. Mr. Marsh, to clear up all doubt upon the subject, and having previously established the identity of the family, examined the parish register at Wistaston, and there found that "Elizabeth, the daughter of Randolph Mynshull, was baptized the 30th day of December, 1638;" so that, if baptized shortly after birth, she must have been about twenty-six years old when united to Milton in 1664, and about eighty-nine at her death, which occurred in 1727.
V. M., and all others who desire farther enlightenment on the subject, will do well to refer to the volume before mentioned, which forms the twenty-fourth of the series published by the Chetham Society.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
BOOKS OF EMBLEMS—JACOB BEHMEN.
(Vol. vii., pp. 469. 579.)
Perhaps you will allow poor old Jacob Behmen, the inspired cobbler of Gorlitz, a niche in your temple of writers of emblems. I think he is legitimately entitled to that distinction. His works are nearly all couched in emblems; and, besides his own figures, his principles were pictorially illustrated by his disciple William Law (the author of The Way to Divine Knowledge, The Serious Call, &c.), in some seventeen simple, and four compound emblematic drawings. Of these the most remarkable, and in fact the most intelligible, are three compound emblems representing the Creation, Apostasy, and Redemption of Man. Every phase of each stage in the soul's history is disclosed to view by means of double and single doors. We are now concerned only with such of Behmen's emblematic works as have been translated into English. The following list contains only those in my own library. I am acquainted with no others:
(1.) "The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher, to which is prefixed the Life of the Author, with Figures illustrating his Principles, left by the Rev. William Law, M.A. In four thick Volumes, royal 4to. London: printed for M. Richardson in Paternoster Row, MDCCLXIV." With a fine portrait of Behmen facing the title-page of the first volume. This edition contains the following works:
1. Aurora: the Day-spring, or Dawning of the Day in the East; or Morning-redness in the Rising of the Sun: that is, the Root or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology, and Theology, from the True Ground; or, A Description of Nature.
2. The Three Principles of the Divine Essence of the Eternal: Dark, Light, and Temporary World.
3. Mysterium Magnum: or an Explanation of the First Book of Moses called Genesis.
4. Four Tables of Divine Revelation.
5. The High and Deep-Searching of the Threefold Life of Man, through or according to the Three Principles.
6. Forty Questions concerning the Soul, proposed by Dr. Balthasar Walter, and answered by Jacob Behmen.
7. The Treatise of the Incarnation.
8. The Clavis, or an Explanation of some Principal Points and Expressions.
9. Signatura Rerum.
10. Of the Election of Grace; or of God's Will towards Man, commonly called Predestination.
11. The Way to Christ discovered in the following Treatises:—I. Of True Repentance. II. Of True Resignation. III. Of Regeneration. IV. Of Supernatural Life.
12. A Discourse between a Soul hungry and thirsty after the Fountain of Life, the sweet Love of Jesus Christ, and a Soul enlightened.
13. A Treatise of the Four Complexions, or a Consolatory Instruction for a Sad and Assaulted Heart in the Time of Temptation.
14. A Treatise of Christ's Testament, Baptism, and the Supper.