The garden-house in Aldersgate-street had before been found too small
for the pupils who were being now pressed upon Milton. It was to a
larger house in Barbican, a side street leading out of Aldersgate,
that he brought the Powells and Mary Milton. Milton probably abated
his exactions on the point of companionship, and learned to be content
with her acquiescence in the duties of a wife. In July, 1646, she
became a mother, and bore in all four children. Of these, three, all
daughters, lived to grow up. Mary Milton herself died in giving birth
to the fourth child in the summer of 1652. She was only twenty-six,
and had been married to Milton nine years.
CHAPTER VI
PAMPHLETS.
We have now seen Milton engaged in teaching and writing on education,
involved in domestic unhappiness, and speculating on the obligations
of marriage. But neither of these topics formed the principal
occupation of his mind during these years. He had renounced a
cherished scheme of travel because his countrymen were engaged at home
in contending for their liberties, and it could not but be that the
gradually intensified stages of that struggle engrossed his interest,
and claimed his participation.
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