Synopses & Reviews
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. 1670-1673. 5ult ?pvintjctt. Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett, of Darling in Sussex, one of the leaders of the Parliamentary forces during the first years of the civil war, was residing with her mother at the rustic village of Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, when her future husband first saw her. She was the delight of a small but distinguished circle, including no less a person than John Milton, Thomas Ellwood, his friend and pupil, and the famous Isaac Pennington.1 To Pennington, Guli's father-in-law, Ellwood had owed his introduction to his great Master, of whose urbane and gentle manners he has left so touching an account;2 and when the ravages of the plague made it necessary for the noble bard to quit his house in London for a time, he naturally went down to Chalfont with his pupil, knowing that friends were to be found there who shared his opinions and revered his genius.3 Rarely is a small and unpretending village honoured with such a company as ChalfontBoasted in those days of mourning. The Penningtons occupied the Grange, which they had rebuilt and beautified; Milton lived in a neat little cottage at a short distance; and Ellwood had a house about midway between the residences of his friends, at one or other of which he spent nearly the whole of his time.4 Guli Springett he had known from childhood; he had been one of her little playfellows in the hop-gardens of Kent, in which county her property lay and his family resided; and as he had grown up to manhood had become deeply sensible of the charms of the young beauty with whom he lived on such perilous terms of familiarity. How far he was in mortal love with her he dared not ask himself, much less avow to her, lest he might break the spell which had bound them together from their common...
Synopsis
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