The household better ordered; the three young orphan girls of the first marriage better tended; more of lightsomeness and cheerfulness for Milton himself among his books; continuance, under new management, of the little hospitalities to the learned foreigners who occasionally call, and to the habitual visitors:  so, we are to imagine, pass away at home those winter months of 1656-7 during which the great topics of interest outside were the war with Spain, Sindercombe’s plot against the Protector’s life, the debates in Parliament over the case of James Nayler, and the proceedings there for amending the system of the Protectorate, whether by converting it into Kingship or otherwise.  Not, however, till the last day of March 1656-7, or three months and a half after the marriage with Katharine Woodcock, have we another distinct glimpse of Milton in his private life.  On that day he dictated, in Latin, the following letter:—­

  “To the most accomplished EMERIC BIGOT.

“That on your coming into England I had the honour of being thought by you more worth visiting and saluting than others was truly and naturally gratifying to me; and that now you renew your salutation by letter, even at such an interval, is somewhat more gratifying still.  For in the first instance you might have come to me perhaps on the inducement of other people’s opinion; but you could hardly return to me by letter save at the prompting of your own judgment, or, at least, good will.  On this surely I have ground to congratulate myself.  For many have made a figure by their published writings whose living voice and daily conversation have presented next to nothing that was not low and common:  if, then, I can attain the distinction of seeming myself equal in mind and manners to any writings of mine that have been tolerably to the purpose, there will be the double effect that I shall so have added weight personally to my writings, and shall receive back by way of reflection from them credit, how small soever it may be, yet greater in proportion.  For, in that case, whatever is right and laudable in them, that same I shall seem not more to have derived from authors of high excellence than to have fetched forth pure and sincere from the inmost feelings of my own mind and soul.  I am glad, therefore, to know that you are assured of my tranquillity of spirit in this great affliction of loss of sight, and also of the pleasure I have in being civil and attentive in the reception of visitors from abroad.  Why, in truth, should I not bear gently the deprivation of sight, when I may hope that it is not so much lost as revoked and retracted inwards, for the sharpening rather than the blunting of my mental edge?  Whence it is that I neither think of books with anger, nor quite intermit the study of them, grievously though they have mulcted me,—­were it only that I am instructed against such moroseness by the example of King Telephus of the Mysians, who refused not to be cured in the end by the weapon