husband held, compatible with his being domiciled in London in 1643-4, it might be difficult now to ascertain. Suffice it that he _was_ so domiciled, and that his wife could receive guests not merely as Mrs. Hobson, "a woman of great wit and ingenuity," but as Lady Margaret Ley, the daughter of a well-remembered Earl. It is not from Phillips alone that we hear of Milton's friendship with the Lady Margaret. Milton has himself commemorated it in one of his Sonnets:-- "TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY. Daughter to that good Earl, once President Of England's Council and her Treasury, Who lived in both unstained by gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till the sad breaking of that Parliament Broke him, as that dishonest victory At Chæronea, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent: Though later born than to have known the days Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, Madam, methinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise That all both judge you to relate them true And to possess them, honoured Margaret." The "old man eloquent" is Isocrates, the Athenian orator, whose patriotism made him refuse to survive the defeat of the Athenians and Thebans by Philip of Macedon at Chæroncia, This comparison of the lady's father to the famous Greek is perhaps the most poetical turn in the Sonnet. For the rest, it tells us something about the lady herself. She must have been somewhat, if not considerably, older than Milton; for, though Milton had been twenty years old at the time of the good Earl's death, and might therefore well remember his Treasurership and Presidency of the Council, he speaks of knowing the days wherein the old peer had flourished chiefly through the Lady Margaret's talk about him and them. Her conversation, it would therefore seem, ran much upon her father and his private and political virtues; and Milton listened respectfully, seeing much in the lady herself of what she praised in her sire. Perhaps Milton would talk to her freely in return of his own concerns. The Lady Margaret Ley, and her husband, Captain Hobson, were probably in his confidence on the subject of his marriage misfortune. The Sonnet was unquestionably written in 1643 or 1644. [Footnote: It was printed in the first or 1645 edition of Milton's Poems, and it is placed last in the series of Sonnets there contained. The draft of it in the Cambridge Book of Milton's MSS. is in Milton's own hand--the title "To the Lady Margaret Ley" being likewise his hand.] A younger and unmarried lady must then also have been among Milton's acquaintances. How else can we account for this other Sonnet?