themselves more and more, not to be protestant divines, whose constant judgment in this point they have so audaciously belied, but rather to be a pack of hungry churchwolves, who in the steps of Simon Magus their father, following the hot scent of double livings and pluralities, advowsons, donatives, inductions, and augmentations, though uncalled to the flock of Christ, but by the mere suggestion of their bellies, like those priests of Bel, whose pranks Daniel found out; have got possession, or rather seized upon the pulpit, as the stronghold and fortress of their sedition and rebellion against the civil magistrate. Whose friendly and victorious hand having rescued them from the bishops, their insulting lords, fed them plenteously, both in public and in private, raised them to be high and rich of poor and base; only suffered not their covetousness and fierce ambition (which as the pit that sent out their fellow-locusts hath been ever bottomless and boundless) to interpose in all things, and over all persons, their impetuous ignorance and importunity? NOTE. After what has been said both in the Preliminary Discourse and in the notes to this treatise, it may be scarcely necessary to repeat that the reasonings of Milton are directed only against a wicked tyrant in a despotic state. The Stuarts, rejecting the principles of the British Constitution, sought to reduce the people of these realms to an equality with the serfs of Russia; and accordingly, in 1688, the measure of their iniquity being full, they were driven from the throne, and our present free constitution established. Since that glorious period, which has placed Great Britain at the head of the civilized world, this work of Milton must be regarded as a mere historical curiosity, which, among ourselves,—where constitutionally "the king can do no wrong,"-could by no possibility, any more than my own remarks on this or upon the other Treatises, have any application to the existing state of things. For this reason men of all parties have from time to time brought it before the public, as an example of the manner in which its author's powerful intellect grappled with the question discussed therein; and however the reader may dissent from his conclusions, he will not deny that, as a literary composition,-for in this light only ought it now to be considered,—it is deserving of high commendation. Not naving had the happiness to live to taste of the constitutional freedom we enjoy, Milton had always in view the opposing of absolute monarchy, or mere despotism; he had had no experience of any other. To lawful constitutional princes he constantly teaches that all obedience and honour are due; aud, therefore, making the necessary allowance for the state of excitement in which he wrote, and the angry adversaries he contended with, he may, though sometimes intemperate, be read not only without injury, but with much advantage, at the distance we are now placed from his stormy times.-ED. V AREOPAGITICA: A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING. TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. Τοὐλέυθερον δ ̓ ἐκεῖνο, ἔι τις θελει πόλει Having to advise the public, may speak free, Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise; Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace: What can be juster in a state than this?"—Euripid. Hicetid. EDITOR'S PRELIMINARY REMARKS. MILTON's mind, having now reached maturity, yielded in profusion those rich and incomparable fruits which are the natural produce of genius and learning. The "Areopagitica," as well as the" Tractate on Education,” was published in 1644, with the design of convincing the presbyterians-who, being now in power, were mimicking the intolerant example set them by the prelates--of the iniquity and impolicy of endeavouring the suppres sion of opinions by force. He saw, with that quick intuition which belongs to elevated minds, how vain the attempt must always prove to confine thought, or the active expression of it, by material shackles; and, with the honesty and magnanimity of a devout Christian, he sought to vindicate for others the liberty he had, while his party was the weaker, contended for himself. In performing this duty he exerted the utmost energy of his mind. Passing in rapid review the practices of the most refined nations of ancient and modern times, he shows freedom in connexion with whatever is of highest excellence in government, or of greatest virtue and enlightenment in society; while licensing and the tyranny of opinion, originating in barbarous superstition, have always gone hand in hand with bad government, and either found the people ignorant and slothful, or, if tamely submitted to, have rendered them so. Injustice, if productive of no other advantage, serves at least to rouse good and noble natures, to express their detestation of it; and thus it has proved serviceable to posterity that the presbyterians misused their power; for had they acted uprightly, the "Areopagitica" had never been written. By almost all writers this discourse has been regarded as Milton's masterpiece. Perhaps it is so. Nothing, in fact, can surpass those vivid, inspiring flashes of eloquence which lighten over its periods, and find their way to the very heart and root of all our noblest sympathies. Nothing can be more replete with grandeur than that creative, life-infusing spirit, which breathes through the whole, kindling up an intense love of the good and the beautiful; awakening in every breast a devout admiration for those possessors of virtue and genius commissioned by heaven to reveal tc us how much of the great and godlike there is in man; animating even the feeble and vacillating with at least a temporary enthusiasm for freedom, 0.17 49 52 2 * and that virtuous spirit of martyrdom by which all its advocates should be inflamed. He works out his problem triumphantly. He proves, what had already been hinted at in the " Animadversions on the Remonstrant's Defence," that the liberty of the press is no less beneficial to governments than to the people. Nevertheless, his work had not, as Dr. Birch observes, the proper effect upon the presbyterians, who having at that time the ascendant, were as tenacious of continuing the restraints upon others, as they had been loud in their complaints of them when imposed on themselves. According to Toland, however, so great was the influence of the " Discourse," that even one of the licencers themselves, by name Mabbot, having first assigned his reasons, retired from the office in 1645. But this, as appears from Whitelocke,† is erroneous, for Mabbot did not resign office until May 22, 1649; when upon his desire, and having assigned his reasons against licensing books to be printed, he was discharged of that employment. We find a particular account of this transaction in a quarto weekly paper, entitled, "A Perfect Diurnal of some Passages in Parliament, and the daily Proceedings of the Army under his Excellency the Lord Fairfax, from May 21 to May 28, 1649." No. 304, page 2531.‡ AREOPAGITICA. THEY, who to states and governors of the commonwealth direct their speech, high court of parliament! or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds; some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a preface. Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall be blameless, if it be no other than the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish to promote their country's liberty; whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a cer*Life of Milton, p. 23. + Memorials, &c. p. 403, edit. of Lond. 1732. Birch's Life of Milton, D. 30. VOL. II. E tain testimony, if not a trophy.* For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men look for. To which if I now manifest, by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles, as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of God, our deliverer; next, to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, lords and commons of England! Neither is it in God's esteem, the diminution of his glory, when honourable things are spoken of good men, and worthy magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do,+ after so fair a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned among the tardiest and the unwillingest of them that praise ye. 3 Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship and flattery: first, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise; next, wher greatest likelihoods are brought, that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascribed; the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impair your merits with a trivial and malignant encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, * His discourse may, perhaps, be regarded, he says, as a trophy of liberty, as proving, by the boldness with which he speaks, that England was then free.-ED. He reminds the parliament that this was not the first time he had spoken their praises, both that he might not be suspected of endeavouring to purchase a favour by fine words, and that they, on the other hand, might learn, in all they did, to seek the approbation of the public. His former panegyric occurs in the "Apology for Smectymnuus."--ED. Bishop Hall's encomium is unskilful, because it betrays the insincerity of the writer. He could not conceal how unwillingly he even augured well of them; ard afterwards in his reply to Smectymnuus, the different spiri that whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. (For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your preceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kind of praising; for though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if one of your published orders, which I should name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas private persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice than other statists have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a triennial parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late, whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories and successes more gently brooking written exceptions against a voted order, than other courts, which ha produced nothing worth memory but the weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike at any sudden proclamation. * 4 If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, lords and commons! as what your published order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself with ease, if any should accuse me of in which he addressed the king, rendered the insipidity of his praise of the parliament the more palpable.-Ed. * We may learn from Baxter, a great and holy man, in what light the members of the hierarchy were then very generally viewed: "If we meet with a clergy that are high, and have a great deal of worldly interest at stake; or if they be in councils and synods, and have got the major vote, they too easily believe that either their grandeur, reverence, names, or numbers, must give them the reputation of being orthodox, and in the right, and will warrant them to account and defame him as erroneous, heretical, schismatical, singular, factious or proud, that presumeth to contradict them, and to know more than they; of which not only the case of Nazianzen, Martin, and Chrysostom are sad proofs, but also the proceedings of too many general and provincial councils. And so our hard studies and darling truth must make us as owls, or reproached persons among those reverend brethren, who are ignorant at easier rates, and who find it a far softer kind of life to think and say as the most or best esteemed do, than to purchase reproach and obloquy so dearly."-(Dying Thoughts, p. 111, Sacred Classics' edition.)—ED. ८. |