NOTES. Observe that the Speech opens with what the Greek grammarians called an anacoluthon,' a syntactical non sequitur' or incoherence. The sense is plain enough; only the grammatical letter is violated. Such careless nesses are common in Milton's prose writings, as in Clarendon's and others of the seventeenth century, till Dryden introduced a more correct style. With the instance in the text compare such Latin and Greek uses of the nominative, as in Virgil, Æneid, xii. 161, &c.; of the accusative in Sophocles, Antigone 21, &c.; and Thucydides' use of the dative, as in v. III, πоλλοîs yàρ проoршμένοις κ.τ.λ. Page 1. line 1. They who to States, &c., i. e. (i) orators, and (ii) writers. States heads of states. Holt White quotes from Milton's translation of = Psalm lxxxii: 'God in the great assembly stands Of kings and lordly States.' Also from Sidney's Arcadia: 'I can do nothing without all the States of Arcadia; what they will determine I know not,' &c. Compare how the names of their kingdoms are used to denote the kings themselves; as e.g. in King Lear France = King of France, &c. = 3. wanting, not wishing for, or needing, but being without. See below, p. 102. in a private condition. These words explain how 'access' is 'wanted' = as being private men. 6. alter'd changed, perturbed. Alter is literally to make other or different. 7. success = issue. The word was by no means confined in Milton's time to a favourable sense. Thus Paradise Regained, iv. I: = 'Perplex'd and troubled at his bad success, 8. censure opinion. This word in Milton's time was not limited to denote only unfavourable judgment. See Shakspere passim; as Hamlet, i. 3. 69: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.' of what, &c. = born of, springing from, based on what. as the subject was, &c. This speech was published in November, 1644; see Introduction. The works that had preceded it were, Of Reformation in England, Prelatical Episcopacy, Reason of Church Government, Animadversions, &c., all published in 1641; Apology for Smectymnuus in 1642. The Tractate on Education, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and Martin Bucer's Judgment were published in the same year with the Areopagitica. 12. likely. This adverb is still retained in Lowland Scotch. 12. [might disclose. What is the grammatical subject to might disclose?] 13. formost. See Morris' Historical Outlines, § 123. 16. to a passion into a state of intense feeling, of excitement and enthusiasm. Milton is often carried away'-'rapt'—by his subject in this splendid work. then: = our than. See Morris's Historical Outlines, § 312. [17. Explain incidentall to a Preface.] 18. though I stay not, &c. = though I confess at once. it to wish and promote their countries liberty. 22. a certain testimony, if not a Trophey. It will show how ready I am to fight for my country, whether I conquer or not. In this particular cause he was not to conquer for some fifty years. The Areopagitica became a 'trophy' as well as a testimony' in 1695. See Introduction. P. 2.1. 5. to which, &c. Milton had not yet perhaps fully discovered the disheartening fact that the Presbyterian party when in power was to show itself as little capable of an enlightened tolerance as the Episcopalians whom they had overthrown-that ' new foes' were arising "Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains,' and re-enthrall free conscience'-that, really as well as etymologically, New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.' are... arrived. A more accurate phrase than our have arrived. 7. and yet from such a steep disadvantage, &c. We were so sunken that our rising again might well have seemed hopeless and impossible, as was the rising again of the Romans after their decline and fall, all whose 'manhood' (= Lat. virtus, manliness, valour) could not recover them; and yet we have recovered ourselves. [13. Neither is it, &c. Explain it here.] 15. which if I now first, &c. His Of Reformation in England, for instance, is filled with delight at what he was witnessing, and praise of those who were accomplishing it. See also An Apology for Smectymnuus, passim. 19. unwillingest. See below, p. 93. 22. courtship. See Comus, 321-5: Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls And courts of princes, where it first was named And yet is most pretended.' The word court is itself of humble origin-from Lat. cohortem=a_farmyard; see Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language, 2nd Series. 25. the other here denotes the third of the three principal things;' = what is called the latter just below. So sometimes in Elizabethan English both, the conjunction, is used when more than two objects are linked together; so also neither. This use of other is the more odd, because it is in fact the native word for second. Second is a French word. 28. heretofore. See especially Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus, and An Apology for Smectymnuus. 29. rescuing, &c. See An Apology for Smectymnuus; especially Sect. viii. p. 89, Of Works: 'And can this private concoctor of malecontent at the very instant when he pretends to extol the parliament, afford thus to blur over rather than to mention that public triumph of their justice and constancy, so high, so glorious, so reviving to the fainted commonwealth, with such a suspicious and murmuring expression as to call it "some proceedings"? He is dealing with Hall's remarks on the execution of Strafford.] And yet immediately he falls to glossing, as if he were the only man that rejoiced at these times. But I shall discover to ye, readers, that this his praising of them is as full of nonsense and scholastic foppery as his meaning he himself discovers to be full of close malignity. His first encomium is,' &c. &c. For another eulogy of the Long Parliament see The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce: And having now perfected a second edition, I referred the judging thereof to your high and impartial sentence, honoured lords and commons. For I was confident, if anything generous, anything noble and above the multitude were left yet in the spirit of England, it could be nowhere sooner found, and nowhere sooner understood than in that house of justice and true liberty where ye sit in council.' him who went about, &c. = Hall, Bishop of Norwich, 'the Remonstrant,' who had answered Smectymnuus, and in his answer had damned' the Parliament' with faint praise,' as Milton thought; see above. See Hall's Modest Confutation of a Slanderous and Scurrilous Libel intituled Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus. Milton calls the praise Hall confers' trivial, since it deals in commonplaces; malignant (disloyal to the Commonwealth), since it assumes that the Parliament is inseparable from the Crown.' (Jebb.) Hall was of no mean note in literature, quite apart from the Smectymnuus controversy, in which he was so mercilessly derided. He was one of our earliest writers of formal satire; his Virgidemiarum was published in 1597-9; but his prose is better than his verse. His Occasional Meditations enjoyed and deserved a wide popularity. He was born at Bristow Park, Leicestershire; died at Heigham, whither he retired after his deposition from his bishopric, in 1656. went about to, &c. = found and took the way to, set himself to. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, I. i: 'He that goeth about to persuade a multitude,' &c. P. 3. 3. ye. 'The confusion between ye and you did not exist in Old English. Ye was always used as a nom., and you as a dat. or acc. In the English Bible this distinction is very carefully observed, but in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period there is a very loose use of the two forms. Not only is you used as a nom., but ye is used as an acc.' Morris's Historical Outlines of English Accidence, § 155. II. equall=fair, equitable; Lat. aequus. Cp. unequall, below, p. 144. 12. when as. Cp. whereas, whenso, whereso, whoso, &c. As (=al so= all so) and so may have been affixed to certain relative words to give |