AREOPAGITICA.

A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENCED PRINTING.

To the Parliament of England.

E have now arrived at Milton's masterpiece in

WE

prose-composition, the Areopagitica, so named after the Areopagiticus of "that old man eloquent," Isocrates, which towers aloft above the rest, as much as Comus does above his minor poems, and Paradise Lost above all his works, poetical or prose. The elder Disraeli characterises it as 'an unparalleled effusion.' It is a work of love and inspiration, breathing the most enlarged spirit of literature; separating, at an awful distance from the multitude, that character "who was born to study and to love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but perhaps for that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose PUBLISHED LABOURS advance the good of mankind." Macaulay speaks of its sublime wisdom'; and, indeed, it deserves to be the manual and model of the statesman; which every statesman,' to quote the glowing words of that great writer, 'should wear

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as a sign upon his hand, and as frontlets between his eyes.'

Our author nowhere shows higher rhetorical skill than in the manner in which he conducts his argument. He does not rush in medias res at once, but cautiously and circuitously approaches his subject with much tact and delicacy. His mildness and modesty at the beginning of this admirable and noble speech are as conspicuous as his boldness and vehemence when he is once fairly launched on the current of his eloquence. Then he carries all before him, warming as he advances with his theme, and pouring forth 'those vivid, inspiring,' and inspired 'flashes of eloquence which find their way to the very heart and root of all our noblest sympathies. Nothing can be more replete with grandeur than that creative, lifeinfusing spirit, which breathes through the whole, kindling up an intense love of the good and the beautiful; and awakening in every breast a devout admiration for those possessors of virtue and genius commissioned by heaven to reveal to us how much of the great and God-like there is in man.' He commences with a moderate yet manly and telling encomium on the parliament. The very fact of his making this speech proves that his country is free. He regards it as a certain testimony and trophy of freedom, and insinuates how desirable and beneficial it would be, both to literature and the country at large,

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to call in one of their published orders which he hints at, but does not yet name. Thus they would deserve and win the praise and gratitude of all men. They would further be imitating "the old and elegant humanity of Greece." Isocrates and others had done what he was now doing. From his private house, "that old man eloquent," whom "that dishonest victory at Charonea, fatal to liberty, killed with report,' wrote his Areopagitic discourse to the parliament of Athens, and boldly advised them to abandon that form of democracy which was then established. Such an honour he now seeks at their hands, and appealing to their love of truth, uprightness of judgment, prudent spirit, and meek demeanour, he at length presents them with a fit instance wherein to show their superiority, even to the polished Athenians, by rescinding their late order, and according to the nation the liberty of unlicenced printing. He then orderly arranges the several heads of his own incomparable Areopagitic discourse, and the torrent of his eloquence bursts forth with inimitable grandeur and magnificence. We will, as we promised, 'follow the stream in the great original.'

Before, however, we do this, it may be interesting to quote from Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, his remarks on the literary fate of Milton in this respect. 'His genius was castrated alike by the monarchical and republican government. The royal licenser expunged

several passages from Milton's history, in which Milton had painted the superstition, the pride, and the cunning of the Saxon monks, which the sagacious Licenser applied to Charles II. and the bishops; but Milton had before suffered as merciless a mutilation from his old friends the republicans, who suppressed a bold picture, taken from life, which he had introduced into his History of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines. Milton gave the unlicensed passages to the Earl of Anglesey, the editor of Whitelock's Memorials. It is a quarto tract, entitled, 'Mr. John Milton's Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641; omitted in his other works, and never before printed, and very seasonable for these times-1681.' It is inserted in the uncastrated edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. (Dr. Birch's edition.) It is a retort on the Presbyterian Clement Walker's History of the Independents; and Warburton, in his admirable characters of the historians of this period, alluding to Clement Walker, says, 'Milton was even with him in the fine and severe character he draws of the Presbyterian administration.'

The ignorance and stupidity of these censors were often, indeed, as remarkable as their exterminating spirit. The noble simile of Milton, of Satan with the rising sun, in the first book of the Paradise Lost, had nearly occasioned the suppression of our national epic: it was supposed to contain a treasonable allusion.

"as when the sun, new risen,

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."

This office seems to have lain dormant a short time under Cromwell, from the scruples of a conscientious licenser, who desired the council of state in 1649, for reasons given, to be discharged from that employment. This Mabot, the licenser, was evidently deeply touched by Milton's address for "the Liberty of unlicensed Printing." The office was, however, revived on the restoration of Charles II.; and through the reign of James II. the abuses of licensers were unquestionably not discouraged; for in reprinting Gage's 'Survey of the West Indies,' the twenty-second chapter being obnoxious for containing particulars of the artifices of "the papalins," so Milton calls the Papists, in converting the author, was entirely chopped away by the licenser's hatchet. The castrated chapter, as usual, was preserved afterwards separately. Literary despotism at least is short-sighted in its views, for the expedients it employs are certain of overturning themselves. At the revolution in England, licences for the press ceased; but its liberty did not commence till 1694, when every restraint was taken off by the firm and decisive tone of the commons.'

As it will tend materially to the elucidation of the great speech before us, we will venture to quote