country's liberty, when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover their stations, rather than to see the ruin of our protestation, and the inforcement of a slavish life.

21. These are the morning practices: proceed now to the afternoon; "in playhouses," he says, " and the bordelloes." Your intelligence, unfaithful spy of Canaan? He gives in his evidence, that "there he hath traced me." Take him at his word, readers; but let him bring good sureties ere ye dismiss him, that while he pretended to dog others, he did not turn in for his own pleasure: for so much in effect he concludes against himself, not contented to be caught in every other gin, but he must be such a novice as to be still hampered in his own hemp. In the Animadversions, saith he, I find the mention of old cloaks, false beards, night walkers, and salt lotion; (16) therefore the animadverter haunts playhouses and bordelloes; for if he did not, how could he speak of such gear Now that he may know what it is to be a child,

?

(16) This refers to a fine passage in his "Animadversions," where we discover the first seeds of the "Areopagitica." In opposition to Hall, who would gladly, notwithstanding his boasted learning, have been protected by a censorship from the rough eloquence of his adversary, he maintains the wisdom and necessity of leaving the press free. Even Lord Bacon, he observes, "in one of his discourses, complains of the bishops' uneven hand over these pamphlets, confining those against bishops to darkness, but licensing those against puritans to be uttered openly." He then, after a sneer at their wigs, continues :"The Romans had a time, once every year, when their slaves might freely speak their minds; it were hard if the free-born people of England, with whom the voice of truth for these

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and yet to meddle with edged tools, I turn his antistrophon upon his own head; the confuter knows that these things are the furniture of playhouses and bordelloes, therefore by the same reason the confuter himself hath been traced in those places." Was it such a dissolute speech, telling of some

many years, even against the proverb, hath not been heard but in corners, after all your monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes, your gags and snaffles, your proud Imprimatura, not to be obtained without the shallow surview, but not shallow hand of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and illiterate chaplain, when liberty of speaking, than which nothing is more sweet to man, was girded and strait-laced almost to a brokenwinded phthisic, if now, at a good time, our time of parliament, the very jubilee and resurrection of the state, if now the concealed, the aggrieved, and long-persecuted truth, could not be suffered to speak." Having thus described the pleasure of this freedom, he proceeds to enumerate its advantages, among which he instances its delivering princes and statesmen from the necessity of disguising themselves, and becoming eaves-droppers, "that they might hear every, where the utterances of private breasts, and amongst them find out the precious gem of truth, as amongst the numberless pebbles of the shore; whereby they might be the abler to discover and avoid that deceitful and close-couched evil of flattery, that ever attends them, and misleads them, and might skilfully know how to apply the several redresses to each malady of state, without trusting the disloyal information of parasites and sycophants; whereas now this permission of free writing, were there no good else in it, yet at some times thus licensed, is such an unripping, such an anatomy of the shyest and tenderest particular truths, as makes not only the whole nation in many points the wiser, but also presents and carries home to princes, men most remote from vulgar concourse, such a full insight of every lurking evil, or restrained good among the commons, as that they shall not need hereafter, in old cloaks and false beards, to stand to the courtesy of a night-walking cudgeller for eaves-dropping, nor to accept quietly as a perfume the over-head emptying of some salt lotion."

politicians who were wont to eavesdrop in disguises, to say they were often liable to a nightwalking cudgeller, or the emptying of a urinal? What if I had written as your friend the author of the aforesaid mime, "Mundus alter et idem," to have been ravished like some young Cephalus or Hylas, by a troop of camping housewives in Viraginea, and that he was there forced to swear himself an uxorious varlet; then after a long servitude to have come into Aphrodisia that pleasant country, that gave such a sweet smell to his nostrils among the shameless courtezans of Desvergonia? Surely he would have then concluded me as constant at the bordello, as the galley-slave at his oar.

22. But since there is such necessity to the hearsay of a tire, a periwig, or a vizard, that plays must have been seen, what difficulty was there in that? when in the colleges so many of the young divines, and those in next aptitude to divinity, have been seen so often upon the stage, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trinculoes, buffoons, and bawds; prostituting the shame of that ministry, which either they had, or were nigh having, to the eyes of courtiers and court ladies, with their grooms and mademoiselles. (7) There, while they acted

(17) Upon this passage Johnson has a remark in his usual style when speaking of Milton.-"One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act plays." He then quotes the above words, and adds :-"This is sufficiently peevish in a man who, when he mentions his exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance," (what does he mean?)

and overacted, among other young scholars, I was a spectator; they thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools; they made sport, and I laughed; they mispronounced, and I misliked; and to make up the atticism, they were out, and I hissed. Judge now whether so many good textmen were not sufficient to instruct me of false beards and vizards, without more expositors; and how can this confuter take the face to object to me

"the compensation which the pleasures of the theatre afforded him. Plays were therefore only criminal when they were acted by academics." From all which the reader is required to infer neither more nor less than that Milton was a contemptible hypocrite. But the case stands thus: when he descanted on the pleasures of the theatre "with great luxuriance," he was a youth, somewhere about eighteen; the present "Apology" was written when he was between thirty and forty; in the interval, therefore, time and opportunity enough had been afforded him to correct his boyish notions of the theatre, had they been wrong. Supposing, however, he had all his life entertained a partiality for the stage, did it necessarily follow from this that he must behold with "luxuriance," the ministers of Christ dishonouring their sacred calling by the personation of coarse and indecent characters ? This is all he here blames, as Johnson might have discovered, had he read the passage with attention. Elsewhere, speaking of certain works, our critic says,—" It is easier to praise than to read them :" no doubt he found it so, and on the present occasion reversed the rule; for it is quite clear that his acquaintance with Milton's prose works was extremely slight. In a note signed R. printed in the margin of Johnson's "Life," it is remarked, that " "By the mention of this name (Trinculo) he evidently refers to Albemazor,' acted at Cambridge in 1614." But is there not a Trinculo in the Tempest ?' The annotator proceeds. "Ignoramus,' and other plays were performed at the same time. The practice was then very frequent. The last dramatic performance at either university was the 'Grateful Fair,' written by Christopher Smart, and represented at Pembroke College, Cambridge, about 1747."

the seeing of that which his reverend prelates allow, and incite their young disciples to act? For if it be unlawful to sit and behold a mercenary comedian personating that which is least unseemly for a hireling to do, how much more blameful is it to endure the sight of as vile things acted by persons either entered, or presently to enter into the ministry; and how much more foul and ignominious for them to be the actors!

23. But because as well by this upbraiding to me the bordelloes, as by other suspicious glancings in his book, he would seem privily to point me out to his readers, as one whose custom of life were not honest, but licentious, I shall intreat to be borne with, though I digress; and in a way not often trod, acquaint ye with the sum of my thoughts in this matter, through the course of my years and studies. Although I am not ignorant how hazardous it will be to do this under the nose of the envious, as it were in skirmish to change the compact order, and instead of outward actions, to bring inmost thoughts into front. And I must tell ye, readers, that by this sort of men I have been already bitten at; yet shall they not for me know how slightly they are esteemed, unless they have so much learning as to read what in Greek άлερокaλía (18) is, which, together with envy, is the common disease of those who censure books that are not for their reading. With me it fares now, as with him whose outward garment hath

(18) 'Aπεiроkaλía, is the conduct of one who is wanting in the knowledge of what is polite and becoming.