and his oppressive ministers; and who, like Ahab, as to the votes which they gave in parliament, "sold themselves to work iniquity;" the nonresisting and passive obedient tools of arbitrary power; the ready helpers to execute any oppressive measures to grind the people to powder; mean satellites and cringing hypocrites to those who were above them; haughty tyrants, and bloody oppressors to those whom they could ensnare by their et cætera oath, or get within the purlieus of the High Commission Court! And was it wonderful that every British heart, and especially the hearts of Protestant dissenters, rejoiced when these tyrants, who had oppressed them for nearly a century, fell into disgrace, and were pronounced, as to their temporal and spiritual dignity, to be public nuisances? However "hard the measure, no impartial and honest Briton but what will say that it was strictly just. And what English heart now, but will raise a prayer to God-who hears the prayer of the humble, and who is always ready to help the oppressed, and to confound the oppressor-" So let all thine enemies perish, oh, God! but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might!" Judges, v. 31.

We are now arrived at the year 1644, and find our hero again employed as the defender of the liberties of his countrymen. The work which he

published he entitled, "Areopagitica, or an Oration to the Parliament of England for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing." It is not improbable but the following circumstances, recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords for 1644, produced that extraordinary display of mind. "Ordered, that the gentleman-usher attending this house, shall repair to the Lord Mayor of London, and the master and wardens of the Stationers' Company, to let them know, that this House expects a speedy account of them, what they have done in finding out the author, printer, or publisher of the scandalous libel."

“The wardens of the Stationers' Company gave the house an account, that they had used their best endeavours to find out the printer and author of the scandalous libel; but they cannot yet make any discovery thereof, the letter being so common a letter;' and further complained of the frequent printing of scandalous books, by divers, as Hezekia Woodward and JOHN MILTON.

"Hereupon it is ordered, that it be referred to Mr. Justice Bacon, to examine the said Woodward and MILTON, and such others as the master and wardens of the Stationers' Company shall give information of concerning the printing of books and pamphlets; and to examine also what they know concerning the libel, who was the author, printer and publisher of it. And the gentleman

usher shall attach the parties, and bring them before the judges; and the Stationers are to be present at their examination, and give evidence against them."

On June 31, "Mr. Justice Bacon informed the house of some paper which Ezeckiell Woodward confessed he made. Hereupon it is ordered he shall be released, giving his own bond to appear before this house when he shall be summoned." It does not appear that MILTON was brought up.

The length to which the Presbyterians carried their zeal to suppress libels, may be judged of from the following entry in the Journals, the 12th of July, 1644. "A book entitled Comfort for believers about their Sins and Troubles, by John Archer, M. A. sometime preacher at Lombardstreet." The Assembly denounced it as blasphemous; and the Lords ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, and all the copies of it to be called in.

It was necessary, that before any book could be printed, it should receive the imprimatur of some person authorised by the government; and subject of course to be deprived, by the same power, of any emolument which he might derive from his office. The object proposed by MILTON was, to procure the most entire liberty of the press, subject to a liability to prosecution, should that liberty be employed

for licentious or injurious practices, such as blasphemy, or libel, or immorality; and if the printer or publisher were found guilty, to be punished with a specified fine.

In this his immortal work, even more so than by his exposures of prelatical rank in the church, he greatly served the cause of rational, restrained liberty; because, if the press be free, we dare bishops, or any others, to be oppressive. In those he lops off the branches, and removes the excrescences of arbitrary power; but in this he lays the axe to the root of the tree:-in those he corrected the diseases of the body politic; in this he infuses new blood into the system, by which he at once hurled oppression to the ground, and introduced the means of producing political strength and beauty, and preserving civil and religious life and liberty. It is in this work that he introduces Galileo, and his hard and cruel fate. He says: "There it was, [Italy] that I found and visited the famous GALILEO, grown old a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought. And though I knew that England was then groaning loudest under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it for a pledge of future happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies who were then breathing in her air,

should be her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish."

He first proves that the ancient Republics of Greece and Italy never prohibited any but immoral, defamatory, or atheistical publications. Nor did they judge of those crimes, by inferences or inuendoes: as, for instance, they never suppressed the writings of the Epicureans, which denied the doctrine of Providence and a future state, if they did not publish their formal doubts or denials of the existence of a Deity. Yet he argued, that it was beyond contradiction, that those nations maintained an excellent government, distributing public and private justice, and abounding in all knowledge and virtue, infinitely above those who have been, in modern times, the purgers, corruptors, or executioners of books!

The Roman emperors, he states, were tyrants; and none but tyrants would imitate their conduct, or think of quoting them as examples.

He remarks, in respect to the primitive Christians, that they observed no uniformity in regard to this subject. At first they encouraged the reading of all the heathen writers, but prohibited those which were heretical among themselves; afterwards they contended for the propriety of confuting the books of heretics, and suppressing the heathen works, even if they did not relate to