by the Lord Chief Baron or one of the Chief Justices; books of history or politics by the principal Secretaries of State; those of heraldry by the Earl Marshal; and those of divinity, physic, philosophy, and poetry, and all other subjects, by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, or, if printed at a university, by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor. The number of master printers was limited to twenty, and of printing presses to forty, and restrictions were put upon type-founding. Extensive powers were given to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to search houses and shops, and to open bales of imported merchandise in search of unlicensed books. Severe penalties of fine, imprisonment, and corporal punishment were denounced against offenders.

The Court of Star Chamber was overthrown in 1641, but the Long Parliament assumed the same powers with respect to the licensing of books. Their first order (1642), of which Milton speaks with approval, merely required the printer's or the author's name. Another followed, which was directed against secret presses. The Order which called forth Milton's eloquent protest was dated June 14, 1643, and was simply a reproduction of part of the decree of 1637. The official licensers were more numerous; for divinity, twelve ministers of no great eminence; for law, four sergeants-at-law; for physic, five members of the College of Physicians; for heraldry, one of the Kings-atarms; for philosophy, history, poetry, &c., Sir N. Brent and two masters of St. Paul's School; for mathematics, the reader of Gresham College; and for pamphlets, the clerk to the Stationers' Company. Other regulations followed in 1647, 1649, 1652, which were all founded on the decree of 1637. It is worthy of remark that the liberty of the press was never infringed by the Statute Law of England

till 1662. Selden said truly in the House of Commons in 1628, 'There is no law to prevent the printing of any book in England, only a decree in the Star Chamber.' The ordinances of the Long Parliament were framed into the Statute of 1662 (13 & 14 Car. II. c. 33), which was intended to last for three years. It was twice renewed, but expired in 1679, and the House of Commons was not likely at this time (the time of the Habeas Corpus Act and the Exclusion Bill) to revive it. The Bill was renewed as a matter of course in 1685 for a term of years, which was completed in 1693, and was prolonged for two years after some opposition. Under Charles II. and James II. the office of licenser was held by Sir Roger L'Estrange, the editor of the 'London Gazette,' and a most scurrilous Tory pamphleteer. He was removed from this office at the Revolution, and was succeeded by a Scotch Whig of the name of Fraser. He in turn was compelled to resign in 1692 in consequence of the outcry of the Tories against his licensing Walker's book, which proved that Dr. Gauden and not Charles I. was the author of the 'Icon Basilike.' Edmund Bohun, who succeeded him, was a violent Tory, who submitted to William III. on the ground that he was king by right of conquest. His censorship was exceedingly unpopular among Whig writers and publishers. Among other books, he refused to license a 'History of the Bloody Assizes,' which was expected to have an immense sale. He was first assailed in a tract, entitled, 'A Just Vindication of Learning and of the Liberty of the Press, by Philopatris.' The author of this was Charles Blount, a violent Whig, a flippant infidel, and a third-rate pamphleteer, but nevertheless the man to whom, above all others, we owe the abolition of the Licensing Laws. His tract, which was copied mainly from Milton and Bacon, was so

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well received that another soon followed. There still remained in the 'Areopagitica' many fine passages which he had not used in his first pamphlet, and out of these he constructed his 'Reasons for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing,' with a postscript, entitled, 'A Just and True Character of Edmund Bohun.' When the public attention was roused by these works, Blount craftily induced Bohun the censor to license a pretended Tory pamphlet, entitled, 'King William and Queen Mary Conquerors,' which was really written by himself to put the Tory principles in as odious a light as possible. The plot succeeded. A storm of popular indignation was raised; Blount was summoned before the House of Commons and imprisoned, and the king was requested to remove him from the office of licenser. After this, for the first time, opposition was raised to the renewal of the Licensing Act, and it was renewed for only two years. In the House of Lords it was proposed, in accordance with Milton's suggestion, to exempt from the authority of the licenser every book which bore the name of an author and publisher, but this proposal was rejected. In 1695 a Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to consider what temporary statutes were about to expire, and which of them it might be expedient to continue, recommended the renewal of the censorship of the press. This was rejected by the Commons, but was supported by the Lords. At a conference of the two Houses, a paper was read containing the reasons which had determined the Commons not to renew the Licensing Act. All of these related to matters of detail the extortions of the Stationers' Company, the fees of the licenser, the damage done to valuable books by

1

1 Said to have been written by John Locke.

detention at custom-houses, and the like. Such,' says Macaulay,' were the arguments which did what Milton's "Areopagitica" failed to do.' The Lords yielded without a contest, and though several subsequent efforts were made during the reign of William III. (in 1696, 1697, 1698) to revive the Licensing Acts, they all failed, and English literature was emancipated for ever from the control of Government.

Milton's noble protest against the restrictions on the press was mainly due to his disappointment in the Presbyterian party. They had loudly complained of these restrictions when they were the sufferers, but enforced them with much vigour as soon as ever they came into power. There is nothing to show that his treatise produced any immediate effect, but in 1649 Gilbert Mabbot, one of the licensers of the press, resigned his office on the ground that that employment was, as he conceived, unjust and illegal.

Milton himself suffered much from the licensing regulations from all parties in turn. An important passage was expunged from his tract called, 'A Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641.' His 'Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce' gave so much offence that, by request of the Westminster Assembly, he was summoned before the House of Lords in August 1644 to answer for it, but was soon dismissed. An attack was made on this work in a pamphlet which was not merely licensed, but specially recommended by one of the licensers of the press (Joseph Caryl, author of a commentary on Job, one of the twelve divines appointed by the Order of 1643), and led to a severe rejoinder on the licenser as well as the author. Meanwhile, in November 1644, appeared this treatise, the 'Areopagitica,' which seems to have been

printed surreptitiously, and to have suffered the usual fate of unlicensed pamphlets, poor and incorrect printing. In his History of England,' published in 1670, many passages were expunged on the ground that they had a hidden reference to the politics of his own time. The publication of 'Paradise Lost' in 1667 was hindered and well nigh prevented by the licenser on the most frivolous grounds, as, for instance, that the noble simile comparing Satan to the sun in eclipse (P. L. i. 594-8) had a treasonable reference to Charles II.

Many examples could be adduced from literary history of the mutilation of important works in the press. Camden's 'Life of Elizabeth' and Lord Herbert of Cherbury's 'History of Henry VIII.' are two well-known instances. In the poems of Fulk Grevil, Lord Brooke, a long poem on Religion was cancelled by Archbishop Laud. Sir Matthew Hale left all his MSS. to Lincoln's Inn, and, from fear that they would be mutilated by the licenser, gave orders that none of them should be printed. The 'Institutes' of Sir Edward Coke, a posthumous work published in 1641, is said to have suffered severely under the licenser's hands. Many more instances might be quoted, but these are sufficient to illustrate the working of the press regulations in Milton's time.

Milton's prose style is singularly vigorous and eloquent. 'His works,' says Macaulay, 'deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the "Paradise Lost" has he ever risen higher than in those parts of his contro