stood forward to assert the rights of their order against some ministers of considerable distinction, thinking that I could surely write upon subjects which I had studied from the pure love of truth and Christian duty, at least as well as, those who were defending their own gainful and unjust hierarchy, I replied to one of them [Usher] in two pieces (entitled respectively, Of Prelatical Episcopacy,' and 'The Reason of Church-Government urged against Prelacy') and to the other [Hall] by Animadversions on the Remonstrant's Defence,' and soon afterward by An Apology for Smectymnuus;' in which I supported the five ministers"

lying at

shall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young (Milton's quondam tutor, See Symmons, p. 50, not. m.) Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow; five presbyterian divines, who wrote conjunctively a pamphlet called, by an appellation formed from the initial letters of their names, Smectymnuus.' This drew from Bishop Hall, the illum of the text, A Defence of the Remonstrance;' and it was in angry opposition to this latter work, not to the Remonstrance itself, that Milton published his Animadversions,' &c.: a tract, throughout which "there prevails a grim smile, sharpening and aggravating the offence."

The Translator does not think it necessary, in this place, to encounter his author's reasonings upon the subject.

Bishop Hall was denominated the Christian Seneca.' He wrote Episcopacy by Divine Right,' Meditations,' and six Virgidemiarum,' which

books of Satires under the Title of

rank high in merit (three of them

toothless,' and three ex

tremely biting') beside numerous other works. It may be added, to his credit, that he very judiciously opposed the prac tice of burying in churches.

the mercy of his coy and flurting stile ;" and, thenceforward, upon every rejoinder of theirs I took up the pen.

The Bishops having at length sunk under the universal hostility, and left me disengaged in that quarter, I turned my thoughts into a different direction; anxious as I exclusively was to advance the interests of true substantial liberty, which is to be sought not abroad but at home, and to be attained not by war and bloodshed, but by right principles and correct conduct. Perceiving then that there were three kinds of liberty, all essential to the comfort of human life, viz. Religious, Domestic or Private, and Political; and having already written upon the first, while the civil magistrate (I observed) was strenuously exerting himself in promoting the last, I undertook to examine the second, as the only remaining branch which required discussion. This, too, appearing to divide itself into three parts; the harmony of the wedded state, the proper education of children, and the undisturbed privilege of pursuing philosophical inquiries-1 explained my opinions, not only on the contracting, but also (if circumstances rendered it necessary) the dissolving of marriage; opinions formed upon the divine law, which Christ did not at any time supersede, certainly not by substituting another more grievous than the whole Mosaic code in it's place. As to what was to be understood likewise by

the special exception of fornication, I delivered both my own judgement and that of others; which our illustrious Selden in his Hebrew Wife,' a treatise of greater length published about two years afterward, fully confirmed. Vainly, indeed, does he brag of liberty in public, who is held in a state of unmanly bondage by an inferior in his own house. Upon this subject therefore I published some tracts, as thinking them peculiarly adapted to a period, when man and wife were often seen rancorously espousing different sides; the first with his children at home, and the latter breathing death and destruction against her husband in the enemy's camp.

I next wrote a brief Tractate on Education'* in a small volume, large enough however, in my judgement, for such as bestowed due diligence upon the subject—a subject most powerfully calculated to imbue the human mind with virtue, the true source of genuine inward freedom, and to secure the welfare and the duration of states.

Areopagitica, or

Finally, I composed the A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing;' to the end that the distinguishing between truth and falsehood, and deciding what should be published and what not, might no longer re

* This was addressed, in the form of a letter, to the learned and patriotic Master Samuel Hartlib;' to whom Sir William Petty, afterward, inscribed one of his first works.

main in the breasts of a few (and those, generally, men of little learning or judgement) who were appointed Licensers of Books, and deprived almost all such, as classed in intellect above the vulgar, of both the power and the will to give their studies to the world.*

Political liberty, the last division of the three, I had not touched upon, as being sufficiently guarded by the civil power: neither did I write

* An account of this Tract, and copious extracts from it, are given by Dr. Symmons, pp. 259–267. One of them, for it's uncommon splendor, I cannot so far deny myself as to withhold from the reader. After referring to the sprightly vigour of a people "casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption, waxing young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, and destined to become great and honourable in these latter days"- -" Methinks I see in my mind," exclaims this enthusiastic advocate of freedom in a strong burst of eloquence, a noble and puissant nation rousing herself, like the strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her, as an eagle, muing her mighty youth, and kindled her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means;" &c.

66

"Though all the winds of doctrine (he, elsewhere, observes) were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"

Again: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for-not without dust and heat."

a single syllable on the Royal Prerogative, till the King had been proclaimed an enemy by the Parliament, and conquered, and tried, and condemned to death. Then however at last, when some Presbyterian ministers, who had before been most vehement against Charles, resenting now the popularity and parliamentary ascendency of the Independents, began to remonstrate against the sentence passed upon the King (provoked, in fact, not that the thing was done, but that it had not been done by themselves) and, with a view of raising commotions, turbulently ventured to affirm that the Protestant doctrine and all the Reformed Churches strongly reprobated it's severity; thinking that such an open falsehood should be as openly contradicted, I came forward to show in the abstract, without any specific reference even then to Charles, by a number of testimonies from eminent divines, how it was generally lawful to treat tyrants; and chastised, almost with the freedom of a public discourse, the egregious ignorance or impudence of those, who had recently affected better things.* This work

* This Tract was entitled, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked king; and after due conviction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to do it.'

Of Milton's bitterness against Presbyterianism, we have