ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Areopagitica, or pleading before the English Areopagus or High Court of Parliament, was first printed at London, in small 4to, in the year 1644. An abridgment of it, also in small 4to, was published in 1693. The second complete separate edition (it was of course included in the several collections of Milton's Prose Works) was put out at London in 8vo, by Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, who introduced the Tract with a spirited Preface in vindication of the Freedom of the Press. The Poet and Patriot, characters not always united, opens his Preface with an encomium upon the Areopagitica: "There is no need of a Preface to recommend this admirable defence of the best of human rights to any one who has ever heard of the divine MILTON; and it is impossible to produce better arguments, or to set them in a more convincing, awakening light." Various other editions successively appeared. The last and best was that of T. Holt White, Esq., published at London, in a large 8vo volume, in 1819, containing "Prefatory Remarks, Copious Notes, and Excursive Illustrations." There is subjoined to this edition, "a Tract sur la Liberté de la Presse, imité' de l'Anglois de Milton, par le Comte de Mirabeau."

A cheap edition of the Areopagitica was still wanted, and we have therefore brought it into Tracts for the People. The learned terms and phrases and allusions with which it abounds, may be thought to be some hindrance to its popularity. This we have endeavoured to remove by a few explanatory notes, chiefly taken from Mr. White. No mere English reader can be at a loss in any place for the sense of the great author, and all our subscribers will, we think, approve of our placing within the reach of the people, this noble effusion of an exalted mind, which has from the time of its first appearance excited a degree of admiration not to be expressed in common terms. Bp. Warburton says, that it "is in all respects a master-piece."

It is pronounced by Bp. Newton "the best vindication that has been published at any time, or in any language, of that Liberty which is the basis and support of all other Liberties, the Liberty of the Press." And the late Mr. Godwin characterized it as "the most splendid of Milton's Prose works in English."

There is, happily, little_necessity in the present day for asserting the Liberty of the Press; yet the only security for this and all our liberties consists in the public mind being impregnated with the manly and generous sentiments which Milton inculcated, for a time in vain, upon our English Areopagites.

To vindicate Milton from a possible censure, we conclude with a passage from Mr. White's Illustrations: "From some passages in the early part of this Oration, incurious readers might be led to conclude hastily, that there were topics on which Milton conceived discussion ought not to take an unrestrained course. It is incumbent on us therefore to bear in our recollection, that in this series of persuasive argument to convince the Parliament that they should not have reduced the intellect of the public to the standard of an individual's judgment, he exhibits the skill of an advocate by no means indisposed to avail himself of the privileges annexed to that situation. We are also to recollect, that he was the first who wrote in behalf of unlicensed printing; a circumstance which will plainly account for all such admissions. He anticipated what would be objected to him, if he were to contend for a scope more extended: he yielded a pawn to gain a queen. To contest the prevention of all publication of opinions not allowed by a licenser was his meritorious task: living in the nineteenth century, it should be ours to consider whether it be in any case advisable to punish opinions ?"

FOR THE LIBERTY

OF

UNLICENSED PRINTING.

THEY Who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament! or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a preface. Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall be blameless, if it be no other than the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish and promote their country's liberty; whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a trophy. For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no griev ance ever should arise in the Commonwealth; that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. To which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of God our deliverer; next, to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England! Neither is it in God's esteem the diminution of his glory,

when honourable things are spoken of good men and worthy magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do, after so fair a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned among the tardiest and the unwillingest of them that praise ye. Nevertheless, there, being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship and flattery-first, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise; next, when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascribed; the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him* who went about to impair your merits with a trivial and malignant encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, that whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kind of praising: for though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with learning and the Commonwealth, if one of your published orders which I should name were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, when as private persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice, than other statists have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a triennial Parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late, when as they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories and successes more gently brooking written excep

* i. e. from Hall, Bishop of Norwich. In the controversy with the Nonconforming divines, who, under the anagrammatic signature of Smectymnuus, wrote conjointly against our hierarchical establishment, the Bishop had spoken of the proceedings of the Parliament with cold and faint approbation, such as left scarcely room for a doubt of his secret and sinister bent.-- White.

tions against a voted order, than other courts, which had produced nothing worth memory but the weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike at any sudden proclamation. If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons! as what your published order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders, I could name him who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament of Athens, that persuades them to change the form of democracy which was then established. Such honour was done in those days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence not only in their own country, but in other lands, that cities and siniories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusæus, a stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a former edict and I abound with other like examples, which to set here would be superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious labours, and those natural endowments haply not the worst for two-and-fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be derogated, as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I would obtain to be thought not so inferior, as yourselves are superior to the most of them who received their counsel: and how far you excel them, be assured, Lords and Commons! there can no greater testimony appear, than when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason, from what quarter soever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any act of your own setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors.

If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to shew both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves; by judging over again that order which