s induce callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall
like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity.
To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a
merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our
few and evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into
cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of
repetitions. A great part of antiquity contented their hopes of
subsistency with a transmigration of their souls,--a good way to
continue their memories, while having the advantage of plural
successions they could not but act something remarkable in such
variety of beings, and, enjoying the fame of their passed selves,
make accumulation of glory unto their last durations. Others,
rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were
content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of
the public soul of all things, which was no more than to return
into their unknown and divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity
was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet
consistencies, to attend the return of their souls. But all was
vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which
Cambyses or Time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is
become merchandise. Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams."

Milton was a contemporary of Sir Thomas Browne, and, like all great
poets, was a master of resounding prose. All that he wrote, both in
verse and prose, is severely classic in its form. His _Samson Agonistes_
is perhaps the finest example of a play written in English after the
manner of the Greek dramas.

Milton wrote _The Areopagitica_ in defence of the liberty of
publishers and printers of books. And it stands for all time as the
first and greatest argument against interference with the freedom of
the press.

The Areopagitae were judges at Athens in its more flourishing time, who
sat on Mars Hill and made decrees and passed sentences which were
delivered in public and commanded universal respect.

I will quote one of the finest passages in this great and splendid
utterance:--

"I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church
and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean
themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison,
and do sharpest justice on them