s the political history of mankind.

The literary fate of Milton was remarkable: his genius was castrated
alike by the monarchical and the republican government. The royal
licenser expunged several passages from Milton's history, in which
Milton had painted the superstition, the pride, and the cunning of the
Saxon monks, which the sagacious licenser applied to Charles II. and the
bishops; but Milton had before suffered as merciless a mutilation from
his old friends the republicans; who suppressed a bold picture, taken
from life, which he had introduced into his History of the Long
Parliament and Assembly of Divines. Milton gave the unlicensed passages
to the Earl of Anglesea, a literary nobleman, the editor of Whitelocke's
Memorials; and the castrated passage, which could not be licensed in
1670, was received with peculiar interest when separately published in
1681.[112] "If there be found in an author's book one sentence of a
venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who knows whether it
might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suiting every low
decrepit humour of their own, they will not pardon him their dash."

This office seems to have lain dormant a short time under Cromwell, from
the scruples of a conscientious licenser, who desired the council of
state, in 1649, for reasons given, to be discharged from that
employment. This Mabot, the licenser, was evidently deeply touched by
Milton's address for "The Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." The office
was, however, revived on the restoration of Charles II.; and through the
reign of James II. the abuses of licensers were unquestionably not
discouraged: their castrations of books reprinted appear to have been
very artful; for in reprinting Gage's "Survey of the West Indies," which
originally consisted of twenty-two chapters, in 1648 and 1657, with a
dedication to Sir Thomas Fairfax,--in 1677, after expunging the passages
in honour of Fairfax, the dedication is dexterously turned into a
preface; and the twenty-second chapter being obnoxious for containing
particulars of the artifices of "the papalins," as Milton calls the
Papists, in converting the author, was entirely chopped away by the
licenser's hatchet. The castrated chapter, as usual, was preserved
afterwards separately. Literary despotism at least is short-sighted in
its views, for the expedients it employs are certain of overturning
themselves.

On this subject we must not omit noticing one o