f the noblest and most
eloquent prose compositions of Milton; "the Areopagitica; a Speech for
the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." It is a work of love and
inspiration, and breathing the most enlarged spirit of literature;
separating, at an awful distance from the multitude, that character "who
was born to study and to love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any
other end, but, perhaps, for that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise,
which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose
published labours advance the good of mankind."

One part of this unparalleled effusion turns on "the quality which ought
to be in every licenser." It will suit our new licensers of public
opinion, a laborious corps well known, who constitute themselves without
an act of Star-chamber. I shall pick out but a few sentences, that I may
add some little facts, casually preserved, of the ineptitude of such an
officer.

"He who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books,
whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had need to
be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and
judicious; there may be else no mean mistakes in his censure.
If he be of such worth as behoves him, there cannot be a more
tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time
levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of
unchosen books and pamphlets. There is no book acceptable,
unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoyned the reading of
that at all times, whereof three pages would not down at any
time, is an imposition which I cannot believe how he that
values time and his own studies, or is but of a sensible
nostril, should be able to endure.--What advantage is it to be
a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only 'scaped
the ferula to come under the fescue of an _Imprimatur_?--if
serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than
the theme of a grammar lad under his pedagogue, must not be
uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporising licenser?
When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason
and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is
industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious
friends, as well as any that writ before him; if in this, the
most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no