nor did it diminish
the number of those who assented and now assent to his principles.
Recantations usually prove the force of authority rather than the change
of opinion. When a Dr. Pocklington was condemned to make a recantation,
he hit the etymology of the word, while he caught at the spirit--he
began thus: "If _canto_ be to sing, _recanto_ is to sing again." So that
he rechanted his offending opinions, by repeating them in his
_recantation_.

At the Revolution in England, licenses for the press ceased; but its
liberty did not commence till 1694, when every restraint was taken off
by the firm and decisive tone of the Commons. It was granted, says our
philosophic Hume, "to the great displeasure of the king and his
ministers, who, seeing nowhere in any government, during present or past
ages, any example of such unlimited freedom, doubted much of its
salutary effects; and probably thought that no books or writings would
ever so much improve the general understanding of men, as to render it
safe to entrust them with an indulgence so easily abused."

And the present moment verifies the prescient conjecture of the
philosopher. Such is the licentiousness of our press, that some, not
perhaps the most hostile to the cause of freedom, would not be averse to
manacle authors once more with an IMPRIMATUR. It will not be denied that
Erasmus was a friend to the freedom of the press; yet he was so shocked
at the licentiousness of Luther's pen, that there was a time when he
considered it necessary to restrain its liberty. It was then as now.
Erasmus had, indeed, been miserably calumniated, and expected future
libels. I am glad, however, to observe, that he afterwards, on a more
impartial investigation, confessed that such a remedy was much more
dangerous than the disease. To restrain the liberty of the press, can
only be the interest of the individual, never that of the public; one
must be a patriot here: we must stand in the field with an unshielded
breast, since the safety of the people is the supreme law. There were,
in Milton's days, some who said of this institution, that, although the
inventors were bad, the thing, for all that, might be good. "This may be
so," replies the vehement advocate for "unlicensed printing." But as the
commonwealths have existed through all ages, and have forborne to use
it, he sees no necessity for the invention; and held it as a dangerous
and suspicious fruit from the tree which bore it. The ages