ion and on divorce, and also the famous
one entitled Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed
Printing to the Parliament of England. This is the best worth reading of
all his prose writings. The subject of it is perfectly intelligible
still, and its English shows to perfection the qualities of the great
Miltonic style.

After the execution of Charles I., Jan. 30, 1649, it became more than
ever necessary for all thoughtful men to express their convictions. For a
people to put to death its king by judicial process was an unheard of
event. Those who considered that the Parliament had acted within the law
and could not have done otherwise with due regard to the welfare of the
nation had to convince doubting and timid citizens at home, and also, so
far as was possible, to placate critics in other nations who still
believed that the king could do no wrong; for all Europe interested
itself in this tremendous act of the English Parliament.

Within a fortnight after the death of the king, Milton published his
pamphlet on The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. This work so impressed
the parliamentary leaders as a thorough and unanswerable argument in
defence of their cause that they sought out its author, and in March
appointed him to the important post of Secretary for Foreign Tongues.
Milton's perfect command of Latin now stood him in good stead. Here was
an uncompromising puritan, fully the equal of the foreign ecclesiastics
in theology, and capable of holding his own in Latin composition with the
most famous humanists of the time. Latin was then the language of
international intercourse. Milton's duty was to translate into and from
Latin the despatches that passed between his own and foreign governments.
He also composed original treatises, some in English and some in Latin,
the most important of which continued his justification of the national
act of regicide. The importance of these writings was very great.
Milton's services to the puritan cause can to-day hardly be appreciated.
It was the constant aim of royalists at home and abroad to represent
England as having fallen under the control of ignorant fanatics, of
ambitious, barbarous, blood-thirsty men. By his very personality, his
knowledge of affairs, his familiarity with ancient and mediaeval history,
and, above all, by his fluency in Latin invective, Milton thwarted
attempts to disparage his countrymen as lawless barbarians. He helped to
maintain the good na