nwealths against this disorder, till the very time
that this project of licensing crept out of the inquisition, was
catched up by our prelates and hath caught some of our presbyters.
In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any other
part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the
magistrate cared to take notice of; those either blasphemous and
atheistical, or libelous. Thus the books of Protagoras were by the
judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himself banished the
territory for a discourse begun with his confessing not to know
"whether there were gods, or whether not." And against defaming, it
was agreed that none should be traduced by name, as was the manner of
Vetus Comoedia, whereby we may guess how they censured libeling.
And this course was quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the
desperate wits of other atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the
event showed. Of other sects and opinions, tho tending to
voluptuousness, and the denying of Divine Providence, they took no
heed.
Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine
school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever
questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of
those old comedians were supprest tho the acting of them were forbid;
and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes, the loosest of
them all, to his royal scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may
be excused, if holy Chrysostom, as is reported, nightly studied so
much the same author and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence
into the style of a rousing sermon.
That other leading city of Greece, Lacedemon, considering that
Lycurgus, their lawgiver, was so addicted to elegant learning, as to
have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of
Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the
Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant
among them law end civility, it is to be wondered how useless and
unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed
no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all but their own
laconic apothegms, and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus out
of their city, perhaps for composing in a higher strain than their own
soldierly ballads and roundels could reach to. Or if it were for his
broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, but were as disso
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