1644

                                  AREOPAGITICA

                                 by John Milton
AREOPAGITICA

                          AREOPAGITICA

        Analysis of the Order of Parliament (June 14, 1643),

             Against which the Areopagitica was Directed

  1. The Preamble recounts that "many false...scandalous, seditious,
and libellous" works have lately been published, "to the great
defamation of Religion and government"; that many private
printing-presses have been set up; and that "divers of the Stationers'
Company" have infringed on the rights of the Company.

  2. "It is therefore ordered by the Lords and Commons in Parliament,"
(1) that no Order "of both or either House shall be printed" except by
command; (2) that no Book, etc., "shall from henceforth be printed
or put to sale, unless the same be first approved of and licensed by
such person or persons as both or either of the said Houses shall
appoint for the licensing of the same"; (3) that no book, of which the
copyright has been granted to the Company, "for their relief and the
maintenance of their poor," be printed by any person or persons
"without the license and consent of the Master, Warden, and assistants
of the said Company"; (4) that no book, "formerly printed here," be
imported from beyond seas, "upon pain of forfeiting the same to the
Owner" of the Copyright, "and such further punishment as shall be
thought fit."

  3. The Stationers' Company and the officers of the two Houses are
authorised to search for unlicensed Presses, and to break them up;
to search for unlicensed Books, etc., and confiscate them; and to
"apprehend all authors, printers and others" concerned in publishing
unlicensed books and to bring them before the Houses "or the Committee
of Examination" for "further punishments," such persons not to be
released till they have given satisfaction and also "sufficient
caution not to offend in like sort for the future."

  4. "All justices of the Peace, Captains, Constables and other
officers" are ordered to give aid in the execution of the above.

        A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING,

             TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND (1644)

  THEY, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their
speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access in a private
condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public
good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not
little altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of
what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the
censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to
speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was
whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and
likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which
of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus
made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the
power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a
preface.

  Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall be
blameless, if it be no other than the joy and gratulation which it
brings to all who wish and promote their country's liberty; whereof
this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a
trophy. For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no
grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth-that let no man in
this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply
considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil
liberty attained that wise men look for. To which if I now manifest by
the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in
good part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny
and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the
manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is most
due, to the strong assistance of God our deliverer, next to your
faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of
England. Neither is it in God's esteem the diminution of His glory,
when honourable things are spoken of good men and worthy
magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do, after so fair
a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the
whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly
reckoned among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them that
praise ye.

  Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all
praising is but courtship and flattery: First, when that only is
praised which is solidly worth praise: next, when greatest likelihoods
are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons
to whom they are ascribed: the other, when he who praises, by
showing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can
demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have
heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went
about to impair your merits with a trivial and malignant encomium; the
latter as belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, that whom I so
extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this
occasion.