These books are full of wrath and
scorn and all the bitter passion of the time. They have hardly a
place in true literature, so we may pass them over glad that
Milton found it possible to spend his bitterness in prose and
leave his poetry what it is.
One only of his prose works is still remembered and still read
for its splendid English. That is Areopagitica, a passionate
appeal for a free press. Milton desired that a man should have
not only freedom of thought, but freedom to write down and print
and publish these thoughts. But the rulers of England, ever
since printing had been introduced, had thought otherwise, and by
law no book could be printed until it had been licensed, and no
man might set up a printing press without permission from
Government. To Milton this was tyranny. "As good almost kill a
man as kill a good book," he said, and again "Give me the liberty
to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience
above all liberties." He held the licensing law in contempt, and
to show his contempt he published Areopagitica without a license
and without giving the printer's or bookseller's name.
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