kind of massacre; whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself, and slays an immortality rather than a life."

Nothing can be more consonant with the general interests of the community than our author's liberal yet guarded plan. Let the press be as free as the air or the light of heaven: without the check of a question, let it pour its good and its bad into the world; but let the names of those by whom it is employed be in the hands of the public to ensure a proper responsibility to the laws for any infringement of good order, for whatever violation may be offered to morals or to the peace of individuals. By the strict confinement of this diffuser of opinion, if in truth it were practicable among an active and enlightened people, a doubtful and fallacious tranquillity might probably be obtained: but it would be the repose of barbarous ignorance; it would be stagnation and not calm; it would be diseased and melancholy slumber, separated by infinite degrees from that strong and active and sparkling health which, in the intellectual and the moral not less than in the natural world, is maintained as it is produced by agitation

and ferment, by opposition and conflict. In that dissonance of religious and political hostility, which excited the alarm of the timorous and the bigoted in the convulsed and distracted times of our author, he could distinguish nothing but the sprightly vigour of a young people, exulting in the exercise of their powers, "casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption, waxing young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, and destined to become great and honourable in these latter days." Methinks I see in my mind," says the advocate of freedom in a strong burst of eloquence, "a noble and puissant nation rousing herself, like the strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her, as an eagle, muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight flutter about amazed at what she means.'

His attack on presbyterian inconsistency

e P. W. i. 324. The passage should have ended here with " means." The imagery is spoilt and broken by the concluding words, "sects and schisms."

is strong and irresistible. "Who cannot discern the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers? that while the bishops were to be baited down, then all presses might be open; it was the people's birth-right and privilege in time of parliament; it was the breaking forth of light. But now, the bishops abrogated and voided out of the church, as if our reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name, the episcopal arts begin to bud again: the cruse of truth must run no more oil; liberty of printing must be enthralled under a prelatical commission of twenty; the privilege of the people nullified, and, which is worse, the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters." The language of this composition is every where lucid and elevated, figurative and impressive; and, though not entirely free from learned idioms and constructions," for the age in which it was written it is remarkably pure, and sufficient to entitle the writer to a high place among the masters of style.

P. W. i. 315.

"But is

Such as-" For which Britain hears ill abroad." become a dividual movement." "And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, have at other times variously affected," &c. &c.

Though the Presbyterians in parliament had power to resist the force of this eloquent reasoning, it could not be heard without effect. If however it covered the faces of these traitors to their cause with shame, it was unable to bend their hearts into contrition. That egregious insult on freedom and the community, a licenser of the press, was certainly continued throughout the whole duration of their power: though in 1649 we find Gilbert Mabbot conscientiously resigning this invidious

The account of this transaction is preserved by Dr. Birch, and from him I shall transcribe it.

66

"Gilbert Mabbot continued in his office till May 22, 1649, when, as Mr. Whitelocke observes, upon his desire, and reasons against licensing of books to be printed, he was discharged of that employment." And we find a particular account of the affair in a weekly paper, printed in 4to, and intitled, "A perfect diurnall of some passages in parliament, and the daily proceedings of the army under his excellency the lord Fairfax. From Monday May 21 to Monday May 28, 1649. Collected for the satisfaction of such as desire to be truly informed, N° 304." In which, under Tuesday May 28, p. 2531, we read as follows: "Mr. Mabbot hath long desired several members of the house, and lately the Council of State, to move the house, that he might be discharged of licensing books for the future upon the reasons following, viz.

"I. Because many thousand of scandalous and malignant pamphlets have been published with his name thereunto, as if he had licensed the same (though he never saw them) on purpose (as he conceives) to prejudice him in his reputation amongst the honest party of this nation.

"II. Because that employment (as he conceives) is unjust

and indeed impracticable office, and borrowing the motives and the defence of his conduct from the work, to which we have been attending.

We have already noticed that, in the year (1645) succeeding the publication of this piece, our author's controversy on the subject of divorce was brought to a conclusion; and that the re-union of himself and his wife,

and illegall, as to the end of its first institution, viz. to stop the presse for publishing any thing, that might discover the corruption of church and state in the time of popery, episcopacy, and tyranny, the better to keep the people in ignorance, and carry on their popish, factious, and tyrannical designs, for the enslaving and destruction both of the bodies and souls of all the free people of this nation.

"III. Because licensing is as great a monopoly as ever was in this nation, in that all men's judgments, reasons, &c. are to be bound up in the licenser's (as to licensing:) for if the author of any sheete, booke, or treatise, wrote not to please the fancy, and come within the compasse of the licenser's judgment, then he is not to receive any stamp of authority for publishing thereof.

"IV. Because it is lawfull (in his judgment) to print any booke, sheete, &c. without licensing, so as the authors and printers do subscribe their true names thereunto, that so they may be liable to answer the contents thereof; and if they offend therein, then to be punished by such lawes, as are or shall be for those cases provided.

"A Committee of the Council of State being satisfied with these and other reasons of M. Mabbot concerning licensing, the council of state reports to the house; upon which the house ordered this day, that the said M. Mabbot should be discharged of licensing books for the future."

Birch's Life of Milt. p. xxvi.