Areopagitica

Areopagitica

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Areopagitica, by John Milton This
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Title: Areopagitica A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing
To The Parliament Of England
Author: John Milton
Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #608]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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AREOPAGITICA ***

Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

AREOPAGITICA
A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING TO
THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND
This is true liberty, when free-born men, Having to advise the public,

may speak free, Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace: What can be juster in a
state than this?
Euripid. Hicetid.
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 a 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.
For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not
to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best
covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope
waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his
plainest advice is a kind of praising. For though I should affirm and
hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with learning and
the Commonwealth, if one of your published Orders, which I should
name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much
redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas