press or to the sponge. these are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our Prelates and their Chaplains with the goodly echo they made; and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth House, another from the west end of Paul's; so apishly romanising, that the word of command still was set down in Latin; as if the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latin; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar, tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our 330 English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English And thus ye have the inventors and the original of book-licensing ripped up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later; nor

These are the pretty responsories,

66

or

321. the sponge, i.e., to have passages sponged out" expurgated, as Milton himself suffered later on in his History of Britain.

321. responsories, like the responses in the Prayer Book, spoken alternately by priest and congregation.

322. antiphonies, the full form of the modern word "anthem." Antiphonies were sung by two responsive choirs. Gr. Anti-contrary, phone-a voice.

322. of late, referring to the Star Chamber Decree of 1637.

325. Lambeth House, now called Lambeth Palace, the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

325. west end of Paul's, where the Bishop of London had a palace. These two dignitaries were appointed by the Star Chamber as licensers of all books except those on law,

from the modern custom of any reformed city or church abroad;

but from the most anti-christian council and the most tyrannous 340 inquisition that ever inquired. Till then books were ever as

freely admitted into the world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man's intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster, who denies but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea. But that a book, in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to stand before a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo yet in darkness the judgment of Rhadamanth and his colleagues, ere it can pass the ferry backward into light, was never heard 350 before, till that mysterous Iniquity, provoked and troubled at the first entrance of Reformation, sought out new limbos and new hells wherein they might include our books also within the

339. anti-christian council, the Trentine Council.

339, 340. tyrannous inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition; cf. l. 279: "The Council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendering together."

341. birth, thing born.

342, 343. no envious Juno
sat crossed-legged. An allusion
to the story of the birth of
Hercules. Alcmena, the mother
of Hercules, called for help, but
the helper, pledged by Juno to
retard, sat cross-legged outside
the door muttering spells.
343. nativity, birth.
346. peccant, sinful.

346. should be to, should be
compelled to, should have to.

347, 348. yet in darkness, i.e., unpublished.

348. Rhadamanth. Milton's spelling is Radamanth. According to the Greek myth, Rhadamanthus was one of the three judges of Hades. His colleagues were Minos and Aiakos.

number of their damned,
officiously snatched up, and so ill-favouredly imitated by our
inquisiturient Bishops and the attendant Minorites-their
Chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain authors
of this licensing order, and that all sinister intention was far
distant from your thoughts, when ye were importuned the
passing it, all men who know the integrity of your actions and
how ye honour Truth, will clear ye readily.

And this was the rare morsel so

360

But some will say, What though the inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good? It may be so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but obvious, and easy for any man to light on, and yet best and wisest commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use it, and falsest seducers and oppressors of men were the first who took it up, and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation; I am of those who believe it will be a harder alchemy than Lullius ever knew, to sublimate any good use out of such an invention. Yet 370 this is only what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly

354. ill-favouredly, unhandsomely.

355. inquisiturient. The termination "urient" signifies "greatly desiring," "intensely fond of."

355. Minorites, friars; strictly applied to the Franciscan monks only.

356. these most certain authors, i.e., these who were most certainly the authors.

358, 359. importuned the passing, importuned to pass.

364. to light on, to discover easily, to find without effort.

367. to no other purpose. We now write "for no other purpose."

368. of those, i.e., one of those.

369. alchemy. The alchemists claimed to have the power of changing the baser metals into gold. Readers of Ben Jonson's Alchemist will know their methods. Raymond Lully, or Lullius, a famous writer on chemistry and medicine, and on occult science, was stoned to death in 1315. Arabic al the; Kimia, which is derived from the Greek chemia-chemistry.

370. sublimate. To sublimate is to heat off a solid and condense the vapour. This was one of the processes of the alchemist.