life. "Tis true, no age can reftore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loffe; and revolutions of ages doe not oft recover the loffe of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse. We fhould be wary therefore what perfecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we fpill that feafon'd life of man pre-. ferv'd and flor'd up in Books; fince we fee a kinde of homicide may be thus committed, fometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole impreffion, a kinde of maffacre, whereof the execution ends not in the flaying of an elementall life, but ftrikes at that ethereall and fift effence, the breath of reason it selfe, flaies an immortality rather than a life.

But

But left I should be condemn'd of introducing licence, while I oppofe Licenfing, I refufe not the paines to be so much Hiftoricall, as will ferve to fhew what hath been done by ancient and famous Commonwealths, against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licencing crept out of the Inquifition, was catcht up by our Prelates, and hath caught fome of our Presbyters.

In Athens where Books and Wits were ever bufier then in any other part of Greece, I finde but only two forts of writings which the Magiftrate car'd to take notice of; thofe either blafphemous and Atheisticall, or Libellous. Thus the Books of Protagoras were by the Iudges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt,

and

and himselfe banisht the territory for a difcourfe begun with his confeffing not to know whether there were gods, or whether not: And against defaming, it was decreed that none should be traduc'd by name, as was the manner of Vetus Comadia, whereby we may gueffe how they cenfur'd libelling: and this course was quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the defperate wits of other Atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event fhew'd. Of other fects and opinions though tending to voluptuousneffe, and the denying of divine providence they tooke no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynick impudence utter'd, was ever quef

tion'd by the Laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of thofe old Comedians were fuppreft, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Ariftophanes the loofeft of them all, to his royall fcholler Dionyfius, is commonly known and may be excus'd, if holy Chryfoftome, as is reported, nightly ftudied fo much the fame Author and had the art to cleanfe a fcurrilous vehemence into the ftile of a roufing Sermon. That other leading City of Greece, Lacedamon, confidering that Lycurgus their Law-giver was fo addicted to elegant. learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Jonia the fcatter'd workes of Homer, and fent the Poet Thales from

Creet

Creet to prepare and mollifie the Spartan furlineffe with his fmooth fongs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wonder'd how mufeleffe and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of Warre. There needed no licencing of Books. among them for they diflik'd all, but their owne Laconick Apothegms, and took a flight occafion to chafe Archilochus out of their city, perhaps for compofing in a higher ftraine then their owne fouldierly ballats and roundels could reach to: or if it were for his broad verses, they were not therein fo cautious, but they were as diffolute in their promifcuous converfing; whence Euripides affirmes in Andromache, that their women were

all