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John Milton, Areopagitica (Jebb Ed.) (1644)

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John Milton, Areopagitica (Jebb Ed.) (1644) THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY © Liberty Fund, Inc. 2006 http://oll.libertyfund.org/ JOHN MILTON, AREOPAGITICA (JEBB ED.) (1644) The Online Library of Liberty is a project of Liberty Fund, Inc., a non-profit educational foundation based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Liberty Fund, was established to foster thought and encourage discourse on the nature of individual liberty, limited and constitutional government, and the free market. About the Author Milton ranks among the greatest poets of the English language. He is best known for the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), but he also wrote prose works on history, religion, and contemporary politics. Although his academic talents marked him for a career in the Anglican church, Milton turned away from the Church of England at an early age and was a consistent supporter of the Puritan cause. He spent most of his life in academia or as a civil servant working for the Puritan Commonwealth. About the Book An edition based upon Sir Richard Jebb’s lectures at Cambridge in 1872, with extensive notes and commentaries on this famous work. Milton’s famous defence of freedom of speech. It was a protest against Parliament’s ordinance to further restrict the freedom of print. Milton issued his oration in an unlicensed form and courageously put his own name, but not that of his printer, on the cover. The Edition Used Areopagitica, with a Commentary by Sir Richard C. Jebb and with Supplementary Material (Cambridge at the University Press, 1918). Copyright Information The text of this edition is in the public domain. Fair Use Statement This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. It may not be used in any way for profit. NI ILTON ' / AREOPAGITICA, V_'ITH A COMMENTARY BY SIR RICHARD C. JEBB /, AND WITH // SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSIT'Y PRESS I918 b • ,.O_'b CON'FEN TS I_IFE OF MILTON . Pa_:- vii COMMENTARY . S_n R. C. J_-m_ INTRODUCTION . , xxfi_ ANALYSIS xxxJ TEXT I NOTES . SIR R. C. JEBB 6 7 APPENDIX . lO3 04261;0 ,tat Tug Commentary. on Milton's Areo_ag_tiea here printed (Introduction, Analysis and Notes) was privately printed by Sir R. C. Jebb for the use of a course of lectures given at Cambridge in the Lent Term of I872. It is here re- printed by permission of Lady Jebb. A few trifling mis- prints have been corrected : otherwise, the commcntary is reproduced as it was originally printed. It may be conjectured that what attracted Sir R. C. Jebb specially to Areo_pagitica was its wealth of classical and historical allusions, and this, obviously, is the aspect of the treatise which received his particular attention. It was thought by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press that the Commentary should be made accessible to students; and that it might be made more helpful, and be brought more directly into line with the other Pitt Press editions of Milton, if some notes were added on points of directly Miltonic interest, such as the language, parallel passages and so forth; and, at the request of the Syndics, Mr Verity has compiled a short appendix of comments, drawn mainly from his own editions o5 Milton published by the University Press, and has added the brief Life. The text of Areo_Fagitica has been slightly modernised m spelling and punctuation. A. R. W. CAMBRIDGEMay, I918 LIFE OF MII.'I'ON _ MtL'rox'_ life fall_ int,_ lh_,-,, dearly defined di_l,i_ms. The first period ends with i.l,c p, ,t t'-. o-tin n froln Italy in I639 ; the second at the Rc'_t_railun in l¢_6o, _heu releasd from the fetter._ of politics (-nabled him to remind the -_ortd that he was a great poet; the third iq brought to a close with his death in i674. We propose to summarise the main events of the three periods. John Milton was l×,rn ol_,December 9, _6o8, in London. He came, in his own words, exgenere ho_wsto. A Ia.milv of .Miltons had been settled in Oxfordshire since the reign of Elizabeth. The poet's father had been educated at an Oxford school, possibly as a chorister in one of the College choir-schools, and imbibing Anglican sympathies had con- formed to the E_tablished Church. For this he wa.s dis- inherited by his Roman Catholic father. He settled in London, foliowing the profession of scrivener. A scrivener combined the occupatmns of lawyer and law-stationer. 1t appears to have been a lucrative calhng ; certainly John Millon (the pc)el was named after the father) attained to easy circumstances He married about _6oo, and had six children, of whom several died young. The third child was the poet. The elder Milton was evidently a man of considerable culture, in particular an accomplished musician, and a composer whose madrigals were deemed worthy of being printed side by side x_th those o[ Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and other leading musicmns of the time. To trim, no doubt, the poet owed the love of music ot winch we see By A W. Verity viii LIFE OF MILTON frequent indications in the poems 1. Realising, too, that in his son lay the promise and possihility of future great- ness, John Milton took the utmost pains to have the boy adequately educated; and the lines A d Pattern show that the ties of affection bet_veen father and child were of more than ordinary closeness. Milton was sent to St Paul's School about the year 1620. Here two influences, apart from those of ordinary school-life, may have attected him particularly. The headmaster was a good English scholar; he pubhshed a grammar containing many extracts from English poets, notably Spenser; it ib reasonable to assume that he had not a little to do with the encouragement and guidance of Milton's early taske for Enghsh poetry _. Also. thefounder of St Paul's School, Colet, had prescribed as part of the school-course the study of certmn earl?" Chnstaan writers, whose influence is stud to be directly traceable in Milton's poems and may in some cases have suggested his chome of sacred themes 2. While at St Paul's, Milton also had a tutor at home, Thomas Young, a Scotchman, afterwards an eminent Puritan divine--the inspirer, doubtless, of much of his pupil's Puritan sympathies. And Milton enloyed the signal advantage oi growing up m the stimulating atmosphere of cultured home-life. Most men do not realise that the word "culture" signifies anythmg ve_, defimte or desirable before they pass to the Umver- sit?-; for Milton, however, home-fife meant, from the first, not only broad interests and refinement, but active Milton was very tond of the organ; see Il Penseroso, 161. During his residence at Horton Milton made occasional lourneys to London to hear, and obtain instruction (probably trom Henry Lawes) in, music. It was an age of great musical development. See "Milton's Knowledge of Music" by Mr W. II. Itadow, in Miltolz Memorial Lectures (19o8). See the paper "Milton as Schoolboy and Schoolmaster' by Mr A. F. Leach, read before the Brmsh Academy, Dee io_ ioo8. LIFE OF ._IILTON ix encouragement towards liieratme and study. 111_t_,5 he left St Paul's. Of Ins extant Enghsh poems I only one, On the Death o_fa lratr [_fant, dates from his school-days; but we are told that he had wntten much verse, Enghsh and Latin, And his early traiaing had d,me that which was all-important: it had /aid tlu, h_,ndMi.ll of the far- ranging knowledge which _;_a!,cs I'a,.,dt_,' 1._..t )mi_lu_'for dive_i_, of suggestion and inter-st. Milton went to Christ's C()llege, ('arnhr_dge, m 1he Easter term of I625, took his B A. &.gree in 1r)29, pro- ceeded M.A. in 1632 , and in the latter year left Cambridge. The popular view of Milton's c()nnection with the Uni- versity will be coloured Jor all time by Johnson's un- fortunate story that for some unkno_-n oftence he "suffered the pubhc indignity of corporal correctlon." For vanou_ reasons tlus story Ls now d_scredited by the best judges. It _ certain, however, that early m I626 Milton did have some senous difficulty with his tutor, which led to his removal from Cambridge for a few weeks and his transference to another tut,)r on Iris return later in the term. He spoke oI the incident bitterly at the time m one of his Latin poems, and he spoke of Cambridge batterly in after years On the other hand he voluntarily passed seven years at the Umvers_ty, and resented strongly the _mputatmns brought against h_m m the "Smectvmnuus" controversy that he had been in ill- favour wxth the authorities of his college. Writing in I642, he takes the opportunity "to acknowledge publicly _,ith all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect, which I found above any of my equals at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the fellows of that college wherein I spent some years: who at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, x His paraphrases of Psalms cxiv. cxxxvi, scarcely come under this heading. Aubrey says in his quaint Life of Milton: "Anno Domini I619 he was ten yeares old, as by his picture [the portrait by Cornelius Janssen_ : and was then a poet." M b x LIFE OF MILTON signified many ways how much better it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters full of kind- ness and loving respect, both before that time, and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection towards me1.
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