e him reason He gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but
choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam. We ourselves esteem
not of that obedience a love or gift which is of force. God therefore
left him free, set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes;
herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of
his abstinence.' So that according to Milton even Eden was a state of
trial. As an author, Milton's protest has great force. 'And what if the
author shall be one so copious of fancy as to have many things well worth
the adding come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet
under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest
writers, and that perhaps a dozen times in one book? The printer dares
not go beyond his licensed copy. So often then must the author trudge to
his leave-giver that those his new insertions may be viewed, and many a
jaunt will be made ere that licenser--for it must be the same man--can
either be found, or found at leisure; meanwhile either the press must
stand still, which is no small damage, or the author lose his accuratest
thoughts, and send forth the book worse than he made it, which to a
diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall.'

Milton would have had no licensers. Every book should bear the printer's
name, and 'mischievous and libellous books' were to be burnt by the
common hangman, not as an effectual remedy, but as the 'most effectual
remedy man's prevention can use.'

The noblest pamphlet in 'our English, the language of men ever famous and
foremost in the achievements of liberty,' accomplished nothing, and its
author must already have thought himself fallen on evil days.

In the year 1645, the year of Naseby, as Mr. Pattison reminds us,
appeared the first edition of Milton's Poems. Then, for the first time,
were printed _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the _Ode on the Morning of
Christ's Nativity_, and various of the sonnets. The little volume also
contained _Comus_ and _Lycidas_, which had been previously printed. With
the exception of three sonnets and a few scraps of translation, Milton
had written nothing but pamphlets since his return from Italy. At the
beginning of the volume, which is a small octavo, was a portrait of the
poet, most villainously executed. He was really thirty-seven, but
flattered himself, as men of that age will, that he looked ten years
younger; he