fer the whole force of my talents and my industry to
this one important object." So he wrote the treatise in two books, _Of
Reformation in England, and the causes that hitherto have hindered it._
His later pamphlets are all similarly occasional in nature, written with
a particular and definite object in view. In these he advocates as
practicable and much-needed reforms, among other things, the
establishment of a perpetual republic on the lines of an oligarchy; the
abolition of bishops, religious ceremonials, liturgies, tithes, and,
indeed, of all regular payment or salary given to ministers of religion;
the supersession of universities and public schools by the erection of
new academic institutions, combining the functions of both, "in every
City throughout this Land"; the legalisation of free divorce; and the
repeal of the ordinances compelling all books to be licensed. If he did
not advocate, in any of the works put forth during his lifetime, the
legal toleration of polygamy, it was probably only because he perceived
that that, at least, did not fall within the scope of practical politics.
He defends it in his posthumous treatise, _De Doctrina Christiana_.

It will readily be seen that on almost all these questions Milton was not
only--to use the foolish modern phrase--"in advance of his time," but
also considerably in advance of ours. Twenty years after his death the
Licensing Acts were abolished; for the rest, his reforms are yet to
accomplish. It is an odd remark of one of his learned biographers that
the _Areopagitica_ is the only one of all Milton's prose writings "whose
topic is not obsolete." It is the only one of his prose writings whose
thesis commands the general assent of modern readers, and is, therefore,
from his own practical point of view, obsolete.

The mere enumeration of his opinions suffices to show that Milton's is a
sad case of the poet in politics. The labours of the twenty prime years
of his manhood have been copiously bewailed. To have Pegasus in harness
is bad enough; but when the waggon that he draws is immovably stuck in
the mud, and he himself bespattered by his efforts, the spectacle is yet
more pitiable. Many of his critics have expressed regret that he did not
make for himself an artificial seclusion, and continue his purely
poetical labours, with the classics for companions. The questions that
drew him into politics were burning questions, it is true; but were there
not others to deal w