Of these, twenty-one are
written in English, and four in Latin, Of the _Tractate of Education_
and the four divorce pamphlets something has been already said. Of the
remaining twenty, nine, or nearly half, relate to church government,
or ecclesiastical affairs; eight treat of the various crises of the
civil strife; and two are personal vindications of himself against one
of his antagonists. There remains one tract of which the subject is of
a more general and permanent nature, the best known of all the series,
_Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, to the
Parliament of England_. The whole series of twenty-five extends over
a period of somewhat less than twenty years; the earliest, viz., _Of
Reformation touching Church Discipline in England, and the Causes that
hitherto have hindered it_, having been published in 1641; the latest,
entitled, _A ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth_,
coming out in March, 1660, after the torrent of royalism had set in,
which was to sweep away the men and the cause to which Milton had
devoted himself. Milton's pen thus accompanied the whole of the
Puritan revolution from the modest constitutional opposition in
which It commenced, through its unexpected triumph, to its crushing
overthrow by the royalist and clerical reaction.
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