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HISTORY OF PRINTING.

superstition, the pride, and the cunning of the Saxon monks, which the sagacious licenser ap- plied to Charles II. and the bishops; but Mil- ton had before suffered as merciless a mutilation from his old friends the republicans ; who sup- pressed a bold picture, taken from life, which he had introduced into his History of the Long Par- liament and Assembly of Dinnet. Milton gave the unlicensed passages to the earl of Anglesea, a literary nobleman, the editor of Whitelock's Memorials ; and the castrated passage, which could not be licensed in 1670, was receired with peculiar interest when separately published in 1681 .* " If there be found in an author's book one sentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suit- ing every low decrepit humour of their own, they will not pardon him their dash." The un- popularity of Milton's prose writings arises out of the general ignorance of their high and in- comparable qualities, none who have ever looked into them can doubt. For profundity of thought, energy of diction, felicity of illustration, vigour of reasoning, sublimity of conception, and al- most every variety of the most or^nal and ner- vous eloquence, his prose compositions are dis- tinguished from those of all his cotemporaries.

Speaking of knowledge, Milton uses the fol- lowing beautiful expressions : — " We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth well they be hut deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures: and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality: and therefore we see, that voluptuous men turn friars, and am- bitious princes turn melancholy; but of know- ledge, there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable."

"If it be true that a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, — yea, or without a book, — there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which, being restrained, will be no hinderance to his folly."

However manj books Wise men have said, are wearisome, who reads Incessantly, and to lils reading brings not A spirit and a Judgment, equal or saperior, (And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek )) Uncertain and unsettled stUl remains. Deep versed In books, and shallow In himself; Crude and intoxicate, coUecttng toys And trifles for choice matters worth a spunge, As cliildren gathering pebbles on the shore.

Paradise Regained, b. iv.

ier of the Long Parliament and Auemblf of Divinet in l6tl : omitted fa hit other works, and neeer h^ore printed, and vertteatonaite for Iheie timet. 1681. It is userted In the nncastrated edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. It is a retort on the Presbyterian Caement Walker's Hittorf «/ the Independtntti and Warburton, In his admirable characters of the historians of this period, aUndlng to Clement Walker, says, " MOton was even with him in the line and severe character he draws of the Presbyterian administration."
 * It is a quarto tract, entiUed Mr. JoKn MUton's Charae-

1674. £>M, Anthomv Stephens, son ofPaaL He was a native of Geneva, commenced tot studies at Lyons, and finished them at Pans. La Caille says he obtained letters of naturaliza- tion, which bear date Sept 20, 1612 : and Asa. having in the presence of cardinal Pemm ab- jured the reformed opinions, he obtained a pes- sion of five hundred livres, and the post d " Huissier de I'Assemble du Clei^," vthich he retained till 1635. He also says, that he vas admitted, "Imprimeur et Libraire," at Ftnta, Oct. 26, 1618, and honoured with the ^poim- ment of " Imprimeur du Roy," in December, 1623, with a pension of six hundred livres : tai that he had moreover the office of ** Imprimev et libraire du Rochelle," which became vacait bv the death of his brother Joseph, in 163(1 This is the only mention which is found of sock a brother.

Anthony Stephens enjoyed the special fanwr of cardinal Perron, who from the period of the decease of Pattison, consigned to him the ia- pression of his works. Many of the specimeos of this typographer are of an important as well as voluminous description : but the most consi- derable in both respects, are those which k« executed for, or in conjunction with, the cob- pany of printers, who styled themselres ** So- cietas Grsecarum Editionum." From a pre&ee to a fine impression of the Sybillina OrmeeJt, Gr. Lat. Obtopeei, 8vo. dated 1599, it appeui that such a society had been formed ten ycus before that date, but had been interrupted in its operations by the civil wars. The abore-mea- tioned impression of the Sybillin* Orarmlt (which was repeated in 1670,) exhibits a fet and very pleasing specimen of its renewed la- bours. The types employed by this society are the royal ones ; and as a characteristic distiae- tion of their editions, we generally find conspica- ous, amongst other titular embellishments, the figure of an artcient galley in full sail, as it appears in the arms of the city of Paris, (sf wnich it is emblematical,) with the word Ltaaia, and sometimes the motto Vogue la Galere. TUs emblem or device, however, is not always touai in the title-pages of impressions by that sociely.

Perhaps the double character in which An- thony Stephens appears, namely, as a printer ob his own private account, and as such, in con- nexion with the society above-mentioned, may have involved Maittaire in some confbsioii, when he attempts to describe his professioBal distinctions. " The books," says he, " whiA proceeded from Anthony's offidna, were chanc- terized by his family symbol, the olive, with the legends, ^ Noli altum sapere^ or 'iVo^t «Ani sapere, sed time,' ' Defiacti sunt rami ut eft ineererer :' or if he used the royal types or pub- lished any state papers, the royal arms : some- times his impressions have no aevice, sometimei they exhibit the portrait of the author whose works were printea, sometimes the device of the

Srinter with whom he associated himself. Un- emcath his own device he often placed the initials of his name. In the titles of his iinpres-

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