522 JOHN MILTON. 



the moment such a political faction acquires the administration of public 

 affairs and establishes itself in power, a real bishopdom prevails in 

 the allied sect. Thus all religious parties tend in their manhood of 

 strength to episcopacy. When a sect has passed the limits of a single 

 nation, when successive generations of its disciples have multiplied in 

 distant places, when missions have extended its conquests among bar- 

 barians, a common centre of union, distinct from and independent of 

 the patriarch of any particular country, becomes expedient. France 

 is not to decree ceremonies for England, nor England for France ; 

 but if these two countries each depute their proportion of learned 

 men to a college of cardinals, if the other European nations do the 

 same, such a standing committee of Christendom may form an im- 

 partial and a fit tribunal of decision. The president of such committee, 

 the common father of the church, will naturally be called on to sign 

 his name and affix his will to the award. Thus a practical popery 

 insensibly arrives in all sects, whether they spread from Tibet or 

 from Italy, if the adherents are distributed under various national 

 governments. But popery announces the old age of a sect, for the 

 civil governor, finding inconvenience from that ecclesiastical allegi- 

 ance, which is often stronger than the patriotic, and which then gives 

 occasion to traitorous intrigue, takes the earliest opportunity of en- 

 couraging native domestic heresy, which has sympathies beyond the 

 limits of the empire. And thus a papism crumbles once more into a 

 multiplicity of rival independencies, some one of which repeats the 

 original progress through presbyterianism to episcopacy. The forms 

 of church government are all natural alike. They are successively 

 applicable to every doctrinal sect of extensive force. Wisdom of 

 choice consists in adopting each at the right time, and in always pre- 

 ferring that ecclesiastical organization which corresponds with the 

 stage of growth attained by the opinions. 



" Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smec- 

 tymmius, and an Apology for Smectymrnius," are laborious defences 

 of a pamphlet which is no longer valued. The first is thrown into 

 the form of a dialogue, and contains awkward attempts at humour. 

 The familiar idiomatic dialect of conversation is the best adapted for 

 ridicule ; Milton always wrote, as if he thought, in Latin. The 

 second defence, " The Apology," is a more interesting composition, 

 because it wanders more from the subject. But even here Milton 

 laughs like a comic mask dug up at Herculaneum, with all the 

 caricature of satiric grimace, and in the chosen forms of antique 

 sculpture, but with none of the catching glee, the sleek moveable 

 muscles, the narrowed eyes and echoing jaws of living laughter. 



"The Tractate of Education" is a singular plan for a polytechnic 

 school, which displays more curious erudition than practical good 

 sense. Latin and Greek are keys to the best model-rooms of fine 

 art ; but they are not keys to the best repositories of science ; it 

 would be time mispent to study agriculture, as Milton recommends, 

 in Columella and Hesiod. 



" Areopagitica." This is one of the most perfect compositions of 

 Milton, both for matter and manner ; it ranks among the best 

 specimens of solemn oration, handed down to us from ancient or 



