The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1915-12-16

city of Augusta, who in good faith mailed
BOOKS, those books which for decades and
generations, and centuries, have been in
peoples libraries, and have colored the
thoughts of countless millions of English
people, and whose enoblng ideals have
grown into the warp and wool of English
civilization?
regret if your honor please, that the
time at my disposal does not permit me
to read from Millions magnificent ESSAY
on the liberty OF unlicensed printing
IN that day and time, what was consid-
cred unlicensed printing, today means
liberty of the press, your Honor we'll
knows.
Shakespeare, like Homer, is a name a
shadow crossing the dial of the worlds
mentality, and nobody knows what he was
as man; they know him only as an
author, and some have gone so far as to
say, that if the biographical facts given to
the world ABOUT Shakespeare, are true he
aid not write the plays.
Be that as it may, Shakespeare, the man.
is shadoWy and uncertain; but we know
what John Milton was We see him at
the English schools mastering languages
and classic literature; we see him travel
ing and studying in Italy, the honored
guest of the noble and the learned: we
see him return home to take the side of
the people in the Civil War; we see him
and losing his eyes in writing his i'm
mortal defense Of the Commonwealth; and
then we see him, i'll his old age and blind
ness, body forth his dream Of paradise
Lost, to justify the ways of God to Man
Now in my judgment the noblest thing
Milton ever pcnned was his Essay on the
liberty OF the press
Pardon me, just a paragraph:
81 deny not, but that it is of greatest
in
wealth. to have a vigilant eye how books
demean themselves we'll as men; and
thereafter to confine, imprison, and do
sharpeSt justice on them as maIefactOrs:
for books are not absolutely dead things,
but do contain progeny of life in them
to be as active as that soul was whose
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve
as in d vial, the purest efficacy and ex-
traction Of that living intellect that bred
them. | know they are as lively and as
vigorously productive as those fabulous
dragons teeth; and being sown uD and
down, may chance to spring up armed men.
And yet, on the other hand unless wari-
ness be used as good almost kill man
as kill good book: who kills a man kills
reasonable creature, Gods image; but
he who destroys a good book, kills reason
itself kills the image of God as it were in
the eye. Many q man lives a burden to
the earth; but good book is the precious
life blood Of a master spirit, embalmed
and treasured upon purpose to life be-
You'd life. 1t is true, no age can restore
a life whereof perhaps there is no great
loss and revolutions of the ages do not
Oft recover the loss Of rejected truth for
the want OF it whole nations fare the
worse We should be wary, therefore,
what prosecutions we raise against the
living labors OF public men, how we spill
that reasoned life of man, preserved and
stored up in books since we see a kind
OF homicide may be thus committed,
sometimes martyrdom; and if it extend
- The whole impression, kind of mas
sacre, whereof the execution ends not in
the Staying Of an elemental life, but
breath Of reason itself; Stays in immortal
ity rather than life
Then Milton goes on to show that,
under the system established by the