his greatest prose performance, we meet with a different [John] Milton, one whose mind ranged far beyond his time. Milton wrote in 1644, just as the Parliamentary cause was at its military apex. Feeling strong in the sinews, the House of Commons prepared to re-establish the old monarchical custom, largely dispensed with under pressure of civil war, of forbidding the printing and sale of unlicensed books--in a word, censorship.At this moment, with the future of the world's model Protestant state in the balance, Milton stepped forward to deliver an awesome command performance on the subject of press freedom. It has never, down to our time, been equalled.
from The National Post: Censorship's fiercest foe
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