Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen writers of greatest infection, if it must be thought so, with whom is bound up the life of human learning, that they writ in an unknown tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are both most able, and most diligent to instil the poison they suck, first into the courts of princes, acquainting them with the choicest delights, and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Petronius whom Nero called his Arbiter, the master of his revels; and the notorious ribald of Arezzo,[84] dreaded and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name not him for posterity's sake, whom Henry VIII named in merriment his vicar of hell. By which compendious way all the contagion that foreign books can infuse will find a passage to the people far easier and shorter than an Indian voyage, tho it could be sailed either by the north of Cataio eastward, or of Canada westward, while our Spanish licensing gags the English press never so severely. But on the other side that infection which is from books of controversy in religion is more doubtful and dangerous to the learned than to the ignorant; and yet those books must be permitted untouched by the licenser. It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath been ever seduced by papistical book in English, unless it were commended and expounded to him by some of that clergy: and indeed all such tractates, whether false or true, are as the prophecy of Isaiah was to the eunuch, not to be understood without a guide. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 75: From "The Reason of Church Government."] [Footnote 76: Bembo, cardinal and man of letters, was born in Venice in 1470 and died in 1547. He wrote poems and other works, and was the friend of the first men of culture in his age. Several popes honored him, and he had the intimate friendship of Lucretia Borgia.] [Footnote 77: Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, died in Jerusalem in 1100, a year after he had defeated the Sultan of Egypt at Ascalon.] [Footnote 78: Chief among the Greek fathers of the church, born about 185 A.D. and the author of many books.] [Footnote 79: From the "Tractate on Education."] [Footnote 80: From the "Apology for Smectymnus."] [Footnote 81: From the "Areopagitica."] [Footnote 82: From the "Areopagitica."] [Footnote 83: From the "Areopagitica."] [Footnote 84: A reference to Pietro Aretino, born in 1492, died in 1557, a notoriously indecent writer and adventurer. Henry VIII once sent him 300 crowns.] LORD CLARENDON Born in 1608, died in 1674; entered Parliament In 1640; chancellor of the Exchequer in 1643; chief adviser of Charles the First during the Civil War; lord chancellor 1660-67; impeached and banished; his "History of the Rebellion" published in 1702-04. OF CHARLES I[85]