profession. His toleration of opinion was far from complete. He
would call in the intervention of the executioner in the case of
"mischievous and libellous books," and could not bring himself to
contemplate the toleration of Popery and open superstition, "which as
it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies, so itself should be
extirpate; provided first that all charitable and compassionate means
be used to win and gain the weak and misled."

The _Areopagitica_, as might be expected, produced no effect upon the
legislation of the Long Parliament, of whom (says Hallam) "very
few acts of political wisdom or courage are recorded." Individual
licensers became more lax in the performance of the duty, but this is
reasonably to be ascribed to the growing spirit of independency--a
spirit which was incompatible with any embargo on the utterance of
private opinion. A curious epilogue to the history of this publication
is the fact, first brought to light by Mr. Masson, that the author of
the _Areopagitica_, at a later time, acted himself in the capacity of
licenser. It was in 1651, under the Commonwealth, Marchmont Needham
being editor of the weekly paper called _Mercurius Politicus_, that
Milton was associated with him as his censor or supervising editor.
Mr. Masson conjectures, with some probability, that the leading
articles of the _Mercurius_, during part of the year 1651, received
touches from Milton's hand. But this was, after all, rather in the
character of editor, whose business it is to see that nothing improper
goes into the paper, than in that of press licenser in the sense in
which the _Areopagitica_ had denounced it.