Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself
like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks:
methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling
her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her
long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the
whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love
the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their
envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.
What would ye do then? should ye suppress all this flowery crop of
knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this city?
Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a
famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is
measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, Lords and Commons, they
who counsel ye to such a suppressing do as good as bid ye suppress
yourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the
immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot
be assigned a truer than your own mild and free and humane government.
It is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and happy
counsels have purchased us, liberty which is the nurse of all great
wits; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits like
the influence of heaven; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged
and lifted up our apprehensions, degrees above themselves.
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