5

What should 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 i measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who counsel i ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will i soon show how. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writ- ! ing and free speaking, there cannot be i 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. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defense of just immunities, yet love 50 my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience,

able river infested, inroads and incur-
sions round, defiance and battle oft ru-
mored to be marching up even to her
walls and suburb trenches, that then the
people, or the greater part, more than
at other times, wholly taken up with the
study of highest and most important
matters to be reformed, should be dis-
puting, reasoning, reading, inventing,
discoursing, even to a rarity and admir- 10
ation, things not before discoursed or
written of, argues first a singular good-
will, contentedness and confidence in
your prudent foresight, and safe govern-
ment, Lords and Commons; and from 15
thence derives itself to a gallant bravery
and well grounded contempt of their
enemies, as if there were no small
number of as great spirits among us, as
his was, who when Rome was nigh be- 20
sieged by Hannibal, being in the city,
bought that piece of ground at no cheap
rate, whereon Hannibal himself en-
camped his own regiment. Next, it is
a lively and cheerful presage of our 25
happy success and victory. For as in
a body, when the blood is fresh, the
spirits pure and vigorous, not only to
vital, but to rational faculties, and those
in the acutest and the pertest operations
of wit and subtlety, it argues in what
good plight and constitution the body
is, so when the cheerfulness of the peo-
ple is so sprightly up, as that it has, not
only wherewith to guard well its own
freedom and safety, but to spare, and to
bestow upon the solidest and sublimest
points of controversy and new invention,
it betokens us not degenerated, nor droop-
ing to a fatal decay, but casting off the 40
old and wrinkled skin of corruption to
outlive these pangs and wax young again,
entering the glorious ways of truth and
prosperous virtue destined to become
great and honorable in these latter ages. 45
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 55
also that love the twilight, flutter about,
amazed at what she means, and in their

30

35

above all liberties.

will not be my task to say. I only shall
repeat what I have learned from one of
your own honorable number, a right no-
ble and pious lord, who, had he not sacri-
ficed his life and fortunes to the church 5
and commonwealth, we had not now
missed and bewailed a worthy and un-
doubted patron of this argument. Ye
know him I am sure; yet I for honor's
sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall 10
name him the Lord Brook. He writing
of episcopacy and by the way treating of
sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or
rather now the last words of his dying
charge, which I know will ever be of 15
dear and honored regard with ye, so full
of meekness and breathing charity, that
next to his last testament, who bequeathed
love and peace to his disciples, I cannot
call to mind where I have read or heard 20
words more mild and peaceful. He there
exhorts us to hear with patience and hu-
mility those, however they be miscalled,
that desire to live purely, in such a use of
God's ordinances, as the best guidance of 25
their conscience gives them, and to toler-
ate them, though in some disconformity
to ourselves. The book itself will tell us
more at large, being published to the
world, and dedicated to the Parliament 30
by him who both for his life and for his
death deserves that what advice he left
be not laid by without perusal.

And now the time in special is, by priv-
ilege to write and speak what may help 35
to the further discussing of matters in
agitation. The temple of Janus with his
two controversal faces might now not un-
significantly be set open. And though all
the winds of doctrine were let loose to 40
play upon the earth, so Truth be in the
field, we do injuriously by licensing and
prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let
her and Falsehood grapple; who ever
knew Truth put to the worse, in a free 45
and open encounter? Her confuting is
the best and surest suppressing. He who
hears what praying there is for light and
clearer knowledge to be sent down among
us, would think of other matters to be 50
constituted beyond the discipline of Ge-
neva, framed and fabricked already to our
hands. Yet when the new light which
we beg for shines in upon us, there be
who envy and oppose, if it come not first 55
in at their casements. What a collusion
is this, whenas we are exhorted by the
wise man to use diligence, to seek for wis-

dom as for hidden treasures early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute? When a man hath been laboring the hardest labor in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valor enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, no stratagems, no licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defenses that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. Yet it is not impossible that she may have more shapes than one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike herself? What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross, what great purchase is this christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of? His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any enthralled piece of truth out of the grip

5

but whom they like, is the worst and
newest opinion of all others; and is the
chief cause why sects and schisms do so
much abound, and true knowledge is
kept at distance from us; besides yet a
greater danger which is in it. For when
God shakes a kingdom with strong and
healthful commotions to a general re-
forming, 't is not
not untrue that many
sectaries and false teachers are then
busiest in seducing; but yet more true
it is, that God then raises to his own
work men of rare abilities, and more
than common industry, not only to look
back and revise what hath been taught
heretofore, but to gain further and go on,
some new enlightened steps in the dis-
covery of truth. For such is the order
of God's enlightening his church, to dis-

of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood, and hay, and stubble forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a church than 10 many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think well of every light separation, or that all in a church is to be expected gold and silver and precious stones. It is not possible for man to 15 sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the angels' ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind, (as who looks they should be?) this 20 pense and deal out by degrees his beam, doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more christian that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all 25 religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled that also which is impious or evil 30 absolutely either against faith or manners, no law can possibly permit that intends not to unlaw itself. But those neighboring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether 35 in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace. In the meanwhile if any one 4o would write, and bring his helpful hand to the slow-moving reformation which we labor under, if Truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we 45 should trouble that man with asking license to do so worthy a deed? and not consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose first 50 appearance to our eyes bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible 55 to see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard

so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place these his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as man sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set places, and assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the old Convocation House, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized, is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made no, though Harry VII himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead, to swell their number. And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own? Seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who, not contented with stale receipts, are able to manage and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that

notion they may yet serve to polish and and the executioner will be the timeliest brighten the armory of Truth, even for and the most effectual remedy, that man's that respect they were not utterly to be prevention can use. For this authentic cast away. But if they be of those whom Spanish policy of licensing books, if I God hath fitted for the special use of 5 have said aught, will prove the most unthese times with eminent and ample licensed book itself within a short while; gifts, and those perhaps neither among and was the immediate image of a Star the Priests, nor among the Pharisees, Chamber decree to that purpose made in and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal those very times when that court did the shall make no distinction, but resolve to 10 rest of those her pious works, for which stop their mouths, because we fear they she is now fallen from the stars with come with new and dangerous opinions, Lucifer. Whereby ye may guess what as we commonly forejudge them ere we kind of state prudence, what love of the understand them, no less than woe to us, people, what care of religion or good while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, 15 manners there was at the contriving, alwe are found the persecutors. though with singular hypocrisy it pretended to bind books to their good behavior. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent order, so well constituted before, if we may believe those men whose profession gives them cause to inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of bookselling; who under pretense of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy (which God forbid should be gainsaid), brought divers glossing colors to the House; which were indeed but colors, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbors, men who do not therefore labor in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them in procuring by petition this order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier 'scape abroad, as the event shows. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not. This I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what magistrate may not be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of printing be reduced into the power of a few; but to redress willingly and speedily what hath been erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a sumptuous bribe, is a virtue (honored Lords and Commons) answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.

There have been not a few since the beginning of this Parliament, both of the Presbytery and others, who by their unlicensed books to the contempt of an Im- 20 primatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day. I hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have 25 wrought so much good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Savior gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom 30 he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our Elders, how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is; if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church 35 by this let of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade, and execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over 40 us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors themselves: whom the change of their con- 45 dition hath puffed up, more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise.

And as for regulating the Press, let no man think to have the honor of advising 50 ye better than yourselves have done in that order published next before this, 'that no book be printed, unless the printer's and the author's name, or at least the printer's be registered.' Those 55 which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libelous, the fire

(1644)

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

Dryden came of a good Northamptonshire family, and was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was only eighteen when his first verses were published, but his first poem of importance was in commemoration of the death of Oliver Cromwell. Dryden's dependence as a professional writer on the party in power made his financial position insecure, hampered his genius, and ruined his reputation for consistency: his eulogy of Cromwell was followed almost immediately by poems in celebration of Charles II. The reopening of the theaters after the Restoration gave him a less equivocal opportunity for the exercise of his talents, and he led the way in the development of the new comedy (largely indebted to the French) and the heroic play with its preposterous characters and incidents and extravagant rant. After defending and perfecting the rimed couplet as a medium for tragedy, he turned to blank verse in All for Love (1678), founded upon Shakspere's Antony and Cleopatra, and generally accounted Dryden's best play. Meanwhile he had won distinction in other ways; his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) is remarkable both for its literary insight and its vigorous and lucid style, which had an important influence on the development of English prose. In 1670 he was appointed poet laureate and historiographer with a salary of £200, which relieved his immediate necessities, but was not enough to save him from financial difficulties. The political intrigues at the end of Charles II's reign gave occasion for the bitter satirical poem Absalom and Achitophel (1681) which in its own kind of poetry remains unsurpassed. Religio Laici (1682), a poem in defense of the Church of England, was discounted by the author's conversion to Roman Catholicism on the accession of James II, though most students of Dryden's life and writings hold that his change of view was sincere. The Hind and the Panther, a plea for the poet's newly adopted faith, appeared in 1687. The Revolution of 1688 deprived Dryden of his offices, and he was dependent for the rest of his life upon his pen. He returned to the stage with Don Sebastian (1690), one of his best tragedies, wrote excellent prologues and epilogues for the plays of other men, and worked hard at criticism and translations. After enjoying for many years the literary leadership of his time, he was buried in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.