ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS 189
of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking to fashion out
the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleagured
truth than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious
lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith
to present, as with their homage and their fealty, their approaching
Reformation ; others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to
the force of reason and convineement.
What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so
prone to seek knowledge ? What wants there to such a pregnant soil
but wise and faithful labourers to make a knowing people, a nation
of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ? I doubt not if some great and
worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and
temper of a people and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and
aims, the diligent alacrity of our thoughts and reasonings in the pur-
suance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus
did, admiring Roman docility and courage, " If such were my people,
I would not despair the greatest design, that could be attempted, to
make a kingdom happy."
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 unsealing
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.
Milton's Areopagitica
New Suits for Sir Walter Raleigh
Sm WALTEK RALEIGH was bred in Oriel College in Oxford, and then
coming to Court found some hopes of the Queen's favours falling
upon him. This made him write in a glass window, obvious to
the Queen's eye :
Fain would I climb, yet fear I tofalL
Her Majesty, either espying or being shown it, did underwrite:
If thy heart faileth thee, climb not at aU.
However, he at length climbed up by the stairs of his own desert.
But his introduction to Court bare an elder date : from this occasion :
This Captain Raleigh coming out of Ireland to the English Court in
good habit (his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate)
found the Queen walking, till, meeting with a plashy place, she
seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread
his new plush coat on the ground, whereon the Queen trod gently
rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and season-
able tender of so fair a footcloth. From an old book