For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not
to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best
covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalist affection and his hope
waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and
his plainest advice is a kind of praising. For though I should
affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth,
with learning and the Commonwealth, if one of your published Orders,
which I should name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not
but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government,
whenas private persons are hereby animated to think ye better
pleased with public advice, than other statists have been delighted
heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see what difference
there is between the magnanimity of a triennial Parliament, and that
jealous haughtiness of prelates and Cabin Counsellors that usurped
of late, whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories
and successes more gently brooking exceptions against a voted Order
than other Courts, which had produced nothing worth memory but the
weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified
dislike at any sudden Proclamation.

  If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil
and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as what your published
Order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself
with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did
they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old
and elegant humanity of Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish
and Norwegian stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose polite
wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders,
I could name him who from his private house wrote that discourse to
the Parliament of Athens, that persuades them to change the form of
democraty which was then established. Such honour was done in those
days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, not
only in their own country, but in other lands, that cities and
signiories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had
aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus, a
stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a former
edict; and I abound with other like examples, which to set here
would be superfluous.

  But if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious
labours, and those natural endowments haply not the worse for two
and fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be derogated,
as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I
would obtain to be thought not so inferior, as yourselves are superior
to the most of them who received their counsel: and how far you
excel them, be assured, Lords and Commons, there can no greater
testimony appear, than when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys
the voice of reason from what quarter soever it be heard speaking; and
renders ye as willing to repeal any Act of your own setting forth,
as any set forth by your predecessors.

  If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not, I
know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with fit
instance wherein to show both that love of truth which ye eminently
profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be
partial to yourselves; by judging over again that Order which ye
have ordained to regulate Printing:-that no book, pamphlet, or paper
shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and
licensed by such, or at least one of such, as shall be thereto
appointed. For that part which preserves justly every man's copy to
himself, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be
not made pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful men,
who offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause
of Licensing Books, which we thought had died with his brother
quadragesimal and matrimonial when the prelates expired, I shall now
attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors
of it to be those whom ye will be loth to own; next what is to be
thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and that
this Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious,
and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed.
Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning,
and the stop of Truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our
abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the
discovery that might be yet further made both in religious and civil
Wisdom.

  I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and
Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as
well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest
justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead
things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as
that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a
vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect
that bred them. I know they as lively, and as vigorously productive,
as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may
chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless
wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who
kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who
destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God,
as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a
good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed
and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age
can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and
revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth,
for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.

  We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the
living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of
man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide
may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to