igOl-2 TRANSACTIONS. 97 



crises. Nor do we, who stand upon the threshold of still 

 mightier enterprises in Empire-building than the Past has 

 witnessed, lack counsels of hope and guidance from the great 

 Englishmen of former times whose souls expatiated in the 

 pure ether of freedom : 



Consider, says Milton, consider that nation whereof ye are ; a nation not slow 

 and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit ; acute to invent, subtile and 

 sinewy to discour^e ; not beneath the reach of any point that human capacity can 

 soar 



And then he continues in these magnificent words, which 

 may well stand as the literary embodiment of a prophetic 

 vision of the Greater Britain — the true Commonwealth of 

 Freemen — which this century seems destined to create : 



Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation raising herself like a 

 strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks ; methinks I see her as an 

 ea^le, 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 



It is popular sovereignty, as it was conceived by the 

 builders of * the English Constitution, that will make the 

 realization of such a vision possible — 



Nought shall make us rue 

 If England to itself do rest but true ! 



