Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 1.djvu/340

330 to a proposition of like nature, but of less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but this, Nolumus muture Leges Angliæ: it was the bishops who so answered then; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this house to answer the people, now, with a Nolumus mutare."

"I see some are moved with a number of hands against the Bishops; which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I look upon Episcopacy as a counter-scarp, or out-work; which, if it be taken by this assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once revealed, That we must deny them nothing when they ask it thus in troops, we may, in the next place, have as hard a task to defend our property, as we have lately had to recover it from the Prerogative. If, by multiplying hands and petitions, they prevail for an equality in things ecclesiastical, the next demand perhaps may be Lex Agraria, the like equality in things temporal."

"The Roman story tells us, That when the people began to flock about the senate, Rh