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HE whom just laws imprison, still is free

Beyond the proudest slaves of tyranny.

This Belcour felt, e'en then, when (smarting sore From fresh restraint, which heavily he bore)

He threw his eye o'er that diurnal page

Whose columns war with Tory dogmas wage;

Then, as he mark'd the freedom of debate,

Where talent and where truth alone are great,

And read how Right Divine and Priestcraft reign,
And grind the face and eat the heart of Spain,

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He scarce refrain'd, though moving in a crowd,

From uttering these ardent thoughts aloud :

"Hail to the Press! wide reaching; whose control

Awes the mad wishes of the tyrant's soul;

Vast artery of life, through which the stores

That feed the growth of Truth, Opinion pours;

The mighty lens through which she points the rays

That kindle Error's records into blaze;

When Superstition in his blood-stain'd den

Claims his dire sacrifice the souls of men,

Scare the foul vampyre from his spell-bound prey,

And plague him with intolerable day.

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Gigantic engine! power that supersedes

The long prescriptive Use that Folly pleads,
Shakes her authorities derived from night,
And tries her occupancy by its Right.

O happy England! though some spots obscure
Thy brightness, (not the sun from spots is pure,)
Let him who ne'er to brightness turns his eye

Dwell on thy faults,-thy foibles magnify;

Proud of the title of thy son, I see

In thee the cradle of the bold and free.

Land of my fathers! may thy children keep,

E'en as they guard the empire of the deep,
The free, unshackled press, that best secures

Their rights, and liberty to truth assures,

Even so and more-That shields from foreign sway,

This fills all home-born tyrants with dismay.

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Exult, ye dwellers of the sea-girt isle!

Tho' the earth's mighty rulers round you smile

O'er broken promises, and souls transferr'd

All unconsenting, like the grazing herd,

They turn an anxious eye toward your shores,

Whence free Press the voice of reason pours, your

And bar their subjects from the dangerous page

That shows the baseness of their vassalage.

O Spain! thou noble and romantic soil!

Of bigots and of Ferdinand the spoil!

O might but for a year, a month, a week,

The press unmuffled to thy children speak,

Soon would the springing dawn of a new light

Dispel thy darker than Egyptian night,

Beneath whose thickness on thy vitals prey

The fiends that dare not face the beams of day.

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The time must come,-speed, ye benignant powers,

Friendly to man, the tardy-gaited hours

When not from British senators alone

The voice of truth may mount up to a throne.
Truth will have way, whene'er, or late or soon,
A nation can receive Heaven's highest boon:
And, late or soon, the Press o'er all the earth
Will give to purer institutions birth,

And show, while error back to night is hurl'd,
In stereotype, the freedom of the world.

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So much was Belcour on such thoughts intent,

He reck'd not on his march what eyes were bent.
Meanwhile Timandra from her altitude

The well-drest interesting stranger view'd;

And straight her scheming brain, as wont, began

To calculate some vantage from the man.

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