Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Free
He is the free-man whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.
Cowper.—Winter’s Morning Walk.
They would no more in bondage bend their knee,
But once made freemen, would be always free.
Churchill.—Independence.
But I was free born.
St. Paul, The Acts, Chap. xxii. Ver. 28.
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Dryden.—Conquest of Granada, Act I. Scene 1.
By my troth, this is free and easy indeed.
Riley’s Plautus, The Pseudolus, Act V. Scene 2.
I would rather be a freeman among slaves, than a slave among freemen.
Swift.—To Mr. Gay, 3rd Oct., 1731.
Who rules o’er freemen should himself be free.
Henry Brooke.—Gustavus Vasa, Ed. I. (This was read in Dr. Johnson’s presence and admired, but not by him, for he remarked, “it might as well be said—who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.” See the 3rd edition of Mr. Gent’s book of Familiar Quots. Whittaker, 1862, Page 118.)