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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: Buchanan had sown, and Milton had watered--for the allegation that
Milton borrowed from Buchanan is probably true, and equally
honourable to both--lay trampled into the earth, and seemingly
lifeless, till it tillered out, and blossomed, and bore fruit to a
good purpose, in the Revolution of 1688.
To Buchanan's clear head and stout heart, Scotland owes, as England
owes likewise, much of her modern liberty. But Scotland's debt to
him, it seems to me, is even greater on the count of morality,
public and private. What the morality of the Scotch upper classes
was like, in Buchanan's early days, is too notorious; and there
remains proof enough--in the writings, for instance, of Sir David
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