Chapter XII: Section I: From September 1654 to January 1654-5, or Through Oliver's

FIRST PARLIAMENT.

ULAC'S HAGUE EDITION OF MILTON'S _DEFENSIO SECUNDA_, WITH THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ OF MORUS ANNEXED: PREFACE BY DR. CRANTZIUS TO THE REPRINT: ULAC'S OWN PREFACE OF SELF-DEFENCE: ACCOUNT OF MORUS'S _FIDES PUBLICA_, WITH EXTRACTS: HIS CITATION OF TESTIMONIES TO HIS CHARACTER: TESTIMONY OF DIODATI OF GENEVA: ABRUPT ENDING OF THE BOOK AT THIS POINT, WITH ULAC'S EXPLANATION OF THE CAUSE.--PARTICULARS OF THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF MILTON'S FRIEND OVERTON.--THREE MORE LATIN STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR OLIVER (NOS. XLIX.--LI.): NO STATE-LETTERS BY MILTON FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS: MILTON THEN BUSY ON A REPLY TO THE _FIDES PUBLICA_ OF MORUS.

In October 1654 there was out at the Hague, from Ulac's press, a volume in two parts, with this title: "_Joannis Miltoni Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano contra infamem Libellum, cujus titulus 'Regii Sanguinis Clamor adversus Parricidas Anglicanos.' Accessit Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastæ, Sacrarumque Litterarum Professoris, Fides Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni, Scurræ. Hagæ-Comitum, ex Typographia Adriani Ulac_, MDCLIV." ("John Milton's Second Defence for the English People in reply to an infamous Book entitled 'Cry of the King's Blood against the English Parricides.' To which is added A Public Testimony of Alexander Morus, Churchman, and Professor of Sacred Literature, in reply to the Calumnies of John Milton, Buffoon. Printed at the Hague by Adrian Ulac, 1654.") The reprint of Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ fills 128 pages of the volume; More's appended _Fides Publica_, or Public Testimony, in reply, is in larger type and fills 129 pages separately numbered. Morus, after all, it will be seen, had been obliged to acquiesce in Ulac's arrangement (Vol. IV. p. 634). Instead of trying vainly any longer to suppress Milton's book on the Continent, he had exerted himself to the utmost in preparing a Reply to it, to go forth with that reprint of it for the foreign market which Ulac had been pushing through the press and would not keep back.

Although Milton complains that Ulac's edition of his book for the foreign market was not only a piracy, but also slovenly in itself, with printer's errors vitiating the sense and arrangement in some cases,[1] it was substantially a reprint of the original. Its interest for us, therefore, lies wholly in the preliminary matter. This consists of a short Preface headed "_Lectori_" ("To the Reader") and signed "GEORGIUS CRANTZIUS, _S.S. Theol. D._," and a longer statement headed "_Typographus pro Se-ipso_" ("The Printer in his own behalf") and signed "A. ULACQ."

[Footnote 1: Pro Se Def. (1655).]

The Rev. Dr. Crantzius, who does not give his exact address, writes in an authoritative clerical manner. Though in bad health, he says, he cannot refrain from penning a few lines, to say how much he is shocked at the length to which personalities in controversy are going. He really thinks Governments ought to interfere to put such things down. Readers will find in the following book of Milton's a lamentable specimen. He knows nothing of Milton himself; but Milton's writings show him to be a man of a most damnable disposition, and Salmasius had once shown him (Dr. Crantzius) an English book of Milton's propounding the blasphemy "that the doctrine of the Gospel, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning Divorce is devilish." Dr. Crantzius had known Salmasius very well; and O what a man _he_ was! Nothing amiss in him, except perhaps a hasty temper, and too great subjection to a peculiar connubial fate! There was a posthumous book of Salmasius against Milton; and, should it ever appear, Milton would feel that even the dead could bite. Dr. Crantzius had seen a portion of it; and, "Good Heavens! what a blackguard is Milton, if Salmasius may be trusted." Dr. Crantzius had known Morus both at Geneva and in Holland. He was certainly a man often at feud with enemies and rivals, and giving them too great opportunities by his irascibility and freedom of speech. But he was a man of high aspirations; and the late Rev. Dr. Spanheim had once told Dr. Crantzius that Morus's only fault was that he was _altier_, as the French say, i.e. haughty. As for Milton's special accusations against Morus, Dr. Crantzius knew them for a certainty to be false. Even after the Bontia scandal had got abroad and the lawsuit of Morus with the Salmasian household was running its course, Dr. Crantzius had heard Salmasius, who was not in the habit of praising people, speak highly of Morus. Salmasius had admitted at the same time that his wife had injured Morus, though he could not afford to destroy his "domestic peace" by opposing her in the matter. On the Bontia affair specifically, Salmasius's express words, not only to Dr. Crantzius, but to others whom he names, had been, "If Morus is guilty, then I am the pimp, and my wife the procuress." As to the sequel of the case Dr. Crantzius is ignorant; and he furnishes Ulac with this preface to the Book only in the interests of truth. But what a quarrelsome fellow Milton must be, who had not kept his hands off even the "innocent printer"!

The "innocent printer's" own preface to the Reprint shows him to have been a very shrewd person indeed. He keeps his temper better than any of them. Two years had elapsed., he says, since he printed the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_. Who the real author of the book was he did not even yet know. All he knew was that some one, who wanted to be anonymous, had sent the manuscript to Salmasius, and that, after some delay and hesitation, he had obliged Salmasius by putting the book to press. Ulac then relates the circumstances, already known to us, of his correspondence with Hartlib about the book, and his offers to Milton, through Hartlib, to publish any reply Milton might make. He had been surprised at the long delay of this reply, and also at the extraordinary ignorance of business shown by Milton and his friends in their resentment of _his_ part in the matter. It was for a tradesman to be neutral in his dealings; he had relations with both the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, and would publish for either side; and, as to his lending his name to the Dedicatory Preface to Charles II., everybody knew that printers did such things every day. However, here now is Mr. Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ in an edition for the foreign market, printed with the same good will as if Milton had himself given the commission. It contains, he finds, a most unjustifiable attack on M. Morus, with abuse also of Salmasius, who is now in his grave; but that is other people's business, not Ulac's. He cannot pass, however, the defamation of himself inserted in Milton's book.--Ulac then quotes the substance of Milton's account of him as once a swindler and bankrupt in London, then the same in Paris, &c. (Vol. IV. p. 588). This information, Ulac has little doubt, Milton has received from a particular London bookseller, whom Ulac believes also to have been the real publisher of Milton's book, though Newcome's name appears on it. It is all a tissue of lies, however, and Ulac will meet it by a sketch of his own life since he first dealt in books. This takes him twenty-six years back. It was at that time that, being in Holland, which is his native country, and having till then not been in trade at all, he received from England a copy of the _Arithmetica Logarithmica_ of the famous mathematician Henry Briggs [published 1624]. Greatly enamoured with this work and with the whole new science of Logarithms, and observing that Briggs had given the Logarithms for numbers only from 1 to 20,000, and then from 90,000 to 100,000, he had set himself to fill up the gap by finding the Logarithms for numbers from 20,000 to 90,000, and had had the satisfaction, in an incredibly short space of time, of bringing out the result [in an extended edition of Briggs's book published at Gouda, 1628]. Briggs and the English mathematicians were highly gratified, and Ulac was asked to publish also Briggs's _Trigonometria Britannica_. This also he had done [at Gouda in 1633, Briggs having died in 1630, and left the work in charge of his friend Henry Gellibrand]; after which he had engaged in the heavy labour of converting into Logarithms the Sines and Tangents to a Radius of 10,000,000,000 given in the _Opus Palatinum_, and had issued the same under the title _Trigonometria Artificialis_. These labours of Ulac's were not unknown to the mathematical world; and it was somewhat surprising that Milton had not heard of them, especially as, in his sketch of his own life in the _Defensio Secunda_, he professed his interest in Mathematics, and spoke of his visits to London from Horton for the purpose of picking up any novelties in that science. At any rate, it was zeal for the dissemination of the mathematical books above-mentioned that had turned Ulac into a printer and bookseller. In that capacity he certainly had been in London, trading in books generally, and he had been in difficulties there, though not of a kind discreditable to himself. After he had been some years in London, trading peaceably, some London booksellers, jealous for their monopoly, had conspired against him, and tried to obtain an order from Archbishop Laud for the confiscation of his whole stock in trade. Through the kind offices of Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, this had been prevented, and he had been empowered to sell off his existing stock. Nay, a little while afterwards, he had had a prospect, through the Royal Printers, of a full trading licence from the Archbishop, on condition of his buying from them copies of two heavy works they had printed by the Archbishop's desire--viz. _Theophylact on St. Paul's Epistles_ and the _Catena of the Greek Fathers on Job_. He had actually obtained such a licence for two years, and had hopes of its renewal, when the Civil War broke out. On that account only, and not in any disgrace, as Milton said, he had, after having been about ten years in all in London, transferred himself to Paris.[1] He had been there about six years, dealing honestly, and publishing important theological and other books, the titles of some of which he gives; but here also he had been the victim of trade jealousy. He had found it impossible to get on in Paris, though it was utterly false that he dared not now show his face there. He _had_ shown his face there, since he had returned to his native Holland and made the Hague his head-quarters; and he could show his face there again without any inconvenience. Meanwhile he was in the Hague, comfortable enough; and his character there might easily be ascertained.--To return to Milton's present book. Though Ulac had reprinted it, he had done so in doubt whether, now that there was peace between the United Provinces and the Protector, such irritating books between the two nations ought not to be mutually suppressed. His own leanings had always been rather to the English Parliamentarians than to the Royalists, and hence he had been disposed to think well of Milton. Though he cannot think so well of him now, he will not retaliate by any abuse of Milton. "If Milton is acknowledged in his own country to be a good man, let him be glad of it; but I hear that many Englishmen who know him are of another opinion. I would decide nothing on mere rumour; nay, if I had ascertained anything scandalous about him with positive certainty, I should think it better to hold my tongue than to blazon it about publicly." How strange, however, that Milton had fallen foul of Morus at such a violent rate! Had he not been told two years ago, through Hartlib, that Morus was not the author of the book for which he made him suffer? It was the more inexcusable inasmuch as in the _Joannis Philippi, Angli, Responsio ad Apologiam Anonymi Cujusdam_--which work Milton had superintended, if he had not written it--there had been the same mistake of attributing a work to the wrong person. It would be for Morus himself, however, to take cognisance of that.

[Footnote 1: Long ago, foreseeing the interest I should have in ULAC, I made notes in the State-Paper Office of some documents appertaining to him when he was a Bookseller in London. They do not quite correspond with Ulac's account of his reasons for leaving London. The documents, here arranged in what seems to be their chronological order, are as follows:--(1) Petition of Ulac, undated, to Sir John Lambe, Dean of the Arches, that he would intercede with Laud in Ulac's favour. His two years' licence for importing hooks is now almost expired; but many of the Greek books he had bought from the Royal Printers are still on his hands unsold, besides the whole impression of a _Vita Christi_ which he had also bought from them after the London stationers would not look at it. It would be a great thing for him therefore to have his licence extended for a time; and, if this favour is obtained from his Grace, he promises to do all he can for the importation of learned Greek and Latin books of the kind his Grace likes. (2) Humble Petition to Laud by Richard Whittaker, Humphrey Robinson, George Thomason, and other London Booksellers, dated April 15, 1640, representing to his Grace that, contrary to decree in Star-Chamber, "one Adrian Ulacke, a Hollander, hath now lately imported and landed at the Custom House divers bales or packs of books, printed beyond seas, with purpose to vent them in this kingdom," and praying for the attachment of the said bales and the apprehension of Ulac. (3) Of the same date, Laud's order, or suggestion to the Lord Treasurer to join him in an order, to attach the goods in the Custom House accordingly. (4) Humble Petition of Ulac to Juxon, Bishop of London, of date April 1640, explaining the transaction for which he is in trouble. He had gone to Paris "upon the 5th of Dec. last," and had there sold a great many copies of _Theophylact on Paul's Epistles_, the _Catena Patrum Græcorum in Jobum_, Bishop Montague's _De Vita Christi_, _Spelman's British Councils_, &c., at the same time buying a number of books to be imported into England. Although these last had been sent off from Paris before January, "yet, by want of ships and winds, they could come no sooner"--i.e. not till after the 13th of April, 1640, when his two years' licence for importing had expired. He humbly beseeches Juxon that he may be allowed to "receive and dispose of the said books so sent freely without any trouble." (5) A note of Laud's, written by his secretary, but signed by himself, as follows:--"Had not the Petitioner offended in a high matter against the State in transporting bullion of the kingdom, I should have been willing to have given time as is here [i.e. in the last document] expressed. However, I desire Sir John Lambe to consider of his Petition, and do further therein as he shall find to be just and fitting, unless he find that the sentence in the Star-Chamber hath disabled him.--W. CANT. _Apr._ 21, 1640." (6) Humble Petition, undated, of Ulac, now "prisoner in the Fleet," to Sir John Lambe. The prisoner "was, the 24th of May last, censured by the Lords in the High Court of Star-Chamber in £1000 to his Majesty and imprisonment." He is in very great straits, owing above £500 to his Majesty's Printers for books, "much hindered by the deadness of trading," and by the return of many books on his hands. He is "a stranger, without any friends," and unless the fine of £1000 is mitigated "to a very low rate," he will be in "utter ruin and misery." He therefore prays Lambe's good word with Laud.--My only doubt is whether the document I have put here as No. 6, ought not to _precede_ the others: i.e. whether Ulac's offence in the matter of the "bullion," with his fine and imprisonment, was not an affair of older date than his importation of books after time in April 1640, though then remembered against him. All the documents were together in the same bundle in the S. P. 0. when I examined them, and the published Calendars have not yet overtaken them.]

And now for More's own _Fides Publica_ or Public Testimony for Himself. It is a most painful book on the whole. Gradually it impresses you with considerable respect for the ability of the author, and especially for his skill both in logical and pathetic pleading; and throughout you cannot but pity him, and remember that he was placed in about the most terrible position that a human being, and especially a clergyman of wide celebrity, could occupy--placed there too by what would now be called an act of literary savagery, outraging all the modern proprieties of personal controversy. Still the impression left finally is not satisfactory. It is but fair, however, that he should speak for himself. The book opens thus:--

"If I could acknowledge as true of me any of those things which
you, by a wild and unbridled licence, have not only attributed to
me, but have even, to your eternal disgrace, dared to publish, I
should be angry with you to a greater degree than I am, you most
foolish Milton: for let that be your not unfitting, though mild,
designation in the outset, while that of liar and others will
fashion themselves out of the sequel. But, as the charges are such
that there is no one of those to whom I am a little more closely
known, however unfavourable to me, but could convict them of
falsehood from beginning to end, I might afford, strong in the sole
consciousness of my rectitude, to despise them, and perhaps this is
what I ought to do. Still, with a mind as calm as a sense of the
indignity of the occasion will permit, I have resolved to
expostulate with you. Yet I confess myself to be somewhat moved;
not by anger, but by another feeling. I am sorry, let me tell you,
for your own case, and shall be sorry until you prove penitent, and
this whether it is from sheer mental derangement that you have
assailed with mad and impotent fury a man who had done you no harm,
and who was, as you cannot deny, entirely unknown to you, or
whether you have let out the empty house of your ears, as those
good masters of yours say, to foul whisperings going about, and,
with your ears, put your hand and pen too, for I know not what
wages, but certainly little honourable, at the disposal of other
people's malicious humour. Choose which you please. I pray God
Almighty to be merciful to you, and I beg Him also in my own behalf
that, as I proceed to the just defence of my reputation, He may
suggest to me a true and modest oration, utterly free from all
lying and obscenity,--that is, very unlike yours."

On the point of the authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ Morus is emphatic enough. He declares over and over again that _he_ was not the author, and he declares that Milton knew this perfectly well,--might have known it for two years, but had beyond all doubt known it before he had published the _Defensio Secunda_. We shall bring together the passages that refer to this subject:--

I neither wrote it, nor ever pretended to have done so,--this I
here solemnly declare, and make God my witness,--nor did I
contribute anything to the writing of it.... The real author is
alive and well, unknown to me by face, but very well known to
several good men, on the strength of whose joint knowledge of the
fact I challenge with righteous detestation the public lie which
wriggles everywhere through your whole book.... Let the author
answer for himself: I neither take up his quarrel, nor thrust my
sickle into his corn.... But I wish the anonymous author would come
forth some time or other openly in his own name.... What then would
Milton think? He might have reason to fame and detest the light of
life, being manifestly convicted of lying before the world. He
might say, indeed, "I had not thought of it: I have been under a
mistake" ... But what if I prove by clear evidence that you knew
well enough already that the author of this book was another
person, not I? ... [Morus then goes on to say that Milton might
have learnt the fact in various ways, even from a comparison of the
style of the book with that of Morus's acknowledged writings; but
he lays stress chiefly on the information actually sent to Milton
in 1652 by Ulac, and on the subsequent communications to him,
through Durie and the Dutch Ambassador Nieuport, before the
_Defensio Secunda_ had left the press] ... Will you hear a
word of truth? You had certainly learnt the fact, and cannot for
two whole years have been ignorant of it. But, as you perceived it
would not suit your convenience to vent your spleen against an
anonymous opponent, that is a nobody, and some definite person must
be pitched upon as an adversary to bear your rage expressly, no one
else seemed to you more opportune than I as an object of calumny,
whether because you heard that I had many enemies, though (what
proves their savageness) without any cause, who would hold up both
thumbs in applause of your jocosities, or because you knew that, by
the arts of a Juno, I was involved in a lawsuit, more troublesome
in reality than dangerous, and you did not believe that I should
be, as I have been, the winner before all the tribunals.... Your
book once written, Morus must of necessity stand for your opponent,
or Milton, the Defender of the People, would have done nothing in
two years! He would have lost all the laborious compilation of his
days and nights, all his punnings upon my name, all his sarcasms on
my sacred office and profession.... For, if you had taken out of
your book all the reproaches thrown at me, how little would there
have been, certainly not more than a few pages, remaining for your
"People"! What fine things would have perished, what flowery, I had
almost said Floralian, expressions! What would have become of your
"gardens of Alcinous and Adonis," of your little story about
"Hortensius"; what of the "syca_more_," what of "Pyramus and
Thisbe," what of the "Mulberry tree"? [All these are phrases in
Milton's book, introduced whenever he refers circumstantially to
the naughty particulars of the scandals against Morus, whether in
Geneva or in Leyden. The name _Morus_, which means "mulberry
tree" and "fool" in Latin and Greek, and may be taken also for
"Moor" or "Ethiop," and in still other meanings, had yielded to the
Dutch wits, as well as to Milton, no end of metaphors and punning
etymologies in their squibs against the poor man] ... The real
author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ neither lives among the
Dutch,--is not "stabled" among them, to use your own
expression--nor has he, I believe, anything in common with them ...
Vehemently and almost tragically you complain that I have upbraided
you with your blindness. I can positively affirm that I did not
know till I read it in your own book that you had lost your
eyesight. For, if anything occurred to me that might seem to look
that way, I referred to the mind [Note this sentence: the Latin is
"_Nam, si quid fortè se dabat quod eò spectare videretur, ad
animum referebam_"] ... Could I then upbraid you with blindness
who did not know that you were blind,--with personal deformity who
believed you even good-looking, chiefly in consequence of having
seen the rather neat likeness of you prefixed to your Poems
[Marshall's ludicrous botch of 1645 which Milton had disowned] ...
Nor did I know any more that you had written on Divorce. I have
never read that book of yours; I have never seen it ... I will have
done with this subject. That book is not mine. I have published,
and shall yet publish, other books, not one letter of which shall
you, while I am alive and aware of it, attack with impunity. Some
_Sermons_ of mine are in men's hands; my books _On Grace and
Free Will_ are to be had; there are in print my _Exercitations
on the Holy Scripture, or on the Cause of God_, which I know
have passed into England, so that you have no excuse,--as well as
my _Apology for Calvin_, dedicated to the illustrious Usher of
Armagh, your countryman, my very great friend, whose highly
honourable opinion of me, if the golden old man would permit, I
would put against a thousand Miltons. With God's help others will
appear, some of which, as but partly finished, I am keeping back,
while others are ready for issue. [A list of some of these,
including _Orationes Argumenti Sacri, cum Poematiis_: the list
closed with a statement that he has mentioned only his Latin works,
and not his French Sermons].

Every now and then there is a passage of retaliation on Milton. Here are two specimens:

MILTON'S OWN CHARACTER AND REPUTATION:--"Do not think, obscurely
though you live, that, because you have had the first innings in
this game in the art of slander, you therefore stand aloft beyond
the reach of darts. You have not the ring of Gyges to make you
invisible. Your virtues are taken note of. You are not such a
person, my friend, that Fame should fear to tell lies even about
_you_; and, unless Fame lies, there is not a meaner or more
worthless man going, and nothing is clearer than that you estimate
by your own morals the characters of other people. But I hope Fame
lies in this. For who could hear without the greatest pain--what I
for my part hardly, nay not to the extent of hardly, bring my mind
to credit--that there is a man living among Christians who, being
himself a concrete of every form of outrageous iniquity, could so
censure others?"

MILTON'S PRODIGIOUS SELF-ESTEEM:--"All which has so elated you that
you would be reckoned next after the very first man in England, and
sometimes put yourself higher than the supreme Cromwell himself;
whom you name familiarly, without giving him any title of rank,
whom you lecture under the guise of praising him, to whom you
dictate laws, assign boundaries to his rights, prescribe duties,
suggest counsels, and even hold out threats if he shall not behave
accordingly. You grant him arms and rule; you claim genius and the
gown for yourself. '_He only is to be called great_,' you say,
'_who has either done great things_'--Cromwell, to
wit!---'_or teaches great things_'--Milton on Divorce, to
wit!--'_or writes of them worthily_'--the same twice-great
Milton, I suppose, in his Defence of the English People!"

How does Morus proceed in the main business of clearing his own character from Milton's charges? His plan was to produce a dated and authenticated series of testimonials from others, extending over the period of his life which had been attacked, and to interweave these with explanations and an autobiographic memoir. He has reached the eightieth page of his book before he properly begins this enterprise. He gives first a testimonial from the Genevan Church, dated Jan. 25, 1648, and signed by seventeen ministers, of whom Diodati is one; then another from the Genevan Senate or Town Council, dated Jan. 26, 1648; then two more, one from the Church again, and one from the Senate again, both dated April 1648; then, among others, a special testimonial from Diodati, in the form of a long letter to Salmasius, dated "Geneva, 9th May, 1648." Diodati's testimonial, which is given both in French and in Latin, is the most interesting in itself, and will represent the others. "As to his morals," says Diodati, writing of Morus to Salmasius, "I can speak from intimate knowledge, and do so with, strict conscientiousness. His natural disposition is good and without deceit or reservation, frank and noble, such as ought to put him in very harmonious relations with all persons of honour and virtue, of whatsoever condition,--quick and very sensible to indignities, but easily coming to himself again: not one to provoke others, but yet one who has terrible spurs for his own defence. I have hardly seen any who have done themselves credit by attacking him. _Conscia virtus_, and you may add what belongs to the _genus irritabile vatum_, make him well armed against his assailants. For the rest, piety, honesty, temperance, freedom from all avarice or meanness, are found in him in a degree suitable to his profession."

Suddenly, just when we have read this, and seen Morus self-described as far as to the year 1648, when he was about to leave Geneva for Holland, the book comes to a dead stop. Diodati's letter ends on page 129; and when we turn over the leaf we find a Latin note from Ulac, headed "_The Printer to the Reader_" and expressed as follows:--

"Our labours towards finishing this Treatise had come to this
point, when lo! M. Morus, who had been staying for some time here
at the Hague with the intention of completing it, called away by I
know not what occasion to France, and with a favourable wind
hastening his journey, was prevented from bringing all to an end,
and so gratifying with every possible speed the desire of many
curious persons to read both Treatises at once, Milton's and
More's. What to do I was for some days uncertain; but some
gentlemen, not of small condition, at length persuaded me that I
should not defer longer the publication of what of his I had
already in print,--alleging that the remaining and still wanting
testimonies of eminent men, and of the Senates and Churches of
Middleburg, Amsterdam, &c., given for the vindication of M. Morus,
and which were here to have been subjoined, might be afterwards
printed separately when they reached me. Wishing to comply with
their request, and my own inclination too, I now therefore do
publish, Reader, what I am confident will please your curiosity, if
not in full measure, at least a good deal. Let whosoever desires to
see the sequel expect it as soon as possible."

Was there ever such an unfortunate as Morus? Everything everywhere seems to go wrong with him. Here, at the Hague, having absented himself from Amsterdam for the purpose, he has been writing his Defence of Himself against Milton, doing it cleverly and in a way likely to make some impression, when, suddenly, for some reason unknown even to his printer, he is obliged to break off for a journey into France, just as he was approaching the heart of his subject. Had he absconded? This seems actually to have been the construction, abroad. "Morus is gone into France," writes a Hague correspondent of Thurloe, Nov. 3, 1654; "it is believed that he has a calling, _et quidem a Castris_, and that he will not return to Amsterdam. They love well his renown and learning, but not his conversation; for they do not desire that he should come to visit the daughters of condition as he was used to do. He promised Ulac to finish his Apology; but he went away without taking his leave of him: so that you see that Ulac hath finished abrupt." Morus, as we shall find, did finish the book; but the _Fides Publica_, as it was first circulated in Holland towards the end of 1654, and as it first reached Milton, was the book abruptly broken off as above, at page 130, with the testimonials and the autobiography coming no farther down than the year 1648, when Morus had not yet left Geneva.

In January, 1654-5, when Milton had read Morus's _Fides Publica_ in its imperfect state, and was considering in what form he should reply to it, his thoughts on the subject must have been interrupted by the new misfortune of his friend Overton. What that was has already been explained generally (ante pp. 32-33); but the details of the incident belong to Milton's biography.

Overton's former misunderstanding with the Protector having been made up, he had been sent back to Scotland, as we saw, in September, 1654, to be Major-General there under Monk, and pledged to be faithful in his trust until he should himself give the Protector notice of his desire to withdraw from it. For a month or two, accordingly, all had gone well, Monk in the main charge of Scotland, with his head-quarters at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, and Overton in special charge of the North of Scotland, with his head-quarters at Aberdeen. Meanwhile, as Oliver's First Parliament had been incessantly opposing him, questioning his Protectorship, and labouring to subvert it, the anti-Oliverian temper had again been strongly roused throughout the country, and not least among the officers and soldiers of the army in Scotland. There had been meetings and consultations among them, and secret correspondence with scattered Republicans in England and with some of the Parliamentary Oppositionists, till at length, if Thurloe's informations were true, the design was nothing less than to depose Monk, put Overton in supreme command, and march into England under an anti-Oliverian banner. The Levellers, on the one side, and the Royalists, on the other, were to be drawn into the movement, if indeed there had not been actual communications already with agents of Charles II. It may be a question how far Overton himself was a party to the design; but it is certain that he had relapsed into his former anti-Oliverian humour, and was very uneasy in his post at Aberdeen. "I bless the Lord," he writes mysteriously from that town, Dec. 26, in answer to a letter of condolence from some friend--"I bless the Lord I do remember you and yours (by whom I am much remembered) so far as I am able in everything. I know right well you and others do it much for me; and, pray, dear Sir, do it still. Heave me up upon the wings of your prayers to Him who is a God hearing prayers and granting requests. Entreat Him to enable me to stand to his Truth; which I shall not do if He deject or forsake me." This letter, as well as several letters _to_ Overton, had been intercepted by Monk's vigilance; and hardly had it been written when Overton was arrested by Monk's orders, and brought to Leith. At Leith his papers were searched, and there was found in his letter-case this copy of verses in his own hand:--

"A Protector! What's that? 'Tis a stately thing
That confesseth itself but the ape of a King;
A tragical Cæsar acted by a clown,
Or a brass farthing stamped with a kind of crown;
A bauble that shines, a loud cry without wool;
Not Perillus nor Phalaris, but the bull;
The echo of Monarchy till it come;
The butt-end of a barrel in the shape of a drum;
A counterfeit piece that woodenly shows;
A golden effigies with a copper nose;
The fantastic shadow of a sovereign head;
The arms-royal reversed, and disloyal instead;
In fine, he is one we may Protector call,--
From whom the King of Kings protect us all!"

With this piece of doggrel, the intercepted letters, and the other informations, Overton was shipped off by Monk from Leith to London on the 4th of January, 1654-5; and on the 16th of that month he was committed to the Tower. Thence the next day he wrote a long letter to a private friend, in which he enumerates the charges against him, and replies to them one by one. He denies that he has broken trust with the Protector; he denies that he is a Leveller; and, what pleases us best of all, he denies the authorship of the doggrel lines just quoted. His exact words about these may be given. "But, say some, you made a copy of scandalous verses upon the Lord Protector, whereby his Highness and divers others were offended and displeased ... I must acknowledge I copied a paper of verses called _The Character of a Protector_; but I did neither compose them, nor (to the best of my remembrance) show them to any after I had writ them forth. They were taken out of my letter-case at Leith, where they had been a long time by me, neglected and forgotten. I had them from a friend, who wished my Lord [Cromwell] well, and who told me that his Lordship had seen them, and, I believe, laughed at them, as, to my knowledge, he hath done at papers and pamphlets of more personal and particular import and abuse." It is really a relief to know that Overton, who is still credited with these lines by Godwin, Guizot, and others, was not the author of them, and this not because of their peculiar political import, but because of their utter vulgarity. How else could we have retained our faith in Milton's character of Overton--"you, Overton, bound to me these many years past in a friendship of more than brotherly closeness and affection, both by the similarity of our tastes, and the sweetness of your manners"? Still to have copied and kept such lines implied some sympathy with their political meaning; and, Thurloe's investigations having made it credible otherwise that Overton was implicated, more than he would admit, in the design of a general rising against the Protector's Government, there was an end to the promising career of Milton's friend under the Protectorate. He remained from that time a close prisoner while Oliver lived. On the 3rd of July, 1656, I find, his wife, "Mrs. Anne Overton," had liberty from the Council "to abide with her husband in the Tower, if she shall so think fit."[1]

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, III. 75-77, and 110-112; Council Order Book, July 3, 1656. Godwin, whose accuracy can very seldom be impeached, had not turned to the last-cited pages of Thurloe; and hence he leaves the doggrel lines as indubitably Overton's own (_Hist. of Commonwealth_, IV. 163). Guizot and others simply follow Godwin in this, as in most things else.--That Overton's disaffection was very serious indeed, and that Cromwell had had good reason for his suspicions of him even on the former occasion, appears from the fact that among the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian there is a draft, in Hyde's hand, of a letter, dated April 1654, either actually sent, or meant to be sent, by Charles II. to Overton. The substance of the letter, as in Mr. Macray's abstract of it for the Calendar of the Clarendon Papers (II. 344), is as follows:--"_The King to Col. Ov[erton]._ Has received such information of his affection that he does not doubt it, and believes that he abhors those who, after all their pretences for the public, do now manifest that they have wholly intended to satisfy their own ambition. He has it in his power to redeem what he has heretofore done amiss; and the King is very willing to receive such a service as may make him a principal instrument of his restoration, for which whatsoever he or his family shall wish they shall receive, and what he shall promise to any of his friends who may concur with him shall be made good." If this letter was among those found among Overton's papers at Leith (which is not very likely), little wonder that Cromwell would not trust him at large a second time.]

At the date of Overton's imprisonment the Protector was making up his mind to dismiss his troublesome First Parliament after his four months and a half of experience of its temper; and six days after that date he did dismiss it, to its own surprise, before it had sent him up a single Bill. How many Latin letters had Overton's friend Milton written for the Protector in his official capacity during the four months and a half of that troublesome Parliament? So far as the records show, only three. They were as follows:--

(XLIX.) "To THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD, LUIS MENDEZ DE HARO,"
_Sept._ 4, 1654:[1]--The Spanish Prime Minister, Luis de Haro,
had recently, in the Protector's apparent indecision between the
Spanish alliance and the French alliance, resolved to try to secure
him for Spain by sending over a new Ambassador, to supersede
Cardenas, or to co-operate with him. He had announced the same in
letters to Cromwell; who now thanks him, professes his desire to be
in friendship with Spain, and promises every attention to the new
Ambassador when he may arrive, Cromwell pays a compliment to the
minister himself. "To have your affection and approbation," he
says, "who by your worth and prudence have acquired such authority
with the King of Spain that you preside, with a mind to match, over
the greatest affairs of that kingdom, ought truly to be a pleasure
to me corresponding with my apprehension of the honour I shall have
from the good opinion of a man of excellence." Milton is dexterous
in wording his documents.

[Footnote 1: No. 29 in Skinner Transcript (where exact date is given); No. 47 in Printed Collection and in Phillips (where month only is given).]

(L.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF THE CITY OF BREMEN, _Oct.
25_, 1654:--There has come to be a conflict between the City of
Bremen and the new King of Sweden, arising from military designs of
that King on the southern shores of the North Sea and the Baltic,
Bremen is in great straits; and the authorities have represented
this to Cromwell through their agent, Milton's friend, Henry
Oldenburg, and have requested Cromwell's good offices with the
Swedish King. Cromwell answers that he has done what they want. He
has great respect for Bremen as a thoroughly Protestant city, and
he regrets that there should he a quarrel between it and the
powerful Protestant Kingdom of Sweden, having no stronger desire
than that "the whole Protestant denomination should at length
coalesce in one by fraternal agreement and concord."

(LI.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Oct._ 28, 1654:--As
announced to the Bremeners in the last letter, Cromwell did write
on their behalf to the Swedish King. He had hoped that the great
Peace of Munster or Westphalia (1648) had left all continental
Protestants united, and he regrets to hear that a dispute between
Sweden and the Bremeners has arisen out of that Treaty. How
dreadful that Protestant Swedes and Protestant Bremeners, once in
league against the common foe, should now be slaughtering each
other! Can nothing be done? Could not advantage be taken of the
present truce? He will himself do anything in his power to bring
about a permanent reconciliation.

These three letters, it will be observed, belong to the first two months of that cramped and exasperated condition in which Oliver found himself when he had his First Parliament by his side; and there is not a single preserved letter of Milton for Oliver between Oct. 26, 1654, the date of the last of the three, and Jan. 22, 1654-5, the date of the sudden dissolution of the Parliament. The reason of this idleness of Milton, in his Secretaryship during those three months, leaving all the work to Meadows, must have been, I believe, that he was then engaged on a Reply to More's _Fides Publica_ in the imperfect state in which it had just come forth. All along, as we have seen, the Literary Defence of the Commonwealth on every occasion of importance had been regarded as the special charge of Milton in his Secretaryship, to which routine duty must give way; and, as his _Defensio Secunda_ in reply to the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ had been, like several of his preceding writings, a task performed by him on actual commission from the Rump Government, though not finished till the Protectorate had begun, Oliver and his Council may have thought it but fair that another pamphlet of the same series in reply to the _Fides Publica_ of Morus should count also to the credit of Milton's official services, even though it must necessarily be more a pamphlet of mere personal concern than any of its predecessors. But, indeed, by this time, Mr. Milton was a privileged man, who might regulate matters very much for himself, and drop in on Thurloe and Meadows at the office only when he liked.