Chapter XIV: Section II: From January 1654-5 to September 1656, or Through the (2)

[Footnote 2: One of the phrases in this letter about the poor Piedmontese Protestants is "_nunc sine tare, sine teoto, ... per monies desertos atque nives, cum conjugibus ac liberis, miserrime vagantur_." The phrase occurs almost verbatim in Morland's speech to the Duke of Savoy--"_sine lare, sine tecto ... cum suis conjugibus ac liberis vagari_."]

(LVI.) TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _May_ 25,
1655:--To the same effect as the last, _mutatis mutandis_.
What sovereign can be more ready to stir in such a cause than his
Swedish majesty, the successor of those who have been champions of
the Protestantism of Europe? Gladly will the Protector form a
league with him and with other powers to do whatever may be
necessary.

(LVII.) TO THE KING OF DENMARK, May 25, 1655:[1]--An appeal in the
same strain to his Danish Majesty: phraseology varied a little, But
matter the same.

[Footnote 1: This and the last both so dated in official copy as printed in Morland's book, pp. 554-557; dated only "May 1655" in Skinner Transcript, Printed Collection, and Phillips.]

(LVIII.) TO LOUIS XIV., KING OF FRANCE, May 25, 1655:[1]--The story
recapitulated for the benefit of his French Majesty, with the
addition that it is reported that some troops of his Majesty had
assisted the Piedmontese soldiery in the attack on the Vaudois.
This the Protector can hardly believe: it would be so much against
that policy of Toleration which the Kings of France have found
essential for the peace of their own dominions. The Protector
cannot doubt, at all events, that his Majesty will use his powerful
influence with the Duke of Savoy to induce him at once, as far as
may be possible, to repair the outrageous wrong already done.

[Footnote 1: This Letter is omitted in the Printed Collection and in Phillips; but it is given in the Skinner Transcript (No. 38 there), and Mr. Hamilton has printed it in his Milton Papers (p. 2). It had already been printed in Morland's book (pp. 564-565).]

(LIX.) TO THE MOST EMINENT LORD, CARDINAL MAZARIN, _May_ 25,
1625:[1]--Not content with writing to Louis XIV., Cromwell
addressed also the great French Minister. After mentioning the
dreadful occasion, the letter proceeds--"There is clearly nothing
which has obtained for the French nation greater esteem with all
their neighbours professing the Reformed Religion than the liberty
and privileges permitted and granted to Protestants by edicts and
public acts. It is for this reason chiefly, though for others as
well, that this Commonwealth has sought for the friendship and
alliance of the French to a greater degree than before. For the
settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings
here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost
brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and
moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most
important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French
Protestants, causes me to hope much from your own prudence and
magnanimity."

[Footnote 1: Utterly undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips, and quite misplaced in both; properly dated "May 25, 1655" in Skinner Transcript.]

(LX.) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, _May_ 25,
1655:[1]--To the same effect as the letters to the Swiss Cantons
and the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, but with emphatic expression
of his Highness's peculiar confidence In the Dutch Republic in such
a crisis. He offers in the close to act in concert with the
States-General and other Protestant powers for any interference
that may be necessary.

[Footnote 1: So dated in official copy, as printed in Morland's book, pp. 558-560; but undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips, and dated "_West., Junii_--1655" in Skinner Transcript (No. 41 there). This last is a mistake; for Thurloe speaks of the letter as already written May 25 (Thurloe to Pell, _Vaughan's Protectorate_, I. 185). The official copy, as given in Morland, differs somewhat from Milton's draft. "_Ego_" for Cromwell, in one sentence, is changed into "_Nos;_" and the closing words of the draft, "_et is demum, sentiet orthodoxnon injurias atque miserias tam graves non posse nos negligere_" are omitted in the official copy, possibly as too strong. These may be among the amendments made in Council, May 23.]

(LXI.) TO THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA, _May_,
1655:[1]--Transylvania, now included in the Austrian Empire, was
then an independent Principality of Eastern Europe, in precarious
and variable relations with Austria, Poland, Russia, and the
Ottoman Empire. The population, a mixture of Wallachs, Magyars.
Germans, and Slavs, was largely Protestant; and the present Prince,
George Ragotzki, was an energetic supporter of the Protestant
interest in that part of Europe, and a man generally of much
political and military activity. He had written, it appears, to
Cromwell on the 16th of November, 1654, and had sent an Envoy to
England with the letter. It had expressed his earnest desire for
friendship and alliance with the Protector, and for co-operation
with him in the defence of the Reformed Religion. Cromwell now
acknowledges the letter and embassy, with high compliments to the
Prince personally, of whose merits and labours there had been so
much fame. This leads him at once to the Piedmontese business. Is
not that an opportunity for the co-operation his Serenity had
mentioned? At any rate, it behoves all Protestant princes to be on
the alert; for who knows how far the Duke of Savoy's example may
spread?

[Footnote 1: Dated so in Skinner Transcript, Printed Collection, and Phillips--with the addition "Westminster" in the first, and "Whitehall" in the two last: no copy given in Morland's book.]

(LXII.) TO THE CITY OF GENEVA, _June_ 8, 1655:--This letter
announces the collection in progress in England for the relief of
the Piedmontese Protestants. It will take some time to complete the
collection; but meanwhile the first instalment of £2000 [Cromwell's
personal contribution] is remitted for immediate use. His Highness
is quite sure that the City authorities of Geneva will cheerfully
take charge of the money, and see it distributed among those most
in need. A postscript bids the Genevese expect £1500 of the sum
through Gerard Hensch of Paris, and the remaining £500 through Mr.
Stoupe, a well known travelling agent of Cromwell and Thurloe.

(LXIII.) TO THE KING OF FRANCE, _July_ 29, 1655:--The
Protector here acknowledges an answer received to his previous
letter of May 25. [The answer had been delivered to Morland early
in June, when he was on his way through Paris, and transmitted by
him to the Protector. A translation of it is given in Morland's
book, pp. 566-567.] He is glad to be confirmed in his belief that
the French officers who lent their troops to assist the Piedmontese
soldiery in that bloody business did so without his Majesty's order
and against his will--glad also to learn that these officers have
been rebuked, and that his Majesty has, of his own accord,
remonstrated with the Duke of Savoy, and advised him to stop his
persecution of the Vaudois. As no effect has yet been produced
however, [Morland has by this time delivered his speech at Turin,
and reported the dubious answer given by the Duke of Savoy: ante
pp. 42-43], the Protector is now despatching a special envoy [i.e.
Mr. George Downing] to Turin, to make farther remonstrances. This
envoy will pass through Paris, and his mission will have the
greater chance of success if his Majesty will take the opportunity
of again impressing his views upon the Duke. By so doing, by
punishing those French officers who employed his Majesty's troops
so disgracefully, and by sheltering such of the poor Vaudois as may
have sought refuge in France, his Majesty will earn the respect of
other Powers, and will strengthen the loyalty of his own Protestant
subjects.

(LXIV.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN, _July_ 29, 1655:--This is a
special note, accompanying the foregoing letter, and introducing
and recommending Mr. Downing to his Eminence.

Besides these official documents for Cromwell on the Piedmontese business, there came from Milton his memorable Sonnet on the same, expressing his own feelings, and Cromwell's too, with less restraint. It may have been in private circulation at the Protector's Court at the date of the last two of the ten letters:

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[1]

[Footnote 1: If Morland's speech at Turin was of Milton's composition, as we have found probable, the contrast between one phrase in that speech and the opening of this Sonnet is curious. "Do not, great God, do not seek the revenge due to this iniquity," says the Speech; "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," says the Sonnet.]

From the Piedmontese Massacre we have now to revert to Morus. His _Fides Publica_, in reply to Milton's _Defensio Secunda_, had been published in an incomplete state, as we have seen, by Ulac at the Hague in August or September 1654; and Milton had a rejoinder to this publication ready or nearly ready, as we have also seen, by the end of March 1655. The reason why this Rejoinder had not already appeared has now to be stated.

One of Morus's reasons for hurrying into France so unexpectedly, and leaving his unfinished book in Ulac's hands, seems to have been the chance of a professorship or pastorship there that would enable him to quit Holland permanently, and settle at length in his own country. "Some speak of calling Morus, against whom Mr. Milton writes so sharply, to be Professor of Divinity at Nismes; but most men say it will ruin that church," is a piece of Parisian news sent by Pell to Thurloe in a letter from Zurich dated Oct. 28, 1654;[1] and, with that prospect, or some other, Morus seems to have remained in France for some time after that date. When copies of his incomplete _Fides Publica_ reached him there, he may not have thanked Ulac for issuing the book in such a state without leave given. All the more, however, he must have felt himself obliged to complete the book. Accordingly he did, from France, forward the rest of the MS. to Ulac, with the result of the appearance at last from Ulac's press of a supplementary volume with this title: "_Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastæ et Sacrarum Litterum Professoris, Supplementum Fidei Publicæ contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni. Hagae-Comitum, Typis Adriani Ulacq, 1655._" ("Supplement to the Public Testimony of Alexander Morus, Churchman and Professor of Sacred Literature, in reply to the Calumnies of John Milton. Hague: Printed by Adrian Ulac, 1655.") Ulac prefixes, under the heading "_The Printer to the Reader_," a brief explanatory Preface. "You have here, good Reader," he says, "the missing remainder of the edition of a Treatise which we lately printed and published under the title _Aleaxandri Mori Fides Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni_. This remainder that Reverend gentleman has sent me from France. Of the whole matter judge as may seem fair and just to you. Let it suffice for me to have satisfied your curiosity. Farewell." It must have been this _Supplementum_ of Morus, reaching London perhaps in April 1655, or perhaps during the first busy correspondence about the Piedmontese massacre, that delayed the appearance of Milton's already written Rejoinder to the imperfect _Fides Publica_. He would notice this "Supplement" as well as the volume already published, and so have done with Morus altogether.

[Footnote 1: Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 73; where "Mr. Miton" appears as "Mr. Hulton."]

Morus's _Supplementum_ consists of 105 pages, added to the original _Fides Publica_, but numbered onwards from the last page there, so as to admit of the binding of the two volumes into one volume consecutively paged, though with two title-pages, differently dated. The matter also proceeds continuously from the point at which the _Fides Publica_, broke off. Referring to the testimony borne to his character in the venerable Diodati's Letter from Geneva to Salmasius, dated May 9, 1648, and connecting it with Milton's mention of his personal acquaintance with Diodati formed in his visit to Geneva in 1639, Morus addresses Milton thus:

"This is that John Diodati upon whom you cast no small stain by
your praise, and who truly, if he were alive, would prefer to be in
the number of those who are vituperated by you. Would he
_were_ alive! How he would beat back your pride, not indeed
with other pride, but with the gravest smile of contempt! How he
would despise in his great mind your thoughts, sayings, acts, all
in one! How he would anticipate your fine satire, and, moved with
holy loathing, spit upon it! '_With him_,' you say, '_I had
daily society at Geneva_.' But what did you learn from him? What
of desirable contagion did you carry away from his acquaintance?
Often have we heard him enumerating those friends he had in your
country whom he commended on the score of either learning or
goodness. Of _you_ we never heard a syllable from him."

Then, after telling of his affectionate parting with Diodati at Geneva, when both, were in tears and the old man blessed him, he proceeds to quote other Testimonials, either in French or in Latin. Four more are still from former Swiss friends:--viz. an extract from another letter of Diodati, addressed to M. L'Empereur; a letter from M. Sartoris to Salmasius, dated Geneva, April 5, 1648; a testimonial from the lawyer Gothofridius, dated Geneva, May 24, 1648; and a subsequent letter from the same, dated Basel, April 23, 1651. All are very complimentary. Passing then to his life in Holland after leaving Switzerland, Morus continues the series of his testimonials. We have first, in French or Latin, or both, a letter from the Church at Middleburg to the Church at Geneva, dated Nov. 2, 1649, an extract from a letter of the Synod of the Walloon Churches of the United Provinces to the Pastors and Professors of Geneva, dated May 6, 1650, and a testimonial from the Church of Middleburg, on the occasion of sending M. Morus as deputy to the said Synod, dated April 19, 1650. More documents of the same kind follow, chiefly for the purpose of disproving the assertion that M. Morus had been condemned and ejected by the Middleburg Church. They include an extract from the Acts of the Consistory of the Walloon Church of Middleburg, dated July 10, 1652, a testimonial from the Middleburg Church of the same date, and an extract from the Articles of the Synod of the Walloon Churches held at Groede, Aug. 21-23, 1652. Having thus brought himself, with ample testimonials of character, to the date of his removal from the Middleburg Church to the Professorship in Amsterdam, he takes up more expressly the _Accusatio de Bontid_ or Bontia scandal. He gives what he calls the true and exact version of that story, with those details about Madame de Saumaise and her quarrel with him on Bontia's account which have already appeared in our narrative. He lays stress on the fact that it was himself that had instituted the law-process, and persevered in it to the end; and he dwells at some length on the successful issue of the case both in the Walloon Synod and in the Supreme Court of Holland. He has evidence, he says, that Salmasius, to his dying day, spoke in high terms of him, and admitted that Madame de Saumaise was in the wrong. "This statement has been made," he says, "not solely in reply to your insolence, but also out of regard for the weakness and ignorance of those at a distance who have imbibed the venom of the calumny and heard of the spiteful revenge to which I was subject, but not of the unusual sequel of its judicial discomfiture. All of whom, but especially my friends and countrymen, amid whom there has happened to me the same that happened to Basil among _his_ neighbours, I request and beseech by all that is sacred not rashly to credit mere report, much less the letters which my adversaries have sent hither and thither through all nations, especially after they perceived that they were driven from all their defences at home, judging that they would more easily invest their lie with belief and authority in distant parts. Fair critics, I doubt not, will at least suspend their judgment, and not incline to either side, until there shall have reached them a just narrative of the facts, truly and freely written by a friend, the publication of which has hitherto been kept back at my desire." Three additional testimonials are then appended to show that his reputation had not suffered in Amsterdam on account of the Saumaise-Bontia scandal, and especially that the rumour that he had been suspended from ministerial functions there was utterly untrue. These Amsterdam testimonials, as being the latest in date, and the most important in Morus's favour, may be given in abstract:--

_From the Magistrates of Amsterdam, July 11, 1654_:--"Whereas
the Reverend and very learned Mr. Alexander Morus, Professor of
Sacred History in our illustrious School, has complained to us that
one John Milton, in a lately published book, has attacked his
reputation with atrocious calumnies, and has added moreover that
the Magistrates of Amsterdam have interdicted him the pulpit, and
that only his Professorship of Greek remains,... We, &c.,
testify." What they testify is that, since Morus had come to
Amsterdam, "not only had he done nothing which could afford ground
for such calumnies, or was unworthy of a Christian and Theologian,"
but he had also discharged the duties of his Professorship with
extraordinary learning, eloquence and acceptance. So far,
therefore, were the Magistrates from censuring M. Morus that, on
the contrary, they were ready still, on any occasion, to afford him
all the protection and show him all the good will in their power.
The certificate is sealed with the City seal, and signed by "N.
Nicolai," the City clerk.

_From the Amsterdam Church (about same date)_:--Three Pastors
of this Church--Gothofrid Hotton, Henry Blanche-Tete, and Nicolas
de la Bassecour--certify, "in the name of the whole convocation of
the Gallo-Belgie Church of Amsterdam," that Morus discharges his
Professorship with high credit; also "that, as regards his life and
conversation, they are so far from knowing or acknowledging him to
be guilty of those things of which he is accused by one Milton, an
Englishman, in his lately published book, that, on the contrary,
they have frequently requested sermons from him, and he has
delivered such in the church, excellent in quality and perfectly
orthodox,--which could not have occurred if anything of the alleged
kind had been known to his brethren (_quod heud factum fuisset si
hujusmodi quioquam nobis innotuisset_)."

_From the Curators of the Amsterdam School, July 29,
1654_:--To the same effect, with the story of the circumstances
of the appointment of Morus to the Professorship. They had been
very anxious to get him, and he had justified their choice. "We
think the calumnies with which he is undeservedly loaded arise from
nothing else than the ill-will which is the inseparable
accompaniment of especially distinguished virtue." Signed, for the
Curators, by "C. de Graef" and "Simon van Hoorne."

After asking Milton how he can face these flat contradictions of his charges, not from mere individuals, but from important public bodies, and saying that "one favourable nod from any one of the persons concerned would be worth more than the vociferations of a thousand Miltons to all eternity," Morus corrects Milton's mistake as to the nature of his Professorship. It is not a Professorship of Greek, but of Sacred History, involving Greek only in so far as one might refer in one's lectures to Josephus or the Greek Fathers. But he _had_ been a Professor of Greek--in Geneva, to wit, when little over twenty years of age. Nor, in spite of all Milton's facetiousness on the subject of Greek, and his puns on _Morus_ in Greek, was he ashamed of the fact. "For all learning whatever is Greek, so that whoever despises Greek Literature, or professors of the same, must necessarily be a sciolist." And here he detects the reason of Milton's incessant onslaughts on Salmasius. Milton was evidently most ambitious of the fame of scholarship, as appeared from his anticipations of immortality in his Latin poems; and, though he might be a fair Latinist--not immaculate in Latin either, as he might hear some time or other from Salmasius himself, though that was a secret yet--he knew that he could never snatch away from Salmasius the palm of the highest, i.e. of Greek, scholarship. Morus does not claim for himself the title of a perfect classic; he is content with his present position and its duties. Admirable lessons in life are to be obtained from the study of Church History. Of these not the least is the verification of the words in the Gospel, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you." What calumnies had been borne by Jerome, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and others of the best of men! With such examples before one, why should an insignificant person, like the writer, conscious too of many faults and weaknesses, take calumny too much to heart? This pathetic strain, attained towards the close of the book, is maintained most skilfully in the peroration.

"But, if credit enough is not given to my own solemn affirmation,
nor to this Public Testimony, Thee, Lord God, I make finally my
witness, who explorest the inmost recesses of the spirit, who
triest the reins, and knowest the secret motives of the breast, a
Searcher of hearts to whom, as if by thorough dissection, all
things are bare. Thee, God, Thee I call as my witness, who shalt
one day be my Judge and the Judge of all, whether it is not the
case that men see in this heart of mine what Thou seest not. Would
that Thou didst not also see in the same heart what they do not
see! But ah me! I am far baser in reality than they feign.
Suppliantly I adore the will of Thy Providence that permits me to
be falsely accused among men on account of so many hidden faults of
which I am truly guilty in Thy sight. Thou, Lord, saidst to Shimei,
'Curse David.' Glory be to Thy name that hast chosen to preserve
me, exercised with so many griefs, that I may serve Thyself. There
is one great sin discernible in my soul, which I confess before the
whole world. I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength;
that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me
I have not yet turned to full account--whether because I have
followed too much the pleasures of mere study, or whether I have
consumed too much time and labour in refuting the invectives of the
evil-disposed, to whom, such has been Thy pleasure, I have been
constantly an object of attack. Cover the past for me, regulate the
future. Cleared before men, before Thee I shall be cleared never,
unless Thy mercy shall be my succour. I confess I have sinned
against Thee, nor shall I do so more. Thou seest how this paper on
which I write is now all wet with my tears: pardon me, Redeemer
mine, and grant that the vow I now take to Thee I may sacredly
perform. Let a thousand dogs bark at me, a thousand bulls of Bashan
rush upon me, as many lions war against my soul, and threaten me
with destruction, I will reply no more, defended enough if only I
feel Thee propitious. I will no more waste the time due to Thee,
sacred to Thee, in mere trifles, or lose it in beating off the
importunity of moths. Whatever extent of life it shall please Thee
to appoint me still, I vow, I dedicate, all to Thee, all to Thy
Church. So shall we be revenged on our enemies. Convert us all,
Thou who only canst. Forgive us, forgive them also; nor to us, nor
to them, but to Thy name, be the glory!"

Milton read this, but was not moved. On the 8th of August, 1655, there was published his Rejoinder to the original _Fides Publica_, with his notice of the _Supplementum_ appended. It is a small volume of 204 pages, entitled _Joannis Miltoni_, _Angli_, _Pro Se Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum_, _Ecclesiasten_, _Libelli famosi_, _cui titulus 'Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cælum adversus Parricidas Anglicanus'_, _authorem recte dictum. Londini_, _Typis Newcomianis_, 1655 ("The English, John Milton's Defence for Himself, in reply to Alexander Morus, Churchman, rightly called the author of the notorious book entitled 'Cry of the King's Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides,' London, from Newcome's Press, 1655"). This is perhaps the least known now of all Milton's writings. It has never been translated, even in the wretched fashion in which his _Defensio Prima_ and _Defensio Secunda_ have been; and it is omitted altogether in some professed editions of Milton's whole works.[1]

[Footnote 1: The date of publication is from the Thomason copy in the British Museum.]

After a brief Introduction, in which Milton remarks that the quarrel, which was originally for Liberty and the English People, has now dwindled into a poor personal one, he discusses afresh, as the first real point in dispute, the question of the authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_. Morus's denials, or seeming denials, go for nothing. Any man may deny anything; there are various ways of denial; and he still maintains that Morus is, to all legal intents and purposes, responsible for the book. "Unless I show this." he says, "unless I make it plain either that you are the author of that most notorious book against us, or that you have given sufficient occasion for justly regarding you as the author, I do not object to the conclusion that I have been beaten by you in this controversy, and come out of it ignominiously, with disgrace and shame." How is this strong statement supported? In the first place, there is reproduced the evidence of original, universal, and persistent rumour. "This I say religiously, that through two whole years I met no one, whether a countryman of my own or a foreigner, with whom there could be talk about that book, but they all agreed unanimously that you were called its author, and they named no one for the author but you." To Morus's assertion that he had openly, loudly, and energetically disowned the book, where suspected of the authorship, Milton returns a complex answer. Partly he does not believe the assertion, on the ground that there were many who had heard Morus confessing to the book and boasting of it. Partly he asks why such energetic repudiations were necessary, and why, in spite of them, intimate friends of Morus retained their former opinion. Partly he admits that there may latterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was danger in being thought the author. Any criminal will deny his crime in sight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus had reason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ was forthcoming, what had not the author of that book to dread after the Peace between the Dutch and the Commonwealth had been concluded? By articles IX., X., and XI. of the Peace it was provided that no public enemy of the Commonwealth should have residence, shelter, living, or commerce, within the bounds of the United Provinces; and who more a public enemy of the Commonwealth than the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_? No wonder that, after that Peace, Morus had trembled for the consequences of his handiwork. The loss of his Amsterdam Professorship, instant ejection from Holland, and prohibition of return under pain of death, were what he had to fear. Were not these powerful enough motives for denial to a man like Morus? Had not Milton, when he learnt by letters from Durie in May 1654 that Morus was disowning--the book, been entitled to remember these motives? For what other evidence had been produced besides Morus's own word? His friend Hotton's only; and that was no independent testimony, but only Morus's at second hand. And even now, after Morus's repeated and studiously-worded denials in his _Fides Publica_, how did the case stand?

"That book [the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_] consists of various
prooemia and epilogues [i.e. addition to the central text]--to wit,
_An Epistle to Charles_, another _To the Reader_, and two
sets of verses at the close, one eulogistic of Salmasius, the other
in defamation of me. Now, if I find that you wrote or contributed
any page of this whole book, even a single verse, or that you
published it, or procured it, or advised it, or superintended the
publishing, or even lent the smallest particle of aid therein, you
alone, since no one else is to the fore, shall be to me responsible
for the whole, the author, the 'Crier'. Nor can you call this
merely my severity or vehemence; for this is the procedure
established among almost all nations by right and laws of equity. I
will adduce, as universally accepted, the Imperial Civil Law. Read
_Institut. Justiniani l. IV. De Injuriis, Tit. 4_: 'If any one
shall write, compose, or publish, or with evil design cause the
writing, composing, or publishing, of a book or poem (or story) for
the defamation of any one,' &c. Other laws add 'Even should he
publish in the name of another, or without name;' and all decree
that the person is to be taken for the author and punished as such.
I ask you now, not whether you wrote the text of the _Regii
Sanguinis Clamor_, but whether you made, wrote, published, or
caused to be published, the Epistle Dedicatory to Charles prefixed
to the _Clamor_, or any particle thereof; I ask whether you
composed or caused to be published the other Epistle to the Reader,
or finally that Defamatory Poem, You have replied nothing yet to
these precise questions. By merely disowning the _Clamor_
itself and strenuously swearing that you wrote no portion of it,
you thought to escape with safe credit, and make game of us,
inasmuch as the Epistle to Charles the Son, or that to the Reader,
or the set of Iambic verses, is not the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_. Take now this in brief, therefore, that you may not be
able so to wheel about or prevaricate in future, or hope for any
escape or concealment, and that all may know how far from
mendacious, how veritable on the contrary, or at least not
unfounded, was that report which arose about you: take, I say, this
in brief,--that I have ascertained, not by report alone, but by
testimony than which none can be surer, that you managed the
bringing out of the whole book entitled _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_, and corrected the printer's proofs, and composed,
either alone, or in association with one or two others, the Epistle
to Charles II. which bears Ulac's name. Of this your own name
'ALEXANDER MORUS,' subscribed to some copies of that Epistle, has
been too clear and ocular proof to many witnesses of the fact for
you to be able to deny the charge or to get rid of it.... There are
several who have heard yourself either admit, on interrogation,
that that Epistle is yours, or declare the fact spontaneously....
If you ask on what evidence I, at such a distance, make these
statements, and how they can have become so certain to myself, I
reply that it is not on the evidence of rumour merely, but partly
on that of most scrupulous witnesses who have most solemnly made
the assertions to myself personally, partly on that of letters
written either to myself or to others. I will quote the very words
of the letters, but will not give the names of the writers,
considering that unnecessary in matters of such notoriety
independently. Here you have first an extract from a letter to me
from the Hague, the writer of which is a man of probity and had no
common means of investigating this affair:--'I have ascertained
beyond doubt (_exploratissimum mihi est_) that Morus himself
offered the copy of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_ to some other
printers before Ulac received it, that he superintended the
correction of the errors of the press, and that, as soon as the
book was finished, copies were given and distributed by him to not
a few.'... Take again the following, which a highly honourable and
intelligent man in Amsterdam writes as certainly known to himself
and as abundantly witnessed there:--'It is most certain that almost
all through these parts have regarded Morus as the author of the
book called _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_; for he corrected the
sheets as they came from the press, and some copies bore the name
of Morus subscribed to the Dedicatory Epistle, of which also he
was the author. He himself told a certain friend of mine that he
was the author of that Epistle: nay there is nothing more certain
than that Morus either assumed or acknowledged the authorship of
the same.' ... I add yet a third extract. It is from another letter
from the Hague:--'A man of the first rank in the Hague has told me
that he has in his possession a copy of the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_ with Morus's own letter.'"

Farther on Milton re-adverts to the same topic, in a passage which it is also well to quote:

"You say you 'will produce not rumours merely, not conversations
merely, but letters, in proof that I had been warned not to assail
an innocent man.' Let us then inspect the letter you publish, which
was written to you by 'that highly distinguished man, Lord
Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation,'--a letter, it is
evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of
proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He--and it
shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man'
(for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble
on your most unworthy account?)--goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He
communicates your letter to Mr. Secretary. When he saw that he had
no success, he sends to me two honourable persons, friends of mine,
with that same letter of yours. What do they do? They read me that
letter of Morus, and they request, and say that Ambassador Nieuport
also requests, that I will trust to your letter in which you deny
being the author of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_. I answered
that what they asked was not fair--that neither was Morus's word
worth so much, nor was it customary to believe, in contradiction to
common report and other ascertained evidence, the mere letter of an
accused person and an adversary denying what was alleged against
him. They, having nothing more to say on the other side, give up
the debate.... When afterwards the Ambassador wanted to persuade
Mr. Secretary Thurloe, he had still no argument to produce but the
same copy of your letter; whence it is quite clear that those
'reasons' brought to me 'for which he desired' me to be so good as
not to publish my book had nothing to do with reasons of State. Do
not then corrupt the Ambassador's letter. Nothing there of 'hostile
spirit,' nothing of the 'inopportune time;' all he writes is that
he 'is sorry I had chosen, notwithstanding his request, to show so
little moderation'--sorry, that is, that I had not chosen, at his
private request, to oblige you, a public adversary, and to recall
and completely rewrite a work already printed and all but out. Let
'the highly distinguished man,' especially as an Ambassador, hold
me excused if I would not, and really could not, condone public
injuries on private intercessions."

Before Milton passes to the review of Morus's vindication of his character and past career, he disposes of Dr. Crantzius and Ulac, as objects intervening between him and that main task. For the _Fides Publica_, it will be remembered, had been bound up with that Hague edition of Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ to which the Rev. Dr. Crantzius had prefixed a preface in rebuke of Milton and in defence of Morus, and to which Ulac had also prefixed a statement replying to Milton's charges against him of dishonesty and bankruptcy. Several pages are given to Dr. Crantzius, who is called "a certain I know not what sort of a bed-ridden little Doctor," then taxed with ignorance, garrulity, and general imbecility, and at last kicked out of the way with the phrase "But I do marvellously delight in Doctors." Ulac, as having been reckoned with before, receives briefer notice. "_You are a swindler, Ulac_, said I; _I am a good Arithmetician_, says Ulac:" so the notice begins; and then follow some sentences to the effect that Ulac's creditors had been very ill satisfied with his _counting_, that the rule of probity is not the _Logarithmic canon_, that correct accounts are different things from _Tables of Sines_ or _Tables of Tangents and Secants_, and that acting on the square is not necessarily taught by _Trigonometry_. After which Milton reverts to Ulac's double-dealings with himself, first in his fathering the abusive Dedication of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ while he was corresponding with Milton's friends in London and making kind inquiries about Milton's health, and next in bringing out a pirated edition of the _Defensio Secunda_, printing the same inaccurately, and actually binding it up with the _Fides Publica_ of Morus, so as to compel a united sale of the two books for his own profit. How a man could have published so coolly a book in which he was himself held up as a rogue and swindler passes Milton's comprehension; but Ulac, he seems to admit, was no ordinary tradesman.

For poor Morus himself there is not an atom of mercy yet. All his dexterous pleading, all his declarations of innocence, all his pathetic appeals, all his citations of the decisions in his favour in the Bontia case by the Walloon Synod and the Supreme Court of Holland, are simply trampled under foot, and the charges formerly made against him are ruthlessly reiterated as true nevertheless. There are even additional details, and fresh charges of the same kind, derived from more recent information. The plan adopted by Milton is to go over the _Fides Publica_, extracting phrases and sentences from it, and commenting on each extract; but the general effect of the book is that of the ruthless chasing round and round of the poor ecclesiastic in a biographical ellipse, the two foci of which are Geneva and Leyden.

Distinct evidence is produced that both at Geneva and in Holland the _fama_ against Morus was still as strong as ever. The evidence takes the form of extracts from two letters received by Milton since the _Fides Publica_ had appeared;--

_From a Letter from Geneva, dated Oct. 14, 1654_ (i.e. from
that letter of Ezekiel Spanheim of which Milton had told Spanheim
that he meant to avail himself, though without mentioning the
writer's name: sec ante pp. 172-173). "Our people here cannot
sufficiently express their wonder that you are so thoroughly
acquainted with the private history of a man unknown to you
personally, and that you have painted him so in his native colours
that not even by those with whom he has been on the most familiar
terms could the whole play-acting career of the man (_tota,
hominis histrionia_) have been more accurately or happily set
forth; whence they are at a loss, and I with them, to understand
with what face, shameless though he is and impudent-mouthed, he is
on the point of daring again to appear in the public theatre. For
it is the consummation and completeness of your success in this
part of the business that you have not brought forward either
imagined or otherwise unknown charges against the man, but charges
of common repetition in the mouths of all his greatest friends
even, and which can be clearly corroborated by the authority and
vote of the whole assembly, and even by the accession of farther
criminations to the same effect... I would assure you that hardly
any one can now longer be found here, where for many years he
discharged a public-office, but greatly to the disgrace of this
Church, who would dare or undertake longer to lend his
countenance to the man's prostituted character."

_From a Letter from Durie at Basel, Oct. 3, 1654_:--"As
regards Morus's vices and profligacy, Hotton does not seem to
entertain that opinion of him; I know, however, that others speak
very ill of him, that his hands are against nearly everybody and
everybody's hands against him, and that many ministers even of the
Walloon Synod are doing their best to have him deprived of the
pastoral office. Nor here in Basel do I find men's opinion of him
different from that in Holland of those who like him least."

The fresh, particulars of information that Milton had received about Morus and his alleged misdeeds are unsparingly brought out. The name of the woman of bad character at Geneva with whom Morus was said to have been implicated there, and the scandal about whom had driven him from Geneva, has now been ascertained by Milton. It was Claudia Pelletta; and of her name, and all the topographical details of Morus's alleged meetings with her, there is enough and more than enough. Claudia Pelletta at Geneva, and Bontia at Leyden, pull Morus between them page after page: not that they only have claims, for in one sentence we hear of an insulted widow somewhere in Holland, and in another of a dubious female figure seen one rainy night with Morus in a street in Amsterdam. But Bontia is still Milton's favourite. He repeats the Latin epigram about her and Morus; he apologizes for having hitherto called her Pontia, attributes the error to a misreading of the MS. of that epigram when it first came from Holland, but says he still thinks Pontia the prettier name; and, using information that had recently reached him, though we have been in prior possession of something equivalent (Vol. IV. p. 465), he thus reminds Morus of his most memorable meeting with that brave damsel:--

"You remember perhaps that day, nay I am sure you remember the day,
and the hour and the place too, when, as I think, you and Pontia
[he still keeps to the form 'Pontia'] last met in the house of
Salmasius--you to renounce the marriage-bond, she to make you name
the day for the nuptials. When she saw, on the contrary, that it
was your intention to dissolve the marriage-engagement made in the
seduction, then lo! your unmarried bride, for I will not call her
Tisiphone, not able to bear such a wrong, flew furiously at your
face and eyes with uncut nails. You who, on the testimony of
Crantzius (for it is right that so great a contest should not begin
without quotation from your own _Fides Publica_)--you who, on
the testimony of Crantzius, were _altier_ in French, or
_fiercish_ in Latin, and on the testimony of Diodati had
_terrible spurs for self-defence_, prepare to do your manly
utmost in this feminine kind of fight. Madame de Saumaise stands by
as Juno, arbiter of the contest, Salmasius himself, lying in the
next room ill with the gout, when he heard the battle begun,
almost dies with laughing. But alas! and O fie! our unwarlike
Alexander, no match for his Amazon, falls down vanquished. She,
getting her man underneath, then first, from her position of
vantage, goes at his forehead, his eye-brows, his nose; with
wonderful arabesques, and in a Phrygian style of execution, she
runs her finger-points over the whole countenace of her prostrate
subject: never were you less pleased, Morus, with Pontia's lines
of beauty. At last, with difficulty, either margin of his cheeks
fully written on, but the chin not yet finished, up he rises, a
man, by your leave, absolutely nail-perfect, no mere Professor now
but a Pontifical Doctor,--for you might have inscribed upon him, as
on a painting, _Pontia fecit_. [We see now the reason for
keeping to the form 'Pontia.'] Doctor? Nay rather a codex in which
his vengeful critic had scraped her adverse comments with a new
stilus. You felt then, I think, Ulac's Tables of Tangents and
Secants, to a radius of I know not how many painful ciphers,
printed on your skin."

How does Milton meet Morus's protestations of his innocence both at Geneva and in Leyden, and the evidence he adduces in his behalf? Respecting the protestations, he notes that they are merely general and that, like his denials of the authorship of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, they are worded equivocally or indistinctly. Why does he not deny the Pelletta charge and the Bontia charge, and the other charges, one by one specifically, and in a downright manner? Why does he not go back to Geneva, face the living witnesses and the documentary evidence there waiting him, and abide the issue? As for the decisions in his favour in the Bontia case by the Walloon Synod and the Supreme Court of Holland, of what worth are they? One could see, one had even been informed, that there had been influences at work with both tribunals to procure the result, such as it was. Many good, but easy, men had thought it best, for the reputation of the Christian ministry, not to rake too deeply into such an unpleasant business. Especially in the Synod the proceedings had been a farce. When Riverius, the moderator of the Synod, at the close of the proceedings, had said to Morus, "_Never was a Moor so whitewashed as you have been to-day_," could not everybody, with any sense of humour, perceive that the Reverend gentleman had been joking? Then, what had been the formal decision of the Synod? "_That nothing had been found in the papers of weight to take away from the Churches their wonted liberty of inviting M. Morus to preach when there was occasion_." Was that a whitewashing with which to be content? No wonder that Morus had taken refuge among his paper testimonials. About the whole system of Testimonials Milton is considerably dubious. He does not deny that a public testimonial may be an honour, and that there may be proper occasion for such things; but, real discernment of merit being rare, and those who give and those who seek testimonials being but a jumble of the good and the bad together, the abuses of the system bring it into discredit. "The man of highest quality needs another's testimonial the least; nor does any good man ever do anything merely to make himself known." Waiving that general question, however, one may _examine_ Morus's testimonials.

This examination of the testimonials is begun in the first or main part of Milton's _Pro Se Defensio_; but, as Morus had only entered on his testimonials in the _Fides Publica_ as originally published, and presented most of them in his _Supplementum_ to that book, so Milton prolongs this branch of his criticism into an appendix entitled separately _Authoris ad Aleasandri Mori Supplementum Responsio_ ("The Author's Answer to Alexander More's Supplement.") Prom the first sentences of this Appendix we learn that the preceding part of Milton's book had been written two months before the _Supplementum_ had come into his hands.

Morus's published Testimonials divide themselves chronologically, it may have been observed, into three sets--(1) those given him at Geneva early in the year 1648, and brought by him into Holland on his removal thither, (2) those given him at Middleburg between Nov. 1649 and Aug. 1652, and (3) the three given him at Amsterdam in July 1654, after Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ had appeared, and in contradiction of statements made in that book.--On the Genevese set of Testimonials, including that from the venerable Diodati, Milton's criticism, in substance, is that they were vitiated by their date. They had been given, or obtained by hard begging, not perhaps before the Pelletta scandal had been heard of, but before it had been sufficiently notorious, and while it still seemed credible to many that Morus was innocent, and others were good-naturedly willing to stop the investigation by speeding him off to another scene, Theodore Tronchin, pastor and Professor of Theology, and Mermilliod and Pittet, two other pastors, had been the first movers, among the Genevese clergy, for an inquiry into Morus's conduct; the elder Spanheim had, as Milton believed, been one of those that even then would have nothing to do with the Testimonials; the aged Diodati had then for some time ceased to attend the meetings of his brethren, and might not know all. But, in any case, nearly a year had elapsed between the date of the last of those Genevese Testimonials which Morus had published and Morus's actual departure from Geneva. During that interval there had been a progress of Genevese opinion on the subject of his character and conduct, and he had been furnished with fresh papers in the nature of farewell Testimonials. Morus had suppressed those. Would he venture to produce them?--On the Middleburg Testimonials the criticism is that they do not matter much one way or another, but that they show Morus on the whole to have soon been found a troublesome person in Holland also, some business about whom was always coming up in the Walloon Synods. In Middleburg too there had been a progress of opinion about him with farther experience. His co-pastor there. M. Jean Long, who had been his firm friend for a while, and had signed some of the testimonials, was now understood to speak of him with absolute detestation. Morus having produced some of these testimonials to disprove Milton's assertion that he had been ejected by the Middleburg church, Milton explains that he had not said _ejected_, but only _turned adrift_, and that this was substantially the fact. Now, however, if Durie's report is correct, not only would the single Middleburg church, but nearly the whole Walloon Synod also, willingly _eject_ him.--Milton's greatest difficulty is with the three Amsterdam testimonials of July 1654. He has to admit that they prove him to have been misinformed when he said that the Amsterdam authorities had interdicted Morus from the pulpit, just as he had been wrong in calling Morus's Amsterdam professorship that of Greek. That admission made (and it was hard for Milton ever to admit he was wrong, even in a trifle), he contents himself with quoting sentences from the Amsterdam testimonials to show how merely formal they were, how little hearty, and with this characteristic observation about the Amsterdam dignitaries, tossing their testimony aside in any case: "_Et id nescio_, [Greek: aristindên] _an_ [Greek: ploutindên], _virtute an censu, magistratum ilium in civitate suâ obtineant_: And I know not, moreover, whether it is by merit or by wealth that the gentlemen hold that magistracy in their city." This is, doubtless, Milton's return for the slighting mention of himself in the Amsterdam testimonials.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Hague correspondent of Thurloe, commenting on the appearance of the first part of Morus's _Fides Publica_ and its abrupt ending had written, Nov. 3, 1654, thus: "The truth is Morus durst not add the sentence [text of the judicial finding] against Pontia; for the charges are recompensed [costs allowed her], and where there is payment of charges that is to say that the action of Pontia is good, but that the proofs fail.... The attestations of his life at Amsterdam and at the Hague, he could not get them to his fancy" (Thurloe, 11.708).]

While we have thus given, with tolerable completeness, an abstract of Milton's extraordinary _Pro Se Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum_, we have by no means noticed everything in it that might be of interest in the study of Milton's character. There is, for example, one very curious passage in which Milton, in reply to a criticism of Morus, defends his use of very gross words (_verba nuda et prætextata_) in speaking of very gross things. He makes two daring quotations, one from Piso's Annals and the other from Sallust, to show that he had good precedent; and he cites Herodotus, Seneca, Suetonius, Plutarch, Erasmus, Thomas More, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantlas, Eusebius, and the Bible itself, as examples occasionally of the very reverse of a squeamish euphemism. Of even greater interest is a passage in which he foresees the charges of cruelty, ruthlessness, and breach of literary etiquette, likely to be brought against him on account of his treatment of Morus, and expounds his theory on that subject. The passage may fitly conclude our account of the _Pro Se Defensio_:--