had acted towards an hypocritical, popery-led monarch, in defence of themselves and their liberties, but what had been told him by the miserable and drunken and beaten cavaliers, who were the noble attendants of the most noble Charles, in his outlawed, splendid style of dissipated exile in Holland!

I will give one specimen of MILTON's polished and caustic sarcasm. Salmasius, in speaking of

the "County Court and hundred," had spelt the last word "hundreda.”

The reply is thus Englished:

"Who taught Salmasius, that French hireling py,

To aim at English and Hundreda cry?

The starving rascal, flusht with just a hundred
English jacobussus, Hundreda blunder'd;

An outlawed king's last stock. A hundred more
Would make him pimp for the Anti-christian whore;
And in Rome's praise employ his poisoned breath,
Who threatened once to stink the pope to death."*

"This great display of intellectual power," says a modern writer, was received with the plaudits of the world; and as the author's name was not in any wide celebrity out of his own country, the general surprise was nearly equal to the general admiration. Congra

* Salmasius had published a work, entitled, "Apparatus contra Primatum Papæ.”

tulations and acknowledgements of respect poured in upon him from every quarter; and the scholars of Europe, actuated by a similar spirit with the spectators of the old Olympic games, threw garlands on the conqueror of Salmasius. On the publication of the 'Defence of the People of England,' all the ambassadors in London, of whom, perhaps, the greater number were from crowned heads, discovered their sense of its merit by complimenting or visiting its author; and he was gratified by letters replete with praise and with professions of esteem from foreigners, eminent for their talents and erudition."*

An answer to this work of MILTON appeared, written, it was said, by Bishop BRAMHILL, entitled, Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Cælum; or, "the cry of the king's blood for vengeance to heaven against the parricides." In this work it is said, "What the most noble SALMASIUS has discretely written in defence of the right and honour of CHARLES the British monarch, murdered by wicked men, has borne but one impression, and saw the light with great difficulty; with so much hatred does the world persecute truth in these latter times: but of what the most execrable MILTON has spitefully elaborated to ruin the reputation of the deceased king, and to

* Simmons's Life of MILTON, p. 374.

destroy the hereditary succession of the crown, there are so many editions, that I am uncertain to which of these I should refer my reader; so passionately fond are men grown now of lies and calumnies!" The true author of this work, it was afterwards understood, was PETER DU MOULIN the younger, a Prebendary of Canterbury. The publisher was ALEXANDER MORUS, a French minister, who prefixed a dedication from himself as the printer to CHARLES the Second: he was on that account supposed to have been the writer, and MILTON was commanded by the Council to write "a second defence for the people of England," which he soon after published with the title "Defencio 2. pro pop. Anglican."*

From this work I extract the parts which contain a reply to the reproaches which his mean antagonist had heaped on him for his blindness, and the pretended deformity of his "Let us," " he says, person. "now come to the charges which he brings against me. Is there any thing in my life or my morals on which his censure may be fastened? Certainly nothing. What then is his conduct? That of

* It appears that this Frenchman was ashamed to show himself as the writer of the Preface, being afraid of the polemical weapons of his opponent. There is a letter in Thurloe's State papers, written from the Hague, and dated 3rd of July, 1654, which throws light upon these subjects. The writer says, "They have had here two or three copies of MILTON,

which none but a savage and a barbarian could be guilty he reproaches me with my form and with my blindness. In his page, I am

A monster, horrid, hideous, huge, and blind.'

"I never, indeed, imagined there would be instituted any comparison between me and a cyclops. But my accuser immediately corrects himself: So far, however, is he from huge, that a more meagre, bloodless, diminutive animal, can no where be seen.' Although it be idle for a man to speak of his own form, yet since, even in this particular instance, I have cause of thankfulness to God, and the power of confuting the falsehoods of my adversary, I will not be silent upon the subject, lest any person should deem me as the credulous populace of Spain, who are induced by their priests to believe those whom they call heretics, to be a kind of rhinoceros, or a monster with a dog's head. By any man

against the famous professor Morus, who doth all he can to suppress the book. He saith now that he is not the author of the preface to Clamor; but we know very well the contrary. One Ulack, a printer, is re-printing MILTON's book, with an apology for himself; but Ulack holds it for an honour to be reckoned on the side of Salmasius and Morus; and besides, the profit he will make of it is the chiefest reason. Morus doth all he can to persuade him from printing it."

indeed, who has ever seen me, I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been considered as deformed-whether as handsome or not, forms a

less object of my concern. My stature, I confess, not to be lofty; but it approaches more to the middle height than to the low. If it were however, even low, I should in this respect only be confounded with many who have eminently distinguished themselves in peace and in war; and I know not why that human body should be called little, which is sufficiently large for all the purposes of human usefulness and perfection. When my age and the habits of my life would permit, I accustomed myself to the daily exercise of the sword, and was not either so puny in my body, or so deficient in courage, as not to think myself, with that weapon which I generally wore, to be secure in the assault of any man, hand to hand, how superior soever he might be to me in muscular strength. The spirit and the power, which I then possessed, continue unimpaired to the present day; my eyes only are not the same, and they are as unblemished in appearance, as lucid and free from spot, as those which are endued with the sharpest vision in this instance alone, and much against my own inclination, am I a deceiver? My face, than which, as he says, nothing is more bloodless, still retains, at the age of forty, a colour the very re