To the _Defensio Secunda_ there was of course a reply by Morus. It was entitled _Fides Publica_, because it was largely composed of testimonials to character. When one priest charges another with unchastity, the world looks on and laughs. But it is no laughing matter to the defendant in such an action. He can always bring exculpatory evidence, and in spite of any evidence he is always believed to be guilty. The effect of Milton's furious denunciation of Morus had been to damage his credit in religious circles, and to make mothers of families shy of allowing him to visit at their houses. Milton might have been content with a victory which, as Gibbon said of his own, "over such an antagonist was a sufficient humiliation." Milton's magnanimity was no match for his irritation. He published a rejoinder to Morus's _Fides Publica_, reiterating his belief that Morus was author of the _Clamor_, but that it was no matter whether he was or not, since by publishing the book, and furnishing it with a recommendatory preface, he had made it his own. The charges against Morus' character he reiterated, and strengthened by new "facts", which Morus's enemies had hastened to contribute to the budget of calumny. These imputations on character, mixed with insinuations of unorthodoxy, such as are ever rife in clerical controversy, Milton invests with the moral indignation of a prophet denouncing the enemies of Jehovah. He expends a wealth of vituperative Latin which makes us tremble, till we remember that it is put in motion to crush an insect. This _Pro se defensio_ (Defence for himself), appeared in August, 1656. Morus met it by a supplementary _Fides Publica_, and Milton, resolved to have the last word, met him by a _Supplement to the Defence_. The reader will be glad to hear that this is the end of the Morus controversy. We leave Milton's victim buried under the mountains of opprobrious Latin here heaped upon him--this "circumforanens pharmacopola, vanissimus circulator, propudium hominis et prostibulum." CHAPTER XI. LATIN SECRETARYSHIP COMES TO AN END--MILTON'S FRIENDS.