The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His TimeMasson, David
History
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
Masson, David
Milton, John, 1608-1674; Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
"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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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