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