The next extant Epistle of Milton, written when the Second Parliament of the Protectorate had sat nearly two months, is also quite of a private nature. Of the German or Dutch youth to whom it is addressed, Peter Heimbach, I have ascertained only that he had been residing for some time in London, perhaps originally brought thither in the train of some embassy or agency, and that he had recently published in London a Latin letter of eulogy on Cromwell,[1] extremely enthusiastic and somewhat juvenile. Milton's letter suggests farther that he had been much about Milton, as amanuensis or what not, but was now on a visit to Holland. [Footnote 1: The Letter, which is in thirty-five pages of small folio, is entitled "_Petri ab Heimbach, G.F., ad Serenissimum Potentissimumque Principem Olivarium, D. G. Magnæ Brittaniæ Protectorem, veræ Fidei Defensorem, Pium, Felicem, Invictum, Adlocutio Gralulatoria: Londini, Ex Typographia Jacobi Cottrellii_, 1656." The praise of Cromwell is boundless; and his conduct in the Piedmontese business, and his care of learning and the Universities, are especially noticed.] "To the very accomplished youth, PETER HEIMBACH. "Most amply, my Heimbach, have you fulfilled your promises and all the other expectations one would have of your goodness, with the exception, that I have still to long for your return. You promised that it would be within two months at farthest; and now, unless my desire to have you back makes me misreckon the time, you have been absent nearly three. In the matter of the Atlas you have abundantly performed all I requested of you; which was not that you should procure me one, but only that you would find out the lowest price of the book. You write that they ask 130 florins; it must be the Mauritanian mountain _Atlas_, I think, and not a book, that you tell me is to be bought at so huge a price. Such is now the luxury of Typographers in printing books that the furnishing of a library seems to have become as costly as the furnishing of a villa. Since to me at least, on account of my blindness, painted maps can hardly be of use, vainly surveying as I do with blind eyes the actual globe of the earth, I am afraid that the bigger the price at which I should buy that book the greater would seem to be my grief over my deprivation. Be good enough, pray, to take so much farther trouble for me as to be able to inform me, when you return, how many volumes there are in the complete work, and which of the two issues, that of Blaeu or that of Jansen, is the larger and more correct. This I hope to hear from yourself personally, on your speedy return, rather than by another letter. Meanwhile farewell, and come back to us as soon as you can. "Westminster: Nov. 8, 1656."