to drink sack (25) and swear," merely because this was a shred in his common-place book, and seemed to come off roundly, as if he were some empiric of false accusations, to try his poisons upon me, whether they would work or not. Whom what should I endeavour to refute more, whenas that book, which is his only testimony, returns the lie upon him; not giving him the least hint of the author to be either a swearer or a sack drinker. And for the readers, if they can believe me, principally for those reasons which I have alleged, to be of life and purpose neither dishonest nor unchaste, they will be easily induced to think me sober both of wine and of word; but if I have been already successless in persuading them, all that I can further say, will be but vain; and it will be better thrift to save two tedious labours, mine of excusing, and theirs of needless hearing. 30. Proceeding further, I am met with a whole ging of words and phrases not mine, for he hath maimed them, and, like a sly depraver, mangled them in this his wicked limbo, worse than the ghost of Deiphobus appeared to his friend Æneas.(26) (25) Young Hall, who was probably better read in Shakespeare than in the Bible, was perhaps thinking of Falstaff, when he spoke of drinking sack and swearing. Like Aristophanes, he seems to have scrupled nothing as to what he threw at his adversary, so he thought might stick. Truth and falsehood were all one to this " generous youth," as Dr. Symmons calls him. (26) "Atque hic Priamiden laniatum corpore toto Deïphobum vidit, lacerum crudeliter ora, Ora manusque ambas, populataque tempora raptis I scarce know them, and he that would, let him repair to the place in that book where I set them : for certainly this tormentor of semicolons is as good at dismembering and slitting sentences, as his grave fathers the prelates have been at stigmatizing and slitting noses. (27) By such handicraft as this what might he not traduce? Only that odour, which being his own must needs offend his sense of smelling, since he will needs bestow his foot among us, and not allow us to think he wears a sock, I shall endeavour it may be offenceless to other men's ears. The Remonstrant having to do with grave and reverend men his adversaries, thought it became him to tell them in scorn, that "the bishop's foot had been in their book and confuted it;" which when I saw him arrogate to have done that with his heels that surpassed the best consideration of his head, to spurn a confutation among respected men, I questioned not the lawfulness of moving his jollity to bethink him, what odour a sock would have in such painful business. And this may have chanced to touch him more nearly than I was aware, for indeed a bishop's foot that hath all his toes maugre the gout, and a linen sock over it, is the aptest emblem of the prelate himself; who being a pluralist, may under one surplice, which is also linen, hide four benefices, besides the metropolitan toe, and sends a fouler stench to heaven, than that which this young queasiness retches at. And this is the im (") Alluding to their cruel persecutions of the Puritans. F mediate reason here why our enraged confuter, that he may be as perfect a hypocrite as Caiaphas, ere he be a high-priest, cries out, "Horrid blasphemy!" and, like a recreant Jew, calls for stones. I beseech ye, friends, ere the brickbats fly, resolve me and yourselves, is it blasphemy, or any whit disagreeing from Christian meekness, whenas Christ himself, speaking of unsavoury traditions, scruples not to name the dunghill and the jakes, for me to answer a slovenly wincer of a confutation, that if he would needs put his foot to such a sweaty service, the odour of his sock was like to be neither musk nor benjamin? Thus did that foolish monk in a barbarous declamation accuse Petrarch of blasphemy for dispraising the French wines. 31. But this which follows is plain bedlam stuff, this is the demoniac legion indeed, which the Remonstrant feared had been against him, and now he may see is for him. "You that love Christ," saith he, "and know this miscreant wretch, stone him to death, lest you smart for his impunity." (28) (28) Though wanting the power to persecute, Milton's adversaries, stung by his sarcastic eloquence, would gladly have employed against him the arguments of the Inquisition. This is seldom the feeling of persons who know themselves to be triumphant in controversy. Yet Mr. Mitford observes, that "the Puritans were totally unable to compete with such men as Usher, Hall, Bramhall, and others of the established religion, in theological learning, and knowledge of ecclesiastical history.' Life of Milton, p. xxxi. It seems very strange, if this was the case, that Bishop Hall should have suffered his son, whom, according to Milton, (§ 33.) he assisted in the composition of his work, to incite all good Christians to stone his What thinks the Remonstrant? does he like that such words as these should come out of his shop, out of his Trojan horse? To give the watch-word like a Guisian of Paris to a mutiny or massacre; to proclaim a crusade against his fellow-christian now in this troublous and divided time of the kingdom? If he do, I shall say that to be the Remonstrant, is no better than to be a Jesuit; and that if he and his accomplices could do as the rebels have done in Ireland to the Protestants, they would do in England the same to them that would no prelates. For a more seditious and butcherly speech no cell of Loyola could have belched against one who in all his writing spake not, that any man's skin should be rased. 32. And yet this cursing Shimei, a hurler of stones, as well as a railer, wants not the face instantly to make as though he "despaired of victory, unless a modest defence would get it him.” Did I err at all, readers, to foretel ye, when first I met with his title, that the epithet of modest there was a certain red portending sign, that he meant ere long to be most tempestuously adversary. Men seldom think of stoning till all other arguments have failed them. Salmasius, not more able than Bishop Hall's son to contend with Milton, thought the shortest mode of confutation would be to roll him in pitch, and set fire to him; or else to torture him to death with boiling oil:"Pro cæteris autem tuis factis dictisque dignum dicam videri, qui pice ardenti, vel oleo fervente perfundaris, usque dum animam effles nocentem et carnifici jam pridem debitum." This was published after the restoration, and with great propriety dedicated to Charles II. bold and shameless ? Nevertheless, he dares not say but there may be hid in his nature as much venomous atheism (29) and profanation, as he thinks hath broke out at his adversary's lips; but he hath not "the sore running upon him," as he would intimate I have. Now trust me not, readers, if I be not already weary of pluming and footing this sea-gull, so open he lies to strokes, and never offers at another, but brings home the dorre himself. For if the sore be running upon me, in all judgment I have escaped the disease; but he who hath as much hid in him, as he hath voluntarily confessed, and cannot expel it, because he is dull, (for venomous atheism were no treasure to be kept within him else,) let him take the part he hath chosen, which must needs follow, to swell and burst with his own inward venom. 33. But mark, readers, there is a kind of justice observed among them that do evil, but this man loves injustice in the very order of his malice. For having all this while abused the good name of his adversary with all manner of licence in revenge of his Remonstrant, if they be not both one person, or as I am told, father and son, yet after all this he calls for satisfaction, whenas he himself hath already taken the utmost farthing. "Violence hath been done," says he, "to the person of a holy and religious prelate." To which, something in effect to what St. Paul answered of Ananias, I an (29) It has always been customary, as Locke observes, for men who are vanquished in argument to accuse their opponents of atheism. |