business, he replied that to-morrow they would discuss what answer they should give. If I am the first, as I endeavoured, to give you intelligence of this event, I think that it will contribute greatly to your satisfaction, and will serve as a specimen of my zeal for the promotion of your interests.

Westminster.

XII.

To the renowned LEONARD PHILARA, the Athenian.

I was in some measure made acquainted, most accomplished Philara, with your goodwill towards me, and with your favourable opinion of my Defence of the People of England, by your letters to the Lord Auger, a person so renowned for his singular integrity in executing the embassies of the republic. I then received your compliments with your picture and an eulogy worthy of your virtues; and, lastly, a letter full of civility and kindness. I who am not wont to despise the genius of the German, the Dane, and Swede, could not but set the highest value on your applause, who was born at Athens itself, and who after having happily finished your studies in Italy, obtained the most splendid distinctions and the highest honours. For if Alexander the Great, when waging war in the distant East, declared that he encountered so many dangers and so many trials for the sake of having his praises celebrated by the Athenians, ought not I to congratulate myself on receiving the praises of a man in whom alone the talents and the virtues of

the ancient Athenians seem to recover their freshness and their strength after so long an interval of corruption and decay. To the writings of those illustrious men which your city has produced, in the perusal of which I have been occupied from my youth, it is with pleasure I confess that I am indebted for all my proficiency in literature. Did I possess their command of language and their force of persuasion, I should feel the highest satisfaction in employing them to excite our armies and our fleets to deliver Greece, the parent of eloquence, from the despotism of the Ottomans. Such is the enterprise in which you seem to wish to implore my aid. And what did formerly men of the greatest courage and eloquence deem more noble, or more glorious, than by their orations or their valour to assert the liberty and independence of the Greeks ? But we ought besides to attempt, what is, I think, of the greatest moment, to inflame the present Greeks with an ardent desire to emulate the virtue, the industry, the patience, of their ancient progenitors; and this we cannot hope to see effected by any one but yourself, and for which you seem adapted by the splendour of your patriotism, combined with so much discretion, so much skill in war, and such an unquenchable thirst for the recovery of your ancient liberty. Nor do I think that the Greeks would be wanting to themselves, nor that any other people would be wanting to the Greeks. Adieu.

London, Jan. 1652.

XIII.

To RICHARD HETH.

IF I were able, my excellent friend, to render you any service in the promotion of your studies, which at best could have been but very small, I rejoice on more accounts than one, that that service, though so long unknown, was bestowed on so fruitful and so genial a soil, which has produced an honest pastor to the church, a good citizen to our country, and to me a most acceptable friend. Of this I am well aware, not only from the general habits of your life, but from the justness of your religious and political opinions, and particularly from the extraordinary ardour of your gratitude, which no absence, no change of circumstances, or lapse of time, can either extinguish or impair. Nor is it possible, till you have made a more than ordinary progress in virtue, in piety, and the improvement of the mind and heart, to feel so much gratitude towards those who have in the least assisted you in the acquisition. Wherefore, my pupil, a name which with your leave I will employ, be assured that you are among the first objects of my regard; nor would any thing be more agreeable to me, if your circumstances permit as much as your inclination, than to have you take up your abode somewhere in my neighbourhood, where we may often see each other, and mutually profit by the reciprocations of kindness and of literature. But this must be as God pleases, and

as you think best. Your future communications may, if you please, be in our own language, lest (though you are no mean proficient in Latin composition) the labour of writing should make each of us more averse to write; and that we may freely disclose every sensation of our hearts without being impeded by the shackles of a foreign language. You may safely entrust the care of your letters to any servant of that family which you mention. Adieu.

Westminster, December 13, 1652.

XIV.

To HENRY Oldenburgh, Aulic Counsellor to the Senate of Bremen.

I RECEIVED your former letters, most accomplished sir, at the moment when your clerk was at the point of setting out on his return, so that I had no power of returning you an answer at that time. This some unexpected engagements concurred to delay, or I should not have sent you my Defence without any compliment or apology; and I have since received another letter from you in which you return me more ample acknowledgments than the present deserved. And I had more than once an intention of substituting our English for your Latin, that you, who have studied our language

with more accuracy and success than any foreigner with whom I am acquainted, might lose no opportunity of writing it, which I think that you would do with equal elegance and correctness. But in

this respect you shall act as you feel inclined. With respect to the subject of your letter you are clearly of my opinion, that that cry to heaven could not have been audible by any human being, which only serves the more palpably to show the effrontery of him who affirms with so much audacity that he heard it. Who he was you have caused a doubt, though long since, in some conversations which we had on the subject just after your return from Holland, you seemed to have no doubt but that More was the author to whom the composition was in those parts unanimously ascribed. If you have received any more authentic information on this subject, I wish that you would acquaint me with it. With respect to the mode of handling the subject I would willingly agree with you, and what could more readily persuade me to do it than the unfeigned approbation of persons so zealously attached to me as you are; if my health, and the deprivation of my sight, which is more grievous than all the infirmities of age, or of the cries of these impostors, will permit, I shall readily be led to engage in other undertakings, though I know not whether they can be more noble or more useful; for what can be more noble or more useful than to vindicate the liberty of man ? An inactive indolence was never my delight, but this unexpected contest with the enemies of liberty has involuntarily withdrawn my attention from very different and more pleasurable pursuits.

What I have done, and which I was under an obligation to do, I feel no reason to regret, and I am