SECTION II: FROM JANUARY 1654-5 TO SEPTEMBER 1656, OR THROUGH THE PERIOD OF ARBITRARINESS. LETTER TO MILTON FROM LEO DE AITZEMA: MILTON'S REPLY: LETTER TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM AT GENEVA : WRITING FOR CROMWELL HITHERTO.-REDUCTION OF MONTESE MASSACRE, MAY 1655: SUDDEN DEMAND ON HIS SONNET ON THE SUBJECT.—PUBLICATION OF THE THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE REGII SANGUINIS CLAMOR, MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. LXV.—LXXVII.), WITH SPECIAL ACCOUNT OF COUNT BUNDT AND THE SWEDISH MILTON SERIES (NOS. LXXVIII.-XC.): IMPORTANCE OF SOME OF THEM. OLIVER had just entered on his period of Arbitrariness, or Government without a Parliament, when Milton received the following letter in Latin from Leo de Aitzema, or Lieuwe van Aitzema, formerly known to him as agent for Hamburg and the Hanse Towns in London, but now residing at the Hague in the same capacity (IV. 378-379). Aitzema, we may now mention, was a Frieslander by birth, eight years older than Milton, and is remembered still, it is said, for a voluminous and valuable History of the United Provinces, consisting of a great collection of documents, with commentaries by himself in Dutch. This had not yet been published. "To the honourable and highly esteemed Mr. John Milton, Secretary to the Council of State, London. Partly because Morus, in his book, has made some aspersions on you for your English Book on Divorce, partly because many have been inquiring eagerly about the arguments with which you support your opinion, I have, most honoured and esteemed Sir, given your little work entire to a friend of mine to be translated into Dutch, with a desire to have it printed soon. Not knowing, however, whether you would like anything corrected therein or added, I take the liberty to give you this notice, and to request you to let me know your mind on the subject. Best wishes and greetings from It is very gratifying to me that you retain the same amount of recollection of me as you very politely showed of good will by once and again visiting me while you resided among us. As regards the Book on Divorce which you tell me you have given to some one to be turned into Dutch, I would rather you had given it to be turned into Latin. For my experience in those books of mine has now been that the vulgar still receive according to their wont opinions not already common. I wrote a good while ago, I may mention, three treatises on the subject:-the first, in two books, in which The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (for that is the title of the book) is contained at large; a second, which is called Tetrachordon, and in which the four chief passages of Scripture concerning that doctrine are explicated; the third called Colasterion, in which answer is made to a certain sciolist. [The Bucer Tract omitted in the enumeration.] Which of these Treatises you have given to be translated, or what edition, I do 1 See Article Aitzema in Bayle's Dictionary. 2 Communicated by the late Mr. Thomas Watts of the British Museum, and published by the late Rev. John Mitford in Appendix to Life of Milton prefixed to Pickering's Edition of Milton's Works (1851). not know the first of them was twice issued, and was much enlarged in the second edition. Should you not have been made aware of this already, or should I understand that you desire anything else on my part, such as sending you the more correct edition or the rest of the Treatises, I shall attend to the matter carefully and with pleasure. For there is not anything at present that I should wish changed in them or added. Therefore, should you keep to your intention, I earnestly hope for myself a faithful translator, and for you all prosperity. Westminster: Feb. 5, 1654–5.1 The next letter, written in the following month, also connects itself, but still more closely, with the Morus controversy. It is addressed to Ezekiel Spanheim, the eldest son of that Frederick Spanheim, by birth a German, of whom we have heard as Professor of Theology successively at Geneva (16311642) and at Leyden (1642–1649). This elder Spanheim, it will be remembered, had been implicated in the opposition to Morus in both places-the story being that he had contracted a bad opinion of Morus during his colleagueship with him in Geneva, and that, when Salmasius, partly to spite Spanheim, of whose popularity at Leyden he was jealous, had negotiated for bringing Morus to Holland, Spanheim "moved heaven and earth to prevent his coming." It is added that Spanheim's death (May 1649) was caused by the news that Morus was on his way, and that he had said on his death-bed that "Salmasius had killed him and Morus had been the dagger." 2 On the other hand, we have had recently the assurance of Dr. Crantzius that Spanheim had once told him that the only fault in Morus was that he was altier, or selfconfident. That the stronger story is the truer one substantially, if not to its last detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus was hereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son, Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, this Ezekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than his father, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not to close till 1 Epist. Fam. 16. 2 Bayle, both in Article Spanheim and in Article Morus. 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he had returned from Leyden in 1651, to accept a kind of honorary Professorship that had been offered him, in compliment partly to his father's memory, partly to his own extraordinary promise. As one who had lived the first thirteen years of his age in Geneva, and the next nine in Leyden (1642-1651), and who was now back in Geneva, he had been amply and closely on the track of Morus; and how little he liked him will now appear : : TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM OF GENEVA. I know not by what accident it has happened that your letter has reached me little less than three months after date. There is clearly extreme need of a speedier conveyance of mine to you; for, though from day to day I was resolving to write it, I now perceive that, hindered by some constant occupations, I have put it off nearly another three months. I would not have you understand from this my tardiness in replying that my grateful sense of your kindness to me has cooled, but rather that the remembrance has sunk deeper from my longer and more frequent daily thinking of my duty to you in return. Late performance of duty has at least this excuse for itself, that there is a clearer confession of obligation to do a thing when it is done so long after than if it had been done immediately. You are not wrong, in the first place, in the opinion of me expressed in the beginning of your letter-to wit, that I am not likely to be surprised at being addressed by a foreigner; nor could you, indeed, have a more correct impression of me than precisely by thinking that I regard no good man in the character of a foreigner or a stranger. That you are such I am readily persuaded by your being the son of a most learned and most saintly father, also by your being well esteemed by good men, and also finally by the fact that you hate the bad. With which kind of cattle as I too happen to have a warfare, Calandrini has but acted with his usual courtesy, and in accordance with my own sentiment, in signifying to you that it would be very gratifying to me if you lent me your help against a common adversary. This you have most obligingly done in this very letter, part of which, with the author's name not mentioned, I have not hesitated, trusting in your regard for me, to |