fome unexpected engagements concurred to delay, or I should not have fent you my Defence without any compliment or apology; and I have fince received another letter from you in which you return me more ample acknowledgments than the prefent deserved. And I had more than once an intention of fubftituting our Englifh for your Latin, that you, who have ftudied our language with more accuracy and fuccefs than any foreigner with whom I am acquainted, might lofe no opportunity of writing it, which I think that you would do with equal elegance and correctness. But in this respect you fhall act as you feel inclined. 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 ferves 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 fince in fome converfations which we had on the subject juft after your return from Holland, you feemed to have no doubt but that More was the author to whom the compofition was in those parts unanimoufly afcribed. If you have received any more authentic information on this fubject I wish that you would acquaint me with it. With respect to the mode of handling the fubject I would willingly agree with you, and what could more readily perfuade me to do it than the unfeigned approbation of perfons so zealoufly attached to me as you are; if my health and the deprivation of my fight, which is more grievous than all the infirmities of age, or if the cries of thefe impoftors will permit, I fhall readily be led to engage in other undertakings, though I know not whether they can be more noble or more ufeful; 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 An inactive indolence was never my delight, but this unexpected conteft with the enemies of liberty has involuntarily withdrawn my attention from very different and more pleasurable pursuits.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 far from thinking, as you feem to fuppofc, that I have laboured in vain. C 4 But But more on this at another opportunity. At present adieu, moft learned fir, and number me among your friends. Westminster, July 6, 1654. XV. To LEONARD PHILARA, the Athenian. I HAVE always been devotedly attached to the literature of Greece, and particularly to that of your Athens; and have never ceased to cherish the perfuafion that that city would one day make me ample recompenfe for the warmth of my regard. The antient genius of your renowned country has favoured the com pletion of my prophecy in presenting me with your friendship and efteem. Though I was known to you only by my writings, and we were removed to fuch a distance from each other, you moft courteoufly addreffed me by letter; and when you unexpectedly came to London, and faw me who could no longer fee, my affliction which caufes none to regard me with greater admiration, and perhaps many even with feelings of contempt, excited your tendereft fympathy and concern. You would not fuffer me to abandon the hope of recovering my fight, and informed me that you had an intimate friend at Paris, Doctor Thevenot, who was particularly celebrated in diforders of the eyes, whom you would confult about mine, if I would enable you to lay before him the caufes and the fymptoms of the complaint. I will do what you defire, left I should seem to reject that aid which perhaps may be offered me by heaven. It is now, I think, about ten years fince I perceived my vifion to grow weak and dull; and, at the fame time, I was troubled with pain in my kidneys and bowels, accompanied with flatulency. In the morning, if I began to read, as was my cuftom, my eyes instantly ached ached intensely, but were refreshed after a little corporeal exercife. The candle which I looked at, feemed as it were encircled with a rainbow. Not long after the fight in the left part of the left eye (which I loft fome years before the other) became quite obfcured; and prevented me from difcerning any object on that fide. The fight in my other eye has now been gradually and fenfibly vanishing away for about three years; fome months before it had entirely perifhed, though I stood motionless, every thing which I looked at seemed in motion to and fro, A ftiff cloudy vapour feemed to have settled on my forehead and temples, which usually occafions a fort of fomnolent preffure upon my eyes, and particularly from dinner till the evening. So that I often recollect what is faid of the poet Phineas in the Argonautics. A ftupor deep his cloudy temples bound, And when he walk'd he feem'd as whirling round, I ought not to omit that, while I had any fight left, as foon as I lay down on my bed and turned on either fide a flood of light ufed to gufh from my clofed eyelids. Then as my fight became daily more impaired, the colours became more faint and were emitted with a certain inward crackling found; but at prefent every species of illumination being, as it were, extinguifhed, there is diffused around me nothing but darkness, or darkness mingled and ftreaked with an afhy brown. Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually immerfed, feems always, both by night and day, to approach nearer to white than black, and when the eye is rolling in its focket, it admits a little particle of light as through a chink. And though your physician may kindle a small ray of hope, yet I make up my mind to the malady as quite incurable; and I often reflect, that as the wife man admonishes, days of darkness are deftined to each of us, the darknefs which I experience, lefs oppreffive than that of the tomb, is, owing to the fingular goodness of the Deity, paffed amid the purfuits of literature and the cheering falutations of friendship. But if, as is written, written, man fhall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, why may not any one acquiefce in the privation of his fight, when God has fo amply furnished his mind and his conscience with eyes. While he fo tenderly provides for me, while he fo graciously leads me by the hand and conducts me on the way, I will, fince it is his pleasure, rather rejoice than repine at being blind. And, my dear Philara, whatever may be the event I wish you adieu with no less courage and compofure than if I had the eyes of a lynx. Weftminster, September 28, 1654. XVI. To LEO of Aizema. Ir is with great pleasure I find that you ftill retain the fame regard for me which you indicated while among us. With respect to the book concerning divorce, which you fay that you had engaged fome one to turn into Dutch, I would rather that you had engaged him to turn it into Latin. For I have already experienced how the vulgar are wont to receive opinions, which are not agreeable to vulgar prejudice. I formerly wrote three treatises on this fubject; one in two books, in which the doctrine of divorce is diffufely difcuffed; another which is entitled Tetrachordon, in which the four principal paffages in fcripture relative to the doctrine are explained; a third, Colafterion, which contains an answer to fome vulgar fciolift. I know not which of these treatises or which edition you have engaged him to tranflate. The firft treatise has been twice published, and the fecond edition is much enlarged. If you have not already received this information or wifh me to fend you the more correct edition, or the other treatifes, I fhall do it immediately, and with pleafure. For I do not wish at present that they fhould receive receive any alterations or additions. If you perfift in your present purpose I wish you a faithful translator and every fuccefs. Weftminster, Feb. 5, 1654. XVII. To EZECHIEL SPANHEIM, of Geneva. I KNOW not how it happened that your letters were not delivered to me for three months after they were written. I hope that mine will have a more expeditious conveyance: for, owing to various engagements, I have put off writing from day to day till I perceive that almost another three months have elapfed. But I would not with you to fuppofe that my regard for you has experienced any diminution; but that it has rather encreased in proportion as I have more frequently thought of discharging this epiftolary debt. The tardy performance of this duty feems to admit of this excufe that when it is performed after fo long a lapfe of time it is only a more clear confeffion that it was due. You are quite right in the fuppofition that I fhall not be furprised at receiving the falutations of a foreigner, and you may be affured that it is my maxim, to confider and to treat no good man as a ftranger; that you are fuch I am well persuaded, both because you are the fon of a father highly celebrated for his erudition and his piety; and because all good men think you good; and laftly, because you hate the bad. hate the bad. With fuch perfons fince it has also been my lot to be at war, Calandrinus very obligingly fignified to you, that it would be highly grateful to me if you would lend me your affiftance against our common enemy. That you have kindly done in your prefent letter, of which I have taken the liberty, without mentioning the author's name, to infert a part in my Defence. This work I will fend you as foon |