the destruction of tyrants, does not authorise the destruction of kings, but of the most inveterate enemies to kings. But that right, which you concede to kings, the right of doing what they please, is not justice, but injustice, ruin and despair. By that envenomed prefent you yourfelves destroy those, whom you extol as if they were above the reach of danger and oppreffion; and you quite obliterate the difference between a king and a tyrant, if you inveft both with the fame arbitrary power. For, if a king does not exercise that power, (and no king will exercise it as long as he is not a tyrant,) the power must be afcribed, not to the king, but to the individual. For, what can be imagined more abfurd than that regal prerogative, which, if any one ufes, as often as he wishes to act the king, fo often he ceases to be an honeft man; and, as often as he chooses to be an honeft man, so often he muft evince that he is not a king? Can any more bitter reproach be caft upon kings? He, who maintains this prerogative, muft himself be a monster of injustice and iniquity; for how can there be a worse person than him, who muft himself first verify the exaggerated picture of atrocity, which he delineates? But if every good man, as an ancient fect of philofophers magnificently taught, is a king, it follows that every bad one is, according to his capacity, a tyrant; nor does the name of tyrant fignify any thing foaring or illuftrious, but the meanest reptile on the earth; for in proportion as he is great, he is contemptible and abject. Others are vicious only for themfelves: but tyrants are vicious, not only for themselves, but are even involuntarily obliged to participate in the crimes of their importunate menials and favourites, and to entrust certain portions of their defpotism to the vileft of their dependants. Tyrants are thus the most abject of flaves, for they are the fervants of those who are themfelves in fervitude. This name therefore may be rightly applied to the most infignificant pugilift of tyranny, or even to this brawler; who, why he fhould fo ftrenuously clamour for the interefts of defpotifm, will fufficiently appear from what has been faid already, and what will be faid in the fequel; as alfo why this hireling chooses to conceal his name. Treading in the VOL. VI. Bb steps steps of Salmafius, he has prostituted his cry for the royal blood, and either blufhing for the difgrace of his erudition, or the flagitioufnefs of his life, it is not ftrange that he fhould wish to be concealed, or perhaps he is watching an opportunity, wherever he may fcent fome richer odours of emolument, to defert the cause of kings, and transfer his fervices to fome future republic. This was the manner of Salmafius, who, captivated by the lure of gain, apoftatifed, even when finking in years, from the orthodox to the epifcopalians, from the popular party to the royalists. Thou brawler, then, from the stews, who thou art thou in vain endeavoureft to conceal; believe me, you will be dragged to light, nor will the helmet of Pluto any longer ferve you for a difguife. And you will fwear downright, as long as you live, either that I am not blind, or that I was quickfighted enough to detect you in the labyrinth of impofture. Attend then, while I relate who he is, from whom defcended, by what expectations he was led, or by what blandifhments foothed to advocate the royal cause. There is one More, part Frenchman and part Scot, fo that one country, or one people, cannot be quite overwhelmed with the whole infamy of his extraction; an unprincipled mifcreant, and proved not only by the general teftimony of his enemies, but even by that of his dearest friends whom he has alienated by his infincerity, to be a monster of perfidy, falfehood, ingratitude and malevolence, the perpetual flanderer, not only of men, but of women, whose chastity he is no more accustomed to regard than their reputation. To pafs over the more obfcure tranfactions of his youth, he firft made his appearance as a teacher of the Greek language at Geneva; where he could not diveft himself either of the knave or fool; but where, even while fecretly confcious, though perhaps not yet publicly convicted of fo many enormities, he had the audacity to folicit the office of paftor in the church, and to profane the character by his crimes. But his debaucheries, his pride, and the general profligacies of his conduct, could not long escape the cenfure of the Prefbyters; after being condemned for many herefies, which he bafely recanted, and to which he still as impiously adhered, he was at laft openly found guilty of adultery. He had conceived a violent paffion for the maid-fervant of his hoft, and even after fhe was married to another, did not ceafe to folicit the gratification of his love. The neighbours often obferved them together in clofe converfe under a fhed in the garden. But you will fay this might have no reference to any criminal amours; he might have converfed upon horticulture, and have read lectures on the art, to the untutored and curious girl; he might one while have praised the beauty of the parterres, or regretted the abfence of fhade; he might have inferted a mulberry in a fig, and thence have rapidly raised a progeny of fycamores; a cooling bower; and might then have taught the art of grafting to the fair. All this and more, he might, no doubt have done. But all this would not fatisfy the Prefbyters, who paffed fentence on him as an adulterer, and judged him unworthy of the ecclefiaftical functions. The heads of thofe, and other accufations of the like kind, are still preferved in the public library of Geneva. But, even after this had become matter of public notoriety, he was invited, at the instance of Salmafius, to officiate in the French church at Middleburgh. This gave great offence to Spanheim, a man of fingular erudition and integrity; who was well acquainted with his character at Geneva, though at last, but not without the most violent oppofition, he fucceeded in obtaining letters teftimonial from the Genevefe, but these only on the condition that he should leave the place, and couched in expreffions rather bordering on cenfure than on praife. As foon as he arrived in Holland, he went to pay his refpects to Salmafius; where he immediately caft his libidinous looks on his wife's maid, whose name was Portia; for the fellow's luft is always inflamed by cooks and waiting-maids; hence he began to pay affiduous court to Salmafius, and, as often as he had opportunity to Portia. I know not whether Salmafius, taken by the bufy attentions and unintermitted adulation of More, or More thinking that it would favour his purpofe of meeting Portia, which firft caufed their converfation to turn on the anfwer of Milton to Salmafius. But, however this might be, More undertook to defend Salmafius, and Salmafius promises to obtain for More Bb 2 the the divinity-chair in that city. Befides this, More promises himfelf other fweets in his clandeftine amour with Portia ; for, under pretext of confulting Salmafius in the profecution of this work, he had free admiffion to the house at all hours of the night or day. And, as formerly Pyramus was changed into a mulberry tree, fo More feems fuddenly transformed into Pyramus; but in proportion as he was more criminal, fo he was more fortunate than that youth. He had no occafion to feek for a chink in the wall; he had every facility of carrying on his intrigue with his Thisbe under the fame roof. He promifes her marriage; and, under the lure of this promife, violates her chastity. O fhame! a minifter of the gofpel abuses the confidence of friendship to commit this atrocious crime. From this amour no common prodigy accrued; for both man and woman fuffered the pains of parturition: Portia conceived a morillt, which long afforded employment to the natural difquifitions of Salmafius; More, the barren and windy egg; from which iffued that flatulent cry of the royal blood. The fight of this egg indeed, at first, caufed our monarchy-men, who were famifhing in Belgium, to lick their chops; but the fhell was no fooner broken, than they loathed the addle and putrid contents; for More, not a little elated with his conception, and thinking that he had obliged the whole Orange faction, had begun to anticipate a new acceffion of profefforships and chairs, when he deferted his poor pregnant Portia, as beneath his notice, to indigence and misfortune. She complained to the fynod and the magiftrates, of the injuries and the treachery which he had experienced. Thus the matter was brought to light, and afforded fubject for merriment and obfervation in almost all places and companies. Hence fome ingenious perfon wrote this diftich, Galli ex concubitu gravidam te, Portia, Mori, Quis bene moratam morigeramque neget? *Morus, the Latin name for mulberry. + A little More, or mulberry. It is impoffible to give a literally exact rendering of this; I have played upon the name as well as I could in English.-R. F. O Portia, O Portia, teeming with More's Gallic feed, You have been Mor'd enough, and no more need. Portia alone was not feen to fmile; but fhe gained nothing by complaint; for the cry of the royal blood foon overwhelmed the clamour about the rape, and the cries of the ruined fair. Salmafius deeply refented the injury and infult which were thus offered to himself and his family; and the derifion to which he was expofed by his courteous and admiring friend; and perhaps this miffortune, added to his other mifhaps in the royal cause, might have contributed to accelerate his end. But on this hereafter. In the mean time, Salmafius, with the fate of Salmafia, (for the fable is as appropriate as the name,) little thinking that in More he had got an hermaphrodite affociate, as incapable of parturition as as of procreation, without knowing what he had begot for him in the house, fondles the fruit of his travail, the book in which he was ftyled Great; juftly perhaps in his own opinion, but very unfitly and ridiculously in that of other people. He haftens to the printer; and, in vain endeavouring to keep poffeffion of the fame, which was vanifhing from his grafp, he anxioufly tends as a midwife the public delivery of thofe praifes, or rather vile flatteries, which he had fo rapaciously fought this fellow and others to bestow. For this purpose Flaccus feemed the most proper person that could be found; him he readily perfuades, not only to print the book, which nobody would have blamed, but alfo publickly to profefs himself the author of a letter to Charles, filled with the most calumnious afperfions against me, whom he had never known. But when I fhew, as I can from good authority, how he has acted towards others, it will be the lefs aftonishing why he fhould fo readily be prevailed on to commence fuch a wanton and unprovoked attack upon me; and with fo little confideration, to father another's extravagance of flander and invective. Flaccus, whofe country is unknown, was an itinerant bookfeller, a notorious prodigal and cheat; for a long time he carried on a clandeftine trade in London; from which city, after practising innumerable frauds, he ran away in debt. He afterwards Bb 3 lived |