communicate what I was fure it would give you fo much pleasure to know. This I hope that I have to-day accomplished; for when I had more than once reminded the prefident of your business, he replied that to-morrow they would discuss what answer they should give. If I am the firft, as I endeavoured, to give you intelligence of this event, I think that it will contribute greatly to your fatisfaction, and will ferve as a fpecimen of my zeal for the promotion of your interefts.

Westminster.

XII.

To the renowned LEONARD PHILARA, the Athenian.

I WAS in fome measure made acquainted, moft accomplished Philara, with your good-will towards me, and with your favourable opinion of my defence of the people of England, by your letters to the Lord Auger, a perfon fo renowned for his fingular integrity in executing the embaffies of the republic. I then received your compliments with your picture and an eulogy worthy of your virtues; and, laftly, a letter full of civility and kindness. I who am not wont to defpife the genius of the German, the Dane, and Swede, could not but fet the highest value on your applaufe, who were born at Athens itself, and who after having happily finished your ftudies in Italy, obtained the most splendid diftinctions and the highest honours. For if Alexander the Great, when waging war in the distant Eaft, declared that he encountered fo many dangers and fo many trials for the fake of having his praifes 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 antient Athenians feem to recover their freshness and their ftrength after so long an interval of corruption and decay. To the writings of those illustrious men which your city has produced, in the

perufal

perufal of which I have been occupied from my youth, it is with pleasure I confefs that I am indebted for all my proficiency in literature. Did I poffefs their command of language and their force of perfuafion I fhould feel the highest fatisfaction in employing them to excite our armies and our fleets to deliver Greece, the parent of eloquence, from the defpotifm of the Ottomans. Such is the enterprize in which you feem 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 affert the liberty and independence of the Greeks? But we ought befides to attempt, what is, I think, of the greatest moment, to inflame the prefent Greeks with an ardent defire to emulate the virtue, the industry, the patience of their antient progenitors; and this we cannot hope to see effected by any one but yourself, and for which you feem adapted by the splendour of your patriotism, combined with fo much difcretion, so much skill in war, and fuch an unquenchable thirft for the recovery of your antient 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 fervice in the promotion of your ftudies, which at beft could have been but very fmall, I rejoice on more accounts than one, that that service, though fo long unknown, was bestowed on fo fruitful and fo genial a foil, 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 justnefs of your religious and political opinions, and particularly from the extraordinary ardour of your gratitude which no abfence, no change of circumftances, or lapse of time can either extinguish or impair. Nor is it poffible till you have made a more than ordinary progrefs in virtue, in piety, and in the improvement of the mind and heart, to feel fo much gratitude towards those who have in the leaft affifted you in the acquifition. Wherefore, my pupil, a name which with your leave I will employ, be affured that you are among the first objects of my regard; nor would any thing be more agreeable to me, if your circumftances permit as much as your inclination, than to have you take up your abode fomewhere in my neighbourhood, where we may often fee each other, and mutually profit by the reciprocations of kindness and of literature. But this must be as God pleases, and as you think beft. Your future communications may, if you please, be in our own language, left (though you are no mean proficient in Latin compofition) the labour of writing fhould make each of us more averfe to write; and that we may freely disclose every fenfation of our hearts without being impeded by the shackles of a foreign language. You may fafely entrust the care of your letters to any fervant of that family which you mention. Adieu.

Westminster, Decemb. 13, 1652.

XIV.

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

I RECEIVED Your former letters, moft accomplished fir, at the moment when your clerk was at the point of fetting out on his return, fo that I had no power of returning you an answer at that time. This

fome

fome unexpected engagements concurred to delay, or I fhould 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 present deserved. And I had more than once an intention of fubftituting our Englifh for your Latin, that you, who have studied 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 refpect you fhall act as you feel inclined. With refpect 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 fo much audacity that he heard it. Who he was you have caused a doubt, though long fince in fome conversations which we had on the subject just 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 subject 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 fo 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 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 conteft with the enemies of liberty has involuntarily withdrawn my attention from very different and more pleasurable purfuits. 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 fuppofe, that I have laboured in vain.

But more on this at another opportunity. At prefent adieu, most learned fir, and number me among your friends.

Weftminster, 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 persuasion that that city would one day make me ample recompense for the warmth of my regard. The antient genius of your renowned country has favoured the completion of my prophecy in prefenting 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 causes and the symptoms of the complaint. I will do what you defire, left I fhould feem 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 custom, my eyes inftantly ached