the most abject of slaves: nay, men that have sided with the king, would have had these thoughts of his book. But since he has swoln it to a considerable bulk, and dispersed it amongst foreigners, who are altogether ignorant of our affairs and constitution, it is fit that they who mistake them should be better informed; and that he, who is so very forward to speak ill of others, should be treated in his own kind. If it be asked, why we did not then attack him sooner? why we suffered him to triumph so long, and pride himself in our silence? For others I am not to answer; for myself I can boldly say, that I had neither words or arguments long to seek for the defence of so good a cause, if I had enjoyed such a measure of health, as would have endured the fatigue of writing. And being but weak in body, I am forced to write by piecemeal, and break off almost every hour, though the subject be such as requires an unintermitted study and intenseness of mind. But though this bodily indisposition may be a hinderance to me in setting forth the just praises of my most worthy countrymen, who have been the saviours of their native country, and whose exploits, worthy of immortality, are already famous all the world over; yet I hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend them from the insolence of this silly little scholar, and from that saucy tongue of his, at least. Nature and laws would be in an ill case, if slavery should find what to say for itself, and liberty be mute; and if tyrants should find men to plead for them, and they that can master and vanquish tyrants, should not be able to find advocates. And it were a deplorable thing indeed, if the reason mankind is endued withal, and which is the gift of God, should not furnish more arguments for men's preservation, for their deliverance, and, as much as the nature of the thing will bear, for making them equal to one another, than for their oppression, and for their utter ruin under the domineering power of one single person. Let me therefore enter upon this noble cause with a cheerfulness, grounded upon this assurance, that my adversary's cause is maintained by nothing but fraud, fallacy, ignorance, and barbarity; whereas mine has light, truth, reason, the practice and the learning of the best ages of the world, of its side.

But now, having said enough for an introduction, since we have to do with critics, let us in the first place consider the title of this choice piece: "Defensio Regia pro Car. Primo, ad Car. Secundum: a Royal Defence (or the king's defence) for Charles the First, to Charles the Second." You undertake a wonderful piece of work whoever you are; to plead the father's cause before his own son a hundred to one but you carry it. But I summon you, Salmasius, who heretofore skulked under a wrong name, and now go by no name at all, to appear before another tribunal, and before other judges, where perhaps you may not hear those little applauses, which you used to be so fond of in your school. But why this royal defence dedicated to the king's own son? We need not put him to the torture; he confesses why. "At the king's charge," says he. O mercenary and chargeable advocate! could you not afford to write a defence for Charles the father, whom you pretend to have been the best of kings, to Charles the son, the most indigent of all kings, but it must be at the poor king's own charge? But though you are a knave, you would not make yourself ridiculous, in calling it the king's defence; for you having sold it, it is no longer yours, but the king's indeed; who bought it at the price of a hundred jacobusses, a great sum for a poor king to disburse. I know very well what I say: and it is well enough known who brought the gold, and the purse wrought with beads: we know who saw you reach out greedy hands under pretence of embracing the king's chaplain, who brought the present, but indeed to embrace the present itself, and by accepting it to exhaust almost all the king's treasury.

But now the man comes himself; the door creaks; the actor appears upon the stage.

"In silence now, and with attention wait,

That ye may learn what th' Eunuch has to prate."

Terent.

For, whatever the matter is with him, he blusters more than ordinary. "A horrible message had lately struck our ears, but our minds more, with a heinous wound concerning a parricide committed in England in the person of a king, by a wicked conspiracy of sacrilegious men."

Indeed that horrible message must either have had a much longer sword than that which Peter drew, or those ears must have been of a wonderful length, that it could wound at such a distance; for it could not so much as in the least offend any ears but those of an ass. For what harm is it to you, that are foreigners? are any of you hurt by it, if we amongst ourselves put our own enemies, our own traitors to death, be they commoners, noblemen, or kings? Do you, Salmasius, let alone what does not concern you: for I have a horrible message to bring of you too; which I am mistaken if it strike not a more heinous wound into the ears of all grammarians and critics, provided they have any learning and delicacy in them, to wit, your crowding so many barbarous expressions together in one period in the person of (Aristarchus) a grammarian; and that so great a critic as you, hired at the king's charge to write a defence of the king his father, should not only set so fulsome a preface before it, much like those lamentable ditties that used to be sung at funerals, and which can move compassion in none but a coxcomb; but in the very first sentence should provoke your readers to laughter with so many barbarisms all at once. "Persona regis," you cry. Where do you find such Latin? or are you telling us some tale or other of a Perkin Warbec, who, taking upon him the person of a king, has, forsooth, committed some

any

* On the various meanings of the word person, the dispute between Locke and Dr. Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, comprehends nearly all that can be said. The doctor, unaccustomed to metaphysical disquisition, puts forward his opinions with intrepid precipitation, and falls accordingly into strange errors and confusion. He has some dim preception of what constitutes individuality, and distinguishes one man from another; but when he comes to clothe his ideas in words, he experiences the difficulty which most men used to rhetorical declamation encounter when they endeavour to write with logical accuracy. The whole passage is much too long to be quoted here; but it may be worth while to introduce a part of it by way of illustration. It will immediately be remarked, that Locke is a very different adversary from Milton, since, instead of arguing with fiery vehemence, he puts down his opponent with a quiet ease which occasionally assumes the form of humour.- "Let us now read what his lordship has said concerning person, that I may, since you desire it of me, let you see how far I have got any clear and distinct apprehensions of person from his lordship's explication of that. His lordship's words are: Let us now come to the idea of a person. For although the common nature of mankind be the same, yet we see a difference in the several

horrible parricide in England? which expression, though dropping carelessly from your pen, has more truth in it

individuals from one another: So that Peter and James and John are all of the same kind, yet Peter is not James, and James is not John. But what is their distinction founded upon? They may be distinguished from each other by our senses, as to difference of features, distance of place; but that is not all; for supposing there were no external difference, yet there is a difference in them, as several individuals in the same commor nature. And here lies the true idea of a person, which arises from the manner of subsistence which is in one individual and is not communicable to another. An individual intelligent substance is rather supposed to the making of a person, than the proper definition of it; for a person relates to something which doth distinguish it from another intelligent substance in the same nature; and therefore the foundation of it lies in the peculiar manner of subsistence, which agrees to one, and to none else, of the kind; and this is it which is called personality.'

"In these words, this I understand very well, that supposing Peter, James and John to be all three men, and man being a name of one kind of animal, they are all of the same kind. I understand too, that Peter is not James, and James is not John; but that there is a difference in the several individuals. I understand also, that they may be distinguished from each other by our senses, as to different features, and distance of place. But what follows? I confess I do not understand where his lordship says,-' But that is not all; for supposing there were no external difference, yet there is a difference between them, as several individuals in the same nature.' For, first, whatever willingness I have to gratify his lordship in whatever he would have me suppose; yet I cannot, I find, suppose a contradiction; and it seems to me to imply a contradiction, to say, Peter and James are not in different places. The next thing I do not understand, is what his lordship says in these words,- For supposing there were no external difference, yet there is a difference between them, as several individuals in the same nature.' For these words being here to show what the distinction of Peter, James, and John is founded upon, I do not understand how they at all do it.'

"His lordship says,- Peter is not James, and James not John.' He then asks," But what is their distinction founded upon ?' And to resolve that, he answers,- Not by difference of features, or distance of place,' with an &c. Because, 'supposing there were no such external difference, yet there is a difference between them.' In which passage, by the words such external difference,' must be meant, all other difference but what his lordship, in the next words, is going to name; or else I do not see how his lordship shows what this distinction is founded upon. For if, supposing such external difference away, there may be other differences on which to found their distinctions, besides that other which his lordship subjoins, viz. the difference that is between them, as several individuals in the same nature,' I cannot say that his lordship has said anything to show what the distinction between these individuals is founded on ; because if he has not, under the term external difference, comprised all the difference besides that, his chief and fundamental are, viz-the difference between them as several individuals in the same common nature, it may be

than you are aware of. For a tyrant is but like a king upon a stage, a man in a vizor, and acting the part of a king in a play; he is not really a king. But as for these gallicisms, that are so frequent in your book, I won't lash you for them myself, for I am not at leisure; but shall deliver you over to your fellow-grammarians, to be laughed to scorn and whipped by them. What follows is much more heinous, that what was decreed by our supreme magistracy to be done to the king, should be said by you to have been done "by a wicked conspiracy of sacrilegious persons." Have you the impudence, you rogue, to talk at this rate of the acts and decrees of the chief magistrates of a nation, that lately was a most potent kingdom, and is now a more potent commonwealth? Whose proceedings no king ever took upon him by word of mouth, or otherwise, to vilify and set at nought. The illustrious states of Holland therefore, the genuine offspring of those deliverers of their country, have deservedly by their edict condemned to utter darkness this defence of tyrants, so pernicious to the liberty of all nations; the author of which every free state ought to forbid their country, or to banish out of it; and that state particularly that feeds with a stipend so ungrateful and so savage an enemy to their commonwealth, whose very fundamentals, and the causes of their becoming a free state, this fellow endeavours to undermine as well as ours, and at one and the same time to subvert both; loading with calumnies the most worthy asserters of liberty there, under our names. Consider with yourselves, ye most illustrious states of the United Netherlands, who it was that put this asserter of kingly power upon setting pen to paper? who it was, that but lately began to play Rex in your country? what counsels were taken, what endeavours used, and what disturbances ensued thereupon in Holland? and to what pass things might have been brought by this time? How slavery and a new master were ready prepared for you; and how near expiring that founded on what his lordship has not mentioned. I conclude, then, it is his lordship's meaning, (or else I can see no meaning in his words,) that supposing no difference between them, of features, or distance of place, &c. i.e., no other difference between them, yet there would be the true ground of distinction in the difference between, as several individuals and the same common nature."-Ed.