of honour and virtue, of whatsoever condition,—­quick and very sensible to indignities, but easily coming to himself again:  not one to provoke others, but yet one who has terrible spurs for his own defence.  I have hardly seen any who have done themselves credit by attacking him. Conscia virtus, and you may add what belongs to the genus irritabile vatum, make him well armed against his assailants.  For the rest, piety, honesty, temperance, freedom from all avarice or meanness, are found in him in a degree suitable to his profession.”

Suddenly, just when we have read this, and seen Morus self-described as far as to the year 1648, when he was about to leave Geneva for Holland, the book comes to a dead stop.  Diodati’s letter ends on page 129; and when we turn over the leaf we find a Latin note from Ulac, headed “The Printer to the Reader” and expressed as follows:—­

“Our labours towards finishing this Treatise had come to this point, when lo!  M. Morus, who had been staying for some time here at the Hague with the intention of completing it, called away by I know not what occasion to France, and with a favourable wind hastening his journey, was prevented from bringing all to an end, and so gratifying with every possible speed the desire of many curious persons to read both Treatises at once, Milton’s and More’s.  What to do I was for some days uncertain; but some gentlemen, not of small condition, at length persuaded me that I should not defer longer the publication of what of his I had already in print,—­alleging that the remaining and still wanting testimonies of eminent men, and of the Senates and Churches of Middleburg, Amsterdam, &c., given for the vindication of M. Morus, and which were here to have been subjoined, might be afterwards printed separately when they reached me.  Wishing to comply with their request, and my own inclination too, I now therefore do publish, Reader, what I am confident will please your curiosity, if not in full measure, at least a good deal.  Let whosoever desires to see the sequel expect it as soon as possible.”

Was there ever such an unfortunate as Morus?  Everything everywhere seems to go wrong with him.  Here, at the Hague, having absented himself from Amsterdam for the purpose, he has been writing his Defence of Himself against Milton, doing it cleverly and in a way likely to make some impression, when, suddenly, for some reason unknown even to his printer, he is obliged to break off for a journey into France, just as he was approaching the heart of his subject.  Had he absconded?  This seems actually to have been the construction, abroad.  “Morus is gone into France,” writes a Hague correspondent of Thurloe, Nov. 3, 1654; “it is believed that he has a calling, et quidem a Castris, and that he will not return to Amsterdam.  They love well his renown and learning, but not his conversation; for they do not desire that he should come to visit