of so foul a guide will be a whole world awry in his calculations.  Woe to that church (only God avert the omen!) where such ministers please, mainly by tickling the ears,—­ministers whom the Church, if she would truly be called Reformed, would more fitly cast out than desire to bring in.

  “In not having given copies of my writings to any one that does not
  ask for them, you have done well and discreetly, not in my opinion
  alone, but also in that of Horace:—­

    “Err not by zeal for us, nor on our books
    Draw hatred by too vehement care.

“A learned man, a friend of mine, spent last summer at Saumur.  He wrote to me that the book was in demand in those parts; I sent only one copy; he wrote back that some of the learned to whom he had lent it had been pleased with it hugely.  Had I not thought I should be doing a thing agreeable to them, I should have spared you trouble and myself expense.  But,

    “If chance my load of paper galls your back,
    Off with, it now, rather than in the end
    Dash down the panniers cursing.

“To our Lawrence, as you bade me, I have given greetings in your name.  For the rest, there is nothing I should wish you to do or care for more than see that yourself and your pupil get on in good health, and that you return to us as soon as possible with all your wishes fulfilled.

  “Westminster:  Aug. 1, 1657.”

The books mentioned in the third paragraph as having been sent by Milton to Saumur in Oldenburg’s charge must have been copies of the Defensio Secunda and of the Pro Se Defensio.  The person mentioned with such loathing in the second paragraph was the hero of those performances, Morus.  The paragraph requires explanation.  For Morus, uncomfortable at Amsterdam, and every day under some fresh discredit there, a splendid escape had at length presented itself.  He had received an invitation to be one of the ministers of the Protestant church of Charenton, close to Paris.  This church of Charenton was indeed the main Protestant church of Paris itself and the most flourishing representative of French Protestantism generally.  For the French law then obliged Protestants to have their places of worship at some distance from the cities and towns in which they resided, and the village of Charenton was the ecclesiastical rendezvous of the chief Protestant nobility and professional men of the capital, some of whom, in the capacity of lay-elders, were associated in the consistory of the church with the ministers or pastors.  Of these, in the beginning of 1657, there had been five, all men of celebrity in the French Protestant world—­viz.  Mestrezat, Faucheur, Drelincourt, Daille, and Gaches; but the deaths of the two first in April and May of that year had occasioned vacancies, and it was to fill up one of these vacancies that Morus had been invited from Amsterdam.  Oldenburg,