“What Salmasius, he whom all men hailed as
  Learning’s prodigy, Phoenix much too big for
  His own late generation, ay or any old one,
  Wrote so bravely against the sin of Britain,
  Then all wet with the royal bloodshed in her,
  Milton answered with pen that, be it granted,
  Showed vast genius, nor a mind without some
  Real marks of artistic cultivation,
  Though, O shame! patronizing such an outrage. 
  Milton’s pen is refuted next by Schaller’s,—­
  Quite a different pen and more respected.”

Young Keck then goes on to assure his fellow-students that, if their eminent Professor Schaller’s Dissertation of 1653 in reply to Milton had been duly read and pondered in Great Britain, it would have been of far more use towards a restoration of the Stuarts than camps and cannon; and he ends by congratulating the world on the fact that now young Guentzer, the accomplished young Guentzer, has placed himself by the side of the learned Professor, to wave the same inextinguishable torch of truth.[1]—­In all probability, Milton never heard of such a trifle.  It illustrates, however, the kind of rumour of himself and his writings that was circling, in the year 1657, in holes and corners of German Universities.  Strasburg, with Elsatz generally, was then within the dominions of Austria; and it was naturally less in Austrian Germany than in other parts of the Continent that there was that especial admiration of Milton which had been growing since the publication of his Defensio Prima, but which, as Aubrey tells us, had reached its height under the Protectorate.  “He was mightily importuned,” says Aubrey, “to go into France and Italy.  Foreigners came much to see him, and much admired him, and offered to him great preferments to come over to them; and the only inducement of several foreigners that came over into England was chiefly to see O. Protector and Mr. J. Milton; and [they] would see the house and chamber where he was born.  He was much more admired abroad than at home.”  This corresponds with all our own evidence hitherto, though we have heard nothing of those invitations and offers of foreign preferment of which Aubrey speaks.

[Footnote 1:  The copy I have seen of Guentzer’s Dissertatio is in the British Museum Library.  The figure “17” is inserted in MS. after the word “die” in the title-page.]

In May 1658, three or four months before Cromwell’s death, there was published in London a little volume of about 200 pages, with this title-page:  “The Cabinet Council; Containing the chief Arts of Empire, and Mysteries of State; Discabineted in Political and Polemical Aphorisms, grounded, on Authority, and Experience; And illustrated with the choicest Examples and Historical Observations.  By the Ever-renowned Knight, Sir Walter Raleigh, published by John Milton Esq.-Quis Martem tunica tectum Adamantina digne scripserit?-London, Printed by Tho.  Newcomb for Tho.  Johnson