ascertained.  I think the guess worth risking that the present performance may have been his, if only because the offer of the guess may lead to its confutation.  George Searle is the man proposed by the bibliographers (see Bohn’s Lowndes, Art.  Milton, and note p. 108 of Todd’s Life of Milton, edit. 1852); but I know not on what authority except that his initials are “G.S.” and that he was “a writer.”—­As far as I have observed, it was the first edition of Milton’s pamphlet only that G.S. had before him as he wrote.]

Whoever wrote the book must have had a touch of scholarly candour in his nature.  Though there is plenty of abuse of Milton, with the stereotyped allusions to his Divorce Doctrine and its effects, and with such occasional phrases as “your wind-mill brain,” “the unpracticableness of these your fanatic state-whimsies,” and though there is abuse also, in the coarse familiar strain, of the Rumpers and Commonwealths-men generally, and of “Oliver, the copper-nosed saint,” we come upon such passages as the following, appreciative at least of Milton’s literary power:—­

“I am not ignorant of the ability of Mr. Milton, whom the Rump (which was well-stored with men of pregnant though pernicious wits) made choice of before others to write their Defence against Salmasius; one of the greatest learned men of this age, both for reality and reputation.”

“... made choice of Mr. Milton to be their champion to answer Salmasius; who, as may be conceived, not vulgarly rewarded for this service, undertakes it with as much learning and performance as could be expected from the most able and acute scholar living:  concerning whose answer thus much must be confessed,—­that nothing could be therein desired which either a shrewd wit could prompt or a fluent elegant style express.  And, indeed, to give him his due, in whatever he vomited out against his Majesty formerly, or now declaims against Monarchy in behalf of a Republic, he then did, and doth now, want nothing on his side but truth.”

These are casual expressions in the course of the argumentation with Milton; and, as there is no need to exhibit the argumentation itself, a single quotation more will suffice.  It is from the Dedication to Charles II.  That, though coming first in the book, was probably written last, when the writer could exult in the idea that his Majesty was so soon to land on the British shores, and could have pleasure in being one of the first to address him ceremoniously and in public with all his royal titles.  Let it be remembered that, by the introduction of Milton into this Dedication, not only prominently, but even singly and exclusively, it was as if pains were taken to remind Charles, just as he was preparing to step into the ship that was to convey him to England, of the name of that one man among his subjects who had done more to keep him out, and had attacked him and his more ferociously, more relentlessly, and more successfully, than any other living.  Suppose that his Majesty, waiting at Breda, was curious to know already, for certain reasons, what person, not on the actual list of those who had signed his father’s death-warrant, would be designated to him by universal opinion at home as the least pardonable traitor; and read this as the answer of G.S.:—­