h a scriptural allusion to his
short stature, and the mightiness of Buckingham, "God bless thee, little
David!" Felton was nearly sainted before he reached the metropolis. His
health was the reigning toast among the republicans. A character,
somewhat remarkable, Alexander Gill (usher under his father, Dr. Gill,
master of St. Paul's school), who was the tutor of Milton, and his dear
friend afterwards, and perhaps from whose impressions in early life
Milton derived his vehement hatred of Charles, was committed by the
Star-chamber, heavily fined, and sentenced to lose his ears,[248] on
three charges, one of which arose from drinking a health to Felton. At
Trinity College Gill said that the king was fitter to stand in a
Cheapside shop, with an apron before him, and say, _What lack ye?_ than
to govern a kingdom; that the duke was gone down to hell to see king
James; and drinking a health to Felton, added he was sorry Felton had
deprived him of the honour of doing that brave act.[249] In the taste of
that day, they contrived a political anagram of his name, to express the
immovable self-devotion he showed after the assassination, never
attempting to escape; and John Felton, for the nonce, was made to read,

_Noh! flie not!_

But while Felton's name was echoing through the kingdom, our new Brutus
was at this moment exhibiting a piteous spectacle of remorse; so
different often is the real person himself from the ideal personage of
the public. The assassination, with him, was a sort of theoretical one,
depending, as we shall show, on four propositions; so that when the
king's attorney, as the attorney-general was then called, had furnished
the unhappy criminal with an unexpected argument, which appeared to him
to have overturned his, he declared that he had been in a mistake; and
lamenting that he had not been aware of it before, from that instant his
conscientious spirit sunk into despair. In the open court he stretched
out his arm, offering it as the offending instrument to be first cut
off; he requested the king's leave to wear sackcloth about his loins,
to sprinkle ashes on his head, to carry a halter about his neck, in
testimony of repentance; and that he might sink to the lowest point of
contrition, he insisted on asking pardon not only of the duchess, the
duke's mother, but even of the duke's scullion-boy; and a man naturally
brave was seen always shedding tears, so that no one could have imagined
that Felton had bee