ing "Solinus" and "The Augustan History," however ably;
but an achievement like this, not a "Paradise Lost" or a "Werther" was
the _sic itur ad astra_ of the time. On the strength of such Salmasius
had pronounced _ex cathedra_ on a multiplicity of topics, from
episcopacy to hair-powder, and there was no bishop and no perfumer
between the Black Sea and the Irish who would not rather have the
scholar for him than against him. A man, too, to be named with respect;
no mere annotator, but a most sagacious critic; peevish, it might be,
but had he not seven grievous disorders at once? One who had shown such
independence and integrity in various transactions of his life, that we
may be very sure that Charles II.'s hundred Jacobuses, if ever given or
even promised, were the very least of the inducements that called him
into the field against the executioners of Charles I.

Whether, however, the hundred Jacobuses were forthcoming or not,
Salmasius's undertaking was none the less a commission from Charles II.,
and the circumstance put him into a false position, and increased the
difficulty of his task. Human feeling is not easily reconciled to the
execution of a bad magistrate, unless he has also been a bad man.
Charles I. was by no means a bad man, only a mistaken one. He had been
guilty of many usurpations and much perfidy: but he had honestly
believed his usurpations within the limits of his prerogative; and his
breaches of faith were committed against insurgents whom he regarded as
seamen look upon pirates, or shepherds upon wolves. Salmasius, however,
pleading by commission from Charles's son, can urge no such mitigating
plea. He is compelled to maintain the inviolability even of wicked
sovereigns, and spends two-thirds of his treatise in supporting a
proposition to state which is to refute it in the nineteenth century. In
the latter part he is on stronger ground. Charles had unquestionably
been tried and condemned by a tribunal destitute of legal authority, and
executed contrary to the wish and will of the great majority of his
subjects. But this was a theme for an Englishman to handle. Salmasius
cannot think himself into it, nor had he sufficient imagination to be
inspired by Charles as Burke (who, nevertheless, has borrowed from him)
was to be inspired by Marie Antoinette.

His book--entitled "Defensio Regia pro Carolo I."--appeared in October
or November, 1649. On January 8, 1650, it was ordered by the Council of
State "