it a copy of the same to Mr.
Milton. The thing, though it has been mistaken by careless people as
actually a production of Harrington's, is in reality a clever
burlesque by some Royalist, in which, under the guise of an imaginary
debate in the Rota over Milton's pamphlet, Milton and the Rota-men
are turned into ridicule together. The mock-names on the title-page
(_Paul Giddy, Trundle Wheeler, &c._) are part of the burlesque;
and it is well kept up in the tract itself, which takes the form of a
letter gravely addressed to Milton and signed with Harrington's
initials, "_J. H._"[1]

[Footnote 1: The Rota Club, as we already know (ante p. 555), can
have had no meeting on the day supposed in the burlesque, having
disappeared, with all its appurtenances, ballot-box included, at or
immediately after the swamping of the old Rump by the readmission of
the secluded members. The last glimpses we have of it are these from
Pepys's Diary:--_Jan._ 10, 1659-60. "To the Coffee-house, where
were a great confluence of gentlemen: viz. Mr. Harrington, Poulteney
(chairman), Gold, Dr. Petty, &c.; where admirable discourse till 9 at
night."--_Jan._ 17. "I went to the Coffee Club, and heard very
good discourse. It was in answer to Mr. Harrington's answer, who said
that the state of the Roman government was not a settled government,
and so it was no wonder that the balance of property was in one hand
and the command in another, it being therefore always in a posture of
war; but it was carried by ballot that it was a steady government,
though it is true by the voices it had been carried before that it
was an unsteady government: so to-morrow it is to be proved by the
opponents that the balance lay in one hand and the government in
another."--_Feb._ 20 (day before Restitution of the Secluded).
"I to the Coffee-house, where I heard Mr, Harrington and my Lord
Dorset and another Lord talking of getting another place [for the
Club meetings] at the Cockpit, and they did believe it would come
to something." Had there been an express order for closing the
Club?]

Mr. Harrington is supposed to begin by expressing his regret to Mr.
Milton that his duty obliges him to make so unsatisfactory a report
as to the reception of Mr. Milton's last pamphlet by the Club. "For,
whereas it is our usual custom to dispute everything, how plain or
obscure soever, by knocking argument against argument, and tilting at
one another with our heads (as rams fight) till we ar