essing to give private information as to the terrible
severities which they were meditating when they should be restored to
England, the pamphlet was much resented by the Royalists; and John
Evelyn roused himself from a sickbed to pen an instant and emphatic
contradiction, called _The late News or Message from Brussels
unmasked_. Needham's connexion, or supposed connexion, with so
violent an anti-Royalist tract, and possibly also with the Republican
manifesto called _Plain English_, which appeared in the same
week, could not be overlooked; and, accordingly, in Whitlocke, under
date April 9, 1660, we find this note: "The Council discharged
Needham from writing the Weekly Intelligence and ordered Dury and
Muddiman to do it." The Dury here mentioned was not our John Durie of
European celebrity, but an insignificant Giles Dury. His colleague
Muddiman, the real successor of Needham in the editorship, was Henry
Muddiman, an acquaintance of Pepys, who certifies that he was "a good
scholar and an arch rogue." He had been connected with the London
press for some time (for smaller news-sheets had been springing up
again beside the authorized _Mercurius_ and
_Intelligencer_), and had been writing for the Rumpers. He had
just been, owning to Pepys, however, that he "did it only to get
money," and had no liking for them or their politics.[4]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates. As only the
_Intelligencer_ is named in the orders, one infers that Needham
retained the editorship of the _Mercurius_ during his three
months of suspension. He may have had more of a proprietary hold on
that paper.]

[Footnote 2: Thomason Catalogue: large quartos.]

[Footnote 3: _Didapper_: a duck that dives and reappears.]

[Footnote 4: Wood's Ath. III. 1180-1190; Whitlocke as cited; Pepys,
under date Jan. 9, 1659-60; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 17, 1659-60 _et
seq._; Baker's Chronicle continued by Edward Phillips (ed. 1679),
pp. 699-700.--It is curious to read Phillips's remarks on the
"several seditious pamphlets" put forth by the Republican fanatics
"to deprave the minds of the people" and prevent the Restoration.
Though he must have remembered well that his uncle's were the chief
of these, he avoids naming him. He mentions, however, the _News
from Brussels_, and dilates on the great service done by Evelyn in
replying to it. Phillips had meanwhile (1663-1665) been in Evelyn's
employment as tutor to his son.]

If they turned Needham out of his editors