Dr. Griffith's Sermon_ seems more particularly
to certify that those _Notes_ preceded the new edition of the
_Ready and Easy Way_ by a week or more. On the whole, I do not
think I am wrong in regarding the new edition as Milton's very last
performance before the Restoration, and in dating it somewhere
between April 9, the day of Lambert's escape from the Tower, and
April 24, when Lambert was brought back a prisoner to London and the
members of the Convention Parliament were already gathered in town.
As Thomason's copy of the first edition is marked "March 3," this
would make the interval between the two editions about a month and a
half.]

The wrestlings now were ended. All that remained for the blind Samson
was to listen, with bowed head, to the renewed burst of Philistine
hissings, howlings, and execrations, against him, before they would
let him retire. It came from all quarters; but at least two persons
stepped out from the crowd to convert the mere inarticulate uproar
into distinct invective and insult.

"_No Blinde Guides: in answer to a seditious Pamphlet of J.
Milton's entituled 'Brief Notes on a late Sermon, &c.' Addressed to
the Author_.--'If the Blinde lead the Blinde, both shall fall into
the ditch.'--_London, Printed for Henry Brome, April_ 20, 1660."
This was the title of a tract, of fourteen small quarto pages, which
was out on April 25. The author does not give his name; but he was
Roger L'Estrange, the Royalist pamphleteer.[1] The following
specimen will represent the rest:--

[Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 712. The date of the actual appearance
of the tract is from the Thamason copy.]

"Mr. Milton,

"Although in your life and doctrine you have resolved one great
question, by evidencing that devils may indue human shapes and
proving yourself even to your own wife an incubus, you have yet
started another; and that is whether you are not of that regiment
which carried the herd of swine headlong into the sea, and moved
the people to beseech Jesus to depart out of their coasts.
(_This_ may be very well imagined from your suitable practices
_here_.) Is it possible to read your _Proposals of the
benefits of a Free State_ without reflecting upon your tutor's
'All this will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me'?
Come, come, Sir: lay the Devil aside; do not proceed with so much
malice and against knowledge. Act like a man, that a good Christian
may not be afraid t