s terrible spurs for his own defence. I
have hardly seen any who have done themselves credit by attacking
him. _Conscia virtus_, and you may add what belongs to the
_genus irritabile vatum_, make him well armed against his
assailants. For the rest, piety, honesty, temperance, freedom from
all avarice or meanness, are found in him in a degree suitable to his
profession."

Suddenly, just when we have read this, and seen Morus self-described
as far as to the year 1648, when he was about to leave Geneva for
Holland, the book comes to a dead stop. Diodati's letter ends on page
129; and when we turn over the leaf we find a Latin note from Ulac,
headed "_The Printer to the Reader_" and expressed as follows:--

"Our labours towards finishing this Treatise had come to this
point, when lo! M. Morus, who had been staying for some time here
at the Hague with the intention of completing it, called away by I
know not what occasion to France, and with a favourable wind
hastening his journey, was prevented from bringing all to an end,
and so gratifying with every possible speed the desire of many
curious persons to read both Treatises at once, Milton's and
More's. What to do I was for some days uncertain; but some
gentlemen, not of small condition, at length persuaded me that I
should not defer longer the publication of what of his I had
already in print,--alleging that the remaining and still wanting
testimonies of eminent men, and of the Senates and Churches of
Middleburg, Amsterdam, &c., given for the vindication of M. Morus,
and which were here to have been subjoined, might be afterwards
printed separately when they reached me. Wishing to comply with
their request, and my own inclination too, I now therefore do
publish, Reader, what I am confident will please your curiosity, if
not in full measure, at least a good deal. Let whosoever desires to
see the sequel expect it as soon as possible."

Was there ever such an unfortunate as Morus? Everything everywhere
seems to go wrong with him. Here, at the Hague, having absented
himself from Amsterdam for the purpose, he has been writing his
Defence of Himself against Milton, doing it cleverly and in a way
likely to make some impression, when, suddenly, for some reason
unknown even to his printer, he is obliged to break off for a journey
into France, just as he was approaching the heart of his subject. Had
he absconded? This seems actually to have b