in the following month, also connects
itself, but still more closely, with the Morus controversy. It is
addressed to Ezekiel Spanheim, the eldest son of that Frederick
Spanheim, by birth a German, of whom we have heard as Professor of
Theology successively at Geneva (1631-1642) and at Leyden
(1642-1649). This elder Spanheim, it will be remembered, had been
implicated in the opposition to Morus in both places--the story being
that he had contracted a bad opinion of Morus during his
colleagueship with him in Geneva, and that, when Salmasius, partly to
spite Spanheim, of whose popularity at Leyden he was jealous, had
negotiated for bringing Morus to Holland, Spanheim "moved heaven and
earth to prevent his coming." It is added that Spanheim's death (May
1649) was caused by the news that Morus was on his way, and that he
had said on his death-bed that "Salmasius had killed him and Morus
had been the dagger."[1] On the other hand, we have had recently the
assurance of Dr. Crantzius that Spanheim had once told him that the
only fault in Morus was that he was _altier_, or self-confident.
That the stronger story is the truer one substantially, if not to its
last detail, appears from the fact that an antipathy to Morus was
hereditary in the Spanheim family, or at least in the eldest son,
Ezekiel. As a scholar, an antiquarian, and a diplomatist, this
Ezekiel Spanheim was to attain to even greater celebrity than his
father, and his varied career in different parts of Europe was not to
close till 1710. At present he was only in his twenty-fifth year,
and was living at Geneva, where he had been born, and whither he had
returned from Leyden in 1651, to accept a kind of honorary
Professorship that had been offered him, in compliment partly to his
father's memory, partly to his own extraordinary promise. As one who
had lived the first thirteen years of his age in Geneva, and the next
nine in Leyden (1642-1651), and who was now back in Geneva, he had
been amply and closely on the track of Morus; and how little he liked
him will now appear:--

[Footnote 1: Bayle, both in Article _Spanheim_ and in Article
_Morus_.]

TO EZEKIEL SPANHEIM OF GENEVA.

I know not by what accident it has happened that your letter has
reached me little less than three months after date. There is
clearly extreme need of a speedier conveyance of mine to you; for,
though from day to day I was resolving to write it, I now perceive
that, hindered by