of denial;
and he still maintains that Morus is, to all legal intents and
purposes, responsible for the book. "Unless I show this." he says,
"unless I make it plain either that you are the author of that most
notorious book against us, or that you have given sufficient occasion
for justly regarding you as the author, I do not object to the
conclusion that I have been beaten by you in this controversy, and
come out of it ignominiously, with disgrace and shame." How is this
strong statement supported? In the first place, there is reproduced
the evidence of original, universal, and persistent rumour. "This I
say religiously, that through two whole years I met no one, whether a
countryman of my own or a foreigner, with whom there could be talk
about that book, but they all agreed unanimously that you were called
its author, and they named no one for the author but you." To Morus's
assertion that he had openly, loudly, and energetically disowned the
book, where suspected of the authorship, Milton returns a complex
answer. Partly he does not believe the assertion, on the ground that
there were many who had heard Morus confessing to the book and
boasting of it. Partly he asks why such energetic repudiations were
necessary, and why, in spite of them, intimate friends of Morus
retained their former opinion. Partly he admits that there may
latterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was danger
in being thought the author. Any criminal will deny his crime in
sight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus had
reason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the _Regii
Sanguinis Clamor_ was forthcoming, what had not the author of that
book to dread after the Peace between the Dutch and the Commonwealth
had been concluded? By articles IX., X., and XI. of the Peace it was
provided that no public enemy of the Commonwealth should have
residence, shelter, living, or commerce, within the bounds of the
United Provinces; and who more a public enemy of the Commonwealth
than the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_? No wonder that,
after that Peace, Morus had trembled for the consequences of his
handiwork. The loss of his Amsterdam Professorship, instant ejection
from Holland, and prohibition of return under pain of death, were
what he had to fear. Were not these powerful enough motives for
denial to a man like Morus? Had not Milton, when he learnt by letters
from Durie in May 1654 that Morus was disowning--t