so
little moderation'--sorry, that is, that I had not chosen, at his
private request, to oblige you, a public adversary, and to recall
and completely rewrite a work already printed and all but out. Let
'the highly distinguished man,' especially as an Ambassador, hold
me excused if I would not, and really could not, condone public
injuries on private intercessions."

Before Milton passes to the review of Morus's vindication of his
character and past career, he disposes of Dr. Crantzius and Ulac, as
objects intervening between him and that main task. For the _Fides
Publica_, it will be remembered, had been bound up with that Hague
edition of Milton's _Defensio Secunda_ to which the Rev. Dr.
Crantzius had prefixed a preface in rebuke of Milton and in defence
of Morus, and to which Ulac had also prefixed a statement replying to
Milton's charges against him of dishonesty and bankruptcy. Several
pages are given to Dr. Crantzius, who is called "a certain I know not
what sort of a bed-ridden little Doctor," then taxed with ignorance,
garrulity, and general imbecility, and at last kicked out of the way
with the phrase "But I do marvellously delight in Doctors." Ulac, as
having been reckoned with before, receives briefer notice. "_You
are a swindler, Ulac_, said I; _I am a good Arithmetician_,
says Ulac:" so the notice begins; and then follow some sentences to
the effect that Ulac's creditors had been very ill satisfied with his
_counting_, that the rule of probity is not the _Logarithmic
canon_, that correct accounts are different things from _Tables
of Sines_ or _Tables of Tangents and Secants_, and that
acting on the square is not necessarily taught by
_Trigonometry_. After which Milton reverts to Ulac's
double-dealings with himself, first in his fathering the abusive
Dedication of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ while he was
corresponding with Milton's friends in London and making kind
inquiries about Milton's health, and next in bringing out a pirated
edition of the _Defensio Secunda_, printing the same
inaccurately, and actually binding it up with the _Fides
Publica_ of Morus, so as to compel a united sale of the two books
for his own profit. How a man could have published so coolly a book
in which he was himself held up as a rogue and swindler passes
Milton's comprehension; but Ulac, he seems to admit, was no ordinary
tradesman.

For poor Morus himself there is not an atom of mercy yet. All his
dexterous ple