said that the Amsterdam authorities had
interdicted Morus from the pulpit, just as he had been wrong in
calling Morus's Amsterdam professorship that of Greek. That admission
made (and it was hard for Milton ever to admit he was wrong, even in
a trifle), he contents himself with quoting sentences from the
Amsterdam testimonials to show how merely formal they were, how
little hearty, and with this characteristic observation about the
Amsterdam dignitaries, tossing their testimony aside in any case:
"_Et id nescio_, [Greek: aristinden] _an_ [Greek:
ploutinden], _virtute an censu, magistratum ilium in civitate sua
obtineant_: And I know not, moreover, whether it is by merit or by
wealth that the gentlemen hold that magistracy in their city." This
is, doubtless, Milton's return for the slighting mention of himself
in the Amsterdam testimonials.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Hague correspondent of Thurloe, commenting on the
appearance of the first part of Morus's _Fides Publica_ and its
abrupt ending had written, Nov. 3, 1654, thus: "The truth is Morus
durst not add the sentence [text of the judicial finding] against
Pontia; for the charges are recompensed [costs allowed her], and
where there is payment of charges that is to say that the action of
Pontia is good, but that the proofs fail.... The attestations of his
life at Amsterdam and at the Hague, he could not get them to his
fancy" (Thurloe, 11.708).]

While we have thus given, with tolerable completeness, an abstract of
Milton's extraordinary _Pro Se Defensio contra Alexandrum
Morum_, we have by no means noticed everything in it that might be
of interest in the study of Milton's character. There is, for
example, one very curious passage in which Milton, in reply to a
criticism of Morus, defends his use of very gross words (_verba
nuda et praetextata_) in speaking of very gross things. He makes
two daring quotations, one from Piso's Annals and the other from
Sallust, to show that he had good precedent; and he cites Herodotus,
Seneca, Suetonius, Plutarch, Erasmus, Thomas More, Clement of
Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantlas, Eusebius, and the Bible itself, as
examples occasionally of the very reverse of a squeamish euphemism.
Of even greater interest is a passage in which he foresees the
charges of cruelty, ruthlessness, and breach of literary etiquette,
likely to be brought against him on account of his treatment of
Morus, and expounds his theory on that subject. The passage may fit