les II. is marked for deletion, and has these words prefixed to
it in Du Moulin's hand; "_Epistola, quam aiunt esse Alexandri
Mori, quae mihi valde non probatur_" ("Epistle which they say is by
Alexander Morus, and which is not greatly to my taste"),[1] All the
rest, therefore, was his own. But, to remove all possible doubt, we
have the still more complete and exact information furnished by him
in 1670, Milton then still alive and in the first fame of his
_Paradise Lost_. In that year there appeared from the Cambridge
University Press a volume entitled _Petri Molinaei P. F. [Greek:
Parerga]: Poematum Libelli Tres_. It was a collection of Dr. Peter
Du Moulin's Latin Poems, written at various times of his life, and
now arranged by him in three divisions, separately title-paged,
entitled respectively "Hymns to the Apostles' Creed," "Groans of the
Church" (_Ecclesiae Gemitus_), and "Varieties." In the second
division were reprinted the two Latin Poems that had originally
formed part of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_, with their full
titles as at first: to wit, the "Eucharistic Ode," to the great
Salmasius for his _Defensio Regia_, and the set of scurrilous
Iambics "To the Bestial Blackguard John Milton, Parricide and
Advocate of the Parricide." With reference to the last there are
several explanations for the reader in Latin prose at different
points in the volume. At one place the reader is assured that, though
the Iambics against Milton, and some other things in the volume, may
seem savage, zeal for Religion and the Church, in their hour of sore
trial, had been a sufficient motive for writing them, and they must
not be taken as indicating the private character of the author, as
known well enough to his friends. At another place (pp. 141-2 of the
volume) there is, by way of afterthought or extension, a larger and
more express statement about the Iambics against Milton, which must
here be translated in full: "Into what danger I was thrown," says Du
Moulin, "by the first appearance of this Poem in the _Clamor Regii
Sanguinis_ would not seem to me worthy of public notice now, were
it not that the miracle of divine protection by which I was kept safe
is most worthy of the common admiration of the good and the praise of
the Supreme Deliverer. I had sent my manuscript sheets to the great
Salmasius, who entrusted them to the care of that most learned man,
Alexander Morus. This Morus delivered them to the printer, and
prefixed to th