Page images
PDF
EPUB

I have performed, and certainly with a good will, I hope not in vain, the service which I thought would be of most use to the commonwealth. It is not before our own doors alone that I have borne my arms in defence of liberty; I have wielded them on a field so wide, that the justice and reason of these which are no vulgar deeds, shall be explained and vindicated alike to foreign nations and to our own countrymen; and by all good men shall no doubt be approved; and shall remain to the matchless renova of my fellow-citizens, and as the brightest example for after-ages. If our last actions should not be sufficiently answerable to the first, it is for themselves to see to it. I have celebrated, as a testimony to them, I had almost said, a monument, which will not speedily perish, actions which were glorious, lofty, which were almost above all praise; and if I have done nothing else, I have assuredly discharged my trust. But as the poet, who is styled epic, if he adhere strictly to established rules, undertakes to embellish not the whole lifeof the hero whom he proposes to celebrate in song, but, usually, one particular action of his life, as for example, that of Achilles at Troy, or the return of Ulysses, or the arrival of Æneas in Italy, and leaves alone the rest; so likewise will it suffice for my duty and excuse, that I have at least embellished one of the heroic actions of my countrymen. The rest I pass by: for who could do justice to all the great actions of an entire people? If, after achievements so magnanimous, ye basely fall off from your duty, if ye are guilty of any thing unworthy of you, be assured, posterity will speak, and thus pronounce its judgment: The foundation was strongly laid, the beginning, nay more than the beginning, was excellent; but it will be enquired, not without a disturbed emotion, who raised the superstructure, who completed

the fabric! To undertakings so grand, to virtues so noble, it will be a subject of grief that perseverance was wanting. It will be seen that the harvest of glory was abundant; that there were materials for the greatest operations, but that men were not to be found for the work; yet, that there was not wanting one, who could give good counsel; who could exhort, encourage; who could adorn, and celebrate, in immortal praises, the transcendant deeds, and those who performed them.

THE

AUTHOR'S DEFENCE OF HIMSELF,

IN ANSWER TO

ALEXANDER MORE, ECCLESIASTIC,

THE AUTHOR (RIGHTLY SO CALLED) OP

The famous Libel, entitled

"THE CRY OF THE ROYAL BLOOD TO HEAVEN, AGAINST THE ENGLISH PARRICIDES."

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN, BY THE EDITOR.

Ar the time when I first undertook to vindicate the cause of liberty, I thought it would be no unheard of accident, nor, from the very beginning, was it at all foreign to my expectation, if I, who above the rest had publicly applauded my fellow-citizens as the deliverers of their country, and had confounded the unlimited and mischievous prerogative of tyrants, should have the hatred of all the unprincipled accumulated almost upon me alone. Englishmen! I foresaw, likewise, that your contest with the enemy would not be long; but that mine, with the fugitives and their hirelings, would be only not everlasting; because those, from whose hands you had wrested their arms, would therefore, with the greater bitterness, shower their curses and their reproaches upon me. Against you, then, the fury and

violence of the enemy have abated. To me, it seems, alone it remains to terminate this war. These con cluding attacks are indeed most contemptible; but like those from most weak animals, they are sufficiently envenomed. As all who are over-curious about other people's concerns, all who are the most mischievously busy and corrupt, whether among our own profligate citizens, or among foreigners, as all such fly upon me, against me will they point their venom and their stings. Whence it happens, that I am not at liberty, on the present occasion, to imitate the common practice of writers, with whom it is usual to premise something in commendation of their work, with a view to procure a favorable hearing, and thus to raise themselves by degrees from what may be low or ordinary in their subjects, to those topics which may be of the greatest weight and importance: On the contrary, I am now obliged to stoop from recounting achievements the most lofty and glorious, to things of no note or lustre,-to trace out the lurking holes of the nameless, and the haunts and the crimes of an adversary of the basest kind. Although this may appear little creditable to one who is making a beginning, and still less suited to gain the attention of the reader, yet, when we consider that the same thing has happened to the best and most illustrious of men, my situation, by presenting a parallel, is not without its circumstances of consolation. Scipio Africanus himself, after he had performed those exploits, than which nothing, in that line of glory, could be greater or more fortunate, after his affairs began to wane, which they continued to do without interruption, he seems always to have fed upon the substance of his own worth. At the outset of his career, he was the first of generals, superior even to Hannibal;

Even

afterwards he was sent to combat the Syrian, an unwarlike enemy; then he was harrassed by the insolence of the tribunes, and last of all, he was constrained to fortify his own villa at Liternum, against thieves and rob bers: yet, throughout this decline of his fortune, he is said to have been always the same, always equal to himself. Hence I am taught, as likewise from lessons derived from other sources, not to despise any condition or any office that may be allotted me by God, however humble it may be, or however inferior to what I before enjoyed. But as a good general (for why should we not imitate the good in every kind of excellence?) will do the duty of a good general against an enemy of any description; or, if this comparison be too invidious, as a good shoe maker (for thus philosophized a wise man of ancient times) will make the best shoe he is able of the leather he may happen to have in hand, so I will try, if, out of this shoe, (for when I had resolved on it, I was ashamed to call it an argument) though now worn and unsown, I cannot patch up something at least, which the ears of my readers may not disdain. Still, I should have spared myself altogether this trouble, if my enemy had not thrown out against me accusations and lies of such a nature, as I could not endure should adhere as a stain and a suspicion to my character. Forced then of necessity to undertake this task, I trust I -shall be pardoned by all, if, as heretofore I was not found wanting to the people and to the commonwealth, I shall now show that I am not wanting to myself.

Since then, More, you thus voluntarily, and without ceremony, pledge to us your "faith," (which, in the very tle of your book you call" public," and which I have so long known to be venal and profligate) that your anger would kindle in a still higher degree," if

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »