I should be as copious in words, and empty of matter, as most
men think Salmasius has been in his defence of the king, I
might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and
silly defender; yet since no man thinks himself obliged to
make so much haste, though in the handling but of any ordinary
subject, as not to premise some introduction at least,
according as the weight of the subject requires; if I take the
same course in handling almost the greatest subject that ever
was (without being too tedious in it) I am in hopes of
attaining two things, which indeed I earnestly desire: the
one, not to be at all wanting, as far as in me lies, to this
most noble cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future
ages: the other, that I may appear to have myself avoided that
frivolousness of matter, and redundancy of words, which I
blame in my antagonist. For I am about to discourse of matters
neither inconsiderable nor common, but how a most potent king,
after he had trampled upon the laws of the nation, and given a
shock to its religion, and begun to rule at his own will and
pleasure, was at last subdued in the field by his own
subjects, who had undergone a long slavery under him; how
afterwards he was cast into prison, and when he gave no
ground, either by words or actions, to hope better things of
him, was finally by the supreme council of the kingdom
condemned to die, and beheaded before the very gates of the
royal palace. I shall likewise relate (which will much conduce
to the easing men's minds of a great superstition) by what
right, especially according to our law, this judgment was
given, and all these matters transacted; and shall easily
defend my valiant and worthy countrymen (who have extremely
well deserved of all subjects and nations in the world) from
the most wicked calumnies, both of domestic and foreign
railers, and especially from the reproaches of this most vain
and empty sophist, who sets up for a captain and ringleader to
all the rest. For what king's majesty sitting upon an exalted
throne, ever shone so brightly, as that of the people of
England then did, when, shaking off that old superstition,
which had prevailed a long time, they gave judgment upon the
king himself, or rather upon an enemy who had been their king,
caught as it were in a net by his own laws, (who alone of all
mortals challenged to himself impunity by a divine right,) and
scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him, being
guilty, which he would have inflicted upon any other? But why
do I mention these things as performed by the people, which
almost open their voice themselves, and testify the presence
of God throughout? who, as often as it seems good to his
infinite wisdom, uses to throw down proud and unruly kings,
exalting themselves above the condition of human nature, and
utterly to extirpate them and all their family. By his
manifest impulse being set at work to recover our almost lost
liberty, following him as our guide, and adoring the impresses
of his divine power manifested upon all occasions, we went on
in no obscure, but an illustrious passage, pointed out and
made plain to us by God himself. Which things, if I should so
much as hope by any diligence or ability of mine, such as it
is, to discourse of as I ought to do, and to commit them so to
writing, as that perhaps all nations and all ages may read
them, it would be a very vain thing in me. For what style can
be august and magnificent enough, what man has ability
sufficient to undertake so great a task? Since we find by
experience, that in so many ages as are gone over the world,
there has been but here and there a man found, who has been
able worthily to recount the actions of great heroes, and
potent states; can any man have so good an opinion of his own
talents, as to think himself capable of reaching these
glorious and wonderful works of Almighty God, by any language,
by any style of his? Which enterprise, though some of the most
eminent persons in our commonwealth have prevailed upon me by
their authority to undertake, and would have it be my business
to vindicate with my pen against envy and calumny (which are
proof against arms) those glorious performances of theirs,
(whose opinion of me I take as a very great honour, that they
should pitch upon me before others to be serviceable in this
kind of those most valiant deliverers of my native country;
and true it is, that from my very youth, I have been bent
extremely upon such sort of studies, as inclined me, if not to
do great things myself, at least to celebrate those that did,)
yet as having no confidence in any such advantages, I have
recourse to the divine assistance; and invoke the great and
holy God, the giver of all good gifts, that I may as
substantially, and as truly, discourse and refute the
sauciness and lies of this foreign declaimer, as our noble
generals piously and successfully by force of arms broke the
king's pride, and his unruly domineering, and afterwards put
an end to both by inflicting a memorable punishment upon
himself, and as thoroughly as a single person did with ease
but of late confute and confound the king himself, rising as
it were from the grave, and recommending himself to the people
in a book published after his death, with new artifices and
allurements of words and expressions. Which antagonist of
mine, though he be a foreigner, and, though he deny it a
thousand times over, but a poor grammarian; yet not contented
with a salary due to him in that capacity, chose to turn a
pragmatical coxcomb, and not only to intrude in state-affairs,
but into the affairs of a foreign state: though he brings
along with him neither modesty, nor understanding, nor any
other qualification requisite in so great an arbitrator, but
sauciness, and a little grammar only. Indeed if he had
published here, and in English, the same things as he has now
written in Latin, such as it is, I think no man would have
thought it worth while to return an answer to them, but would
partly despise them as common, and exploded over and over
already, and partly abhor them as sordid and tyrannical
maxims, not to be endured even by the most abject of slaves:
nay, men that have sided with the king, would have had these
thoughts of his book. But since he has swoln it to a
considerable bulk, and dispersed it amongst foreigners, who
are altogether ignorant of our affairs and constitution, it is
fit that they who mistake them should be better informed; and
that he, who is so very forward to speak ill of others, should
be treated in his own kind. If it be asked, why we did not
then attack him sooner? why we suffered him to triumph so
long, and pride himself in our silence? For others I am not to
answer; for myself I can boldly say, that I had neither words
nor arguments long to seek for the defence of so good a cause,
if I had enjoyed such a measure of health, as would have
endured the fatigue of writing. And being but weak in body, I
am forced to write by piecemeal, and break off almost every
hour, though the subject be such as requires an unintermitted
study and intenseness of mind. But though this bodily
indisposition may be a hindrance to me in setting forth the
just praises of my most worthy countrymen, who have been the
saviours of their native country, and whose exploits, worthy
of immortality, are already famous all the world over; yet I
hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend them from
the insolence of this silly little scholar, and from that
saucy tongue of his, at least. Nature and laws would be in an
ill case, if slavery should find what to say for itself, and
liberty be mute; and if tyrants should find men to plead for
them, and they that can master and vanquish tyrants, should
not be able to find advocates. And it were a deplorable thing
indeed, if the reason mankind is endued withal, and which is
the gift of God, should not furnish more arguments for men's
preservation, for their deliverance, and, as much as the
nature of the thing will bear, for making them equal to one
another, than for their oppression, and for their utter ruin
under the domineering power of one single person. Let me
therefore enter upon this noble cause with a cheerfulness
grounded upon this assurance, that my adversary's cause is
maintained by nothing but fraud, fallacy, ignorance, and
barbarity; whereas mine has light, truth, reason, the practice
and the learning of the best ages of the world, on its side.
_From the 'Second Defence of the People of England in Reply to an
Anonymous Libel, entitled "The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against
the English Parricides"'_
A grateful recollection of the divine goodness is the first of
human obligations; and extraordinary favours demand more
solemn and devout acknowledgments: with such acknowledgments I
feel it my duty to begin this work. First, because I was born
at a time when the virtue of my fellow-citizens, far exceeding
that of their progenitors in greatness of soul and vigour of
enterprise, having invoked Heaven to witness the justice of
their cause, and been clearly governed by its directions, has
succeeded in delivering the commonwealth from the most
grievous tyranny, and religion from the most ignominious
degradation. And next, because when there suddenly arose many
who, as is usual with the vulgar, basely calumniated the most
illustrious achievements, and when one eminent above the rest,
inflated with literary pride, and the zealous applauses of his
partisans, had in a scandalous publication, which was
particularly levelled against me, nefariously undertaken to
plead the cause of despotism, I, who was neither deemed
unequal to so renowned an adversary, nor to so great a
subject, was particularly selected by the deliverers of our
country, and by the general suffrage of the public, openly to
vindicate the rights of the English nation, and consequently
of liberty itself. Lastly, because in a matter of so much
moment, and which excited such ardent expectations, I did not
disappoint the hopes nor the opinions of my fellow-citizens;
while men of learning and eminence abroad honoured me with
unmingled approbation; while I obtained such a victory over my
opponent that, notwithstanding his unparalleled assurance, he
was obliged to quit the field with his courage broken and his
reputation lost; and for the three years which he lived
afterwards, much as he menaced and furiously as he raved, he
gave me no further trouble, except that he procured the paltry
aid of some despicable hirelings, and suborned some of his
silly and extravagant admirers to support him under the weight
of the unexpected and recent disgrace which he had
experienced. This will immediately appear. Such are the signal
favours which I ascribe to the divine beneficence, and which I
thought it right devoutly to commemorate, not only that I
might discharge a debt of gratitude, but particularly because
they seem auspicious to the success of my present undertaking.
For who is there, who does not identify the honour of his
country with his own? And what can conduce more to the beauty
or glory of one's country than the recovery not only of its
civil but its religious liberty?
* * * * *
. . . I can easily repel any charge which may be adduced
against me, either of want of courage, or want of zeal. For
though I did not participate in the toils or dangers of the
war, yet I was at the same time engaged in a service not less
hazardous to myself and more beneficial to my fellow-citizens;
nor, in the adverse turns of our affairs, did I ever betray
any symptoms of pusillanimity and dejection: or show myself
more afraid than became me of malice or of death: For since
from my youth I was devoted to the pursuits of literature, and
my mind had always been stronger than my body, I did not court
the labours of a camp, in which any common person would have
been of more service than myself, but resorted to that
employment in which my exertions were likely to be of most
avail. Thus, with the better part of my frame I contributed as
much as possible to the good of my country, and to the success
of the glorious cause in which we were engaged; and I thought
that if God willed the success of such glorious achievements,
it was equally agreeable to his will that there should be
others by whom those achievements should be recorded with
dignity and elegance; and that the truth, which had been
defended by arms, should also be defended by reason; which is
the best and only legitimate means of defending it. Hence,
while I applaud those who were victorious in the field, I will
not complain of the province which was assigned me; but rather
congratulate myself upon it, and thank the Author of all good
for having placed me in a station, which may be an object of
envy to others rather than of regret to myself. I am far from
wishing to make any vain or arrogant comparisons, or to speak
ostentatiously of myself; but, in a cause so great and
glorious, and particularly on an occasion when I am called by
the general suffrage to defend the very defenders of that
cause, I can hardly refrain from assuming a more lofty and
swelling tone than the simplicity of an exordium may seem to
justify: and much as I may be surpassed in the powers of
eloquence and copiousness of diction by the illustrious
orators of antiquity, yet the subject of which I treat was
never surpassed, in any age, in dignity or in interest. It has
excited such general and such ardent expectation, that I
imagine myself, not in the forum or on the rostra, surrounded
only by the people of Athens or of Rome, but about to address
in this, as I did in my former Defence, the whole collective
body of people, cities, states, and councils of the wise and
eminent, through the wide expanse of anxious and listening
Europe. I seem to survey, as from a towering height, the far
extended tracts of sea and land, and innumerable crowds of
spectators, betraying in their looks the liveliest interest,
and sensations the most congenial with my own. Here I behold
the stout and manly prowess of the Germans disdaining
servitude; there the generous and lively impetuosity of the
French; on this side, the calm and stately valour of the
Spaniard; on that, the composed and wary magnanimity of the
Italian. Of all the lovers of liberty and virtue, the
magnanimous and the wise, in whatever quarter they may be
found, some secretly favour, others openly approve; some greet
me with congratulations and applause; others, who had long
been proof against conviction, at last yield themselves
captive to the force of truth. Surrounded by congregated
multitudes, I now imagine that, from the columns of Hercules
to the Indian Ocean, I behold the nations of the earth
recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that
the people of this island are transporting to other countries
a plant of more beneficial qualities, and more noble growth,
than that which Triptolemus is reported to have carried from
region to region; that they are disseminating the blessings of
civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms, and nations.
Nor shall I approach unknown, nor perhaps unloved, if it be
told that I am the same person who engaged in single combat
that fierce advocate of despotism; till then reputed
invincible in the opinion of many, and in his own conceit; who
insolently challenged us and our armies to the combat; but
whom, while I repelled his virulence, I silenced with his own
weapons; and over whom, if I may trust to the opinions of
impartial judges, I gained a complete and glorious victory.
That this is the plain unvarnished fact appears from this:
that, after the most noble queen of Sweden, than whom there
neither is nor ever was a personage more attached to
literature and to learned men, had invited Salmasius or
Salmatia (for to which sex he belonged is a matter of
uncertainty) to her court, where he was received with great
distinction, my Defence suddenly surprised him in the midst of
his security. It was generally read, and by the queen among
the rest, who, attentive to the dignity of her station, let
the stranger experience no diminution of her former kindness
and munificence. But, with respect to the rest, if I may
assert what has been often told, and was matter of public
notoriety, such a change was instantly effected in the public
sentiment, that he, who but yesterday flourished in the
highest degree of favour, seemed to-day to wither in neglect;
and soon after receiving permission to depart, he left it
doubtful among many whether he were more honoured when he
came, or more disgraced when he went away; and even in other
places it is clear, that it occasioned no small loss to his
reputation; and all this I have mentioned, not from any futile
motives of vanity or ostentation, but that I might clearly
show, as I proposed in the beginning, what momentous reasons I
had for commencing this work with an effusion of gratitude to
the Father of the universe. Such a preface was most honourable
and appropriate, in which I might prove, by an enumeration of
particulars, that I had not been without my share of human
misery; but that I had, at the same time, experienced singular
marks of the divine regard; that in topics of the highest
concern, the most connected with the exigencies of my country,
and the most beneficial to civil and religious liberty; the
supreme wisdom and beneficence had invigorated and enlarged my
faculties, to defend the dearest interests, not merely of one
people, but of the whole human race, against the enemies of
human liberty; as it were in a full concourse of all the
nations on the earth: and I again invoke the same Almighty
Being, that I may still be able, with the same integrity, the
same diligence, and the same success, to defend those actions
which have been so gloriously achieved; while I vindicate the
authors as well as myself, whose name has been associated with
theirs, not so much for the sake of honour as disgrace, from
unmerited ignominy and reproach.
* * * * *
But the conflict between me and Salmasius is now finally
terminated by his death; and I will not write against the
dead; nor will I reproach him with the loss of life as he did
me with the loss of sight; though there are some who impute
his death to the penetrating severity of my strictures, which
he rendered only the more sharp by his endeavours to resist.
When he saw the work which he had in hand proceed slowly on,
the time of reply elapsed, the public curiosity subsided, his
fame marred, and his reputation lost; the favour of the
princes, whose cause he had so ill defended, alienated, he was
destroyed, after three years of grief, rather by the force of
depression than disease.
* * * * *
If I inveigh against tyrants, what is this to kings? whom I am
far from associating with tyrants. As much as an honest man
differs from a rogue, so much I contend that a king differs
from a tyrant. Whence it is clear, that a tyrant is so far
from being a king, that he is always in direct opposition to a
king. And he who peruses the records of history, will find
that more kings have been subverted by tyrants than by their
subjects. He, therefore, who would authorize the destruction
of tyrants, does not authorize the destruction of kings, but
of the most inveterate enemies to kings.
* * * * *
Let us now come to the charges which were brought against
myself. Is there anything reprehensible in my manners or my
conduct? Surely nothing. What no one, not totally divested of
all generous sensibility, would have done, he reproaches me
with want of beauty and loss of sight.
'Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademptum.'
I certainly never supposed that I should have been obliged to
enter into a competition for beauty with the Cyclops; but he
immediately corrects himself, and says, 'though not indeed
huge, for there cannot be a more spare, shrivelled, and
bloodless form.' It is of no moment to say anything of
personal appearance, yet lest (as the Spanish vulgar,
implicitly confiding in the relations of their priests,
believe of heretics) any one, from the representations of my
enemies, should be led to imagine that I have either the head
of a dog, or the horn of a rhinoceros, I will say something on
the subject, that I may have an opportunity of paying my
grateful acknowledgments to the Deity, and of refuting the
most shameless lies. I do not believe that I was ever once
noted for deformity, by any one who ever saw me; but the
praise of beauty I am not anxious to obtain. My stature
certainly is not tall; but it rather approaches the middle
than the diminutive. Yet what if it were diminutive, when so
many men, illustrious both in peace and war, have been the
same? And how can that be called diminutive, which is great
enough for every virtuous achievement? Nor, though very thin,
was I ever deficient in courage or in strength; and I was wont
constantly to exercise myself in the use of the broadsword, as
long as it comported with my habit and my years. Armed with
this weapon, as I usually was, I should have thought myself
quite a match for any one, though much stronger than myself;
and I felt perfectly secure against the assault of any open
enemy. At this moment I have the same courage, the same
strength, though not the same eyes; yet so little do they
betray any external appearance of injury, that they are as
unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who most distinctly
see. In this instance alone I am a dissembler against my will.
My face, which is said to indicate a total privation of blood,
is of a complexion entirely opposite to the pale and the
cadaverous; so that, though I am more than forty years old,
there is scarcely any one to whom I do not appear ten years
younger than I am; and the smoothness of my skin is not, in
the least, affected by the wrinkles of age. If there be one
particle of falsehood in this relation, I should deservedly
incur the ridicule of many thousands of my countrymen, and
even many foreigners to whom I am personally known. But if he,
in a matter so foreign to his purpose, shall be found to have
asserted so many shameless and gratuitous falsehoods, you may
the more readily estimate the quantity of his veracity on
other topics. Thus much necessity compelled me to assert
concerning my personal appearance. Respecting yours, though I
have been informed that it is most insignificant and
contemptible, a perfect mirror of the worthlessness of your
character and the malevolence of your heart, I say nothing,
and no one will be anxious that anything should be said. I
wish that I could with equal facility refute what this
barbarous opponent has said of my blindness; but I cannot do
it; and I must submit to the affliction. It is not so wretched
to be blind, as it is not to be capable of enduring blindness.
But why should I not endure a misfortune which it behooves
everyone to be prepared to endure if it should happen; which
may, in the common course of things, happen to any man; and
which has been known to happen to the most distinguished and
virtuous persons in history? Shall I mention those wise and
ancient bards, whose misfortunes the gods are said to have
compensated by superior endowments, and whom men so much
revered, that they chose rather to impute their want of sight
to the injustice of heaven than to their own want of innocence
or virtue? What is reported of the Augur Tiresias is well
known; of whom Apollonius sung thus in his Argonautica:
'To men he dared the will divine disclose,
Nor feared what Jove might in his wrath impose.
The gods assigned him age, without decay,
But snatched the blessing of his sight away.'
But God himself is truth; in propagating which, as men display
a greater integrity and zeal, they approach nearer to the
similitude of God, and possess a greater portion of his love.
We cannot suppose the deity envious of truth, or unwilling
that it should be freely communicated to mankind. The loss of
sight, therefore, which this inspired sage, who was so eager
in promoting knowledge among men, sustained, cannot be
considered as a judicial punishment. Or shall I mention those
worthies who were as distinguished for wisdom in the cabinet
as for valour in the field? And first, Timoleon of Corinth,
who delivered his city and all Sicily from the yoke of
slavery; than whom there never lived in any age a more
virtuous man or a more incorrupt statesman: Next Appius
Claudius, whose discreet counsels in the senate, though they
could not restore sight to his own eyes, saved Italy from the
formidable inroads of Pyrrhus: then Cæcilius Metellus the
high-priest, who lost his sight, while he saved, not only the
city, but the palladium, the protection of the city, and the
most sacred relics, from the destruction of the flames. On
other occasions Providence has indeed given conspicuous proofs
of its regard for such singular exertions of patriotism and
virtue; what, therefore, happened to so great and so good a
man, I can hardly place in the catalogue of misfortunes. Why
should I mention others of later times, as Dandolo of Venice,
the incomparable Doge; or Zisca, the bravest leader of the
Bohemians, and the champion of the cross; or Jerome Zanchius,
and some other theologians of the highest reputation? For it
is evident that the patriarch Isaac, than whom no man ever
enjoyed more of the divine regard, lived blind for many years;
and perhaps also his son Jacob, who was equally an object of
the divine benevolence. And in short, did not our Saviour
himself clearly declare that that poor man whom he restored to
sight had not been born blind, either on account of his own
sins or those of his progenitors? And with respect to myself,
though I have accurately examined my conduct, and scrutinized
my soul, I call thee, O God, the searcher of hearts, to
witness, that I am not conscious, either in the more early or
in the later periods of my life, of having committed any
enormity which might deservedly have marked me out as a fit
object for such a calamitous visitation. But since my enemies
boast that this affliction is only a retribution for the
transgressions of my pen, I again invoke the Almighty to
witness, that I never, at any time, wrote anything which I did
not think agreeable to truth, to justice, and to piety. This
was my persuasion then, and I feel the same persuasion now.
Nor was I ever prompted to such exertions by the influence of
ambition, by the lust of lucre or of praise; it was only by
the conviction of duty and the feeling of patriotism, a
disinterested passion for the extension of civil and religious
liberty. Thus, therefore, when I was publicly solicited to
write a reply to the Defence of the royal cause, when I had to
contend with the pressure of sickness, and with the
apprehension of soon losing the sight of my remaining eye, and
when my medical attendants clearly announced, that if I did
engage in the work, it would be irreparably lost, their
premonitions caused no hesitation and inspired no dismay. I
would not have listened to the voice even of Æsculapius
himself from the shrine of Epidaurus, in preference to the
suggestions of the heavenly monitor within my breast; my
resolution was unshaken, though the alternative was either the
loss of my sight, or the desertion of my duty: and I called to
mind those two destinies, which the oracle of Delphi announced
to the son of Thetis:
'I by my Goddess-mother have been warned,
The silver-footed Thetis, that o'er me
A double chance of destiny impends:
If here remaining, round the walls of Troy
I wage the war, I ne'er shall see my home,
But then undying glory shall be mine:
If I return, and see my native land,
My glory all is gone; but length of life
Shall then be mine, and death be long deferred.'
—_Iliad_, ix. 410-416.