that Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the Book of
Salmasius, and when he hath done it bring it to the Council." There were
many reasons why he should be entrusted with this commission, and only
one why he should not; but one which would have seemed conclusive to
most men. His sight had long been failing. He had already lost the use
of one eye, and was warned that if he imposed this additional strain
upon his sight, that of the other would follow. He had seen the greatest
astronomer of the age condemned to inactivity and helplessness, and
could measure his own by the misery of Galileo. He calmly accepted his
duty along with its penalty, without complaint or reluctance. If he
could have performed his task in the spirit with which he undertook it,
he would have produced a work more sublime than "Paradise Lost."

This, of course, was not possible. The efficiency of a controversialist
in the seventeenth century was almost estimated in the ratio of his
scurrility, especially when he wrote Latin. From this point of view
Milton had got his opponent at a tremendous disadvantage. With the best
will in the world, Salmasius had come short in personal abuse, for, as
the initiator of the dispute, he had no personal antagonist. In
denouncing the general herd of regicides and parricides he had hurt
nobody in particular, while concentrating all Milton's lightnings on his
own unlucky head. They seared and scathed a literary dictator whom
jealous enemies had long sighed to behold insulted and humiliated, while
surprise equalled delight at seeing the blow dealt from a quarter so
utterly unexpected. There is no comparison between the invective of
Milton and of Salmasius; not so much from Milton's superiority as a
controversialist, though this is very evident, as because he writes
under the inspiration of a true passion. His scorn of the presumptuous
intermeddler who has dared to libel the people of England is ten
thousand times more real than Salmasius's official indignation at the
execution of Charles. His contempt for Salmasius's pedantry is quite
genuine; and he revels in ecstasies of savage glee when taunting the
apologist of tyranny with his own notorious subjection to a tyrannical
wife. But the reviler in Milton is too far ahead of the reasoner. He
seems to set more store by his personalities than by his principles. On
the question of the legality of Charles's execution he has indeed little
argument to offer; and his views