friend Charles, was the person in Geneva of whom he had seen most,
and who dwelt most in his memory; but the elder Spanheim had then
been in the same city, and Morus too, and the present Ezekiel
Spanheim, as a boy in his tenth year, and others, still alive, who
had then known Morus, and had since that time had him in view. Milton
had certainly not then himself seen Morus, though he must have heard
of him; but it is possible he may have seen the elder Spanheim, and
may now, in writing to Spanheim's son, have remembered the fact. In
any case there were links of acquaintanceship still connecting Milton
with Geneva and its gossip. The "Calandrini," for example, who is
mentioned in Milton's letter, and who may be identified with a
Genevese merchant named "Jean Louis Calandrin," heard of in Thurloe's
correspondence, must in some way have been known to Milton
personally, and interested in serving him.[1] It had been in in
consequence of a suggestion of this Calandrini, "acting-with his
usual courtesy," that young Spanheim had, in October 1654, when
Morus's fragmentary _Fides Publica_ was just out or nearly so,
addressed a polite letter to Milton, sending him some additional
information about the Genevese portion of Morus's career. The letter
had not readied Milton till the end of December or the beginning of
January 1654-5; and for nearly three months after that he had left it
unacknowledged. That he had been moved to acknowledge it at last was,
doubtless, as his letter itself suggests, and as we shall see yet
more precisely, because he had then nearly ready his Reply to the
_Fides Publica_, and had used Spanheim's information there, only
suppressing the name of his informant. But that Milton had already
had no lack of private informants about Morus's career, whether in
Geneva or in Holland, has appeared abundantly. The
Hartlib-Durie-Haak-Oldenburg connexion about him in London was a
perfect sponge for all kinds of gossip from, abroad. We hear now,
however, of another person in particular who may have supplied Milton
with his earlier information as to the Genevese part of Morus's life,
A family long of note in Geneva had been that of the Turretins,
originally from Italy, and indeed from Lucca, whence they had been
driven, as the Diodatis had been, by their Protestantism, One of this
family, Benedict Turretin, born in Geneva, had been a distinguished
Theology Professor there, and at his death in 1631 had left at least
two son