In October 1654 there was out at the Hague, from Ulac’s press, a volume in two parts, with this title:  “Joannis Miltoni Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano contra infamem Libellum, cujus titulus ‘Regii Sanguinis Clamor adversus Parricidas Anglicanos.’  Accessit Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastae, Sacrarumque Litterarum Professoris, Fides Publica contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni, Scurrae.  Hagae-Comitum, ex Typographia Adriani Ulac, MDCLIV.” ("John Milton’s Second Defence for the English People in reply to an infamous Book entitled ‘Cry of the King’s Blood against the English Parricides.’  To which is added A Public Testimony of Alexander Morus, Churchman, and Professor of Sacred Literature, in reply to the Calumnies of John Milton, Buffoon.  Printed at the Hague by Adrian Ulac, 1654.”) The reprint of Milton’s Defensio Secunda fills 128 pages of the volume; More’s appended Fides Publica, or Public Testimony, in reply, is in larger type and fills 129 pages separately numbered.  Morus, after all, it will be seen, had been obliged to acquiesce in Ulac’s arrangement (Vol.  IV. p. 634).  Instead of trying vainly any longer to suppress Milton’s book on the Continent, he had exerted himself to the utmost in preparing a Reply to it, to go forth with that reprint of it for the foreign market which Ulac had been pushing through the press and would not keep back.

Although Milton complains that Ulac’s edition of his book for the foreign market was not only a piracy, but also slovenly in itself, with printer’s errors vitiating the sense and arrangement in some cases,[1] it was substantially a reprint of the original.  Its interest for us, therefore, lies wholly in the preliminary matter.  This consists of a short Preface headed “Lectori” ("To the Reader”) and signed “GEORGIUS CRANTZIUS, S.S.  Theol.  D.,” and a longer statement headed “Typographus pro Se-ipso” ("The Printer in his own behalf”) and signed “A.  ULACQ.”

[Footnote 1:  Pro Se Def. (1655).]

The Rev. Dr. Crantzius, who does not give his exact address, writes in an authoritative clerical manner.  Though in bad health, he says, he cannot refrain from penning a few lines, to say how much he is shocked at the length to which personalities in controversy are going.  He really thinks Governments ought to interfere to put such things down.  Readers will find in the following book of Milton’s a lamentable specimen.  He knows nothing of Milton himself; but Milton’s writings show him to be a man of a most damnable disposition, and Salmasius had once shown him (Dr. Crantzius) an English book of Milton’s propounding the blasphemy “that the doctrine of the Gospel, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning Divorce is devilish.”  Dr. Crantzius had known Salmasius very well; and O what a man he was!  Nothing amiss in him, except perhaps a hasty temper, and too great subjection to a peculiar connubial fate!  There was a posthumous book of Salmasius against Milton; and, should it ever