For Milton, who had gone full tilt at Morus with his canine eloquence, and who had made it almost the sole object of his _Defensio Secunda_ to cut up the life and reputation of Morus, never could be brought to confess that he had been so grossly mistaken: fearing, I suppose, that the public would make fun of his blindness, and that grammar-school boys would compare him to that blind Catullus in Juvenal who, meaning to praise the fish presented to Domitian, "'Made a long speech, Facing the left, while on his right there lay The actual turbot.' [Footnote 1: _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1773, as in last note.] "And so, Milton persisting in his blundering charge against Morus for that dangerous service to the King, the other Rebels could not, without great damage to their good patron, proceed against any other than Morus as guilty of so great a crime.

And, as Milton preferred my getting off scatheless to being found in a ridiculous position himself, I had this reward for my pains, that Milton, whom I had treated so roughly, turned out my patron and sedulous body-guard.
Don't laugh, reader; but give best thanks, with me, to God, the most good, the most great, and the most wise, deliverer." This final version of the story of Du Moulin (in 1670, remember) seems to have become current among those who, after the Restoration, retained any interest in the subject.

Thus, Aubrey, in his notes for Milton's life, written about 1680, has a memorandum to this effect, giving "Mr.Abr.

Hill" as his authority: "His [Milton's] sharp writing against Alexander More of Holland, upon a mistake, notwithstanding he [Morus] had given him [Milton], by the ambassador, all satisfaction to the contrary, viz.

that the book called _Clamor_ was writ by Peter Du Moulin.