Salmasius was unpopular at Leyden, and there was therefore a
predisposition to regard Milton's book with favour. Salmasius was
twenty years older than Milton, and in these literary digladiations
readers are always ready to side with a new writer. The contending
interests of the two great English parties, the wider issue between
republic and absolutism, the speculative inquiry into the right of
resistance, were lost sight of by the spectators of this literary
duel. The only question was whether Salmasius could beat the new
champion, or the new man beat Salmasius, at a match of vituperation.
Salmasius of course put in a rejoinder. His rapid pen found no
difficulty in turning off 300 pages of fluent Latin. It was his
last occupation. He died at Spa, where he was taking the waters, in
September, 1653, and his reply was not published till 1660, after the
Restoration, when all interest had died out of the controversy. If it
be true that the work was written at Spa, without books at hand, it
is certainly a miraculous effort of memory. It does no credit to
Salmasius. He had raked together, after the example of Scioppius
against Scaliger, all the tittle-tattle which the English exiles had
to retail about Milton and his antecedents.
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