Page:Eikonoklastes - in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon basilike - Milton (1649).djvu/14

 answer'd. Which to doe effectually, if it be necessary that to his Book nothing the more respect be had for being his, they of his owne Party can have no just reason to exclaime. For it were too unreasonable that he, because dead, should have the liberty in his Booke to speake all evill of the Parlament: and they, because living, should be expected to have less freedome, or any for them, to speake home the plaine truth of a full and pertinent reply. As he, to acquitt himselfe, hath not spar'd his Adversaries, to load them with all sorts of blame and accusation, so to him, as in his Book alive, there will be us'd no more Courtship then he uses; but what is properly his owne guilt, not imputed any more to his evill Counsellors (a Ceremony us'd longer by the Parlament then hee himselfe desir'd) shall be layd heer without circumlocutions at his owne dore. That they who from the first beginning, or but now of late, by what unhappiness I know not, are so much affatuated, not with his person only, but with his palpable faults, and dote upon his deformities, may have none to blame but thir owne folly, if they live and dye in such a strook'n blindness, as next to that of Sodom hath not happ'nd to any sort of men more gross, or more misleading.

First then that some men (whether this were by him intended or by his Friends) have by policy accomplish'd after death that revenge upon thir Enemies, which in life they were not able, hath bin oft related. And among other examples wee find that the last Will of Cæsar being read to the people, and what bounteous Legacies he had queath'd