Page:Eikonoklastes - in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon basilike - Milton (1649).djvu/15

 them, wrought more in that Vulgar audience to the avenging of his death, then all the art he could ever me, to win thir favor in his lifetime. And how much their intent, who publiuYd thefe oveilate Apologies and Meditations of the dead King, drives to the fame end of ftirring up the people to bring him that honour, that affection, and by confequence, that revenge to his dead Corps, which he .himfelie living could never gain to his Perfon, it appeares both by the conceited portraiture before his Book, drawn out to the fullmeafure of a Masking Scene, andfett thereto catch fools and filly gazers 3 and by thofe Latin words after the end, lota dabunt qu£ Bella, negarunt^ intimating, that what hee could not compafs by Warr^ hee fliould atchieve by his Meditation?. For in words which adtnitt of various fence, the Hbertie is ours to choofe that interpretation which may beft mind us of what our reftlefs enemies endeavor, and what we are timely to prevent. And heermaybe well obferv'dthe loofe and negligent curiofity of thofe who took upon them to adorn the fetting out or this Booke; for though the Pifture fett in Front would Martyr him and Saint him to befoole the people, yet the Latin Pvlotto in the end, which they underftand not, leaves him, as it were, a politic contiiver to bring, about that intereft by faire and plausible words, which the force of Armesdeny'd him. But quaint Emblems and devices begg 'd from the olde Pageantry of fome Twelfe-nights entertainment at Whitehall, will doe but ill to make a Saint or Martyr: and if the People lefolve to take him Sainted at