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those of the highest supporters of the doctrine of divine right, 
enforced by the same arguments, analogies, and illustrations as those 
to which Buchanan replied, and almost, in some instances, in the 
very words which Bather Maxwell, Rutherford’s opponent, had used. 
But Salmasius in two respects earned the greater and almost 
solitary celebrity which his work attained. In the first place, it 
cannot he denied the praise of flowing and elegant Latinity, and a 
lively vivacity of style. Hobbes of Malmesbury said of it and of 
Milton’s reply, that it was hard to determine which of them wrote 
best, or reasoned worst. It is worthy of a great scholar, and 
indicates a keen penetrating judgment. It is, of course, the work 
of an advocate, evincing no knowledge whatever of the true science 
of government, but the advocate is clever and not undignified. 
But doubtless the hook would never have commanded the attention, 
or produced the excitement which followed it, apart from the 
startling and tragical circumstances which called it forth. 
It is far from the province of this paper, and would he entirely 
out of place, if I were to enter or express any opinion on that 
remarkable event. Scotland was no party to it. Looking hack 
from our present point of view, there is probably little difference of 
opinion on its political and moral character. At the time it 
produced a shock in every court, or political circle, or intelligent 
community in Europe, such as no public event had ever caused 
previously. From treating a king as a divine vicegerent, and 
treating him as a culprit at the bar of his subjects, there was of 
course a wide chasm. But this bold and audacious proceeding 
startled and shocked even the advanced statesmen of that day, and 
gave to sentiments and opinions, which might have passed for 
platitudes or extravagance, an importance and acceptance they could 
not otherwise have commanded. Carlyle, in his own singular but 
expressive language, expresses the general effect on society. “It 
did in effect,” he says in his “ Letters and Speeches of Cromwell,” 
“ strike a damp into the heart of Flunkeydom throughout the 
universe.” Hence the indignant periods of Salmasius, couched in 
the elegant language of learning, at that period created an immense 
sensation, and, as may be supposed, in England, then under the 
Commonwealth, no little resentment. 
Milton, who at that time was acting as Cromwell’s Latin 
