Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 31, cont. (p.91) |
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gainst a live man. For, where a man is ei- ther too great, or his Vices too generall, to be brought under a judiciary accusation, there is no way, but this extraordinary ac- cusing, which we call Libelling [.] And I have heard that nothing hath soupled and al- layed the D. of Lerma in his violent great- nesse, so much as the often libels made up- on him. But after death, it is, in all cases, unexcusable. I know that Lucifer, and one or two more of the Fathers who writ libel- lous books against the Emperours of their times, are excused by our writers, because they writ not in the lives of those Empe- rours. I am glad for them that they writ not in their lives, for that must have occasioned tumult, and contempt, against so high and Soveraign persons. But that doth not enough excuse them to me, for writing so after their death; for that was ignoble, and uselesse, though they did a little escape the nature of libels, by being subscribed and a- vowed: which excuse would not have served in the Star-chamber, where sealed [CW: Letters] |
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