Selden’s reply to Salmasius, an alternative title for thePro Populo Anglicano Defensio, and why Milton deserves to be strangled: rumour and opinion in the correspondence of Guy Patin

Abstract

The correspondence of Guy Patin has long been recognized as a storehouse of seventeenth-century news, rumour, commentary, and opinion. Making use of the new Correspondance complète, this article shows the new insights that can be drawn from Patin’s letters by bringing attention to several previously unknown references to the Salmasius-Milton controversy. Patin’s reports of a supposed reply to Salmasius by the English scholar John Selden are considered, as is the possibility that Patin records an early alternative title for Milton’s Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio: Vindiciae Libertatis Adversus Tyrannidem. Some unnoticed remarks on Milton himself are then examined, the most amusing being a testimony to the strong emotions that the Englishman’s personal insults to the wife of Salmasius could provoke. Even when factually somewhat unreliable, Patin’s correspondence contains rumours and opinions that still have much to tell scholars of the seventeenth century.

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