Starting a blog

It's like a diary but anyone can read it and I probably won't write in it very often. Maybe never again. I suppose that when I think of something and want to tell people, who might not be interested, I can write it in here instead. Which is useful.

I've just finished university and don't really have very firm plans for the rest of my life, though I have a few ideas. At the moment I'm attempting to remember how to drive, looking for excuses to visit friends, and dreading the end of the summer holidays.

I like Latin and Greek. Latin is a much easier language. A lot of people say the opposite; that when they get really good Greek is much easier but I don't see that at all. Greek's far too irregular to be easy whereas Latin's a nice but misunderstood language. At university I concentrated on philology and I now appreciate

I also like books, and particularly old ones. A while ago I bought an old pamphlet, a tiny 16mo book published in 1649, the year after the execution of Charles I, with the title, "DEFENSIO REGIA PRO CAROLO PRIMO AD Serenissimum Magnae Britanniae REGEM CAROLUM SECUNDUM, Filium natu maiorem, Haeredem et Successorem legitimum". I translate it as, "Defence of the reign of Charles I, dedicated to the most fair King of Great Britain, Charles II, elder son by birth, his heir and legitimate successor". I don't believe it's supposed to be a "Royal Defence" though in fact it's author, Salmasius, received £100 from Charles II for writing it. The book provoked Milton's famous "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano", which has been translated and can easily be read. Milton's reply is inferior in some ways; too much of it is personal and he tends to refute arguments by pointing out that Salmasius is French. Milton also addresses Salmasius directly which makes it seem too much like invective, though it refutes Salmasius's argument in some detail. It's nevertheless quite witty in places. As Milton points out, Salmasius's Latin is not perfect; he employs frequent barbarisms and makes other mistakes but that's not really surprising in 400 pages in the days before editors. The following is rather typical of Milton's attacks:

Now since it is impossible, that any learned man should be ignorant of these things that are so generally known; and since it is an inexcusable fault in Salmasius to be ignorant of them, whose profession it is to teach them others, and whose very asserting things of this nature ought to carry in itself an argument of credibility; it is certainly a very scandalous thing (I say) either that so ignorant, illiterate a blockhead, should, to the scandal of all learning, profess himself, and be accounted a learned man, and obtain salaries from princes and states; or that so impudent and notorious a liar should not be branded with some particular mark of infamy, and for ever banished from the society of learned and honest men.

Salmasius's pamphlet has never, as far as I know, been fully translated but I offer the following short sample from the first few lines :

Terrible reports recently struck our ears a horrible blow, and even more our minds, that an act of treason had been committed in England against the person of the king by a wicked conspiracy of ungodly men. All those that this unspeakable rumour reached were struck as if by a thunderbolt, their hair suddenly standing on end in horror at these deeds, and their voices clinging in their mouths. But anyone of a more sensitive temperament could not even hold back tears or refrain from grieving. And truly those who were made of stronger stuff burned so much with the fire of indignation that they could scarcely contain themselves. There certainly was no one that did not call down dread curses on the doers of such a crime, so uncommon, so shocking. For since things that are unforeseen strike us more, when thus a thing that was so extraordinary had crushed those who never foresaw it, no one was found so savage and cruel and divorced from all sense of humanity, although in his outlook he were an opponent of the royal majesty, that in his heart the wretched and astonishing slaughter of so sacred a life should not arouse private grief to accompany the public mourning.