On the whole, I do not think I am wrong in regarding the new edition as Milton's very last performance before the Restoration, and in dating it somewhere between April 9, the day of Lambert's escape from the Tower, and April 24, when Lambert was brought back a prisoner to London and the members of the Convention Parliament were already gathered in town.
As Thomason's copy of the first edition is marked "March 3," this would make the interval between the two editions about a month and a half.] The wrestlings now were ended.

All that remained for the blind Samson was to listen, with bowed head, to the renewed burst of Philistine hissings, howlings, and execrations, against him, before they would let him retire.

It came from all quarters; but at least two persons stepped out from the crowd to convert the mere inarticulate uproar into distinct invective and insult.
"_No Blinde Guides: in answer to a seditious Pamphlet of J.
Milton's entituled 'Brief Notes on a late Sermon, &c.' Addressed to the Author_.--'If the Blinde lead the Blinde, both shall fall into the ditch.'-- _London, Printed for Henry Brome, April_ 20, 1660." This was the title of a tract, of fourteen small quarto pages, which was out on April 25.

The author does not give his name; but he was Roger L'Estrange, the Royalist pamphleteer.[1] The following specimen will represent the rest:-- [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath.III.712.The date of the actual appearance of the tract is from the Thamason copy.] "Mr.Milton, "Although in your life and doctrine you have resolved one great question, by evidencing that devils may indue human shapes and proving yourself even to your own wife an incubus, you have yet started another; and that is whether you are not of that regiment which carried the herd of swine headlong into the sea, and moved the people to beseech Jesus to depart out of their coasts.
(_This_ may be very well imagined from your suitable practices _here_.) Is it possible to read your _Proposals of the benefits of a Free State_ without reflecting upon your tutor's 'All this will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me'?
Come, come, Sir: lay the Devil aside; do not proceed with so much malice and against knowledge.

Act like a man, that a good Christian may not be afraid to pray for you.