"Thou hast not been to thy lodging? That Royal Society, quoth I, is a learned body—despite its name—and hath naught to do with King Charles and the company he keeps. 'Tis they who egg him on to fight us, the hussies!"
Spinoza smiled. "It must be from my good friend Oldenburg, the secretary."
"'Tis what I told them. He was in my shop when he was here—"
"Asking for his book?"
"Nay, for thine." And the bookseller's smile answered Spinoza's. "He bade me despatch copies of the Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae to sundry persons of distinction. I would to Heaven thou wouldst write a new book!"
"Heaven may not share thy view," murmured Spinoza, who was just turning over the pages of an attack on his "new book," and reading of himself as "a man of bold countenance, fanatical, and estranged from all religion."
"A good book thou hast there," said the bookseller. "By Musæus, the Jena Professor. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ad Veritatis Lancem Examinatus—weighed in Truth's balance, indeed. A title that draws. They say 'tis the best of all the refutations of the pernicious and poisonous Tractate."
"Of which I see sundry copies here masked in false titles."
"'Sh! Forbidden fruit is always in demand. But so long as I supply the antidote too—"
"Needs fruit an antidote?"