12 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. A. You had as good say you were the author. U. That will not follow. Cobham. Mr. Udal, if you be not the author, say so; and if you be, confess it : You may find favour. U. My lord, I think the author, for any thing I know, didwell ; and I know be is inquired after to be punished ; therefore, I think it my duty to hinder the finding of him out, which I cannot do better than thus. A. And why so, I pray you ? U. Because, if every one that is suspected do deny the author at length must needs be found out. A. Why dare you not confess it, if you be the author ? Dare you not stand to your own doings ? U. I professed before, that I liked of the books, and the matter handled in them : but whether I made them or no, I will not answer. Besides, if I were the author, I think that by law I need not answer. A. That is true, if it concerned the loss of your life.* Fortesque. I pray you by what law did you preach at Newcastle, being forbidden at Kingston ? U. I know no law against it, seeing it was the official, Dr. Hone, who silenced me; whose authority reacheth not ottt of his own archdeaconry. F. What was the cause for which you were silenced ? U. Surely I cannot tell, nor yet imagine. A. Well, what say you of those books ? who made them ? andwhere were they printed ? U. Though I could tell your lordship, yet dare I not; for the reasons before alleged. B. I pray you let me ask you a question or two concern- ing your book. U. It is not yet proved to be mine. But I will answer to any thing concerning the matter of the book, so far as I know. B. You call it a Demonstration. I pray you what is a Demonstration ? I believe you know what it is. U. Ifyou had asked me that question when I was a boy in Cambridge of a year's standing, it had been a note of ignorance in me, to have been unable to answer you. Egerton. Mr. Udal, I am sorry that you will not answer, nor take an oath. You are like the seminary priests ; who say, there is no law to compel them to accuse themselves: His judges actually tried him for his life, and condemned him.
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