SERVICE and OBEY! and how great and "refpectable do they think themselves "when they fay, THE KING MY MASTER! "They defpife the republicans, who

ડ

only are free, and who are certainly "more noble than they."

In conclufion, the good Doctor turns evesdropper; and, to warn the public against the principles of the mifcreant Milton, condefcends to inform us of what paffed in the domeftic privacies of his family. "Milton's character, in his "domeftic relations, was fevere and ar"bitrary." How does he know this? His family confifted of women," he "and there appears, in his

tells you,

"inferior beings." A moft heinous offence! enough to mufter the whole multitude of English Amazons against him. But the queftion is not concerning what is in his books, but what paffed in his kitchen and parlour. We want in ftances; and here they are: "That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be depreffed by a mean and penurious education."

The impudence of Belial would be abashed at fo grofs a misreprefentation. Milton's daughters grew impatient of reading what they did not understand;. this impatience "broke out more and "more into expreffions of uneafinefs." What had they now to expect from their Turkish

Turkish father? what! but ftripes and imprisonment in a dark chamber, and a daily pittance of bread and water. No fuch matter. They were relieved from their task, and "fent out to learn fome

curious and ingenious forts of manu"facture that were proper for women "to learn, particularly imbroideries in "gold and filver *." And how far this branch of education was from being either mean or penurious in those days, the remains of thefe curious and ingenious works, performed by accomplished females of the highest and nobleft extraction, testify to this very day.

To account for this tyranny of Milton over his females, the Doctor fays, "He

* Philips p. xliii.

"thought

"thought woman made only for obe"dience, and man only for rebel"lion *."

In the first member of this quaint antithefis the Doctor perhaps did not guess far amifs at Milton's thought. He feems to have been of St. Paul's opinion, that "women were made for obedience." But Paul and Milton had different ideas of rebellion from thofe of Dr. Johnson. That Prynne, Burton, and Baftwick, were rebels in Dr. Johnfon's fcale, nq one can doubt. And yet they had certainly an equal right to infift upon the privileges of Englishmen against Dr. Laud and his affeffors, as Paul had to plead thofe of a Roman citizen against * Life, p. 144

the

the chief captain Lyfias; and even to require that the faid Archbishop should repair to the feveral prifons of these fuf-" ferers to ask their pardon, and to conduct them in perfon and with honour out of their confinement; as was done in the cafe of Paul and Silas, by the ma giftrates of Philippi; who (however the Biographer may ftomach the idea of fuch a humiliation of this magnanimous pre late) seem to have understood the honour due to the laws of their country, and the rights of free citizens, fomething better than either Abp. Laud or Dr. Johnfon.

But, after all, would Dr. Johnson lead us to the converse of the sentiment he

afcribes to Milton, as a tenet of his

own