tenances?: The imputation of blaf phemy on the one fide or the other is

unavoidable.

After which follows the citation from the Iconoclaftes, where the imputation and the grounds of it are fairly and openly told. Now for the proof of the interpo

lation.

"The papers which the King gave to

Dr. Juxon, on the fcaffold, the regicides "took away, fo that they were at leaft: "the publishers of this prayer."

Let us parallel this with an inference from another scrap of English hiftory. "The miniftry took away Mr. Wilkes's papers, among which was faid to be "the Effay on Woman; fo that the mi

nifters were at least the publishers of "that

F 3.

"that Effay; and, confidering the num"bers of poets they have always at their "beck, why may they not be fufpected "as the forgers of it ?"

So reafoned Mr. Wilkes's friends in the year 1763. Dr. Johnfon knows what the minifterial writers replied; and let that fuffice for an anfwer to this prefumptive proof of Milton's difhonefty. But,

"Dr. Birch, who examined the quef-. "tion with great care, was inclined to "think them [the Regicides] the forg

Dr. Birch's examination, careful as the Doctor represents it, was blameably partial in not giving Toland's confuta-tion of Dr. Gill's tale its full ftrength; and indeed the examination feems to have

been

been unfatisfactory to Birch himfelf, by its being left out of his Life of Milton,

prefixed to the quarto edition of Milton's profe-works.

Lauder however affirms, that, in Dr.

Birch's opinion, Milton was not guilty "of the crime charged upon him; Mil"ton and Bradshaw too,.in the Doctor's "opinion, being perfons of more honour "than to be guilty of putting fo vile a 66 trick úpon the King *."

Lauder perhaps had this declaration from Dr. Birch's own mouth; it is confirmed however by the following reflection, in the quarto edition of Milton's Life by Birch, p. xxxiii.

* Lauder's Vindication, p. 37

F 4

"It

It is highly improbable that Milton "and Bradshaw fhould make Hills* their "confident unneceffarily in fuch an affair; "and laugh in his prefence at their im"pofing fuch a cheat upon the world; "or that he fhould conceal it during the "life of the former, who. furvived the

It is objected, to the teftimony of Hills, that he turned papist in the reign of James II and we find him characterized by Dunton, Po pifh Hills ftationer to James H. He made an atonement, however, after the Revolution, by printing feveral fingle fermons of the most eminent preachers of that time, many of them against Popery, on vile paper and print, for pence a piece, to the great comfort and convenience of minute divines in country churches. Dr. Tay lor late Chancellor of Lincoln, in the poetical part of his mufic-fpeech, delivered at the public commencement at Cambridge, in 1730, has the following couplet :

Then moulds his fcanty Latin and lefs Greek, And Harry Hills his parish once a week.

"Refto

"Reftoration fo many years. So that "fuch a teftimony from fuch a perfon "is not to be admitted against a man "who, as his learned and ingenious edi-`

tor [Bp. Newton] obferves, had a foul "above being guilty of fo mean an "action."

But let us examine this tale on another fide :.

Wagstaffe affirms, on the authority of the writer of Clamor Regii Sanguinis,

&c.

* We are uncertain what became of Mr. Wag ftaffe, who published the Vindication of King Charles the Martyr, &c. the third edition of: which appeared in 111. We have been informed, that he attached himself to the old preten der, in quality of chaplain to his proteftant nonjuring adherents. We fuppofe it was his fon whe officiated in that capacity at the Santi Apoftoli, and died at Rome about 1774 or 1775.

This

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