ful forgeries as they themfelves occafionally practised to fupport the noblest of all employments, the defence of public liberty againft tyrants and oppreffors.

1

The Doctor's account of Milton's dif pute with Salmafius we fhall pafs by, and leave his criticifms on fome Latin expreffions on either fide to those who have not forgotten a trade, which, in fome degree or other, is, or fhould be, original to every good writer, namely, the trade of a Grammarian. No man has exercifed this trade with more emolu

}

ment than Dr. Johnfon, would he allow us to fay, that in his political pamphlets "the rights of nations and kings fink "into a laborious folicitude for the " choice

<choice of words and modes of expref

"fion."

Milton's answer to Salmafius was much read, and it is no difparagement to his arguments that they appeared bad to a man of Hobbes's principles, or paradoxical in Dr. Johnson's ideas *.

But, however, the Doctor thought himself obliged to account for this depravity of taste in the numerous readers of Milten's defenfe, which he does in

this way:

66

Paradox," faysour Biographer, "re"commended by fpirit and elegance, "eafily gains attention; and he who told every man that he was equal to his

King, could hardly want an au

The paradox then is that every man is equal to his King. But where has Milton told this? or is it to Dr. Johnson's mifapprehenfion of Milton's state of the cafe, or to his propenfity to calumniate, that we owe this falfe and rancorous infinuation?

That every man is not equal, but fuperior, to his Tyrant, is a propofition which has been demonftrated over and over, before Milton was born; and if Milton efpoufed it, and made it better understood by a notorious example, he ferved his generation in a moft material article of their focial happiness. The next generation had the fpirit and good fense to profit by his doctrine; and by virtue of it drove their Tyrant into an

ignominious exile.

Milton's

Milton's attachment to Cromwell has been imputed to him as a blot in his character long before it was taken up by Dr. Johnson; who, to give him his due, has made the most of it in a small compafs.

Milton," fays he, "having tafted the "honey of public employment, would "not return to hunger and philofophy; but, continuing to exercife his office "under a manifeft ufurpation, betrayed "to his power that liberty which he had "defended."

It is hardly neceffary to apprize a reader of Milton's profe-works that his ideas of ufurpation and public liberty were very different from thofe of Dr. Johnson. In the Doctor's fyftem of government pubic liberty is the free grace of an beredi

tary monarch, and limited in kind and degree, by his gracious will and pleafure; and confequently to controul his arbitrary acts by the interpofition of good and wholesome laws is a manifeft ufurpan tion upon his prerogative. Milton allotted to the people a confiderable and important fhare in political government, founded upon original. ftipulations for the rights and privileges of free fubjects; and called the monarch who fhould in fringe or encroach upon thefe, however qualified by lineal fucceffion, a tyrant and an ufurper, and freely configned him to the vengeance of an injured peo, ple. Upon Johnfon's plan, there can be no fuch thing as public liberty. Upon Milton's, where the laws are duly executed,