author of Paradife Loft, the Critic had

very little to do.

His comparison of Shakespeare and Milton, in his poetical fcale, is with respect to their capital performances contemptibly childish. Homer did not, perhaps could not, write like Ariftopha-` nes what then? does that detract from" the merit of Homer in his peculiar walk? "But Shakespeare could have wrote. "[lege written] like Milton." Perhaps not. At least it is more than Dr. Johnfon knew, or could prove, for want of inftances whereon to found his comparifon.

There is a line indeed in which they' may be compared; they both wrote fonnets, and little detached pieces of poetry.

Few

Few of Milton's efcape without fome mark of Dr. Johnfon's fcorn or execration. Might not a like-minded critic or caviller carp at fome of Shakespeare's performances of this clafs with, equal justice and equal malignity? And where does all this end? Why Shakespeare was the abler and more gentleman-like punfter of the two.

We should perhaps be degraded into the clafs of fuch cavillers fhould we exprefs our diflike of Dr. Johnfon's ftyle; but candor itself muft allow, that there are periods in it which require to be translated into intelligible English, even where the fentiment is trivial enough for the conception of an honeft John

Trot.

K

For

For example: "But the reputation and price of the copy still advanced,

"till the Revolution put an end to the fecrefy of love, and Paradife Loft broke

66

into open view with fufficient fecurity "of kind reception *."

Many more inftances might be given from this new narrative, where the quaintnefs of the antithefis, as here, borders upon the burlesque; and we are too often put in mind, by Dr. Johnson's ftyle, of what we remember a worthy Oxford tutor faid to his pupils of the ftyle of Seed's Sermons: "Boys will imi"tate it; and boys will be spoiled by imi"tating it."

* Life, p. 119.

Let

7

Let Dr. Johnson however enjoy his reputation of fine writing, and the praises of his admirers even to adulation, but let him and them remember and remark, that no fublimity of ftyle, no accuracy of expreffion, can ennoble the meannefs, or atone for the virulent malignity of his political refentment against Milton, exhibited in this NEW NARRATIVE.

POSTSCRIPT.I

- A certain foreign antiquary, having occafion to defcribe a medal of Milton among those of other learned men, gives the following character of the man and his writings:

.

JOANNES MILTON Anglus Londinenfis, ejus nominis patre catholico natus, anno 1608. ab cujus pietate, ac fide quam longiffime receffit, fectas omnes æternæ confequendæ falutis aptas putans, excep- : ta Catholica Romana, ut aperte afferuit in impio fuo de vera religione libro; optimais litteris doctrinaque imbutus, iis abufus eft plerumque deteftabilia feditiofaque fcribendo, violenterque, atque inurbane prorfus, quæ femel confcripferat adverfus meliora fentientes defenfando; abfolutam, nullifque divinis, vel humanis legibus circumfcriptam libertatem in votis habuiffe paffim deprehenditur ; malus chriftianus, malus civis, bonus tamen poeta fuit, carminibus Anglicis, Latinis et Italicis feliciter ufus; ejus

Poema,