Authors in the pleafing contemplation of their own powers, and in the exertion of them upon paper, may imagine ftrange things in their closets concerning their efficiency when they come abroad. But here, alas! all the propriety of diction, and the beauty of colouring, were abfolutely wafted upon the good fenfe and native integrity of the late worthy Recorder of London.. He faw through the artifice. He faw no circumftance from one end of the tranfaction to the other to make it probable that no fraud was intended, nor found any weight in the counterbalance propofed in the pompous ftrains of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

But

But there is no end of conjectures in a cafe where fome abfurdity or other arifes to difgrace every account that can be fuggefted of the origin of a manœuvre of which no precedent can be found, except among the works of the chaplain of Newgate.

We should indeed be inclined to call it a mere jeu d'esprit, in the nature of an effay of what could be faid in a fictitious cafe, were it not utterly incredible that any one with the coolest feelings of humanity (of which we by no means fuppofe Dr. Johnson to be deftitute) could bring himself to sport with the calamity of the unhappy criminal, without hope or profpect, or intention of re

lief;

lief; a fort of proftitution for which hardly any cenfure can be too fevere.

ADDENDUM.

Mr. Boerhadem's Letter in the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1779, concerning Dr. Johníon's narrative of Milton's omitting all acts of religious worfhip both in public and private, came not to our hands till it was too late to infert, in the printed Remarks on Dr. Johnfon's Life of Milton, the thanks we think he well deferves, as an able cooperator with us in the defence of Milton. The friends of Milton are particularly obliged to him, for remarking Dr. Newton's improvement upon To

land,

land, and Dr. Johnfon's upon Newton, in their several accounts of Milton's conduct with respect to religious worship; and we think it an apt illuftration of Toby Smollet's ftory of the three crows. For our parts, we are of opinion, that Milton's fentiments, or the practical effects of them in matters of religion, want no vindication. As to the matter in queftion, we remember a paffage in Robert Barclay's catechifm, where the author, having cited feveral texts of Scripture, concludes, Ex omnibus hifce fcripturæ locis apparet, verum Dei cultum in fpiritu effe; et ficut nec certo cuilibet loco, ita nec certo cuivis tempori limitatur. This might be Milton's perfuafion, as well as BarL 9 clay's;

clay's; but no confiderate man would conclude from these words, that Barclay never prayed in private.

The worthy man to whose memory these papers are dedicated fell under many foolish and illiberal fufpicions on account of his abfenting from public worship. If any of our more ingenuous readers have been impofed upon, or influenced by fuch bafe infinuations of purblind bigotry, we may hope they will now fee in fome expreffions of Mr. Hollis's heart-felt unaffected piety, that pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, does not depend upon a man's exterior connections with any vifible church, or religious fociety, fo

called,