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choice of words and modes of expref

❝fion."

Milton's anfwer 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 Milton's defenfe, which he does in

this way:

"Paradex," fays our Biographer, "re"commended by fpirit and elegance, eafily gains attention; and he who told

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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 ftate of the cafe, or to his propensity to calumniat, 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 efpoused 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 fenfe 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 fmall compaís.

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"Milton," fays he, "having tafted the honey of public employment, would "not return to hunger and philofophy;. "but, continuing to exercise 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 those of Dr. Johníon. In the Doctor's fyftem of government public liberty is the free grace of an beredi

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tary monarch, and limited in kind and degree, by his gracious will and plea-· fure; and confequently to controul his arbitrary acts by the interpofition of good and wholesome laws is a manifest ufurpa-tion upon his prerogative. Milton allotted to the people a confiderable and important share in political government, founded upon original ftipulations for the rights and privileges of free fubjects, and called the monarch who fhould infringe or encroach upon thefe, however qualified by lincal 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,

ented, and the people protected in the peaceable and legal enjoyment of their lives, properties, and municipal rights and privileges, there can be no fuch thing as ufurpation, in whofe hands foever the executive power fhould be lodged. From this doctrine Milton neverfwerved; and in that noble apoftrophe to Crom-, well, in his Second Defenfe of the people of England, he fpares not to remind him, what a wretch and a villain he would be, fhould he invade thofe liberties which his valour and magnanimity had reftored. If, after this, Milton's employers deviated from his idea of their duty, be it remembered, that he was neither in their fecrets, nor an inftrument in their arbitrary acts or encroach,

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