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utility precludes all examination, and he expects his fcandalous chronicle fhould be licensed and received upon his own

bare word.

"For Milton to complain of evil "tongues," fays the Doctor, "required

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impudence at leaft equal to his other

powers; Milton, whofe warmeft ad

vocates must allow, that he never "fpared any afperity of reproach, or bru"tality of infolence."

Milton wrote in a public conteft for public liberty and he generally in that contest was upon the defenfive. The afperity of his reproaches feldom exceeded the afperity of the wickedness upon which those reproaches were beftowed. Brutality

Brutality is a word of an ill found, and required some instances to justify the imputation of it. When these are given, we will readily join iffue in the trial, whether Milton or his adverfaries were the more brutal or more infolent. They who would reduce mankind to a brutal flavery, under the defpotism of a lawless tyrant, forfeit all claim to the rationality of human beings; and no tongue can be called evil for giving them their proper appellation.

Neither Dr. Johnson nor we can pretend, at this distance of time, to affign the precife caufes of Milton's complaint. Evil tongues are common in all times; our hiftories inform us, that the times of Charles II. were not good. Milton perH 3 haps

haps is not unhappy in being out of the reach of the present times; but whether he is, even in the present times, out of the reach of evil tongues, let the readers of the new narrative candidly judge.

Impudence is an attribute with which our Biographer hath qualified Milton more than once; and it feems to have fhocked the modefty of Dr. Johnson that a blemish of that kind fhould deform the character of his hero.

Parcius ifta, good Doctor! Novimus et qui te-But Churchill and Kenrick are no more, and the Doctor may easily annihilate their authority by writing new narratives of what they were.

There is however, it feems, one of Milton's profe-tracts, in which the Doc

tor

tor finds no impudence; it is his treatise of True Religion, berefy, fchifm, toleration, and the best means to prevent the growth of popery.

"This little tract," fays he, " is mo"deftly written, with refpectful mention "of the Church of England and the "thirty-nine articles."

True, fo far as the Church of England declares against Popery. But, unhappily for this refpect, Milton brings thefe declarations in reproof of the church's practice; and most ably confutes the pretence of the Church of England, "that the only enjoins things in"different." And even this he calls perfecution.

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"If it be asked," fays Milton, “how "far it fhould be tolerated? I answer, doubtless equally, as being all Protes"tants; that is, on all occafions to give "account of their faith, either by ar

guing, preaching in their feveral af"semblies, public writing, and the free→ "dom of printing."

If fuch toleration fhould have its free course, unreftrained by canons, fubfcriptions, and uniformity-acts, unallured by temporal emoluments, and unterrified by temporal cenfures, there must of course be an end of the civil Eftablishment of the Church of England; which is here as effectually condemned, as it is in thofe former tracts of the author's in which he is fo fevere on prelatical ufurpations.

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