thought woman made only for obe "dience, and man only for rebel

"lion."

In the first member of this quaint antithefis the Doctor perhaps did not guess far amifs at Milton's thought. He feems to have been of St. Paul's opinion, that "women were made for obedience." But Paul and Milton had different ideas of rebellion from those of Dr. Johnson. That Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, were rebels in Dr. Johnson's scale, no one can doubt. And yet they had certainly an equal right to infift upon the privileges of Englishmen against Dr. Laud and his affeffors, as Paul had to plead those of a Roman citizen against * Life, p. 144.

the

the chief captain Lyfias; and even to require that the faid Archbishop should repair to the several prifons of these fufferers to ask their pardon, and to conduct them in person and with honour out of their confinement; as was done in the cafe of Paul and Silas, by the magiftrates of Philippi; who (however the Biographer may ftomach the idea of fuch a humiliation of this magnanimous pre late) feem to have, understood the honour due to the laws of their country, and the rights of free citizens, fomething better than either Abp. Laud or Dr. Johnson.

But, after all, would Dr. Johnfon lead us to the converfe of the fentiment he

afcribes to Milton, as a tenet of his

own

own orthodoxy? What his family-connexions with females may be we profefs not to know; but we cannot believe that he is fo far in love with petticoatgovernment, as to subscribe to the propofition, that "men are made only for "obedience, and women only for rebel"lion."

But here we take our leave of his new narrative; leaving his ftrictures on Milton's poetry to the examination of critics by profeffion; all of whom, we are perfuaded, will not approve them merely because they came from Dr. Johnson. They will obferve that they are tainted throughout with the effects of an inveterate hatred to Milton's politics, with which, as the Biographer of a Poet the author

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 Ariftophanes 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. Johnson's scorn or execration. Might not a like-minded critic or caviller carp at fome of Shakespeare's performances of this clafs with equal juftice and equal malignity? And where does all this end? Why Shakespeare was the abler and more gentleman-like punfter of the two.

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

Trot.

K

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