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Addition to the Poffcript.

-Such was the awe that MILTON'S name ftruck into the hearts of his opponents, even when his party was rapidly approaching its final diffolution.

But to return once more to the New Narrative. To defend injured characters is seasonable at all times. Some former accounts of Milton, Dr. Johnson treats with contradiction and contempt, where neither the information, nor the good faith of the writers, are more to be fufpected than his own.

A large majority of authors are too inconfiderable to have their lives and adventures recorded for the inftruction or

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amusement of pofterity, even in the fummary of a biographical dictionary. Dr. Johnson is not one of thefe infignificants. The public, when he hath ceafed to act his part on this earthly ftage, will be impatiently inquifitive after the perfonal hiftory of a man, who hath figured fo variously in the wide range of authorship; and when his panegyrifts have exhaufted every topic of praise and adulation to grace his monument, among thofe of the worthies of antient days, Somebody may take a fancy to gratify the public with a new narrative of his progrefs and employments in life.

That SOMEBODY may be a true conflitutional friend to the civil and reli

gious liberties of Englifhmen, and difposed to try what figure Dr. Johnson's political maxims and conduct will make, in contraft with fuch part of Milton's history and principles as he hath attempted to difparage by the most invenomed infinuations.

A man of genius and erudition cannot more effectually difgrace himfelf, than by hiring out his talents to thofe vile politicians whofe eftimation with the public depends on ridiculing and debafing the foundeft principles of free government, and on their humiliating, and to their power fcandalifing the wife and upright men who efpoufe them; and it is not impoffible that, with fuch an idea of Dr. Johnfon's merit, fome humorous

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Humorous drole, furveying the füperb decorations of emblematic fculpture, furrounding the commemoration of the Doctor's vaft exploits in Parian marble,. may add, with a homely pencil of charcoal:

HERE LYES THE GRAND EXEMPLAR OF

LITERARY PROSTITVTION...

And here we fhould have ended our ftrictures on the new narrative, did not the candor of a worthy friend call upon us to temper the feverity (as he calls it) of this monumental infcription.

We are not deaf to the seasonable ad-monitions of our friends; but unwilling to deprive our hero of his blufhing honours, fo hardily earned, and fo richly deferved,

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deferved, we rather choose to add a short explanation, than to expunge a characteriftic which contributes fo much to the brilliancy of his reputation.

Prostitution hath, generally fpeaking, two principal motives, filthy lucre, and inordinate appetite. These motives are frequently compounded, particularly when indigence, and a warmth of bodily conftitution, happen to meet in the fame individual.

Which of thefe motives had the predominant fimulus in the habit of the great critic in his connections with Lauder, or of the great politician, when,

FILMER before, SACHEVERELL in his rear*

See an Effay on the King's Friends, printed for Almon, 776. p. 19.

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