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The other will of courfe recommend itself to all advocates for the liberty of the prefs, and moreover may, in half an hour's reading, entertain fome part of the public with a contraft between the magnanimity of Milton, in facing a formidable enemy, and Dr. Johnson's seefaw meditations, the fhifty wiles of a man between two fires, who neither dares fight nor run away. These two tracts are published from the first editions.

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JOHNSON'S Life of MILTON.

WE were in hope that we had done with Milton's Biographers; and had little forefight that fo accomplished an artificer B

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of language would have condefcended to bring up the rear of his hiftorians.

But it was not for the reputation of Dr. Johnson's politics that Milton should be abused for his principles of Liberty by a lefs eminent hand than his own. The minute fnarlers, or fpumofe declamers against the fentiments and diction of Milton's profe-works, had ceased to be regarded, till the maxims of fome of those who pay Dr. Johnfon's quarterages had occafioned, an inquiry into the genuine principles of the English Government, when the writings of Milton, Sydney, Locke, &c. which the moderation of the laft reign had left in fome degree of neglect, were now taken down from the fhelves where they had fo long repofed, to confront the doctrines which;

it had been prefumed, would never morè come into fafhion.

No man contributed more to restore the efteem and credit of these noble patriotic writers than the late ever-to-behonoured Mr. Hollis, of whofe beautiful. and accurate éditions of Sydney's Difcourfes, of Locke on Government and Toleration, and of Toland's Life of Milton, we have spoken largely in another place.

Dr. Johnson's peace of mind required that this recovering tafte of the public hould not ripen into appetite, particuTarly for Milton's works, whofe reputation he had formerly taken fo much elegant pains to depreciate. The fource of his difaffection to Milton's principles can

be no fecret to those who have been converfant in the controverfies of the times.

Dr. Johnson's early and well-known attachments will fufficiently account for it; and pofterity will be at no lofs to determine whether our biographer's veneration was paid to the White Rofe or the Red *.

But Dr. Johnson's particular malevolence to Milton may not be fo well known, or poffibly forgot; we shall therefore give a short account of its progress, from its first appearance to its confummation in this Life of Milton.

In the year 1747, one William Lauder fent to the Gentleman's Magazine fome hints of Milton's plagiarism, in pillaging certain modern writers for the materials. of his poem, intituled, Paradife Loft.

* See Preface to Milton, p. 2.

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