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Num fingit, num mentitur! If Ignoramus was well acted at Trinity College, thefe ludicrous appearances must be exhibited to the fpectators, who were perfons exactly answering the defcription here given of them; and if the characters were perfonated by clergymen, or candidates for orders, there is propriety as well as truth in Milton's reflection. But this is not the objection.

"This is fufficiently peevifh," fays the Doctor, "in a man, who, when he "mentions his exile from the college, "relates, with great luxuriance, the "compenfation which the pleasures of "the theatre afford him. Plays were "therefore only criminal when they were "acted by academicks *."

* Life, p. 12.

The

The Doctor undoubtedly depended, that he had fufficiently difgufted his readers with his account of Milton's prosewritings, to prevent their looking for the context to his quotation, to which there is no reference, or mention of the tract from whence it is taken.

Perhaps indeed fome of the more moderate idolizers of Dr. Johnfon might perceive, even from this mutilated citation, that Milton did not blame these actors as they were academics, but as they were clergymen. But Milton had likewife another objection to them; they were fcurvy performers.

"There," fays Milton, "while they "acted and over-acted, among other

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young fcholars, I was a fpectator; they "thought

the

"thought themfelves gallant men, and I "thought them fools; they made sport, and I laughed; they mif-pronounced, " and I mifliked; and, to make up atticism, they were out, and I hiss'd *.” These were not the faults of men of the theatrical profeffion, who were daily practitioners upon the ftage, and by whom Milton was fo highly entertained in the Metropolis.

Milton's epifcopalian opponents reproached him as a diffolute rake; and, among other irregularities, mentioned his frequenting the theatres, which they inferred from his fpeaking of vizzards and falfe beards. He anfwers, that there was no occafion to go to the public playhouses to learn the ufes of thefe difguifes;

*Apology, p.213.

for.

forafmuch as plays were acted in the univerfities, with the approbation of bishops, where these characteristical properties were to be seen as well as at the public theatres. "And," he concludes, "if it

"be unlawful to fit and behold a merce

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nary comedian perfonating that which

"is leaft unfeemly for an hireling to do, how "much more blameful is it to endure "the fight of as vile things acted by per-"fons, either entered, or prefently to

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enter, into the miniftry and how

"much more foul and ignominious for "them to be the actors !!!

Is then Dr. Johnson's THEREFORE the introduction of a fair inference? or do flander and mifreprefentation then only

*Apology, p. 213.

lofe

lofe their malignity when delivered by pen of Dr. Johnson?

the

Every page of the new narrative is full of mean flings and malevolent furnifes on Milton's most indifferent actions, which it would be endlefs to remark with a proper reproof of each. We fhall therefore only felect a few of the most reprehenfible, either on account of their want of candour, or want of veracity.

Page 24. It is thus written: "Let not "our veneration for Milton forbid us to "look with some degree of merriment

on great promises and fmail perfor❝mances, on the man who haftens home "because his countrymen are contend"ing for their liberty, and when he

"reaches the fcene of action vapours

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