lic prayer, he omitted all.". And then he procedes to account for it.

But thefe particulars, wherever the Doctor got them, muft have come from perfons who had no more honeft business in John Milton's closet than Dr. Johnfon himself, who never came there, nor can poffibly know what was done, or what was omitted in it. If " his ftudies and "meditations were an habitual prayer," what occafion had he for a stated hour, which, being a circumftance in the vifible worship of a private man, may as foon be a token of pharifaical oftentation or popish superstition as of cordial piety!

Nor perhaps would Milton have accepted of Dr. Johnson's apology for his omiffion of family worship, or have acknowledged

knowledged it to be a fault. Milton perhaps might think it fufficient to teach his family to pray for themfelves; every one as he or she fhould know the plague of bis or her own heart. Milton had doubtlefs known, by experience, how incongruous it was to trust his own prayers to the mouth of another man; and he might think it equally improper in him to dictate to the individuals of his family prayers unfuitable, for aught he could know without auricular confeffion, to their feveral cafes.

All this however is mere fpeculation on one fide and the other. We learn from a tale of Richardfon's, that one of his family at least attended public wor

fhip;

fhip; and more of them might, for any thing the Doctor knows to the contrary. The Doctor next attacks Milton's political character.

"His political notions were those of "an acrimonious and furly republican."

When an honeft man has occafion to characterise his enemy, particularly in matters of opinion, he fhould keep a ftrict watch over himself, that his prejudices do not transport him to imputations which are either falfe, or may be retorted upon himself.

The world would have given Dr. Johnfon credit for his inveterate hatred of republican notions, without his qualifying them with the epithets of acrimonious and furly, as exhibited by Milton,

whose

whofe defenders might, with equal juftice at least, call him an acrimonious and furly Royalift.

But was Dr. Johnfon's quarrel with Milton's notions merely that they were republican, that is to fay, notions adverse to kingly government? Hath he always revered kings as fuch, kings de facto, or kings only fo and fo qualified?

We confess ourselves to be of that clafs of men who are willing to receive inRruction from all quarters; and the news-paper of the day being juft brought in, we learn, from an extract in it from Dr. Johnson's Life of Smith, that Gilbert Walmsley was a Whig with all the viru, lence and malevolence of his party, and

that

i

that the Doctor was of different notions

and opinions *.

But we are well informed, that Mr. Walmfley was no republican, but strongly attached in principle to the fucceffion of the House of Hanover. If for this attachment he was, in Dr. Johnson's esteem, a virulent and malevolent Whig, we should be glad to know what precifely are thofe notions and opinions wherein he differed from his friend Walmfley? Perhaps at the bottom the grudge is no more than that neither Milton nor Walmfley would allow Dr. Johnson to chufe a King for them.

"It is not known," fays the Doctor, "that Milton gave any better reason

St. James's Chronicle, July 31, 1779.

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