"that Effay; and, confidering the num"bers of poets they have always at their "beck, why may they not be fufpected "as the forgers of it ?"

So reasoned Mr. Wilkes's friends inthe year 1763. Dr. Johnfon knows what the minifterial writers replied; and let that fuffice for an anfwer to this prefumptive proof of Milton's difhonefty. But,

"Dr. Birch, who examined the quef"tion with great care, was inclined to "think them [the Regicides] the forg"ers."

Dr. Birch's examination, careful as the Doctor reprefents it, was blameably partial in not giving Toland's confutation of Dr. Gill's tale its full ftrength; and indeed the examination feems to have

becn

been unfatisfactory to Birch himfelf, by its being left out of his Life of Milton, prefixed to the quarto edition of Milton's profe-works.

Lauder however affirms, that, "in Dr. "Birch's opinion, Milton was not guilty "of the crime charged upon him; Mil"ton and Bradshaw too, in the Doctor's

opinion, being perfons of more honour

"than to be guilty of putting fo vile a "trick upon the King."

Lauder perhaps had this declaration from Dr. Birch's own mouth; it is confirmed however by the following reflection, in the quarto. edition of Milton's Life by Birch, p. xxxiii..

* Lauder's Vindication, p. 37.

F 4

" It

"It is highly improbable that Milton "and Bradshaw fhould make Hills* their "confident unneceffarily in fuch an affair; "and laugh in his prefence at their im"pofing fuch a cheat upon the world; "or that he fhould conceal it during the "life of the former, who furvived the

*It is objected, to the teftimony of Hills, that he turned papift in the reign of James II. and we find him characterized by Dunton, Po pifh Hills ftationer to James II. He made an atonement, however, after the Revolution, by printing feveral fingle fermons of the most eminent preachers of that time, many of them against Popery, on vile paper and print, for pence a piece, to the great comfort and convenience of minute divines in country churches. Dr. Taylor late Chancellor of Lincoln, in the poetical part of his mufic-fpecch, delivered at the public commencement at Cambridge, in 1730, has the following couplet :

Then moulds his fcanty Latin and lefs Greek, And Harry Hills his parifh once a week.

"Refto

"Reftoration fo many years. So that "fuch a teftimony from fuch a perfon "is not to be admitted against a man "who, as his learned and ingenious edi"tor [Bp. Newton] obferves, had a foul "above being guilty of fo mean an "action."

But let us examine this tale on another

fide:

Wagstaffe affirms, on the authority of the writer of Clamor Regii Sanguinis, &c.

* We are uncertain what became of Mr. Wagftaffe, who publifhed the Vindication of King Charles the Martyr, &c. the third edition of which appeared in 1711. We have been informed, that he attached himself to the old preten der, in quality of chaplain to his proteftant noirjuring adherents. We fuppofe it was his fon who officiated in that capacity at the Santi Apostoli, and died at Rome about 1774 or 1775.

This

latter

&c. that "the Regicides immediately "feized Dr. Juxon, imprifoned him, "and examined him with all poffible

latter had fo warm a zeal for orthodoxy, and against fchifmatics, that he refufed, though much intreated, to read the burial-fervice over the corpfe of a Danish gentleman, a protestant, who died at Rome about the year 1762 or 63, and left that office to be performed by a worthy clergyman, chaplain to an English nobleman then at Rome, from whom we had this account. It is customary, when any English Proteftant dies at Rome, for any of his acquaintance, though a layman, of the fame religion, to read the burialfervice over his corpfe. When Wagstaffe himself died, he was carried to the unhallowed cœmetery of heretics, where it was expected by the British attendants that the fervice would be read over the deceafed by his fellow loyalist Mr. Murray, his compatriot, and of the fame church. The worthy old gentleman (for worthy he is known to be), for fome reafon or other, declined the office, faying to the grave-digger, Cover him up, Cover him up. This Mr. Wagflaffe is faid to have been a man of letters, and to have left behind him a collection of curious and valuable books.

rigour,