reputation, was inscribed by Lauder to the two Universities; and the cause, between the accuser and the numerous admirers of the British Homer, was now brought to a decisive issue. In this state of things, the indignant and agitated public was under the necessity of acquiescing for the space nearly of a twelvemonth; during which period the forger and his auxiliary were permitted to triumph,

P. 161.

The circumstance of Milton's refusing to instruct his daughters in the languages, which he taught them to read to him, was a contrivance, according to Lauder, to keep them in ignorance of his thefts. "Milton well knew" (says this strange man,)" the loquacious and incontinent spirit of the sex; and the danger, on that account, of intrusting them with so important a secret as his unbounded plagiarism: he, therefore, wisely confined them to the knowledge of the words and pronunciation only, but kept the sense and meaning to himself." Lauder strictly observes the precept of the critic,

servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.

The essay concludes in the same inveterate and rancorous spirit—with a solemn assertion of the author's purity of motive in the love of truth, and with an apology for his not having "confined himself within the bounds of decency and moderation," drawn from the asperity of the controversial language of Milton himself, "who liberally dealt his thunder on all with whom he happened to be engaged; and

SUA QUISQUE EXEMPLA DEBET EQUO ANIMO PATI.

To this work be it for ever remembered that Samuel Johnson gave his deliberate and unqualified sanction!!!

one for his gratified animosity to the fame of the great poet, and the other for the success of his fraudulent contrivances.

About the end of the same year, (1750,) Mr. Douglas, the rector of Eaton Constantine in Shropshire, (who lately died' with the mitre of Salisbury on his brow,) addressed to the Earl of Bath a letter intitled, "Milton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Mr. Lauder."-Having in this pamphlet first clearly proved that Lauder's quotations, allowing them to be authentic, would not support the charges, urged with so much indecent vehemence against Milton, of plagiarism and an immoral concealment of truth, the acute and able critic proceeds to show that, with impudence unparallelled in the annals of literary imposture, the passages, which had been cited from Masenius, Staphorstius, Taubmannus, and the other obscure writers presented on this occasion to the public notice, had been adapted to the forger's design by the interpolation of lines either immediately fabricated for the purpose, or transcribed without alteration from Hogg's translation of the Paradise Lost.

f On the 18th of May, 1807, in his 86th year-universally beloved and lamented.

On this complete and irresistible evidence of Lauder's defective morality, they, who in any way had been connected with his publications, thought it expedient to clear themselves from the suspicion of any participation of his crimes. In this measure of prudence or of probity, his booksellers, (Payne and Bouquet in Paternoster Row,) very honourably took the lead. On the appearance of Mr. Douglas's pamphlet, they instantly acquainted Lauder that he must either disprove the charge, now brought against him, of forgery, by placing in their hands those editions of his authors from which he had made his extracts, or that they would “ publicly disclaim all connexion with him, and expose his declining the only step left for his defence." On his impudently avowing to them his dishonest practices, they hastened to execute their threat, and to vindicate their conduct to the world. Their advertisement on this occasion is candid, manly, and explicit; and it is remarkable for advancing, in extenuation of their credulity, the same excuse which was afterwards urged, with less propriety and a smaller probability of truth, by Lauder's literary accomplice, that

Johnson is reported to have said that he thought "the man too frantic to be fraudulent."

"the man's want of capacity to contrive and execute a fraud precluded a suspicion of abuse and interpolation." From the booksellers, who saw the violence of Lauder and were unable to appreciate his powers, this apology might very well be received; but it certainly came with an ill grace from the mouth of Johnson, who had been connected with the impostor, as is highly probable, for more than two years, and who could not on any supposition be a stranger to the acuteness of his intellect or the malice of his heart. In this exigency however, it was requisite for Johnson to be active in disavowing his association with falsehood; and accordingly he wrote for Lauder a letter of penitence and confession, and induced him to address it as his own to Mr. Douglas. The fate of this ill-starred letter seems to have been singularly unfortunate. It failed to satisfy the public, and, while it hurt the feelings, it promoted none of the purposes of Lauder: by Lauder indeed it was subsequently disowned, with some intimation of doubt respecting the good faith of his officious friend, on whom he professes to have reposed with the most perfect confidence.

The cause of Lauder's hostility to Milton, as it is assigned in this publication, is of a na

ture too curious to be suppressed. Lauder, as it seems, had edited, for the use of schools, a translation of the psalms into Latin verse by Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician; and had pleased himself with the prospect of an income from an annual edition of the work: but his hopes of profit had been intercepted by a wicked couplet of Pope's in the Dunciad, which had thrown the Scotch translator into contempt, and had consequently checked the sale of his production. "I had no particular pleasure," (says Lauder, or rather Johnson for him,)" in subverting the reputation of Milton, which I had myself once endeavoured to exalt, and of which the foundation had always remained untouched by me had not my credit and my interest been blasted, or thought to be blasted by the shade which it cast from its boundless elevation." Then follows the story which F have related, and which the letter-writer thus concludes: "On this occasion it was natural not to be pleased; and my resentment,

Speaking of Benson, the poet says,

"On two unequal crutches propp'd he came,

Milton's on this-on that one Johnston's name."

The unprincipled Lauder assigned afterwards other reasons for his conduct: but he seems principally to have been actuated by a wish of calling the public attention to those obscure Latin poets of which he was then meditating an edition.