Might call it Pretty dear, and Honey, But nurfe (as all have done before) To let them in, on-SPECULATION,' The fame chaftifed pleafantry and eafe, the fame dry humour and claffical elegance and allufion, which have in general diftinguished Mr. Anftey's performances, are confpicuous in the prefent: and if, perhaps, it had been lefs diffufive and more attentively finished, it might have been no way inferior to the hap pieft production of his exquifite pen. A ART. XIII. Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton. To which are added, Milton's Tractate on Education. Small 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. fewed. Dilly. 1780. Prefatory Advertisement to this publication informs us, that the following Remarks are a fmall part of a work lately given to the Public, wherein occafion is incidentally taken to exhibit fome inftances of the manner in which Milton's character has been treated by fome of his former biographers and others. About the time that fpecimen was closed, Dr. Johnfon's New Narrative was thrown in the way of the editors, and could not be overlooked without leaving fome of the more candid and capable judges of Milton's profe-writings to fuffer by the illiberal reflections of cer tain (perhaps well-meaning) men, who may be led to think that truth, judgment, and impartiality are fmall matters, when contrafted with what Dr. Johnfon's admirers have thought fit to call, an inimitable elegance of ftile and compofition. Our countrymen are certainly interested, that wrong reprefentations of the character of fo capital a writer as John Milton fhould be corrected, and properly cenfured; and therefore as the work from which the following Remarks are extracted may fall into the hands of very few of the numerous readers of Dr. Johnfon's Prefaces, we hope the public will approve of our republishing thefe ftrictures on the Doctor's account of Milton, in a form to which may be had an eafier and more general accefs.' The acrimony with which Dr. Johnfon has permitted himfelf to treat the character of Milton is well known. Those parts of his Narrative which feemed to be more particularly ob Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, Efq; 2 vol. 4to. of which an account will speedily be given in this Review. noxious noxious were pointed out, fo far at least as the nature of our work and the limits affigned to each individual article would adinit of, in the Review for Auguft 1779. The prefent Writer takes a larger field. He enters into a minute and ample vindication of the injured bard, not without recrimination on his learned hiftorian. If, perhaps, he may be lefs acrimonious, his Remarks are not without a due portion of afperity; he has certainly given his antagonist a Rowland for his Oliver. He enters into the detail of Dr. Johnfon's particular malevolence to Milton, from its firft appearance to its confummation in the history of his life. It first appeared, as this Writer tells us, in his connexion with Lauder, the mean calumniator of Milton's poetical fame. What fhare Dr. Johnfon had in that dirty bufinefs, will at this diftance of time be perhaps difficult to difcover, Charity, however, inclines us to hope that his share was not fo great as this Remarker feems willing to attribute Bim. That part of Milton's conduct, on which Dr. Johnson lays confiderable ftrefs, and which fome of his warmeft admirers have thought reprehenfible, is his attachment to Cromwell. What is advanced on this fubject by the prefent Writer seems to be a reafonable juftification of him. Milton's attachment to Cromwell has been imputed to him as a blot in his character long before it was taken up by Dr. Johnfon; who, to give him his due, has made the most of it in a fmall compafs. "Milton," fays he, having tafted the honey of public employment, would not return to hunger and philofophy; but, continusing to exercife his office under a manifeft ufurpation, betrayed to "his power that liberty which he had defended." It is hardly neceffary to apprize a reader of Milton's profe-works that his ideas of furpation and public liberty were very different from thofe of Dr. Johnfon. In the Doctor's fy item of government, public liberty is the free grace of an hereditary monarch, and limited in kind and degree by his gracious will and pleafure; and confequently to controul his arbitrary acts by the interpofition of good and wholesome laws, is a manifeft ufurpation upon his prerogative. Milton allotted to the people a confiderable and important fhare in political government, founded upon original ftipulations for the rights and privileges of free fubjects, and called the monarch who fhould infringe or encroach upon thefe, however qualified by lineal fucceflion, a tyrant and an ufurper, and freely configned him to the vengeance of an injured people. Upon Johnfon's plan, there can be no fuch thing as public liberty. Upon Milton's, where the laws are duly executed, and the people protected in the peaceable and ·legal enjoyment of their lives, properties, and municipal rights and privileges, there can be no fuch thing as ufurpation, in whofe hands foever the executive power fhould be lodged. From this doctrine Milton never fwerved; and in that noble apoftrophe to Cromwell, in his Second Defenfe of the People of England, he fpares not to remind him, what a wretch and a villain he would be, should he invade thofe liberties which his valour and magnanimity had reftored. If, after this, Milton's employers deviated from bir idea of their duty, be it remembered, that he was neither in their fecrets, nor an inftrument in their arbitrary as or encroachments on the legal rights of the fubject; many (perhaps the moit) of which were to be' juftified by the neceffity of the times, and the malignant attempts of thofe who laboured to reflore that wicked race of defpotic rulers, the individuals of which had uniformly profeffed an utter enmity to the claims of a free people, and had acted accordingly, in perfect conformity to Dr Johnfon's political creed. On another hand, be it obferved, that in thofe State-letters, latinized by Milton, which remain, and in thofe particularly written in the name of the Protector Oliver, the strictest attention is paid to the dignity and importance of the British nation, to the protection of trade, and the Proteftant religion, by fpirited expoftulations with foreign powers on any infraction of former treaties, in a style of fteady determination, of which there have been few examples in fubfequent times. A cer tain fign in what efteem the British government was held at that period by all the other powers of Europe. And as this was the only province in which Milton acted under that government which Dr. Johnson calls an ufurpation, let his fervices be compared with thofe performed by Dr. Johnfon for his prefent patrons; and let the conftitutional fubject of the British empire judge which of them better deferves the appellation. of a traitor to public liberty, or have more righteously earned the honey of a penfion. The real ufurper is the wicked ruler over a poor people, by whatever means the power falls into his hands. And whenever it happens that the imperium ad optimum quemque a minus bono transfertur, the fubje&t is or fhould be too much interested in the fact to consider any character of the rejected ruler but his vicious ambition, the violence and injuftice of his counfels, and the flagitious acts by which they were executed. Thefe petulant reflections of the Doctor on Milton, might, many of them, easily be answered by recrimination; we have often wondered, in running over this new narrative, that the consciousness of the historian's heart did not difable his hand for recording feveral things to the reproach of Milton, which rebound with double force on his own notorious conduct. Has he always believed that the government of the House of Hanover was lefs an ufurpation than that of Oliver Cromwell? Having tafted the honey of a penfion for writing minifterial pamphlets, would he feel no regret in returning once more to hunger and philofophy? The Doctor perhaps will tell us, that he is in no danger of farving, even though his penfion fhould be fufpended to-morrow. Be it fo; and by what kind of proof will be thew that Milton had no means of earning his bread but his political employment? 'Milton however made the experiment, which happily Dr. Johnson has not; and that too after the Restoration; and refified the temptations of court favour, and the folicitations of his wife to accept of it, with a magnanimity which would do him honour with any man hựt the author of the new narrative. Rev. June, 1780. Ii • Milton's Milton's reafon for rejecting this offer was, that "his with was "to live and die an honest man." But, fays the Doctor, "if he * confidered the Latin Secretary as exercifing any of the powers of "government, he that had shared authority, either with the parlia ment or Cromwell, might have forborn to talk very loudly of his honesty," p. 91. The venom of this remark happens to be too weak to do any mifchief. Cafuifts of all fects and complexions have done juftice to the honefly of men who adhered to their principles and perfuafions, though they might judge wrong in the choice of them. He goes on," And if he thought the office minifterial only, he "certainly might have honefly retained it under the King." Not quite fo certainly. But Milton's and Dr. Johnfon's notions of boHefty are fo widely different, that we cannot admit the Doctor to estimate Milton's honely by his own fcale. In the end, however, he quellions the fact, ་་ But this tale has too little evidence to deferve a diíquifition : '' large offers and flurdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood." That is, in plain unaffected English, "No man could ever reject a large cffer, though on conditions ever fo repugnant to his profeffed principles." But the Doctor is but an individual, and his experience from his own particular cafe will not be admitted as the ftandard of other men's integrity; and yet this is the only reafon he gives for rejecting this anecdote, fo honourable to Milton. Milton's attachment to Cromwell was evidently founded on different confiderations. The narrowness of the Prefbyterians in their notions of Liberty, and particularly of religious liberty, had appeared upon many occafions. He more than hints, in his Areopagitica, their inclination to govern by the epifcopal and oppreffive maxims of the Stuart race. He faw and abhorred their attempts to thackle the faith of Proteftants and Chriftians in the bonds of fyftems, confeffions, tefts, and fubfcriptions." The lamentable influence of party prejudices cannot more forcibly be illuftrated than by comparing, with our ingenious, Author, the different treatment that Dryden and Milton have experienced at the hands of the fame Biographer. The Doctor, in fpeculating upon Dryden's perverfion to Popery, and (as one of the Reviewers of his prefaces expreffes it) ་་ attempting ingeniously to extennate it," concludes that, Enquiries into the beart are not for man. No truly, not when Dryden's apoftacy is to be extenuated; but when poor Milton's fins are to be ingeniously aggravated, no Spanish Inquifitor more tharp-fighted to difcern the devil playing his pranks in the heart of the poor culprit, or mere ready to conduct him to an auto de fe. • In Dryden's cafe, the prefumption is, that "a comprehenfive is "likewife an elevated foul, and that whoever is wife, is likewise honeft." But if it is natural to hope this, why not hope it of Milton as well as of Dryden? Where is the competent impartial judge who will admit, that Milton's foul was lefs comprehenfive or lefs elevated than the foul of Dryden ? • But Bat what occafion for all this grimace in accounting for Dryden's tranfition from what he did or did not profels to the church of Rome? Dr. Johnson ought to have been fatisfied with Dryden's own account in his tale of the Hind and the Panther; the father, as he there feems to have verified by experience Dr. Johnson's maxim, that "he that is of no church can have no religion." He frankly confeffes, that having no steady principle of religion in his youth, or even in his maturer years, he finally fet up his rest in the church of Rome: and indeed if the effentials of religion confift in the trappings of a church, he could not have made a better choice *. Dryden was reprehenfible even to infamy for his own vices, and the licentious encouragement he gave in his writings to thofe of others. But he wrote an anti-republican poem called Abfalom and Achitophel; and Dr. Johnfon, a man of high pretenfions to moral character, calls him a wife and an honeft man. Milton was a man of the chastest manners, both in his converfation and his writings. But he wrote Iconoclastes, and in the fame Dr. Johnfun's efteem was both a knave and a fool. under The church of Rome fubftitutes orthodoxy for every virtue un heaven. And loyalty among the high Royalifts canonizes every raf cal and profligate with a full and plenary abfolation. Thefe are, it is true, amongst the vilest and meaneft partialities of the defpotic faction; and Dr. Johnfon, confcious of his merit in other departments, fhould blush, and be humbled, to be found in the list of fuch miferables,' From the fpecimens exhibited it will be no difficult matter to form an idea of the nature and fpirit of the performance under confideration. The Writer feems actuated by a generous concern for the reputation of an injured individual, and by a truly patriotic regard for the general liberties of mankind; which be thinks, and perhaps not without reafon, have been infidioufly attacked by a masked battery directed at the moral character of Milton, one of Liberty's moft zealous and refpectable advocates. Thefe Remarks, fo far as they immediately relate to Dr. Johnson, are clofed with a Differtation on his motives for compofing the fpeech delivered by the late unhappy Dr. Dodd, when he was about to hear the sentence of the law pronounced upon him, in confequence of an indictment for forgery. Though this, certainly, is a fubject which will naturally excite much curious fpeculation, yet its introduction here does not appear fufficiently authorized by propriety, as it feems to bear not the remoteft relation to the point in debate. * Bp. Burnet fpeaking of Dryden's converfion, fays, "If his grace and his wit improve both proportionably, we fhall hardly find that he hath gained much by the change he has made, from having no religion to chufe one of the worlt." Reply to Mr. Varillas, p. 139. Ii2 MONTHLY |