our author's political treatifes in Latin, the defence of himself, and they form, I trust, a favorable introduction to a refutation, which it is time to begin, of the feverest and most plaufible charge, that the recent enemies of Milton have urged against him; I mean the charge of fervility and adulation, as the fycophant of an ufurper.

I will state the charge in the words of his most bitter accufer, and without abridgment, that it may appear in its full force.

"Cromwell (fays Johnson) had now dismissed "the parliament, by the authority of which he "had deftroyed monarchy, and commenced mo"narch himself under the title of protector, "but with kingly, and more than kingly, 66 power. That his authority was lawful never was pretended; he himself founded his right "only in neceffity but Milton, having now "tafted the honey of public employment, would

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not return to hunger and philofophy, but, "continuing to exercise his office under a mani"feft ufurpation, betrayed to his power that li"berty which he had defended. Nothing can "be more just than that rebellion fhould end "in flavery; that he who had justified the mur"der of the king for some acs, which to him

feemed unlawful, fhould now fell his fervices "and his flatteries to a tyrant, of whom it was "evident that he could do nothing lawful."

Let us obferve, for the honor of Milton, that the paragraph, in which he is arraigned with fo

much rancor, contains a political dogma, that, if it were really true, might blaft the glory of all the illuftrious characters who are particularly endeared to every English heart. If nothing can be more juft than that rebellion should end in flavery, why do we revere thofe ancestors, who contended against kings? why do we not refign the privileges that we owe to their repeated rebellion? but the dogma is utterly unworthy of an English moralift; for affuredly we have the fanction of truth, reason, and experience, in faying, that rebellion is morally criminal or meritorious, according to the provocation by which it is excited, and the end it pursues. This doctrine was fupported even by a fervant of the imperious Elizabeth."Sir Thomas Smith" (fays Milton in his tenure of Kings and Magiftrates) "teftant and a statesman, in his Commonwealth a pro"of England, putting the question, whether “of "it be lawful to rise against a tyrant, answers, "that the vulgar judge of it according to the event, and the learned according to the purpose of them that do it." Dr. Johnson, though one of the learned, here fhows not that candor which the liberal statesman had defcribed as the characteristic of their judgment. The biographer, uttering himself political tenets of the most servile complexion, accuses Milton of fervility; and, in his mode of ufing the words honey and hunger, falls into a petulant meanness of expreffion, that too clearly discovers how cordially he detested

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flatter; but the general charge is in fome measure inconsistent with a knowledge of human nature. As poets, generally fpeaking, have more fenfibility and lefs prudence than other men, we fhould naturally expect to find them rather 'diftinguished by abundance than by a want of fincerity; when they are candidly judged, they will generally be found fo; a poet indeed is as apt to applaud a hero as a lover is to praise his mistress, and both, according to the forcible and true expreffion of Shakspeare,

Are of imagination all compact. "

Their descriptions are more faithful to the acutenefs of their own feelings than to the real qualities of the objects defcribed. Paradoxical as it may found, they are often deficient in truth, in proportion to the excess of their fincerity; the charm or the merit they celebrate is partly the phantom of their own fancy; but they believe it real, while they praise it as a reality; and as long as their belief is fincere, it is unjust to accufe them of adulation. Milton himself gives us an excellent touchstone for the trial of praise in the following paffage of his Areopagitica; "there "are three principal things, without which all "praifing is but courtship and flattery: first, "when that only is praised, which is folidly "worth praise; next, when greatest likelihoods "are brought that fuch things are truly and

really in those perfons to whom they are afcribed; the other, when he who praises, by (6 fhewing that fuch his actual perfuafion is of "whom he writes, can demonftrate, that he "flatters not. If we try Milton by this his own equitable law; we must honorably acquit him of the illiberal charge that might almoft be thought fufficiently refuted by its apparent inconfiftency with his elevated spirit.

Though in the temperate judgment of pofterity, Cromwell appears only a bold bad man, yet he dazzled and deceived his contemporaries with fuch a strong and continued blaze of real and vifionary splendor, that almoft all the power and all the talents on earth feemed eager to pay him unsolicited homage: but I mean not to reft the vindication of Milton on the prevalence of example, which, however high and dignified it might be, could never serve as a fanction for the man, to whom the rare union of spotless integrity with confummate genius had given an elevation of character that no rank and no powers unfupported by probity could poffibly bestow; though all the potentates and all the literati of the world confpired to flatter the ufurper, we might expect Milton to remain, like his own faithful Abdiel,

Unfhaken, unfeduc'd, unterrified.

achievements, and generally difpofed to give him credit for every upright intention, Milton hailed him as the father of his country, and delineated his character: if there were fome particles of flattery in this panegyric, which, if we adhere to our author's juft definition of flattery we cannot allow, it was completely purified from every cloud or fpeck of fervility by the most fplendid and fublime admonition that was ever given to a man poffeffed of great talents and great power by a genuine and dauntless friend, to whom talents and power were only objects of reverence, when under the real or fancied direction of piety and virtue.

"Revere (fays Milton to the Protector) the great expectation, the only hope, which our

* Reverere tantam de te expectationem, fpem patriæ de te unicam; reverere vultus & vulnera tot fortium virorum, quotquot, te duce, pro libertate tam ftrenue decertarunt; manes - etiam eorum qui in ipfo certamine occubuerunt; reverere exterarum quoque civitatum exiftimationem, de nobis atque fermones, quantas res de libertate noftra tam fortiter parta, de noftra republica tam gloriofe exorta fibi polliceantur; quæ fi tam cito quafi aborta evanuerit, profecto nihil æque dedecorofum huic genti, atque pudendum fuerit; teipfum denique reverere, ut pro qua adipifcenda libertate tot ærumnas pertuliti, tot pericula adiifti, eam adeptus violatam per te, aut ulla in parte imminutam aliis ne finas effe. Profecto tu ipfe liber fine nobis effe non potes, fic enim natura comparatum eft, ut qui aliorum libertatem occupat, fuam ipfe primum omnium amittat; feque primum omnium intelligat ferviri; atque id quidem non injuria. At vero, fi patronus ipfe libertatis, & quafi tutelaris deus, fi