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There is no passage in Milton's writings to warrant such a phrase.

"From all which the reader is required to infer neither more nor less than that Milton was a contemptible hypocrite. But the case stands thus: when he descanted on the pleasures of the theatre, with great luxuriance,' he was a youth, somewhere about eighteen; the 'Apology' was written between thirty and forty; in the interval, therefore, time and opportunity had been afforded him to correct his boyish notions of the theatre, had they been wrong. Suppose, however, he had all his life entertained a partiality for the stage, does it necessarily follow that he must behold with luxuriance' the ministers of Christ dishonouring their sacred calling by the personation of coarse and indecent characters? This is all he here blames, as Johnson might have discovered, had he read the passage with attention."

It is true that Milton refused to enter the ministry of the Church of England, because he could not subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. "Whoever became a clergyman must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could not retch, he must strait perjure himself." He thought it better to preserve a blameless

silence, rather than take upon himself the office of speaking-an office bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.

That is a wonderful error of Johnson, but a type of his whole Biography, in which he says, "Scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal," &c., &c.-which passage proves that he knew little of Milton's writings. No, there is no frugality in his praise. When did Johnson ever commend, without a large qualification ?Never, even when he spoke of the highest names. But Milton frugal indeed

"What heeds my Shakspear for his hallowed bones ?"

How heartily he praises his great compeer! and Jonson's "learned sock," and Chaucer, who called up "the story of Cambuscan bold."Sometimes names crowd upon him. "No time will ever abolish the agreeable recollections I cherish of Jacob Gaddi, Caroli Deodati, Frescobaldi Culbellero, Bonomatthai, Clementillo, Francisco, and others." Then he speaks, in his Areopagitica, "of our sage and serious poet, Spenser, whom I dare be bold to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas."

His works abound in praise of men of the

highest worth. It would detain the reader through a very long chapter, if all the falsehoods and sneers of Johnson were formally answered; for the life is lengthy, and these abound upon every page. The simplest event is not recorded without some implication. Passing over his loose method of speaking of Milton's visits to Lady Margaret Leigh, a married lady, the daughter of the Earl of Marlborough, with whom Milton occasionally conversed, and to whom he has inscribed a sonnet, his changing his party, and leaving the Presbyterians for the Puritans-" He that changes his party by humour, is not more virtuous than he who changes it for interest."The fact is, Milton changed his party because he did not choose to change his principles. He protested against the exorbitant pretensions of the Presbyterians. He found them inimical to liberty. "Presbyter" he found to be "priest writ large." There is a pre-eminently vile passage in reference to Milton's Latin secretaryship under Cromwell, after he had received much honour and some reward for writing his "Defence of the People of England." "Milton, having now tasted the honey of public employment, would not return to hunger and philosophy, but continued to exercise his office

under a magnificent usurpation, betrayed to his power that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be more just, than that he who had justified the murder of his king should now sell his services and his flatteries to a tyrant."

As to returning to hunger, it is not at all likely that Milton was ever in want, or that he accepted any office; from his difficulty in procuring bread, Johnson had starved (had honourably and nobly starved) for years, and escaped from the possibilities of hunger by accepting a pension from King George III., whom he believed to be a usurper or a descendant of one; the representative of a family he hated. Milton received very little honey; the £1000 with which he was to have been rewarded for writing the "Defence," it appears certain he never received; the salary he received as secretary was small, but the post was probably congenial to his taste; and republican, as he was, he had doubtless sense to perceive that Cromwell's so called "usurpation" was the only course open for him to take to save himself from the consequences of a worse despotism; Milton's life is an abundant refutation to the charge of desiring "the money of public employment." It rests on good grounds that

Milton was offered the post of Latin Secretary to Charles II., on the restoration or soon after; why not? Monk the traitor rose high to power; South, the renegade, became a king's chaplain; Waller, the renegade, a hanger on at Court. Charles loved to receive these convertites, but the honey of public employment could not tempt Milton; and while his wife pressed his compliance he said, "Thou art in the right; you as other women, would ride in your coach; for me, my aim is to live and to die an honest man." Johnson must laud the Stewarts; "The king upon his restoration" says he, "with a lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the avenger of his father's wrongs." Monstrous and most audacious falsehood; the land reeked for years with violence and blood, as a expiatory holocaust to the memory of the departed King;" but if the king were so lenient, why does Johnson sneer at Milton for skulking from the presence of the king. Oh! but this is excellent; while the doctor forgets that Charles had been for years skulking in a life of dissipated recklessness and uncleanness, accepting the pay of a foreign despot, the enemy to England, whether beneath a monarchy or a protectorate.—It is needless to pursue this topic further; it was an

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