More was unquestionably the publisher of the work, considered him as its author, which, according to legal maxims, he had a right to do, and in return exposed, with such severity of reproof, the irregular and licentious life, of his adversary, that, losing his popularity as a preacher, he seems to have been overwhelmed with public contempt.

There is a circumstance hitherto unnoticed in this controversy, that may be considered as a proof of Milton's independent and inflexible spirit. More having heard accidentally, from an acquaintance of the English author, that he was preparing to expose him as the editor of the scurrilous work he had published, contrived to make great interest in England, first, to prevent the appearance, and again, to soften the personal severity of Milton's Second Defence. The Dutch ambassador endeavoured to prevail on Cromwell to suppress the work. When he found that this was impossible, he conveyed to Milton the letters of More, containing a protestation that he was not the author of the invective, which had given so

much offence; the ambassador at the same time made it his particular request to Milton that, in answering the book, as far as it related to the English government, he would abstain from all hostility against More.Milton replied, "that no unbecoming words should proceed from his pen;" but his principles would not allow him to spare, at any private intercession, a public enemy of his country. These particulars are collected from the last of our author's political treatises 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 severest and most plausible charge, that the recent enemies of Milton have urged against him; I mean the charge of servility and adulation, as the sycophant of an usurper.

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

"Cromwell (says Jolinson) had now dismissed the Parliament, by the authority of which he had destroyed the monarchy,

and commenced monarch himself under the title of protector, but with kingly, and more than kingly power. That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself founded his right only in necessity; but Milton, having now tasted the honey of public employment, would not return to hunger and philosophy, but, continuing to exercise his office under a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his power, that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be more just than that rebellion should end in slavery; that he who had justified the murder of the king for some acts, which to him seemed unlawful, should now sell his services and his flatteries to a tyrant, of whom it was evident that he could do nothing lawful."

Let us observe, for the honor of Milton, that the paragraph, in which he is arraigned with so much rancour, contains a political dogma, that, if it were really true, might blast the glory of all the illustrious characters who are particularly endeared to every English heart. If nothing can be more just than that rebellion should end in slavery,

VOL. I.

why do we revere those ancestors, who contended against kings? why do we not resign the privileges that we owe to their repeated rebellion? but the dogma is utterly unworthy of an English moralist; for assuredly we have the sanction of truth, reason, and experience, in saying, that rebellion is morally criminal or meritorious, according to the provocation by which it is excited, and the end it pursues. This doctrine was supported even by a servant of the imperious Elizabeth. "Sir Thomas Smith," (says Milton in his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates) "a protestant and a statesman, in his Commonwealth of England, putting the question, whether 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 shews not that candor which the liberal statesman had described as the characteristic of their judgment. The biographer uttering himself political tenets of the most servile complexion, accuses Milton of servility; and, in his mode of using the

words honey and hunger, falls into a petulant meanness of expression, that too clearly discovers how cordially he destested him. But perhaps his detestation was the mere effect of political prejudice, the common but unchristian abhorrence that a vehement royalist thinks it virtue to harbour. and to manifest against a republican. We might indeed, easily believe that Johnson's rancour against Milton, was merely political, had he not appeared as the biographer of another illustrious republican; but when we find him representing as honorable in Blake the very principles and conduct which he endeavours to make infamous and contemptible in Milton, can we fail to observe, that he renders not the same justice to the heart of the great republican author, which he had nobly rendered to the gallant admiral of the republic. To Blake he generously assigns the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of his country. Assuredly these virtues were as eminent in Milton, and however different their lines in life may appear, the celebrated speech of Blake