CONJECTURES, &c.

CONJECTURES, FANCIES BUILT ON NOTHING FIRM!

MILTON.

To write an Epic Poem was the prime object of MILTON's ambition at an early period of life; a paffionate attachment to his country made him first think of celebrating its ancient heroes; but in the long interval between the dawn of such a project in his thoughts, and the commencement of his work, a new train of images got poffeffion of his fancy; Arthur yielded to Adam, and England to Paradife.

To confider what various caufes might confpire to produce this revolution in the ideas of the great poet may be a pleafing fpeculation, if it is purfued with due respect to the, noble mind that it aspires

to examine.

An investigation of a fimilar nature was undertaken fome years ago, upon very different principles, when a fingular attempt was made to annihilate the poetical glory of Milton, by proving him a plagiary. This attempt was fo extraordinary in

its nature, and in its end fo honourable to the poet and his country, that a brief account of it fhould, I think, be annexed to the Life of Milton, whose admirers may say, on that occasion, to the flanderers of genius,

"Difcite juftitiam moniti, & non temnere divos."

I fhall give, therefore, a fketch of the literary tranfactions to which I allude, as an introduction to thofe conjectures, that a long and affectionate attachment to Milton has led me to form, concerning the origin of his greatest work.

In 1746, William Lauder, an unfortunate adventurer, whom a furious temper, confiderable learning, and greater indigence, converted into an audacious impoftor, attacked the originality of the chief English poet. Having afferted, in a periodical mifcellany, that Milton had borrowed all his ideas from the juvenile work of Grotius, or from other less known writers of Latin verfe, and finding the novelty of his charge attract the attention of the public, he endeavoured to enforce it in a pamphlet, intitled, "An Effay on Milton's Ufe and Imitation "of the Moderns," printed in 1750, and addreffed to the two univerfities of Oxford and Cambridge. In the clofe of this effay he fcrupled not to fay of Milton:

"His induftrious concealment of his helps, his "peremptory disclaiming all manner of affiftance, "is highly ungenerous, nay criminal to the last degree, and abfolutely unworthy of any man of

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common probity and honour. By this mean practice, indeed, he has acquired the title of the "British Homer, nay, has been preferred to Homer, "and Virgil both, and confequently to every other 66 poet of every age and nation. Cowley, Waller, Denham, Dryden, Prior, Pope, in comparison "with Milton, have borne no greater proportion, "than that of dwarfs to a giant, who, now he is "reduced to his true standard, appears mortal and "uninspired, and in ability little fuperior to the

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poets above-mentioned, but in honesty and open "dealing, the best quality of the human mind, not "inferior, perhaps, to the moft unlicensed plagiary "that ever wrote.'

In a publication, containing fuch language, Lauder was able to engage the great critic and moralist, Samuel Johnson, as his confederate; for the preface and poftfcript to the Effay, from which the preceding paragraph is cited, are confeffedly the compofition of that elaborate and nervous writer.

This confederacy, unbecoming as it may at firft appear, will, on candid reflection, feem rather a credit than a difgrace to Johnfon; for we certainly ought to believe that the primary motive, which prompted him to the affistance of Lauder, was that true and noble compaffion for indigence, which made him through life fo generously willing to afford all the aid in his power to literary mendicants; but in rendering juftice to that laudable charity, which he constantly exercised to the neceffitous, we. cannot fail to observe, that his malevolent prejudices against Milton were equally vifible on this fignal

occafion.

occafion. Had he not been under the influence of fuch prejudice, could his strong understanding have failed to point out to his affociate, what a liberal monitor very juftly obferved to Lauder, in convicting him of fraud and falfhood, that, allowing his facts to have been true, his inference from them was unfair. Lauder, with an unexampled audacity of impofture, had corrupted the text of the poets, whom he produced as evidence against Milton, by interpolating feveral verfes, which he had taken from a neglected Latin tranflation of the Paradise Loft. Expecting probably to escape both discovery and fufpicion by the daring novelty of his deception, and the mental dignity of his patron and coadjutor, he exulted in the idea of blafting the laurels of Milton; but those laurels were proof, indeed, against the furious and repeated flashes of malevolence and hoftility. More than one defence of the injured poet appeared; the first, I believe, was a pamphlet by Mr. Richardfon, of Clare Hall, printed in 1747, and entitled Zoilomastix, or, a Vindication of Milton, consisting of letters inferted in the mifcellany, where the charge of Lauder had made its first appearance; but the complete overthrow of that impoftor was accomplished by Dr. Douglas, the prefent Bishop of Salisbury, who publifhed, in 1750, a letter addrefied to Lord Bath, with the title of "Milton vindicated from the Charge of Plagiarifm;" a performance that, in many points of view, may be regarded as a real honour to literature-it unites what we find very rarely united in literary contention, great modesty with

great