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much offence; the ambassador at th time made it his particular request to that, in answering the book, as far a lated to the English government, he abstain from all hostility against M Milton replied, " that no unbecoming should proceed from his pen;" principles would not allow him to sp any private intercession, a public en his country. These particulars are ed from the last of our author's p treatises in Latin, the defence of and they form, I trust, a favorable in tion to a refutation, which it is time gin, of the severest and most p charge, that the recent enemies of have urged against him; I mean the of servility and adulation, as the sy of an usurper.

I will state the charge in the w his most bitter accuser, and without ment, that it may appear in its full f

"Cromwell (says Johnson) h dismissed the Parliament, by the a of which he had destroyed the mo

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

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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

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to his seamen, "It is our business to hinder foreigners from fooling us," by which, he justified his continuance in his post under Cromwell, is singularly applicable to Milton who, as a servant, engaged by the state to conduct, in Latin, its foreign correspondence might think himself as strongly bound in duty and honor, as the justly applauded admiral, "to hinder his country from being fooled by foreigners." "But Milton," says his uncandid biographer, I continuing to exercise his office under a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his power, that liberty which he had defended." Was the usurpation 'more manifest to Milton, than to Blake? Or is it a deeper crime against liberty to write the Latin dispatches, than to fight the naval battles of a nation under the controul of an usurper? Assuredly not: nor had either Blake or Milton, the least intention of betraying that liberty, which was equally the darling idol of their elevated and congenial spirits; but in finding the learned and eloquent biographer of these two immortal worthies so friendly to the admiral,

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