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CONJECTURES

ON THE

ORIGIN

OF

THE PARADISE LOST.

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 passionate attachment to his country made him first think of celebrating its antient 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 possession of his fancy; Arthur yielded to Adam, and England to Paradise.

To consider what various causes might conspire to produce this revolution in the

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ideas of the great poet, may be a plea speculation, if it is pursued with due spect to the noble mind that it aspire examine.

An investigation of a similar na was undertaken some years ago, upon different principles, when a singular atte was made to annihilate the poetical glo Milton, by proving him a plagiary. attempt was so extraordinary in its na and in its end so honorable to the poet his country, that a brief account of it sh I think, be annexed to the Life of Mi whose admirers may say, on that occa to the slanderers of genius,

"Descite justitiam moniti, & non temnere d

I shall give, therefore, a sketch o literary transactions to which I allud an introduction to those conjectures, t long and affectionate attachment to M has led me to form, concerning the o of his greatest work.

In 1746, William Lauder, an u

tunate adventurer, whom a furious temper, considerable learning, and greater indigence converted into an audacious imposter, attacked the originality of the chief English poet. Having asserted, in a periodical miscellany, that Milton had borrowed all his ideas from the juvenile work of Grotius, or from other less known writers of Latin verse, and finding the novelty of his charge attract the attention of the public, he endeavoured to enforce it in a pamphlet, intitled, "An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns," printed in 1750, and addressed to the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In the close of this essay he scrupled not to say of Milton: "His industrious concealment of his helps, his peremptory disclaiming all manner of assistance, is highly ungenerous, nay criminal to the last degree, and absolutely unworthy of any man of common probity and honor. By this mean practice, indeed, he has acquired the title of the British Homer, nay, has been preferred to Homer and

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