was manly and moral-but it failed to correct his associate, for prejudice against Milton in Lauder arose almost to madness; in Johnson it amounted only to a degree of malevolence, too commonly produced by political disagreement; it had induced him to cherish too eagerly a detractive deception, fabricated to sink an illustrious character, without allowing himself the due exercise of his keen understanding to investigate its falsehood, or to perceive its absurdity. Lauder seems to have hoped, for some time, that a full confession of his offences would restore him to the favor of the public; for in the year 1751, he ventured to publish an apology, addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, soliciting patronage for his projected edition of the scarce Latin authors, from whom he had accused Milton of borrowing. The chief purpose of so extraordinary an attack on the renown of the poet, appears to have been a desire, prompted by indigence, to interest the public in the re-appearance of those neglected writers, whom he meant to re-publish. In closing.

his apology to the Archbishop, he says, with singular confidence:

"As for the interpolations (for which I am so highly blamed) when passion is subsided, and the minds of men can patiently attend to truth, I promise amply to replace them, with passages equivalent in value that are genuine, that the public may be convinced that it was rather passion and resentment, than a penury of evidence, the twentieth part of which has not as yet been produced, that obliged me to make use of them.'

He printed the collection of Latin poets as he proposed, one volume in 1752, and a second in 1753. The book may be regarded as a literary curiosity, but it seems to have contributed little to the emolument of its miserable editor, who had thoroughly awakened universal indignation; and as Dr. Douglas observed, in a postscript to his pamphlet, reprinted in 1756, " the curiosity of the public to see any of these poems was at an end; the only thing which had stamped a value upon them, was a suppo

sition that Milton had thought them worthy his imitation. As therefore it now appeared, by the detection of Lauder's system of forgery, that Milton had not imitated them, it is no wonder that the design of reprinting them should meet with little or no success."

The assertion of this learned and amiable writer, that Milton had not imitated these poets, is not to be understood in a strict and literal sense; for assuredly there are passages in some of them that Milton may be fairly said to have copied, though his obligations to these Latin poets are very far from being considerable; and had they been infinitely greater, the inference drawn by the malevolent reviler of Milton would still have been preposterously severe.

The detected slanderer was soon overwhelmed with the utter contempt he deserved; but, contemptible as he was, the memory of his offences and of his punishment ought to be preserved, not so much for the honor of Milton, as for the general interest of literature, that if the world can produce a Bb

VOL. I.

second Lauder, he may not hope for impunity.

Part of his subsequent history, is related in the following words by Dr. Douglas:

"Grown desperate by his disappointment, this very man, whom but a little before we have seen as abject in the confession of his forgeries, as he had been bold in the contrivance of them, with an inconsistency, equalled only by his imprudence, renewed his attack upon the author of Paradise Lost; and in a pamphlet, published for that purpose, acquainted the world, that the true reason which had excited him to contrive his forgery was, because Milton had attacked the character of Charles the First, by interpolating Pamela's prayer from the Arcadia, in an edition of the Icon Basilike; hoping, no doubt, by this curious key to his conduct, to be received into favor, if not by the friends of truth, at least by the idolaters of the royal martyr-the zeal of this wild party-man against Milton having at the same time extended itself against his biographer,

the very learned Dr. Birch, for no other reason but because he was so candid as to express his disbelief of a tradition unsupported by evidence"

Were it requisite to give new force to the many proofs of that malignant prejudice against Milton in a late writer, which I have had too frequent occasion to examine and regret, such force might be drawn from the words just cited from Dr. Douglas. That gentleman here informs us, that Lauder di rected his intemperate zeal against Dr. Birch, for rejecting the ill-supported story that represented Milton as an impostor, concerned in forging the remarkable prayer of the king. Yet Johnson ungenerously laboured to fix this suspicion of dishonesty on the great character whose life he delineated, by insinuating that Dr. Birch believed the very story, which Lauder reviled him for having candidly rejected. Is it not too evident from this circumstance, that Lauder's intempe rate hatred of Milton had in some degree infected his noble coadjutor? though he very justly discarded that impostor, when con