For my own part, although I fincerely respected the highly cultivated mind that harboured this apprehenfion, yet the apprehenfion itself appeared to me fomewhat fimilar to the fear of Falstaff, when he fays', "I am afraid of this "gunpowder Percy, though he be dead." As the profe of Milton had a reference to the distracted period in which it arose, its arguments, if they could by any means be pointed against our existing government, are furely as incapable of inflicting a wound, as completely dead for all the purposes of histility, as the noble Percy is represented, when he excites the ludicrous terror of Sir John: but while I presume to describe the prose of Milton as inanimate in one point of view, let me have the juftice to add, that it frequently breathes so warm a spirit of genuine eloquence and philanthropy, that I am perfuaded the prophecy of its great author concerning it will be gradually accomplished; its defects and its merits will be more temperately and juftly eftimated in a future age than they have hitherto been. The prejudices fo recently entertained against it, by the two eminent writers I have mentioned, were entertained

at a period when a very extraordinary panic poffeffed and overclouded many of the most elevated and enlightened minds of this kingdom-a period when a retired student could hardly amuse himself with perusing the nervous republican writers of the last century, without being fufpected of framing deadly machinations against the monarchs of the present day; and when the principles of a Jacobin were very blindly imputed to a truly English writer of acknowledged genius, and of the pureft reputation, who is, perhaps, of all men living, the moft perfectly blameless in his sentiments of government, morality, and religion. But, happily for the credit of our national understanding, and our national courage, the panic to which I allude has speedily paffed away, and a man of letters may now, I prefume, as safely and irreproachably peruse or reprint the great republican writers of England, as he might translate or elucidate the political vifions of Plato a writer whom Milton paffionately admired, and to whom he bore, I think, in many points, a very striking resemblance. Perhaps they both possessed too large a portion of fancy and enthusiasm to make

good practical statesmen; the vifionaries of public virtue have feldom fucceeded in the management of dominion, and in politics it has long been a prevailing creed to believe, that government is like gold, and must not be fashioned for extensive use without the alloy of corruption. But I mean not to burden you, my lively friend, with political reflections, or with a long differtation on the great mass of Milton's profe; you, whose studies are so various and extensive, are sufficiently familiar with those fingular compofitions; and I am not a little gratified in the affurance that you think as I do, both of their blemishes and their beauties, and approve the ufe that I have made of them in my endeavours to elucidate the life and character of their author. Much as we we refpected the claffical erudition and the taste of your lamented brother, I am confident that we can neither of us fubscribe to the cenfure he has paffed on the Latin style of Milton, who, to my apprehenfion, is often most admirably eloquent in that language, and particularly fo in the paffage I have cited from his character of Bradfhaw; a character in which I have known very acrimonious enemies

to the name of the man commended very candidly acknowledge the eloquence of the eulogift. Some rigorous idolaters of the unhappy race of Stuart may yet cenfure me even for this difpaffionate revival of fuch a character; but you, my liberal friend to the freedom of literary difcuffion, you will fuggeft to me, that the minds of our countrymen in general afpire to Roman magnanimity, in rendering juftice to great qualities in men, who were occafionally the objects of public detestation, and you join with me in admiring that example of fuch magnanimity, to which I particularly allude. Nothing is more honorable to ancient Rome, than her generosity in allowing a ftatue of Hannibal to be raised and admired within the walls of the very city, which it was the ambition of his life to diftrefs and deftroy.

In emulation of that fpirit, which delights to honor the excellencies of an illuftrious antagonist, I have endeavoured to preserve in my own mind, and to exprefs on every proper occafion, my unshaken regard for the rare faculties and virtues of a late extraordinary biographer, whom it has been my lot to encounter continually as a very

bitter, and sometimes, I think, an infidious enemy to the great poet, whose memory I have fervently wished to rescue from indignity and detraction. The afperity of Johnson towords Milton has often ftruck the fond admirers of the poet in various points of view; in one moment it excites laughter, in another indignation; now it reminds us of the weapon of Goliah as described by Cowley;

"A fword fo great, that it was only fit

"To cut off his great head that came with it;"

now it prompts us to exclaim, in the words of an angry Roman:

"Nec bellua tetrior ulla eft

Quam fervi rabies in libera colla furentis."

I have felt, I confefs, these different emotions of refentment in perusing the various sarcasms of the auftere critic against the object of my poetical idolatry, but I have tried, and I hope with some fuccefs, to correct the animofity they must naturally excite, by turning to the more temperate works of that very copious and admirable writer,