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9. Colasterion; a Reply to a nameless Answer against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.

10. Of Education, to Mr. SAMUEL HARTLIB.

11. Areopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicens'd Printing, to the Parliament of England.

12. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrats, proving that it is lawful to call a Tyrant to account, and to depose or put him to death.

13. Eikonoclastes, in answer to a Book entitul'd, Eikon Basilike.

14. Observations on ORMOND's Articles of Peace with the Irish, his Letter to COLONEL JONES, and on the Representation of the Presbytery of Belfast.

15. Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, or his Defence of the People of England, against SALMASIUS'S Defence of the King.

16. Joannis Philipi Responsio ad Apologiam Anonymi cujusdam.

17. Defensio secunda pro Populo Anglicano, &c.

18. Defensio pro se adversus Alexandrum Morum.

19. A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes.

20. Considerations touching the likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church.

21. A Letter to a Friend concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth.

22. The brief Delineation of a Commonwealth.

23. Brief Notes on Dr. GRIFFITH'S Sermon, intitul'd, The

Fear of God and the King.

24. The ready and easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellence thereof compar'd with the Dangers and Inconveniences of readmitting Kingship in this Nation.

25. Paradise Lost.

26. Paradise Regain'd, and Sampson Agonistes.

27. Occasional and Juvenil Poems, English and Latin.

28. The History of Britain to the Norman Conquest.

29. Accedence commenc'd Grammar.

30. A brief History of Muscovy.

31. A Declaration of the Election of JOHN III. King of Poland.

32. Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata.

33. A Treatise of true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best Means to prevent the growth of Popery.

34. Litteræ Senatus Anglicani, &c. or Letters of State. 35. Epistolarum familiarum liber unus; accesserunt Prolu siones quædom Oratoriæ.

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ANIMADVERSIONS

ON

DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON.

THIS most illiberal writer intimates at the commencement of his Life of Milton, that instead of writing a new life,

"he might perhaps more properly have contented himself with the addition of a few notes to Mr. Fenton's, which had been previously written."

It would have been well for the interests of truth had he sternly adhered to that opinion, as there perhaps never was so flagrant an instance of downright misrepresentation and perversion of facts, for the mean purpose of caricaturing and distorting the features of a public man, than in Johnson's Life of Milton: a foul blot on English biography, a lasting disgrace to the man who could lend himself to such baseness.

It appears to me impossible to account for the venomous attack which he has made upon this most illustrious of our countrymen, but on the supposition that he was influenced by the same malignant feelings and principles of Jacob's sons towards Joseph: "His brethren hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him; moved with envy they sold him into Egypt." Dr. Johnson hated MILTON, because he

had published principles in regard to civil and religious liberty which Johnson was not capable of appreciating either their truth or their excellence. Did he not envy him on account of the superiority of his learning, talents, and fame? Not, it should seem, from any consciousness of his inferiority to him in either, but from knowing that if his own name should happen to be mentioned at the same time with MILTON, it would only be for the purpose of its being used as a foil to set off his rival's pre-eminent knowledge and benevolence. There never was probably a more correct exemplification of Solomon's maxim than in Johnson's Life of MILTON: " Anger is cruel, and wrath is vexatious; but who is able to stand before ENVY?"

In his first paragraph, speaking of one of MILTON's progenitors, who had forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster, he adds,

"Which side he took I know not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose."*

How soon his bile exudes! The thought of popular liberty struggling with jure divino tyranny shakes his nerves, disturbs his spirits, so that he cannot speak even of a remote predecessor of MILTON without an expression of his indignant hatred of the man who could venture to investigate the "tenure of kings and magistrates," and to write in vindication of the execution of a monarch who had been convicted of murdering the subjects whom he had sworn to protect!

Speaking of the brother of MILTON, he adds,

"And Chistopher, who studied the law, and adhered as the law taught him to the king's party, for which he was awhile persecuted."+

Is it the common law, Dr. Johnson, that you mean? Even that supposes that in return for the subject paying taxes for

*Johnson's Works, vol. vi. p. 84.

+ Ibid. p. 85.

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