As to the determined efforts of MILTON to prevail with the Parliament to abolish tithes, and to leave the established clergy to depend for support upon the voluntary contributions of their respective parishioners, his reasoning has a better prospect of being regarded at the present than at any former period since his treatises were published. It may probably too give weight to his recommendations, that his remarks applied to Presbyterian, and not to Episcopal "hirelings." His objection was to the system of tithes, because he considered it directly opposed to the genius of Christianity, and as being injurious to the spiritual interests of the nation. To An earnest desire that the religious and political sentiments of MILTON should be justly appreciated, led the writer to undertake this work; and also that his Christian integrity, manifested under all the changes through which he passed from 1640 to 1674, on account of the extraordinary revolutions of that period, should be held up as an example worthy of universal imitation. It will however be found, that the veneration which he entertains for the character of MILTON, has not led him to overlook his faults, nor to palliate his errors. Another reason which prevailed with the writer was, that the Lives of MILTON have usually been so large and expensive, that they have been placed out of the reach of the generality of readers; he therefore hopes that a small volume, comprising every thing of importance respecting this noble-minded and gigantic man, will not be unacceptable nor unprofitable to the bulk of his countrymen. The writer cannot anticipate that the sentiments stated in his work will be universally acceptable; but if they be approved by that large body of Britons who contend for liberty as their birthright, and especially by Protestant Dissenters, it is as much as he can expect. It is a little singular, that no writer of the latter class has ever published the life of this early and powerful defender of their principles, notwithstanding it is to his powerful advocacy that they are indebted, more than to any other writer, for all the civil 66 and religious privileges which they now enjoy. From his Memoirs having been written by Churchmen, who must have necessarily disapproved of his opinions, it is not wonderful that he should have been charged with employing coarse and intemperate," "rude and insulting language." Let the reader however recollect the period at which his treatises were written, when polemics were not remarkably nice in their selection of epithets; and let him consider too the extreme importance of the subjects of which they treatthe welfare of the church of Christ, and the deliverance of the nation from civil and religious tyranny and he may probably be inclined to judge more favourably of the strong and caustic terms which he has sometimes employed for the purpose of satirizing and exposing gross impositions and oppressive corruptions. His blunt and biting style exposed him to great opposition and reproach; but he evidently indulged self-gratulation, from the reflection that he had always accustomed himself to what he called "this just and honest manner of speaking." The following beautiful description of Truth is a specimen : In his "Areopagitica," published 1644, he says: "Truth, indeed, came once into the world with her Divine Master, and was a perfect shape, most glorious to look upon; but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of Deceivers, who, as that story goes of that wicked Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear imitating the careful search which Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, gathering up every limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do till her Master's second coming. He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection." In the "Animadversions upon Johnson's Life of MILTON" in the Appendix, there will be found a degree of severity merited, the writer thinks, |