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Brutality is a word of an ill found, and required fome inftances to juftify the imputation of it. When thefe are given, we will readily join iffue in the trial, whether Milton or his adverfaries were the more brutal or more infolent. They who would reduce mankind to a brutal flavery, under the defpotifm of a lawless tyrant, forfeit all claim to the rationality of human beings; and no tongue can be called evil for giving them their proper appellation.

Neither Dr. Johnfon nor we can pretend, at this distance of time, to affign the precife caufes of Milton's complaint. Evil tongues are common in all times; our hiftories inform us, that the times of Charles II. were not good. Milton perH 3 haps

haps is not unhappy in being out of the reach of the prefent times; but whether he is, even in the prefent times, out of the reach of evil tongues, let the readers of the new narrative candidly judge.

Impudence is an attribute with which our Biographer hath qualified Milton more than once; and it seems to have fhocked the modefty of Dr. Johnfon that a blemish of that kind fhould deform the character of his hero.

Parcius ifta, good Doctor! Novimus et qui te-But Churchill and Kenrick are no more, and the Doctor may easily annihilate their authority by writing new narratives of what they were.

There is however, it feems, one of Milton's profe-tracts, in which the Doc

tor

tor finds no impudence; it is his treatise of True Religion, berefy, fchifm, toleration, and the best means to prevent the growth of popery.

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"This little tract," fays he, "is mo

deftly written, with refpectful mention "of the Church of England and the "thirty-nine articles."

True, fo far as the Church of England declares against Popery. But, unhappily for this respect, Milton brings thefe declarations in reproof of the church's practice; and moft ably confutes the pretence of the Church of England, "that the only enjoins things in"different." And even this he calls per

fecution.

" If

H 4

"If it be asked," fays Milton, "how ❝ far it should be tolerated? I answer, "doubtlefs equally, as being all Protef "tants; that is, on all occafions to give "account of their faith, either by ar

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guing, preaching in their feveral af"femblies, public writing, and the free"dom of printing."

If fuch toleration fhould have its free course, unrestrained by canons, fubfcriptions, and uniformity-acts, unallured by temporal emoluments, and unterrified by temporal cenfures, there must of course be an end of the civil Eftablishment of the Church of England; which is here as effectually condemned, as it is in those former tracts of the author's in which he is fo fevere on prelatical usurpations.

pations. The only difference is, that there,. in the Doctor's account, he is impudent, and here he is modeft.

"Fortune," fays the Doctor, "ap66 pears not to have had much of Milton's "care *." *" How is this character fupported by the inftances that follow, consistently with the account above given, that Milton," having tafted the honey of "public employment, would not return "to hunger and philosophy ?"

"There is yet no reason to believe "that he was ever reduced to indi

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gence +;" and we will add, "nor to t

"the profpect of it;" for what the

Doctor fays, that he was

*Milton's Life, p. 137.
+ Ibid. p. 136.

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given up to

poverty

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