that would not have misbecome the fu

perftitious bigotry, of a monk in a cloys ter.

The Doctor, in fpeculating upon Dryden's perverfion to popery, and (as one of the Reviewers of his prefaces exprefles it)" attempting ingeniously to extenu

ate it," concludes that, Enquiries into the heart are not for man.

No truly, not when Dryden's apoftacy is to be extenuated; but when poor Milton's fins are to be ingeniously aggravated, no Spanish Inquifitor more fharp-fighted to difcern the devil playing his pranks in the heart of the poor culprit, or more ready to conduct him to an auto de fe

In Dryden's cafe, the prefumption is, that "a comprehenfive is likewise an "elevated

elevated foul, and that whoever is wife, is likewife honeft." But if it is natu ral to hope this, why not hope it of Milton as well as of Dryden? Where is the competent impartial judge who will admit, that Milton's foul was lefs com prehenfive or less elevated than the foul of Dryden ?

But what occafion for all this grimace in accounting for Dryden's tranfition from what he did or did not profefs to the church of Rome? Dr. Johnson ought to have been fatisfied with Dryden's own account in his tale of the Hind and the Panther; the rather, as he there feems to have verified by experience Dr. Johnson's maxim, that " he that is of no "church can have no religion." He

frankly

frankly confeffes, that having no fteady principle of religion in his youth, or even in his maturer years, he finally fet up his reft in the church of Rome: and indeed if the effentials of religion confift in the trappings of a church, he could not have made a better choice *.

Dryden was reprehensible even to infamy for his own vices, and the licen

tious encouragement he

gave in his writ

ings to thofe of others.

But he wrote an

antirepublican poem called Abfalom and Achitophel; and Dr. Johnfon, a man of high pretenfions to moral character, calls

Ep. Burnet, fpeaking of Dryden's converfion, fays, If his grace and his wit improve "both proportionably, we shall hardly find that "he hath gained much by the change he has "made, from having no religion to chufe one of "the worft." Reply to Mr. Varillas, p. 139.

him a wife and an honeft man. Milton was a man of the chafteft manners, both in his conversation and his writings. But he wrote Iconoclafles, and in the fame Dr. Johnson's esteem was both a knave and a fool.

The church of Rome fubftitutes orthodoxy for every virtue under heaven. And loyalty among the high Royalists canonizes every rascal and profligate with a full and plenary abfolution. These are, it is true, among the vileft and meanest partialities of the defpotic faction; and Dr. Johnson, confcious of his merit in other departments, should blush, and be humbled, to be found in the lift of fuch miferables.

We

We have lately met with a pleafand piece of vengeance taken of Milton by a poor fellow who had fuffered under his lafh for conveying into the world, Mos rus's, or rather Du Moulin's, "Clamor "Regii Sanguinis."

Juft before the Reftoration, Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. and his attendant in his exile, a man of learning, procured a handsome and valuable edition of Sylvefter Sguropulus's Hiftory of the council of Florence, in Greek. The printer of it was Adrian Vlacq, of the Hague, who yet fiarted from the ftripes inflicted upon him by Milton fome years before. Adrian now thought he had a fine opportunity of taking his amends. For this purpofe he prevailed