tary monarch, and limited in kind and degree, by his gracious will and pleafure; and confequently to controul his arbitrary acts by the interpofition of good and wholesome laws is à manifeft ufurpation upon his prerogative. Milton allotted to the people a confiderable and important share in political government,, founded upon original ftipulations for the rights and privileges of free fubjects, and called the monarch who fhould infringe or encroach upon thefe, however qualified by lineal fucceffion, a tyrant and an ufurper, and freely configned him to the vengeance of an injured people. Upon Johnson's plan, there can be no fuch thing as public liberty.. Upon Milton's, where the laws are duly executed,

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cuted, and the people protected in the peaceable and legal enjoyment of their lives, properties, and municipal rights and privileges, there can be no fuch thing as ufurpation, in whofe hands foever the executive power fhould be lodged. From this doctrine Milton never fwerved; and in that noble apoftrophe to Cromwell, in his Second Defenfe of the ple of England, he fpares not to remind him, what a wretch and a villain he would be, fhould he invade thofe liberties which his valour and magnanimity had reftored. If, after this, Milton's. employers deviated from his idea of their duty, be it remembered, that he was. neither in their fecrets, nor an inftrument in their arbitrary acts or encroach

ments on the legal rights of the fubject;: many (perhaps the moft) of which were

to be juftified by the neceffity of the times, and the malignant attempts of those who laboured to restore that wicked, race of defpotic rulers, the individuals of which had uniformly profeffed an utter enmity to the claims of a free people, and had acted accordingly, in perfect conformity to Dr. Johnfon's political creed. On another hand, be it obferved, that in those State-letters, latinized by Milton, which remain, and in those particularly written in the name of the Protector Oliver, the ftricteft attention is paid to the dignity and importance of the British nation, to the protection of trade, and the Proteftant religion, by fpi

rited expoftulations with foreign powers on any infraction of former treaties, in a ftyle of fteady determination, of which there have been few examples in fubfequent times. A certain fign in what esteem the British government was held at that period by all the other powers of Europe. And as this was the only province in which Milton acted under that government which Dr. Johnfon calls an ufurpation, let his fervices be compared with thofe performed by Dr. Johnfon for his prefent patrons; and let the conftitutional fubject of the British empire judge which of them better deferves the appellation of a traitor to public liberty, or have more righteoufly earned the honey of a penfion.

The real ufurper is the wicked ruler. over a poor people, by whatever means the power falls into his hands. And whenever it happens that the imperium ad optimum quemque a minus bono transfertur, the fubject is or fhould be too much interested in the fact to confider any character of the rejected ruler but his vicious ambition, the violence and injustice of his counfels, and the flagitious acts by which they were executed.

These petulant reflections of the Doctor on Milton, might, many of them, eafily be answered by recrimination; we have often wondered, in running over this new narrative, that the confcioufnefs of the hiftorian's heart did not difable his hand for recording feveral things

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