"inferior beings," A moft heinous offence! enough to mufter the whole multitude of English Amazons against him. But the queftion is not concerning what is in his books, but what paffed in his kitchen and parlour. We want inftances; and here they are: "That his "own daughters might not break the "ranks, he fuffered them to be depref"fed by a mean and penurious educa❝tion."

The impudence of Belial would be abashed at fo grofs a mifreprefentation. Milton's daughters grew impatient of reading what they did not understand:;; this impatience "broke out more and "more into expreffions of uneafiness." What had they now to expect from their Turkish

Turkish father? what! but ftripes and imprisonment in a dark chamber, and a daily pittance of bread and water. No fuch matter. They were relieved from their task, and "fent out to learn fome "curious and ingenious forts of manu"facture that were proper for women "to learn, particularly imbroideries in .66. gold and filver *." And how far this branch of education was from being either mean or penurious in those days, the remains of these curious and ingenious works, performed by accomplished females of the highest and nobleft extraction, teftify to this very day.

To account for this tyranny of Milton over his females, the Doctor fays, "He

Philips, p. xlin

"thought

thought woman made only for obe"dience, and man only for rebel"lion *."

In the first member of this quaint antithefis the Doctor perhaps did not guess far amifs at Milton's thought. He feems to have been of St. Paul's opinion, that "women were made for obedience.". But Paul and Milton had different ideas of rebellion from thofe of Dr. Johnson. That Prynne, Burton, and Baftwick, were rebels in Dr. Johnfon's fcale, no one can doubt. And yet they had certainly an equal right to infift upon the privileges of Englishmen against Dr. Dé. Laud and his affeffors, as Paul had to plead thofe of a Roman citizen against *Life, p. 144.

the

the chief captain Lyfias; and even to require that the faid Archbishop fhould repair to the feveral prifons of thefe fufferers to ask their pardon, and to conduet them in perfon and with honour out of their confinement; as was done in the cafe of Paul and Silas, by the ma giftrates of Philippi; who (however the Biographer may ftomach the idea of fuch a humiliation of this magnanimous pre late) feem to have underftood the honour due to the laws of their country, and

谬

the rights of free citizens, fomething' better than either Abp. Laud or Dr. Johnson.

I

"But, after all, would Dr. Johnfon lead us to the converfe of the fentiment he

afcribes to Milton, as a "tenet of his

own

own orthodoxy? What his family-connexions with females may be we profefs not to know; but we cannot believe that he is fo far in love with petticoatgovernment,nasi to fubfcribe to the propofition, that men are made only for "obedience, and women only for rebel "lion." buds

66

But here we take our leave of his new

narrative; leaving his ftrictures on Milton's poetry to the examination of critics by profeffion; all of whom, we are perso fuaded, will not approve them merely because they came from Dr. Johnson. They will obferve that they are tainted throughout with the effects of an inveterate chatred to Milton's politics, with which, as the Biographer of a Poet the author