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fophical apathy, void of all ambition to fhare with him the blushing honours himself had fo generously contributed to thicken upon Lauder's devoted head.

The effects of his journey-work, in defaming Milton, being thus difappointed by the laudable diligence of Dr.Douglas, and the unmanageable petulance of Lauder, common prudence fuggefted to our biographer the expedience of fuppreffing his impatience for another opportunity of leffening the public veneration for Milton's merit. Accordingly. he laid by his project for about two years, when he might reasonably hope his ma-. nœuvres, under the hide of Lauder,, would be forgotten, or laid afleep by a, fucceffion of that variety of entertainment, which

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which the prefs is always providing for the public on all forts of fubjects.

In January 1758 he releafed himself from his quarentine, and appeared in the Literary Magazine for that month, holding forth to the public his POETICAL SCALE, the particulars of which, fave

what relates to Milton, we leave to the critics by profeffion. This is what he fays of Milton:

"I am fenfible that in the calculations "I have here exhibited I have, in many inftances, ftrong prejudices against me.

The friends of Milton will not yield

to Shakespeare the fuperiority of ge"nius, which, I think, lies on the fide of Shakespeare. Both of them have faults. But the faults of Shakespeare

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"were those of Genius; thofe of Milton

The former

of the MAN OF GENIUS. "arifes from imagination getting the "better of judgment; the latter from "habit getting the better of imagination. Shakespeare's faults were thofe of a "great poet; thofe of Milton of a little. pedant. When Shakespeare is execra"ble he is fo exquifitely fo, that he is. " inimitable in his blemishes as in his "beauties. The puns of Milton betray, "a narrowness of education, and a dege. neracy of habit."

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Thus far Dr. Johnson's exhibition of Milton in the fcale of poetical merit, which perhaps, at the bottom may amount to no more than that, Milton could not make a faddle, or dance upon

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the rope. But this too we leave to critics on poetry, of whom we fhould requeft to explain the difference between a Genius and a Man of Genius, and by what operation habit, in the abftract, gets the better of imagination; remarking only for ourselves, that for the balance-mafter to reproach Milton for his pedantry is certainly betraying a strange unconsciousness of his own talents, unless he depends upon his reader's fagacity in difcriminating a great pedant from a little one. He is obliged, however, to complete the humiliation of Milton, to puť his profe-works into the scale.

"His theological quibbles and per"plexed fpeculations are daily equalled

* See Cibber's Letter to Pope, p. 35.

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"and excelled by the most abject en "thufiafts; and if we confider him as a "profe-writer, he has neither the learn

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ing of a scholar, nor the manners of a gentleman. There is no force in his reafoning, no elegance in his ftyle, and. no tafte in his compofition."

Peremptory, but not decifive! To make this go down, even with a moderate tory, it fhould have been added, that the narrowness of Milton's education prevented, not only his proficiency in the ftudy of the abftrufer fciences, but even in the elemental acquifitions of reading. or fpelling..

"We are therefore," continues the critic, "to confider him in one fixed: "point of light, that of a great poet,

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