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 reprehenfible even to in famy for his own vices, and the licentious encouragement he gave in his writings 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

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

him a wife and an honest man.

Milton was a man of the chastest manners, both

in his conversation and his writings. But

he wrote Iconoclaftes, 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 Royalifts canonizes every rafcal 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, conscious 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 pleafanr piece of vengeance taken of Milton by a poor fellow who had fuffered under his lafh for conveying into the world, Mo rus's, or rather Du Moulin's, "Regii Sanguinis."

Clamor

Juft before the Reftoration, Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. and his attendant in his exile, a man of learn ing, procured a handfome and valuable edition of Sylvefter Sguropulus's History 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 purpose he prevailed

with Creyghton to characterize Milton in the preface to his book, but without naming him, left, both the editor and the printer should fuffer for their temerity, the Restoration being yet in embryo. Some of his rhetoric we shall tran fcribe:

Nec fuis unquam parafitis indiguit " fanaticum illud genus hominum, qui "exitiali facundia armati femper in pro"cinctu ftant, et qua jubentur, linguas "venales fleetunt, eorum turpiffima ❝ crimina ut virtutes collaudant, aliorum " omnium dotes dente fatyrico perfo

diunt, et in Deum ipfum, fi fenatus "perduellis mandaverit, profane elo66 quentiæ arietes admovere non erubef

cunt."

And

And again,

Regicidium commendant pofteris, "ut Heroici facinoris exemplum fingu<lare. Everfionem ecclefiæ, extirpa❝tionem regni, regiique fanguinis, inter "facta fortiffima numerant."

Again, fpeaking of the ftyle of the writers on the fide of the parliament, he fays:

"Qui fructum cum femente conferre "vellet fatius multo judicaret ad rudem "illam, fed honeftam Latinæ orationis balbutiem (monkish Latin) revertere' quam fic in Marci Tullii ac Titi Livii "viridariis expatiari, pollucibiliter men"tiri, &c."

And