"interpolated by inferting," or whether he was "employed to cenfure by infert"ing, &c." Milton, however, it seems, was “fuf"pected of inferting, in the Icoh Bafi"like, a prayer taken from Sidney's "Arcadia, and imputing it to the King, "whom he charges, in his Iconoclaftes, "with the use of this prayer, as with a 66 heavy crime, in the indecent language "with which prosperity had embolden❝ed the advocates for rebellion to infult "all that is venerable and great." Does the Doctor mean to say, that thefe advocates for rebellion infulted the venerable and great Creator of all things, or that there was nothing venerable and great but King Charles I. and his appur tenances? tenances? The imputation of blafphemy on the one fide or the other is unavoidable. After which follows the citation from the Iconoclaftes, where the imputation and the grounds of it are fairly and openly told. Now for the proof of the interpolation. "The papers which the King gave to "Dr. Juxon, on the fcaffold, the regicides "took away, fo that they were at least "the publishers of this prayer." Let us parallel this with an inference from another fcrap of English history. "The miniftry took away Mr. Wilkes's papers, among which was faid to be "the Effay on Woman; fo that the mi nifters were at leaft the publishers of "that Effay; and, confidering the num"bers of poets they have always at their "beck, why may they not be fufpected. "as the forgers of it?" So reasoned Mr. Wilkes's friends in the year 1763. Dr. Johnfon knows what the ministerial writers replied; and let that fuffice for an answer to this prefumptive proof of Milton's dishonesty. But, "Dr. Birch, who examined the quef"tion with great care, was inclined to "think them [the Regicides] the forg Dr. Birch's examination, careful as the Doctor reprefents it, was blameably partial in not giving Toland's confutation of Dr. Gill's tale its full ftrength; and indeed the examination feems to have becn been unfatisfactory to Birch himself, ›by its being left out of his Life of Milton, prefixed to the quarto edition of Milton's profe-works. Lauder however affirms, that, "in Dr. "Birch's opinion, Milton was not guilty "of the crime charged upon him; Mil"ton and Bradshaw too, in the Doctor's opinion, being perfons of more honour "than to be guilty of putting so vile a "trick upon the King *." Lauder perhaps had this declaration from Dr. Birch's own mouth; it is confirmed however by the following reflection, in the quarto edition of Milton's Life by Birch, p. xxxiii. * Lauder's Vindication, p. 37 F 4 "It "It is highly improbable that Milton "and Bradshaw should make Hills* their "confident unneceffarily in fuch an affair; "and laugh in his prefence at their im"pofing fuch a cheat upon the world; "or that he should conceal it during the "life of the former, who furvived the *It is objected, to the teftimony of Hills, that he turned papist in the reign of James II. and we find him characterized by Dunton, Papifh Hills ftationer to James II. He made an atonement, however, after the Revolution, by printing feveral fingle fermons of the most eminent preachers of that time, many of them against Popery, on vile paper and print, for pence a piece, to the great comfort and convenience of minute divines in country churches. Dr. Taylor late Chancellor of Lincoln, in the poetical part of his mufic-fpeech, delivered at the public commencement at Cambridge, in 1730, has the following couplet : Then moulds his fcanty Latin and lefs Greek, And Harry Hills his parish once a week. "Refto |