e are intermix'd as many ornaats and graces of poetry, as the are of the fubject, and the au's fidelity and ftrict attachment he truth of Scripture hiftory, and reduction of so many and fuch ous events into so narrow a com, would admit. It is the fame in, but not at its higheft tide; now ebbing and retreating. It e fame fun, but not in its full ze of meridian glory; it now es with a gentler ray as it is ng. Throughout the whole the nor appears to have been a most ical reader and a moft paffionate hirer of holy Scripture. He is ebted to Scripture infinitely more to Homer and Virgil and all er books whatever. Not only principal fable, but all his epi fodes are founded upon Scripture. The Scripture hath not only furnifh'd him with the nobleft hints, rais'd his thoughts and fir'd his imagination; but hath alfo very much enrich'd his language, given a certain folemnity and majefty to his diction, and supplied him with many of his choiceft happieft expreffions. Let men therefore learn from this inftance to reverence thofe facred Writings. If any man can pretend to deride or defpise them, it must be faid of him at leaft, that he has a tafte and genius the most different from Milton's that can be imagin'd. Whoever has any true tafte and genius, we are confident, will efteem this poem the beft of modern productions, and the Scriptures the best of all ancient ones. THE EN D. POST A VERY extraordinary attempt having been lately made to undermine and destroy the reputation of Milton as a poet, it may be proper or the fake of truth, and for the fake of a favorite uthor, to give a short hiftory of it, here in the conlufion of this work. Soon after I had published my ropofals for printing a new edition of the Paradife oft with notes of various authors, Mr. William auder, a Scotchman, came to me, exclaming horbly of John Milton, and inveighing moft bitterly gainst him for the worst and greatest of all plagiaes; he could prove that he had borrowed the fubance of whole books together, and there was scarcea fingle thought or fentiment in his poem which e had not stolen from fome author or other, notwithanding his vain pretence to things unattempted yet in rofe or rhime. And then in confirmation of his harge he recited a long roll of Scotch, German, and Dutch poets, and affirmed that he had brought the ooks along with him which were his vouchers, and ppealed particularly to Ramfay a Scotch Divine, nd to Mafenius a German Jefuit: but upon proucing his authors he could not find Mafenius, he ad dropt the book fome where or other in the way, nd expreffed much furprise and concern for the lofs f it; Ramfay he left with me, and my opinion of Milton's imitations of that author I have given in a Lote on IX. 513. I knew very well that Milton was In univerfal fcholar, as famous for his great reading s for the extent of his genius; and I thought it not mprobable, that Mr. Lauder, having the good forVOL. II. F f tune tune to meet with thefe German and Dutch poema. might have traced out there fome of his imitation and allufions, which had escaped the researches c others and it was my advice to him then, and♪ often as I had opportunities of feeing him afterwards that if he had really made fuch notable difcoveries a he boasted, he would do well to communicate the to the public; an ingenious countryman of his h published an Effay upon Milton's ́imitations of the Ancients, and he would equally deferve the thanks of the learned world by writing an Essay upon Mika imitations of the Moderns: but at the fame time I commended to him a little more modefty and decency, and urged all the arguments I could to perfuade him to treat Milton's name with more respect and not to write of him with the fame acrimony and rancor with which he spoke of him; it would weaker his cause instead of ftrengthning it, and would bet himself more than Milton in the opinion of all c did readers. He began with publishing fome fpe mens of his work in a monthly pamphlet intitle: the Gentleman's Magazine: and I was forry to foc that he had no better regarded my advice in his man ner of writing; for his papers were much in the far ftrain and fpirit as his converfation, his afferti ftrong, and his proofs weak. However to do hi juftice, feveral of the quotations which he had mad from the Adamus Exul, a tragedy of the famo Hugo Grotius, I thought fo exactly parallel to feve paffages in the Paradife Loft, that I readily adopte them, and inferted them without fcruple in my notes esteeming it no reproach to Milton, but rather: commendation of his tafte and judgment, to have ther er'd fo many of the choicest flowers in the gardens others, and to have tranfplanted them with imrovements into his own. At length, after I had blished my first edition of the Paradife Loft, came rth Mr. Lauder's Effay on Milton's ufe and imitation the Moderns: but except the quotations from rotius, which I had already inferted in my first edion, I found in Mr. Lauder's authors not above half dozen paffages, which I thought worth transferng into my fecond edition; not but he had produced ore paffages fomewhat refembling others in Milton, at when a fimilitude of thought or expreffion, of ntiment or description, occurs in Scripture and we ill fay in Staphorftius, in Virgil and perhaps in lexander Rofs, in Ariofto and perhaps in Taubannus, I fhould rather conclude that Milton had orrowed from the former whom he is certainly nown to have read, than from the latter whom it is ery uncertain whether he had ever read or not. We now that he had often drawn, and delighted to draw om the pure fountain; and why then should we beeve that he chofe rather to drink of the ftream after was polluted by the trash and filth of others? We now that he had thoroughly ftudied, and was perectly acquainted with the graces and beauties of the reat originals; and why then should we think that e was only the fervile copyer of perhaps a bad copy, which perhaps he had never feen? This was all the fe that I could poffibly make of Mr. Lauder's Essay, nd the most favorable opinion that I could entertain of him and his performance, admitting all that he ad alleged to be true and genuin, was that the maice of his charge was much greater than the validity |
