be his motive for accepting the office. A man, to express the precise state of mind of another, about to be destined to an ignominious death for a capital crime, should, one would imagine, have some consciousness, that he himself had incurred some guilt of the same kind V In all the schools of sophistry is there to be found so vile an argument ? In the purlieus of Grub-street is there such another mouthfull of dirt ? In the whole quiver of Malice is there so envenomed a shaft ?
After this it is to be hoped, that a certain class of men will talk no more of Johnson's malignity. The last apology for Milton is, that he acted according to his principles. But Johnson thought those principles detestable ; pernicious to the constitution in Church and State, destructive of the peace of society, and hostile to the great fabric of civil policy, which the wisdom of ages has taught every Briton to revere, to love, and cherish 2 . He reckoned Milton in that class of men, of whom the Roman historian says, when they want, by a sudden convul sion, to overturn the government, they roar and clamour for liberty; if they succeed, they destroy liberty itself. Ut impe- rium evertant, Liber tatem prczferunt ; si perverterint^ liber tatem ipsam aggredientur 3 . Such were the sentiments of Dr. Johnson ; and it may be asked, in the language of Bolingbroke, 'Are these sentiments, which any man, who is born a Briton, in any circumstances, in any situation, ought to be ashamed, or afraid to avow 4 ? ' Johnson has done ample justice to Milton's poetry: the Criticism on Paradise Lost is a sublime com position. Had he thought the author as good and pious a citizen as Dr. Watts, he would have been ready, notwith standing his non-conformity, to do equal honour to the memory of the man 5 .
��1 Ante, p. 432; Memoirs of Thomas mind is disposed by his [Dr. Watts's] Hollis, ii. 579. verses or his prose to imitate him in
2 Life, iv. 41. all but his nonconformity, to copy his
3 Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 22. benevolence to man and his rever-
4 ' Are these designs,' &c. Bolin- ence to God.' Works, viii. 387. See broke's Works, ed. 1809, iii. 4. also Life, i. 312 ; iii. 126.
5 ' Happy will be that reader whose
It
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