398 Essay on
��sentiments and inimitable style point out the author of Lauder's preface and postscript, will no longer allow A MAN [one] to plume himself with his feather s^ who appears so little to have deserved his assistance ; an assistance which I am persuaded would never have been communicated, had there been the least suspicion of those facts, which I have been the instrument of conveying to the world.' We have here a contemporary testimony to the integrity of Dr. Johnson throughout the whole of that vile transaction *. What was the consequence of the requisition made by Dr. Douglas? Johnson, whose ruling passion may be said to be the love of truth, convinced Lauder. that it would be more for his interest to make a full confession of his guilt, than to stand forth the convicted champion of a lye ; and for this purpose he drew up, in the strongest terms, a recantation in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Douglas, which Lauder signed, and published in the year 1751 2 . That piece will remain a lasting memorial of the abhorrence with which Johnson beheld a violation of truth. Mr. Nichols, whose attachment to his illustrious friend was un wearied, shewed him in 1780 a book, called Remarks on Johnsoris Life of Milton, in which the affair of Lauder was renewed with (when Johnson had ceased to write in that collection) was urged as an additional proof of deliberate malice. He read the libellous passage with attention, and instantly wrote on the margin : ' " In the business of Lauder I was deceived, partly by thinking the man too frantic to be fraudulent." Of \h& poetical scale quoted from the Magazine I am not the author. I fancy it was put in after I had quitted that work ; for I not only did not write it, but I do not remember it V As a critic and a scholar, Johnson
1 Life, i. 229, n. I. 2 Ib. 4 In this Poetical Scale little in-
3 Post, p. 486. justice is done to Milton: 'The
Remarks on Johnson's Life of point of perfection is supposed to be
Milton, 1780, formed a part of The twenty degrees. Shakespeare is
M emoirs of Thomas Hollis, published estimated to be in genius 19, judg-
anonymously, but written by Arch- ment 14, learning 14, versification
deacon Blackburne. Nichols, Lit. 19. Milton, in genius 1 8, judgment
Anec. viii. 57. The passage referred 16, learning 17, versification 18.' But
to is on vol. ii. p. 537, of those in the ' remarks ' it is said ...' Shake-
Memoirs. speare's faults were those of a great
was
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