But still, it seems, the prostitution with which Milton is charged, since it cannot be defended, is to be retorted on the character of Johnson.  For this purpose, a book has been published, called Remarks on Dr. Johnson’s Life of Milton; to which are added, Milton’s Tractate of Education, and Areopagitica.  In this laboured tract we are told, “There is one performance, ascribed to the pen of the Doctor, where the prostitution is of so singular a nature, that it would be difficult to select an adequate motive for it, out of the mountainous heap of conjectural causes of human passions, or human caprice.  It is the speech of the late unhappy Dr. William Dodd, when he was about to hear the sentence of the law pronounced upon him, in consequence of an indictment for forgery.  The voice of the public has given the honour of manufacturing this speech to Dr. Johnson; and the style, and configuration of the speech itself, confirm the imputation.  But it is hardly possible to divine what could 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.”  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 mouthful 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.  He reckoned Milton in that class of men, of whom the Roman historian says, when they want, by a sudden convulsion, to overturn the government, they roar and clamour for liberty; if they succeed, they destroy liberty itself:  “Ut imperium evertant, libertatem praeferunt; si perverterint, libertatem ipsam aggredientur.”  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?” Johnson has done ample justice to Milton’s poetry:  the criticism on Paradise Lost is a sublime composition.  Had he thought the author as good and pious a citizen as Dr. Watts, he would have been ready, notwithstanding his nonconformity, to do equal honour to the memory of the man.

It is now time to close this essay, which the author fears has been drawn too much into length.  In the progress of the work, feeble as it may be, he thought himself performing the last human office to the memory of a friend, whom he loved, esteemed, and honoured: