Critics have differed as to the source from which our [author] drew the first hint of writing Paradise Lost; Peck conjectures that it was from a celebrated Spanish Romance called Guzman, and Dr. Zachary Pearce, now bishop of Bangor, has alledged, that he took the first hint of it from an Italian Tragedy, called Il Paradiso Perso, still extant, and printed many years before he entered on his design.  Mr. Lauder in his Essay on Milton’s Use and Imitation of the Moderns, has insinuated that Milton’s first hint of Paradise Lost, was taken from a Tragedy of the celebrated Grotius, called Adamus Exul, and that Milton has not thought it beneath him to transplant some of that author’s beauties into his noble work, as well as some other flowers culled from the gardens of inferior genius’s; but by an elegance of art, and force of nature, peculiar to him, he has drawn the admiration of the world upon passages, which in their original authors, stood neglected and undistinguished.  If at any time he has adopted a sentiment of a cotemporary poet, it deserves another name than plagiary; for, as Garth expresses it, in the case of Dryden, who was charged with plagiary, that, like ladies of quality who borrow beggars children, it is only to cloath them the better, and we know no higher compliment could have been paid to these moderns, than that of Milton’s doing them the honour to peruse them, for, like a Prince’s accepting a present from a subject, the glory is reflected on him who offers the gift, not on the Monarch who accepts it.  But as Mr. Lauder’s book has lately made so great a noise in the world, we must beg leave to be a little more particular.

Had Mr. Lauder pursued his plan of disclosing Milton’s resources, and tracing his steps through the vast tracts of erudition that our author travelled, with candour and dispassionateness, the design would have been noble and useful; he then would have produced authors into light who were before unknown; have recommended sacred poetry, and it would have been extreamly pleasing to have followed Milton over all his classic ground, and seen where the noblest genius of the world thought proper to pluck a flower, and by what art he was able to rear upon the foundation of nature so magnificent, so astonishing a fabric:  but in place of that, Mr. Lauder suffers himself to be overcome by his passion, and instead of tracing him as a man of taste, and extensive reading, he hunts him like a malefactor, and seems to be determined on his execution.

Mr. Lauder could never separate the idea of the author of Paradise Lost, and the enemy of King Charles.  Lauder has great reading, but greater ill nature; and Mr. Douglas has shewn how much his evidence is invalidated by some interpolations which Lauder has since owned.  It is pity so much classical knowledge should have been thus prostituted by Lauder, which might have been of service to his country; but party-zeal seldom knows any bounds.  The ingenious Moses Brown, speaking of this man’s furious attack upon Milton, has the following pretty stanza.