itself again in the letter printed in the European Magazine, January, 1785, and there said to have appeared originally in the General Advertiser, 4th April, 1750, by which the publick were invited to embrace the opportunity of paying a just regard to the illustrious dead, united with the pleasure of doing good to the living- 1 . The letter adds, * To assist industrious indigence, struggling with distress, and debilitated by age, is a display of virtue, and an acquisition of happiness and honour. Whoever, therefore [then], would be thought capable of pleasure in read ing the works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude as to refuse to lay out a trifle, in a rational and elegant entertainment, for the benefit of his living remains, for the exercise of their own virtue, the increase of their reputa tion, and the [pleasing] consciousness of doing good, should appear at Drury-lane Theatre, to-morrow, April 5, when COMUS will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to the author, and the only surviving branch of his family. Nota bene, there will be a new prologue on the occasion written by the author of Irene, and spoken by Mr. Garrick.' The man, who had thus exerted himself to serve the grand-daughter, cannot be supposed to have entertained personal malice to the grand-father. It is true, that the ma levolence of Lauder, as well as the impostures of Archibald Bower, were fully detected by the labours, in the cause of truth, of the Rev. Dr. Douglas, now Lord Bishop of Salisbury 2 .
'Diram qui contudit Hydram, Notaque fatali portenta labore subegitV
But the pamphlet, entituled, Milton vindicated from the Charge of Plagiarism brotight against him by Mr. Lauder, and Lauder himself convicted of several Forgeries and gross Impositions on the Publick. By John Douglas, M.A. Rector of Eaton Con- stantine, Salop, was not published till the year 1751. In that work, p. 77, Dr. Douglas says: ' It is to be hoped, nay, it is expected, that the elegant and nervous writer, whose judicious
1 Life, i. 227. 2 Ib. i. 228. And monsters dire with fated toil
3 'Who crush'd the Hydra when subdu'd.'
to life renew'd, Francis, Hor., Ep. ii. i. 10.
sentiments
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