that gentleman (Mr. Tickell) thinks himself injured 1 , I will allow I have wronged him upon this issue, that (if the reputed translator of the first book of Homer shall please to give us another book) there shall appear another good judge in poetry, besides Mr. Alexander Pope, who shall like it.' The authority of Steele outweighs all opinions founded on vain conjecture, and, indeed, seems to be decisive, since we do not find that Tickell, though warmly pressed, thought proper to vindicate himself.
But the grand proof of Johnson's malignity, is the manner in which he has treated the character and conduct of Milton 2 . To enforce this charge, has wearied sophistry, and exhausted the invention of a party 3 . What they cannot deny, they pal liate ; what they cannot prove, they say is probable. But why all this rage against Dr. Johnson? Addison, before him, had said of Milton ;
Oh ! had the Poet ne'er prophan'd his pen, To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men 4 !
And had not Johnson an equal right to avow his sentiments? Do his enemies claim a privilege to abuse whatever is valuable to Englishmen, either in Church or State, and must the liberty of UNLICENSED PRINTING 5 be denied to the friends of the British constitution ?
It is unnecessary to pursue the argument through all its artifices, since, dismantled of ornament and seducing language,
1 ' If a certain gentleman is injured another strain." These prejudices, by it,' &c. Addison's Works, ed. however, do not appear to affect his 1856, v.i 53. criticisms, which are in general in
2 Malone wrote to Lord Charle- my opinion extremely just.' Hist. mont on April 5, 1779 :' Johnson's MSS. Com., Twelfth Report, App. political principles break out in all x. 345.
his compositions. In his life of 3 Ante, p. 394 ; Life, iv. 40.
Waller having occasion to mention 4 An Account of the Greatest
Hampden, his uncle, he has no other English Poets. Addison's Works,
epithet for him than "the zealot of ed. 1862, i. 25.
rebellion." I have not seen his 5 Murphy alludes to Milton's A reo-
Milton, but he told me, " we have pagitica : A Speech for the Liberty
had too many honey-suckle lives of of Unlicensed Printing. Milton, and that his should be in
112 the
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