Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/504

 486 Essay on

��Milton gives us the right divine of tyrants 1. But it seems, in the same piece, he exhorts Cromwell ' not to desert those great principles of liberty which he had professed to espouse ; for it would be a grievous enormity, if, after having successfully opposed tyranny, he should himself act the part of a tyrant, and betray the cause that he had defended 2 .' This desertion of every honest principle the advocate for liberty lived to see. Cromwell acted the tyrant ; and, with vile hypocrisy, told the people, that he had consulted the Lord, and the Lord would have it so 3. Milton took an under part in the tragedy. Did that become the defender of the people of England ? Brutus saw his country enslaved; he struck the blow for freedom, and he died with honour in the cause. Had he lived to be secretary under Tiberius what would now be said of his memory 4 ?

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 pub lished, 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 conjee-, tural 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 conse quence of an indictment for forgery. The voice of the publick 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

1 ' Caesar, when he assumed the well's speech on dissolving his first perpetual dictatorship, had not more parliament. Carlyle's Cromwell, ed. servile or elegant flattery.' Johnson's 1857, iii. 71.

Works, vii. 88. 4 Dante has put him with Judas

2 This seems an abridgement of Iscariot in the lowest gulf in Hell, a passage in Milton's Works, v. 259; He could not have put him lower vi. 436-7. even had he been Tiberius's secre-

3 Murphy refers, I think, to Crom- tary.

be

�� �