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pedagogue and fchool-mafter; whereas it is well known he never fet up for a pub"lick fchool, to teach all the young fry of "a parish; but only was willing to impart "his learning and knowledge to his relations, "and the fons of gentlemen who were his "intimate friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching favoured in the leaft of pedantry."

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Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and what might be confeffed without difgrace. Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmeft friends feem not to have found; they therefore fhift and palliate. He did not fell literature to all comers at an open fhop; he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities to his friends.

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Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this ftate of degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his character again, has a mind to inveft him with military fplendour: "He is much "miftaken," he fays, "if there was not

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"about this time a defign of making him an adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's "army. But the new-modelling of the ર army proved an obstruction to the design.” An event cannot be fet at a much greater diftance than by having been only defigned, about fome time, if a man be not much mistaken. Milton fhall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, fomebody at fome time defigned him for a foldier.

About the time that the army was newmodelled (1645) he removed to a smaller house in Holbourn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn-Fields. He is not known to have published any thing afterwards till the King's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Prefbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, and to compofe the minds of the people.

He made fome Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only what his confcience dictated ; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own paffions, and the gradual

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prevalence of opinions, firft willingly ad mitted and then habitually indulged; if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and defire fuperinduced conviction; he yet fhared only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no lefs fincere than his opponents. But as faction feldom leaves a man honeft, however it might find him, Milton is fufpected of having interpolated the book called Icon Bafilike, which the Council of State, to whom he was now made Latin fecretary, employed him to cenfure, by inferting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and imputing it to the King; whom he charges, in his Iconoclafes, with the ufe of this prayer, as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which profperity had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to infult all that is venerable or great: "Who "would have imagined fo little fear in him "of the true all-feeing Deity-as, imme

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diately before his death, to pop into the "hands of the grave bifhop that attended him, as a fpecial relique of his faintly exer"cifes, a prayer ftolen word for word from "the mouth of a heathen woman praying to "a heathen god?"

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The papers which the King gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold, the regicides took away, fo that they were at least the publishers of this prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great care, was inclined to think them the forgers. The ufe of it by adaptation was innocent; and they who could fo noifily cenfure it, with a little extenfion of their malice could contrive what they wanted to accufe.

King Charles the Second, being now fheltered in Holland, employed Salmafius, profeffor of Polite Learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobufes. Salmafius was a man of skill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and fagacity of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by exceffive praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much confidered the principles of fociety or the rights of government, undertook the employment without distrust of his own qualifications; and,

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as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published Defenfio Regis.

To this Milton was required to write a fufficient answer; which he performed (1651) in fuch a manner, that Hobbes declared himfelf unable to decide whofe language was beft, or whofe arguments were worst. In my opinion, Milton's periods are fmoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself with teazing his adverfary as much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allufion of Salmafius, whofe doctrine he confiders as fervile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmacis, which whoever entered left half his virility behind him. Salmafius was a Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a fcold. Tu es Gallus, fays Milton, &, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus. But his fupreme pleasure is to tax his adverfary, fo renowned for criticifin, with vitious Latin. He opens his book with telling that he has ufed Perfona, which, according to Milton, fignifies only a Mefk, in a fenfe not known to the Romans, by applying it as we apply Perfon. But as Nemefis is always on the watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a

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