tune to meet with these German and Dutch poems, might have traced out there fome of his imitations and allufions, which had efcaped the researches of others and it was my advice to him then, and as often as I had opportunities of seeing him afterwards, that if he had really made fuch notable difcoveries as he boafted, he would do well to communicate them to the public; an ingenious countryman of his had published an Effay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, and he would equally deserve the thanks of the learned world by writing an Essay upon Milton's imitations of the Moderns: but at the fame time I recommended to him a little more modefty and decency, and urged all the arguments I could to perfuade him to treat Milton's name with more refpect, and not to write of him with the fame acrimony and rancor with which he spoke of him; it would weaken his caufe instead of strengthning it, and would hurt himself more than Milton in the opinion of all candid readers. He began with publishing fome fpecimens of his work in a monthly pamphlet intitled the Gentleman's Magazine: and I was forry to find that he had no better regarded my advice in his manner of writing; for his papers were much in the fame ftrain and spirit as his converfation, his affertions ftrong, and his proofs weak. However to do him juftice, feveral of the quotations which he had made from the Adamus Exul, a tragedy of the famous Hugo Grotius, I thought fo exactly parallel to feveral paffages in the Paradife Loft, that I readily adopted them, and inferted them without fcruple in my notes, esteeming it no reproach to Milton, but rather a commendation of his tafte and judgment, to have ga

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ther'd fo many of the choiceft flowers in the gardens of others, and to have tranfplanted them with improvements into his own. At length, after I had published my first edition of the Paradife Loft, came forth Mr. Lauder's Essay on Milton's use and imitation of the Moderns: but except the quotations from Grotius, which I had already inferted in my firft edition, I found in Mr. Lauder's authors not above half a dozen paffages, which I thought worth transferring into my second edition; not but he had produced more paffages fomewhat resembling others in Milton; but when a fimilitude of thought or expreffion, of fentiment or description, occurs in Scripture and we will fay in Staphorftius, in Virgil and perhaps in Alexander Rofs, in Ariofto and perhaps in Taubmannus, I fhould rather conclude that Milton had borrowed from the former whom he is certainly known to have read, than from the latter whom it is very uncertain whether he had ever read or not. We know that he had often drawn, and delighted to draw from the pure fountain; and why then should we believe that he chose rather to drink of the stream after it was polluted by the trash and filth of others? We know that he had thoroughly ftudied, and was perfectly acquainted with the graces and beauties of the great originals; and why then should we think that he was only the fervile copyer of perhaps a bad copy, which perhaps he had never feen? This was all the ufe that I could poffibly make of Mr. Lauder's Essay, and the most favorable opinion that I could entertain of him and his performance, admitting all that he had alleged to be true and genuin, was that the malice of his charge was much greater than the validity

of his proofs: but what now if he fhall be found to have fuborned falfe evidence in fupport of his accufation, and instead of convicting Milton of plagiarism, to have fixed an eternal brand of forgery upon himself? It was certainly very artful in Mr. Lauder to derive fo many of his authorities from books, which are so little known, and copies of which are so very fcarce, that the principal of them cannot be found in the best and greatest libraries: and this ftratagem had a double use, for at the fame time that it served to difplay his uncommon reading, it was alfo the means of his eluding the fearch of the most curious of his readers. I fhould myself have examined his authorities, if I could have procured the books; but for want of them I took it for granted, and thought I might fafely take it for granted, that the paffages which he had quoted from fuch and fuch authors were really in thofe authors; and could not have harboured a fufpicion, that a man of any learning and ingenuity, for the fake of defaming the venerable dead, could have been guilty of fuch monftrous forgeries, as have fince been proved upon him, and as he himself indeed has confeffed. For a learned and ingenious Gentleman being at Oxford the laft fummer had the curiofity to fearch in the Bodleian library for fome of thefe German and Dutch poets, who according to Mr. Lauder held out the lighted torch to Milton: and after searching in vain for Mafenius and the Adamus Exul of Grotius, he was fo fortunate as to find the fame edition, as Mr. Lauder had quoted, of Staphorftius's Latin poem intitled Triumphus pacis on the conclufion of the peace between the States of Holland and the Commonwealth of England in 1655. It appears to

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be a prolix as well as a wretched dull compofition, and fuch as could not poffibly have afforded any affiftance to Milton: and it being one of Mr. Lauder's artifices in his quotations never to refer to particular places or pages for the better direction of his readers, the Gentleman had the trouble of turning over the whole and of examining page poem, after page, before he could find the paffages which Mr. Lauder had quoted: and upon comparing his quotations with the printed copy he discovered to his furprise that Mr. Lauder had taken the liberty of omitting and inferting lines at pleasure, to make out a likeness; and particularly that the eight lines on marriage (which I have cited in the note on IV.753. and which are all that I have cited from Staphorftius, as indeed they are all that bear ay ftrong refemblance to Milton) have no existence in Staphorftius, but were interpolated by Mr. Lauder; and well indeed might they bear a strong resemblance to Milton, Mr. Lauder having had the aflurance to transcribe them word for word from the Latin tranflation of the Paradise Loft by Hog or Hogæus printed in 1690. This difcovery incited the Gentleman to make farther researches, and farther researches produced more difcoveries, which the Gentleman has fairly laid before the world in an excellent pamphlet lately published and intitled Milton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Mr. Lauder, and Lauder himself convicted of feveral forgeries and grofs impofitions on the public. In a letter humbly addreffed to the Right Honorable the Earl of Bath. By John Douglas M. A. Rector of Eton Conftantine, Salop. Printed for A. Millar in the Strand. Such a vindication of Milton muft

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be pleafing to every Briton, who hath any love for poetry, or any regard for the honor of his country : and if Scotland fuffers the mortification of feeing one of her fons guilty of bringing an injurious flander upon our country, fhe enjoys the fatisfaction likewife of seeing another deferving of the highest commendation for refuting the calumny and wiping the stain away: and there cannot be a better recommendation of the vindication, nor a stronger proof of its being well written, than its having brought the Offender himself to a proper fenfe and acknowledgment of his various frauds and impofitions upon the public. For Mr. Lauder, looking upon me, I fuppofe, as a perfon peculiarly interested in the fame and reputation of Milton, has been with me to plead guilty to the charge which Mr. Douglas has brought against him, and to beg pardon of me and of the public. And in the forrow and fincerity of his heart he has made fome farther confeffions to me. For I told him plainly, that his forgeries had been detected in fo many inftances, that one could not help suspecting him in all the rest, and particularly in Mafenius and Grotius, whofe books for ought that appeared no body in England had feen befides himself: I thought that the merit of his Effay confifted chiefly in his quotations from the Adamus Exul of Grotius, which were more for his purpose than any others; but he had faid himself (Effay. p. 49.) that he could not procure a printed copy of that tragedy either in Britain or Holland, and had only a transcript of it from Abraham Gronovius, keeper of the public library at Leyden: and I could affure him, that an extract of thofe paffages was fent over to a gentleman in Holland, who was employed to inquire

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