Select prose works Author:John Milton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: fall of the Stuarts, defended the tyrannicide of his countrymen, and overwhelmed with contempt all who thought as Johnson thought. It was, therefore, natural, an... more »d almost excusable, in the successful essayist and biographer, to aim at crushing the reputation of the old democratical puritan, by accusing him of plagiarism, domestic tyranny, laxity of morals, and insinuating, cautiously, a charge of irreligion. 67. The only motive which, had he well calculated, might have deterred him, would have been a consideration of the irreparable injury he must thus inflict on his own fame, by passing down to posterity as a wrong-headed sophist, insensible to the beauty of liberty and truth, destitute of sympathy for mankind at large, and sold, no matter for what reward, to the enemies and oppressors of the people. Such, at least, has been the result, such his punishment; and as Milton rises higher and higher towards the zenith, Johnson must set. They cannot dwell together in the same heaven of fame, or if they do, Johnson's star must " pale its ineffectual fire" in the neighbourhood of Milton's glory. 68. This, in many respects no doubt, is to be .regretted ; but some good will spring from it, if it teach us, as the example of an execution teaches, to blame with less acrimony the illustrious dead. With respect to myself, no example is necessary to cause me to speak of Johnson with moderation, for I honour his memory, as I do that of every other good man; but as I honour Milton's much more, asthat of one every way greater and better, the reader, I trust, will pardon me the warmth I cannot but feel when dishonour and obloquy are attempted to be thrown, by what hand soever, upon his most venerable name. At first sight, Johnson's attack appears to be grave, and conducted without any remarkabl...« less