In April 1750, soon after the commencement of the Rambler, he wrote a Prologue, which was spoken by Garrick, at Drury-lane theatre, on the representation of the masque of "Comus," for the benefit of Mrs Elizabeth Foster, Milton's grand-daughter; and took a very zealous interest in the success of the charity. His pity and indignation had been excited by a passage at the conclusion of Bishop Newton's Life of Milton, representing the poverty and infirmity of the only surviving branch of his family; and, in his Postscript to Lauder's "Essay," he recommended a subscription "for relieving, in the languor of age, the pains of disease, and the contempt of poverty," the grand-daughter of the author of “ Paradise Lost."" It is yet," said he, "in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he sees, he sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he perhaps may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal spirit." On the day preceding the performance of "Comus," he inserted a letter in the "General Advertiser," April 4, strongly recommending the public to honour the illustrious dead by benevolence to his living remains, struggling with distress, and debilitated by age. For the honour of letters, the dignity of sacred poetry, the spirit of the English nation, and the glory of human nature, it is to be regretted that we do not find a more liberal assistance. Tonson, the bookseller, whose family had been enriched by the sale of the poet's writings, gave L.20, and Bishop Newton, his biographer, brought a large contribution; yet all their efforts, joined to the allurements of Johnson's pen and Garrick's performance, both in the masque, and, by particular desire, in the after-piece*, procured only L.130. * Lethe, a dramatic satire. The charitable interference of Johnson, in mitigating the poverty of Milton's last relative, when it does not appear that he was aware of the imposture of Lauder, shews his alacrity in doing good, and may be regarded as an indication of his favourable disposition towards our incomparable poet. "The man," says Mr Murphy, "who had thus exerted himself to serve the grand-daughter, cannot be supposed to have entertained personal malice to the grandfather." This candid exculpation of Johnson from the accusation of combining benevolence to the living with enmity to the dead, is considered by Dr Symmons, the learned biographer and eloquent advocate of the republican poet, as both irrelevant and defective *. "While he was depreciating," he remarks, "the fame of the illustrious ancestor, Johnson could not act more prudently, or in a way more likely to lead him to his final object, than by acquiring easy credit, as the friend of the distressed grandchild; and the prologue which he wrote * Essay, &c. p. 65. for her benefit, and which is little more than a vindication of what he had before attached to the pamphlet, sullied with Lauder's malignity and forgeries, has fully answered the writer's purposes, by the imputed liberality which it has obtained for him, and the means with which it has thus supplied him, of striking, during the repose of suspicion, the more pernicious blow. Avowed hostility generally defeats its own object; and the semblance of kindness has commonly been assumed by the efficient assassin for the perpetration of his design. Whether, in short, in the instance before us, Johnson indulged, as his friends would persuade us to believe, the charitable propensities of his own heart, or availed himself of the opportunity to provide for the interests of his own character, the measure may be allowed to have been good, or to have been wise, but cannot be admitted, in opposition to the testimony of formidable facts, to have been demonstrative of his favourable disposition towards Milton *" * Life of Milton, 8vo, 1807. p. 562. The acuteness of this able biographer's reasoning may be allowed, without adopting the inference which he has drawn from it. Moderation is seldom to be expected to extend to politics, however inherent in the writer on other occasions. In analysing the motives of Johnson's beneficence, the zealous Whig defender of our great epic poet, has adopted the language of prejudice and aversion, which he condemned in the confederate of Lauder. To opinion there are scarcely any assignable bounds, and to prejudice none. The Tory critic certainly looked through the gross medium of prejudice on the stern republican poet; and because he did not approve of his political and religious opinions, he has been unjust to his talents and virtues. This may be conceded to his severe accuser; but the magnanimity and ingenuousness manifested in the whole tenor of his life and writings, will for ever render him impassible to the efforts of any man, in attempting to fix on his memory the adoption of the arts of imposition, |