first edition, I found in Mr. Lauder's authors not above half a dozen passages, which I thought worth transferring into my second edition; not but he had produced more passages somewhat resembling others in Milton; but when a similitude of thought or expression, of sentiment or description, occurs in Scripture and we will say in Staphorstius, in Virgil and perhaps in Alexander Ross, in Ariosto and perhaps in Taubmannus, I should 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 studied, and was perfectly acquainted with, the graces and beauties of the great originals; and why then should we think that he was only the servile copier of perhaps a bad copy, which perhaps he had never seen? This was all the use that I could possibly make of Mr. Lauder's Essay; and the most favourable opinion that I could entertain of him and his performance, admitting all that he had alleged to be true and genuine, was, that the malice of his charge was much greater than the validity of his proofs: but what now if he should be found to have suborned false evidence in support of his accusation, 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 so many of his authorities from books, which are so little known, and copies of which are so very scarce, that the principal of them cannot be found in the best and greatest libraries: and this stratagem had a double use, for at the same time that it served to display his uncommon reading, it was also the means of his eluding the search of the most curious of his readers. I should 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 safely take it for granted, that the passages which he had quoted from such and such authors were really in those authors; and could not have harboured a suspicion, that a mau of any learning and ingenuity, for the sake of defaming the venerable dead, could have been guilty of such monstrous forgeries, as have since been proved upon him, and as he himself indeed has confessed. For a learned and ingenious gentleman, being at Oxford the last summer, had the curiosity to search in the Bodleian Library for some of these German and Dutch poets, who according to Mr. Lauder held out the lighted torch to Milton: and after searching in vain for Masenius and the Adamus Exul of Grotius, he was so fortunate as to find the same edition, as Mr. Lauder had quoted, of Staphorstius's Latin poem, entitled Triumphus pacis, on the conclusion of the peace between the States of Holland and the Commonwealth of England in 1655. It appears to be a prolix as well as a wretched dull composition, and such as could not possibly have afforded any assistance 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 poem, and of examining page after page, before he could find the passages which Mr. Lauder had quoted: and upon comparing his quotations with the printed copy, he discovered to his surprise that Mr. Lauder had taken the liberty of omitting and inserting lines at pleasure, to make out a likeness; and particularly that the eight lines on marriage have no existence in Staphorstius, but were interpolated by Mr. Lauder; and well indeed might they bear a strong resemblance to Milton, Mr. Lauder having had the assurance to transcribe them word for word from the Latin translation of the Paradise Lost by Hog or Hogæus,

printed in 1690. This discovery incited the gentleman to make farther researches, and farther researches produced more discoveries, which the gentleman has fairly laid before the world in an excellent pamphlet lately published, and entitled, Milton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Mr. Lauder, and Lauder himself convicted of several forgeries and gross impositions on the public. In a letter humbly addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Bath. By John Douglass, M. A. Rector of Eton Constantine, Salop. Printed for A. Millar in the Strand. Such a vindication of Milton must be pleasing to every Briton, who hath any love for poetry, or any regard for the honour of his country: and if Scotland suffers the mortification of seeing one of her sons guilty of bringing an injurious slander upon our country, she enjoys the satisfaction likewise of seeing another deserving 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 sense and acknowledgment of his various frauds and impositions upon the public. For Mr. Lauder, looking upon me, I suppose, as a person peculiarly interested in the fame and reputation of Milton, has been with me to plead guilty to the charge which Mr. Douglass has brought against him, and to beg pardon of me and of the public. And in the sorrow and sincerity of his heart he has made some farther confessions to me. For I told him plainly, that his forgeries had been detected in so many instances, that one could not help suspecting him in all the rest, and particularly in Masenius and Grotius, whose books for ought that appeared no body in England had seen besides himself: I thought that the merit of his Essay consisted chiefly in his quotations from the Adamus Exul of Grotius, which were more for his purpose than any others: but he had said himself (Essay, p. 49.) that

was

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 assure him, that an extract of those passages sent over to a gentleman in Holland, who was employed to enquire of Gronovius whether they were genuine or not; and therefore he might as well confess the truth himself, which would be known in a little time without his confession. He acknowledged that he had himself composed several verses, which he had quoted as from Grotius. I enquired particularly after those verses so nearly resembling that passage in Milton,

Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven:

and he confessed that he had made those very verses, and indeed all which had any particular likeness to any thing in Milton. I expressed my suspicions likewise about Masenius, especially as he had lost the book so long ago, and as Mr. Douglass had proved that one of his quotations from Masenius, consisting of eight lines, was taken literally from the Latin translation of the Paradise Lost by Hogæus; and it was not probable that the same eight lines should be in Hogæus, and Masenius too. He owned honestly that they were not, nor several things which he had ascribed to Masenius. I asked particularly whether the word Pandæmonium was in Masenius, for I had all along suspected that it was not, Concilium inferorum sive Pandemonium: and he acknowledged that it was an interpolation of his own. I questioned whether Masenius had enumerated the four blind poets,

Tiresias, Phineus, Thamyrisque, et magnus Homerus :

and he answered that there was some foundation for that; Masenius had reckoned up three of them, and he had inserted the fourth and commonly I found, that when he had caused

any thing to be printed in capital letters or Italic characters, as worthy of the peculiar notice and observation of his readers, that was interpolated and forged by himself. Well might Mr. Lauder select this verse for the motto to his book,

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme;

for though there have been frequent forgeries in the literary world, yet such as these I believe not only were never practised before, but were never attempted: but

aliter non fit, Avite, liber;

he had recourse to these artifices, as he himself confesses, because he plainly perceived that he could not otherwise have proved his point to the satisfaction of any body. But I forbear to aggravate matters. I would not inflame the reader's indignation. The man has already been sufficiently exposed, and expresses sorrow for his offence, and promises to make a public recantation, acknowledging his crimes, and begging pardon of the world: and though he has entirely ruined his character as a man of probity; yet it must be said for him, that he has given some proofs of his abilities as a man of learning.

December 5, 1750.

THOMAS NEWTON.