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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Bonae leges ex malis moribus proveniunt: Good laws spring from bad habits [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Malos tueri haud tutum: Save a thief from the gallows and he’ll cut your throat [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Praemia si tollas?: For who embraces virtue herself, if you take away the reward? [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Adjecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae: Kind Athens Added a Little More Skill [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles: Neither Falernian vines nor Formian hills mellow my cups [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
  • Advertisement for the School at Edial
  • Observations on Common Sense
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  • Appeal to the Publick
  • To the Reader. [Gentleman’s Magazine]
  • Considerations on the case of Dr T.—s Sermons abridg’d by Mr Cave
  • The Jests of Hierocles
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  • Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Harleian Miscellany with An Account of this Undertaking
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  • Preface to the 1742 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • Dedication for Robert James's Medicinal Dictionary
  • Preface to the 1743 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
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  • Some Remarks on the Progress of Learning Since the Reformation
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  • Postscript to Lauder’s Essay on Milton’s Use and Imitation of the Moderns
  • A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas
  • Preface to The Preceptor
  • The signification of WORDS how varied
  • Letter Concerning the Benefit Performance of Comus for Milton's Granddaughter
  • Proposals for printing by subscription, Essays in Verse and Prose.
  • Notice of The life of Harriot Stuart
  • Dedication to The Female Quixote
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  • Review of Samuel Bever, The Cadet (1756)
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  • Review of A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country on the Death of Admiral Byng (1757)
  • Preliminary Discourse in the London Chronicle
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  • Of the Duty of a Journalist (1758)
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  • Advertisement for the Public Ledger in the Universal Chronicle (1760)
  • To The Public in the Public Ledger (1760)
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number I [Public Ledger]
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  • Preface to J. Elmer, Tables of Weights and Prices
  • From The Italian Library Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the most valuable authors of Italy (1757)
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription, Le Poesie di Giuseppe Baretti (1758)
  • Dedication to A Dictionary of the English and Italian Languages (1760)
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  • Advertisement [For The World Displayed]
  • Introduction (1759) [From The World Displayed]
  • Advertisement for Pilgrim's Progress
  • Letter I. [Daily Gazetteer]
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  • Letter to the Society of Arts (26 February 1760)
  • Letter to the Society of Arts (8 December 1760)
  • Address of the Painter’s, Sculptors, &Architects to George III (1761)
  • Preface to A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain at the Great Room in Spring Gardens Charing Cross May the 17th Anno 1762 Being the Third year of their Exhibition (1762)
  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
  • Contributions to John Kennedy, A Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, Unfolding the Scriptures
  • Proposals and Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1762)
  • Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1766)
  • Dedication to Jerusalem Delivered (1763)
  • Dedication to The Works of Metastasio (1767)
  • Dedication to Cyrus: A Tragedy (1768)
  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
  • Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • 23 Sept. 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1–4 Oct. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 20 Nov. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 19 Dec. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 24 December 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 3 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 8 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 14 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 March 1769 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 5 Sept. 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • Dedication for George Adams, A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes
  • Dedication to John Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved
  • Preface to Alexander MacBean, A Dictionary of Ancient Geography
  • Meditation on a Pudding
  • Hereford Infirmary Appeal
  • Dedication for A General History of Music (1776)
  • From A General History of Music, Vol. II (1782)
  • Dedication to An Account of the Musical Performance . . . in Commemoration of Handel (1785)
  • Advertisement for the Spectator
  • Dedication to Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles
  • Letter of 16 May 1777
  • The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council Assembled, Friday 6 June 1777
  • Letter to Lord Bathurst, the Lord Chancellor, 8 June 1777
  • Letter to William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, Wednesday, 11 June 1777
  • Petition of Mrs. Mary Dodd to the Queen
  • Dodd’s Letter to the King, Sunday, 22 June 1777
  • Petition of William Dodd to the King, Monday, 23 June 1777
  • Dodd’s Last Solemn Declaration, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Johnson’s Observations on the Propriety of Pardoning William Dodd, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Introduction and Conclusion to Occasional Papers (1777)
  • Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
  • Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses
  • Preface to Thomas Maurice, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
  • On the Character and Duty of an Academick
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© 2023
A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas (1750)
[Editorial Introduction]
Douglas had handled Johnson gently in his Milton Vindicated, referring to him as “the elegant and nervous writer” (p. 78), but there was no escaping the fact that he and the Gentleman’s Magazine had supported Lauder and may have, at first, suppressed his critics.1 Something more than the amended preface and postscript in Lauder’s Essay was required. Late in 1750, for publication about the first of the year, Lauder was made to prepare a written retraction of his claims in A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas, Occasioned by his Vindication of Milton. As Fleeman asserts, following Boswell (Life, I.229), “The whole of this retraction was dictated to Lauder by SJ” (Bibliography, I.321). Lauder distanced himself from this retraction in a postscript, which he must have added between taking dictation from Johnson and going to the printer, and by the addition, between Johnson’s final paragraph and the postscript, of many “Testimonies concerning Mr. Lauder”—letters from various respected persons expressing respect for Lauder. Since some of these are advertised in the title of the Letter, their addition was presumably known to Johnson and the publishers, but it is hard to be sure. It is clear from later documents, including his Apology for Mr. Lauder, in a Letter Humbly Addressed to his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury (1751), that Lauder found various ways of exonerating himself. One of his tactics was to reverse the charges and childishly blame Milton for starting it first, by interpolating lines from Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia in King Charles’s Eikon Basilike and then attacking them. Lauder also distanced himself from Johnson’s dictated Letter in his last publication, Charles I. Vindicated of the Charge of Plagiarism (1754), calling its “terms much more submissive and abject than the nature of the offence required” (p. 4), but praising Johnson as “an ingenious gentleman (for whose amazing abilities I had conceived the highest veneration, and in whose candor and friendship I repos’d the most implicite and unlimited confidence)” (pp. 3–4).
After several years of rearguard action, Lauder left England, as he had earlier left Scotland, in disgrace. He died in poverty in Barbados about


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1771. The Lauder affair, however, continued to dog Johnson on and off for the rest of his professional life. It is possible that he made a last statement on it in a note in the Gentleman’s Magazine’s monthly book list for February 1754 (pp. 97–98), where there is a comment on Lauder’s last-ditch effort to save his reputation and attack Milton:
26. The grand imposter, or Milton convicted of forgery against K. Charles I. 1s. Owen.— This is the performance of one Lauder, a man who has been convicted of interpolating twenty verses of a Latin translation of Milton, into a modern Latin author, and then producing them with great virulence as a proof that Milton was a plagiary (See Vol. 20. P. 535).2
Nevertheless, several writers, including his friend John Hawkins and his enemy Charles Churchill, continued to believe Johnson was complicit in the affair.3 Francis Blackburne brought up the matter late in Johnson’s life in Remarks on Johnson’s Life of Milton (1780) and accused Johnson of having written one of Lauder’s rebuttals to an attacker. Johnson was nettled enough to write in a copy of Blackburne’s hostile Remarks on Johnson’s Life of Milton (1780), now in the British Library, “In the business of Lauder I was deceived: partly by thinking the man too frantick to be fraudulent.”4
The sole separate edition (1751) supplies our text. We include the title page of this work because the full title and the epigraphs throw light on Lauder’s proceedings. Hawkins printed the Letter without citations in his Life (pp. 167–69), and Reed printed it in full in Works 1788 (XIV.129–55), both with a good deal of variation in the accidentals.5
A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas,
Occasioned by his Vindication of Milton.
To which are subjoin’d several curious original
letters from the authors
of the Universal History, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Maclaurin, &c.1
By William Lauder, A.M.


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Quem poenitet peccasse pene est innocens.
Seneca.2
Corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse Leoni, Pugna suum finem, quum jacet hostis, habet.
Ovid.3
——Praetuli clementiam Juris rigori.——
Grotii Adamus Exul.4
London:
Printed for W. Owen, at Homer’s-Head near Temple-Bar.
MDCCLI.
To the Reverend Mr. Douglas.
Sir,
Candour and tenderness are in any relation, and on all occasions, eminently amiable; but when they are found in an adversary, and found so prevalent as to over-power that zeal which his cause excites, and that heat which naturally increases in the prosecution of argument, and which may be in a great measure justify’d by the love of truth, they certainly appear with particular advantages; and it is impossible not to envy those who possess the friendship of him, whom it is even some degree of good fortune to have known as an enemy.
I will not so far dissemble my weakness, or my fault, as not to confess that my wish was to have passed undetected; but since it has been my fortune to fail in my original design, to have the suppositious passages which I have inserted in my


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quotations made known to the world, and the shade which began to gather on the splendour of Milton totally dispersed, I cannot but count it an alleviation of my pain, that I have been defeated by a man who knows how to use advantages with so much moderation, and can enjoy the honour of conquest without the insolence of triumph.5
It was one of the maxims of the Spartans, not to press upon a flying army,6 and therefore their enemies were always ready to quit the field, because they knew the danger was only in opposing. The civility with which you have thought proper to treat me, when you had incontestable superiority, has inclined me to make your victory complete, without any further struggle, and not only publickly to acknowledge the truth of the charge which you have hitherto advanced, but to confess, without the least dissimulation, subterfuge, or concealment, every other interpolation I have made in those authors, which you have not yet had opportunity to examine.
On the sincerity and punctuality of this confession, I am willing to depend for all the future regard of mankind, and cannot but indulge some hopes, that they whom my offence has alienated from me, may, by this instance of ingenuity and repentance, be propitiated and reconciled. Whatever be the event, I shall at least have done all that can be done in reparation of my former injuries to Milton, to truth, and to mankind, and entreat that those who shall continue implacable, will examine their own hearts whether they have not committed equal crimes without equal proofs of sorrow, or equal acts of atonement.*7
Passages Interpolated in Masenius.8 The word pandaemonium in the marginal notes of Book I. Essay page 10.


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Citation VI. Essay, page 38. Annuit9 ipsa Dolo, malumque (heu! longa dolendi Materies! & triste nefas!) vesana momordit Tanti ignara mali. Mora nulla, solutus Avernus Exspuit infandas acies; fractumque remugit Divulsa compage solum: Nabathaea receptum Regna dedere sonum, Pharioque in littore Nereus Territus erubuit: Simul adgemuere dolentes Hesperiae valles, Libyaeque calentis arenae Exarsere procul. Stupefacta Lycaonis ursa Constitit, & pavido riguit glacialis in axe: Omnis cardinibus submotus inhorruit orbis; Angeli hoc efficiunt, coelestia jussa secuti.1 Citation VII. Essay, page 41. Illa quidem fugiens, sparsis per terga capillis, Ora rigat lacrimis, & coelum questibus implet: Talia voce rogans. Magni Deus arbiter orbis! Qui rerum momenta tenes, solusque futuri Praescius, elapsique memor: quem terra potentem Imperio, coelique tremunt; quem Dite superbus Horrescit Phlegethon, pavidoque furore veretur:


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En! Styge crudeli premimur. Laxantur hiatus Tartarei, dirusque solo dominatur Avernus, Infernique canes populantur cuncta creata, Et manes violant superos: discrimina rerum Sustulit Antitheus, Divumque oppressit honorem. Respice Sarcotheam: nimis, heu! decepta momordit Infaustas epulas, nosque omnes prodidit hosti.2
Citation VIII. Essay, page 43, the whole passage. Quadrupedi pugnat quadrupes, volucrique volucris; Et piscis cum pisce ferox hostilibus armis Praelia saeva gerit: jam pristina pabula spernunt, Jam tondere piget viridantes gramine campos: Alterum & alterius vivunt animalia letho: Prisca nec in gentem humanam reverentia durat; Sed fugiunt, vel si steterant fera bella minantur Fronte truci, torvosque oculos jaculantur in illam.3


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Citation IX. Essay, page 43. Vatibus antiquis numerantur lumine cassis, Tiresias, Phineus, Thamyrisque, & magnus Homerus.4
The above passage stands thus in Masenius, in one line: Tiresias caecus, Thamyrisque, & Daphnis, Homerus.
N.B. The verse now cited is in Masenius’s poems, but not in the Sarcotis.
Citation X. Essay, page 46. In medio, turmas inter provectus ovantes Cernitur Antitheus, reliquis hic altior unus Eminet, & circum vulgus despectat inane: Frons nebulis obscura latet, torvumque furorem Dissimulat, fidae tectus velamine noctis: Persimilis turri praecelsae, aut montibus altis Antiquae cedro, nudatae frondis honore.5


Page 157

Passages Interpolated in Grotius.
Citation I. Essay, page 55. Sacri Tonantis hostis, exsul patriae Coelestis adsum; tartari tristem specum Fugiens, & atram noctis aeternae plagam. Hac spe, quod unum maximum fugio malum, Superos videbo. Fallor? an certé meo Concussa Tellus tota trepidat pondere? Quid dico? Tellus? Orcus & pedibus tremit.6 Citation II. Essay, page 58, the whole passage. Nam, me judice, Regnare dignum est ambitu, etsi in Tartaro: Alto praecesse Tartaro siquidem juvat, Coelis quam in ipsis servi obire munia.7 Citation IV. Essay, page 61. the whole passage. Innominata quaeque nominibus suis, Libet vocare propriis vocabulis.8


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Citation V. Essay, page 63. Terrestris orbis rector! & princeps freti! Coeli solique soboles! aetherium genus! Adame! dextram liceat amplecti tuam!9 Citation VI. Essay, ibid. Quod illud animal, tramite obliquo means, Ad me volutum flexili serpit viâ? Sibila retorquet ora setosum caput Trifidamque linguam vibrat: oculi ardent duo, Carbunculorum luce certantes rubra.1 Citation VII. Essay, page 65. the whole passage. —— ——Nata deo! atque homine sata! Regina mundi! eademque interitus inscia! Cunctis colenda! —— ——2 Citation VIII. Essay, page 66, the whole passage. Rationis etenim omnino paritas exigit, Ego bruta quando bestia evasi loquens; Ex homine, qualis ante, te fieri Deam.3


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Citation IX. Essay, ibid. Per sancta thalami sacra, per jus nominis Quodcumque nostri: sive me natam vocas, Ex te creatam; sive communi patre Ortam, sororem; sive potius conjugem: Cassam, oro, dulci luminis jubare tui Ne me relinquas: nunc tuo auxilio est opus, Cum versa sors est. Unicum lapsae mihi Firmamen, unam spem gravi adflictae malo, Te mihi reserva, dum licet: Mortalium Ne tota soboles pereat unius nece: Tibi nam relicta, quò petam? aut aevum exigam?4 Citation X. Essay, page 67. the whole passage. Tu namque soli numini contrarius, Minus es nocivus; ast ego nocentior, (Adeoque misera magis, quippe miseriae comes Origoque scelus est, lurida mater mali!) Deumque laesi scelere, teque, Vir! simul.5


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Citation XI. Essay, page 68. the whole passage. Quod comedo, poto, gigno, diris subjacet.6
Interpolations in Ramsay.7
Citation VI. Essay, page 88. O Judex! nova me facies inopinaque terret; Me maculae turpes, nudaeque in corpore sordes, Et cruciant duris exercita pectora poenis: Me ferus horror agit. Mihi non vernantia prata, Non vitrei fontes, coeli non aurea templa, Nec sunt grata mihi sub utroque jacentia sole: Judicis ora Dei sic terrent, lancinat aegrum Sic pectus mihi noxa. O si mî abrumpere vitam, Et detur poenam quovis evadere letho! Ipsa parens utinam mihi Tellus ima dehiscat! Ad piceas trudarque umbras, atque infera regna! Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam! Montibus aut premar injectis, coelique ruinâ! Ante tuos vultus, tua quam flammantiaque ora Suspiciam, caput objectem & coelestibus armis!8


Page 161

Interpolations in Staphorst.9
Citation III. Essay, p. 104. Foedus in humanis fragili quod sanctius aevo! Firmius & melius, quod magnificentius, ac quam Conjugii, sponsi sponsaeque jugalia sacra! Auspice te, fugiens alieni subcuba lecti, Dira libido hominum tota de gente repulsa est: Ac tantum gregibus pecudum ratione carentum Imperat, & sine lege tori furibunda vagatur. Auspice te, quam jura probant, rectumque, piumque, Filius atque pater, fraterque innotuit: & quot Vincula vicini sociarunt sanguinis, a te Nominibus didicêre suam distinguere gentem.1 Citation VI. Essay, p. 109. Coelestes animae! sublimia templa tenentes, Laudibus adcumulate Deum super omnia magnum!— Tu quoque nunc animi vis tota ac maxuma nostri! Tota tui in Domini grates dissolvere laudes! Aurorâ redeunte novâ, redeuntibus umbris.


Page 162

Immensum! augustum! verum! inscrutabile Numen! Summe Deus! sobolesque Dei! concorsque duorum, Spiritus! aeternas retines, bone rector! habenas, Per mare, per terras, coelosque, atque unus Ihova Existens, celebrabo tuas, memorique sonabo Organico plectro laudes. Te pectore amabo, Te primum, & medium, & summum, sed fine carentem, O miris mirande modis! ter maxime rerum! Collustrat terras dum lumine Titan Eoo!2
Interpolation in Fox.3 Essay, p. 116. Tu Psychephone Hypocrisis esto, hoc sub Francisci pallio. Tu Thanate, Martyromastix re & nomine sies. Altered thus, Tu Psychephone! Hypocrisis esto; hoc sub Francisci pallio, Quo tutò tecti sese credunt emori.4


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Interpolation in Quintianus.5 Essay, p. 117. Mic. Cur huc procaci veneris cursu refer? Manere si quis in sua potest domo, Habitare numquam curet alienas domos. Luc. Quis non, relictâ Tartari nigri domo, Veniret? Illic summa tenebrarum lues, Ubi pedor ingens redolet extremum situm. Hic autem amoena regna, & dulcis quies; Ubi serenus ridet aeternùm dies. Mutare facile6 est pondus immensum levi, Summos dolores maximisque gaudiis.7 Interpolation in Beza.8 Essay, p. 119. Stygemque testor, & profunda Tartari, Nisi impediret livor, & queis prosequor Odia supremum numen, atque hominum genus, Pietate motus hinc patris, & hinc filii, Possem parenti condolere & filio, Quasi exuissem omnem malitiam ex pectore.9


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Interpolation in Fletcher.1 Essay, p. 124. Nec tamen aeternos obliti (absiste timere) Umquam animos, fessique ingentes ponimus iras. Nec fas; non sic deficimus, nec talia tecum Gessimus, in coelos olim tua signa secuti. Est hic, est vitae & magni contemptor Olympi, Quique oblatam animus lucis nunc respuat aulam, Et domiti tantum placeat cui Regia coeli. Ne dubita, numquam fractis haec pectora, numquam Deficient animis: prius ille ingentia coeli Atria, desertosque aeternae lucis alumnos Destituens, Erebum admigret noctemque profundam, Et Stygiis mutet radiantia lumina flammis. In promptu causa est: Superest invicta voluntas, Immortale odium, vindictae & saeva cupido.2 Interpolations in Taubman.3 Essay p. 132. Tune, ait, imperio regere omnia solus; & una Filius iste tuus, qui se tibi subjicit ultro, Ac genibus minor ad terram prosternit, & offert


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Nescio quos toties animi servilis honores? Et tamen aeterni proles aeterna Jehovae Audit ab aetherea luteaque propagine mundi. (Scilicet hunc natum dixisti, cuncta regentem; Caelitibus regem cunctis, dominumque supremum) Huic ego sim supplex? ego? quo praestantior alter Non agit in superis. Mihi jus dabit ille, suum qui Dat caput alterius sub jus & vincula legum? Semideus reget iste polos? reget avia terrae? Me pressum leviore manu fortuna tenebit? Et cogar aeternum duplici servire tyranno? Haud ita. Tu solus non polles fortibus ausis. Non ego sic cecidi, nec sic mea fata premuntur, Ut nequeam relevare caput, colloque superbum Excutere imperium. Mihi si mea dextra favebit, Audeo totius mihi jus promittere mundi.4


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Essay, p. 152.
Throni, dominationes, principatus, virtutes, potestates, is said to be a line borrowed by Milton from the title-page of Heywood’s Hierarchy of Angels. But there are more words in Heywood’s title; and, according to his own arrangement of his subjects, they should be read thus:—Seraphim, cherubim, throni, potestates, angeli, archangeli, principatus, dominationes.5
These are my interpolations, minutely traced without any arts of evasion. Whether from the passages that yet remain, any reader will be convinced of my general assertion, and allow, that Milton had recourse for assistance to any of the authors whose names I have mentioned, I shall not now be very diligent to enquire, for I had no particular pleasure in subverting the reputation of Milton, which I had myself once endeavour’d to exalt;6 and of which, the foundation had always remained untouch’d by me, had not my credit and my interest been blasted, or thought to be blasted, by the shade which it cast from its boundless elevation.


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About ten years ago, I published an edition of Dr. Johnston’s translation of the Psalms, and having procured from the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, a recommendation of its use to the lower classes of grammar-schools, into which I had begun to introduce it, though not without much controversy and opposition; I thought it likely, that I should, by annual publications, improve my little fortune, and be enabled to support myself in freedom from the miseries of indigence. But Mr. Pope, in his malevolence to Mr. Benson, who had distinguished himself by his fondness for the same version, destroyed all my hopes by a distich, in which he places Johnston in a contemptuous comparison with the author of Paradise Lost.7
From this time, all my praises of Johnston became ridiculous, and I was censured with great freedom, for forcing upon the schools, an author whom Mr. Pope had mentioned only as a foil to a better poet. On this occasion, it was natural not to be pleased, and my resentment seeking to discharge itself some where, was unhappily directed against Milton. I resolved to attack his fame, and found some passages in cursory reading, which gave me hopes of stigmatizing him as a plagiary. The farther I carried my search, the more eager I


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grew for the discovery, and the more my hypothesis was opposed, the more I was heated with rage. The consequence of my blind passion, I need not relate; it has by your detection, become apparent to mankind. Nor do I mention this provocation as adequate to the fury which I have shown, but as a cause of anger less shameful and reproachful than fractious malice, personal envy, or national jealousy.
But for the violation of truth, I offer no excuse, because I well know, that nothing can excuse it. Nor will I aggravate my crime, by disingenuous palliations. I confess it, I repent it, and resolve, that my first offence shall be my last. More I cannot perform, and more therefore cannot be required. I intreat the pardon of all men, whom I have by any means induced, to support, to countenance, or patronise my frauds, of which, I think myself oblig’d to declare, that not one of my friends was conscious. I hope to deserve, by better conduct and more useful undertakings, that patronage which I have obtained from the most illustrious and venerable names by misrepresentation and delusion, and to appear hereafter in such a character, as shall give you no reason to regret that your name is frequently mentioned with that of,
Reverend Sir,
Your most humble servant,
WILLIAM LAUDER.
Dec. 20, 1759.8


Page 169

Editorial Notes
1 See Marcuse, “The Gentleman’s Magazine and the Lauder/Milton Controversy.”
2 Although there is not much to go on, Fleeman thinks this note is by SJ (Bibliography, I.405); Hazen does not (p. 80, n. 4). This book is the same as King Charles I. Vindicated, mentioned above.
3 On Hawkins’s view of SJ’s sympathy with Lauder, see Marcuse, “Pre-Publication History.” Churchill called Johnson “our letter’d Polypheme,” a “base coward” in the Lauder affair in The Ghost (1762), ll. 227–32. For this and other responses to Lauder, see Marcuse, “‘The Scourge of Imposters, the Terror of Quacks’: John Douglas and the Exposé of William Lauder,” Huntington Library Quarterly, XLII (1979), 231–61.
4 Add MS 5159, ff. 51–52.
5 See Bibliography, I.320–21.
1 The letters, not included here, are from a committee of professors at Edinburgh University: Patrick Cuming, Regius Professor of History; Colin Maclurin, Professor of Mathematics (to whose epitaph SJ later contributed); “the authors of the Universal History” (1736–44; 2nd ed., 1747–68), which included Archibald Bower, a literary liar whom Douglas also investigated (see p. 320 below); Robert Ainsworth, the lexicographer; Isaac Watts; William Grant, Secretary of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland; and Abraham Gronovius, Secretary to the University of Leiden (see p. 145 and n. 8 above).
2 Agamemnon, l. 243: “Whoever repents of sin is almost innocent.” Modern editions read paenitet.
3 Tristia, III.5.33–34: “it suffices to throw one’s body before the magnanimous Lion. The fight is over for whoever lies beneath his enemy.”
4 Spoken by Vox Dei after Act V (1601), p. 73: “I bring clemency to the rigor of law.”
5 SJ recycled the phrase “insolence of triumph” in Rambler 64 (Yale, III.343).
6 The tactic is mentioned by Plutarch in “Sayings of Spartans” (Moralia, vol. III, trans. Frank Cole Babbit [1931]), 288–90.
7 [SJ’s note] The interpolations are distinguished by italick characters.
8 Jacobi Masenii Palaestra Ligatae Eloquentiae (Cologne, 1654).
9 “Adnuit” in An Essay.
1 Lauder describes these lines as the source of Paradise Lost, X.651 ff. and translates as follows, using here and elsewhere italics for the interpolated lines. For an account of Lauder’s sources and their relation to lines in Paradise Lost, see Marcuse, “The Scourge of Imposters,” pp. 254–61.
With guile the hapless nymph complies, and eats,(Ah! Doleful crime! Ah! Endless source of woe!)Unconscious of the mortal fruit’s dread poison.Straight, hell, disclos’d, pours forth her horrid hosts,And earth, wide-yawning, from her centre groans;Nabathean realms return’d the baleful sound,And on the Pharian shore affrighted blush’dOld Nereus. At that instant too was heardThe howling of the fam’d Herpeian vales,And Libya’s parched lands blaz’d far and wide.Lycaon’s bear, astounded, check’d her course,And icy, stiffen’d in her frighted car.The world itself, mov’d from its hinges, shook;The task of angels, doing heav’ns high will!Essay, pp. 39–40
2 Lauder says the “copy” (Paradise Lost, X.616ff) falls short of the original, which he translates as follows:
She, flying with dishevell’d locks, her faceBedew’d with tears, and fill’d the heav’ns with plaints.Thus humbly sued the Fair: Of this great world,Both judge and maker! Who, of nature’s course,The balance holds; who, future things aloneExactly knows, as mindful of the past!Whose potent rule both heaven and earth obey,Trembling with awe! Whom Tar’trus’ gloomy realms,Proud in their chief, with fearful rage adore!By cruel hell behold us overpower’d!—The jaws of Tartarus are open’d wide,And over the earth Avernus bears full sway,And dogs of hell the whole creation waste;And ghosts infernal heav’n-born souls infest.Difference ’twixt good and ill Antitheus dire,Thrice fertile source of woe! Has cancel’d quite,And wholly crush’d the honour of the gods!Sarcothea with an eye of favour view,Who, wretchedly, alas! deceiv’d, has plucktThe fatal fruit, and to our mortal foe,In most unlucky hour, betray’d us all.Essay, pp. 41–42
3 Lauder takes this passage directly from William Hogg’s translation of Paradise Lost, Paraphrasis Poetica (1690), p. 293, and calls it the source of Paradise Lost, X.710 ff. He translates:
Beast now with beast, and fowl with fowl, and fishWith fish, wage cruel war with hostile arms.They now despise their antient food, now scornTo graze the verdant plains, and flow’ry grass;And beast on beast, as proper sust’nance, feeds.Nor does their former reverence paid to manRemain, but straight him fly, or, if they stand,They threaten bloody war with savage front,And fiercely dart on him their baleful eyes.Essay, p. 43
4 Lauder sees these lines as the source of Paradise Lost, III.35–36, which he cites as the translation:
Blind Thamyris, and blind Meonides,And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old.Essay, p. 44
5 Lauder sees this passage as the source for Paradise Lost, I.589 ff. and I.612 ff. He translates:
Amidst the joyful troops advanc’d, is seenAntitheus; he alone, than all the rest,More eminent appears; and thence looks down,Contemptuous, on the vulgar crew below.His brow, obscur’d with clouds, lies hid, stern rageDissembling, cover’d with the veil of night:Like to a lofty tow’r, or on the mountain’s topAn ancient cedar of its verdure stript.Essay, p. 46
6 These are the first three and the last four lines of a long passage that Lauder sees as providing the argument of Paradise Lost, as outlined in Milton’s Trinity manuscript. He translates:
Foe to the sacred thund’rer, late from heav’n,My happy country, exil’d, now from hell,My prison, black with endless night, I come,. . . . . . . . . . . . .For this, tho’ dreaded as my greatest curse,My pride shall brook the sight of blest superiors,Objects at once of envy and of hatred!Am I deceiv’d? or trembles with my weight,This earth convuls’d, as conscious of her foe?Why not? Since hell too trembles as I stride!Essay, p. 57
7 Cited as “wholly parallel” to Paradise Lost, I.261 ff., and translated by it:
—————And, in my choice,To reign is worth ambition, tho’ in hell:Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav’n.Essay, p. 58
8 Translated by Paradise Lost, XII.140:
Things by their names I call, tho’ yet unnam’d.Essay, p. 62
9 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.273, and translated:
Ruler of this terrestrial globe! Lord o’ th’ sea!Offspring of heav’n and earth! And all earth’s lord!Essay, p. 63
1 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.494 ff., and translated:
What animal, gliding in path oblique,Rowls hitherward his winding course!His hairy head writhes back his hissing jaws,And brandishes his three-fork’d tongue; his eyesGlare ardent, vying with carbuncle’s flame.Essay, p. 64
2 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.291, 568, and 612, which Lauder provides as the translation:
Daughter of God and man! Immortal Eve!Empress of this fair world! Resplendent Eve!Sov’reign of creatures! Universal dame!Essay, p. 65
3 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.710 ff., which is the translation:
That ye shall be as Gods, since I as man,Internal man, is but proportion meet:I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.Essay, p. 66
4 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.914 ff., and translated:
By wedlock’s sacred league, by the dear namesOf mutual ties: whether a daughter me,Sprung from yourself, you call; or call me sister,As from one common sire; or yet vouchsafeTo call me by the dearer name of wife:Depriv’d of the sweet beams of your high favourForsake me not I pray; your help I need,Now since our lot is chang’d; my only stay!My only hope! With grievous ills distrest.For me yourself reserve, while ’tis allow’d;Lest by your single death, all mortal raceShould wholly be cut off.O! left of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?Essay, pp. 66–67
5 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, X.927 ff., and translated:
For you, as contrary to God alone,Are sure less guilty; I more guilty far—(And far more wretched, since ’tis past dispute,That guilt is both the attendant and the sourceOf mis’ry, and of ill the baleful parent)Have, by my crime, both sinn’d ’gainst God and you.Essay, pp. 67–68
6 Translated by Paradise Lost, X.728–29:
All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget,Is propagated curse!——Essay, p. 68
7 Andrew Ramsay, Poemata Sacra (1633).
8 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, X.771 ff., and translated:
O judge! A new and unexpected stateStrikes me with dread. Foul stains, and guilty senseOf nakedness, wound deep my tortur’d breast.Wild horror rends me. Not the verdant meads,Nor chrystal fountains cool at sultry noon,Nor heav’ns resplendent arch of burnish’d gold,Can solace yield; so much the voice of God,My judge, astounds, and pungent sense of guilt!O that I could this mortal life break off,And punishment by any death evade!O! that my mother-earth, with open jaws,Would pull me to her centre quite absorpt!Or that I were thrust down, with inmates foul,To the black shades of hell and tenfold night!Or shrouded under piles, and mountain’s weight,Amidst the wreck of elemental fire!Rather than bear thy flaming countenance,Thy awful brow, great arbiter of all!And to celestial arms this life expose.Essay, pp. 88–89
9 Caspar Staphoristus, Triumphus Pacis, sive Carmen Epinicium et protrepticum, de bello Batavos inter et Anglos, Feliciter confecto (1655).
1 Lines 4–14 and 24–32 of the passage in Essay are not cited here. The passage is said to be the source of Milton’s panegyric on marriage, Paradise Lost, IV.753 ff., and only the italicized lines are translated. The last eight lines are verbatim from Hogg, Paraphrasis (p. 112):
Beneath thy pow’r, who shun’st the lewd embraceOf foreign beds, dire lust was driv’n from man,And only rules o’er flocks and brutal herds,Wand’ring with raging fire that knows no law!By thee, approv’d by laws of heav’n and earth,By rectitude, by piety and truth,Father, and son, and brother, first were known!All, whom the ties of blood unite, from theeHave learnt, by name, to ascertain their kind.Essay, pp. 105–6
2 Lines 2–21 in the Essay are not cited here. The passage is adduced as a source of “the noble hymn, sung by Adam and Eve in their state of innocence.” Lauder says both Milton (Paradise Lost, V.155 ff.) and Staphorstius are paraphrasing Psalm 148. He translates:
Celestial spirits! Of lofty realms possess’d,To the great God exalt your ceaseless praise.. . . . . . . . . . .And thou, my soul! with mighty ardor fir’d,While the bright morn, or gloomy night returns,Dissolve your pow’rs in gratitude and praise!Great God! Immense! august! inscrutable!And thou, coequal Son! Thou Spirit blest!From Sire and Son proceeding; who alone,Kind ruler! holds’t the reins of heav’n and earth,And the broad sea; great one-existent God!Thy lofty praise, with organs and with harps,I’ll ever sound; thee with my soul will love,Thee first, thee last, thee midst, thee without end!While with his light the sun informs the world.Essay, pp. 110–11
3 John Foxe, Christus Triumphans, Comedia Apocalyptica (1556).
4 Cited as a source of Paradise Lost, III.478 ff., and translated:
Psychephone, be thou hypocrisy, under this cloak of good St. Francis; enwrapped in which, fond votaries think they safely may encounter death.Essay, p. 116
5 J. F. Quintianus, Christiana Opera; in quibus Theocrisis, Tragoedia (1514).
6 [Lauder’s note] * For facile, the word volupe was substituted in the Essay.
7 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IV.877 ff., and translated:
Mic. Say, with encroaching foot why com’st thou here?If any one can in his house abide, He little will regard another’s home.Luc. Who, leaving gloomy Tartarus’ horrid realms, Would not come here? There plagues and sorrow dwell, Essential darkness, and wide-issuing stench: Here pleasure sits enthron’d, and balmy peace, And smiling suns eternally invite.’Tis joyous, to exchange for torment ease.Essay, p. 117
8 Theodore Beza, Abrahamus Sacrificans (1599).
9 Cited as the source of Paradise Lost, IX.463 ff., and translated:
I here attest black styx, and hell profound,Did not fell envy hinder, and the hateI bear to God and man, with pity mov’dOf son and father, I could both condole,As if my antient hate I had abjur’d.Essay, pp. 119–20
1 Phineas Fletcher, Locustae, vel Pietas Jesuitica (1627).
2 Cited as a source for the “turn and spirit of Satan’s speeches, before, at, and after the grand consultation held at Pandaemonium” (Essay, p. 124; see Paradise Lost, I.105–8) and translated:
Nor will we lay aside (drive hence your fears)Our deathless courage, our enormous wrath,Or wearied, or forgetful. No, ’twere base!—We yield not so; nor such mean feats attempt,As when with you we pour’d our war on heav’n.Behold a mind resolv’d, who heav’n and lifeContemns; who here the proferr’d realms of lightRejects; whom heav’n subdu’d alone can please.Doubt not; this soul, this breast shall never fail—Sooner shall heav’n’s almighty king, our foe,Forego his blissful residence, renounceThe service of his cringing vassal-crew,Wander thro’ gloomy hell and night profound,And change his radiant beams for Stygian flames.The reason’s just: unconquer’d yet remainsOur will, our hate immortal, our fell lustOf boundless vengeance.Essay, p. 125
3 Frideric Taubmann, Epulum Musaeum; in quo Bellum Angelicum (1604).
4 Described as a source of Paradise Lost, V.772 ff. (cf. 657–65), and translated:
Dost thou, said he, then govern all things? ThouAnd thy beloved son, who willinglyHimself to thee subjects, and, vassal-like,Prostrate upon his knees falls on the ground,Off’ring I know not what obeisance low,Sure indication of a servile mind?And yet is own’d by a vile upstart race,Th’ eternal offspring of th’ eternal Lord;And angels, race divine! The same avow:(Thou has declar’d him son, regent o’er all;O’er heav’nly spirits king and lord supreme.)To him must I submissive cringe? even I?Than whom in heav’n a greater scarce is known.And must he laws to me prescribe, who bendsHis subject head beneath another’s yoke?What! Shall that mongrel-god rule heaven, rule earth?Shall fate with hand unequal bear me down?And must I drag a double tyrants chain?Not so! for pow’r is not your single claim!I fall not thus! Nor is my state so low,That I can’t rear my head; nor from my neckShake off this empire proud. If my right handMisgives me not, in bold and puissant deedsI claim a right o’er all created things,And hope to gain the tyranny of heav’n!Essay, p. 133
5 Thomas Heywood, Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells (1635). See Paradise Lost, V.601, 772, 840. The title page puts these names in a circle of suns surrounding the trinity. Cherubim is at the top, to the right of Seraphim. Virtutes, which Lauder leaves out, comes after Potestates. In a note to the revised postscript (present in only some copies of the second issue of Essay; see Bibliography, I.185–86), the publishers complained that Lauder had “impudently transcribed into his letter to Mr. Douglas” this paragraph from the “New Preface by the Booksellers” (p. iv).
6 [Lauder’s note, a shorter version of which appears in his proposals for Delectus Auctorum Sacrorum, 3 July 1750.] * Virorum maximus—Joannes Miltonus—Poeta celeberrimus—non Angliae modo, soli natalis, verum generis humani ornamentum—cujus eximius liber, Anglicanis versibus conscriptus, vulgo Paradisus amissus, immortalis illud ingenii monumentum, cum ipsa feré aeternitate perennaturum est opus!— Hujus memoriam Anglorum primus, post tantum, proh dolor! ab tanti excessu poetae intervallum, statua eleganti in loco celeberrimo, caenobio Westmonasteriensi, posita, regum, principum, antistitum, illustriumque Angliae virorum caemeterio, vir ornatissimus, Gulielmus Benson prosecutus est.
Poetarum Scotorum Musae Sacrae in praefatione, Edinb. 1739.
A character, as high and honourable as ever was bestowed upon him by the most sanguine of his admirers! And as this was my cool and sincere opinion of that wonderful man formerly, so I declare it to be the same still, and ever will be, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, occasioned merely by passion and resentment; which appear, however, by the Postscript to the Essay, to be so far from extending to the posterity of Milton, that I recommend his only remaining descendent, in the warmest terms, to the publick.
7 [Lauder’s note] * On two unequal crutches propp’d he* came, Milton’s on this, on that one Johnston’s name.
Dunciad, Book IV. [111–12]
[Lauder’s note on his note] * Benson.] This man endeavoured to raise himself to fame, by erecting monuments, striking coins, and procuring translations of Milton; and afterwards by a great passion for Arthur Johnston, a Scots physician’s version of the Psalms, of which he printed many fine editions. Notes on the Dunciad. [This note also appears in Lauder’s proposals for Delectus Auctorum Sacrorum.]
No fewer than six different editions of that useful and valuable book, two in quarto, two in octavo, and two in a lesser form, now lie like lumber in the hand of Mr. [Paul] Vaillant, bookseller [in the Strand], the effects of Mr. Pope’s ill-natured criticism.
One of these editions in quarto, illustrated with an interpretation and notes, after the manner of the classick authors in usum Delphini, was by the worthy editor, anno 1749, inscribed to his Royal Highness Prince George, as a proper book for his instruction in principles of piety, as well as knowledge of the Latin tongue, when he should arrive at due maturity of age. To restore this book to credit was the cause that induced me to engage in this disagreeable controversy, rather than any design to depreciate the just reputation of Milton.
8 The testimonial letters follow (pp. 15–23). On the verso of the last page (24) is Lauder’s postscript, in which he declares that his interpolations were merely a test of the perspicacity of Milton’s “partial admirers.”
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Document Details
Document TitleA Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1750
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorN/A
ClassificationSubject: John Douglas; Subject: William Lauder; Subject: Milton; Subject: Paradise Lost; Subject: Plagiarism; Subject: Grotius; Subject: Confession; Genre: Letter
PrinterStrahan
PublisherOwen
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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