t.

Filius meus te plurimum salutat.

Vale, doctissime vir, meisque verbis D. Caveum saluta, atque amare
perge,

Tuum,

ABRAHAMUM GRONOVIUM.

Dabam Leidis, A. D. xiv. KAL.
Maias, A. D. MDCCXLVII.

[1] The person here meant was the learned and worthy Dr. Isaac Lawson,
late physician to the English army in Flanders; by whom Mr. Gronovius
did me the honour to transmit to me two or three acts of the Adamus
Exsul of Grotius, transcribed by his son, Mr. James. The truth of this
particular consists perfectly well with the knowledge of the Doctor's
brother, John Lawson, esq. counsellor at law; who also had the same
thing lately confirmed to him by Mr. Gronovius himself in Holland.

POSTSCRIPT.

And now my character is placed above all suspicion of fraud by
authentick documents, I will make bold, at last, to pull off the mask,
and declare sincerely the true motive that induced me to interpolate a
few lines into some of the authors quoted by me in my Essay on Milton,
which was this: Knowing the prepossession in favour of Milton, how
deeply it was rooted in many, I was willing to make trial, if the
partial admirers of that author would admit a translation of his own
words to pass for his sense, or exhibit his meaning; which I thought
they would not: nor was I mistaken in my conjecture, forasmuch as
several gentlemen, seemingly persons of judgment and learning, assured
me, they humbly conceived I had not proved my point, and that Milton
might have written as he has done, supposing he had never seen these
authors, or they had never existed. Such is the force of prejudice! This
exactly confirms the judicious observation of the excellent moralist and
poet:

Pravo favore labi mortales solent;
Et pro judicio dum stant erroris sui,
Ad poenitendum rebus manifestis agi.

For, had I designed, as the vindicator of Milton supposes, to impose a
trick on the publick, and procure credit to my assertions by an
imposture, I would never have drawn lines from Hog's translation of
Milton, a book common at every sale, I had almost said, at every stall,
nor ascribed them to authors so easily attained: I would have gone
another way to work, by translating forty or fifty lines, and assigning
them to an author, whose works possibly might not be found till the
world expire at the general conflagration. My imposing, therefore, on
the publick in general, instead of a few obstinate persons, for whose
sake alone the stratagem was de