against
an injudicious biographer, who undertook to be his editor, and the
protector of his memory. Another writer, Dr. Towers, in an Essay on the
Life and Character of Dr. Johnson, seems to countenance this calumny. He
says: "It can hardly be doubted, but that Johnson's aversion to
Milton's politics was the cause of that alacrity, with which he joined
with Lauder in his infamous attack on our great epic poet, and which
induced him to assist in that transaction." These words would seem to
describe an accomplice, were they not immediately followed by an express
declaration, that Johnson was "unacquainted with the imposture." Dr.
Towers adds, "It seems to have been, by way of making some compensation
to the memory of Milton, for the share he had in the attack of Lauder,
that Johnson wrote the prologue, spoken by Garrick, at Drury lane
theatre, 1750, on the performance of the Masque of Comus, for the
benefit of Milton's granddaughter." Dr. Towers is not free from
prejudice; but, as Shakespeare has it, "he begets a temperance, to give
it smoothness." He is, therefore, entitled to a dispassionate answer.
When Johnson wrote the prologue, it does appear that he was aware of the
malignant artifices practised by Lauder. In the postscript to Johnson's
preface, a subscription is proposed, for relieving the granddaughter of
the author of Paradise Lost. Dr. Towers will agree, that this shows
Johnson's alacrity in doing good. That alacrity showed itself again, in
the letter printed in the European Magazine, January, 1785, and there
said to have appeared originally in the General Advertiser, 4th April,
1750, by which the public were invited to embrace the opportunity of
paying a just regard to the illustrious dead, united with the pleasure
of doing good to the living. The letter adds, "To assist industrious
indigence, struggling with distress, and debilitated by age, is a
display of virtue, and an acquisition of happiness and honour. Whoever,
therefore, would be thought capable of pleasure, in reading the works of
our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude, as to refuse
to lay out a trifle, in a rational and elegant entertainment, for the
benefit of his living remains, for the exercise of their own virtue, the
increase of their reputation, and the consciousness of doing good,
should appear at Drury lane theatre, to-morrow, April 5, when Comus will
be performed, for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, granddaughter to