In this task Milton engaged, and prosecuted it with vigour; but the most enthusiastic admirer of that poet, upon reading it will not fail to discover a spirit of bitterness, an air of peevishness and resentment to run through the whole. Milton has been charged with interpolating the prayer of Pamela into the King's Meditations, by the assistance of Bradshaw, who laid his commands upon the printer so to do, to blast the reputation of the King's book. Dr. Newton is of opinion that this fact is not well supported, for it is related chiefly upon the authority of Henry Hills the printer, who had frequently affirmed it to Dr. Gill, and Dr. Bernard, his physicians, as they themselves have testified; but tho' Hills was Cromwell's printer, yet afterwards he turned Papist in the reign of King James II. in order to be that King's Printer; and it was at that time he used to relate this story; so that little credit is due to his testimony. It is almost impossible to believe Milton capable of such disingenuous meanness, to serve so bad a purpose, and there is as little reason for fixing it upon him, as he had to traduce the King for profaning the duty of prayer, with the polluted trash of romances; for in the best books of devotion, there are not many finer prayers, and the King might as lawfully borrow and apply it to his own purpose, as the apostle might make quotations from Heathen poems and plays; and it became Milton, the least of all men, to bring such an accusation against the King, as he was himself particularly fond of reading romances, and has made use of them in some of the best and latest of his writings. There have been various conjectures concerning the cause that produced in Milton so great an aversion to Charles I. One is, that when Milton stood candidate for a professorship at Cambridge with his much esteemed friend Mr. King, their interest and qualifications were equal, upon which his Majesty was required by his nomination to fix the professor; his answer was, let the best-natured man have it; to which they who heard him, immediately replied; 'then we are certain it cannot be Milton's, who was ever remarkable for a stern ungovernable man.'--Whether this conjecture is absolutely true, we cannot determine; but as it is not without probability, it has a right to be believed, till a more satisfactory one can be given. In whatever light Milton may be placed as a statesman, yet as a poet he stands in one point of view without a rival; the sublimity of his conceptions, the elevation of his stile, the fertility of his imagination, and the conduct of his design in Paradise Lost is inimitable, and cannot be enough admired. Milton's character as a poet was never better pourtray'd than in the epigram under his picture written by Mr. Dryden.