Page:Boswell - Life of Johnson.djvu/298
This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years: and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his superiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the Paradise Lost. In these he interpolated some fragments of Hog's Latin translation of that poem, alledging that the mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied[1]. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost. To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface[2], in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and
- ↑ Scott writing to Southey in 1810 said:—'A witty rogue the other day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of.' The passage alleged to be stolen ends with,—
'When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou !'which in Vida ad Eranen. El. ii. v. 21, ran,—
'Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.''It is almost needless to add,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'there are no such lines.' Life of Scott, iii. 294.
- ↑ The greater part of this Preface was given in the Gent. Mag. for August 1747 (xvii.404).
the following paragraph:—'Mr. Lauder confesses here and exhibits all his forgeries; for which he assigns one motive in the book, and after asking pardon assigns another in the postscript; he also takes an opportunity to publish several letters and testimonials to his former character.' Goldsmith in Retaliation has a hit at Lauder:—
'Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks.
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover.'
Dr. Douglas was afterwards Bishop of Salisbury (ante, p. 147). See Post, June 25, 1763. for the part he took in exposing the Cock Lane Ghost imposture.