141 
As for the people of England, what with factions, 
plundering and being plundered, and luxury, they 
seem to be dead to their true interests, nay to their 
safety,—and, I fear I may add, to their existence as a 
in any former edition, and many passages restored, which have 
been hitherto omitted. Towhich is prefixed an Account of his Life 
and Writmgs. In 11 volumes, quarto, 1753.—This very fine 
and beautiful edition of Milton’s prose works was published by 
that very eminent friend of liberty and the rights of mankind, 
Mr. Hollis, who bestowed the most part of the income of a 
very large estate in promoting them to the utmost of his power. 
For this end, to perpetuate the writings, and disperse the doc- 
trines of the authors who have been the most conspicuous friends 
to civil and religious liberty, he reprinted several of their 
works in very good editions, and presented fine sets of them to 
almost every university, learned society, and eminent man, in 
Europe, perhaps the world. Among the rest, Milton, holding 
the first rank upon many considerations, did not escape this ho- 
nour, as well as Toland’s Life of Milton. 
“The books I read were presented by Mr. Hollis to the late 
celebrated Linnzeus, and came with his library and collection 
into the possession of my son, James Edward Smith. They are 
addressed to Linnzus, in the first leaf, in Mr. Hollis’s own hand, 
though not signed with his name, and there are many notes 
and marks in manuscript by the same hand throughout both 
volumes. 
“‘Milton’s prose style is very faulty ; ’tis intricate, stiff, and the 
periods immensely long, formed in the manner of the Latin, 
some tracts more so than others ; but the strong sense and forci- 
ble expressions that abound in them, make full amends for the 
pain of reading much that is uncouth and awkward. The most 
liberal and free notions and principles both in church and state, 
are maintained without reserve, and they will be a perpetual 
monument of the vigour of the minds of our ancestors in the age 
of Milton.” 
Itis remarkable that Mr. Smith uses the epithet uncouth in 
