He even forged verses which he quoted as
if from _Paradise Lost_, and showed them as Milton's plagiarisms
from preceding writers. Even these clumsy fictions might have passed
without detection at that uncritical period of our literature,
and under the shelter of the name of Samuel Johnson. But Lauder's
impudence grew with the success of his criticisms, which he brought
out as letters, through a series of years, in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. There was a translation of _Paradise Lost_ into Latin
hexameters, which had been made in 1690 by William Hogg. Lander
inserted lines, taken from this translation, into passages taken from
Massenius, Staphorstius, Taubmannus, neo-Latin poets, whom Milton had,
or might have read, and presented these passages as thefts by Milton.
Low as learning had sunk in England in 1750, Hogg's Latin _Paradisus
amissus_ was just the book, which tutors of colleges who could teach
Latin verses had often in their hands. Mr. Bowle, a tutor of Oriel
College, Oxford, immediately recognised an old acquaintance in one
or two of the interpolated lines. This put him upon the scent, he
submitted Lauder's passages to a closer investigation, and the whole
fraud was exposed.
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