he naturally takes the worst, as being most agreeable to his own talent. You may know his wit not to be rature, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him for as those that have money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it; so does he, when he thinks he has got something, that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse, that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He measures other men's wit by their modesty, and his own by his confidence. He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the difficulty. This makes him venture to talk and scribble, as chowses do to play with cunning gamesters, until they are cheated and laughed at. He is always talking of wit, as those that have bad voices are always singing out of tune; and those that cannot play, delight to fumble on instruments. He grows the unwiser by other men's harms; for the worse others write, he finds the more encouragement to do so too. His greediness of praise is so eager, that he swallows any thing that comes in the likeness of it, how notorious and palpable soever, and is as shot-free against any thing that may lessen his good opinion of himself. This renders him incurable, like diseases that grow insensible."

Were such a number of original thoughts in the possession of a German commentator, what folios might not be the result of his speculations! In short, this performance might serve as a common-place book (1) for such as find more difficulty in thinking than expression; a hundred sentiments may be stolen from it, and yet the plagiary be never detected.

What can be more just than his character of a libeller, whom he describes as one whose whole works treat but of two things, his own malice and the faults of another!

"He is not much concerned whether what he writes be true or false; that's nothing to his purpose, which aims only at filthy and bitter; and

(1) [" I have been informed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, that excellent editor of Butler's Reliques, that he could shew something like Hudibras in prose. He has in his possession the common-place book, in which Butler reposited not such events and precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted, or meditation produced, those thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the labour of those who write for immortality!"-JOHNSON, Life of Butler.]

therefore his language is, like pictures of the devil, the fouler the better. He robs a man of his good name, not for any good it will do him (for he dares not own it), but merely, as a jackdaw steals money, for his pleasure. His malice has the same success with other men's charity, to be rewarded in private; for all he gets is but his own private satisfaction, and the testimony of an evil conscience; for which, if it be discovered, he suffers the worst kind of martyrdom, and is paid with condign punishment, so that at the best he has but his labour for his pains. He deals with a man as the Spanish inquisition does with heretics, clothes him in a coat painted with hellish shapes of fiends, and so shews him to the rabble, to render him the more odious. He exposes his wit like a bastard, for the next comer to take up and put out to nurse, which it seldom fails of, so ready is every man to contribute to the infamy of another. He is like the devil that sows tares in the dark, and while a man sleeps, plants weeds among his corn. When he ventures to fall foul on the government or any great persons, if he has not a special care to keep himself, like a conjuror, safe in his circle, he raises a spirit that falls foul on himself, and carries him to limbo; where his neck is clapped up in the hole, out of which it is never released, until he has paid his ears down on the nail for fees. He is in a worse condition than a school-boy; for when he is discovered, he is whipped for his exercise, whether it be well or ill done; so that he takes a wrong course to shew his wit, when his best way to do so is to conceal it; otherwise he shews his folly instead of his wit, and pays dear for the mistake.”

At the end of these two volumes, for which the public are so much obliged to the editor, are subjoined thoughts upon various subjects, still superior to any thing in the foregoing collection. In these the author's peculiar talent shines conspicuously, since his principal merit consists in the strength and justness of his sentiments, without any peculiar skill in arrangement. Had all his works been published, like those of Mahomet, which, we are told, were delivered in single sentences, it is probable his fame would have suffered no diminution. To give an example of his talent this way:

"This age will serve to make a very pretty farce for the next; if it have any wit at all to make use of it."

"The preferment of fools and undeserving persons, is not so much an honour to them, as infamy and dishonour to those that raise them; for when a prince confers honour on those that do not deserve it, he throws it away out of his own stock, and leaves himself so much the less, as he parts with

to those that want merit to pretend to it; and by that ili husbandry in time leaves himself none at all, to pay those to whom it is due."

"The worst governments are the best, when they light in good hands; and the best the worst, when they fall into bad ones."

"The vices of tyrants run in a circle, and produce one another, begin with luxury and prodigality, which cannot be supplied but by rapine. Rapine produces hate in the people, and that hate fear in the prince; fear, cruelty; cruelty, despair; and despair, destruction."

"It is both the wisest and safest way in the world to keep at a convenient distance with all men. For when men converse too closely, they commonly, like those that meet in crowds, offend one another.”

* There is a kind of physiognomy in the title of books, no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other."

"Men of the greatest apprehension and aptest geniuses to anything they undertake do not always prove the greatest masters in it: for there is more patience and phlegm required in those that attain to any degree of perfection, than is commonly found in the temper of active and ready wits, that soon tire, and will not hold out; as the swiftest race-horse will not perform a long journey so well as a sturdy duil jade. Hence it is that Virgil, who wanted much of that natural easiness of wit that Ovid had, did nevertheless, with hard labour and long study, arrive at a higher perfection, than the other, with all his dexterity of wit, but less industry, could attain to. The same we may observe of Jonson and Shakspeare; for he that is able to think long, and judge well, will be sure to find out better things, than another man can hit upon suddenly, though of more quick and ready parts; which is commonly but chance, and the other art and judgment."

How works of such merit have been so long suppressed as those before us, is indeed somewhat surprising; or how the author himself, in his needy hours, was never induced to turn them to profit, is what we cannot account for: perhaps the rewards of copy-money, as it is called, were not so high then as they are now, and fame might have been the only incentive to publication.

[From the Critical Review, 1759. "The Twentieth Epistle of Horace to his Book, modernized by the Author of Female Conduct, and applied to his own Book, and intended as an Answer to the Remarks on his Book, made by the writer of the Critical Review. 8vo. Owen." See p. 426.]

It was once a debate among casuists, which we could wish to see revived, whether the contempt offered to great men in disguise ought justly to be resented by them as injurious. After much reasoning upon the matter, Escobar") at length determined, that as men they have a right to resent; but as great men they are obliged to forgiveness. This last part of the argument is so applicable to our present purpose, that we cannot avoid urging it in the strongest manner, in expostulating with the great man with whom we are at present unhappily embroiled. We have a right to be forgiven, because we now at last acknowledge the dignity of him from whom (impressed with terror as we are) we ask forgiveness. A few months ago a poem entitled "Female Conduct" came from the press, published in the usual manner, without one single mark of the author's importance; and we, in our usual manner, found something in it to praise, and something to reprove. At this time we knew very little of Mr. Marriott, and, in the sincerity of our hearts, wished his dull, well-meaning efforts, success. Soon, however, it was found, that in talking of him we were all in the wrong box, nor paid him half that deference which he claimed as his due. The pamphlet before us, written in all

(1) LA Spanish Jesuit, born at Seville in 1588, and died, while a missionary at Lima, in 1669. His works were printed in twenty-six folio volumes. See vol. ii. p. 3.]

the fury of resentment, tells us all about him. By this we are informed, but, alas! too late for redress, that Mr. Marrict is tall: that he is rich; that he is thin and lean; that he laughs when the sun shines; and lastly, that he is the very man who took the two Gregories. Why could be not have told us all this when he published his first pamphlet ? No! he slips it out upon the world in cbscurity, and, like Peter the Great, is resolved to quarrel with every creature that does not pay homage to his greasy greatness in disguise. Had he put but half what the present pamphlet contains into the preface of the former, it were easy to have clapped on a pair of prudential spectacles, and read his poetry into rhyme: for he may be convinced that we sooner would have eaten gunpowder, than have med fled with the author who took the two Gregories.

Though the performance was opened with a thorough resolution not to lose our temper upon the perusal, yet we find it so severe, that we kindle as we read. It is all an orange stuffed with cloves: when fatigned with scolding in prose, he has recourse to rhyme, and when he has teazed us sufficiently with English verse, he takes up the cudgels in Latin. All are alike to him, back-sword, single falshion, or quarter-staff; he wields them all with equal dexterity, and no favour. Now he calls us scribblers, anon minor critics, then dull critics, bad-hearted critics. This sure is not polite; yet all this might be borne, but who can be calm when he calls us Bavius? Yes, dear reader, he actually calls us Bavius! Ah, little did we think, that while we censured the writer of "Female Conduct," we were only raising the indignation of the author who took the two Gregories

Yet shall it be left to his own breast, whether he deals candidly with us, or the public. He first writes bad verses, and next he tells the world he does not desire a reputation