Review; and the reviewers know no party, unless when they meet with injurious and false attacks, similar to the contents of your letter.

THIS Correction and notice you owe to my anxiety as a man of business.

it in what part you please.

You may take It is sufficient

for me that I do my duty; and that, Sir, I would do, if a thousand persons of your character stood in my way. I will not anticipate the reflections which your misconduct will suggest to you. It pains me that you have yielded so much to your passions; and I am sorry that the religion you have been called to teach has so little influence on your behaviour. Permit me to wish you a calmer temper, and a sounder understanding.

I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

WILLIAM SMELLIE.

MR NISBETS REPLY.

Caledonian Mercury, 30th August 1775.

To the AUTHOR of the EDINBURgh Magazine and REVIEW.

SIR,

I HAVE read over your very polite letter to me of the 1st August, which exhibits a sufficient

specimen of your good manners, and convinces me that you have kept the best company. Pray, Sir, how do you contrive to write so charmingly? I am certain you must have consulted the Complete Letter Writer, and the Academy of Compliments, before you could collect such a profusion of rhetoric as appears in your epistle. I observe that it is subscribed by your printer, which I attribute to your great modesty. Perhaps you thought you could lurk as safe under that cover as ACHILLES in petticoats, or the Grand CYRUS under the name of ARTAMENES; but your great talents shine through every disguise. If you would publish a volume of such letters as your last, you would put down CHESTERFIELD and the Marchioness de SAVIGNY; so that Mr DoDSLEYS property, though secured at so great expence, would be of no use to him.

BUT, to come to the contents of your letter. I address myself to the Author of the Proceedings of the General Assembly, and of the letter of August 1st, whether they are the same or different persons. You call my letter a series of falsehoods; but as you have not proved any such against me bý

proper evidence, that charge must return from whence it came. When I ask who told you that I had quoted scripture ludicrously, you say, that "this has an ambiguous aspect," as you are loth to confess yourself the inventor of this calumny. But I must hold you for the inventor, till you produce your informers, as you are the first and only person that ever said or supposed such a thing. I referred you to the entire speech in question, that you might be convinced by your own eyes of the falsehood of your slanderous supposition; but it seems you did not choose to be convinced. You own that you never saw the speech; and yet you must needs be making criticisms on it, by mere conjecture and imagination, to infer a crime against me. Is this the way that you review books? Your alternative is an imperfect one. The General Assembly neither called me to order simply for quoting scripture, nor did any of them allege that I had quoted it in a manner unbecoming a Christian; but some of them thought it disrespectful to their dignity, to have a passage quoted, which some might apply to certain parts of their own conduct, though I applied it only to an inferior judicatory. As you are VOL. I.

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so little versant in the Scripture as to make ELI a prophet, in the name of a great Doctor of this church who knows better, I must set down the passage at length. It is from a real prophet, MALACHI ii. 7, 8. "But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law: ye have corrupted the covenant of LEVI, saith the LORD of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law." I quoted this passage in great seriousness, being deeply alarmed at the practice of buying and selling benefices, now said to be so frequent among us. With what front, then, could you, Mr Author, say, or wantonly suppose, that I had quoted scripture ludicrously? But you have another trick in reserve. You suppose there might be certain shrugs, grins, or grimaces, which might still denominate it ludicrous, that are not within the limits of the typographic art. In this too you are quite mistaken, as the only person who complained of me, sat with his back towards me while I spoke, and so could not see any of these mysterious shrugs, &c. which you imagine. is curious to observe, that after depriving me

It

of every power of elocution, you immediately dress me up as a complete actor, when it suits your purpose of detraction. I have then the dicentis gestus, in essus, discursus, omnibusque motibus animi consenstaneus vigor corporis, as PLINY words it. This is a spes cimen of your candour.

WHAT you say of my attributing the account of the Assembly to a particular gentleman, is entirely your own imagination, as I know not who was the author of that account, and so could have no particular person in view. I see you are a dealer in conjectures, and can turn them to good account. You first suppose that I was in a great passion when I wrote my letter, and then you gravely reprove me for it. But you think too highly of yourself, if you imagine that so minute an object as the sting of an obscure Reviewer could put me in the least passion. On the contrary, I never would have taken the least notice of your vile observations, had I not been pressed by the importunity of friends; so that all your fine declamation on this head falls entirely to the ground. Surely, your understanding and your candour must have been out of town,