and dishonourable light must you appear to these men! Did you not rejoice when you learned that the application you intended was generally made? Blush, Sir, and discover that you have still some sense of decency and of moral obligation! Do you believe in the religion you teach? If If you do, your pangs must be dreadful. I sincerely wish that the defect may be in your head, and not in that part which is principally valued by all good men and sincere Christians. But, if you have reason to be suspicious of the latter, consult GILPIN, and he will direct you to examine yourself, and to pray fervently for a speedy deliverance from the fascination and dominion of SATAN.

THE following remark,-" That after depriving me of every power of elocution, you immediately dress me up as a complete actor," is an astonishing instance of your bold and dishonest invention. I defy you to show the most distant allusion to such a sentiment

in

my whole letter. I made a remark of an opposite nature. I lamented that you should be

enraged, merely because the structure of your windpipe did not qualify you to appear with

It is easy to distin

advantage on the stage. It is

guish a mountebank from a GARRICK; and I could never fancy that a creature, whose only use could be to make an awkward figure in a procession, to drop a curtain, or to snuff candles, should be able to perform the parts of HAMLET OF JAFFIER.

WHEN detected in false and ignominious observations, you have the meanness to say, you was only jesting and in irony. Is it a jest to charge a man with crimes of your own creating? Is it a jest to endeavour to hurt a man of business who never could offend you? Read the fable of the Boys and Frogs. Your wit and irony are indeed so flat and unmeaning, that you ought to imitate the painter who found it necessary to write the names below his figures; e. g. This is an ass,—and this a baboon; and when you fancy yourself to be superlatively clever, say, N.B. This is wit, and this irony. However, if falsehoods impertinent and detestable,-if assertions the most determined and frivolous,-if quotations the most dishonest, and the most obvious to detection, constitute wit, then may Mr NISBET be proclaimed the wittiest man in Eu

rope.

BUT I hasten to an example which will doubtless attract the attention of your friends, and excite the indignation of all honest men. "The faults," says Mr NISBET, Mr NISBET, "that disgrace your work are not of the typographical kind: they are much more important. Your fulsome encomiums on the blasphemous work of Abbé RESNAL, and your commendation of HAWKESWORTHS obscenities, prove that sceptics and infidels have no small share of your charity," &c. These few lines contain no less than two manifest and deliberate breaches of truth; as the reader will perceive by turning to the reviews in question*. Having explained the plan of the Abbé RESNALS HIStoire Philosophique et Politique, &c. and, in concurrence with all Europe, commended the authors ideas concerning trade, manufactures, geography, natural productions, &c. the reviewer subjoins the following severe strictures against his notions of religion: "After," says the reviewer," bestowing so large a portion of praise, the impartiality we have professed demands that we should also mention what we think worthy of blame. Our author is not without his faults. Perhaps he may be justly

* Edinburgh Mag. and Rev. Vol. I. p. 33. and r. 159.

charged with impiety. His attack upon Christianity is vehement; nor does he treat any other form of worship with tenderness or with respect. Since religion is the growth of every soil, and seems necessary to mankind, had it not been wiser to have bent or to have lopt off the crooked and luxuriant branches than thus to have laid the ax to the root of the tree?" How you find yourself now, Mr NISBET? The invention of fifty more lies will not be sufficient to cover this one. If the reader chuses to consult the article appealed to, he will find the Abbé RESNAL heartily condemned for many other particulars beside that of irreligion.

do

As to what you call the obscenities of HAWKESWORTHS Voyages, they are not commended. A few particulars in the manners of the people of Otaheite are mentioned as facts fit for the speculation of philosophers; but by no means with a view to excite improper ideas. It would be equally absurd to stigmatize the writers on anatomy and midwifery as the most obscene authors of the age. But it would appear that Mr NISBETS taste is too gross to allow him to read the manners of women in different ages and nations with personal safety. I am amazed, however, that

Mr NISBETS avidity for blunders did not enable him to discover, in the review of HAWKESWORTH, the word morality in place of manners. But the efficacy of morals appears not to be an article in his creed.

You next remark, that "your unworthy treatment of the Reverend Dr HENRY and Mr WALKER Show that you are no friend to good men or sincere Christians. I cannot but think it an honour done me to suffer in so good company, and to be reviled by those who have reviled such men as these." Here you bring in names into your quarrel with which you had no business, and for which I am certain these gentlemen have no reason to thank you. It is placing them in an awkward position, when you hold them up as models of goodness, and as shining luminaries in Christianity. Real good men chuse not to be exhibited as public spectacles of virtue. Modesty, which is one great article in a worthy character, cannot bear such an insult; and if these gentlemen be really good men and sincere Christians, as I hope they are, I am certain they cannot, with propriety, have any communication with you, unless it be with the charitable view of bringing you back