has its' source in conscious selfishness than in true selfoblivion. A quiet observer of human Follies may often amuse or sadden his thoughts by detecting the perpetual feeling of purest Egotism through a long masquerade of Tu-isms and Ille-isms. Yet I can with strictest truth assure my Readers that with a pleasure combined with a sense of weariness I see the nigh approach of that point. of my labours, in which I can convey my opinions and the workings of my heart without reminding the Reader obtrusively of myself. But the frequency, with which I have spoken in my own person, recals my apprehensions to the second danger, which it was my hope to guard against; the probable charge of ARROGANCE, or presumption both for daring to dissent from the opinions of great Authorities and, in my following numbers perhaps, from the general opinion concerning the true value of certain Authorities deemed great. The word, Presumption, I appropriate to the internal feeling, and Arrogance to the way and manner of outward by expressing ourselves.

As no man can rightfully be condemned without reference to some definite Law, by the knowledge of which he might have avoided the given fault, it is necessary so to define the constituent qualities and conditions of arrogance, that a reason may be assignable why we pronounce one man guilty and acquit another. For merely to call a person arrogant or most arrogant, can convict no one of the vice except perhaps the accuser. I was once present, when a young man who had left his Books and a Glass of Water to join a convivial party, each of whom had nearly finished his second bottle, was pronounced very drunk by the whole party" he looked so strange and pale!" the predominant Vice often betrays itself to an Observer, when it has deluded the Criminal's own consciousness, by his proneness on all occasions to suspect or accuse others. of it. Now Arrogance, and Presumption, like all other moral qualities, must be shewn by some act or conduct: and this too an act that implies, if not an immediate concurrence of the Will, yet some faulty constitution of the Moral Habits. For all criminality supposes its' essentials to have been within the power of the Agent. Either therefore the facts adduced do of themselves convey the whole proof of the charge, and the question rests on the truth or accuracy with which they have been stated; or they acquire their character from the circumstances. I have looked into a ponderous Review of the corpuscular

philosophy by a Sicilian Jesuit, in which the acrimonious Father frequently expresses his doubt, whether he should pronounce Boyle and Newton more impious than presumptuous, or more presumptuous than impious. They had both attacked the reigning opinions on most important subjects, opinions sanctioned by the greatest names of antiquity, and by the general suffrage of their learned Contemporaries or immediate Predecessors. Locke was assailed with a full cry for his presumption in having deserted the philosophical system at that time generally received by the Universities of Europe and of late years Dr. Priestly bestowed the epithets of arrogant and insolent on Reid, Beattie, &c. for presuming to arraign certain opinions of Mr. Locke, himself repaid in kind by many of his own Countrymen for his theological Novelties. It will scarcely be affirmed, that these accusations were all of them just, or that any of them were fit or courteous. Must we therefore say, that in order to avow doubt or disbelief of a popular persuasion without arrogance, it is required that the dissentient should know himself to possess the genius, and foreknow that he should acquire the reputation of Locke, Newton, Boyle, or even of a Reid or a Beattie ? But as this knowledgę and prescience are impossible in the strict sense of the words, and could mean no more than a strong inward conviction, it is manifest that such a Rufe, if it were universally established, would encourage the presumptuous, and condemn modest and humble minds alone to silence. And as this silence could not acquit the Individual's own mind of presumption unless it were accompanied by conscious acquiescence. Modesty itself must become an inert qua lity, which even in private society never displays its charms more unequivocally than in its' mode of reconciling itself with sincerity and intellectual courage.

We must seek then elsewhere for the true marks, by which presumption or arrogance may be detected, and on which the charge may be grounded with little hazard of mistake or injustice. And as I confine my present observations to literature, I deem such criteria neither difficult to determine or to apply. The first mark, as it appears to me, is a frequent bare assertion of opinions not generally received, without condescending to prefix or annex the facts and reasons on which such opinions were formed; especially if this absence of logical courtesy is supplied by contemptuous or abusive treatment of such as happen to doubt of or oppose the decisive ipse dixi. But to assert,

however nakedly, that a passage in a lewd Novel describ ing the sacred Writings as more likely to pollute the young and innocent mind than a Romance notorious for its indecency-to assert, I say, that such a passage argues equal impudence and ignorance in its' Author, at the time of writing and publishing it-this is not arrogance; although to a vast majority of the decent part of our Countrymen it would be superfluous as a Truism, if it were exclusively an Author's business to convey or revive knowledge, and not sometime his duty to awaken the indigna tion of his Reader by the expression of his own.

A second species of this unamiable quality, which has been often distinguished by the name of Warburtonian arrogance, betrays itself, not as in the former, by proud or petulant omission of proof or argument, but by the habit of ascribing weakness of intellect or want of taste and sensibility, or hardness of heart, or corruption of moral principle, to all who deny the truth of the doctrine, or the sufficiency of evidence, or the fairness of the reasoning adduced in its' support. This is indeed not essentially different from the first, but assumes a separate character from its' accompaniments: for though both the doctrine and its proofs may have been legitimately supplied by the understanding, yet the bitterness of personal criminationwill resolve itself into naked assertion, and we are autho rized by experience, and entitled on the principle of selfdefence and by the law of fair Retaliation in attributing it to a vicious temper arrogant from angry passions, or irritable from arrogance. This learned arrogance admits of many gradations, and is palliated or aggravated, accordingly as the point in dispute has been more or less controverted, as the reasoning bears a greater or smaller proportion to the virulence of the personal detraction, and as the Person or or Parties, who are the Objects of it, are more or less respected, more or less worthy of respect*.

Lastly, it must be admitted as a just imputation of presumption when an Individual obtrudes on the public eye with all the high pretensions of originality, opinions and observations, in regard to which he must plead wilful

• Had the Author of the Divine Legation of Moses more skilfully appropriated his coarse eloquence of Abuse, his customary assurances of the Ideotcy. both in head and heart, of all his opponents; if he had employed those vigorous arguments of his own vehement Humour in the defence of Truth, acknow ledged and reverenced by learned men in general, or had confined them to the names of Chubb, Woolston, and other precursors of Mr. Thomas Payne, we would perhaps still characterize his mode of controversy by its' rude violence;

Ignorance in order to be acquited of dishonest Plagiarism. On the same seat must the writer be placed, who in a disquisition on any important subject proves, by his falsehoods of Omission or positive Error, that he has neglected to possess himself of the previous knowledge and needful information, which such acquirements as could alone authorize him to commence à public Instructor, and the Industry which that character makes his indispensible duty, could not fail of procuring for him. If in addition to this unfitness which every man possesses the means of ascertaining, his aim should be to unsettle a general belief closely connected with public and private quiet; and if his language and manner be avowedly calculated for the illiterate (and perhaps licentious) part of his Countrymen; disgusting as his presumption must appear, it is yet lost or evanescent in the close neighbourhood of his Guilt. That Hobbes translated Homer in English Verse and published his Translation, furnishes no positive evidence of his Selfconceit, though it implies a great lack of Self-knowledge and of acquaintance with the nature of Poetry. A strong wish often imposes itself on the mind for an actual power: the mistake is favoured by the innocent pleasure derived from the exercise of versification, perhaps by the approbation of Intimates; and the Candidate asks from more impartial Readers that sentence, which Nature has not enabled him to anticipate. But when the Philosopher of Malmesbury waged war with Wallis and the fundamental Truths of pure Geometry, every instance of his gross ignorance and utter misconception of the very elements of the Science he proposed to confute, furnished an unanswerable fact in proof of his high presumption; and the confident and insulting language of the attack leaves the

but not so often have heard his name used even by those who have never read his writings, as a proverbial expression of learned Arrogance. But when a novel and doubtful Hypothesis of his own formation was the Citadel to be defended, and his mephetic hand-granados were thrown with the fury of lawless despotism at the fair reputation of a Sykes and a Lardner, we not only confirm the verdict of his independent contemporaries, but cease to wonder, that arrogance should render men an object of contempt in many, and of aversion in all instances, when it was capable of hurrying a Christian Teacher of equal Talents and Learning into a slanderous vulgarity, which escapes our disgust only when we see the writer's own reputation the sole victim. But throughout his great work, and the pamphlets in which he supported it, he always seems to write, as if he had deemed it a duty of decorum to publish his fancies on the Mosaic Law as the Law itself was delivered" in thunders and lightnings" and had applied to his own Book instead of the sacred mount the menace-There shall not a hand touch it but he shall surely be stoned or shot through.

judicious reader in as little doubt of his gross arrogance; An illiterate mechanic who mistaking some disturbance of his nerves for a miraculous call, proceeds alone to convert a tribe of Savages, whose language he can have no natural means of acquiring, may have been misled by impulses very different from those of high Self-opinion; but the illiterate Perpetrator of "the Age of Reason," must have had his very Conscience stupified by the habitual intoxication of presumptuous arrogance, and his common-sense over-clouded by the vapours from his Heart.

As long therefore as I obtrude no unsupported assertions on my Readers; and as long as I state my opinions and the evidence which induced or compelled me to adopt them, with calmness and that diffidence in myself, which is by no means in compatible with a firm belief in thejustness of the opinions themselves; while I attack no man's private life from any cause, and detract from no man's honors in his public character, from the truth of his doctrines, or the merits of his compositions, without detailing all my reasons and resting the result solely on the arguments adduced; while I moreover explain fully the motives of duty, which influenced me in resolving to institute such investigation; while I confine all asperity of censure, and all expressions of contempt, to gross violations of Truth, Honor, and Decency, to the base Corrupter and the detected Slanderer; while I write on no subject, which I have not studied with my best attention, on no subject which my education and acquirements have incapacitated me from properly understanding; and above all while I approve myself, alike in praise and in blame, in close reasoning and in impassioned declamation, a steady FRIEND to the two best and surest Friends of all men, TRUTH and HONESTY; I will not fear an accusation of either Presumption or Arrogance from the Good and the Wise, I shall pity it from the Weak, and despise it from the Wicked.

Note to line 16, page 18.

To cite one instance among many: while I was in Germany for the purpose of finishing my education, whither I was enabled to go by the munificence of my two honoured Patrons, whose names must not be profaned on such an occasion; and from which I returned before the proposed time, literally (I know not whether a Husband and Father ought to be ashamed of it) literally home-sick; one of the writers, concerned in the collection, inserted a note in the