The

when you made this fine discovery. Did you really mistake the specimens I gave of professed captious criticism, for serious observations, and indications of mighty passion? I only gave you a string of observations, like your own with regard to me, and in your own language and manner, as nearly as I could imitate it. If they offend you, you have yourself only to blame. Your criticism on my reading, I thought sufficiently obviated by retaliating on your spelling. irony was visible to any that were willing to see it. You take it ill that your Magazine should be compared to the lowest publication in Europe. You have made it so in effect by your last letter, which, for scurrility and violence, is not to be matched by any of the publications of Mr EDMUND CURL, your worthy predecessor. You can make low comparisons enough, but you would not have them retorted upon yourself. Please learn to do as you would be done by. You tax me with using the language of a tinker, by which I suppose you mean a reviewer, these gentry being a kind of literary or book-tinkers, who commonly make as sad work, and use as coarse language as their sable brethren of the hammer. I should be ashamed to use

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their language, unless in irony, or to themselves.

You call all the strictures that have been published on your Magazine mean and contemptible, which is a very short and convenient way of answering them; but perhaps the only one of which you are capable. The faults which disgrace your work are not of the typographical kind. They are much more important. Your fulsome encomiums on the blasphemous works of the Abbé RESNAL, and your commendation of HAWKSWORTHS obscenities, prove that sceptics and infidels have no small share of your charity; while your reproaching the memory of Mr PATRICK HAMILTON, upon mere conjecture, and your unworthy treatment of the Rev. Dr HENRY and Mr WALKER, shew 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. I cannot admit your story of the Highland sergeant to be true; and if you observe the manner in which the Abbé RESNAL introduces it, you will find that he does not affirm it. I must call it ignorance

when you made this fine discovery. Did you really mistake the specimens I gave of professed captious criticism, for serious observations, and indications of mighty passion? I only gave you a string of observations, like your own with regard to me, and in your own language and manner, as nearly as I could imitate it. If they offend you, you have yourself only to blame. Your criticism on my reading, I thought sufficiently obviated by retaliating on your spelling. The irony was visible to any that were willing to see it. You take it ill that your Magazine should be compared to the lowest publication in Europe. You have made it so in effect by your last letter, which, for scurrility and violence, is not to be matched by any of the publications of Mr EDMUND CURL, your worthy predecessor. You can make low comparisons enough, but you would not have them retorted upon yourself. Please learn to do as you would be done by. You tax me with using the language of a tinker, by which I suppose you mean a reviewer, these gentry being a kind of literary or book-tinkers, who commonly make as sad work, and use as coarse language as their sable brethren of the hammer. I should be ashamed to use

their language, unless in irony, or to themselves.

You call all the strictures that have been published on your Magazine mean and contemptible, which is a very short and conve-. nient way of answering them; but perhaps the only one of which you are capable. The faults which disgrace your work are not of the typographical kind. They are much more important. Your fulsome encomiums on the blasphemous works of the Abbé RESNAL, and your commendation of HAWKSWORTHS obscenities, prove that sceptics and infidels have no small share of your charity; while your reproaching the memory of Mr PATRICK HAMILTON, upon mere conjecture, and your unworthy treatment of the Rev. Dr HENRY and Mr WALKER, shew that 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. I cannot admit I cannot admit your story of the Highland sergeant to be true; and if you observe the manner in which the Abbé RESNAL introduces it, you will find that he does not affirm it. I must call it ignorance

you

to mistake fable for history: If you had made the story yourself, I would have called it forgery. And I confess I could have no great opinion of a persons learning, who could not distinguish the history of ALEXANDER the Great, from that of Jack the Giant-killer, or the Seven Wise Masters.

You complain that I attribute the compositions of one person to another. I know none of your gentlemen behind the curtain, and so cannot distinguish their productions. I think nothing is more simple than that each should take what praise or blame is his own, and not meddle with what belongs to others. But it is very unlucky for one to receive a stab in the dark from a society of nameless gentlemen, as one knows not whom to complain of, whether Mr Publisher, Mr Printer, or Mr Reviewer, or the whole Dunciad in conjunction. When a charge is made against one gentleman, another gentleman, who was not charged, nor called, stands forth to defend him, and to deny the fact. This is mighty convenient, but not quite fair. If a society of gentlemen, indicted at the Old Bailey, were to be allowed to be witnesses and compurgators for one another,