in this manner, it would no doubt save a great many lives.

You reproach me with having been bred in a printers shop; a sure proof that the letter was not wrote by a printer, who could never reckon his own profession an indignity. But how you think it an indignity for one clergyman to be bred in a printing house, any more than for another to have been bred in an ale-house, I am at a loss to imagine, and would propose it as a problem to the curious.

You call me a spouter of plays in the General Assembly; but your great learning hindered you from knowing that St PAUL, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, and CICERO, in his oration pro Vatinio, have quoted plays as well as I did. I can bear any epithet that applies to such men as these. The Younger PLINY treats a remark like yours, upon my reading plays, with great contempt: Cur tragœdiam, quæ non auditorium, sed scenam et actores postulat, recitari concedunt?—At harum recitatio usu jam recepta est: num ergo culpandus est ille qui cæpit? How the allusion to a modern critic

could have given you such offence, or have been thought to point out a particular gentleman, unless that gentleman is conscious of guilt, I am unable to imagine. Critics are a tribe almost as numerous as caterpillars or politicians; so that any charge against one of these must seem very far from a particular one. But your denying the charge is superlatively comical. You say you are authorised to do so; but pray, Sir, by whom? Are you Advocate-general for all the critics and profligates of Great Britain? If so, till you produce your commission, your denial must go for nothing.

You accuse me of endeavouring to make your Magazine odious to a certain party in this Church; but you are not aware how much you have done that way yourself, especially when you constantly call a body of clergymen (inferior in nothing, except numbers, to their opponents) by the name of the

wild party. This proves the truth of the remark you make in your preface, that "you have declined joining with any of the religious factions in Scotland;" and is no great invitation for them to write in your Magazine. You likewise call those who would

exalt church-authority, in some cases, above the rights of conscience, the moderate party, which is as complete Irish as when you tell us in your last number, p. 403. of "a canoe appearing to two persons fast asleep on the banks of lake Ontario." I hinted it as the opinion of others, that the Reviewers had a master, whom they were under the necessity of pleasing. But you have convinced me, that the gentleman in question knew nothing of your last number, as he never uses language like yours. You say, that it is observable, that the only Wilkites among the clergy (I suppose you mean friends to liberty and the constitution) are a few of the wild party. You are doubly mistaken to my knowledge. They are neither a few, nor wholly of that party, who wish well to liberty and the faith of charters. But you are quite surprising when you tell us, that the only Jacobites of the clergy in the rebellion 1745 were of that party. They must be very wild principles indeed, that incline people at once to such opposites as Jacobitism and Liberty, passive obedience and the constitution. A philosopher must be diverted by so bizarre an appearance. If the principles of the Wilkites and Jacobites are the same, as

attribute them to the same persons, pray you why is not Mr WILKES preferred at Court?

BUT I am determined to write no more on this subject. You were the aggressor, and have no right to complain of my defending myself. I have even a title to the last word. If you use foul language, you can neither disturb nor hurt me. All the regret I have suffered is that of having lost some pages of St AUGUSTINE, while I have been animadverting on your genteel performance. You say you wish me a calmer temper and a sounder understanding. Pray, Sir, next time you put on your wishing-cap, be so good as wish me your polite manners, and your happy talents for criticism.

I SHALL not presume to offer you any advice; but you will accept a hint from an old rhetorician, by some mistaken for CICERO. Desine bonos petulantissima consectari lingua: Desine morbo procacitatis isto uti: Desine unumquemque moribus tuis æstimare. His moribus amicum tibi facere non potes: videris velle inimicum habere. I am, in all good humour, and with all deserved esteem,

Sir, your very humble servant,

Montrose, 21. Aug. 1775. CHARLES NISBET.

NOTE FROM MR SMELLIE.

The Edinburgh Magazine and Review, vol. iv, p. 504.

MR NISBETS second letter appeared in the Caledonian Mercury of Wednesday August 30th, a period of the month when it was impossible to answer it completely; and before two days of September have passed, it will be on the road to oblivion. The readers of this work, who are disposed to take a peep at it, will remark a beautiful confusion of ideas, not unworthy of the reverend writer, who found it difficult to reply to arguments which were irrefragable, and who, it is probable, in evidence of some of his falsehoods, has not yet found leisure to subborn his witnesses, and to prepare against their detection. His first letter showed him to be not only weak, but worthless. His second confirms his first; and, if the importunity of his friends can prevail with him to write a third, it may possibly apologize for both, by discovering that his wits are turned the seamy side