confined you. You have praised instead of condemned a work, so highly ministerial, and, what is worse, so able, that, if this goes on, my paper will be ruined. If you choose to set up for yourself, well and good; but in that case, I have no farther occasion for your services.

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"I am your humble servant,

"SIMON SOURKROUT.”

"But

Affronting enough," said Granville. had he then confined you to a particular line, and did you go from your agreement?"

"Quite the contrary," said Graves; " for I would not be bound, and the consequence was, that as I was paid by the piece for the works he should send, knowing my turn, he seldom sent me any; and you may therefore judge of the insolence of such a note."

"God keep me from such petty tyrants!” cried Granville; "and you, my friend, from such thraldom. We must try what can be done for

you."

At this we took our leave, and I left him with a melancholy feeling that such things could be, from which I did not recover during all the way back to Granville's lodgings.

When there, I broke out into a long jeremiad, that such miseries (which till now I had never witnessed) could be allowed to belong to the republic of letters.

"You have miscalled it republic," said Gran

ville; "at least if a republic mean an assemblage of freemen ;-for never was such a set of tyrants as some of these self-installed usurpers; who, if indeed a republic, claim to be the perpetual dictators of it."

"You describe, however," said I, " 66 persons of very superior powers, and who, I suppose, are unrivalled for taste, and irresistible in their judgments; acquainted with all ancient and modern lore; versed in all sciences, and all arts."

"The arts of humbug and the science of abuse, if you will," replied Granville, "but no other. Recollect, however, I speak but of some editors, and not at all of those distinguished persons, both in station and knowledge, who lend criticism their able assistance; themselves (many of them) approved authors in prose and verse, poets, historians, and divines."

"You allow, then," said I, " that there are, as there ought to be, judges in literature, as there arè in law ?"

Undoubtedly,” replied Granville; "it is good for authors themselves, as well as for literature, that their faults should be pointed out. But as the judge in law pronounces sentence with dignity, and can never be personal without lowering his character, so the judge of authors can never call names without forfeiting his judicial function. He

then becomes a mere thrower of dirt, and liable, as

well as deserving, to be pelted in return." "Nothing more just," said I. "But you talk of it, as if throwing dirt were part of a system." "Judge for yourself," said he; "for having, as you know, myself been an amateur reviewer, I have sometimes been let behind the scenes, and once made a curious discovery of crypt secrets."

"Where, and when ?" asked I.

"The time, not long ago; the place, the backparlour of that very Sourkrout who used poor Graves so ill. Though then a great ally, he has since quarrelled with me for not getting his son a place, which he thought I could do, and as a natural consequence, abuses me now thick and threefold. I ought not, however, to complain, for his abuse was far less injurious to me than his praise.

“I never injured you,' said he to me one day. “Yes, you did,' replied I, 'for you spoke well of me.'

"This increased our breach."

"Which originally began because you could not get his son a place?"

66

Exactly so; but the best is, he was most displeased because I treated his criticism with con

tempt; for I shewed no resentment.

you would not speak to me,' said he, blow of mine, last week.'

"I thought

6

after that

"I was not aware of it,' returned I.

"The devil you were'nt,' replied he. Yet it was a pretty sharp one.'

6

"A blow must hurt, or do some damage, to cause resentment,' said I, so you are safe.' Mr. Sourkrout at this walked off, and has never spoken to me since."

"But your discovery?” said I.

"It was this. In the days of our friendship, boasting of the perfection to which he had brought the art of periodical criticism, so as to insure the rapidity so necessary for the shop, he one day shewed me a common-place book, drawn up by himself to facilitate it. In this was an article entitled Epithets, composed of two columns, favourable and unfavourable. The first had very little belonging to it; but the other was such a volume of Billingsgate, as almost put me to flight. There were ranged in order, under the head of Epithets, 'fool, dolt, bœotian, worm, spider, carrion,―ravings, brayings, slaver-mendacious, mare's nest, pick thank, toad-eater, lickspittle.'

"This you would think enough; but these were single epithets. There were, therefore, compounds, or a kind of half-sentences, as 'insane and silly being; bloated mass of self-conceit; absurdity and insolence; pitiful piece of puling; consummate arrogance; debility of understanding, and fee

bleness of genius; abominable egotism and dogmatism.'*

"This was for any persons who presumed to laugh at Mr. Sourkrout, of whom, to his astonishment, there were not a few.

"Then came whole sentences, ready cut and dried. No knowledge of facts; style below mediocrity; dull details; not a spark of enlightened thought; totally ignorant of the spirit of the age; behind it by at least a hundred years.'

"This was for historical writers.

“Then followed bigot, zealot, reverend blockhead, inquisitor, burnings in Smithfield, intolerance, ignorance, those old women the Fathers; dreams, hypocrisy, mammon of bishops;' in short, odium theologicum in all its details.

"This was for divines.

"Then again, Incapable of drawing a character; has seen no life, and not able to describe it if he had; fails in his heroines; has no knowledge of the heart, like Richardson; of manners, like Fielding; of pathos, like Sterne; or of the world at large, like Le Sage.'

* You may doubt, reader, but in this polite age, all these epithets are to be found in one or other of the daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly literary press. Yet these are from the pens of scholars and the liberally educated. No doubt, as the writers are men who think they have the learning of Scaliger, they would prove it by imitating his temper and elegance. diaboli," and "lutum stercore maceratum,” were some of his phrases towards those he attacked.

"Stercus