imposture, carry their heads too high to be reached by any other weapon than the shaft of ridicule. This conviction has induced us to volunteer our services in the cause, and prompted an endeavour to encourage virtue, by raising the laugh against her adversary. It has emboldened us, to commit, for the first time, our effusions to the press; and I know not whether it proceeded from the innate modesty of my uncle, who was in truth a very diffident man, or from his fear of encountering the critics in propria persona; but so it happened, that all the publications with which he favored the world (and, as his profession and sole dependence was authorship, they must have been numerous to have supplied him even with salt and cheese) were dismissed from the press under fictitious names, and with some little circumstances in the preface, that might interest the compassion of the reader; such as, "that it was his first effort in print;" that "he was compelled to publish by the intreaty of his friends, &c. &c."— Asurly critic might call this proceeding disingenuous; and accuse my relation of a falsity in his first pages. But I will be bold to say, if his Exordiums contained an untruth, they were the only parts of his works to which that charge might be applied; as he scorned the common practice of modern writers in this respect, poets, historians, and biographers, that of stuffing every page with to send them out as adventurers upon the stormy ocean of the world. Not, indeed, without a palpitating heart; for we have often been ready to condemn the rashness of our determination; and to exclaim with the foolish Corydon, Eheu! quid volui misero mihi? Floribus austrum But as we had entered into a creditable service, and resolved to challenge the same honor which Cleland attributes to Pope, "not to write a line of any man, which through guilt, through shame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interest, we should be ever unwilling to own," so we have been able to conquer our alarms, and to present our virgin muse (if there be one whose tutelage extends to dialogues), intacta puella, to the public. Far be it from us, therefore, to deprecate candid criticism, or to crave aught at the hands of the reviewers, save justice seasoned sentiments that never were felt; transactions that never happened; and events that never occurred. EDITOR. with mercy. Against one set of censors only we beg leave to put in our eternal protest -the wretched hirelings of the A-i J—n Review, who have neither sagacity to detect blemishes, taste to discover beauties, nor liberality to bestow the fair meed of praise on any writer whose principles are not in unison with their own mean, confined, and despicable opinions*. POSTSCRIPT. Though we cannot venture to assert with a great wit, "that the sentiments of our speakers are so peculiar, and the touches of character so masterly, as to preclude the necessity of a key;" yet we flatter ourselves that our sketches bear such a resemblance * How offensive is truth to those who have no taste for her charms! Even this just representation of the publication in question, and its conductors, so inflamed the indignation of the A-J- reviewers, as to destroy the little good-breeding they possessed, and excite them to give my uncle the lie! But he, good man, only smiled at their incivility, and contented himself with the reflection that the abuse of such men, is the most unqualified praise. EDITOR. to their originals, as will enable the reader, without much consideration, to put the cap upon its right owner throughout. Should the likenesses, however, prove less striking to others than to ourselves, we beg that this ill-success of the painter may not be attributed to our having accompanied the portraits with circumstances which do not belong to them; as we pledge ourselves, that almost every anecdote is legitimately connected with the person of whom it is told, and that most of the incidents introduced are genuine facts. London, November 1st, 1807. |