tually faithful; we never hear a taylor factors, for the most infamous crimes, depreciate a taylor by calling him the find compassion in some heart, when ninth part of a man, nor an attorney caught in the toils of justice, and condemn an attorney for acts of un- doomed to expiate their delinquency; mingled villainy. No: they are tho- but the bad author none. His miseroughly embued with the esprit du ries are sport, his sorrows are festivity, corps, and thus far merit praise. But to the blood-hounds engaged in the it is no such thing with authors. On chase. The man who commits adul the contrary, I believe the bitterest tery, who ravages domestic peace, sarcasms, and the most humiliating who blights the fair hopes of an inno insinuations, have proceeded from au- cent unsuspecting family, who roots thors themselves: nay, I can assert out from the breast of an injured husfrom my own experience, that I have band the love and happiness that had more frequently and more uniformly there grown, he, even he, finds an heard the profession contemptuously end to persecution, and his name spoken of by those who were at the ceases to be a watchword for ridicule very time exercising it, than by those or infamy: the murderer is treated who were removed from its concerns. with decency and feeling, and brutaIt is evident, indeed, that the world lity itself disdains wantonly to probe have drawn their opinions from the the sores of a corrupted heart. But declarations of authors themselves. let an author publish a work that is Satirists, novelists, dramatists, essay deficient in excellence, who is there writers, and epigram-mongers, are that does not think he has a right to the sources whence flows all that lay the feelings of that author at his scurrile abuse, which it has long been feet, with all the insulting derision of the fashion to vent upon the subalterns mockery? Is he not marked out for of literature. the most piercing ridicule, or the It often happens, that what should grossest contempt? Is not his name be partial becomes indiscriminate mercilessly sported with? Is not his censure; and such has been the case very character, his moral character, in the present instance. Bad authors, often implicated by some ungenerous by what fatality I know not, have in sarcasm, or some witty insinuation? all ages been a proscribed race of ani- Is he not denounced as a dunce or mals, the fair game of unfeeling block- an idiot? And whence all this? what heads and illiberal wits; vulgar and harm has been committed? Remem gross abuse has been heaped upon ber, I speak here of works that are them with an unsparing hand; a few deficient in some supposed requisites great names have led the way, and of taste, judgment, or information:insolence and ignorance have joined those of an indecorous or an immoral in the pursuit. It seems to have been tendency I consign over to the utmost an established maxim, that to write scope of infamy and degradation. But badly is a crime of such magnitude as I ask, what injury has been commitadmits of no atonement; it so tho- ted, what harm can be committed, by roughly strips the delinquent of all the publication of merely an indiffe social rights, it casts him forth from rent work, that it should be thought the hospitable circle of his fellow. a just plea for overstepping every creatures with such marks of infamy boundary of feeling and humanity, and disgrace upon him, that humanity every limit of justice and liberality? itself forbears to appear in his behalf. Why too, I ask, is this merciless fury, Nothing that is vented against him; in the case of failure, shewn only to no abuse, however flagrant; no lam authors?-an engraver, a painter, a poon, however malignant; no satire, musician, or any other artist, issues however false, and therefore the more a production that is found to be inpoignant: no ridicule, however in- correct, or not worthy of public atsupportable; in fact, not the most sa- tention: but in this case every thing vage ferocity, which can come into ac- thing is finished when you state this tion under the veil of literary rancour, incorrectness, and the unsuccessful is thought to be misapplied when di- candidate is peacefully left to produce rected against him who has written, other works of greater excellence, by without excellence. Common male- a more matured application of his talents. No one presumes, no one and how innocently he attempts to thinks, of holding him up to ridicule pluck some of its tempting treasure, and infamy, of fixing a stigma upon who gives a book to the world that is his name, that it carries with it a sort neither inimoral nor vicious, and then of judicial condemnation upon every tell me, ye who are foremost in the thing to which it may hereafter be ungenerous pursuit, what adequate prefixed. motive you have for such baseness? Again, this malignant warfare, this Has he injured you, or ought belongdisgraceful hostility, is carried on by ing to you? Has he injured any one? those who are themselves authors, and Has he committed a crime? Has he often authors of acknowledged inferi- done any thing that can give one moority to those whom they thus villify. ment's disquietude to any human being This is unseemly, and marks a most but himself?—No. Blush then to rancorous nature. But I call upon those delight so much in the production of who exercise this enmity, to remem- misery; that you can, unprovoked, ber the great retributive maxim of fix a sting in the breast of an unof our religion," Do unto others as you fending individual, whose only crime would be done by;" and to consider is, that his talents are beneath perfecwhat would be their feelings if thus tion; for scarcely any book that ever treated. No man spends hours, and has, or ever will be published, can be days, and weeks, upon an object, so utterly destitute of the meanest without being more or less interested ability, as not to furnish instruction or in its ultimate success: no man per- delight to some class or other of our haps has sufficient apathy to bring a fellow-creatures. Reverence the sor◄ work to its completion, without in- rows of the human heart; and never dulging pleasing hopes of its merit, level the same engines against harmand imparting those hopes to friends less inferiority, that you would use to and relatives: the ambition of pleas- crush the aspiring wickedness of vice ing or instructing our fellow-creatures and infamy. Prove that the want of is certainly the most honourable when ability, that the mere publication of successful, the most harmless when an indifferent book, is a crime, and unsuccessful: the mere mortification one that entitles its perpetrator to of neglect carries with it pain enough malicious aspersions and unfeeling without the infliction of other punish- scorn, and then I consent that, as a ment. But consider for a moment crime, it meet its due punishment: under what complicated torture a sen- but until that be done, and it never sitive mind must writhe, who not can be done, I must consider the wanonly sees his fancied laurels wither, tou abuse of such writers among the but beholds himself attacked with worst actions of degraded and un causeless rancour: every art employ- manly minds. ed to render him an object of ridicule I have been led unintentionally to or contempt; the public called upon offer this vindication for what are to feast at a banquet, where his heart usually called "bad authors:" but it and mind are served up for the repast. was incidental to my subject, and I With what diminished pleasure he do not regret it; for to lift my voice meets those friends, the sharers of his against aggression and cruelty of any anticipated glory; with what faded description will always be to me an excellence he stands before his rela- occasion of triumph and delight. tives, thus decried and thus hunted; I have already observed, that what. with what a fallen self-estimation he should be partial censure, often beperhaps ever after views himself. It comes indiscriminate; and it is thus may be that he affects to treat his per- that the popular ridicule and obloquy secutors with scorn, with indifference; which has been attached to "bad" or, and this indeed were wisdom's part; more judiciously speaking, to`" unbut from himself he cannot conceal successful authors," has been transthe galling truth, that his name has ferred, with heedless impropriety, to been committed to derision and oblo- the whole of them. The manifest quy, and that with his name his feel- injustice of this proceeding needs no ings have been wrecked. Think how exposition; it would be unjust, even small is the circle of human happiness, were the contempt legitimate in its original application; but when in its rations place them above the hirelings first excitation it rests upon cruelty of a master. remove. and falsehood, how greatly is its ini- I am fully aware of an objection quity increased in every subsequent that will here be made, and I am prepared to meet it. It will be said, that I cannot sufficiently lament that men of independent circumstances, self-degradation which literary men so men of lettered ease, a Gibbon, a frequently shew. I verily believe, Hume, a Lyttleton, a Bolingbroke, that a taylor would fling his goose at a Pope, are exempt from these saran impertinent individual who should casms; that they are levelled only at slyly insinuate about the quantity of the drudges of literature, at those who cabbage which said taylor might de- write for bread, and who are often vour the heroic valour of the man of compelled, from their necessities, to shreds would be rouzed into action, sacrifice their principles to their wants. and with eloquence peculiar to him- But this only aggravates the evil: this self he would vindicate his profes- only shews that venal and envenomed sional dealings. But how mean, com- tongues spare their malice and their pared even with this heroism, does an poison before the throne of wealth; author appear, when a senseless wit- that they as basely flatter the bloated ling chooses to play his sarcasms off sons of pride and consequence, as they upon him! How quiescently he suf. meanly persecute and slander the suffers the gross and wretchedly vulgar fering children of poverty and misery. imputations to exist, that he "lives This is indeed the common system of in a garret," that he "resides in Grub debased and fallen minds: it does not Street," that he is a "poor devil of an however diminish the grievance I author," that he is a "bookseller's complain of, but doubles its torture, hack," and a thousand other degrading by adding insult to oppression. expressions, which tend to sink the grant, that among those who follow object of them in the estimation of literature as a profession, and as a society. Mean and infamous asper- means of subsistence, they who suffer sions! but more mean and infamous the probability of want to warp their beings, who tamely suffer them to be principles, to corrupt their minds, made: nay, smile and chuckle at the and to seduce them to the post of vevery moment they are made, and nal and hired puppets, deserve indeed shew by their complacency and good- the strongest censures of indignant nature, that they are content they virtue; but, that little and petty minds should be regarded as the butt of should therefore indulge themselves every malignant or every foolish scur- in disgraceful calumnies against men rility. I say nothing of the contemp- struggling with poverty in the labours tible beings, who think they exhibit of intellect, is a species of tyranny signs of amazing sagacity when they that calls for the loudest reprobation. attempt to degrade the pursuits of li- Think how many piercing insults, terature: but I do honestly abhor the how many degrading circumstances, unmanly and spiritless creatures that how many humbling situations, must can bow to such obloquy. Some in- have been endured by a Johnson, a deed there are, and I have known Goldsmith, a Collins, a Thomson, a them, who, not content with humbly Dryden, an Otway, and many others, tolerating abusive ignorance, are before the irresistible and commandthemselves foremost to depreciate a ing influence of their genius awed profession which they exercise. This into silence the hooting owls that beis still more insulting. If they have set their path. Let us learn wisdom adopted a system they are ashamed from experience; and when we are of, let them abandon it; let them sink tempted to wound the feelings of an back to their original insignificance, author, who is at present toiling in and bow behind the counter, or cringe obscurity, let us reflect, that perhaps to the petty tyrant of an attorney's we are casting a momentary gloom office: but let them be honest and over the mind, or giving a pang to the manly enough to shew that they re- heart of a future Johnson, or a future spect a situation which gives them Collins. And even should it not be subsistence, and whose meanest ope- so, should the object of our gibes and CALEMBOur. REVOLUTIONARY MANIA. scorns be an irrevocable child of insipidity and dullness, yet even they are The etymology of this word, which respectable, for they are at least en- is used in France for a kind of pun, in deavouring to employ the faculties of which the sound of one or more that quality of man, which, in its words is preserved, but not the lowest state of healthfulness, has dig- spelling, has not been ascertained. nity enough to command attention. It is said, that it was occasioned by Why should an humble labourer in the curate of a place called Calemliterature, though he produce nothing bourg, in Flanders, having published but ephemeral works, novels that are a collection of bad jests. read and forgotten, or poetry that is never read at all, why should he be more hardly treated than an humble tradesman, who does his best in the line of life he has chosen? Nay, why should the writer of a halfpenny ballad not meet the same negative protection as a journeyman pastry-cook, or a journeyman gingerbread-maker? Is not the former, who produces a song, however wretched in composition, so it be pure in sentiment, more usefully employed than the latter in mixing up nauseous compounds, to destroy the tone and health of our stomachs? The truth of this no one can disprove. In my next I shall pursue this subject further, and shew the superiority of intellectual pursuits, whether of the highest or lowest order, when exercised in the cause of virtue, and designed to amuse or instruct any class of our fellow-creatures, above mere manual occupation, above clerks and waiting-maids, above indolent affluence or prating insignificance. THE BEE.-No. III. omnia nos. SHAKSPEAre. The French have only one term, confitures, for pickles and confections. The best preserved fruit at Paris is that of the julian, or green plumb, called those of Queen Claude; but in the time of the revolution they were cried through the streets prunes de la citoyenne Claude! SANTEUIL. The epitaph on this poet has not been generally understood: "Cy git le celebre Santeuil, Muses et fous prens le deuil." "Here lies interred Santeuil, Mourn each muse, and every fool." Santeuil wrote elegant Latin poetry, but was at the same time of so eccentric a character, as sometimes to pass for a madman. Hence the epitaph, which cannot, however, be said to be the work of a friend. FONTENELLE. This celebrated writer had a brother at Paris, who was an abbé. Being asked what his brother did, he answered, "In the morning he says mass; and in the evening he don't know what he says." ABBE PREVOST. On the 23d of Octobes, 1763, this celebrated author of some popular noTHIS writer speaks of the Baccha- vels was struck with an attack of nalian orgies of the Danish court. apoplexy, while walking in the forest No doubt he was impressed with the of Chantilly. He was carried to the visit of the Danish monarch to his curacy of the nearest village, where brother-in-law, James I. of England, the rash and ignorant surgeon inthe deep potations of the foreign stantly proceeded to open the body. prince having astonished and infected On plunging his knife into the belly, the English countries, and even the the supposed dead man uttered a ladies. An old author informs us, piercing cry, to the horror of the asthat a masque being to be performed one evening for the entertainment of the Danish king, by several ladies of the court representing many ideal virtues, Patience got out of humour, and began to scold; Temperance was dead drunk, and vomited in the royal presence; while Justice reeled about; and Fortitude fell and broke her nose. sistants, who perceived, too late, that he was alive. Notwithstanding every care the wound was mortal. THE WALTZ. This is a very fascinating dance. It is a beautiful sight to see a succession of ten or a dozen couples, for example, joined together, like planet and satellite, turning in eddying whirl round an immense circle, and to ob- sentiment, whose justice has appeared serve the truth with which that circle to some to have been confirmed by is described. The gentleman places future events. he did not conceal: his right hand round the waist of the nay, he published it in an advertiselady, while her left rests negligently ment; and of course the whigs, now on his shoulder. Their other arms become courtiers, were alienated are in some sort entwined, so as to from him: and though he had the get a firm hold. Thus, face to face, voices of the people, he could no and, as it were, encircled in each longer expect the votes of the freeother's arms, they begin their giddy holders. The election was languid. motion. In each lunation they make Though no cockades were distributed, six steps, or count six quickly and nor carriages provided, the people still thus they proceed till they have per- hailed their favourite candidate, and formed several complete revolutions at his return from Brentford, a numeround the great circle. . REMARKABLE EFFECT OF HORROR. : Sir FRANCIS Burdett. Tafforded an rous concourse re-echoed his sentiments. The poll was kept open the usual time of fifteen days, and instead of Sir F. Burdett, the county of Middlesex saw itselt represented by Mr. Mellish, a gentleman well known in the Bank of England, and upon the Exchange. (From Stow's" Annals.”) A person lately living in this hamlet (Poplar, a village on the Thames, adjoining Black wall), having a great concern for the safety of a ship that was like to break her back at Blackwall, had his blood and spirits set The absence of Sir F. Burdett from into such an extraordinary ferment, parliament was beneficial, because it or ebullition rather, by the fear of her left the two great parties perfectly miscarriage, that by the violence of it, free from that interference in favour the tops of the nails of his hands and of the people, which both evidently feet were cast off to a great distance deprecated. They both had now an op from their natural situation, and so portunity of shewing themselves, and remained to his death! such was the determination of Sir Francis, that there seemed little probability of their discussion being interrupted by his interference. These extraordinary circumstances brought him again upon the stage; and it is opportunity of to be hoped, that his future parlia making this trial, as complete as cir- mentary career will be the means cumstances will admit. A change of restoring to the people their origi of administration would, it might be nal share in the constitution. thought, have given a decisive pre- Every body knew that the whig ponderance to Sir Francis; but he administration could have no solid preferred the speaking of his mind to ground of support but from popular the obtaining of a seat in the House measures. What reason they had to of Commons. He courted no party: expect this support cannot appear he looked to the people. The new from the system they adopted. We ministers, who had coalesced with have already mentioned their paneLord Grenville, and made the Lord gyrics on Mr. Pitt. This alone was Chief Justice of the King's Bench a enough to alienate from them the cabinet minister; who had voted a popular party, and their strange meamonument to Mr. Pitt, and the pay sures for the royal family; the sepa ment of his debts; who were daily rating the king's private property in panegyrising the acts of that man, the funds from that of other indiviwhom, when out of power, they were duals; and making the meanest perperpetually exclaiming against; these son in the kingdom pay a very severe new ministers were not the men from tax, no less than a tenth part of his whom Sir Francis expected any interest, though it might be only ten thing to be done in earnest for the pounds a year, whilst he, who was revival of the constitution, and for most able to pay the tax, was screened the interest of the people. This his from paying it; the making of Mr. |