you pay, a little farther on, no very flattering compliment to the understandings of the public at large, by asserting positively that they cannot understand the subject published expressly for their information and consideration, why do you except Lord Howick from this general charge of inability of comprehension? Did his short and inglorious administration at the head of the Admiralty qualify him peculiarly to judge of the Science of Telegraphs? If you had looked beyond the two or three first pages of my book, you would have found evidence, that the honest man did not pretend to hazard even an opinion on the subject, but referred it to the decision of the then secretary, who had been a writer and secretary at Bencoolen, where certainly the Telegraphic Art was quite unknown. Had you read the Treatise that you profess to review, you would have perceived that this gentleman is stated to be a determined literary enemy of mine, and therefore not very likely to give an impartial opinion on any of my productions. It is distinctly made out, that this gentleman neither read the work he was ordered to report on, nor gave the smallest account of any part of its contents, contenting himself with mere assertions, confuted in every page almost of the book, which you have very carefully misrepresented still farther. To have done me bare justice, you must have censured the injurious treatment experienced by the manuscript; and to get rid of your embarrassment, you immolate me, without mercy, to the official repute of Lord Howick and his secretary. Under such an obvious impression of your partial procedure, I hardly think you free from the charge of bearing false witness against your neighbour, You go on to print being also inclined to think that Mr. Macdonald [by the bye, there is a sort of literary insolence in ringing the changes between Mr. and Colonel Macdonald] had wrapped himself up in the idea of being perfectly original, and that the discovery of his mistake had irritated him to lay his Treatise before the public, who cannot decide on the merits of what they do not understand, or if they did, are unable to promote the furtherance of his design.' Here you assert what is totally un.founded, and appear desirous of destroying the originality of the work, and also to ascribe to me false and unworthy motives for its publication. Your anxiety to justify the planner of the disgraceful expedition to the Dardanelles, and your total unacquaintance with the detail of the Treatise you have so handsomely and so candidly reviewed, have led you into these positive deviations from truth, that ought to be the leading characteristic of your profession. The secretary, in his report before you, is anxious to ascribe the idea of communicating words Telegraphically, in lieu of letters, to his father-in-law, but says this never can be effected, because the inflexions of verbs cannot be provided for. I prove to him that the ancients conveyed by Telegraph, not words only, but sentences, and that no modern can claim originality on this score. My Treatise was composed to prove, that the inflexions or tenses of verbs might be readily and obviously communicated Telegraphically, a thing clearly exemplified in my book. I have amply stated, that to do justice to any useful science, and to make known a system of perfect practicability suppressed by a literary for in office, I

was induced to call the attention of the public to my improvements illustrated in detail. The whole of my system is perfectly original, and you will oblige me and the public much by proving the reverse. After this, I do not envy you your feelings in attempting to mislead the public mind in the sentences. I have quoted. You have done me a gross injustice, and your critique is not, otherwise, creditable either to the heart or head. I possess an ample fortune, acquired, thank God! in distant climates, and do not, therefore, depend on the productions of my pen for subsistence; but sincerely pity poor authors, by whose labours you exist, and whom, at the same time, you wantonly sacrifice to party feelings, splenetic habits, or inexcusable indolence. I would advise you to purchase the picture of the fable of the Boys and the Frogs,' and to stick it up in your studies. It has been decided, that a work meriting ridicule or censure may be treated accordingly; but it remains to be tried in a court of justice, how far a wilful misrepresentation injurious to the character or sale of a book may or may not be actionable. My Treatise you wisely passed over with praise, because you did not understand the subject. If you had let the present work alone, as you were not inclined to do it justice, you would have avoided the satisfaction of perusing this letter, which my regard for truth, and perfect independence of principle and fortune, enable me to write, without fearing an inconvenience of result. There are still two military volumes of mine unreviewed by you. There you may take your revenge, but take care you do not get deeper into the mud, and put it in my power to expose you, not to yourselves, as here, but through various public channels.

"P. S. You are extremely welcome to publish the whole of this letter, but any garbled remarks, such as, that Mr. Macdonald has sent us a very angry letter,' or such like, will force me to publish in reply. Should you feel inclined to answer so charming a correspondent as I am, address to Lieutenant-Colonel Mac donald, Exeter.' 'Mr. Macdonald, Exeter,' would do, but that address might carry your letter to others of the same pretty name, and deprive me of the supreme felicity of hearing from you."!

"To the Critical Reviewers.

"Sirs: Exeter, 4th January, 1809. "Before I proceed to congratulate you on your uncommon merriment at the close of the last year, I beg leave sincerely to wish you a continuance of it, on the same terms, during this; and at the same time that your writings may be characterised by greater candour and adherence to truth than I have proved them to evince in a former instance.

"I read in your Review for December-Lieutenant Colonel Macdonald's letter has afforded us some merriment; we are sorry that he is angry.' I always thought my writings rather of a grave description, and by no means calculated to move the risible muscles of snarling cynics. I fear, however, that the affected merriment stated very much resembles the animating noise made by frightened children in the dark. Your Review is not much known in these parts; but such as have seen it in a circulating library, wish you had imparted to them the letter which had the happy effect of exciting mirth in such critical souls. I beg you will indulge them, and your readers in general, with a perusal of this joyful letter, by publishing the same at the end of your next number: Let the expence be no object, as I will defray that, if reasonable, in order that the Public, whom you record as stupid, may have some conso1. tion from this new style of diverting composition. In the mean time, I shall take no further steps, till I see your next Review. I cannot possibly suppose, that the whole of the members of your critical junta participated in the literary falsehood I have detected, but this must remam a general charge till you do me the favour to point out the delinquent. I suspect some of my enemies have been tampering with you; if so, naine him, and rely on it, that I shall make him infinitely more mirthful than such grave people, as you are, have been made by my fascinating pleasantry. Were I in London, I certainly would throw away a few guineas in ascertaining, from the opion of counsel, whether I might be able, in support of literature and truth, to AMUSE you with a case at Nisi Prius. I think a jury of honest men would trounce you, at least in this instance, pretty handsomely. This still hangs over you, to sustain your merriment. Do let me hear from you.

Sir,

To the Editor of the Antijacobin Review.

London, March 6, 1809.

I have long been a reader of your Review, and it affords me pleasure to reflect that there is such a work as the Antijacobin. It acts as a powerful antidote to the poison contained in most of the periodical works of the present day. In one of your former numbers you reviewed a work, intitled, "Hints to the Legislature, &c." the author of which asserted, and your reviewer seemed to believe the assertion, that the rapid increase of Evangelical Religion, alias Methodism, was portentous of the greatest danger to our Established Church. Now I think it is lamentable to be obliged to witness the increase of any sect; yet with due deference to the opinion both of your reviewer and the barrister, I conceive that the church is in very little danger from the Methodists, Numeri

ނ

tally, they are, perhaps, a large body; but their general stock of abilities is so very slender, that though urged on by the wildest superstition, they have not talents sufficient to form or execute any plans for the destruction of the Church. But there is a sect from whom we have much more to fear than from the Methodists; a sect characterised by the excellent Bishop Burgess, in his "First Principles of Christianity," as a species of Deists calling themselves. Unitarians. These are the men, Sir, whom we ought to fear; till lately, they have not worn a terrific aspect; they have for a long while lain in nearly a dormant state; but now, the exertions which they are making for the spread of their heretical opinions are almost incredible. They are forming themselves into societies in all parts of the kingdom, and in the metropolis they have united themselves in the closest bonds of union. Funds are esta-' blished for the support of poor congregations, and missionaries are` sent by them into the remotest corners of the empire. They have lately published what they call an improved version of the Testament (which I hope will be soon properly noticed in your Review), and they have the direction of almost every periodical publication. At present they are formidable only from their wealth and abilities, soon they will be as formidable from their numbers. Now then is the time to strangle the monster ere it arrive to maturity. The Toleration Act extends not to them, they disbelieve the Trinity. Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot, were not formidable from their numbers, yet what a hellish plot they planned and executed to destroy the throne of their king and the altars of their God! May the Abbé Barrueil's history be a warning to us! I make no apology for requesting you to publish these remarks, for I consider your Review as almost the only one devoted to the cause of orthodoxy.

I am,
Sir,
Your

DR. MILNER's TOUR IN IRELAND, AND THE IRISH

SAINTS.

To the Editor of the Aptijacobin Review.

February 6, 1809.

IT is said, that some weeks previous to his departure for Ireland, Dr. M. was seen at Billinsgate listening attentively to the instructive and highly entertaining discourse of the nymphs, who inhabit that region. Now as the Dr. places has supreme bliss in clear controversy, in loco uxoris, and as he esteems dispute insipid, when it. is temperate and rational, some persons gravely suppose that the Dr. lent an ear to the pugilistic females of Billingsgate, for the express purpose of deriving a few elegant tropes, metaphors, and sturdy epithets, from their impassioned eloquence. We do not mean to deny that the Dr.'s exalted and congenial taste must have made him feel a lively interest in the wordy war of those fish-dispensing

females; but we humbly opine that the Popish Bishop consecrated his visit to Billingsgate by a religious motive. It took place, we understand, just before Lent. The Bishop of Castobella was about to perform an act of humiliation, mortification, and fasting; he was about to starve the flesh; and in order to observe the rigid and austere abstinence, which his Church prescribes, he went, we conjecture, to Billingsgate to purchase a monstrous stock of prime fish, upon which, no doubt, he fasted with appropriate luxury, and due solemnity. It is plain, therefore, that we are willing to attribute the Popish Bishop's visit to Billingsgate to a high and religious motive; not that we mean to deny him the praise of having been charmed and ravished, when there, by what he esteems the sweet music of syrens, as some persons are known to resort to the city for the express purpose of delighting their ears with the noise of drays and waggons "grating harsh thunder," which they greatly prefer to the Italian opera, or a concert at Hanover-square.

We are strengthened in our opinion, that Dr. M.'s visit was a religious one, by the consideration that the Dr. was not so much in the horn-book of Billingsgate eloquence, as to need repairing thither for instruction at so late a period let us recollect a little; the Dr., notwithstanding his vows of celibacy, has entered into the conjugal state with Controversy for some years past. To those, who are ignorant of the family of the Dr.'s wedded wife, be it known, that she is an illegitimate daughter of that meretricious termagant, called Sophistry-she is easily to be distinguished from Controversy, the legitimate and eldest born of sound and healthy Logic. At an early period, the Dr.'s cara sposa gave, by the impudence of her air and attitude, and her bold and insulting manner, proofs of a disposition delighting in fierce and angry contention, and of being possessed of that truly feminine accomplishment of "having the last word."

It is true, however, that the Dr.'s Tour in Ireland exceeds all his former works in his favourite virulence and coarse invective, and malignity of writing, of which he is so passionately enamoured. The opinion, therefore, formed by some, as to the reason of Dr. M.'s visit to Billingsgate, is at least plausible, and claims great allowance, as his Tour in Ireland was published at a period not long subsequent to his visit to the fish-market, so that he may be supposed to have retained fresh in his recollection those animated and precious figures of speech, which those who wish to hear to the life must resort to Billingsgate itself; but a proof impression of which may be contemplated in Dr. M.'s Tour. We should have no objection to ranking the Dr. as a worthy disciple of that female school of oratory, did we not consider him as one who in this respect "nascitur, non fit." In his Tour in Ireland, he seems, with the true enthusiasm of innate Billingsgate oratory, to aim at the "aliquod immensum infinitumque" of invective and coarse abuse. The Dr. has attempted, and has nobly succeeded, iu discarding from his Tour the language and manner, which are indicative of a polite, temperate, and accomplished mind- such language and manner the Dr. soars above? to adopt them, he deems a vulgar error confined only to frigid and pedantic scholars, such as are bred at our Protestant Universities.