tion. Seeing, or supposing that I saw, a rare combination of piety and honour, entrusted by mistake to a rotten bark, and dreading that

it

may be immersed in impurity though but for a moment, shall I not put forth my hand to pluck it up even by the hair, though at the hazard of disordering a curl, or giving needless alarm? If in aught I have offended, bear with me in consideration of the honesty of my intention, and of the unfeigned regard and respect with which I am,

SIR,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

CALVINUS.

LETTER V.

"If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with

us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they

were not of us."

I. Epist. JOHN, ii. 19.

TO THE REVEREND MR ANDREW THOMSON.

SIR,

I SHALL take the liberty of reporting to you a piece of information that has just been very gravely conveyed to me by a certain credulous gentleman of my acquaintance-were it only that you may see what strange rumours your expressive silence hitherto has set afloat. He came open-mouthed to repeat, from what he conceived good authority, that Mr Thomson had determined to stand by the Magazine, to "pluck up its drowned honour "by the locks," and restore its detected base metal to currency, by stamping his own credit upon it. He added, what he seemed to

reckon a shrewd solution of the riddle, that he had no doubt the officious impertinence of CALVINUS had much weight in determining the conduct of Mr Thomson on this occasion; for that it was quite intolerable to so great a leader of others to be preached to himself, and to have his duty hammered into him by the unceremonious hands of Calvinus. At the hazard of disclosing my own relation to Calvinus, (but without much risk I think of discrediting my sagacity,) I ventured to express my utter disbelief of the text, and my unqualified contempt for the comment. "Can you really give a minute's lodging in your head (said I) to a report

charging this wise and good man with such

perverseness, as to refuse to do his duty if "even Satan bade him? Can you for a mo"ment suspect him of desiring to monopo"lize expostulation, or of demurring to the "application of texts of scripture as a plun"dering of his own armoury, and uncour"teous conversion of his own cannon against "himself?—like the priests in ancient story, "who kept Diana's dogs to try the continence "of the laity, but at last (in consequence of

"their having one night half worried one of the "priests themselves) ordered them all to be

hanged, as having completely lost their ori"ginal instinct." I could scarcely get the honest gentleman, for whose benefit this was meant, to listen to one half of it. He had, it seems, prophesied all along this effect of Calvinus's Letters, contrasted with the civility of the parodist; and, since the days of Jonah, no prophet can bear with patience the disappointment of his predictions. He went away fully convinced that you meant to grant absolution to the Magazine from its offences, and receive it into favour, without even stipulating for leave to re-baptize it, and give it a new name. All my arguments rebounded from him in my own face. When I contended that freedom of suggestion could not be offensive to you who had publicly suggested the radical defects (as you term them) of the Lord's Prayer; he replied with great triumph, that the man who thought himself fit to school the author of that prayer, would never submit to be schooled by Calvinus. Now that he has left me, I shall add, for his edification, that he seems to me to have

judged his wiser neighbour by himself,-for he is richly gifted with that common but miserable magnanimity of a dunce, that makes him, on every occasion, persist in a mistake because it is his own, and erect his bristles against advisers, to shew that he is not a man to be led, and that they who attempt to put a ring through his nostrils mayhap have got the wrong sow by the ear.

This honest man certainly respects you, for he thinks you as wise as himself. And yet what is it that he expects to see you do? He expects to see you forsake your present elevation of sure and upright walking, and lend away so much of your force to a treacherous ally, who will never restore it, that you must be smitten hip and thigh in your very first battle with the British Critic or the Scotch Episcopalians. He expects to see you shave away your locks of strength, and for the sake of being hailed a Goliah among stunted pe, dants and broken-winded maudlin poets, give up the lofty cause and self-approving confidence that made David's arm strong. He supposes you to feel complacency for the parodist because he has not lampooned you, but