tions that rendered me intolerable to myfelf and unfit for fociety. I had reafon to apprehend, in spite of all my caution, that I was now narrowly watched, and that ftrong fufpicions were taken up against me; when as I was feafting my jaundiced eye one morning with a certain newspaper, which I was in the habit of employing as the vehicle of my venom, I was startled at difcovering myself confpicuously pointed out in an angry column as a cowardly defamer, and menaced with perfonal chastisement, as foon as ever proofs could be obtained against me; and this threatening denunciation evidently came from the very author, who had unknowingly given me fuch umbrage, when he recited my poem. The fight of this refentful paragraph was like an arrow to my brain: habituated to fkirmifh only behind entrenchments, I was ill prepared to turn into the open field, and had never put the question to my heart, how it was provided for the emergency: In early life I had not any reafon to suspect my courage, nay it was rather forward to meet occafions in thofe days of innocence; but the meannefs, I had lately funk into, had fapped every manly principle of my nature, and I now discovered to my forrow, that in tak ing up the lurking malice of an affaffin,' I had loft the gallant fpirit of a gentleman. There was still one alleviation to my terrors: it fo chanced that I was not the author of the particular libel, which my accufer had imputed to me; and though I had been father of a thoufand others, I felt myself fupported by truth in almoft the only charge, against which I could havé fairly appealed to it. It seemed to me therefore adviseable to lose no time in disculpating myself from the accufation, yet to seek an interview with this irafcible man was a fervice of fome danger: chance threw the opportunity in my way, which I had probably else wanted fpirit to invite; I accofted him with all imaginable civility and made the ftrongeft affeverations of my innocence: whether I did this with a fervility that might aggravate his fufpicions, or that he had others impreffed upon him befides those I was labouring to remove, so it was, that he treated all I faid with the most contemptuous incredulity, and elevating his voice to a tone, that petrified me with fear, bade me avoid his fight, threatening me both by words and actions in a manner too humiliating to relate. Alas! can words exprefs my feelings? Is there * being more wretched than myself? to be VOL. V. E friendless, friendless, an exile from fociety and at enmity with myself is a fituation deplorable in the extreme let what I have now written be made public; if I could believe my fhame would be turned to others' profit, it might perhaps become lefs painful to myself; if men want other motives to divert them from defamation, than what their own hearts supply, let them turn to my example, and if they will not be reasoned, let them be frightened out of their propensity. I am, Sir, &c. WALTER WORMWOOD. The cafe of this correfpondent is a melancholy one, and I have admitted his letter, because I do not doubt the prefent good motives of the writer; but I fhall not eafily yield a place in these effays to characters fo difgufting, and reprefentations fo derogatory to human nature. The hiftorians of the day, who profefs to give us intelligence of what is paffing in the world, ought not to be condemned, if they fometimes make a little free with our foibles and our follies; but downright libels are grown too dangerous, and fcurrility is become too dull to find a market; the pillory is a great reformer. The detail of a court drawing-room, though not very edify ing, is perfectly inoffenfive; a lady cannot greatly complain of the liberty of the press, if it is contented with the humble task of celebrating the workmanship of her mantua-maker: as for fuch inveterate malice, as my correfpondent Wormwood defcribes, I flatter myself it is very rarely to be found: I can only say, that though I have often heard of it in converfation, and read of it in books, I do not meet in human nature originals so strongly featured as their paintings: amongst a small collection of fonnets in manuscript, descriptive of the human paffions, which has fallen into my hands, the following lines upon Envy, as coinciding with my fubject, fhall conclude this paper. ENVY. "Oh! never let me fee that shape again, Dreadfully fteam'd its peftilential breath. : "Furious thereat, the felf-tormenting sprite Drew forth an afp, and (terrible to fight) "To its left pap the envenom'd reptile prest, "Which gnaw'd and worm'd into its tortur'd breast. "The defperate faicide with pain Writh'd to and fro, and yell'd amain; « And then with hollow, dying cadence cries— 'Tis not this reptile's tooth, that gives the fiartz N° CXXXI. Alter in obfequium plus æquo pronus, et imi HORAT. Am bewildered by the definitions, which me I tits of taphyfical writers give us of the human paffions I can understand the characters of Theo phraftus, and am entertained by his sketches; but when your profound thinkers take the fubject in hand, they appear to me to dive to the bottom of the deep in search of that, which floats upon its furface: If a man in the heat of anger would de |