tily dictated, and servilely subscribed to. The Public Interests will have been committed into the hands of those who are before pledged and bound to sacrifice and surrender them, and the Honour and the Security of the Country will be irretrievably lost.

If such be the plan now in agitation (and I have already stated that I have good reason to believe it) we may naturally expect that the first symptom of it will be discovered in Communications with those parts of Opposition, who have been most conversant in Foreign Correspondence, and Intrigues of every description. We shall hear of some French Agent sent over on some Ostensible Pretence, but with a Secret Mission to some great Ex-Minister, who may first contrive to have it circulated in whispers, that he has the means of terminating the War in his pocket. We shall find the Public Expectation gradually raised by these rumours. We shall see artifices employed to influence the price of the Funds; and when the Plan is ripe for execution, perhaps after a three weeks notice of a Motion, postponed for the very purpose of maturing it, we shall see a retired Statesman returning suddenly from the woods, and offering (on the ground of a communication such as we have described, from the French Government) to renounce his comfort and repose, and return once again to the cares and labours of public life, in order to become the happy instrument of Pacification.

Such, I verily believe to be the Plan now in agitation. I need not name to you the particular person in this Country whom I conceive to have the chief direction of it. The nature of the Scheme itself, and what I have said already, will point him out sufficiently to you, and to any other person conversant with the Political Characters

of

of the present day. I have stated this on the authority of information which I believe to be entitled to credit; and I am confirmed in my belief of it by the train of reasoning which I have explained to you.

If you think the circumstances as important as they appear to me, you will certainly put the Public on their guard against a stratagem, which can never have a chance of success, but by surprize; but which, if it should succeed, is, in my judgment, pregnant with ruin to the Country.

A CONSTANT READER.

UNJUST AGGRESSION.

"A Fool, a Fool-I met a Fool i' th' Forest."

AS YOU LIKE IT.

OUR Antagonist in the Morning Chronicle seems to have "shot his bolt;" and so we may take our leave of him. We purposely omitted saying any thing about him in our two last Papers, because the kicks and plunges of stupidity, visible in his performances of the preceding week, had really excited our compassion. We were loth to insult the fallen. We gave him therefore another fortnight, in hopes that he might get on his legs again in the struggle, and appear before us with a shape and gait that "imitated humanity" a little less "abominably." But we have waited in vain. During the whole of this time he has not "uttered word;" a conduct extremely commendable and prudent in itself, and one which we have no doubt

Nn 3

doubt his Friends have been at some pains to induce him to adopt. It would have been well for him to have listened to their counsel sooner.

The last Exhibitions which we have to notice, before we consign our Friend and his Effusions to the "Vault of all the Capulets" or all the RUSSELLS, if he will, where we promise him he may lie without any apprehension of being "unplumbed" - were in the Morning Chronicle of Tuesday the 6th, and of Saturday the 10th

inst.

The first was a sort of Ironical Commentary upon the Answer which was extorted from us by the first unprovoked attack of the Enemy. The Commentator professes to go through the whole of our Poem; and the humour of his Critique lies in proving all that we have there said of him to be said in compliment. The clumsiness of the execution corresponds with the flatness of the design..

As to Compliments, if he likes such as we pay him, he is welcome to them. They are not indeed of the most courtly kind. But he may assure himself, that they have at least one merit, which compliments are apt to want, that of sincerity.

With regard to his Critique-We have one remark to make, which will account for our not entering into any controversy with him upon it. It is simply this that professing to go through the whole Poem, and confute as he goes, he dexterously omits the whole of the only passage which has hitherto been the subject of dispute — that about "B-DF-RD's Brains." We presune therefore that he gives up this point. If so, we have no farther quarrel with him. Any thing that can proceed from his brains," will give us little trouble or uneasiness.

own

5

There

There is indeed one accusation against us, of a more serious nature That we have been guilty of we know not what crime, in confounding the Duke of B-DF-RD and Mr. WH-TBR-D under the same description. We can only say, as plainly and gravely as the charge is urged, that we intended no disrespect to either party; and that if either is ashamed of his Associate, it is no fault of ours.

-

such a

The second effort, and apparently that in which he has poured out all that he had remaining of dullness and drollery, appeared in the Morning Chronicle of the 10th. — And this effusion is so ineffably stupid We find in it such a complication of blunder, and perversion, and puzzle such a gasp and struggle after absurdity paroxysm and agony of folly. of folly such a disavowal of intellect, and abjuration of meaning - -that after having exhausted all our efforts in attempting to describe it, we feel it impossible to convey to our Readers any adequate or credible idea of such a Piece; and are reduced to the melancholy necessity of referring such of them, as are not already sickened by what they have seen of this Gentleman's Penmanship, to the before-mentioned Morning Chronicle. They will find the Piece in the First Column of the third Page of that devoted Paper.

If, after perusing it, there can be found a Jury of Twelve Blockheads (for we would try him by his Peers) who will decide, upon their Consciences, that this last labour of our Author requires an answer from us, or could justify it, we are ready - Otherwise, we have done with

him.

PRIZE

Nn4

PRIZE OF DULLNESS AWARDED.

WE were at a loss in what manner to announce this important Event, which took place on Monday last; when we were luckily relieved from our embarrassment by Mr. WRIGHT, Our Publisher, who brought us a very excellent Account of the whole Transaction, drawn up by his House-keeper, Mrs. DEBORAH WIGMORE, in a Letter to her Mother-in-law at Chepstow, which, it seems, she had shewn to him, with permission to him and his friends to make what use they might think proper of the information it contained. Of this we gladly avail ourselves, by faithfully copying as much of it as relates to the matter in hand, with which we now present our Readers confident they will think that the naiveté and precision of Mrs. DEBORAH's style, would be ill-exchanged for any more ornamented language we might substitute in its stead.

"DEAR MOTHER,

Piccadilly, No. 169, Feb. 19.

"After my duty to you, I write to inform you of my "good fortune. I heard Mr. WRIGHT, Bookseller, was "in want of a Cook and Housekeeper, and so I went to "him with a recommendation from Mrs. JAMES, and he "hired me directly-and no Servant has a better place"and I have great opportunities of improving in my "reading, which you know I always liked.-You would "bless yourself to see the charming books Master sends me down to cover my pies with-and so I do, but I al<c ways reads them first. There was JOAN of ARC, a sweet pretty Poem, but not in Verse-all against the