tions that rendered me intolerable to myself and unfit for society. I had reafon to apprehend, in fpite of all my caution, that I was now narrowly watched, and that strong fufpicions were taken up against me; when as I was feasting 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 discovering 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 skirmish 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 reason to suspect my courage, nay it was rather forward to meet occasions in those days of innocence; but the meanness, 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 ftill 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 almost the only charge, against which I could have fairly appealed to it. It feemed to me therefore advifeable to lofe no time in difculpating myself from the accufation, yet to feek an interview with this irafcible man was a fervice of fome danger: chance threw the opportunity in my way, which I had probably elfe wanted. fpirit to invite; I accofted him with all imaginable civility and made the strongest 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, fo it was, that he treated all I faid with the moft 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 a 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 myfelf; 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 reafoned, 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 essays to characters fo difgufting, and representations 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 fay, 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 subject, shall conclude this paper. ENVY. "Oh! never let me fee that shape again, 66 "Fang'd like the wolf it was, and all as gaunt, "And still it prowl'd around us and around, "Rolling its fquinting eyes askaunt, "Wherever human happiness was found. "Furious thereat, the self-tormenting sprite "Drew forth an afp, and (terrible to fight) "To its left pap the envenom'd reptile preft, "Which gnaw'd and worm'd into its tortur'd breaft. "The defperate fuicide with pain "Writh'd to and fro, and yell'd amain; "'Tis not this reptile's tooth, that gives the fmart N° CXXXI. Alter in obfequium plus æquo pronus, et imi HORAT. Am bewildered by the definitions, which me taphyfical writers give us of the human paffions: I can understand the characters of Theophraftus, 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 fearch of that, which floats upon its furface if a man in the heat of anger would de |