with a long string of capital letters, like a tail to a paper kite; why-the public absurdity is the stock-in-trade of individuals, and we have as much right to profit by it as others.

Having thus run full tilt against the whole Roman Alphabet, with as much ardour, but, we shall endeavour to shew, not with as much blindness, as Don Quixote attacked the windmills, we must either overcome them by disclosing the absurd use made of them, or remain, like the chop-fallen hero of La Mancha, battered and bruised on the ground from the superior force of such formidable antagonists. Nay, perhaps, we shall be exposed to the ridicule of the mul❤ titude. Zounds! we shall never be able to bear such a humiliation, and, like that immortal hero, whose sod is not yet green upon him, we shall rush to the combat, exclaiming: "Victory, or the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey!"

The Grecians and Romans,-Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ho race, Virgil, &c. had no need of any tails to their paper kites; they mounted into the upper regions of wit, fancy, and judgement, from their

own momentum, and had no occasion to use meretricious ornaments. "Good wine needs no bush." It was not until the Attic salt had wholly evaporated, or lay dormant amidst dross, and more ponderous minerals, that recourse was had to a paltry substitute. It was not till then that the world witnessed vapid books ushered into the world under the fallacious baits of - By DANIEL DROWSY, D. D.; ANDREW MORPHEUS, A. M.; FEATHERBRAIN RIGMAROLL SELFCONCEIT, F.R.S.: It was not till then that, for want of invention, men, unable to compose any thing new themselves, became critics, annotators, commentators upon, and compilers, that is, pilferers, from the works of others. From that æra, the additions of D. D. M. D. A. M. F. R. S. A.S. S. &c. to the names of authors, we should have said compilers, became synomimes of brains. But as experience has shown that reverend and learned gentlemen have not always a superabundance of the latter, some poor devil of an untitled author is employed to do the drudgery of the work, and one of these titular gentry, for a sum, perhaps six times greater than that which is bestowed on

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the real author, condescends to let his name and title appear on the title-page. Whether this be not an imposition on the public, we shall leave to them to determine. There could be no reasonable objection to the addenda of LL.D. to a treatise on Law; of D.D. to one of Divinity; or of M. D. to one of Physic; provided they accompanied the names of the real authors; but to see them lugged in upon every occasionwhere the title has no relation whatever to the work- is mere ' pomp of show.' As these titles are only professional, they should certainly be confined to the profession. It may be alleged in defence of a promiscuous use of them, that the man, who possesses one or more of these titles, must have received a liberal education; but there are infinitely more persons who have not had these titles conferred upon them, and yet have received an equally liberal education. Honours are very perceptibly sown on very barren ground. Reader, we do not speak from envy, nor feel the least regret, that "our post of honour is a private station," we speak the truth because it is taking the easiest and shortest route. Whatever may be the opinion of the un

initiated, those, who are in the secret, know that as much common, and even refined sense, may be found in a book without them, as with them; but the secret is a secret, because it is a profitable one to the parties concerned. Avarice and vanity have occasioned the use of them, which has become so common as to have rendered the assumption of them by other persons besides ourselves frequent, of which take the following ludicrous instance:

A cobler, in this metropolis, having perceived what a ready vent the addition of the Roman letters, gave to books, thought they might turn out as advantageous to the article of shoes. He therefore added to his name on the sign board the capital M. D. F. R. S.. A physician, who chanced to pass that way, either struck by the oddity of the thing, or enraged at the derogation of professional honours, alighted from his chariot, and demanded of Crispin the reason of the phenomenon. "I have as much right to use those letters as any man," replied the blunt cobler, " they signify my other occupation, which is that of Drum Major of the Royal Fusileers!"

In time, we should not be surprised to see a treatise on the art of picking pockets, by George Barrington, M. F. Mercurii Filius, son of the light-fingered Mercury; or an essay on fisticuffs by the Game Chicken, P. C. P. Pugnis Certationis Professor, Professor of the Art of Boxing. As a regular knowledge of those arts may be as necessary to success, as of any others, it would certainly be professional; but the additions of M.D. and D. D. to similar treatises and essays, would shock our sense of propriety, if not that of the reader. Only think of pick-pockets, and stage boxers rushing down the same stream with learned and reverend gentlemen, and exclaim"How we apples swim!"

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The Reader. If, then, you think, that there is more of pride and avarice in these literary addenda, than of utility, why have you adopted them?

Author. As a severe satire upon them; but with a view of preventing a harsher one.-Our addendum is neither fictitious, nor intended as a deception on the public. F.S. M. are the initials of Fellow of the Swinish Multitude, and since that term has been settled by an apostate