learest reasonings by assuring his readers that, "they are contrary to
common sense."

I must confess, to the immortal honour of this great writer, that I can
remember but two instances of a genius able to use a few syllables to
such great and so various purposes. One is, the old man in Shadwell, who
seems, by long time and experience, to have attained to equal perfection
with our author; for, "when a young fellow began to prate and be pert,"
says he, "I silenced him with my old word, Tace is Latin for a candle."

The other, who seems yet more to resemble this writer, was one Goodman,
a horsestealer, who being asked, after having been found guilty by the
jury, what he had to offer to prevent sentence of death from being
passed upon him, did not attempt to extenuate his crime, but entreated
the judge to beware of hanging a _Good man_.

This writer we thought, however injudiciously, worthy, not indeed of a
reply, but of some correction, and in our magazine for December, 1738,
and the preface to the supplement, treated him in such a manner as he
does not seem inclined to forget.

From that time, losing all patience, he has exhausted his stores of
scurrility upon us; but our readers will find, upon consulting the
passages above mentioned, that he has received too much provocation to
be admitted as an impartial critick.

In our magazine of January, p. 24, we made a remark upon the Craftsman,
and in p. 3, dropped some general observations upon the weekly writers,
by which we did not expect to make them more our friends. Nor, indeed,
did we imagine that this would have inflamed Caleb to so high a degree.
His resentment has risen so much above the provocation, that we cannot
but impute it more to what he fears than what he has felt. He has seen
the solecisms of his brother, Common Sense, exposed, and remembers that,

--tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

He imagines, that he shall soon fall under the same censure, and is
willing that our criticisms shall appear rather the effects of our
resentment than our judgment.

For this reason, I suppose, (for I can find no other,) he has joined
with Common Sense to charge us with partiality, and to recommend the
London Magazine, as drawn up with less regard to interest or party. A
favour, which the authors of that collection have endeavoured to deserve
from them by the most servile adulation.

But, as we have a higher opinion of the candour of our readers, than to
bel