influence on futurity, nor extend their effects to the rest of
life, are always seen with a kind of malicious pleasure. A mistake or
embarrassment, which for the present moment fills the face with blushes,
and the mind with confusion, will have no other effect upon those who
observe it, than that of convulsing them with irresistible laughter.
Some circumstances of misery are so powerfully ridiculous, that neither
kindness nor duty can withstand them; they bear down love, interest, and
reverence, and force the friend, the dependent, or the child, to give
way to, instantaneous motions of merriment.

Among the principal of comick calamities, may be reckoned the pain which
an author, not yet hardened into insensibility, feels at the onset of a
furious critick, whose age, rank, or fortune, gives him confidence to
speak without reserve; who heaps one objection upon another, and
obtrudes his remarks, and enforces his corrections, without tenderness
or awe.

The author, full of the importance of his work, and anxious for the
justification of every syllable, starts and kindles at the slightest
attack; the critick, eager to establish his superiority, triumphing in
every discovery of failure, and zealous to impress the cogency of his
arguments, pursues him from line to line without cessation or remorse.
The critick, who hazards little, proceeds with vehemence, impetuosity,
and fearlessness; the author, whose quiet and fame, and life and
immortality, are involved in the controversy, tries every art of
subterfuge and defence; maintains modestly what he resolves never to
yield, and yields unwillingly what cannot be maintained. The critick's
purpose is to conquer, the author only hopes to escape; the critick
therefore knits his brow, and raises his voice, and rejoices whenever he
perceives any tokens of pain excited by the pressure of his assertions,
or the point of his sarcasms. The author, whose endeavour is at once to
mollify and elude his persecutor, composes his features and softens his
accent, breaks the force of assault by retreat, and rather steps aside
than flies or advances.

As it very seldom happens that the rage of extemporary criticism
inflicts fatal or lasting wounds, I know not that the laws of
benevolence entitle this distress to much sympathy. The diversion of
baiting an author has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more
lawful than the sport of teasing other animals, because, for the most
part, he come