m!_ _Tiresiam!_ &c. It was the fashion of that day
with the ferocious heroes of the literary republic, to overwhelm each
other with invectives, and to consider that their own grandeur
consisted in the magnitude of their volumes; and their triumphs in
reducing their brother giants into puny dwarfs. In science, Linnaeus had
a dread of controversy--conqueror or conquered we cannot escape without
disgrace! Mathiolus would have been the great man of his day, had he not
meddled with such matters. Who is gratified by "the mad Cornarus," or
"the flayed Fox?" titles which Fuchsius and Cornarus, two eminent
botanists, have bestowed on each other. Some who were too fond of
controversy, as they grew wiser, have refused to take up the gauntlet.

The heat and acrimony of verbal critics have exceeded description. Their
stigmas and anathemas have been long known to bear no proportion to the
offences against which they have been directed. "God confound you,"
cried one grammarian to another, "for your theory of impersonal verbs!"
There was a long and terrible controversy formerly, whether the
Florentine dialect was to prevail over the others. The academy was put
to great trouble, and the Anti-Cruscans were often on the point of
annulling this supremacy; _una mordace scritura_ was applied to one of
these literary canons; and in a letter of those times the following
paragraph appears:--"Pescetti is preparing to give a second answer to
Beni, which will not please him; I now believe the prophecy of Cavalier
Tedeschi will be verified, and that this controversy, begun with pens,
will end with poniards!"

Fabretti, an Italian, wrote furiously against Gronovius, whom he calls
_Grunnovius_: he compared him to all those animals whose voice was
expressed by the word _Grunnire, to grunt_. Gronovius was so malevolent
a critic, that he was distinguished by the title of the "Grammatical
Cur."

When critics venture to attack the person as well as the performance of
an author, I recommend the salutary proceedings of Huberus, the writer
of an esteemed Universal History. He had been so roughly handled by
Perizonius, that he obliged him to make the _amende honorable_ in a
court of justice; where, however, I fear an English jury would give the
smallest damages.

Certain authors may be distinguished by the title of LITERARY BOBADILS,
or fighting authors. One of our own celebrated writers drew his sword on
a reviewer; and another, when his farce was condem