rage of party ever swelled this _thing_
into a poet. Even the great constellation, from whose tribunal no
prudent man ever appealed, has excluded him from a kingdom, where Watts
and Blackmore reign. But Johnson and Knox can by no means compare with
the Reviewers. These attacked the mountebanks in the very midst of their
short-lived empire. Those have only brought up the rear of public
opinion, and damned authors already forgotten. They fought the battles a
second time, and "again they slew the slain."

Gentlemen,

It would have been easy to add twenty articles to this list. I might
have selected instances from the later volumes of your entertaining
works, in which your deviations from the dictates of imaginary taste are
still more numerous. But I could not have confronted them with the
decisive verdict of time. The rage of fashion has not yet ceased, and
the ebullition of blind wonder is not over. I shall therefore leave a
plentiful crop for such as come after me, who admire you as much as I
do, and will be contented to labour in the same field.

I have the honour to be,

Gentlemen,

With all veneration,

Your indefatigable reader,

And the humblest of your panegyrists.

CONTENTS.

ARTICLE I.

_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward
Gibbon, Esq. Vols._ iv, v, vi, vii. 4to.

ARTICLE II.

_The History of America. By William Robertson, D.D. &c. Vols._ iii,
_and_ iv. 4to.

ARTICLE III.

_Secret History of Theodore Albert Maximilian, Prince of Hohenzollern
Sigmaringen_. 12mo.

ARTICLE IV.

_Louisa, or Memoirs of a Lady of Quality. By the Author of Evelina and
Cecilia. Three vols._ 12mo.

ARTICLE V.

_The Peasant of Bilidelgerid, a Tale. Two vols. Shandean._

ARTICLE VI.

_An Essay on Novel, in Three Epistles, inscribed to the Right Honourable
Lady Craven. By William Hayley, Esq._ 4to.

ARTICLE VII.

_Inkle and Yarico, a Poem. By James Beattie, L.L.D._ 4to.

ARTICLE VIII.

_The Alchymist, a Comedy, altered from Ben Jonson, by Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, Esq._

ARTICLE IX.

_Reflexions upon the present State of the United States of America. By
Thomas Paine, M.A. &c._ 8vo.

ARTICLE X.

_Speech of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, on a Motion for an Address
of Thanks to his Majesty (on the 28th of November, 1783) for his
gracious Communication of a Treaty of Commerce concluded between George
the Third, King, &c