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I say the boldest; for we cannot rely on the aid of the whole Esculapian phalanx. Many white-livered dastards, who disgrace our profession, have shown a disposition to remain neuter, or fight under Perkinean banners!

It is a long time since the public have had any reports from the honorable Mr Howard's fulminating powder, which, three years since, made so much noise, that the world had reason to expect that the thunderiferous chymist would make no more of exploding to old Nick a whole army of Frenchmen, with Buonaparte at its head, than would a cockney sportsman of shooting a tame goose on the first of September.

Whether this mighty affair is all blown up, or what may have been the cause of the silence of those who defended a thing which so loudly proclaimed its own merits, it becomes Mr Howard to explain.

Of this he may be assured, if he do not stir his stumps in order to fulfil some of the fair promises which he and his friends have made to the Royal Society and the public, of the astonishing achievements they were about to perform, by the demi-omnipotent power of his new invented artificial thunder, I hereby give the alarming intelligence that I will apply my own superior talents to this sonorous subject. Should that happen, those laurels which were designed to decorate the brow of Mr Howard will be tied in a bow-knot round my venerable temples. For, in that case, the learned chymist's acquisitions, in the art of intonation, will bear no better comparison to those of Dr Caustic, than the clattering wagon-wheels of Salmoneus to the world-astounding thunderbolts of Jupiter. No person can doubt my being able to accomplish all this, who is apprized, as he may be from perusing this performance, of the vast quantity of the most detonating kind of mercury which exists in my composition, and which will fulminate with greater effect, than the gold and silver that line the magnipotent purse of the honorable the heir apparent to the duke of Norfolk.

I have several times taken a confounded deal of trouble to haul into my poem this beautiful specimen of parliamentary elocution; and, in my opinion, nothing can be better imagined, or more happily accomplished. Poetry and oratory, as the ancients inform us, were both whelped at one litter; consequently the same phrase which glittered in the harangue of my bull-baiting friend, William Windham, a British senator, cannot fail to cut a dash in the stanza of his seraphical friend, Christopher Caustic, a British poet.

Now, as I am a great admirer of French principles, and that new and accomodating kind of morality, by Frenchmen discovered, and which I ever have and ever will eulogize, to the utmost extent of my faculties, perhaps your worships will express no small degree of wonderment why I should be the intimate friend of a gentleman, the blaze of whose oratory, one would suppose, would have blasted Buonaparte, and even singed the whole French republic. But those who are admitted behind the political curtain will perceive that the tendency of the measures which Mr Windham supports is to promote those jacobinic principles, of which Dr Caustic openly and honestly professes himself to be the determined propagator and defender.

Surely, no person will imagine that I would, for the world, allude to any other lady than madam Fame herself.

I have very substantial reasons for spreading glad tidings of our redoubtable chieftain among the most distant inhabitants of the globe, in preference to endeavoring to add to his great celebrity “within the periphery of his associates.” And, whereas it has been said that this gentleman's reputation will ever stand highest where he is either not known at all, or known only by those literary productions, in which he is himself the theme of his own most “ardent praise,” mine shall be the humble task of trumpeting the doctor's name among the distant inhabitants of this dirty planet; while the doctor shall himself “dip his pen in ethereal and indelible ink, and impress his observations in characters legible in the great volume of the heavens.”

True it is, though “passing strange,” that a great and good man, composed, as he himself can attest, of the very essence of humanity, is often most vilely, most audaciously, and most atrociously bespattered by a set of saucy reviewers.

Those wicked wits, the writers in the Monthly and Critical Reviews, especially the latter, in a critique on one of the late works of a certain doctor of self puffing memory, tells us that “the importance of a man to himself was never more conspicuous than in this publication. Dr Lettsom admits that he has been anticipated by several distinguished authors; but modestly hints that some of his particular friends will form no opinion [respecting the cow-pox] till they have ascertained his sentiments.” They then have the audacity to declare, that “he merits no slight punishment for his pompous inflated language, for his fulsome flattery, and ridiculous exaggeration of every part of the subject.”

See how they speak of a late publication of the doctor on certain charitable institutions:—“Unless to connect these different institutions, to lead the different radii to a centre, while that centre is the author and the editor, who can boast, Quæ ipse misserima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui! we see little advantage in this edition. We mean not to intimate the slightest disapprobation of these institutions, or of humanity in general; but when we see pomp and egotism assuming its garb, when vanity and ostentation occasionally peep from beneath the robe, we feel no little disgust from comparing the fascinating exterior with the unpleasing contents,” &c. They likewise have the impudence to assert that some of the doctor's plans are “better suited to the superstition of a Hindoo, than to the nature of a rational christian.” And in another review they declare: “We mean not to stoop to any; but will tell Dr Lettsom his faults” [consummate assurance!!] “as well as any other author; nor will we conceal that mean mark of a little mind, over-weening vanity. We saw it in its germ, have watched its opening bud, till it is expanded into its blossom. The literary life of Dr L--- may well be styled the progress of vanity: the termination is yet to come: but we have ample materials for the subject.” See Monthly Review, of July, and Critical Review, of Sept. 1802, and Feb. 1803.

I resolved to recommend your arranging yourselves under the banners of this Leviathan of the Galenical throng, from the moment I first heard of his noble and spirited sally against the tractors. Disdaining the wretched trammels of why and wherefore, and without assigning those paltry trifles, called reasons, for his opinions, on the merits of Perkinism, our intrepid commander determined to extirpate it root and branch, with his simple ipse dixit. This is what we ought to expect from a hero of such prowess. See how well he manages these metallic makers of mischief! In a eulogium (a very agreeable thing to a modest man during his life time) on his friend Dr Haygarth, contained in the work which those wicked reviewers above mentioned have treated so irreverently, he mentions (page 277) the “important object,” which Dr Haygarth has so “happily effected.” This is “arresting and subduing two poisons, the most fatal to the human race (fever and small-pox) and unveiling imposture, clothed in the meretricious garb of bold quackery:” a note on the word “imposture,” in the margin says, “Experiments on metallic tractors.” Now, unless I can borrow the pen of the learned doctor, dipped in “ETHEREAL and indelible ink,” and a whole literary apparatus in proportion, I shall never be able to express how much I admire the matter above quoted, on account of the important intelligence therein contained. Before Dr L. asserted it, I dare say not an individual in the kingdom knew that Dr Haygarth had “effected” such an “important object,” that fever and small-pox were subdued, altogether extinct, despoiled of that venom which has hitherto “brought death into the world,” and so much wo. But true it is, they are quite extirpated, and all this by Dr Haygarth!! One cannot but exclaim against the perverseness of those members of parliament, who, regardless of this news from Dr L. voted a reward to Dr Jenner for his services in subduing the small-pox, and to Dr Smith, for his discoveries in subduing contagious fevers. In short, I am almost ready to enforce the charge of ignorance against my brethren in the profession; for I have not yet met with one possessed of sufficient penetration to see, that neither fever nor small-pox “has a local habitation and a name among us,” and that they have been both “subdued,” and all this “effected,” by Dr Haygarth!

Here I can, with certainty, calculate on the most powerful co-operation. This ---, what shall I call it? This official Gazette of the profession—this Medico-Chymico-Comico-Repository, for the effusions of self-puffers, prescribing rules and recipes,

this powerful instrument of offensive and defensive warfare, has ever, with becoming vigilance, guarded its post against Perkinean invaders, and suffered no occasion to pass without a squirt of the Gallic acid of satire, when there was deemed a possibility of blackening the common enemy.

I can never sufficiently express my approbation of the Carthagenian cunning with which this journal has been conducted. Dr B. professing great impartiality, in an early number, (see vol. ii. p. 85) invited communications on the subject of the tractors. Subsequent management evidently showed a slight omission in the doctor's notice, and that he meant communications on one side only; for he has omitted no pains to procure and publish whatsoever could be suggested against the tractors; but though reports of cases in their favor, and all the publications of the patentee have been before him, not a syllable of these was ever noticed by that gentleman; neither has it ever appeared by his journal that such facts ever existed.

I appeal to any of my brethren who have been gratified, as I often have been, with the Demosthenes-like torrent which has been so frequently poured forth, in our medical societies, by this “child and champion” of the Galenical throng, against quackery and all its appurtenances, whether it were fair to surmise, as some unconscionable rogues have done, that Dr B. has absolutely himself become the proprietor of a quack medicine. The fire of eloquence with which Perkinism, that most atrocious kind of quackery, has been so frequently, and so effectually assailed by the learned doctor at the medical society, at Guy's, the Lyceum Medico Londinensis, &c. &c. &c. ought to have ensured Dr B. so much of the gratitude of the profession, that, although he should himself choose to become one of the most arrant quacks in the kingdom, he might depend on your support of his reputation, and your exertions to uphold him. No subsequent apostacy on his part, I maintain, will justify a dereliction of him.

Recal to your recollection, gentlemen, the denunciations he has so often made against every medical practitioner who should presume, either directly or indirectly, to offer any patronage to remedies which bore even the most distant resemblance to a nostrum. How often have the walls of the medical theatres of Saint Thomas's hospital, and Windmill street, echoed loud responses to his declamations against the varlets, who should dare to recommend means, in the profits of the consumption of which the whole profession could not participate? How often have you received his invitations to send him your effusions and declamations against quackery, to receive an efficient publication in his journal? and what number of that journal has appeared without performing his promise, by honoring those effusions with a place in its immortal pages?

Lest even these most important considerations should still find you inexorable, I trust I can show, by examining his conduct in regard to the quack medicine in question, that, if it be not praise-worthy, it is, at least, defensible.

The title of the nostrum which has had the assistance of Dr B. in being introduced to the notice of a grateful public, is “A NEW MEDICINE FOR THE GOUT.” The pretended discoverer of this specific is, for very commendable, or, which is the same thing, very prudent reasons, kept behind the curtain. I wish, however, to express my utter disbelief that either Dr Brodum or Dr Solomon is the happy mortal, however similar the style of the pamphlet, announcing this new medicine, may be to their erudite writings, and the pretensions of the said medicine to “balms of Gilead” and to “nervous cordials.”

What business had these fellows to intrude their noses into the concerns of the Westminster infirmary? Brother B. had an undoubted right to manage, or mismanage, the funds of a medical institution, as best suited his own convenience, without their troublesome interference.

I hereby enter a protest against any one of my commentators, whether he be Vanscanderdigindich the elder, or Hansvanshognosuch, his cousin German (two Dutch geniuses, who have promised to furnish the next edition of this my pithy poem with a whole ass-load of annotations) or any other gentlemen critics or reviewers of equal profoundity, presuming to intimate, that I intend, by this passage, the smallest disrespect to your pedestrian physicians. Far from that; I know that many good and great men (like myself for example) cannot even pay a shilling for hackney-coach hire. No, gentlemen; I have two great objects in view, to wit:

1. To encourage my brother B--- to persevere in his laudable attempt to kick Perkinism back to the country whence it originated, by reminding him, that if the feat were once performed, he might, perhaps, soon afford the expense of a chariot to transport, in a respectable manner, all that wig, without laying the entire burden on the curious sconce it now envelopes.

2. To remind brother B---, and the profession in general, how much more execution may be done by a charioteer than by a pedestrian physician.

Although great men frequently differ, I am happy to find Mr Addison's opinion and mine, in this particular, perfectly consentaneous.

“This body of men,” says he, speaking of physicians in our own country, “may be described like the British army in Cæsar's time. Some slay in chariots, and some on foot. If the infantry do less execution than the charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried, so soon, into all parts of the town, and despatch so much business in so short a time.”

Spectator, No. 21.

Not an individual, I will venture to assert, who knows my brother B---, but must feel the really urgent necessity of elevating him, as soon as possible, from le pave and giving those talents their full swing. Then, indeed, soon might our charioteer justly boast—

I am fully sensible that many of my brethren, of less discernment than myself, would have assigned this famous little genius a rank on the empirical list even above Dr Brodum. Making puffing their criterion, they will argue that those acute half-guinea paragraphs which we occasionally see at the fag end of the Times and other morning papers, respecting that “very learned physician,”—his “great discoveries, and improvements in the medical application of the gases,”—his “grand national and botanical work,” and fifty others of the same strain, asserting the high claims of this airy writer on the gratitude of the public, are incontestible proofs of his superior merits in the puffing department, which, say they, are some of the most necessary ingredients in the formation of a charlatan. All this is specious reasoning; but I trust I shall show its fallacy. Pre-eminence, in my opinion, must be founded on some intrinsic excellence, original and independent of adventitious circumstances. If we closely examine the merits of this candidate, we shall find that there can be no great claim on this score. Let any man enjoy the faculties and advantages of a general dealer in the airs, who must of course have puffs of all descriptions at hand; and where is the merit of occasionally letting off one?

If there be anything like originality in this industrious little philosopher, and for the invention of which I should be inclined to allow him the credit of ingenuity, it consists in his meritometer, which proposes to measure the merits of his fellow creatures by the degree of faith they can afford to bestow on the infallibility of his gases as a panacea. See his plan of this instrument, or rather the deductions drawn from his trials of it, in his large five volume compilation of “Extracts,” vol. i. page 459. From this scale it appears, that of one thousand of mankind nine hundred and ninety-nine are either fools or knaves, as that proportion places no confidence in the efficacy of his catholicon. I hope, therefore, after the good reasons here assigned for my conduct, I shall not be suspected of partiality to Dr Brodum in retaining him at the head of the quacks, nor ill will to Dr T. for not calling him up higher on the list.

Mr Southey, in his work with the title of “Thalaba or the Destroyer,” has given us a fine example of a pleasing dreadful performance, which is neither prose, rhyme, nor reason. Indeed, nothing but the inspiration of the gas which we have seen him inhale in the first canto, could have generated the following effusions.

“A Teraph stood against the cavern side,
A new born infant's head,
That Khawla at his hour of death had seized,
And from the shoulders wrung.
It stood upon a plate of gold,
An unclean spirit's name inscribed beneath:
The cheeks were deathy dark,
Dark the dead skin upon the hairless skull;
The lips were bluey pale;
Only the eyes had life,
They gleamed with demon light.”
Book ii.

Again he towers in Book v.

“There where the narrowing chasm
Rose loftier in the hill,
Stood Zohak, wretched man, condemned to keep
His cave of punishment.
His was the frequent scream
Which far away the prowling Chacal heard,
And howled in terror back.
Far from his shoulders grew
Two snakes of monster size
That ever at his head
Aimed eager their keen teeth
To satiate raving hunger with his brain.
He in the eternal conflict oft would seize
Their swelling necks, and in his giant grasp
Bruise them, and rend their flesh with bloody nails,
And howl for agony
Feeling the pangs he gave, for of himself
Inseparable parts his torturers grew.”

Now, if in this age of turmoils your worships should have occasion to educate a school of assassins, to be employed as Talleyrand employs his agents, for the purpose of promoting modern philanthropy and French projects of universal empire, I should advise you to prepare them intellectual food from such descriptions as we have quoted above. By accustoming your pupils to meditate on such horrible descriptions you will soon enable them to inflict without compunction or remorse, sufferings like those, which they have been in the habit of contemplating.

We are sorry to see, however, that our friend, Dr Darwin, has been pleased to express his disapprobation of this species of the terrible in style, without which your small poets can never become conspicuous. We shall, however, quote one of his sentiments on the subject merely to let the world know that we great wits do not always tally upon every point.

The doctor tells us in his Botanic Garden, p. 115, that there is a “line of boundary between the tragic and the horrid; which line, however, will veer a little this way or that, according to the prevailing manners of the age or country, and the peculiar association of ideas, or idiosyncrasy of mind, of individuals.”

Now I am apprehensive that doctor Darwin would have adjudged the greater part of Mr Southey's sublimity to be of the “horrid” rather than the tragic or sublime kind. Such an opinion, however, would not only greatly tarnish the reputation of the critic who should venture to pronounce it, but would entirely put down many pretty good poets, who, as the Edinburgh reviewers say, must have a “qu'il mourut,” and a “let there be light” in every line; and all their characters must be in agonies and ecstacies, from their entrance to their exit.

See Edinburgh Review of Southey's Thalaba, October, 1802.

That is, as Southey says, through the Domdaniel caves, “at the roots of the ocean.”

Thalaba, having leaped into a “little car” which appears to have been drawn by “four living pinions, headless, bodyless, sprung from one stem that branched below, in four down arching limbs, and clenched the carrings endlong and aside, with claws of griffin grasp;”

“Down—down, it sank—down—down—
Down—down—a mighty depth!—
Down—down—and now it strikes.”

There's the bathos to perfection! Now, if we could in any way have prevailed on Mr Southey to have stopped this side of the centre of gravity, we should have been happy to have hired his “car” for this our dreadful rencontre. But as it appears that the Domdaniel cave soon after fell in, I fancy it would cost more to dig out this vehicle than to get Mr Southey to make us a new one.

I Christopher Caustic, censured by critics, for my apt alliterations, though artfully allied, yet presume it is policy for a pennyless poet to polish his puny lays to such a pitch of perfection, that posterity may please to place the pithy production paramount to the peaked point of the pinnicle of Pierian Parnassus.

A poet of less judgment than myself would have seated Mars in the chariot of Victory, a Vauxhall car, or some other flimsy vehicle of that kind, which would be sure to be dashed to pieces in a conflict like this in which we are at present engaged. The carriage here introduced was made by Vulcan, in his best style of workmanship, for the express purpose of this attack, and in point of strength and size, bears no more proportion to the chariot commonly used by the god of war, than one of those huge broad-wheeled Manchester wagons to the little whalebone thingamy which the duke of Queensbury ran at New Market.

This is the same “blanket” which Mr Canning said was “wet” when he exhibited it in the House of Commons. Since his use of it on that occasion it has been so frequently wrung by the wits, that it has now become a perfectly dry and almost thread-bare article.

Volney informs us in his View that the Alleghany mountain is the frontier on which the south-west and north-west winds in America contend; and that he beheld a spectacle of that kind at Rockfish Gap, on the Blue Ridge. See American edition, page 148.

It is to me a matter of doubt whether your worships are not absolutely ignorant of the causes and effects of the wonderful phenomena to which we now allude. But if you will please to take with us a stand for observation, exactly at the centre of gravity between the earth and the moon, and look about you with the eyes of great philosophers you will perceive what is well worth a world of admiration.

You will perceive that what is vulgarly called the man in the moon is a prodigious volcano, in size much superior to any on our globe, and that this volcano is continually emitting rocks, which ever and anon are thrown beyond the sphere of the moon's attraction, and of course make their way down upon us.

You will likewise find, by turning to the second volume of the Philadelphia Literary Magazine, page 389, an account of above thirty different showers of stones, some of which have weighed not less than 300 pounds. And you will ascertain that there has been a great diversity of opinions among philosophers respecting the origin of these prodigies. Some have believed them to be thrown from some neighboring volcano. Some have thought them to have been wafted about by hurricanes. Others have supposed them to have been concretions formed in the atmosphere. Some have thought them to be masses which were detached from the planets at the time of the formation; and that they have been floating about in infinite space till they met with our earth, which became to them a new centre of gravity.

But the truth is, as you may see through any common optical tube, from the situation to which I have just had the honor to conduct you, that these masses of matter are the product of lunar volcanos. Here we have a cause adequate to the effect, as I shall make evident in the following few words.

A lunar volcano similar to those on our planet would project bodies much further from the moon than they would be thrown by the same force from Etna or Vesuvius; for,

1. It is granted by great philosophers, such as ourself and Dr Darwin, that the moon has no atmosphere; of consequence, a body exploded from the moon would meet with no resistance excepting from the power of gravitation. Dr Darwin informs us, Botanic Garden, canto ii. “If the moon had no atmosphere at the time of its elevation from the earth; or if its atmosphere was afterwards stolen from it by the earth's attraction, the water on the moon would rise quickly into vapor; and the cold produced by a certain quantity of this evaporation would congeal the remainder of it. Hence it is not probable that the moon is at present inhabited; but as it seems to have suffered and to continue to suffer much by volcanos, a sufficient quantity of air may in process of time be generated to produce an atmosphere, which may prevent its heat from so easily escaping, and its water from so easily evaporating, and thence become fit for the production of vegetables and animals.

“That the moon possesses little or no atmosphere is deduced from the undiminished lustre of the stars at the instant when they emerge from behind her disk. That the ocean of the moon is frozen is confirmed from there being no appearance of lunar tides,” &c.

2. Bodies on the moon possess much less gravity in proportion to their quantity of matter than bodies on the surface of the earth; for matter is attracted by the earth and moon, respectively, in proportion to the quantity of matter which each contains. It follows that a comparatively slight impulse, communicated to a body on the moon's surface, would be sufficient to counteract its attraction towards the moon, and if it were propelled towards the earth it might come within its attraction, and would of course make its way to our planet.

Thus it appears very evident, even to persons of your worships' ordinary penetration, that these wonderful showers of stones are of lunar origin.

I feel a very great solicitude to mould and modify every part and parcel of this performance according to rules and regulations of the best master-builders of epic poems, tragedies, and other great things of that kind. The judicious critic will perceive that all my wounds are inflicted with anatomical accuracy, and I have no doubt but my friend Dr Haygarth will do himself the honor to write a treatise upon this subject, and tell the world with what terrible propriety we have hewed and hacked our opponents in the field of battle. The reverend William Tasker, A. B. has furnished a model of this species of criticism in A Series of Letters, respecting “The Anatomical Knowledge of Homer,” &c. Dr Haygarth I expect will prove that the “death wounds” of Sarpedon, Hector, Ulysses' dog, &c. as displayed in the treatise of Dr Tasker, were mere flea bites compared with these of Dr Caustic.

Or more correctly where the tail was. Lord Monboddo tells us that men, as well as monkies, were formerly dignified with long tails protruding from the place where (according to Butler) honor is lodged. Philosophers and antiquaries had never been able to discover how man became divested of this ornament, till my friend, Dr Anderson, furnished a clue to the mystery. From this discovery I am led to suppose that your antediluvian bucks began the practice of CUR-tail-ing these excrescences for gentility's sake, and what was at first artificial became in due time natural, till, at length, your right tippies, as in modern times, were entirely disencumbered of that monkey-like appendage; but our Bond-street loungers, although divested of that exterior mark of the monkey, with a laudable desire to prevent the intentions of Nature from being defeated, have adopted all the ourang-outang-ical airs which she originally designed should discriminate that species of animals from man.

The use of this caustic and other escharotics on this momentous occasion reminds me of an important era in my life, a succinct biograpoical sketch of which I shall shortly publish, in nineteen volumes folio; a work which, in point of size, erudition, and interesting anecdote, will be immensely preferable to the voluminous production of lord Orford.

The event in question was of the greater consequence, as it gave rise to the present family name of “Caustic.”

Just thirtytwo years since, from the fourteenth day of last July, while I was prosecuting some of my chymical researches, my eldest son Tom, a burly-faced boy, since killed in a duel with a hot-headed Irish gentleman, overturned a bench on which were placed seven carboys full of acids, alkalies, &c. and broke them into inch pieces. The consequences of this accident may be more easily conceived than described. The whole neighborhood was alarmed, and many most terribly causticized in endeavoring to extinguish the conflagration which ensued. In the consternation, and amid the exertions to subdue it, some one cried out that Dr Crichton (for such was my former name, being the lineal descendant from the celebrated “admirable Crichton”) is fairly a Dr Caustic.

Thus began my honorary name, of which, as it is scientific, I am not a little proud, especially as it was acquired by virtue of an explosion, similar to that which gave the honorary appellation of Bronte to my friend, viscount Nelson of the Nile. For further particulars respecting this important event, you will please to inquire at the Herald's college, where, I dare say, “garter principal king at arms,” sir Isaac Heard, knt. has done me the justice to register the occurrence. Instead of lions, bulls, boars, camels, elephants, and such insignificant animalculæ, my shield is decorated with insignia more appropriate to my great pretensions. On the left are seen broken carboys couchant, implying that the secrets of science lie prostrate before me. On the right are fumes rampant, indicative of my discoveries, which soar above those of all other pretenders. In the centre are nine hedgehogs, with quills, stickant, a happy emblem of my peaceable disposition.

My motto, which I trust sir Isaac has also registered, is worthy of notice. Dr Darwin was much pleased with it, and, desirous to emulate my fame in the art of motto making, made “OMNIA E CONCHIS.” But your worships will perceive that the doctor's motto bears no comparison with mine, in point of erudition; as I prove myself versed in three languages; whereas he can boast of only one. Here it comes.

O ανθρωπος or η γυνη
Lacessit never me impune!!

This, my beautiful and appropriate motto, for the sake of accomodating those among your worships, who are not versed in the lore of Greece and Rome, and cannot afford to subsidize men of erudition to officiate for you in that department of science, I shall render into our vernacular idiom, as follows:

Lest the more critical and polite reader should complain, that in order to let myself down to the level of your worshipful capacities, I have anglicized my sublime motto in too vulgar and colloquial a style, I shall take the liberty, politely, to parodize thereon, and, as lord Bacon says, “to bring it home to men's business and bosoms;” that is, to make the application to that particular kind of gentry, against whom my hedgehog quills, aforesaid, are pointed in terrorem.

Ladies and gentlemen, REVIEWERS!
You are a set of mischief brewers;
A gang of scandalous backbiters,
Who feast on us, poor murder'd writers.
Now if you dare to throw the gauntlet,
I tell you honestly I sha'n't let
Your impudences, with impunity,
Impose in future on community.
If you dare say that greater wit
Than doctor Caustic ever writ;
If you dare venture to suggest
His every word is not the best;
If you dare hint that Caustic's noddle
Is not improved from Homer's model;
If you dare think he has not treble
The inspiration of a Sybil;
If you don't seem to take delight
In puffing him with all your might;
If you don't coin for him some proper lies
To circulate through this metropolis,
To give eclat to this edition
Of his Poetical Petition;
If you don't sing the same tune o'er
Which he himself has sung before,
Ancients and moderns, altogether,
Are but the shadow of a feather,
Compared with Caustic, even as
A puff of hydrogenous gas,
He'll hurl ye to old Davy's grotto,
As you'll imagine from his motto.

So said Milton, Paradise Lost, B. vi. where the hero of the poem (whom I would propose as a model for your worships' imitation on all occasions) and his merry companions “in gamesome mood stand scoffing,” and “quips cranks,” powder, grape shot, puns, blunderbuss, jokes, and cannonballs, flash, roar, and bellow in concert.

But I am sure that every candid critic will be disposed to acknowledge that neither Homer nor Milton ever described a battle, fraught with such sublime images and similes, as this in which we are so desperately engaged.