, have depreciated and ridiculed the very same Passages, which they applauded with Cries and Claps in your Closets. The World, my Friend, has substituted
good Manners
in the Place of
good Nature,
whoever conforms to the former is dispensed with from any Observance of the latter. Shall I add, (for the Misfortune of you Authors,) that there is a Set of Men who, at once, dispense with common Manners and common Humanity. They go under the Name of Crities, and must be Men of Wealth, that the Deference paid to Fortune, may give a Sort of Stamp and Currency to the Dross of their Erudition. In the strictest Sense, indeed, they may be called
Men of Letters,
their Study, as well as Capacity, being nearly confined to a just or orthographical Disposition of the Alphabet. Their Business is to reconoitre the Outworks of Genius, as they have no Key to the Gates of Nature or Sentiment. They snuff Faults from afar, as Crows scent Carrion, and delight to pick, and to prey, and to dwell upon them. They enter, like Wasps, upon the Gardens of Literature, not to relish any Fragrance of select any Sweets, but to pamper their Malevolence with every Thing that savours of Rankness or Offence. Happily for them. their Sagacity does not tend to the Discovery of Merit, in such a Case, a Work of Genius would give them the Spleen for a Month, or possibly depress their Spirits beyond Recovery.
To these high and dreaded
Lords Justiciaries,
the
Critics,
Authors deem it incumbent to submit the Products of their Lucubrations; not in the Prospect of any Advantage from their Advice or Animadversions; neither in the Hopes of acquiring their Friendship or Patronage; but merely to sooth and deprecate the Effects of their Malignity. Accordingly, I have been present, when some of these Dictators have been presented with a Manuscript, as with an humble Petition; they have thereupon assumed the Chair, as a Judge assumes the Bench when a Criminal is called before him, not in order to Trial or Hearing, but to Sentence and Condemnation. To what Scenes of Mortification have I been Witness on such Occasions! to what a State of Abatement, of Abasement, of Annihilation, have these Entertainers of the Public been depressed !  �  
I am sorry, Sir, to tell you that this will not do.  �  A few Attempts here and there, but that will not compensate � Here again how injudicious, absurd, unpardonable !  �  Lord, Sir, you should have considered that when a Man sits down to write for the Public,
