also be acknowledged that he comes of a Roman Catholic family: an avowal which, I am aware, is decisive of his utter reprobation in the eyes of those exclusive patentees of Christianity, so worthy to have been the followers of a certain enlightened Bishop, DONATUS, who held that God is in Africa, and not elsewhere." But from all this it does not necessarily follow that Mr. BROWN is at Papist; and, indeed, I have the strongest reasons for suspecting that they who say so are totally mistaken. Not that I presume to have ascertained his opinions upon such subjects; all I know of his orthodoxy is, that he has a Protestant wife and two or three little Protestant children, and that he has been seen at church every Sunday, for a whole year together, listening to the sermons of his truly reverend and amiable friend, Dr. and behaving there as well and as orderly as most people.

There are a few more mistakes and falsehoods about Mr. BROWN, to which I had intended, with

* Bishop of Case Nigræ, in the fourth century.

all becoming gravity, to advert; but I begin to think the task is altogether as useless as it is tiresome. Calumnies and misrepresentations of this sort are, like the arguments and statements of Dr. Duigenan, not at all the less vivacious or less serviceable to their fabricators for having been refuted and disproved a thousand times over: they are brought forward again, as good as new, whenever malice or stupidity is in want of them, and are as useful as the old broken lantern, in Fielding's Amelia, which the watchman always keeps ready by him, to produce, in proof of riot, against his victims. I shall therefore give up the fruitless toil of vindication, and would even draw my pen over what I have already written, had I not promised to furnish the Publisher with a Preface, and know not how else I could contrive to eke it out.

I have added two or three more trifles to this edition, which I found in the Morning Chronicle,

and knew to be from the

of pen

friend. my

*

The TRIFLES here alluded to, and others, which have since appeared, will be found in Volume V. of this edition.Publisher.

The rest of the volume remains in its original

state.

April 20, 1814.

* A new reading has been suggested in the original of the Ode of Horace, freely translated by Lord ELD-N, page 73. In the line "Sive per Syrteis iter æstuosas," it is proposed, by a very trifling alteration, to read "Surtees" instead of Syrteis," which brings the Ode, it is said, more home to the noble Translator, and gives a peculiar force and aptness to the epithet "æstuosas." I merely throw out this emendation for the learned, being unable myself to decide upon its merits.

INTERCEPTED LETTERS,

ETC.

LETTER I.

FROM THE PR-NC-SS CH-E OF WS TO
THE LADY B-RB-A ASHLY. *

My dear Lady BAB, you'll be shock'd, I'm afraid,
When you hear the sad rumpus your ponies have made;
Since the time of horse-consuls (now long out of date)
No nags ever made such a stir in the State!

Lord ELD-N first heard-and as instantly pray'd he To God and his King-that a Popish young Lady (For though you've bright eyes and twelve thousand a

year,

It is still but too true you're a Papist, my dear,)

*This young Lady, who is a Roman Catholic, has lately made a present of some beautiful Ponies to the Pr-nc-ss.