is, the engravings, declared that it must be prodigiously humourous, funny, and, what is more than most works could boast, have some meaning in it. Our vanity was flattered! - Those judges were, perhaps, as well able to appreciate the merits of the work, as the weightier cri tics, whom, on our entrance into the shops, we found descanting on the title page, than which they seldom deign to go farther. Even that was too deep for them, as they no sooner came to the honorary addendum to our name, (F.S.M.) than they were like a pack of hounds at a dead fault. After having puzzled their brains to no purpose, and consulted to as little, every book which gives an explanation of these important abbreviations, (which are now grown so numerous that we have some thoughts of compiling a separate dictionary of them, in four volumes to match with Dr. Johnson's superb folio edition) these critical gentlemen agreed, that we must have obtained a trifling degree at some German University, where they are to be bought (as some one, I believe Peter Pindar, informs us) for the price of a pair of shoes for each of the heads or else that we had attempted to impose

upon the public, by impressing the capitals of the Alphabet into our service without leave of either University, College, or Academy. Our vanity was, for a moment, levelled with the dust; but, on serious reflection, we found that we had more sound reason to despise such critics, than they had for their affected contempt of us; and

• Richard was himself again!"

To exculpate ourselves from so heavy a charge as that of attempting to pass a deception upon a liberal and discerning public, we shall ingenuously confess that we owe nothing to any University, College, or Public Academy, as we have never, like the jay in the fable, borrowed any of their feathers; and yet, the Roman Letters, with which we have graced our English name, are ours by birth-right, and we will use them at our pleasure, in spite of Universities, Colleges, and Academies.-Such auxiliaries are now grown a stale literary trick, but what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander! If the public are so absurd as to imagine that those books contain the greatest share of sense, to which are prefixed the names of the authors

with a long string of capital letters, like a tail to a paper kite; why-the public absurdity is the stock-in-trade of individuals, and we have as much right to profit by it as others.

Having thus run full tilt against the whole Roman Alphabet, with as much ardour, but, we shall endeavour to shew, not with as much blindness, as Don Quixote attacked the windmills, we must either overcome them by disclosing the absurd use made of them, or remain, like the chop-fallen hero of La Mancha, battered and bruised on the ground from the superior force of such formidable antagonists. Nay, perhaps, we shall be exposed to the ridicule of the mul titude. Zounds! we shall never be able to bear such a humiliation, and, like that immortal hero, whose sod is not yet green upon him, we shall rush to the combat, exclaiming: "Victory, or the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey!"

The Grecians and Romans,-Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Virgil, &c. had no need of any tails to their paper kites; they mounted into the upper regions of wit, fancy, and judgement, from their

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own momentum, and had no occasion to use meretricious ornaments. "Good wine needs no bush." It was not until the Attic salt had wholly evaporated, or lay dormant amidst dross, and more ponderous minerals, that recourse was had to a paltry substitute. It was not till then that the world witnessed vapid books ushered into the world under the fallacious baits of By DANIEL DROWSY, D. D.; ANDREW MORPHEUS, A. M.; FEATHERBRAIN RIGMAROLL SELFCONCEIT, F.R.S.: It was not till then that, for want of invention, men, unable to compose any thing new themselves, became critics, annotators, commentators upon, and compilers, that is, pilferers, from the works of others. From that æra, the additions of D. D. M. D. A. M. F. R. S. A.S. S. &c. to the names of authors, we should have said compilers, became synomimes of brains. But as experience has shown that reverend and learned gentlemen have not always a superabundance of the latter, some poor devil of an untitled author is employed to do the drudgery of the work, and one of these titular gentry, for a sum, perhaps six times greater than that which is bestowed on

the real author, condescends to let his name and title appear on the title-page. Whether this be not an imposition on the public, we shall leave to them to determine. There could be no reasonable objection to the addenda of LL.D. to a treatise on Law; of D.D. to one of Divinity; or of M. D. to one of Physic; provided they accompanied the names of the real authors; but to see them lugged in upon every occasion— where the title has no relation whatever to the work- is mere pomp of show.' As these titles are only professional, they should certainly be confined to the profession. It may be alleged in defence of a promiscuous use of them, that the man, who possesses one or more of these titles, must have received a liberal education; but there are infinitely more persons who have not had these titles conferred upon them, and yet have received an equally liberal education. Honours are very perceptibly sown on very barren ground.

Reader, we do not speak from envy, nor feel the least regret, that "our post of honour is a private station;” we speak the truth because it is taking the easiest and shortest route. Whatever may be the opinion of the un