Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/281

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Doctor Dicky Scribble, who was now at as great pains to vilify the parliamentary exhibitions of Hamilton, as he formerly had been to revile his literary works. This virulence Dicky poured out in the midst of warm professions of friendship. Hence many may suppose, that Dicky Scribble is a very faithless and bad man. He is not so naturally; he is only so from the accident of situation. Scribble is a bad man, because he is a bad writer; he pours out calumny, not against all, for all do not interfere with him; but against all writers or intellectual labourers of growing or established reputation. He calls on them "with no friendly voice, but to tell them in his darkness how he hates their light." Poor Dicky not only supposes himself to have common sense, and that is straining hypothesis much too far, but in an infatuation of self-conceit, bordering upon insanity, fancies himself to be above ordinary mediocrity; and,