his shop, with a remark or two on one more passage of his son's letter. "You" (meaning me) "can "declaim and scandalize with the greatest hero of "Billingsgate, yet, in sober argument and chastity "of manner, you are a mere nincompoop." -The reader must have observed, that Boileau, Roscommon and Pope, in their poetical rules, always convey the precept in an example; so we see here, that young Lampblack gives us an example of the very manner he decries. But, a word more about chastity: not quite in the same sense, though not so far from it as to render the transition very abrupt.Chastity from the pen of a Bradford! Chastity I say, from No. 8, South-Front Street! Chastity from the bawdy-book shop!I have no pretension to an overstock of modesty or squeamishness. I have served an apprenticeship in the army; yet have I often been shocked to see what the Bradfords sell. Not, perhaps, so much at the obscenity of the books, as at the conduct of the venders. I do not know a traffic so completely infamous as this. In London it is confined to the very scum of the Jews. It is ten times worse than the trade of a bawd it is pimping for the eyes: it creates what the punk does but satisfy when created. These literary panders are the purveyors for the bawdyhouse.- However, as far as relates to the people in question, the sons are not to blame: "a father's "wish is a law with them."

I shall conclude with observing, that though Bradford's publication was principally intended to do away the charge of having duped me in the one and seven pence half-penny job, he has left it just as it was. His son, has, indeed, attempted to bewilder the reader by a comparison between the prices of the ensuing pamphlets; but what has this to do with the matter? His father took the Observations, was to publish them, and give me half the profits. Long after, many months after, every copy of the work

K4

work was sold, I asked him for an account of it, which he brought me in writing, and in which my half of the profits was stated at one shilling and seven pence halfpenny, or, about twenty-one cents.-Now, nothing posterior to this could possibly diminish the barefacedness of the transaction. I did not actually receive the twenty-one cents; I threw the paper from me with disdain; nor did I ever receive a farthing for the publication in question from that day to this.

I now take leave of the Bradfords, and of all those who have written against me. Peoples opinions must now be made up concerning them and me. Those who still believe the lies that have been vomited forth against me are either too stupid or too perverse to merit further attention. I will, therefore, never write another word in reply to any thing that is published about myself. Bark away, hellhounds, till you are suffocated in your own foam. Your labours are preserved, bound up together in a piece of bear-skin, with the hair on, and nailed up to a post in my shop, where whoever pleases may read them gratis.

END OF THE CENSOR. NO. V.

THE

GROS MOUSQUETON DIPLOMATIQUE;

OR

DIPLOMATIC

BLUNDERBUSS.

CONTAINING,

CITIZEN ADET's NOTES TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

AS ALSO HIS

COCKADE PROCLAMATION.

WITH A

PREFACE.

PREFAC E.

WHEN we see an unprincipled, shameless bully,

"A dog in forehead, and in heart a deer," who endeavours, by means of a big look, a threatening aspect, and a thundering voice, to terrify peaceable men into a compliance with what he has neither a right to demand, nor power nor courage to enforce, and who, at the same time, acts in such a bungling, stupid manner, as to excite ridicule and contempt in place of fear; when we see such a gasconading, impudent bluff as this (and that we do every day), we call him a Blunderbuss. But, the reader will not, I hope, have conceived me so devoid of all decency and prudence, as to imagine, even for a moment, that it is in this degrading sense that the name of Blunderbuss has been given to the invaluable collection which I here present to the public. Indeed, it is so evident that I could mean no such thing, that this declaration seems hardly necessary; but, as my poor old grandmother used to say, "a burnt child dreads the fire," and after the unrelenting severities of misconception and misconstruction, that a humane and commiserating public have so often seen me endure, they will think it very natural for me to fear, that what I really intended as a compliment, would, if left unexplained,