fhould forget the contexture of his preceding paragraph, part of which runs thus, "What is urged by thofe who have been fo induftrious to fpread fufpicion, and incite fury from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known by peruning the papers which have at once been prefented as petitions to the king, and exhibited in print, as remonftrances to the people. Now let me afk with what propriety our author can fay, after having peruled thefe petitions, that all qur 'oppreffions are included in the vote just mentioned. When there are no less than twenty five articles of complaint exhibited in the Middlefex petition alone, indeed most of them refpe&t Mr. Wilkes, but they form a lift of real oppreffions, which being exercised on the perfon and property of one individual, may most probably be drawn into a prcedent, and, by the fame difpenfing power, introduced into government, contrary to the principles of the conftitution, may be practifed against others, and therefore till we have a full afurance from the three eftates of the realm, that it shall not happen again, which affurance ought to be preceded by making amends to the injured party, we have a right to fay that these are actual fubfisting grievances.

But how comes Dr. Johnfon to have forget all his American brethren? What have they done that the oppreffions they have laboured under, equally detrimental to themfelves and to the mother country in a commercial light, fhould be excluded from the chapter of grievances ?-the plain truth of the matter is, that he knows no more of commerce, than he does of the conflitution in general of South Britain. To atone however for the falfebood of his affertion, he has inadvertently acknowledged that the freeholders of Middlefex are deprived of a Briton's birth-right, reprefentation in parliament; to this trath we heartily fubfcribe, and think it is lucky that, by his incorrectnefs, he has added truth to falfehood, by way of compromife, but we with his friends at court may forgive him. We fuppofe he meant to have faid, by which the freeholders of Middelex conceive they are de prived, &c.

The following paffage is fill more curious.- "The character of the man (Mr. Wilkes) thus fatally excepted, I have no purpofe to delineate. Lampoon itself would difdain to fpeak ill of him of whom no man fpeaks well" We will not affront the Doctor's undertanding fo far as to refer him to Sir Joshua Reynolds for an explanation of the term delineate, we believe he knows, that it is generally understood to mean the first draught, now though the learned author of the falfe alarm has not vouchfafed to finish the moral picture, yet he has given us fuch a first draught, or out line, that, if it were juft, would make us wish to fee no more of the man. For fhame, thou defpicable tool of a tery adminiftration are public bodies of refpectable men, of characters of the firft diftinction, of no eftimation in your account? Does no body fpeak well of the brave citizen who has intrepidly weathered

weathered the form of foul perfecution, against whom every exertion of ministerial power has been called forth, and when that failed, every allurement of feduction; who yet has foregone his own fafety, and all pecuniary intereft, by defpifing alike all threats and promifes, in order to adhere to the folemn promife he had made to his countrymen, never to accept of any place or penfion, as a condition for deferting or betraying the glorious caufe of civil liberty. Yes, Dr. Johnfon, I will tell you one mortifying, ungrateful truth.Mr. Wilkes is not only fpoken well of by millions at prefent, but generations, yet unborn, will speak well of him, when you and your mighty works, which have gained reputation only from the low ebb of polite and ufeful literature, fhall fcarce ever be mentioned. Yet do not think that we idolize Mr. Wilkes, far from it, we are fenfible he has frailties, and fome of them of a very unfriendly calt; -he fees not or he feels not, that the veneration paid to him by his fellow citizens, the unbought honours voluntarily conferred on him, have elated him too much, and made him forget how galling it muft be to any private gentleman, fuffering like himself from an arbitrary tyrannical coxcomb of a Secretary of State, but not, like him, fupported by the foftering hand of public benevolence, to be treated with unmeritted cooinefs, or infolent neglect, by this fon of fortune: but neither this, nor the foibles of his youth, which have been foolishly urged against him, in the leaft diminith his public virtue, or ought in the leaft to leffen the nation's just regard for the firft, and, at the time he flood forth, the fole defender of it's facred rights and priviledges; which, but for him, had been violated with impunity, till from one bold ftep to another, the tools of defpotifm had precipitated us into the abyfs of flavery. -It may not be amifs to purfue fome of the very curious remarks of our modern Cynick.

That a man was in jail for fedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been within memory, a fufficient reafon why he fhould not come out of jail a legillator. This reafon, notwithflanding the mutability of fafhion, happens ftill to operate on the House of Commons. Their notions however ftrange, may be jus tified by a common obfervation, that few are mended by imprifonment, aud that he whofe crimes have made confinement neceffary, feldom makes any other ufe of his enlargement, than to do with greater cunning what he did before with lefs " The learned Doctor will permit me to obferve, that if any of his godfons, whofe parents thought themfelves exalted above the clouds when he vouchfafed to ftand for them, fhould reafon in this filly manner at twelve years of age, he would instantly pronounce" the boy is a downright ideot"- when was it ever advanced before, Sir, that the mutability of fashion operated any effect on the general received notions of Sedition and Impiety? But even if this were allowed, your reafoning upon it turns against yourself, for it is you and your brethren the mercenary

tools

tools of the accurfed Thane who have made it the fashion, to call a legal conftitutional oppofition to the measures of a weak and wicked adininiftration by the foul name of fedition--and to brand with the opprobious term Impiety, the unguarded wanton fallies of a youthful mind, fallies long fince repented of, and which would never have given any public offence or scandal, if they had not been brought to light, by thofe who are fond of raking into all the filthy fluts corners of human nature. Your acknowledging, "that the opinion of the House of Commons in Mr. Wilkes's cafe is very frange," every body will give you credit for, as readily as they will believe that in the fociety of generous, charitable, humane people you unfortunately live amongft, there is fcarce a man to be found, befides yourself, favage enongh to make the rigid obfervation you have done, on the unfortunate who may happen to fuffer occafional imprisonment, through the corruption of the times, and the malevolence of people in power. One would have thought, indeed, you had studied the hiftorical plays of Shakespear long enough, to learn, that many great characters have made a fingular good ufe of imprisonment, and have come out of a jail to be legiflators. Equally indecifive, but fubtle is his argument, that expulfion is a privilege confirmed by the refiftless power of political neceffity, after having allowed that it is not warranted by any written law, or pofitive compact.Heaven defend that nation! whofe legiflature is to be fubject to the refiftless power of political neceffity, a kingdom in fuch a fituation, should be peopled only by fuch willing flaves as Dr. Johnfenfor the law of political neceffity is the law of tyrants, juftifying every exertion of arbitrary power, by fome' fuppofed emergency which obliges them to difpenfe with the common rules of equity and juftice. And it is what the Penfionary and his great friends have been moving heaven and earth to introduce into the government of this free country.

In the course of the falfe alarm, the reader must not be furprifed at finding many paffages which evince that the author is a warm defender of the moit arbitrary principles that ever entered into the brain of man. In one place he afferts," that the autho rity of the Houfe of Commons is uncontroulable, that it may be oppreffively and injuriously exerted, and that he who fuffers injuice is without redress, however innocent, however miferable." What is this but to fay in plain terms, that the whole body of the people out of doors, are flaves to the arbitrary will of their own reprefentatives within that houfe. But he obferves, "that if they are controulable, they are no longer legiflative.' Thefe may be the dogmatical tenets held in Johnfon's Court; but in Mr. under-fecretary Wood's language, let me tell the Doctor, they will not bold water.

Page

* That our readers may not think we mean a miferable pun on the author's name, it is neceffary to inform them, that the Doctor

Page 16 of this celebrated performance opens with ano ther grofs falfehood, in thefe words-" Thofe who had undertaken to oppofe the miniftry, having no grievance of greater magnitude, endeavoured to fwell this decifion (the feating of Luttrell as member for Middlefex) into bulk, and distort it into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the whole nation."

Indeed, friend Samuel, its bulk, and its deformity needed neither fwelling nor diftorting, the whole figure, to follow your fublime metaphor, was a hideous monfter, whofe fall fooner or later, will crush all the wretches that have fupported it. But, Sir, grievances of a greater magnitude than even this decifion, daily call aloud for redrefs. Our commerce has long fince been loft on the continent of Europe and in the Levant. We have maintained minifters and confuls in thefe parts, at an immenfe expence, but whenever any of them have had the public spirit to refent eucroachments on British priviledges, or violations of treaties of commerce, they have been either feverely reprimanded, or rudely difmiffed from their offices; for your Stuart has infufed his own daftardly notions into the mind of our gracious

In the mean time, the French and the Danes vigoroutly fupport all their commercial officers abroad, and will not · luffer an affront to be put on even a Courtier Roiale, a royal broker, by which conduct they preferve and extend their commerce in all parts of Europe, and maintain the privileges granted by foreign powers, in former times, to their fubjects, while we are continually giving up and lofing ours by cowardice and neglect.

What does the pious Dr. Johnson think of our deferting. the ecclefiaftical police of our government, of our violation of the principles of the revolution, and of the act of fettlement, by allowing papifts to hold offices of truft, and to exercife legillative powers within the British dominions. But I had forgot this is nothing to a Jacobite reformed by a penfion; a Tory and a Stuart, at heart.

We will trouble our readers with only one flriking contradiction in the false alarm, written by the learned, accurate, and cele brated Dr. Johnfon. It cannot be any flip of inattention, fince we find it in the fecond edition, corrected, no doubt, by the venerable author

Page 24. He fays, "Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by fuch expedients, as the fucceffive difcovery of their defects happened to fuggeft, are never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of diffimilar materials, railed by different architects, upon different plans. We must be con-tent with them as they are; fhould we attempt to mend their dif proportions

lives in Johnson's Court, Fleet-ftreet, and is the petty tyrant of the place-Nor dog, nor cat, nor child dare disturb his profound meditations, by ill-timed noifes.

proportions, we might easily demolish, and difficultly rebuild them. Laws are now made, and cufloms are established; thefe are our rules, and by them we must be guided."

How this agrees with what he advances in page 18, we fhall leave to his good friend, the Scotch conductors of Archy Hamilton's Critical Review, which we never read: but are well affured will extol the false alarm to the skies, if it is not done already. The paffage we mean to compare with the foregoing runs thus.

"It remains then to be difcuffed, whether a man expelled, can be fo difqualified by a vote of the Houfe, as that he thall be no longer eligible by lawful electors.Here we muft again reAcur, not to positive inflitutions, but to the unwritten law of focial nature, to the great and pregnant principle of political neceffity." Were it not that we are fully convinced, a philofopher and a pedant neither wants nor will take advice, and that cowardice is inherent in a political renegado, we fhould beg and pray, that the good Doctor would avoid the fate of a late great man who died for fame, for furely a man who is generally allowed to have wrote fo well, must be infane to write fuch a wretched pamphlet as THE FALSE ALARM.

A

The Crifis. 8vo. 15. Murray.

M.

Concife, critical anfwer to the false alarm, containing but few pages, but abundant matter, clofe reafoning, and conclufive arguments. It opens with a parody on the first paragraph of the falje alarm, and turns his own weapons on the vanquished

author.

As it cannot but entertain our readers, to fee how eafily a formidable antagonift is defeated by a skilful opponent.*

One of the chief advantages derived, by the prefent generation, from the improvement and diffufion of philofophy, is deliverance from unneceffary terrors, and exemption from falie alarms. The unufual appearances whether regular or accidental, which once fpread confternation over ages of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquifitive fecurity.

The fun is no more lamented when it is eclipfed, than when it fets; and meteors play their corrufcations without prognoftick or prediction. The advancement of political knowledge, may be expected to produce, in time, the like effects: Caufelefs difcontent, and feditious violence, will grow lefs frequent, and lefs formidable, as the fcience of government is better afcertained by a diligent ftudy of the theory of man. Falje alarm. p 3.

Crifis. p. 5 One of the principal advantages we derive from the coltivation of philofophy, is an improved knowledge of civil li berty. It is the property of fcience to look up to the origin of things. Hence the privileges of mankind are more effectually un

* We shall quote both paffages.

deritood