Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the '_Watchman_,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the small type in which it spake was a comfort too: "A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of fame; proving to the world that a Mr.Henry Clements can reason very feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance." By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless ?"--every word had been a care to him: "clumsy ?"--in composition it was Addison's own self: "feeble ?"--if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: "false ?"--not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous ?"--it was bold and masculine, certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: "ignorant ?"--ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how Clements had been studying!--And yet this most lying sentence, a congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor barrister a fool! O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly--they cannot smite again: forbear! for it is cruel--the hearts of wife and mother and lover ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable--for often-times a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail.
'_The Corinthian_,' another snarling watch-dog in the courts of the temple of Fame, followed instinctively the same injurious wake: it was a leisurely sarcastic anatomization, quite enough to blight any young candidate's prospects, supposing that mankind respected such a verdict; if not to make him cut his throat, granting that the victim should be sensitive as Keats.

The generous review in question may be judged of by its first line and last sentence; as Hercules from his advancing foot, or Cuvier's Megatherium from the relics of its great toe.

Thus it commenced: "When a disappointed man, intolerant of fortune," &c., &c., and it wound up many stinging observations with this grateful climax following: "We trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'-- will attack what he is pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high authority--and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn courts of law, he deserves--what does he not deserve ?--to be addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance, presumption, and conceit, as Mr.Henry Clements." Now, will it be believed that a trivial error of the press mainly conduced to occasion this hostility?
Our poor author had been weak enough to "deprecate censure" in his penny-wise humility, and the printer had negatived his meaning as above: "_hinc illae lachrymae_." Oh, but how the ragged tooth of calumny gnawed his very heart! '_The Legal Recorder_' was another of those early unfavourables; being as a matter of course adverse too, and not very disinterestedly either: for it played the exalted part of pet puffer to a rival publisher, who wanted no other reason for condemning this book of Mr.Clements than that it came from the legal officina of an opponent in his trade.

There was another paper or two, but Clements felt so utterly disheartened that he did not dare to look at them.

I wish he had; they would have comforted him, pouring balm upon his wounded pride by their kind and cordial praises: but ill-luck ruled the hour, so he burnt them forthwith, and lost much literary comforting.
To sauce up all this pleasantry with a smack of concreted pleasure itself, the last and only remaining document upon the table was a civil note from Mr.Wormwood, publisher and bookseller, enclosing the following items with his compliments: To 500 copies '_Doctrine of Defence_,' L124 3 To advertising ditto, 25 0 To 10 per cent.