Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • curred those private individuals, whose

opinions he chiefly regarded. A Robertson and a Gibbon, a Watson, a Fergusson, and a Burke, spoke its praises, while jackalls only of jacobinism barked disapprobation. A Strongbrain bore his testimony to the excellence of the production with discriminate applause; while detractors and envy attested the same truth in the obloquy of the dunces, the impotent babbling of the enraged and contemptible Doctor Dicky Scribble. Scribble lost a good deal of his own time in going from coffeehouse to coffeehouse, to abuse Hamilton's production, and in the same period might have manufactured two or three books, by his usual drudgery. Hamilton enjoyed the feeling so pleasing to an author, in the assurance that his literary fame was established. Most of the reviews bore high testimony to the merits of Hamilton's work; two, indeed,