Sidney and Puffendorf, and fifty other writers in the courfe of my little reading, and find no form of government so dangerous as a Mobocracy. The clenched fifts are indeed the patriot arms of fuch a ftate their only law is club law; and their chief logick is the Argumentum Baculinum, which is with them the knock down argument. Such is the custom of the city of London. What are all the political writers of the present times, except the Briton and myself? The fcum of Grub-street, the dregs of the church, and the refuse of the legislature. I have convicted the apoftate Monitor, as well as his patron, the Grand Penfioner, of political tergiverfation. I have put to rebuke the petulant flippancy of the North Briton, and have proved him to be a haberdafher of fmall literature, the publisher of a Chronique Scandaleufe, the conductor of a weekly libel. The reverend half of him I have fhewn to be a mere Oldmixon in politicks, diving among the Naiads of Fleet-ditch, in the mud of Scurrility. The other half of him, half military and half legislative, I have shown to be a downright Catiline, hatching a confpiracy or affaffination plot against the characters of the firft perfons in the kingdom, and like Lord Shaftesbury in Hudibras,

5

So politick, as if one eye
Upon the other were a spy;

That to trapan the one to think

"

The other blind, both ftrove to blink.

Sometimes I content myself with calling him contemptuously an impudent fellow; and fometimes. I find that he wrote his paper when exceedingly drunk, and therefore I difdain to give him a fober reply. Contempt is the only tribute proper to be paid by men of veracity and honour, to wretches of their character; bafe flanderers who have reviled and ftill continue to revile, all orders of men, the Commonalty, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Royal Family, and Me.

I fhall add nothing, Mr. Baldwin, to this long essay, which I am quite fatigued with transcribing, though perhaps you may hear from me once more on this fubject, when I fhall fend you a Catalogue, which may ferve as a corollary to this fhort view of the prefent ftate of politicks in Great-Britain.

Yours, as before,

RHAPSODISTA.

T

To the PRINTER of the ST. JAMES'S CHRONICLE.

CRETA, an CARBONE notandi.

Crayon'd in pureft CHALK, or etch'd

From a rough draught in CHARCOAL fketch'd.

Mr. Baldwin,

HOR.

Saturday, Feb. 19, 1763.

THE following Columns contain nothing

more than two feparate lifts of the celebrated perfonages, who have at any time been honoured with notice, by the AUDITOR or NORTH BRITON. Thefe lifts I know must neceffarily be imperfect, because they are taken down merely upon memory; and because fuch keen Satirists cannot fo grofsly have mifpent their time, as to have lafhed fo few people; yet I have been the lefs curious to render thefe lifts complete, because I know that the writers in queftion are fuch ftirring fpirits, that they will each be continually fwelling their feveral catalogues, for which reason I have contented myself with leaving certain vacant fpaces, for the infertion of fuch names already diftinguished as I must without doubt have omitted, or to be filled. up as time fhall ferve, and the AUDITOR or NORTH BRITON, fhall hereafter please to direct.

VOL. II.

D

Let

Let us, however, do juftice to the candour, as well as acrimony of our Political Writers. They deal in Panegyrick, as well as Satire. If they throw dirt with the scavenger's fhovel, they also lay on Praise with a trowel. Every modern controverfial writer in Politicks fits down with Encomium on the right, and Obloquy on the left, like Jupiter between the tubs of Good and Evil; or to lower my fimile, like brother Pamphlet in the Upholsterer with white-wash in one hand and blackball in the other. All their characters, or rather caricatures, may be confidered as the Rough Draughts of the mafters in the modern fchool of crayons, who fometimes draw in Chalk, but most commonly in Charcoal. It was my first intention to have given both the Chalk and Charcoal Portraits of each of the great mafters in queftion; but I foon reflected that I might fave that trouble, by defiring your readers to take it for a general rule, that fuch as are blackened in the NORTH BRITON are, by Act of Grace,white-washed in the AUDITOR, and fo vice verfâ. Every great character, like a poft or a wainscot, is deftined to be painted, in different colours, at least twice over and in this various light, we may at pleasure, confider the Two Following Columns either as the two principal pillars of the Temple of Slander, or the two tables

in the Temple of Fame. As we are now, however, at the very opening of Lent, I would have the noble lords and gentlemen, whofe names appear in thefe lifts, to regard the perufal of them, as an act of humiliation and mortification; and to remember that they have been told their own by the great writers, under whofe aweful names they are here arranged.

It must, however, be premised, as our fixt opinion, that the AUDITOR is by far the most refpectable character, and the moft polite and learned writer of the two. The NORTH BRITON founded the Nether Trump of Fame at the very first onset, and furiously charged the Scots and the Ministry at once. The AUDITOR fet out with profeffions of moderation and impartiality: he did not feek for Defamation, but it lay in his way, and he found it : mark his candid declarations in his first number! "The malevolent are not to expect to be gratified "with Slander, the illiberal with Scurrility, or "the inconfiderate with Buffoonery. Ingredients "like these can have no admiffion into a paper, "which is undertaken upon principles laudable in "themselves; which is intended to reconcile the "minds of men to their own good, and to one 66 another; to refute or laugh out of counte