t was given out that
the calamity, for I can call it no less, was to be conducted on liberal
principles, meaning, of course, in the most afflicting and vexatious
manner towards his majesty's ministers.

"What ye say," said I to Mr Scudmyloof when he told me the news, "is very
alarming, very much so indeed; but as there is no law yet actually and
peremptorily prohibiting the sending forth of newspapers, I doubt it will
not be in my power to interfere."

He was of the same opinion; and we both agreed it was a rank exuberance
of liberty, that the commonality should be exposed to the risk of being
inoculated with anarchy and confusion, from what he, in his learned
manner, judiciously called the predilections of amateur pretension. The
parties engaged in the project being Mr Absolom the writer--a man no
overly reverential in his opinion of the law and lords when his clients
lost their pleas, which, poor folk, was very often--and some three or
four young and inexperienced lads, that were wont to read essays, and
debate the kittle points of divinity and other hidden knowledge, in the
Cross-Keys monthly, denying the existence of the soul of man, as Dr
Sinney told me, till they were deprived of all rationality by foreign or
British spirits. In short, I was perplexed when I heard of the design,
not knowing what to do, or what might be expected from me by government
in a case of such emergency as the setting up of a newspaper so
declaredly adverse to every species of vested trust and power; for it was
easy to forsee that those immediately on the scene would be the first
opposed to the onset and brunt of the battle. Never can any public man
have a more delicate task imposed upon him, than to steer clear of
offence in such a predicament. After a full consideration of the
business, Mr Scudmyloof declared that he would retire from the field, and
stand aloof; and he rehearsed a fine passage in the Greek language on
that head, pat to the occasion, but which I did not very thoroughly
understand, being no deacon in the dead languages, as I told him at the
time.

But when the dominie had left me, I considered with myself, and having
long before then observed that our hopes, when realized, are always light
in the grain, and our fears, when come to pass, less than they seemed as
seen through the mists of time and distance, I resolved with myself to
sit still with my eyes open, watching and saying nothing; and it was well
that I deport