an author is
justified in appealing to every _upright_ and _honourable_ mind in
the kingdom." If Mr. Bowles limits the perusal of his defence to the
"upright and honourable" only, I greatly fear that it will not be
extensively circulated. I should rather hope that some of the
downright and dishonest will read and be converted, or convicted. But
the whole of his reasoning is here superfluous--"_an author is
justified in appealing_," &c. when and why he pleases. Let him make
out a tolerable case, and few of his readers will quarrel with his
motives.

Mr. Bowles "will now plainly set before the literary public all the
circumstances which have led to _his name_ and Mr. Gilchrist's being
brought together," &c. Courtesy requires, in speaking of others and
ourselves, that we should place the name of the former first--and not
"_Ego_ et Rex meus." Mr. Bowles should have written "Mr. Gilchrist's
name and his."

This point he wishes "particularly to address to those _most
respectable characters_, who have the direction and management of the
periodical critical press." That the press may be, in some instances,
conducted by respectable characters is probable enough; but if they
are so, there is no occasion to tell them of it; and if they are not,
it is a base adulation. In either case, it looks like a kind of
flattery, by which those gentry are not very likely to be softened;
since it would be difficult to find two passages in fifteen pages
more at variance, than Mr. Bowles's prose at the beginning of this
pamphlet, and his verse at the end of it. In page 4. he speaks of
"those most respectable characters who have the direction, &c. of the
periodical press," and in page 10. we find--

"Ye _dark inquisitors_, a monk-like band,
Who o'er some shrinking victim-author stand,
A solemn, secret, and _vindictive brand,
Only_ terrific in your cowl and hood."

And so on--to "bloody law" and "red scourges," with other similar
phrases, which may not be altogether agreeable to the above-mentioned
"most respectable characters." Mr. Bowles goes on, "I concluded my
observations in the last Pamphleteer with feelings _not unkind_
towards Mr. Gilchrist, or" [it should be _nor_] "to the author of the
review of Spence, be he whom he might."--"I was in hopes, _as I have
always been ready to admit any errors_ I might have been led into, or
prejudice I might have entertained, that even Mr. Gilchrist might be
disposed to a more _amicable_ mode