young fencers, both on friend and foe, he runs a fair chance of getting an eye put out, by a weapon so frivolous, that it could never have reached or hurt him, if he had not wilfully stood near it. If he voluntarily put his ointment into the same box with a dead fly, it will infallibly be tainted even by this insignificant nuisance. Even " a little folly dishonoureth “him that is in reputation for wisdom and "honour." If he hold himself out to the public as Tilburina's confidant, he will share, if not the real, at least the reputed fate of her intellects. When the principal goes mad in white sattin, the confidant will be supposed to be delirious in white linen. Finally, let such sober deliberator just interrogate his own conscience, if, in lending his shoulder to hinder public execration and contempt from crushing this Magazine, he is pursuing any thing honest, any thing pure, any thing "of good report." Does he not apprehend that if a profligate writer "turn the grace of "God to lasciviousness," he who helps to cover his offence or propagate his blasphemy, will be held to bid him God speed ; and that " he that biddeth him God speed is partaker "of his evil deeds." To you, Sir, the suggestion of these considerations is unnecessary. I have chosen, however, through the respectable medium of an address to you, to convey them to others. You who preach so well, that " evil commu"nications corrupt good manners," and who charge others to " avoid, turn from, and not even pass by" the "way of evil men," will never preserve amicable literary sodality with fools and scorners. You do not belong to that class of prophets to whom it was reproached, that "when for the time ye ought "to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again." 66 That you may long continue, both by example and by precept, to animate the virtue of the good, to confirm the wavering, instruct the simple, and reclaim or at least abash the profligate, is the sincere wish of, SIR, Your obedient humble Servant, CALVINUS. |