represented in very unfavourable colours. He described him as a ruffian,
capable of undertaking the darkest scenes of villany. He said his house
was a repository of the most flagrant iniquities. That it contained
fathers kidnapped by their children, wives confined by their husbands,
gentlemen of fortune sequestered by their relations, and innocent persons
immured by the malice of their adversaries. He affirmed this was his own
case; and asked if our hero had never heard of Dick Distich, the poet and
satirist. "Ben Bullock and I," said he, "were confident against the
world in arms--did you never see his ode to me beginning with 'Fair
blooming youth'? We were sworn brothers, admired and praised, and quoted
each other, sir. We denounced war against all the world, actors,
authors, and critics; and having drawn the sword, threw away the
scabbard--we pushed through thick and thin, hacked and hewed helter
skelter, and became as formidable to the writers of the age as the
Boeotian band of Thebes. My friend Bullock, indeed, was once rolled in
the kennel; but soon

He vig'rous rose, and from th' effluvia strong
Imbib'd new life, and scour'd and stunk along.

"Here is a satire, which I wrote in an alehouse when I was drunk--I can
prove it by the evidence of the landlord and his wife; I fancy you'll own
I have some right to say with my friend Horace,

Qui me commorit, (melius non tangere clamo,)
Flebit, et insignis tota cantabitur urbe."

The knight, having perused the papers, declared his opinion that the
verses were tolerably good; but at the same time observed that the author
had reviled as ignorant dunces several persons who had writ with