“MADAM,

“I have so tender a regard for you and your interests, that I’ll knock any man in the head whom I observe to be of my mind, and like you.  Mr. Truman the other day looked at you in so languishing a manner, that I am resolved to run him through to-morrow morning:  this, I think, he deserves for his guilt in admiring you; than which I cannot have a greater reason for murdering him, except it be that you also approve him.  Whoever says he dies for you, I will make his words good, for I will kill him.  I am,

“Madam,

“Your most obedient,

“Most humble Servant.”

From my own Apartment, June 14.

I am just come hither at ten at night, and have ever since six been in the most celebrated, though most nauseous, company in town:  the two leaders of the society were a critic and a wit.  These two gentlemen are great opponents upon all occasions, not discerning that they are the nearest each other in temper and talents of any two classes of men in the world; for to profess judgment, and to profess wit, both arise from the same failure, which is want of judgment.  The poverty of the critic this way proceeds from the abuse of his faculty; that of the wit from the neglect of it.  It is a particular observation I have always made, that of all mortals, a critic is the silliest; for by inuring himself to examine all things, whether they are of consequence or not, be never looks upon anything but with a design of passing sentence upon it; by which means, he is never a companion, but always a censor.  This makes him earnest upon trifles; and dispute on the most indifferent occasions with vehemence.  If he offers to speak or write, that talent which should approve the work of the other faculties, prevents their operation.  He comes upon action in armour; but without weapons:  he stands in safety; but can gain no glory.  The wit on the other hand has been hurried so long away by imagination only, that judgment seems not to have ever been one of his natural faculties.  This gentleman takes himself to be as much obliged to be merry, as the other to be grave.  A thorough critic is a sort of Puritan in the polite world.  As an enthusiast in religion stumbles at the ordinary occurrences of life, if he cannot quote scripture examples on the occasion; so the critic is never safe in his speech or writing, without he has among the celebrated writers an authority for the truth of his sentence.  You will believe we had a very good time with these brethren, who were so far out of the dress of their native country, and so lost to its dialect, that they were as much strangers to themselves, as to their relation to each other.  They took up the whole discourse; sometimes the critic grew passionate, and when reprimanded by the wit for any trip or hesitation in his voice, he would answer, Mr. Dryden makes such a character on such an occasion break off in the same manner; so that the stop was according to nature, and