"The fellow's done for himself," was the simultaneous verdict of a well-wigged band of brothers. And what else they might have added in their charity poor Clements never knew, for he crept away to his garret, stricken with disappointment. There he must encounter other trials of the heart: two or three reviews and newspapers lay upon his table, just sent in by the bookseller, as per order; for they contained, in spirit-stirring print, notices of '_Clements on Defence_.' Unluckily for his present peace of mind, poor fellow, the periodicals in question were none of the humaner sort; no kindly encouraging '_Literary Register_,' no soft-spoken '_Courtier_,' no patient '_Investigator_,' no generously-indulgent '_Critical Gazette_:' these more amiable journals would be slower in the field--some six weeks hence, perhaps, creeping on with philanthropic sloth: but fiercer prints, which dart hebdomadal wrath at every trembling seeker of their parsimonious praise, had whipt up their malice to deliver the first swift blow against our hapless neophyte in print. Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the '_Watchman_,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the small type in which it spake was a comfort too: "A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of fame; proving to the world that a Mr. Henry Clements can reason very feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance." By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless?"--every word had been a care to him: "clumsy?"--in composition it was Addison's own self: "feeble?"--if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: "false?"--not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"--it was bold and masculine, certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: "ignorant?"--ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how Clements had been studying!--And yet this most lying sentence, a congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor barrister a fool! O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly--they cannot smite again: forbear! for it is cruel--the hearts of wife and mother and lover ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable--for often-times a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail.