"But the editor is a pledge for all.--The editor of this review is an eminent writer himself." "An eminent writer may be a very great knave, in the first place, and one fact is worth a thousand conjectures in such a matter. But we do not know that there is any responsible editor to works of this nature at all, for there is no name given in the title-page, and nothing is more common than vague declarations of a want of this very responsibility. But if I can prove to you that this article _cannot_ have been written by a man of common honesty, Mr. Howel, what will you then say to the responsibility of your editor?" "In that case I shall be compelled to admit that he had no connexion with it." "Any thing in preference to giving up the beloved idol!" said John Effingham laughing. "Why not add at once, that he is as great a knave as the writer himself? I am glad, however, that Tom Howel has fallen into such good hands, Mrs. Bloomfield, and I devoutly pray you may not spare him." We have said that Mrs. Bloomfield had a rapid perception of things and principles, that amounted almost to intuition. She had read the article in question, and, as she glanced her eyes through its pages, had detected its fallacies and falsehoods, in almost every sentence. Indeed, they had not been put together with ordinary skill, the writer having evidently presumed on the easiness of the class of readers who generally swallowed his round assertions, and were so clumsily done that any one who had not the faith to move mountains would have seen through most of them without difficulty. But Mr. Howel belonged to another school, and he was so much accustomed to shut his eyes to palpable mystification mentioned by Mrs. Bloomfield, that a lie, which, advanced in most works, would have carried no weight with it, advanced in this particular periodical became elevated to the dignity of truth. Mrs. Bloomfield turned to an article on America, in the periodical in question, and read from it several disparaging expressions concerning Mr. Howel's native country, one of which was, "The American's first plaything is the rattle-snake's tail." "Now, what do you think of this assertion in particular, Mr. Howel?" she asked, reading the words we have just quoted. "Oh! that is said in mere pleasantry--it is only wit." "Well, then, what do you think of it as wit?" "Well, well, it may not be of a very pure water, but the best of men are unequal at all times, and more especially in their wit." "Here," continued Mrs. Bloomfield, pointing to another paragraph, "is a positive statement or misstatement, which makes the cost of the 'civil department of the United States Government,' about six times more than it really is." "Our government is so extremely mean, that I ascribe that error to generosity."