I ran over my delineation, and then made my memory run over this literary dunce, and that literary dunce of my own acquaintance; and I asked myself this question:--Does not this part of the description rather hit Jacky Allory; now Jacky is a worthy acquaintance of mine, a dunce, that without a single spark of genius, and with some scraps of knowledge, having acquired the gift of spelling, is an undertaker-general in literature? Will not this picture of a literary manufacturer rather hit Jacky? On reflecting, I find not particularly; the circumstances and adjuncts are totally different; there is no resemblance between the picture and that individual, but a resemblance that holds between the picture, and every other original that manufactures books without learning or genius. Jacky stands not alone, _he is in a croud_; the most inventive malignity, therefore, can here make no individual application. I have exhibited a specimen of tours, in which the tourist conveys no information but what was known before, or what was totally immaterial, whether it was known or not. Of that kind, numberless specimens have been written, especially in large quartos. I have endeavoured to copy the general character of such insignificance and inanity; but to prevent individual application, have made the scene and limits totally new. The outset of the tour is the Black Bear Inn, Piccadilly, the course through Knightsbridge, on to Old Brentford, thence round home by Kingston and Richmond; and in that circuit, I flatter myself, that in two pages, I have condensed the essence of many of our most voluminous tourists of the dunce kind. I have introduced plays written by dunces; but in such a manner, as to apply generally to many dramatic joiners, individually to none; having carefully made the history and circumstances probable in themselves, but totally unlike any that have actually existed. I have touched upon German literature, and the system of taste, morals, and religion, which these importations have produced in England. I have mentioned novels of that kind, and also of other kinds, especially those that are written by female scribes, not forgetting the effusions of milliners, when their own work is slack; and, as in duty bound, I have offered a just tribute of praise to the munificent encouragers of these inestimable fictions. I have presented a dunce as author of a history much more voluminous than Gibbon’s; but to preclude any possible misinterpretation, I have made the subject Jack the Giant Killer, of whom it is well known no voluminous history has been written either by a dunce, or any other author. Dunce writers I represent as faithless and backbiting, towards other professional votaries of literature. At the same time, to prevent misapprehension, I carefully declare I do not impute these efforts of malignity, to any thing in dunces more rancorous than in other men. It arises merely from taking