The fame which Mr. Duncan Campbell got by the foregoing, and several other predictions of the like kind, was become very large and extensive, and had spread itself into the remotest corners of this metropolis. The squares rung with it, it was whispered from one house to another through the more magnificent streets, where persons of quality and distinction reside; it catched every house in the city, like the news of stock from Exchange-alley; it run noisily through the lanes and little thoroughfares where the poor inhabit; it was the chat of the tea-table, and the babble of the streets; and the whole town, from the top to the bottom, was full of it. Whenever any reputation rises to a degree like this, let it be for what art or accomplishment, or on what account soever it will, malice, envy, and detraction, are sure to be the immediate pursuers of it with full mouth, and to hunt it down if possible, with full cry. Even the great Nostradamus, though favoured by kings and queens, which always without any other reason creates enemies, was not more pursued by envy and detraction for his predictions in Paris, and throughout France, than our Duncan Campbell was in London, and even throughout England. Various, different, and many were the objections raised to blot his character and extenuate his fame, that when one was confuted another might not be wanting to supply its place, and so to maintain a course and series of backbiting, according to the known maxim, Throw dirt, and if it does not stick, throw dirt continually, and some will stick.