Goold Brown professes to be my personal friend, and to 'rejoice at my success.' If he were sincere in this profession, he would not treat me with invective, nor garble my language to sustain his unfounded accusations against me. If he were sincere in his professions, and consistent in his opinions, he would not _now_ condemn my Grammar, and slanderously assert that it is one of the 'worst' books of the kind ever written; for, seven years ago last autumn, he praised, and _highly_ praised, this self-same Grammar, and declared it to be 'A GOOD WORK!'[8] If he were sincere in his professions, or honest in his declarations, he would not hypocritically pretend that 'the vindication of a greatly injured and perverted science' constrained him to say what he has said concerning me and my works, when every page and paragraph of his abusive remarks clearly shows, that they flowed from a splenetic mind, mortified by disappointment, soured by neglect, embittered by defeat, and lashed up to fury by the success of a rival whom he lacked the power, but not the will, to crush. Goold Brown knows that what little of learning and fame I have acquired, are the fruits of my own industry. Having never inherited a patrimony, nor received the favors of a guardian, they are honestly come by; and so are the emoluments I receive by way of copy-right; and he admits that I am 'liberal with my gains.' Why then does he seek to destroy me? He knows, too, that I have endured more hardship, suffered more from bodily infirmity, and drank more deeply of the cup of adversity, than most men of my age. Why then does he persecute me, and attempt to wrest from me the just meed of praise and patronage which the public are willing to bestow? I admit that my Grammar has its defects, (and whose has not?) and that, on account of what my countrymen have been pleased to view as excellencies in it, they have been indulgent to its faults. And I repeat, that had Goold Brown pointed out any of these, though in his peculiarly censorious and dogmatical manner, I should have received his criticisms kindly; for I have always held it as a maxim, that a man can never be too well informed to be instructed, even by his enemies and his inferiors. But when a man so far degrades himself as to deal in general denunciation, and coarse invective, instead of just and manly criticism, he neither enlightens the public, nor benefits him whom he assails.