By the fierce resentment of one of these offended parties, remarkable for the licentiousness of his sentiments, and the indiscriminate abuse which he scattered every where around him, our satirist was once involved in a perilous, but whimsical predicament. The culprit felt so poignant by the lash, which had been applied to his shoulders, that after brooding over his wounds, in sullen, silent malignity, he determined upon taking personal vengeance. He was led to this, from the mistaken apprehension, that courage was proportioned to stature, and that a little body must necessarily be the depository of a pusillanimous spirit. He, however, found himself most egregiously mistaken. Armed with “a dagger and a pall,” in other words with a bludgeon and surtout, he contrived to watch the satirist to his bookseller’s shop, which he was known to frequent regularly at a certain hour of the morning. As soon as he had seen his foe enter, the exasperated poetaster followed him in, and immediately, without a word of warning, in the most base and cowardly manner, attempted to strike his adversary on the head. But he reckoned without his host. The little man seeing what he was about, caught his uplifted arm with one hand, and with the other actively wrested the bludgeon from his grasp, which he managed with so much dexterity and force upon his dastardly adversary, that the tables were turned, and the assailant was fairly beaten out of the shop, with marks of his discomfiture, which he carried for a long time afterwards manifest on his visage. Few things have been more extensively circulated than the satirical poem, alluded to above. It passed through various editions, and still retains the reputation it deserves. This effusion, which was limited to sonnet writers, makers of odes, and Dilettanti scribblers of that class, was succeeded by an attack managed with no less ability and skill, on certain theatrical productions of similar tendency and character, which for a long time usurped an undue possession of the stage. This met with the same favourable reception from the public, and was productive of equally good consequences. But the “_magnum opus_” of this distinguished personage, is one that will perish only with the language. It is one which occupied the thoughts of his earliest years, and was progressively completed, in the full maturity of his talents. It combines all the extensive and essential qualities of deep erudition, acute criticism, sound observation, and exquisite taste. In the character in which he is here introduced, namely, as a member of the Symposium, it is impossible to conceive any thing more unassuming, mild, and agreeable, than his manner and conversation. Never impatient of contradiction, never dogmatical in his arguments, he always improved the “olla podrida” of the meeting, without taking any merit from the flavour of the sauces, which he himself contributed to the mess.