seem!_

GRANDOLPH, at an early epoch in his Apprenticeship, did found a
sort of Comradeny or Free Company, which, from the number of its
constituent items, came to be intituled _The Fourth Party_, in the
which ARTHUR modestly took subordinate place, with unobtrusive ease
and languid resignation. This Party did push matters in the _Craft_
with a high hand and a talkative tongue. For as the ingenious Earl
of SHAFTESBURY saith in his _Soliloquy_, "Company is an extreme
provocative to Fancy, and, like a hot bed in gardening, is apt to
make our Imaginations sprout too fast."

That GRANDOLPH was obnoxious to this charge of "sprouting too fast"
may seem made manifest by the sequel. He indeed pushed himself into
the front place by dint of copious verbosity, and militant oppugnancy.
But (as the same SHAFTESBURY saith) where, instead of Controul,
Debate, or Argument, the chief exercise of the wit consists in
uncontroulable Harangues and Reasonings, which must neither be
questioned nor contradicted; there is great danger lest the Party,
thro' this habit, shou'd suffer much by Cruditys, Indigestions,
Choler, bile, and particularly by a certain _tumour_, or _flatulency_,
which renders him, of all men, the least liable to apply the
wholesome _regimen_ of self-practice. 'Tis no wonder if such quaint
practitioners grow to an enormous size of Absurdity, whilst they
continue the reverse of that practice, by which alone we correct
the Redundancy of Humours, and chasten the exuberance of Conceit and
Fancy.

Whether this particular "quaint practitioner" (our Idle Apprentice,
GRANDOLPH) plagued "the Party" too much with his "Cruditys, Choler,"