"since" or a "for" or a "because," you make an unqualified assertion,
that this essay will be allowed by all, except the prejudiced, to be a
deep, metaphysical work, though abstruse, etc. etc. Caius Gracchus must
have been little accustomed to abstruse disquisitions, if he deem Mr.
Godwin's work abstruse:--A chief (and certainly not a small) merit is
its perspicuous and "popular" language. My chapter on modern patriotism
is that which has irritated you. You condemn me as prejudiced--O this
enlightened age! when it can be seriously charged against an essayist,
that he is prejudiced in favour of gratitude, conjugal fidelity, filial
affection, and the belief of God and a hereafter!!


Of smart pretty fellows in Bristol are numbers, some
Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome;
And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous,
They affect to believe neither God nor "old Nicholas"![1]


I do consider Mr. Godwin's principles as vicious; and his book as a
pander to sensuality. Once I thought otherwise--nay, even addressed a
complimentary sonnet to the author, in the "Morning Chronicle", of which
I confess with much moral and poetical contrition, that the lines and
the subject were equally bad. I have since "studied" his work; and long
before you had sent me your contemptuous challenge, had been preparing
an examination of it, which will shortly appear in "The Watchman" in a
series of essays. You deem me an "enthusiast"--an enthusiast, I presume,
because I am not quite convinced with yourself and Mr. Godwin that mind
will be omnipotent over matter, that a plough will go into the field and
perform its labour without the presence of the agriculturist, that man
may be immortal in this life, and that death is an act of the