MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 128 
Hiffory of Walter Wormwood, ax 
envious Defamer.\ From the Ob- 
Server, vol. Vv. 
To the OssERVER. 
S I have lived long enough to 
repent of a fatal propenfity, 
that has led me to commit many 
offences, not the lefs irkfome to my 
prefent feelings for the fecrecy, 
with which I contrived to execute 
, them; and as thefe can now be no 
otherwife atoned for than by a frank 
sonfeffion, I have refolved upon 
this mode of addrefling myfelf to 
you. Few people chufe to difplay 
their own characters to the world in 
. fuch colours as I fhall give to mine, 
but as I have mangled fo many re- 
putations in my time without mercy, 
i thould be the meaneft of mankind 
if I {pared my own; and being now 
about to fpeak of a perfon, whom 
no man loyes, I may give vent to 
an acrimony, at which no man can 
take offence. 
blefome to others, I am no lefs un- 
comfortable to myfelf, and amidft 
vexations without number the great- 
eft of all is, that there is not one, 
which does not originate from my- 
If. 
oe entered upon life with many 
advantages natural and acquired ; 
Zam indebted to my parents for a 
liberal education, and to nature for 
mo contemptible fhare of talents: 
_ my propenfities were not fuch as 
betrayed me into diflipation and ex- 
‘travagance: my mind was habitu- 
ally of a ftudious caft; I had a 
paflion for books, and began to col- 
ke them at an early period of my 
dife : to them I devoted the greateit 
portion of my time, and had my va- 
“nity been of a fort to be contented 
t 
If I have been tron- - 
with the literary credit I had now 
acquired, I had been happy; but { 
was ambitious of convincing the 
world I was not the idle owner of 
weapons, which I did not know the 
ufe of; I feized every fate oppor- 
tunity of making my pretenfions 
refpected by fuch dabblers in the 
belles lettres, who paid court to me, 
and as [ was ever cautious of ftep- 
ping an inch beyond my tether on 
thefe occafions, 1 foon found my- 
felf credited for more learning, than 
my real tock amounted to. I re- 
ceived all vifitors in my library, 
affected a ftudious air, and took care 
to furnifh my table with volumes 
of a fele& fort; upon thefe I was 
prepared to defcant, if by chance a 
curious friend took up any one of 
them ; and as there is little fame ta 
be got by treading in the beaten 
rack of popular opinion, I fome- 
times took the liberty to be eccen- 
tric and paradoxical in my criti- 
cifms and cavils, which gtined me 
great refpeét from the ignorant, 
(for upon fuch only I took care to 
practife this chicanery) fo that in 
a fhort time I became a fovereign 
diétator within a certain fet, who 
looked up to me for fecond-hand 
opinions in all matters of literary 
tafte, and faw myfelf inaugurated by 
my flatterers cenfor of all new pub - 
lications. : 
My trumpeters had now made 
fuch a noife in the world, that 
began to be in great requeit, and 
men of real literature laid out for 
my acquaintance; but here I atted 
with a coldnefs, that was in me 
constitutional as well as prudential: 
I was refolved nat to rik my lau- 
rels, and throw away the fruits of 
a triumph fo cheaply purchafed: 
folicitations that would have fiat- 
tered others, only alarmed me ; fuch 
was 
