66 Dr. DL-kfon's Reply to Mr. Clarle. 



mi (look the fenfe of my very acute and ingenious author ; for 

 which I am ready to make hivi and my readers any reafona- 

 ble apology*. But it is alfo true, as Mr. CKirke himfplf 

 confcfles, that I " have endeavoured to do juliice to my 

 author," and, " on the whole, have properly appreciated his 

 merit." Yet it is no lefs apparent, that both Mr. Clarke 

 and the Monthly Critic, not contented, as the Critical Re- 

 viewer has been, with correcting niv error, have, without the 

 fmallejt provocation, treated me with the greatefl harflinefs 

 and contempt. Their motives will appear hereafter, from 

 the internal evidence of their own writings, compared with 

 my notes on C. Carnot ; and from ftrong collateral ctrcum- 

 llances. Among other things, it will appear, that Mr. 

 Clarke, as well as the Monthly Ceufor, is in fome degree, a 

 critic by trade; that both are in the habit of emitting their 

 decifioDS, with an air of defpotic authority, which ill becomes 

 men whofe abilities, confiderable as they are, cannot hide 

 their inlirmities, far lefs judify their infolence; and that, in 

 inanv indanres, they ought rather to implore pardon, than 

 to provoke recrimination. Mr. Clarke has already been 

 taxed with " nonjeufd' in correcting my errorf ; and the 

 " injurious affertions" of the Monthly Critic have lately 

 oblioed the jullly celebrated Dr. Hutton, of Woolwich, to 

 drng the " concealed tyrant" out of his hole, and to expofe 

 him publicly by iiame. 



I (hall be juililled by the evidence before me, to confider 

 mv cenfors (el'pecially the Monthly one) in certain other 

 Hghts than thofe of felf-conccited and unjuft critics, and 

 illofrical, )ievv-fangled, malhematicians. — But my chief ob- 

 jeiil at prefent is, to repel a charge of plagiarifm, brought 

 againtl me by Mr. Clarke, in thele words : 



*' P. S. The Tranflator informs the reader, in his note, 

 p. 47, that the general method there fliown of finding 

 the fluxions of (juantities, is *' in fome meajurs ne%u." But 

 if the reader will look into Clarke's Rafiojuile of Circulating 

 ]!^u7nber!!, luith ufejul Remarks on various Paris of the Ma~ 

 thematics, publiihed about twenty years ago, he will find the 

 verv fame procefs adopted, and the application thereof copi- 

 tjuflv exemplified I" 



Such is the charge which Mr. Clarke, no doubt to make 

 it confpicuous, has placed in a Poftfcript after " the end" of 

 his Animadverfions on my Tranflation of Carnot; and has 

 fmiflied it with a (!) by way of a (ling to its tail. 



* Mv error cannot einba.rrafs the reader. He iias only to omit my 

 note, fi. 26. 

 V L In the Critic.,! Rffview, V;l, xxxiv. New Air. p. ■^^o- 



Tn 



