PRELIMINARY NOTICES. 



The following Letter has been some time before Ihe 

 public J it is, nevertheless, deemed expedient to republish 

 it here. 



To THOMAS CAMPBELL, Esq. 

 Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, &c.&c. 



London, Jan, 2rf, 18.8. 



Sir : As it is generally understood that you are the Editor 

 of the Neiv Monthhj Magazine, I take the liberty to call your 

 attention to an article which appears in the number of that 

 periodical publislied yesterday, and which I am quite sure you 

 did not write, and most probably, before its publication, never 

 saw : for if you had, I think you could nevei have suffered such 

 trash to be made public. And were it not that the name of 

 the author of the Pleasures of Hope, seems to sanction what 

 appears in that Magazine, I should not think it deserved the 

 least attention. 



The article to which I allude, treats my work on Birds, lately 

 published, and which has been, I am happy to say, very well 

 received by those who are competent judges of it, as a work of 

 utter worthlessness, and, in your critic's opinion, stale, flat, and 

 unprofitable! Not content with abusing the poetry, he has 

 pounced upon the prose ; and although I have candidly, and, I 

 trust, modestly, explained in the Preface my motives for my 

 attempt, and that it is designed as an ehmentary work, yet all 

 that I have said, seems to have rendered the poor thing more 

 pertinaciously blind. I am, however, sir, obliged to draw this 

 conclusion, either that your critic is totally incompetent to 

 judge of the merit and value of my work, or that all the nume- 

 rous journalists and other scientific persons who have spoken 

 of it are fools ! 



It is very easy, sir, for a critical butcher, with a knife and 

 saw, to cut up the labour of three yearSf and the accumulatiun of 

 a life of observation f with all the eflfrontery and cruelty of igno- 

 rance and malice ; but it is not very easy for those who are the 

 objects of his cold-blooded operations to bear them. He may 

 wrap himself up in his anonymous cloak, and welcome ; I have 



