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sheets, and to the support of a system which it 

 has been my endeavour to render as complete 

 as possible, to be prepared with some defence 

 against attacks of a less good-natured com- 

 plexion, which my endeavour to enforce atten- 

 tion to this domestic practice of the drill may 

 very possibly give rise to ; and to repel by 

 anticipation the sneer which may be likely 

 enough to come from a class of men, who by a 

 slavery of ten or twenty years, are become suf- 

 ficient adepts in the art ; but who having been 

 brought up under their dogs, have no more 

 conception than their tutors, that a qualification 

 for professional rank can be otherwise obtained ; 

 and who, with a rudeness which they have also 

 brought from the kennel, may be prompted to 

 laugh at all this fire-side foolery, and to ridicule 

 the idea of a man's working himself into a shot 

 by rule. To these gentry I have only to say, 

 that I am not disputing their talents; but I 

 demur to their capacity of making any estimate 

 of mine. Half of them can barely read ; and 

 if the other half, from whom, on the score of 

 education, one should expect somewhat better 

 proof of the faculty of thinking, choose to 

 arrange themselves on the side of self-taught 

 ignorance, and to persist in pleading long pre- 

 scription for the irregular, though frequently 



