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liEVlI.W OF YOUATt’s I.ECTUliES 
have thought that he, and I am sure that our readers will give us the credit 
of being swayed by some feeling of delicacy about these matters; and that 
when there is much acquaintance and something like connexion between 
us and the author (;f a work, we should cmj)loy, if we can, a friend more 
likely to be impartial. There was some connexion, I thought friendship, 
between Mr. Vines and myself then but the mystery is now all out, and 
the English of this abuse of the poor Lecturer is, tliat he was rather a 
severe reviewer. I am, however, as one of the Editors of this Journal, 
answerable for the spirit and general execution of that article. It is con¬ 
tained in our fourth volume, page 231; and I really do think it was quite as 
favourable a review as the Mork merited. Justice was doire to the manly 
and independent style which Mr. Vines assumed ; it was confc.sscd that 
his work had much good stuff in it, and that there w as occasional good 
sound pathology : but the reviewer w as not a thick and thin applauder; he 
spoke of strange arnliiguity and misappropriation of terms; he lamented 
the encumbered and obscured,and compilcatcil and unintelligible arrange¬ 
ment of the work; and he hinted rather broadly at the genera! and unsa¬ 
tisfactory manner in which Mr. Vines spoke of his boasted specific. 
Hinc illae laerymae!’' 
But iny friend, how’ w ill he bear all the dressing w hich Mr. Vines so 
lustily lays ou ? 1 am used to these things, and they annoy not me. “ Poor 
man!’' so says Mr. Vines, “ he talks dow nright nonsense. If the terms were 
misapplied, he should have pointed the errors out.'’ M hy, so he did. He 
spent two pages about it. Yet Mr. Vines affirms that he has not done so. 
“ He ought to have pointed the errors out,” says Mr. Vines. “ This he has 
not done. No. Why Not? Because he knew there was no error of the 
kind in the passage animadverted on which lie could produce. And this 
I now in return defy him to do'’ —I can only ask our readers to turn to 
my friend’s review, and use their ow n eyes. 
Mr. Vines puts me very much in mind of a great lubberly bo} , w ho, after 
having been well licked, but not half so much as he deserved, lies roaring 
or sulky, until his antagonist has put on his jacket, and got a good distance 
off; and then he bawls after hiin,“ Why don’t you come back ? You dar’n’t 
strike me again.’’ Sometimes he gets a second dressing, and that to his 
heart’s content; but oftener his conqueror acts the wiser part, and scorns 
to have any thing more to do with such an opponent. 
But my friend has the charity to suppose, that, notwithstanding this 
wrong ajiplication of terms, and ambiguity of language, Mr. Vines’s book 
might and did possess some good sound pathology. What an absurd sup¬ 
position ! what a scandalous thing!—and yet, with all deference to Mr. 
Vines, 1 have known persons who could not string together two sentences 
so as to render themselves intelligible, and w ho were continually misap¬ 
plying terms, arising from the want of early education, yet who had 
tolerably clear notions of some of the fundamental principles of their busi¬ 
ness or profession. I will suppose a case:—a person shall occasionally 
write essays, or he shall write a treatise on certain subjects, scarcely two 
sentences of wffiieh are connected together, or, taken separately, intelligi¬ 
ble : but these essays, or this treatise, fall into the hands of a friend, w ho, 
with ten times more trouble than it would have given him to have com¬ 
posed them from the beginning, throws them into form and order, and 
makes them interesting and instructive too. Dare I say, that the author 
of this rudis, indigestaque moles, had no good and sound {>athology, because 
it really was not to be discovered until his friend had worked it into the 
light, and got rid of many more wrong applications of terms, and much more 
ambiguity of language than remained ? No 1 the dress may be attributed to 
the friend, but the sterling substance is still the property of the author. 
