* before. 
86 Dr Gregory’s second Answer to the Edinburgh Reviewers.. [Feb.13 
the investigation may appear, it.is de- 
fective and useless.* I may also affirm, 
with equal confidence, and equal cer- 
tainty of being believed, that the Edin- 
burgh Leviewers, in their new string of 
accusations, have charged me with steal- 
lng from works which I never saw; with 
copying the article “ Thrashing Ma. 
chines,” from the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, though I never read that article, 
and do not know to the present moment, 
(except from tiicir dispatable testimony,) 
that any such article is there; with co- 
pying the account of Verrier’s mill from 
* Brewster’s Ferguson, when they must 
know, because I reier expressly to the 
work, that the account was taken from 
Bailey’s Collection of Machines. in the 
Repository of the Society of Arts, pub- 
-Jished more than thirty years ago! After 
all this, it cannot be necessary for me to 
attend seriously to their insinuation re- 
Specting a new title-page, instead of a 
new edition. Let them tell me how it 
1s possible to print a new edition of so 
extensive a work, with the dispatch re- 
quisite to meet a rapid demand, without 
distributing the matter into the hands of 
different compusitors; ‘sheets A, B, C, 
D, for example, to cne; sheets E, F, G, 
, to a second; sheets I,K, L,-M, toa 
third, &c. and, farther, how it is. pos- 
sible to effect this, without contriving 
every aiteration, so that. the quantity 
in each respective sheet shall remain as 
Let them tell ‘me this, and I 
shall then be quite ready to reply to any 
thing else upon the subject, which their 
consuminate cunning, and mighty malice, 
may devise. : . 
Y will not now, Mr. Editor, intrude 
farther upon the patience of your 
readers. At some future period, when 
J have more leisure than I now possess 
to devute to a disgustmg employment, 
i may develope the train of -motives 
which have led to an attack upon my cha- 
racter, unprecedented in the history of 
literature. I may probably do more. 
When men combine together, not for the 
purpose of fair and honourable criticism, 
but with the design of hunting down 
talents and merit, wherever they appear 
on this side of the Tweed, besides grati- 
iying private feelings, and pursuing pri- 
* Even here, however, I may remark, that 
but a few pages farther on, (viz. page 4333) 
i reier expressly to Venturi’s work, in such 
terms of commendation, as would induce a 
reader to consult it; which I shovld hardly 
Have done, had J wished to conceal my au- 
“Fhor. 
~ vate ends, not necessary to be mentioned 
here ; it becomes an imperious duty to 
expose, their artifices to the public in- 
dignation. This duty, uniess it soon fall 
into better hands, I shall not shrink from 
discharging: and I have long been 1n © 
possession of numerous facts, which, 
when I can find time to prepare them 
for publication, will illustrate much of 
the secret history of tle Edinburgh Re- 
view. Such an exposure of the motives, 
and conduct of its proprietors and prin- 
cipal writers, will no doubt be called, 
however temperate, a “violent and 
abusive attack ;” butthe public in general 
will thank me for unmasking their mofal 
character, will rejoice to hear their pi- 
teous exclamations, and “ mock when 
their fear cometh.” For my own part, 
anxiety for my reputation has given ne 
but little uneasiness, compared with the 
pain of beholding- talents which, however 
overrated by the multitude, I am willing 
to respect, associated with a depravity 
which Iam compelled to abhor. 
Your’s, &c. 
OxintHus GREGORY. 
Royal Military Academy, 
Woolwich, Dec. 1809. BFA) 
P.S. Permit me to throw into a Postscript 
some particulars, which, though I forgot te 
introduce them into the body of the letter, 
may. perhaps be tgo important to be omitted 
entirely ; viz. that Dr. Brewster, (whose name 
has been of suchsingular service to. the Edin- 
burgh Reviewers, on the present occasion,) 
has more than once expressed his obligations 
to me, both personally and byletter, for the 
notice I have taken of his performances, and 
for referring to them 3 that we have commu 
nicated to each other mutually, in the mést 
friendly manner, hints for the improvement 
of our respective works; that he has applied 
to me by letter, more than onte, to prepare 
scientific articles in the Edinburgh Encyclo- 
pedia, of which he is the editor, though he 
knew at the same time, that I was editor of a 
similar work publishing here 5 expatiating, in 
his applications, upon $¢ the liberality * which 
marks even the commercial part of litera- 
ture ;” that he has spoken to me in the high- 
est possible terms of the utility of my Treatise 
of Mechanics, and has recommended it warmly 
in his own work, as well as in treatises he 
prepared for the Encyclopzedia Britannica, in 
the formation of which, he declared my work 
was of essential service to him: and that, 
even after the Edinburgh Reviewers’ first 
attack upon mey he said, (Mr. Teltord, the 
civil engineer, being present,) that I could 
not perform a more important service to the 
British 
* Of this liberality, his booksellers, and 
his friends and companions, the Edioburgh. 
Reviewers, have furnished-noble specimens. 
