Whether there was then a confederacy between this journal and Common Sense’s, as at present, between Common Sense and the Craftsman; or whether understandings of the same form receive, at certain times, the same impressions from the planets, I know not; but about that time war was, likewise, declared against us by the redoubted author of Common Sense; an adversary not so much to be dreaded for his abilities, as for the title of his paper, behind which he has the art of sheltering himself in perfect security.  He defeats all his enemies by calling them “enemies to common sense,” and silences the strongest objections and the clearest reasonings by assuring his readers that, “they are contrary to common sense.”

I must confess, to the immortal honour of this great writer, that I can remember but two instances of a genius able to use a few syllables to such great and so various purposes.  One is, the old man in Shadwell, who seems, by long time and experience, to have attained to equal perfection with our author; for, “when a young fellow began to prate and be pert,” says he, “I silenced him with my old word, Tace is Latin for a candle.”

The other, who seems yet more to resemble this writer, was one Goodman, a horsestealer, who being asked, after having been found guilty by the jury, what he had to offer to prevent sentence of death from being passed upon him, did not attempt to extenuate his crime, but entreated the judge to beware of hanging a Good man.

This writer we thought, however injudiciously, worthy, not indeed of a reply, but of some correction, and in our magazine for December, 1738, and the preface to the supplement, treated him in such a manner as he does not seem inclined to forget.

From that time, losing all patience, he has exhausted his stores of scurrility upon us; but our readers will find, upon consulting the passages above mentioned, that he has received too much provocation to be admitted as an impartial critick.

In our magazine of January, p. 24, we made a remark upon the Craftsman, and in p. 3, dropped some general observations upon the weekly writers, by which we did not expect to make them more our friends.  Nor, indeed, did we imagine that this would have inflamed Caleb to so high a degree.  His resentment has risen so much above the provocation, that we cannot but impute it more to what he fears than what he has felt.  He has seen the solecisms of his brother, Common Sense, exposed, and remembers that,

  —­tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.

He imagines, that he shall soon fall under the same censure, and is willing that our criticisms shall appear rather the effects of our resentment than our judgment.

For this reason, I suppose, (for I can find no other,) he has joined with Common Sense to charge us with partiality, and to recommend the London Magazine, as drawn up with less regard to interest or party.  A favour, which the authors of that collection have endeavoured to deserve from them by the most servile adulation.