credit as any pontiff since the parturition of Joan.  It is very unfair to judge of sex from writings, particularly from those of the British Review.  We are all liable to be deceived, and it is an indisputable fact that many of the best articles in your journal, which were attributed to a veteran female, were actually written by you yourself, and yet to this day there are people who could never find out the difference.  But let us return to the more immediate question.

“I agree with you that it is impossible Lord B. should be the author, not only because, as a British peer and a British poet, it would be impracticable for him to have recourse to such facetious fiction, but for some other reasons which you have omitted to state.  In the first place, his Lordship has no grandmother.  Now the author—­and we may believe him in this—­doth expressly state that the ‘British’ is his ‘Grandmother’s Review;’ and if, as I think I have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allusion to your supposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an elderly lady still extant.

“Shall I give you what I think a prudent opinion?  I don’t mean to insinuate, God forbid! but if, by any accident, there should have been such a correspondence between you and the unknown author, whoever he may be, send him back his money; I dare say he will be very glad to have it again; it can’t be much, considering the value of the article and the circulation of the journal; and you are too modest to rate your praise beyond its real worth:—­don’t be angry, I know you won’t, at this appraisement of your powers of eulogy:  for on the other hand, my dear fellow, depend upon it your abuse is worth, not its own weight, that’s a feather, but _your_ weight in gold.  So don’t spare it; if he has bargained for _that_, give it handsomely, and depend upon your doing him a friendly office.

“What the motives of this writer may have been for (as you magnificently translate his quizzing you) ’stating, with the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction,’ (do, pray, my dear R., talk a little less ’in King Cambyses’ vein,’) I cannot pretend to say; perhaps to laugh at you, but that is no reason for your benevolently making all the world laugh also.  I approve of your being angry, I tell you I am angry too, but you should not have shown it so outrageously.  Your solemn ’_if_ somebody personating the Editor of the, &c. &c. has received from Lord B. or from any other person,’ reminds me of Charley Incledon’s usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning—­’if a maun, or _ony_ maun, or _ony other_ maun,’ &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence.  But why should you think any body would personate you?  Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many