This was too bad, and the Doctor sent the following answer to one of the papers:—
"Ye desperate Junto, ye great, or ye small,
Who combat dukes, doctors, the devil and all,
Whether gentlemen scribblers, or poets in jail,
Your impertinent curses shall never prevail:
I'll take neither sage, dock, nor balsam of honey:
Do you take the physic, and I'll take the money.
—"Anti-Junto."
Like his brethren of the sock and buskin, our English Roscius was honoured with much attention from the public prints. They gave us critical examinations of his powers, and critical disquisitions upon his defects; from an enumeration of which it was proved, clearly proved, that he would never be a good actor. The remarks of these ingenious gentlemen were soon forgotten: the testimony of an applauding public answered and refuted them. By way of antidote to these poisons, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Garrick's friends nearly surfeited the town with injudicious praise. Their flattery was gross enough to have disgusted any other man; but he had been so accustomed to strong doses of panegyric, that he could at last swallow them double distilled. I have said that he was an actor by choice; I might have added, that he was always an actor. Goldsmith's lines in retaliation are a true portrait:
"Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,