'These reflections are still more awakened when, upon perusal, I find some of them calling for a place in the next paper, a place which they have never yet obtained; others writing in a style of superiority and haughtiness as secure of deference and above fear of criticism; others humbly offering their weak assistance with softness and submission, which they believe impossible to be resisted; some introducing their compositions with a menace of the contempt he that refuses them will incur; others applying privately to the booksellers for their interest and solicitation; every one by different ways endeavouring to secure the bliss of publication. I cannot but consider myself placed in a very incommodious situation, where I am forced to repress confidence which it is pleasing to indulge, to repay civilities with appearances of neglect, and so frequently to offend those by whom I was never offended.'
The 'Rambler.'—Vol. I. No. 59.
Strangulat inclusus dolor, atque exæstuat intus,
Cogitur et vires multiplicare suas.—Ovid.
In vain by secrecy we would assuage
Our cares; conceal'd they gather tenfold rage.—Lewis.
'It is common to distinguish men by the names of animals which they are supposed to resemble. Thus a hero is frequently termed a lion, and a statesman a fox; an extortioner gains the appellation of vulture, and a fop the title of monkey. There is also among the various anomalies of character which a survey of the world exhibits, a species of beings in human form which may be properly marked out as the screech-owls of mankind.
'These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business of life is to complain, and that they were born for no other purpose than to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts and shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of the past, or melancholy prognostics of the future; their only care is to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and alloy the golden hours of gaiety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion.