ceed to a quotation upon the same subject, from Barram the Queen's (Elizabeth's) Sergeant's speech, upon Norfolk's trial; and in order not to interrupt the argument, the remainder of the passage is inserted in a separate note, with a distinct reference to State Trials, I. 92, for the whole quotation. Whether Lethington's wife had copied the whole, or a part only of the letters, is not the question, but whether these two references are sufficiently distinct. But this anonymous writer did not consult, and had never seen, either Murdin or the State Trials, when, in order to maintain the impossibility of Lethington's wife copying eight letters, (amounting altogether to 570 lines, or about twenty pages) in one night, he chose to affirm, that Mr. L.'s confused abpeal to Murdin and the State Trials, for the truth of this extraordinary fact, will not have much weight with those who have carefully attended t, his mode of quotation,

"In the third instance I had observed, that the Duke of Norfolk having informed Lesly that he had seen the letters, whereby there would be such matter proved against his mistress as would dishonour her for ever,' &c. Instead of attempting to disabuse the Duke, or to persuade him that the letters were entirely a forgery, Lesly tacitly acknowledges their authenticity; and proposed a device of Lethington's, that the Queen should ratify her former resignation of the crown,' &c. p. 151. At the end of the sentence, Murdin, 53, containing Lesly's confession, which [ had repeatedly quoted, and to which Hume (vol. v. note, L. 13), and Robertson, Dissert. on K. Henry's Murder, have both appealed for the same fact, is again distinctly referred to, as the sole authority for every quotation, incident, or inference comprehended in the preceding part of the paragraph. But instead of consulting the authority to which I did appeal, this anonymous reviewer, who had never seen either Murdin or the State Trials, which contain the same confession, consults an authority to which I did not appeal; in order to affirm, that for this very extraor dinary assertion he can find in LESLY (whose defence of Mary he has care. fully consulted!) nothing that the most PERVERSE INGENUITY can construe into a tacit acknowledgment of the authenticity of the letters.

"These are but slight and inconsiderable specimens of the review itself, so different from the general tenor even of the British Critic, and prolonged for upwards of fifty pages, filled throughout with the most calumnious insinuations against my character and credit as an historian, and with the most indecent and scurrilous allusions to my profession as an advocate. Since the author however in those instances in which he has charged me with the fabrication of facts, with misquotation and falshood, has chosen to stake his veracity in opposition to mine; and since he has signified in his correspondence with Mr. Nares upon the subject, that he declines at present to be made known,' I shall proceed to detect and ✓ state his former malignity in other journals, but without announcing his name to the world.

"The first time that I ever heard of him was in May, 1800, when a RETRACTION and APOLOGY concerning the MACGREGORS appeared in the Monthly Magazine. The auther, a copious writer in the Anti-Jacobin Magazine and Review, had very artfully transmitted to the Monthly Magazine for August, 1799, a libel against the Macgregors and the Clan Alpin regiment, under the fictitious signature of Gregor Macnab. At first he denied all knowledge of the libel with such bold and solemn pro

testations

testations of his own innocence, and of his inviolable respect for the clan and name of Macgregor, as could not well be disbelieved; especially as the only motive that could ever be discovered for this unprovoked aggression was, his secret animosity towards an officer who had refused to dismiss a recruit at his request. When the manuscript, however, was procured, and produced against him in a court of justice, his hand-writing appeared to be so indisputable, that as he was prosecuted at the same time for another libel in the Edinburgh Magazine of the same month, (August, 1799) he chose to submit to the apology attested and inserted by an English clergyman, a friend of his own, in the Monthly Magazine for May, 1800, and referred to in this letter as an ample confirmation of the present statement, and as a proof that HE IS UTTERLY DISQUALIFIED FOR THE

OFFICE OF A REVIEWER.

"The first edition of my History of Scotland was published in June or July thereafter, and in the Arti-Jacobin Magazine of the following year it was reviewed in a strain of such gross abuse as exceeded even the customary style for which that review is so peculiarly distinguished. The work contained certain historical and uncontrovertible facts concerning the Macgregors, written so early as the beginning of the year 1793, before I had heard of any re. cent attempt to revive the clan, or of any individual of note who had resumed the name. The publication of these historical facts, when com. pared to the recent humiliating recantation of a libel, and the general tenor of the history itself, were considered it seems as sufficient provocations; and a long parade of authorities taken from the Encyclopædia Britannica, marked the writer as distinctly as if his name had been annexed to the article.

"In my subsequent Dissertation respecting Mary Queen of Scots, I was content with intimating in a note, and in a manner intelligible only to the reviewer himself, that I understood sufficiently both his name and character; being satisfied that his animosity would soon betray him into some new indiscretion. Accordingly, on perusing the article in question in the British Critic, I immediately recognized, though with some surprize, my old and almost-forgotten acquaintance Gregor Macnab. On his quarrel with the Anti-Jacobin, his pen has been entirely devoted to the British Critic. The coarseness of his invectives was somewhat corrected; but his malevolence was the same as formerly. His allusions to my history were also the same; and an allusion in particular to Lord Banff's bribe in the Scottish parliament, repeated in the British Critic (p. 491), almost verbatim from the Anti-Jacobin (X. 145), renders the identity of the author indisputable. But the following passage respecting a manuscript which I had deposited in the Advocate's Library, affords a convincing detection of the author, whose name the editors of the British Critic would be proud to avow,' but which he himself is so unwilling

to reveal.

"We have indeed been informed by a very competent judge, by whom at our request it the manuscript) was examined with some care, that it is a thing of very little value, appearing to be a collection of the reports of the day, with as little discrimination as is usually to be found in a Newspaper.'-British Critic, p. 396.

"This manuscript, the original of Crawford's spurious Memoirs, was published at Whitaker's desire, within a few weeks after my history

X 4

under the title of the Historie and Life of King James the Sext: and a very different account of its merits will be found in the oldest and most respectable of our literary journals, the Monthly Review for December last, But the manuscript has never been communicated to any, except to two gentlemen, either before or since it was published; and in this fict there can be no mistake. Unless when communicated to them, it remain. ed in my own possession till published: the librarians assure me that it never was lent or shewn to any but to these gentlemen; and no corres. pondent in Edinburgh, much less a competent judge, employed to examine it at the reviewer's request, could have been ignorant, or have failed to inform him, that it was ahealy published, and that the book was to be procured in every bookseller's shop. Eut of those gentlemen to whom alone it had been communicated, the one, whose opinion of the manuscript is the very reverse of the preceding, gave no information whatsoever of its contents. The other, one of our judges, to whom I had lent the manuscript for Mr. Whitaker's information, and by whom it was certainly examined with some care, very frankly acknowledged to me, that in the interval between the publication of my history, and of the manuscript, of which this reviewer was ignorant, he had either menti ned or transmitted by letter, he recalles not which, the precise opini n* quoted above from the British Critic, to an episcopal clergymen at some distance from Edin. burgh, formerly a nonjuring or jacobite clergyman, and better known as the author of a libel against the Macgregors, under the fictitious signature of Gregor Macnab.

"As the preceding statement has never once been contradicted by Mr. N. in our correspondence upon the subject, and as I know for certain that this author has been admitted for some years past as a writer in that journal, it remaiss for the editors to determine whether he is entitled to act as a reviewer, and to continue as such in the British Critic or not. If in their opinion he ought not to continue, 1 am perfectly satisfied; and as for the insult offered to my character, and to my credit as an his. torian, I ask no reparation or apology whatsoever. If on the contrary it is the opinion of the editors that he ought to continue as their co-adjutor and correspondent in the Pritish Critic, it is proper that the public should also be informed, that their review is to be rendered subservient, as for. merly, to his lurking malignity, and a vehicle for his private, political, or literary animosi.ies, and for the most personal abuse. A Review is a secret, self-created tribunal, to which authors of every description are mad amenable; and in proportion to the confidence reposed in it by an indulgent public. a taithfa, and conscientious discharge of the trust is requisite. But the pubic will be at, no loss to determine, whe her an autho, capable and convicted by his own confession, of uttering libels

* The words in Italics are his Lordship's corrections; but the information was undoubtedly transmitted by letter. Having communicated by leter as he fairly acknowledged, his opinion of my Dissertation, viz. Tha it contained little or nothing but what Hume or Robertson had produced upon the subject, he would necessarily add in the same letter his opinion of the manuscript as the only addition to what was contained in Hume and Robertson."

under

1

under a fictitious signature, ought to sit in judgment opon men of letters; or what degree of credit is due to a journal in which he is suffered to vent his magnity against their productions, under the form and disguise of a-just, impartial, and candid review. The public will also perceive, that my motive is not to enter into an idle controversy with an unknown reviewer, but to exempt myself and others from the repetition of similar insults and abuse: and the editors have themselves only to blame if, from their connexion with this writer, the British Critic should suffer in the public estimation. Knowing the advantage that I possessed, I have acted openly and fairly, and I trust not vindictiv-ly towards them, wher the full extent of the outrage is considered; and as the statement con tained in his letter has remained in your hands uncontradicted, since the 31st of March, it is not incumbent upon me to rely to the British Critic, much less to the author of the RETRACTION and APOLOGY concerning the MACGREGORS. I am, S., &G.

Edinburgh, April 25, 1806.

MALCOLM LAING."

h

How Mr. Laing has discovered that Dr. Gicig was "a copious writer in the Anti-Jacobin," we know not; certainly, we had never any com. munication with him on that, or on any other subject; and we would advise him, for his own sake, to investigate closely, and to refiect seriously, before he decides so authoritatively. We are not about to satisfy his curiosity in that respect ;--but when he asserts that our Review is peculiarly distinguished for its gross abuse, we must take leave to tell him, that he says the thing which is not; our sentiments respecting his notable production were expressed with that force and with that freedom which the occasion seemed not merely to justify, but to prescribe and nothing which he has urged in his own defence has pro luced the smallest alteration in them. He may rest assured, however, that we are as little disposed to abuse the living as to calumniate the dead; and while we have the happiness to enjoy the good opinion of some of the ablest and of the best men in this country, we care but little what Mr. Malcolm Laing may think of us ;though we will not suffer him to print untruths respecting us, without giving him a formal contradiction. As to our quarrel with Dr. Gleig it must have been a quarrel of a most singular nature, since we never heard of its existence till apprized of it by this communicative gentleman. In short, it is a fabrication of his own. It is somewhat strange, that he should have hazarded such an assertion, at a time when he professed to take up the pen to vindicate himself against some imputations which had been cast on his veracity. If he be in the habit of writing thus loosely, we shall cease to be surprized at many of the passages in his History of Scot. land. As to Dr. Gleig, he is a gentleman alike estimable for the variety and extent of his knowledge, for the solidity, and, much more, for the application of his talents, for the soundness of his religions, moral, and political principles, and for the excellence of his private character. Such of his publications as have falien under our cognizance are highly ho nourable to his feelings and to his understanding; his constant and zea lous efforts in support of religious and social order, entitle him to the warmest support of the true friends of the country; and, in our estima tion, give him the strongest claim for notice and reward on the govern ment.-Entertaining these sentiments of Dr. Gleig, which, when thus

stimulated,

stimulated, we feel it a duty to proclaim, our readers will easily believe, that we have not had any quarrel with him, nor are we likely to have any. The British Critics may justly be proud of such an associate, whose abilities could not fail to do honour to any literary journal in which they might be employed. On the immediate subject of discussion between the historian and his critic, we shall leave the latter to speak for himself.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

"Sir, through the medium of your Magazine for the last month, Mr. Laing, of Edinburgh, has appealed to the public from the judgment of the British Critic, on the second edition of his History of Scotland ;' and in that appeal has taken it for granted that I am the critic, by whom he supposes himself to have been injured. As he has thought proper to make a wanton, and, as I shall prove by and bye, a most unprovoked attack on my moral character, a regard for justice will, of course, induce you to give a place, in the Magazine for this month, to my counter-appeal to the same tribunal. I might indeed disdain to make any reply to a letter in which my name is not once mentioned, but Mr. Laing has clandestinely traduced my character to my friends both in London and in Edinburgh, and so described me in what he calls his appeal, that they at least cannot mistake the person whom he wishes to render infamous and odious.

"That I am responsible for the arguments urged in the "British Critic" against the conclusions which Mr. Laing labours to establish concerning the murder of Darnley, I readily acknowledge; and I should without hesitation or dread acknowledge every review that I have written for that, or any other journal, did not my wretched hand-writing, and my distance from the press, render it impossible for me to prevent such typographical errors, as sometimes alter the meaning, and not unfrequently deprive of all meaning, the sentences in which they occur.

"Let not this be understood as an apology for any thing offensive to Mr. Laing in the review of his Dissertation. That review, though not entirely free from such errors as I have mentioned, is on the whole correctly printed (as indeed the "British Critic" generally is), and I hope to convince your readers that nothing to be found in it stands in need of any apology. Mr. Laing objects but to three passages of the review, though he says, and says truly, that there are many others equally objectionable; and therefore if I vindicate these three, I trust that the public will give me credit for being equally able to vindicate those others, whenever he may choose to call them in question.

"The first passage to which he objects is quoted in page 517, and replied to in page 518, of your Magazine; and as it is quoted with tolerable fairness, I shall not here quote it again; but only request the reader to observe, that the fact in question is not, "whether, on the day on which the King was buried, the Queen conferred on Durham a place about the person of her son, together with a pension.' About this fact, as it is a matter of no importance, I am not aware that there has ever been a controversy. The questions at issue between Mr. Laing and me - are, "Whether Durham was particularly accused of having betrayed his master, and the Queen believed to have conferred on him the place and pension as a reward for his treachery? To render it, as I thought, impos