The New York Journal, And Daily Patriotic Register

MISCELLANY.

The EXAMINER, No. V.

So thick the drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
"Or dim suffusion veil'd."
MILTON.

MR. GREENLEAF,

HAVING, in my preceding numbers, effectually crushed the little physician dabbler, and knocked the gigantic Brutus in the head, my intention was to have made some other antifederal hero the subject of my present animadversions: but finding so many dunces have clubbed their heads, with every degree of virulence, fermented by insanity, in order to check my career, I shall, as a necessary prelude, first endeavour to explain the propriety of some of the comparisons already drawn, and those which (with your permission) I intend to make in my future productions; by which, however eccentric I may appear, I hope I shall avoid the imputation of falling into absurdity.

When a man closes up the superior parts of his understanding against the admission of truth and reason, and opens the inferior parts to falsehood and folly, he certainly divests himself of the nature of a man, and acquires the nature of a beast, whose likeness he assumes, not in imagination only, but in reality; for he may become a fox in cunning, a wolf in fierceness, a leopard in treachery, a tiger in savageness, a crocodile, a serpent, an owl or a bat, as to the respective natures and properties of those animals.

The consequence of such a transformation is, that he will see confusedly, act crazily, think oddly, reason strangely, and conclude falsely; for although even the smallest insects are endowed with organs of sense and motion, and consequently with fibres and vessels, and likewise with a heart and lungs, with their several arteries and veins, with bowels also and brains formed of the purest substances in nature, and with that vital principle whereby each part is distinctly acted upon and enlivened, yet their perceptions, thoughts and conclusions never rise above the sphere of nature; but in all things they behold confusion without form or order. Since this is the case, can I be justly blamed for holding up an animal in likeness to a man that perfectly answers its description?

I am not fond of raking up the ashes of the dead; but Cato's lunatic quire Democritus will not, it seems, easily part with me. We have tossed the ball so long from hand to hand that he seems miserable without me; I shall therefore, in addition to what I have heretofore observed, remark, that plagiarism can derive its existence from nothing but the most consummate ignorance, impudence and ambition. To stand up in defence of what is conceived to be just is certainly the duty of every man; but then every man should confine himself within his proper sphere. The strongest head is not the necessary concomitant of the sincerest heart; so that even admitting Cato was as much concerned for the welfare of his country as he pretended to be, he was inexcusable in commencing political writer under his manifest deficiencies.

The intention of the piece signed an Observer, in your paper of yesterday, is as obvious as the author's method is unfair and shabby. I can only assure you, upon my honour, that the scurrilous performance under that signature never came from the pen of the EXAMINER.

January 2, 1788.