―2―

FOR THE COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER

THE SCRIBBLER.—No. I.

What name is this? And to be conferred
by a man on himself! Yet this is frequently
the best policy. The surest way to preclude,
is to anticipate censure, for no one will think
it worth while, to call a poor culprit by names
which the culprit has liberally and uncere-
moniously given himself. If Tom says—“I am
a fool and an oddity”—his worst enemies
can only add—“So you are.”

The worst charge that can be brought a-
gainst a mere holder of the pen, is that he is
a scribbler. Now I chuse to anticipate this
heavy charge, and I do hereby seasonably
warn all your readers, that the writer of these
presents is neither worse nor better than a
scribbler. If therefore they have not time
nor patience to peruse a mere scribble, let
them overlook my lucubrations, and pass on
to the next column, where, no doubt, their
curiosity and taste will be amply gratified by
precious morsels of history and splendid effu-
sions of eloquence.

I never, for my part, presumed to aspire
after a more honorable name. I never took
up pen but to please myself, and the idlers
that were willing to attend to me. Others
may wish to edify a congregation of sages by
their wisdom, or call the human swine from
his sensual banquet, to feast upon the pearls
of their Rhetorick, of which, though all are
liberally distributed, none is thrown away,
or to charm an audience of enthusiasts by a
tale of pathos, elaborately simple, or a ditty
ruefully sweet or wildly melancholy, but as
to me, I do not gaze wishfully at such heights.
The common level must content me. The
harp of Orpheus I dare not touch. As un-
ambitious as a chimney-sweep, I shall be suf-
ficiently happy if I can give a tolerable twang
to a Jews-harp.

I have no fortress from which I may boldly
look out, and securely defy the critical assail-
ant, a poor beggarly wight whose whole
wealth is his pen; a minstrel, friendless as
Edwin of immortal memory, but, alas! with
none of his divine endowments; with none
of that music that melted the fiercest hearts
to charity, and turned the most obdurate
or mischievous foes into adorers or disciples.

My quill is my all, and unluckily, it is the
poorest feather in the goose. No witty
strokes or elegant flourishes can it ever pretend
to. A diminutive, cross-grained, crooked
slave is it, that I have in vain endeavored to
scrape into smoothness, to bend into recti-
tude, and fashion into symmetry. After
all my pains, its happiest exertion continues
to be, and will never be other, than, an ar-
rant scrawl.

I have often resolved to cast it away, tired
and ashamed of its incorrigible depravity, but
checked myself in time; for bad as it is, it
will never be my lot to find a better. Some
ill-minded witch stands always ready to dis-
tort its grain and blunt its point, and what-
ever plausible hopes I may form before the
trial, I always find that my choicest speci-
mens of genius are nothing still but scrawls.

Let no one imagine therefore, that on this
occasion, I pretend to write. No, I shall only
scribble, and those who look for entertain-
ment from my performances will be egregi-
ously deceived. In every form that I shall
take, in every theme that I shall chuse, I shall
not be able to belie my parentage. The star
that ruled at my birth, in all my pilgrimage
and all my metamorphoses, will shine upon
me still, and my fate has decreed that I shall
be nothing but a scribbler.