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Our Eclectic has indeed benefited the public by the exercise and display of his peculiar talent ; but he felt it more safe to cast abuse from behind a heJgethan to take open ground , where the abuse and the abuser would ha \ fe
been seen together * He feared , perhaps , that if he grappled personally with the expiring Unitarians , some one of this once
formidable tribe might summon up the last remains of strength and throttle him in a convulsive , dying struggle . However this may be , it is to the honour of Mr . Hall that he should be looked upon as
an adversary , in virtue of his cba-Tacter as an author , by a disciple of the Old Man of the Mountain . * One more reason may be assign , ed why I consider our Eclectic as
having Mr . Hall in bis mind ; namely , a certain awkward imitation of that writer ' s &tyle , which Dr . Parr , fSpital Sermon , p . 63 , Note ) pronounces * most beautiful and animated / Nor is it
uncommon for good writers to be i mi tat . ed by such as arc least disposed to borrow their spirit or principles * Hume has copyists who are not
stoics or sceptics ; Johnson ' s ponderous sentences are repeated by many who , are not Jacobites "; Parr may be taken for a model by some that do not think it useful for the
cause either of learning or truth to heap together a mass of names , great and little , good and bad , and to crown them all with
superlative praises ; and Hall , in point of eloquence , may have his humble admirers , who would yet gladly consign to oblivion his eulogy on Dr . Priestley , his philippics against
* PHnce of the Assassins , whose r moun , twin * was in Syria , not in Switzerland .
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Dr . Horsley and Mr . Pitt , his sarcastic ridicule of * the Rev . John Clayton / his vindication of the liberty of the Press , his arguments for a Reform of Parliament , and his rapturous exultations oji the French Revolution . Such an
admirer of Mr . Hall , I conceive our Ecleclic to be , who nevertheless caricatures all the features of his style ; who exhibits his
coarseness without his vigour , and hi * passion without his genius , —who gives us his painful periods which yet as to sense are perfectly
abortive , and who designs his ^ bold figures but is uiterly unable to mould them into shape , to give them expression or to keep them from confusion ; who attempts line writing but violates grammar , who affects to be nervous upon nonsense , and who seeks to be brilliant by the aid of the printer , and with an inverted sacredness , an antj - apocalyptic sublimity , couches slander under * the mystery of the seven stars /
In answer to all these reasons for my supposition , it may be pleaded that so safe a polemic as our Eclectic would not have aimed a kick at a living lion : but he might reckon upon impunity from his conscious insignificance and
contempfcibleness ; or he might , more probably , consider the once formidable champion of freedom , peace and charity , as a defunct author : as , at least , unharnessed
for " liberty ' s defence / ' twenty years ago his il noble task ; ' * in short , as an emeritus professor of the rights of man and the
prerogatives of conscience . I am Sir , Yours / in all honest service , GOGMAGOG . at * k
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Gogmagogonthe ' curious * Extract from the c Eclectic Review / 169
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' vol . vum z
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1812, page 169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1746/page/33/
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