Excerpt from The Scourge, or Monthly Expositor, of Imposture and Folly, 1811, Vol. 1

The editor of the Scouaaa commits his first number to the world with mingled feelings of doubt'and confidence. Indebted as he has been to the former kindness of the public, he cannot but be aware that the office which he has now ventured to assdme', requires not only literary talents but technical experience. In works which ex elusively depend for a favourable reception on beauty. Of style, Viva city of manner, or profundity of scholastic research, the first number may be, taken as a favourable specimen of what its Editors are able to accomplish but in a publication like this, which demands, besides the usual qualifications of the man of letters, an habitual acquaintance with the routine of business, and with all the sources of original ia formation, it' may be reasonably hoped that every successive number will be superior to that which has preceded it; that having once seized the clue which shall conduct the editor through all the mazes of wickedness and folly, his discoveries will become more interesting, and his step more firm the further be advances. He flatters himself, indeed, that even the present number will do no discredit to his means of obtaining information, or to'his assiduity, in making the best. Use of his opportunities: but it is evident that as the publication proceeds these Opportunities will be multiplied; one scene of'complicated ini quity leads to others of still greater interest and singularity and the writer who accustoms himself to the observation of life and manners with an eye to the exposure of folly, and the developement of wic kedness, will naturally find his acuteness sharpened by practice, and his judgment strengthened by experience.

That the publication will excite some clamour, and its conductor be honoured with more than a reasonable share of personal obloquy is not to be doubted, but the charge to which he is most apparently Open is nzalignity. It is usual for those who have no legitimate weapons of defence, to oppose the battery of satire with a formidable artillery of abusive epithets; it may be true, indeed, that these epithets have been employed by the censor himself; but it is the duty of those who use them as instruments of retaliation to prove that they are re. Turned with as much justice as they were given. If we are malignant our malignity is of a peculiar character, we hate none but the de testable, we despise none but the contemptible. When virtue, onmo desty, or learning shall be held up by the editor of the Scouncn to. The derision of the vulgar and the hatred of the malicious, it wit} then be just and timely to accuse him of malignity.

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