]
Observe, therefore, Captain Clutterbuck, that, wise by these great
examples, I receive you as a partner, but a sleeping partner only. As
I give you no title to employ or use the firm of the copartnery we are
about to form, I will announce my property in my title-page, and put
my own mark on my own chattels, which the attorney tells me it will be
a crime to counterfeit, as much as it would to imitate the autograph
of any other empiric--a crime amounting, as advertisements upon little
vials assure to us, to nothing short of felony. If, therefore, my
dear friend, your name should hereafter appear in any title-page
without mine, readers will know what to think of you. I scorn to use
either arguments or threats; but you cannot but be sensible, that, as
you owe your literary existence to me on the one hand, so, on the
other, your very all is at my disposal. I can at pleasure cut off your
annuity, strike your name from the half-pay establishment, nay,
actually put you to death, without being answerable to any one. These
are plain words to a gentleman who has served during the whole war;
but, I am aware, you will take nothing amiss at my hands.
And now, my good sir, let us address ourselves to our task, and
arrange, as we best can, the manuscript of your Benedictine, so as to
suit the taste of this critical age. You will find I have made very
liberal use of his permission, to alter whatever seemed too favourable
to the Church of Rome, which I abominate, were it but for her fasts
and penances.
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