"I have read the recent article of Jeffrey ... I suppose the long and the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature is."—Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 80.]
[JX]—that essence of all Lie.—[MS. erased.]
[530] {404}"Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron Bradwardine in Waverley is authority for the word. [The word is certainly in Butler's Hudibras, Part II. Canto 2—
"Although your Church be opposite
To mine as Black Fryars are to White,
In Rule and Order, yet I grant
You are a Reformado Saint.">[
[531] [Stanza XV. is not in the MS. The "legal broom," sc. Brougham, was an afterthought.]
[532] Query, suit?—Printer's Devil.
[533] [It has been argued that when "great Cæsar fell" he wore his "robe" to muffle up his face, and that, in like manner, Jeffrey sank the critic in the lawyer. A "deal likelier" interpretation is that Jeffrey wore "his gown" right royally, as Cæsar wore his "triumphal robe." (See Plutarch's Julius Cæsar, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 515.)]