Live—at thy meagre table still preside,
While foes commiserate and friends deride;
Yet live—thy wonted follies to repeat,
Live—till thy printer’s ruin is complete;
Strut out thy fleeting hour upon the stage,
Amidst the hisses of the passing age.”
Marryat’s article was a stupid one, ungrammatical and coarsely written. But its clumsy malice made it all the more exasperating. Lockhart was a gentleman and Maginn was an Irishman. The former took care not to say too much, and what the latter said was of no consequence. Both of them, besides, were clever writers, and a man of wit and spirit had rather be pricked by a rapier in the hand of a dexterous adversary than pounded on the head by an awkward bully with a bludgeon. Willis made a mistake in noticing Marryat’s article at all, but he was stung by the implied insult to his parents, and his military friends persuaded him that his honor was touched. Accordingly he prepared an elaborate reply in the shape of a letter, dated January 10th, and sent it to Marryat at Brussels, whither the latter had gone about the middle of December, while his article was still in proof.
“Of that part of the paper which refers to the merits of my book,” Willis wrote, “I have nothing to say. You were at liberty, as a critic, to deal with it as you pleased. You have transcended the limits of criticism, however, to make an attack on my character, and your absence compels me to represent, by my own letter, those claims for reparation which I should have intrusted to a friend, had you been in England.” The letter then proceeds to answer, in detail, the charges and innuendoes of the “Metropolitan.” As to his seeking introductions, Willis declares, “I have never, since my arrival in England, requested an introduction to any man.… In the single interview which I had with yourself, I was informed by the lady who was the medium of the introduction, that you wished to know me.” The letter concludes, apropos of Marryat’s slur on Willis’s birth and parentage, “You will readily admit that this dark insinuation must be completely withdrawn. My literary reputation and my position in society are things I could outlive. My honesty as a critic is a point on which the world may decide. But my own honor and that of my family are sacred, and while I live, no breath of calumny shall rest on either. I trust to receive, at your earliest convenience, that explanation which you cannot but acknowledge is due to me on this point, and which is most imperatively required by my own character and the feelings of my friends.” As to the remark which had drawn the “Metropolitan” article upon him, Willis confesses that it was an unjust one, but says that “it occurred in a private communication to the editor of the ‘Mirror’ and was never intended for publication.”
Willis had this letter lithographed and sent copies to seven of his particular friends, to clear his character, as he said, in his own immediate circle, of the aspersions in Marryat’s article. The reply to this demand was a long letter, under date of January 21st, declining to make any apology until Willis had publicly withdrawn his remark in the “Mirror” about Marryat’s gross trash selling about Wapping, etc., which, said the latter, amounted by implication to an attack on his private character; denying, furthermore, that he had attacked Willis’s private character. “The observations made by you upon my writings must be considered as more or less injurious in proportion to the rank in society and estimation of the person who made them.… It was therefore necessary, in this instance, to point out that the critic had not been accustomed to good society.… Now this, if true, is no crime, and therefore the remark can be no attack upon private character.” Willis accepted this explanation, in a second letter to Marryat, and then sent the entire correspondence to the “Times” for publication. Marryat was furious at this, and wrote at once to Willis, “I refuse all explanation—insist upon immediate satisfaction—and that you forthwith repair to Ostend to meet me.” If the captain thought that his opponent was a dandy poet, who would be afraid to face his pistol, he mistook his man. “The puppies will fight,” said the Duke. Willis was no shot, and the only weapon that he knew how to handle was his pen, but he never showed any want of personal courage. The correspondence that followed this challenge was long and tedious. The documents in the case are a score in number and need not be reproduced here. The substance of these various protocols and formalities was as follows. Willis answered Marryat’s letter, explaining why he had thought right to publish the first three letters that had passed between them, accepting his challenge, in case he found this explanation insufficient, but claiming his privilege, as the challenged party, to name some place in England for the meeting. Meanwhile a duplicate of Marryat’s challenge had been handed to Willis by the former’s “friend,” a Mr. F. Mills, and Willis had referred him to his friend, Captain Walker, and had agreed to waive his right to name a place, and to meet Marryat at Ostend. Mr. Mills and Captain Walker finally adjusted the matter and arranged a basis for an amicable settlement. But while these negotiations were pending, Marryat, on the receipt of Willis’s letter of explanation, withdrew his challenge in a letter dated February 9th, which he sent to the “Times,” along with his challenge and Willis’s reply to it. The terms of this withdrawal Willis considered insulting, and the publication of the challenge after it had been agreed upon between the friends of the parties that Marryat “should entirely withdraw the offensive letter containing his challenge,” he regarded as a further insult. He therefore wrote to the “Times,” on the day following the appearance of these letters, that the differences between himself and Captain Marryat were not at an end; and on February 17th he wrote to Marryat that his challenge still stood accepted, insisting on his right to name England as the place of meeting, but offering in case of interruption there to give him a meeting on the other side of the Channel. Marryat accordingly came to England and—Mr. Mills having withdrawn from the affair—named as his second Captain Edward Belcher of the Royal Navy. Captain Belcher’s ship was at Chatham and thither all parties repaired on the 27th of February. Willis’s second declared to Captain Belcher that his principal “had come to fight, not to negotiate,” but on a little discussion Captain Belcher found his principal in the wrong, and made him concede what was necessary, the following pronunciamento being signed by both seconds:—
Chatham.