“The author of ‘Amelia,’ whom I have only once seen, told me, at that accidental meeting, he held the present set of writers in the utmost contempt; and that, in his character of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, he should treat them in the most unmerciful manner. He assured me he had always excepted me; and after honouring me with some encomiums, he proceeded to mention a conduct which would be, he said, useful to both; this was, the amusing our readers with a mock fight; giving blows that would not hurt, and sharing the advantage in silence.”[288]
Thus, by reversing the fact, Hill contrived to turn aside the frequent stories against him by a momentary artifice, arresting or dividing public opinion. The truth was, more probably, as Fielding relates it, and the story, as we shall see, then becomes quite a different affair. At all events, Hill incurred the censure of the traitor who violates a confidential intercourse.
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And if he lies not, must at least betray. Pope. |
Fielding lost no time in reply. To have brought down the Inspector from his fastnesses into the open field, was what our new General only wanted: a battle was sure to be a victory. Our critical Drawcansir has performed his part, with his indifferent puns, but his natural facetiousness.
“It being reported to the General that a hill must be levelled, before the Bedford coffee-house could be taken, orders were given; but this was afterwards found to be a mistake; for this hill was only a little paltry dunghill, and had long before been levelled with the dirt. The General was then informed of a report which had been spread by his lowness, the Prince of Billingsgate, in the Grub-street army, that his Excellency had proposed, by a secret treaty with that Prince, to carry on the war only in appearance, and so to betray the common cause; upon which his Excellency said with a smile:—‘If the betrayer of a private treaty could ever deserve the least credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself either a liar or a fool. None can doubt but that he is the former, if he hath feigned this treaty; and I think few would scruple to call him the latter, if he had rejected it.’ The General then declared the fact stood thus:—‘His Lowness came to my tent on an affair of his own. I treated him, though a commander in the enemy’s camp, with civility, and even kindness. I told him, with the utmost good-humour, I should attack his Lion; and that he might, if he pleased, in the same manner defend him; from which, said I, no great loss can happen on either side—’”
The Inspector slunk away, and never returned to the challenge.
During his inspectorship, he invented a whimsical literary stratagem, which ended in his receiving a castigation more lasting than the honours performed on him at Ranelagh by the cane of a warm Hibernian. Hill seems to have been desirous of abusing certain friends whom he had praised in the Inspectors; so volatile, like the loves of coquettes, are the literary friendships of the “Scribleri.” As this could not be done with any propriety there, he published the first number of a new paper, entitled The Impertinent. Having thus relieved his private feelings, he announced the cessation of this new enterprise in his Inspectors, and congratulated the public on the ill reception it had given to the Impertinent, applauding them for their having shown by this that “their indignation was superior to their curiosity.” With impudence all his own, he adds—“It will not be easy to say too much in favour of the candour of the town, which has despised a piece that cruelly and unjustly attacked Mr. Smart the poet.” What innocent soul could have imagined that The Impertinent and The Inspector were the same individual? The style is a specimen of persiflage; the thin sparkling thought; the pert vivacity, that looks like wit without wit; the glittering bubble, that rises in emptiness;—even its author tells us, in The Inspector, it is “the most pert, the most pretending,” &c.[289]