I remember once to have been in a certain bookseller’s shop, when a letter was delivered to him, inclosing a paper, which, after he had thrown his eyes over it, he presented to me, telling me it was a character of Lord S——, which he intended to insert in a certain work then publishing.—I fancy, added he, it will do pretty well; the author is a sharp blade, I assure you;—none of my boys carry such an edge, or cut so deep, as that little gladiator.
I found this a most bitter invective against the above-mentioned nobleman, written with all the inveteracy of malice and personal enmity, branding him as a prodigy of sensuality, and accusing him of every villanous disposition and propensity that ever tainted the most corrupt heart.
This, said I, is a much more harmless production than is intended. The violence of this poison will prove its own antidote. The most voracious stomach for slander and defamation will not be able to bear such a dose, but must reject it with disgust. Every reader of common understanding will clearly perceive, that all this abuse has been dictated by malice and personal resentment.
Then, replied the bookseller, every reader of common understanding will clearly perceive what does not exist; for the writer of that paper, to my certain knowledge, never had the smallest intercourse or connection with Lord S——; never bore him any ill-will, and has not the most distant wish to injure that noble Lord; as a proof of which, added he, taking another paper out of his drawer, here is a character of the same nobleman, written by the same author, which is to appear about a week after the publication of the former, by way of answer to it.
This second paper was a continued eulogium on Lord S—— from beginning to end, in which the candid author, having compared him to some of the greatest and most celebrated men, and having collected many of the brightest flowers, with which Plutarch has adorned his worthies, he forms them into one large wreath, which he very seriously binds round the English nobleman’s brow, concluding with this observation. That as his Lordship resembled them in their virtues, so like them he had been distinguished by the most virulent attacks of envy and malice, which was a tax that had always been paid for superior talents.
How comes my Lord S——, said I to the bookseller, to be selected from his brethren of the peerage, and distinguished so remarkably by the obloquy and the praise of your ingenious friend?
Because, replied he, that nobleman is at the head of an active department, and is one of those vigorous and decisive characters, which never fail to create a number of enemies and of friends. His enemies are delighted to see him abused, and it is expected, that his friends will be charmed to hear him praised; and, between the two, my friend’s productions will find a brisk sale, and I hope to make a tolerable job of his Lordship; which, let me tell you, cannot be done with every man of rank.—Lord, Sir! there are some of them of such mawkish, water-gruel characters, as to interest no mortal. There is ——, a man of such high rank and such a known name, that I thought something might have been made of him:—And so I employed my little Drawcansir for and against him, and two very pretty pamphlets he produced;—but just as I was going to send them to the press, I happened to shew them to a friend of mine, who is an admirable judge in these matters.—These pamphlets, says he, are very well wrote; but they’ll never pay the printing. The person who is the subject of them is of such a cold, tame, civil, cautious disposition, and has balanced so exactly through the whole of his life, that he has never obliged or disobliged any one. He has neither friend nor foe in the world:—Every body says, he is a good enough sort of a man; but were he to break his neck to-night, no human creature would feel either sorrow or satisfaction at the event, and a satire or panegyric on his grandmother would be as much read as those written on him.
In faith, sir, concluded the Bookseller, I took the hint, and so the pamphlets never appeared.
Though I was a good deal entertained with my friend the Bookseller’s reasoning, yet I could not help feeling indignation at the literary bravo, who lived in this infamous manner, by wounding and murdering, or at least attempting to murder, people’s reputations. And those are not entirely free from blame, who detesting the writer, take pleasure in the writings. He has very possibly the plea of necessitous circumstances to urge in alleviation of his wickedness:—but the pleasure they take seems to proceed from a pure, disinterested fondness of seeing others abused. Many of those who cry shame on the licentiousness of the press, and exclaim against the injustice and cruelty of tearing private characters to pieces in public papers, have the most virulent of these productions served up every morning as regularly as their toast and butter. If they would forego the pleasure of reading the most malicious of those compositions, the evil they complain of would cease directly.
But it is ridiculous, and seems ungrateful, for people to affect an appearance of indignation against those who provide for them one of the greatest enjoyments of their lives. To chuckle over scandal all the forenoon with every mark of pleasure, and decry it in the evening with affected anger, is as preposterous as it would be in a judge, first to seduce a poor wench to fornication, and then punish her for the sin.