In another letter, belonging to the same period, he writes:—
“I beg, I entreat you, if you value the honour of the Gospel, that, you will dissuade those polite persons you mention, from coming to hear me to-morrow. My spirits sink more and more, I am visited with some returns of my hacking cough; perhaps I shall not be able to speak at all. Such disagreeable circumstances will only expose me, and create in them very unpleasing ideas of what I shall deliver. My imagination is gone. I am sensible my sermons are flat, and my voice spiritless. The poor country people love me tenderly, and, therefore, bear with my infirmities; else, I should no longer attempt to preach, even before them. I am now unfit to appear in the pulpit.”
In the midst of all this, Hervey commenced the rebuilding of his parsonage; and, besides the vexations usually connected with such undertakings, he had to suffer the annoyance of the builder, with which he had contracted, decamping, before the erection was completed, and exposing poor Hervey to the worry of being dunned by the rogue’s disappointed creditors.[251]
Hervey was more sensitive than he thought he was; and the combined circumstances just mentioned painfully affected him. In the excitement of his feelings, he began to prepare a shilling pamphlet, in reply to the Critical Review, which had designated Jenks’s Meditations “ridiculous and enthusiastic.” With greater vulgarity than refinement, they had been described “like hairs on the greasy coat of a groom, or like dish-water thrown down the kennel.” Malevolence like this was too contemptible to be noticed; and, yet, Hervey put himself to considerable inconvenience in writing, “Ned Dry’s Apology for the Critical Reviewers,”—a pamphlet which he intended to be a satirical castigation of his nameless opponents, as well as a vindication of Mr. Jenks and of himself. It was a mistake to notice anonymous revilers at all; and it was an additional mistake for Hervey to attempt to compose a satire. His mind was too exquisitely refined, and his soul too loving, to succeed in literary flagellation. He was himself in doubt respecting this, and wrote to Mr. Ryland as follows:—
“I have not had the pleasure of seeing the Critical Review for December; but, I find, from the advertisements in the public papers, that they take Mr. Jenks and his recommender to task. I am not disappointed; I expected no quarter from them.
“You would smile, and be a little surprised, if you were to see what employed my spare hours almost all last week. I never had such an inclination for buffoonery in all my life. It was occasioned by the unworthy and abusive treatment which the Reviewers bestow upon all the most valuable writers that appear in public; and, I verily think, if their insolence can be curbed, it must be done in obedience to that command of unerring wisdom, ‘Answer a fool according to his folly.’”
Again;—
“My friends, who have seen the piece, absolutely disapprove of it. Dr. Stonehouse says, it is a low, dull, spiritless thing; that, I am no more fit for such kind of writing than a carrier’s horse to run a race. He read it, he tells me, to some ingenious ladies, who have a regard for my character; and they declared, they would come over to Weston, and would, upon their knees, (if it were needful,) solicit me not to publish it. Amidst such a diversity of opinions, how shall I determine?”
Again;—