essed at that
period of my life in occasional papers or private letters, towards many
of my contemporaries, but never anything censorious or harsh; and simply
on a principle of courteous forbearance which I have felt to be due
towards those who are brothers of the same liberal profession with one's
self. I could not feel, when reviewing my whole life, that in any one
instance, by act, by word, or by intention, I had offered any
unkindness, far less any wrong or insult, towards a brother author. I
was at a loss, therefore, to decipher the impulse under which the
malignant libeller could have written, in making (as I suspected
already) my private history the subject of his calumnies. Jealousy, I
have since understood, jealousy, was the foundation of the whole. A
little book of mine had made its way into drawing-rooms where some book
of his had not been heard of. On reaching Smithfield, I found the
publisher to be a medical bookseller, and, to my surprise, having every
appearance of being a grave, respectable man; notwithstanding this
undeniable fact, that the libellous journal, to which he thought proper
to affix his sanction, trespassed on decency, not only by its slander,
but, in some instances, by downright obscenity; and, worse than that,
by prurient solicitations to the libidinous imagination, through blanks,
seasonably interspersed. I said nothing to him in the way of inquiry;
for I easily guessed that the knot of writers who were here clubbing
their _virus_, had not so ill combined their plans as to leave them open
to detection by a question from any chance stranger. Having, therefore,
purchased a set of the journal, then amounting to three or four numbers,
I went out; and in the elegant promenades of Smithfield, I read the
lucubrations of my libeller. Fit academy for such amenities of
literature! Fourteen years have gone by since then; and, possibly, the
unknown hound who yelled, on that occasion, among this kennel of curs,
may, long since, have buried himself and his malice in the grave.
Suffice it here to say, that, calm as I am now, and careless on
recalling the remembrance of this brutal libel, at that time I was
convulsed with wrath. As respected myself, there was a depth of
malignity in the article which struck me as perfectly mysterious. How
could any man have made an enemy so profound, and not even have
suspected it? _That_ puzzled me. For, with respect to the other objects
of attack, such as Sir Humphrey D