avy, &c., it was clear that the malice
was assumed; that, at most, it was the gay impertinence of some man upon
town, armed with triple Irish brass from original defect of feeling, and
willing to raise an income by running amuck at any person just then
occupying enough of public interest to make the abuse saleable. But, in
my case, the man flew like a bull-dog at the throat, with a pertinacity
and _acharnement_ of malice that would have caused me to laugh
immoderately, had it not been for one intolerable wound to my feelings.
These mercenary libellers, whose stiletto is in the market, and at any
man's service for a fixed price, callous and insensible as they are,
yet retain enough of the principles common to human nature, under every
modification, to know where to plant their wounds. Like savage hackney
coachmen, they know where there is a _raw_. And the instincts of human
nature teach them that every man is vulnerable through his female
connexions. There lies his honour; there his strength; there his
weakness. In their keeping is the heaven of his happiness; in them and
through them the earthy of its fragility. Many there are who do not feel
the _maternal_ relation to be one in which any excessive freight of
honour or sensibility is embarked. Neither is the name of _sister_,
though tender in early years, and impressive to the fireside
sensibilities, universally and through life the same magical sound. A
sister is a creature whose very property and tendency (_qua_ sister) is
to alienate herself, not to gather round your centre. But the names of
_wife_ and _daughter_ these are the supreme and starry charities of
life: and he who, under a mask, fighting in darkness, attacks you there,
that coward has you at disadvantage. I stood in those hideous shambles
of Smithfield: upwards I looked to the clouds, downwards to the earth,
for vengeance. I trembled with excessive wrath--such was my infirmity of
feeling at that time, and in that condition of health; and had I
possessed forty thousand lives, all, and every one individually, I would
have sacrificed in vindication of her that was thus cruelly libelled.
Shall I give currency to his malice, shall I aid and promote it by
repeating it? No. And yet why not? Why should I scruple, as if afraid to
challenge his falsehoods?--why should I scruple to cite them? He, this
libeller, asserted--But faugh!

This slander seemed to have been built upon some special knowledge of
me; for I had o