more than
insinuating that he was a person who had never been in good society, and
did not know what good living was, _because_ he found fault with the
living at the Bath Hotel. The leader wound up with a more than ever
exaggerated eulogy of Mr. Grabster and his "able and gentlemanly
assistants." Benson happened to get hold of this number of _The
Twaddler_ one evening when he had nothing to do, and those dangerous
implements, pen, ink, and paper, were within his reach. Beginning to
note down the absurdities and _non sequiturs_ in Mr. Fuster's article,
he found himself writing a very chaffy letter to _The Twaddler_. He had
an unfortunate talent for correspondence had Benson, like most of his
countrymen; so, giving the reins to his whim, he finished the epistle,
making it very spicy and satirical, with a garnish of similes and
classical quotations--altogether rather a neat piece of work, only it
might have been objected to as a waste of cleverness, and building a
large wheel to break a very small bug upon. Then he dropped it into the
post-office himself, never dreaming that Cranberry would publish it, but
merely anticipating the wrath of the little-great man on receiving such
a communication. It chanced, however, not long before, that Benson, in
the course of some legal proceedings, had been to sign papers, and "take
fifty cents' worth of affidavit," as he himself phrased it, before Mr.
Fuster in his legal capacity. The latter gentleman had thus the means of
identifying by comparison, the handwriting of the pseudonymous letter.
In a vast fit of indignation, not unmingled with satisfaction, he
brought out next day Harry's letter at full length, to the great peril
of the Latin quotations, and then followed it up with a rejoinder of his
own, in which he endeavored to take an attitude of sublime dignity,
backed up by classical quotations also, to show that he understood Latin
as well as Benson. But the attempt was as unsuccessful as it was
elaborate, for his anger broke through in every other sentence, making
the intended "smasher" an extraordinary compound of superfine writing
and vulgar abuse.

When in the course of human events (he began) it becomes necessary for
men holding our lofty and responsible position to stoop to the
chastisement of pretentious ignorance and imbecility, we shall not be
found to shrink from the task. The writer of the above letter is Mr.
Henry Benson, a young man of property, and a Federal Whig. He