Siwel had attacked Mr. Karl
Benson on a variety of subjects: first he had exposed him by showing
that the initials "K. B.," at the foot of the editorial, did not mean
"K. B.," but Karl Benson; and hence he ingeniously argued that Mr.
Benson's signing himself "K. B.," when he was not "K. B.," was a fraud
on the community. Having thus exposed the malice prepense of the
unfortunate Benson, he intimated that the English participle in "_ing_"
often had the meaning of the perfect; and hence that translating a Greek
verb in the perfect by the participle aforesaid, was not such a very
heinous offence after all. This bomb-shell was not, however, thrown into
Mr. Benson's magazine without an immense amount of smoke and noise. He
adopted the celebrated ironical Congressional style: "This eminent Greek
scholar," "this pattern of classical criticism," "this prodigy of the
English universities, who has had his own private tutor, must now be
informed that the English participle in 'ing,'" &c., &c. Nor did the
essay on the Greek language stop here. It savagely sneered at "K. B.'s"
vanity at having been educated in an English university, and made the
most cutting remarks on his criticisms in general. Such flowers of
rhetoric as "literary scavenger," "purse-proud fop," "half-educated
boy," &c., were thrown around as thickly as though the Flower Girl of
the Fejee Islands herself had crossed the path of clerical criticism.

Great interest was excited by these little love passages in the
different colleges in the country. The studious young citizens read the
"criticism" and the "essay" with the most praiseworthy avidity. Karl had
replied to the essay in a few majestic sentences in the _Editor's
Table_, the effect of which was somewhat impaired by the real editor's
saying in a note at the foot, that he wasn't going to have any more of
this sort of thing in his magazine; and that as both parties had had
their hearing, it must stop now. In his reply, Karl had offered to do
something or other to the Greek language against Professor Relyat Siwel
(President Blank being the judge), for a thousand dollars a side. Great
was the enthusiasm produced by this offer. Several college periodicals
announced it as a renovation of the art of criticism, and an innumerable
quantity of young orators hinted it as the beacon blaze mentioned in
Agamemnon, shining on Clytemnestra's battlements, and bringing joy to
Argos. Some discussion was also induced necessarily a