nterest
yourself with the fact that he never composed a word of it in his own room
without a ring on his finger and a flower in his button-hole. It may also
be agreeable to know that Walker the poet always takes a mutton-chop and
two glasses of sherry at half-past one. 'Everybody's Business' did this
for everybody to whom such excitement was agreeable. But in managing
everybody's business in that fashion, let a writer be as good-natured as
he may and let the principle be ever so well-founded that nobody is to be
hurt, still there are dangers. It is not always easy to know what will
hurt and what will not. And then sometimes there will come a temptation
to be, not spiteful, but specially amusing. There must be danger, and a
writer will sometimes be indiscreet. Personalities will lead to libels
even when the libeller has been most innocent. It may be that after all
the poor poet never drank a glass of sherry before dinner in his life,--it
may be that a little toast-and-water, even with his dinner, gives him all
the refreshment that he wants, and that two glasses of alcoholic mixture
in the middle of the day shall seem, when imputed to him, to convey a
charge of downright inebriety. But the writer has perhaps learned to
regard two glasses of meridian wine as but a moderate amount of
sustentation. This man is much flattered if it be given to be understood
of him that he falls in love with every pretty woman that he
sees;--whereas another will think that he has been made subject to a foul
calumny by such insinuation.

'Everybody's Business' fell into some such mistake as this, in that very
amusing article which was written for the delectation of its readers in
reference to Dr. Wortle and Mrs. Peacocke. The 'Broughton Gazette' no
doubt confined itself to the clerical and highly moral views of the case,
and, having dealt with the subject chiefly on behalf of the Close and the
admirers of the Close, had made no allusion to the fact that Mrs. Peacocke
was a very pretty woman. One or two other local papers had been more
scurrilous, and had, with ambiguous and timid words, alluded to the
Doctor's personal admiration for the lady. These, or the rumours created
by them, had reached one of the funniest and lightest-handed of the
contributors to 'Everybody's Business,' and he had concocted an amusing
article,--which he had not intended to be at all libellous, which he had
thought to be only funny. He had not appreciated,