I have been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that
my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are
preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, 'unresisting'
Muse, whom they have already so be-deviled with their ungodly ribaldry;
"Tantæne animis coelestibus Iræ!"
I suppose I must say of JEFFREY as Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK saith, "an I had
known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought
him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the
next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with
it in Persia. [1]
My Northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality
towards their great literary Anthropophagus, Jeffery; but what else was
to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and
slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking"? I have adduced
facts already well known, and of JEFFREY's mind I have stated my free
opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury:--what scavenger was
ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England
because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;"
but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my
return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving
England are very different from fears, literary or personal: those who
do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing,
my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to
answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry
cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar
tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days.
There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subaudi 'esquire'), a sizer of
Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I
have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been
accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no
reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept
by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his
Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and,
what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the
'Satirist' for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of
having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard
his name, till coupled with the 'Satirist'. He has therefore no reason
to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is
rather 'pleased' than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done
me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book,
except the editor of the 'Satirist', who, it seems, is a gentleman--God
wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate
scribblers. I hear that Mr. JERNINGHAM[1] is about to take up the
cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the
few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with
kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, "pour on, I will
endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of
thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers, and, in the words
of SCOTT, I wish
"To all and each a fair good night,
And rosy dreams and slumbers light."
[Footnote 1: The article never appeared, and Lord Byron, in the 'Hints
from Horace', taunted Jeffrey with a silence which seemed to indicate
that the critic was beaten from the field.]
[Footnote 2: Edward Jerningham (1727-1812), third son of Sir George
Jerningham, Bart., was an indefatigable versifier. Between the
publication of his first poem, 'The Nunnery', in 1766, and his last,
'The Old Bard's Farewell', in 1812, he sent to the press no less than
thirty separate compositions. As a contributor to the 'British Album',
Gifford handled him roughly in the 'Baviad' (lines 21, 22); and Mathias,
in a note to 'Pursuits of Literature', brackets him with Payne Knight as
"ecrivain du commun et poëte vulgaire." He was a dandy with a literary
turn, who throughout a long life knew every one who was worth knowing.
Some of his letters have recently been published (see 'Jerningham
Letters', two vols., 1896).]