Gomorrah of the literary world, that it is customary for Reviewers (?)
previous to reviewing a work, to write _anonymous_ letters to the author,
stating that theirs was rather an influential Review, but that before
they reviewed her last work, they must first assure her that the world
did not care one straw whether she was well-used or ill-used, but _they_
(the _Reviewer_, mind, and the Writer of the _anonymous_ letters, for
there were two) wished to know was it possible that she meant Mr. ——,
one of the characters in the novel, for her own husband?—as though they
should ask, “Is it possible you have dared to blaspheme your GOD!!”
though indeed, among _that_ class of notoriously infamous and profligate
men, who have left _no_ law of GOD unviolated, Husbands of course are
generally given precedence to the Almighty in the awe and reverence
such men endeavour to inculcate in the female slaves of Great Britain.
Now, with regard to that, the authoress had only to say “that it was
impossible to write a novel without having bad characters in it, and it
would be equally impossible to mention _any_ vice or any meanness which
would not be perfectly applicable, and which therefore might not appear
_personal_ to Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, who having taken high degrees in them
_all_, was at perfect liberty to take his choice, and fit them on as he
pleased; and as for the sacredness of the mere word _husband_, as to
_her_ it was only the synonyme of the most extreme personal violence and
brutality, terminating in being turned out of her home to make way for
her legal tyrant’s mistresses, and to having had one child destroyed
physically and the other morally, being swindled out of every shilling,
and hunted by a relentless Fiend through the world, it could not be very
sacred, _quoique sacré_, to her.” “Oh, but respect to her position,”
said Conventionality; _he_ had not left _her any_ save one of honest
superiority, which, as it arose from herself, it was not in _his_ nor in
his myrmidon’s power to deprive her of. Then what _was_ she to respect?
Surely _not_ the iniquitous laws that allowed a woman to be so treated,
nor the vicious and immoral society which tolerates such conduct; and
least of all the opinion of a certain obsequious clique of the press,
which panders to, puffs, and protects such infamy. The silliest thing
that ever tyrant did is to leave his slave _nothing_ to lose, to hope,
or to fear, for _then_ comes the reaction: the pigmy springs into an
armed giant, and the trampled worm is, _for the sake of others_, willing
to become a martyr to a cause of which they have been so long a Victim;
and of this overreaching folly the clever Sir JANUS ALLPUFF had been
guilty. “Oh! but his talents,” simpers some Miss, to whom they no doubt
appear, as compared with her own, _very great_; but his Victim, being
an exceedingly well-read Woman, could not even bow down to and worship
_them_, looking upon him much in the light of the ass which carried the
relics, from having read the most of his works _in the authors from
whom he transferred them_; and, moreover, having more original ideas in
her own head than _he_ ever purloined from anybody else’s. So, finding
there was nothing to be done with a Wretch of this kind, and that he
could not even hunt her to death, it was necessary to make the Clique
set up a hue-and-cry about the _personality_ of her books; but _who_
more personal, pray, without the excuse of gross outrage that _she_ had
had, than Sir JANUS himself, even to formerly ridiculing the _Assinæum_
and others of his now obedient vassals, to say nothing of his converting
Her Majesty’s ministry into highwaymen? Who more personal, either, than
his friend Mr. JERICHO JABBER, in his Caucasian romances? And who _so_
personal, without any regard to _vraisemblance_, much less to _truth_, as
my Lady GORGON,[4] in her trashy productions? But because _she_ has made
her house _convenient_ to the English aristocracy for the last quarter of
a century, she has a pension of three hundred a-year, while poor HAYDON
starved on an under-footman’s wages of twenty-five—Shame! Shame! But
Sir JANUS had not done with his victim yet. _The New Quarterly_, _The
Literary Gazette_, in old SILENUS JERDAN’S most unscrupulous strain,
so that his reminiscences seemed to hiccup through every line; _The
Assinæum_, and, in short, _all_ Sir JANUS’ _special tools_ and literary
bravoes—
“Cursed by the goose’s and the critic’s quill,”
were ordered to affect to treat her book as the production of a mad
woman. Nay, more, BOB CLAPPER,[5] another star of this galaxy, and _quite
worthy of being one_, considering that he lives with another man’s wife
and is always drunk, was also set to _bell_ all over London that Sir
JANUS’S victim was mad, which really was very unfair towards FUDGESTER,
as they had just concocted a job appointment for him, and inducted him
into it, under the very appropriate title of Purveyor of Lunatics to
the Literary Fund. But if Sir JANUS had only had the goodness, instead
of _saying_ and telling his gang to say all this, _to have instituted
a medical inquiry, or any other inquiry_, that could have his Wife’s
conduct and his own _examined into, thoroughly sifted, and brought
before the public_, she would have been, and still would be, infinitely
obliged to him. But no! the calumnies of this most loathsome and utterly
contemptible _Clique_, like their _charities_ (?), are upon the principle
of _publicity_ and _self-security_. With regard to the former, they
stab in the back and in the dark; with regard to the latter—_via_ the
_Times_—they dip their hands into other people’s pockets; and no matter,
as far as Sir JANUS ALLPUFF is concerned, if his Victim wife has been
hunted down to the lowest straits of pecuniary destitution, as long as
_his_ name figures in £100 subscriptions for restoring Churches, or any
other sound-of-trumpet doings, he will still have the Reverend Incumbent
of any living in _his_ gift, swearing that he is a reformed character!!
and FUDGESTER endeavouring to demonstrate to the British public, by dint
of brass and ink, that what _might_ have the appearance of a bare-faced
plagiary in others, is the highest proof and evidence of profound
_originality_ in Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, and that _so_ any _generous_ critic
must admit; and certainly it is very easy for critics, _à la_ FUDGESTER,
to be generous with other people’s property, and there is no generosity
in giving people what they don’t want; so FUDGESTER is quite right to
give _his_ friends as much honour, originality, and generosity as he
possibly can. But it was not to be supposed that the clever Sir JANUS,
with such a _corps d’esprit_ (?) at his command, would let his Victim
rest; so he next sets a fellow calling himself a theatrical manager
(?), of the name of “LEYTON,” to write to her, demanding permission
to dramatise one of her Novels. Now the motive of this was two-fold:
first, it inculpated the rare jest of leading the poor, struggling,
financially-crippled Wife to suppose that she was about to get a little
money, which would be a great godsend to her, considering the terrible
embarrassments his ceaseless conspiracies had entailed on her; and next,
it established a correspondence under the pretext of arranging the scenes
and condensing the plot of the play, which correspondence was drawled
out over the space of several months, which of course kept Sir JANUS
perfectly in possession of his Victim’s whereabouts. But at length even
such a very bungling plotter as this very “_clever_” man felt the hum of
the play could not last for ever; consequently the plot began to thicken,
and the _soi-disant_ Mr. LEYTON was sent with a woman, who had every
appearance of being a street-walker, in _person_, and under the name of
BARNES. This phase of the plot consisted in getting into the same house
as Sir JANUS’S victim, and giving her the trouble and expense of getting
out of it; and at a later period of the plot, this low fellow BARNES
wrote her a most infamous letter, the handwriting of which was precisely
the same as the letters of the _soi-disant_ LEYTON. But as Sir JANUS
ALLPUFF invariably adopts the opposite _verbal_ virtue to the particular
vice he may be at the moment practising, about this time he was seized
in the House of Commons with such a “_generous_” (a favourite _word_ of
his) horror of the under-hand and the anonymous, that _he_ would like
to have every article in a newspaper signed with the writer’s name! But
surely he must have uttered this _fanfarronade_ under the full conviction
that such an absurd law never would or could be passed; for otherwise,
what dreadful high wages some of his doers of dirty work would require
for some of the paragraphs, _pro_ and _con._, which they are ordered
to indite! Shocking to think of! for it almost makes one see, in one’s
mind’s eye, Sir JANUS _himself_ reduced to such a state of pecuniary
destitution as not to have coin sufficient to pay for a raspberry puff,
much less for a literary one! Thus hunted out of the miserable and remote
village in which she had taken refuge, Sir JANUS’S victim left it, not
letting anyone know the place she was going to, which so exasperated
her tyrant to think that she should for even a week, a day, or an hour,
escape from his persecutions, that the next time the miserable pittance
he doles out to her became due, and from which he even deducts the
Income Tax! he positively refused to pay it to one of her solicitors
till he had a clergyman’s certificate from the place where she then was,
_guaranteeing that she was alive_, and this he no doubt thought a very
_clever_ way of finding out where she was. But honesty is always not only
braver, but shrewder, than rascality, not only because it has nothing to
fear, but because all resources are within its grasp, and as his Victim
was determined not to yield to this disgusting, though too ridiculous,
piece of petty tyranny—a very clever lawyer of hers, and one as honest
as he is clever, soon brought that contemptible wretch Sir JANUS and
his rascally attorney to his senses by writing them word what he would
do if this disgraceful swindle which he calls an allowance was not paid
instantly. Of course he soon hunted out his Victim again, but his spy
(everyone being now forewarned) was sent about her business in a manner
that must have rather surprised her and her “gifted” employer, and as now
there is a talk of a general election, with what he himself and FUDGESTER
would call those “high and generous instincts” for his own safety which
never quit him, I suppose he will keep quiet for some little time, and he
had better!
“What a contemptible, dastardly set of Blackguards, to be sure!”
“You’d say so, sir, if you knew as much of them as I do.”
“Egad! I think you’ve told me quite enough. How old is this Sir JANUS
ALLPUFF, and what sort of a looking fellow is he?”
“Well, sir, in years, I don’t believe he is much more than fifty, but
from the horrible life he has led he looks eighty; however, in the puffs,
of course, all this is attributed to his literary labours. His person
is not so easy to describe; it is the head of a goat on the body of a
grasshopper. But it’s the expression of his face that is so horrible;
the lines in it make it look like an intersected map of Vice, bounded on
one side by the Black Sea of Hypocrisy, on the other by the Falsehood
Mountains.”
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Genius_ was written originally, but was obliterated, and _talent_
substituted for it.
[2] This is something like RICHARDSON’S transfer to HOLKER; and HOLKER’S
anticipated assignment to MONTAGU CORRY: and HOLKER like COPLEY, or
LYNDHURST, will no doubt sit on the Bench!!! Thus HOLKER helps to get Dr.
KENEALY disbarred and destroyed, because, unlike HOLKER, he is not fit to
belong to an “honourable profession,” and all the Ministry look on, and
uphold, and applaud!!!
[3] The “medical men” here referred to are Mr. ROSS, an apothecary,
of Farringdon street, City, and Mr. HALE THOMPSON, of Clarges-street,
formerly connected with the Westminster Hospital.
[4] Lady MORGAN.
[5] BOB CLAPPER—the late Mr. ROBERT BELL, author of “Marriage, a Comedy.”
JERICHO JABBER is DISRAELI.
INDEX TO “A BLIGHTED LIFE.”
Account of Jean Hestier, the poor orphan, 60
Anecdote of Sir E. L.’s brutality to his wife, 76
Appendix, 76
Attempt to induce Lady L. to live with her husband, 58
Aylmer’s, Lady, Ball at, 6
Bell, Mr. Robert, spreads the report of the pretended madness of Lady
L., 12
Blackburn, Lady, Money lent by, and Mr. L.’s notions of honour, 65
Brellisford, the Maid, Courage of, 10
Clarke’s, Mrs., interview with Sir E.’s solicitor, 37
Cockburn, described, 6;
alluded to, 47, 69;
tries to borrow money from Sir E., scene, 70
Cole, Mr., Q.C., alluded to, 64, 69;
Lady L. gives a testimonial to, 70
D—— and Wyndham Lewis, 20
Deacon, Miss Laura, Account of, 23, 24
Dedication of “Lucille” defended, 47, 57
Dickens, Charles, described, 4;
“In Memoriam” by, 22
Directions to her son in case of Lady L.’s death, 49
Divorce Court, Why Lady L. did not apply to, 50
Drives with Mary H. described, 39, 43
E. J.’s flattering account of Sir E. in an American Court, 72
Grattan, alluded to, 41
H——, the Madhouse Keeper, driven from Brentford, 55
Hertford Election, Lady L. speaks at, 27
Hodgson, the good attorney, 8
Hotham, Lady, Visit to, 8
Hyde, Mr., Lady L.’s solicitor, opposes Sir E.’s plot to prevent the
pittance being paid, 17
Interview with her son described by Lady L., 50
Lady Lytton describes her son’s conduct, 44;
abandoned by him abroad, 59;
ceases to have intercourse with him, 66
Lamartine quoted, 6
Llangollen, Mrs. P., the spy, at, 8
Lawrence, the Quaker, and Lord L., 71, 73
Leighton set upon Lady L., 10
London, Lady L. visits, and is trapped, 33
Loudon, Mrs., Account of, 7
Lytton, Sir E., lectures on the Holiness of Truth, 11;
on the scene of abduction, 35;
drummed out of Nice, 40
Lyndhurst, Lord, applied to, 19;
his letter, 19
Lyndhurst, Lord, and Lady Sykes, 6, 20;
his conduct as to Lady L.’s papers, 22
Madhouse conspiracy carried out, 35;
Arrival at, 36;
Waking at, for the first time, 38
Maginn, Dr., alluded to, 63
Mary H——, Lady L’s little friend, described, 37;
Drives with, described, 39, 43
Massey, Lord, alluded to, 41
Norton, Mrs., 6;
Anecdote of, 18;
Trial of, 63
O’Kane and Palmerston, Case of, 63
Plot as to copyright of “Very Successful,” 67
Queen, The, and Prince Albert compared, 19;
alluded to, 42
R——, Miss, 47;
as a spy, 54
Return from abroad and reception at Taunton, 61
Roberts, Dr. Oily Gammon, described, 43
Shaftesbury, Lord, and the trusteeship, 53, 57, 65
Sparrow, the maid, 38
Stepney, Lady, alluded to, 76
“Strange Story, A,” alluded to, 19
Terror of Lord L. in his son, 56
Talfourd, Mr. Serjt., and his Custody of Infants Bill, 5
Whalley, Mr., sent for, 17
INDEX TO SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES.
Allpuff, Sir Janus, 102, 105, 106, 107
“An Englishman’s” letter to the _Daily Telegraph_, 97
Athol, The late Duke of, described by Lady L., 103
Brentford Asylum, Arrival at, 87
Clarke, Mrs., refuses to allow Lady L.’s goods to be removed, 83
Clapper, Bob, 105
Cockburn, Sir Alex., alluded to, 102
_Daily Telegraph_, The, Extracts from, 90, 94, 99
Forster, Mr. John, 102
Gorgon, Lady, 105
Hertford Election, 83
Hill, Mr., the keeper of the Brentford Asylum, and his grievance, 101
Hyde, Mr., Lady L.’s solicitor, alluded to, 88
Income of Lady L. shamefully small, 82
Jabber, Mr. Jericho, 105
Knebworth to let, Advertisement of, 102
Letters to the _Daily Telegraph_, 90, 95, 96, 99
Letter of Mr. Lytton to the _Daily Telegraph_, 96
Letter of Mr. Forbes Winslow to Edwin James, Q.C., 96
Letter of Dr. Connolly, 97
Leyton, Mr., alluded to, 106
London, Lady L.’s visit to, and abduction, 85
Lytton, Lady, described, 79
Lytton, Sir E., on the scene of abduction, 87
Lytton, Lord, the first, 102
Madhouse dens and the Lunacy Laws, Preface, iii.
Meeting of the inhabitants of Taunton, and the resolutions passed, 88
Sketch of Lord Lytton, 93
_Somerset Gazette_ Extract from, 79
Thompson, Dr., visits Lady L., 84
“Very Successful,” Extract from, 102, 103
[Illustration: THE END.]