_The Examiner_ of November 2 and 16, 1817, quoted extracts from the first of these articles and called upon the author to avow himself; otherwise to an "utter disregard of _Truth_ and Decency, he adds the height of Meanness and COWARDICE."[491] As might have been expected, this demand brought forth nothing more than a disavowal from the London publishers who handled _Blackwood's_ of all responsibility in the matter. June 14, 1818, _The Examiner_ assailed the editor of the _Quarterly_ as a government critic who disguised a political quarrel in literary garb, as a sycophant to power and wealth:
"Grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted impotence, and shameless effrontery; salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the driblets of his spleen and impertinence on others; answers their arguments by confuting himself; mistakes habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness, not to be imposed upon by shallow pretensions; unprincipled rancor for zealous loyalty; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, and peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental infirmity, for proofs of refinement of taste and strength of understanding."
This condescension to a use of his enemies' weapons only weakened Hunt's position. Yet in the light of the secrecy maintained at the time and the mystery surrounding the matter ever since, it is interesting to read _Blackwood's_ contorted reply to Hunt's demand for an open fight, written as late as January, 1826:
"Nor let it be said that, either on this or any other occasion, the moral Satyrists (sic) in this magazine ever wished to remain unknown. How, indeed, could they wish for what they well knew was impossible? All the world has all along known the names of the gentlemen who have uttered our winged words. Nor did it ever, for one single moment, enter into the head of any one of them to wish--not to scorn concealment. To gentlemen, too, they at all times acted like gentlemen; but was it ever dreamt by the wildest that they were to consider as such the scum of the earth? 'If I but knew who was my slanderer,' was at one time the ludicrous skraigh of the convicted Cockney. Why did he not ask? and what would he have got by asking? Shame and confusion of face--unanswerable argument and cruel chastisement. For before one word would have been deigned to the sinner, he must have eaten--and the bitter roll is yet ready for him--all the lies he had told for the last twenty years, and must either have choked or been kicked."