I remember once to have been in a certain bookseller’s shop, when a letter was delivered to him, inclosing a paper, which, after he had thrown his eyes over it, he presented to me, telling me it was a character of Lord S——, which he intended to insert in a certain work then publishing.—I fancy, added he, it will do pretty well; the author is a sharp blade, I assure you;—none of my boys carry such an edge, or cut so deep, as that little gladiator.
I found this a most bitter invective against the above-mentioned nobleman, written with all the inveteracy of malice and personal enmity, branding him as a prodigy of sensuality, and accusing him of every villanous disposition and propensity that ever tainted the most corrupt heart.
This, said I, is a much more harmless production than is intended. The violence of this poison will prove its own antidote. The most voracious stomach for slander and defamation will not be able to bear such a dose, but must reject it with disgust. Every reader of common understanding will clearly perceive, that all this abuse has been dictated by malice and personal resentment.
Then, replied the bookseller, every reader of common understanding will clearly perceive what does not exist; for the writer of that paper, to my certain knowledge, never had the smallest intercourse or connection with Lord S——; never bore him any ill-will, and has not the most distant wish to injure that noble Lord; as a proof of which, added he, taking another paper out of his drawer, here is a character of the same nobleman, written by the same author, which is to appear about a week after the publication of the former, by way of answer to it.
This second paper was a continued eulogium on Lord S—— from beginning to end, in which the candid author, having compared him to some of the greatest and most celebrated men, and having collected many of the brightest flowers, with which Plutarch has adorned his worthies, he forms them into one large wreath, which he very seriously binds round the English nobleman’s brow, concluding with this observation. That as his Lordship resembled them in their virtues, so like them he had been distinguished by the most virulent attacks of envy and malice, which was a tax that had always been paid for superior talents.