Meantime Higginson, in a new coat and waistcoat, sat anglicising the Latinity of his face, and copying the manners and attitudes of Montmorenci, whom the poor man, I verily believe, is endeavouring to rival. At length the word poetry caught his ear; he gave the graces to the winds, and listened.
'Therefore,' continued Stuart to me, 'satirical poetry must be much more useful than encomiastic.'
'Sir,' said Higginson, drawing back his head and lowering his voice, as if he dreaded nothing so much as being heard, 'I must beg leave, in all humility, to coincide with your exprest proposition; but to suggest a doubt whether it be decorous to violate the repose of noble blood.'
'If the great deserve exposure as much as the mean,' said Stuart, 'their rank is rather a reason why they should be censured sooner; because their bad example is more conspicuous, and, therefore, more detrimental.' 'But,' said I, 'though satirizing the vicious may be beneficial to the community, is it always advantageous to the satirist?'
'Johnson observes,' answered Stuart, 'that _it is no less a proof of eminence to have many enemies than many friends_; and, indeed, without the one we seldom have the other. On the whole, however, I would advise a writer not to drop the olive-branch in grasping at the rod; though those whom he finds privately endeavouring to vilify his own character, self-defence entitles him to expose without mercy.'
'That satire is salutary to society, I am convinced,' said I. 'It becomes mischievous only when it is aimed at the worthy heart.'
'And yet,' said Stuart, 'those that are loudest in declaiming against the satirist, are often fondest of disseminating the satire. Now he who slanders with his tongue, is just as culpable as he who defames with his pen; for, if the one weapon be not as extensive, in its effects, as the other, the motives of those who use it are equally vile. Hume, in one of his essays, says, that _a whisper may fly as quick, and be as pernicious, as a pamphlet_.'
'And I think,' said I, 'that those who never allow people faults, are just as injurious to the community as those who never allow them virtues.'
'True,' said Stuart; 'and a late publication (which equals in sentiment, diction, and pictures of character, any work of the kind in our language) thus concludes a description of them: _These, assuming the name of Good-nature, say, that for their part, they wish to avoid making enemies, and when they cannot speak well of people, they make it a rule not to speak of them at all. Now this is an admirable system, for thus, permitting vice, they sanction it, and by not opposing, assist its progress._'