,
etc.; and thus we are informed of the exact moment at which all retort
is to cease; at which misrepresentation towards the public and outrage
towards the Personages much more than insulted in those lines, is to be
no longer remembered. What privileges does this writer claim for his
friends! They are to live in all "the swill'd insolence" of attack upon
those on whose character, union, and welfare, the public prosperity
mainly depends; they are to instruct the DAUGHTER to hold the FATHER
disgraced, because he does not surrender the prime Offices of the State
to their ambition. And if, after this, public disgust make the author
feel, in the midst of the little circle of flatterers that remains to
him, what an insight he has given into the guilt of satire _before_
maturity, _before_ experience, _before_ knowledge; if the original
unprovoked intruder upon the peace of others be thus taught a love of
privacy and a facility of retraction; if Turnus have found the time,
"magno cum optaverit emptum
Intactum Pallanta, et cum spolia ista, diemque
Oderit;"
if triumphing arrogance be changed into a sentimental humility, O! then
'Liberality' is to call out for him in the best of her hacknied tones;
the contest is to cease at the instant when his humour changes from
mischief to melancholy; 'affetuoso' is to be the only word; and he is to
be allowed his season of sacred torpidity, till the venom, new formed in
the shade, make him glisten again in the sunshine he envies!
* * * * *
II.
Pages:
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650