Home as Found Part 54

"Oh! that is said in mere pleasantry--it is only wit."

"Well, then, what do you think of it as wit?"

"Well, well, it may not be of a very pure water, but the best of men are unequal at all times, and more especially in their wit."

"Here," continued Mrs. Bloomfield, pointing to another paragraph, "is a positive statement or misstatement, which makes the cost of the 'civil department of the United States Government,' about six times more than it really is."

"Our government is so extremely mean, that I ascribe that error to generosity."

"Well," continued the lady, smiling, "here the reviewer a.s.serts that Congress pa.s.sed a law _limiting_ the size of certain s.h.i.+ps, in order to please the democracy; and that the Executive privately evaded this law, and built vessels of a much greater size; whereas the provision of the law is just the contrary, or that the s.h.i.+ps should not be _less_ than of seventy-four guns; a piece of information, by the way, that I obtained from Mr. Powis."

"Ignorance, ma'am; a stranger cannot be supposed to know all the laws of a foreign country."

"Then why make bold and false a.s.sertions about them, that are intended to discredit the country? Here is another a.s.sertion--'ten thousand of the men that fought at Waterloo would have marched through North America?' Do you believe that, Mr. Howel?"

"But that is merely an opinion, Mrs. Bloomfield; any man may be wrong in his opinion."

"Very true, but it is an opinion uttered in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight; and after the battles of Bunker Hill, Cowpens, Plattsburg, Saratoga, and New-Orleans! And, moreover, after it had been proved that something very like ten thousand of the identical men who fought at Waterloo, could not march even ten miles into the country."

"Well, well, all this shows that the reviewer is sometimes mistaken."

"Your pardon Mr. Howel; I think it shows, according to your own admission, that his wit, or rather its wit, for there is no _his_ about it--that its wit is of a very indifferent quality as witticisms even; that it is ignorant of what it pretends to know; and that its opinions are no better than its knowledge: all of which, when fairly established against one who, by his very pursuit, professes to know more than other people, is very much like making it appear contemptible."

"This is going back eight or ten years--let us look more particularly at the article about which the discussion commences."

"_Volontiers_"

Mrs. Bloomfield now sent to the library for the work reviewed, and opening the review she read some of its strictures; and then turning to the corresponding pa.s.sages in the work itself, she pointed out the unfairness of the quotations, the omissions of the context, and, in several flagrant instances, witticisms of the reviewer, that were purchased at the expense of the English language. She next showed several of those audacious a.s.sertions, for which the particular periodical was so remarkable, leaving no doubt with any candid person, that they were purchased at the expense of truth.

"But here is an instance that will scarce admit of cavilling or objection on your part, Mr. Howel," she continued; "do me the favour to read the pa.s.sage in the review."

Mr. Howel complied, and when he had done, he looked expectingly at the lady.

"The effect of the reviewer's statement is to make it appear that the author has contradicted himself, is it not?"

"Certainly, nothing can be plainer."

"According to your favourite reviewer, who accuses him of it, in terms. Now let us look at the fact. Here is the pa.s.sage in the work itself. In the first place you will remark that this sentence, which contains the alleged contradiction, is mutilated; the part which is omitted, giving a directly contrary meaning to it, from that it bears under the reviewer's scissors."

"It has some such appearance, I do confess."

"Here you perceive that the closing sentence of the same paragraph, and which refers directly to the point at issue, is displaced, made to appear as belonging to a separate paragraph, and as conveying a different meaning from what the author has actually expressed."

"Upon my word, I do not know but you are right!"

"Well, Mr. Howel, we have had wit of no very pure water, ignorance as relates to facts, and mistakes as regards very positive a.s.sertions.

In what category, as Captain Truck would say, do you place this?"

"Why does not the author reviewed expose this?"

"Why does not a gentleman wrangle with a detected pick-pocket?"

"It is literary swindling," said John Effingham, "and the man who did it, is inherently a knave."

"I think both these facts quite beyond dispute," observed Mrs.

Bloomfield, laying down Mr. Howel's favourite review with an air of cool contempt; "and I must say I did not think it necessary to prove the general character of the work, at this late date, to any American of ordinary intelligence; much less to a sensible man, like Mr.

Howel."

"But, ma'am, there may be much truth and justice in the rest of its remarks," returned the pertinacious Mr. Howel, "although it has fallen into these mistakes."

"Were you ever on a jury, Howel?" asked John Effingham, in his caustic manner.

"Often; and on grand juries, too."

"Well, did the judge never tell you, when a witness is detected in lying on one point, that his testimony is valueless on all others?"

"Very true; but this is a review, and not testimony."

"The distinction is certainly a very good one," resumed Mrs.

Bloomfield, laughing, "as nothing, in general, can be less like honest testimony than a review!"

"But I think, my dear ma'am, you will allow that all this is excessively biting and severe--I can't say I ever read any thing sharper in my life."

"It strikes me, Mr. Howel, as being nothing but epithets, the cheapest and most contemptible of all species of abuse. Were two men, in your presence, to call each other such names, I think it would excite nothing but disgust in your mind. When the thought is clear and poignant, there is little need to have recourse to mere epithets; indeed, men never use the latter, except when there is a deficiency of the first."

"Well, well, my friends," cried Mr. Howel, as he walked away towards Grace and Sir George, "this is a different thing from what I at first thought it, but still I think you undervalue the periodical."

"I hope this little lesson will cool some of Mr. Howel's faith in foreign morality," observed Mrs. Bloomfield, as soon as the gentleman named was out of hearing; "a more credulous and devout wors.h.i.+pper of the idol, I have never before met."

"The school is diminis.h.i.+ng, but it is still large. Men like Tom Howel, who have thought in one direction all their lives, are not easily brought to change their notions, especially when the admiration which proceeds from distance, distance 'that lends enchantment to the view,' is at the bottom of their faith. Had this very article been written and printed round the corner of the street in which he lives, Howel would be the first to say that it was the production of a fellow without talents or principles, and was unworthy of a second thought."

"I still think he will be a wiser, if not a better man, by the exposure of its frauds."

"Not he. If you will excuse a homely and a coa.r.s.e simile, 'he will return like a dog to his vomit, or the sow to its wallowing in the mire.' I never knew one of that school thoroughly cured, until he became himself the subject of attack, or, by a close personal communication, was made to feel the superciliousness of European superiority. It is only a week since I had a discussion with him on the subject of the humanity and the relish for liberty in his beloved model; and when I cited the instance of the employment of the tomahawk, in the wars between England and this country, he actually affirmed that the Indian savages killed no women and children, but the wives and offspring of their enemies; and when I told him that the English, like most other people, cared very little for any liberty but their own, he coolly affirmed that their own was the only liberty worth caring for!"

"Oh yes," put in young Mr. Wenham, who had overheard the latter portion of the conversation, "Mr. Howel is so thoroughly English, that he actually denies that America is the most civilized country in the world, or that we speak our language better than any nation was ever before known to speak its own language."

"This is so manifest an act of treason," said Mrs. Bloomfield, endeavouring to look grave, for Mr. Wenham was any thing but accurate in the use of words himself, commonly p.r.o.nouncing "been," "ben,"

"does," "dooze," "nothing," "nawthing," "few," "foo," &c. &c. &c., "that, certainly, Mr. Howel should be arraigned at the bar of public opinion for the outrage."

"It is commonly admitted, even by our enemies, that our mode of speaking is the very best in the world, which, I suppose, is the real reason why our literature has so rapidly reached the top of the ladder."

"And is that the fact?" asked Mrs. Bloomfield, with a curiosity that was not in the least feigned.

"I believe no one denies _that. You_ will sustain me in this, I fancy, Mr. Dodge?"

The editor of the Active Inquirer had approached, and was just in time to catch the subject in discussion. Now the modes of speech of these two persons, while they had a great deal in common, had also a great deal that was not in common. Mr. Wenham was a native of New- York, and his dialect was a mixture that is getting to be sufficiently general, partaking equally of the Doric of New England, the Dutch cross, and the old English root; whereas, Mr. Dodge spoke the pure, unalloyed Tuscan of his province, rigidly adhering to all its sounds and significations. "Dissipation," he contended, meant "drunkenness;" "ugly," "vicious;" "clever," "good-natured;" and "humbly," (homely) "ugly." In addition to this finesse in significations, he had a variety of p.r.o.nunciations that often put strangers at fault, and to which he adhered with a pertinacity that obtained some of its force from the fact, that it exceeded his power to get rid of them. Notwithstanding all these little peculiarities, peculiarities as respects every one but those who dwelt in his own province, Mr. Dodge had also taken up the notion of his superiority on the subject of language, and always treated the matter as one that was placed quite beyond dispute, by its publicity and truth.