A lawyer and his poetical wife and daughters, or the family of the Quisques: Praise may give pain: A babbler may bite: More of the colouring of cunning: A trader's ideas of honesty, and the small sum for which it may be sold

We quitted the coffee-house; Glibly in high spirits, and Enoch concluding things had been done as they should be: but, for my own part, I experienced a confusion of intellect that did not suffer me to be so much at my ease. I had an indistinct sense of being as passive as a blind man with his dog. Instead of taking the lead, as I was entitled to have done, I was led: hurried away, like a man down a mountain with a high wind at his back: or traversing dark alleys, holding by the coat-flap of a guide of whose good intentions I was very far from having any certainty.

We proceeded however to the house of a solicitor in chancery; who transacted business for the Earl.

Here Glibly, attentive to the plan he had pursued, began by informing Mr. Quisque, the lawyer, that he had come at the request of his dear friend, Trevor, to entreat his aid in an affair of some moment. 'Mr. Trevor is a young gentleman, my dear Quisque, that you will be proud to be acquainted with; a man of talents; a poet; an orator; an author; a great genius; an excellent scholar; a fine writer; turns a sentence or a rhyme with exquisite neatness; very prettily I assure you. I mention these circumstances, my dear Quisque, because I know you have a taste for such things: and so has Mrs. Quisque, and the two Miss Quisques, and all the family. I now and then see very pretty things of their writing in the Lady's Magazine. An elegy on a robin red-breast. The drooping violet, a sonnet. And others equally ecstatic. Quite charming! rapturous! elegant! flowery! sentimental! Some of them very smart, and epigrammatic. It is a family, my dear Trevor, that you must become intimate with. Your merit entitles you to the distinction. You will communicate your mutual productions. You will polish and suggest charming little delicate emendations, to each other, before you favour the world with a sight of them.'

The broadest and coarsest satire was never half so insulting, to the feelings, as the common-place praise of Glibly.

The barren-pated Ellis caught one of the favourite diminutives of Glibly; and finished my panegyric by adding that, 'he must say, his friend, Mr. Trevor, was a prodigious pretty genius.'

Who but must have been proud of such an introduction to the family of the Quisques; by such orators, such eulogists, and such friends?

Acquainted with Glibly, and accustomed to hear him prate, Mr. Quisque seemed to listen to him without surprise, pleasure, or pain. It was what he expected. It was the man. A machine that had no more meaning than a Dutch clock; repeating cuckoo, as it strikes.

Among Glibly's acquaintance, or, as he called them, his dear friends, this was a common but a very false conclusion. He had not adopted his customary cant without a motive. The man, who can persuade others that he gabbles in a pleasant but ridiculous and undesigning manner, will lead them to suppose that his actions are equally incongruous, and void of intention. He will pass upon the world for an agreeable harmless fellow, till his malignities are too numerous to escape notice; and then, where he was before welcomed with the hope of a laugh, he will continue to be admitted from the dread of a bite.

A lawyer however feels less of this panic than the rest of mankind: because he can bite again. The cat o' mountain will not attack the tiger.

Glibly returned to the business in hand; and again repeated that he was come at the request of his dear friend, Trevor, to procure an injunction: that should prevent the publication of a pamphlet, which had been written against his friend, Idford.

'And my lord the Bishop of ****,' added Enoch.

'Who is the author of it?' demanded Quisque.

'I am, sir;' answered I.

'For which my friend Trevor is very sorry;' added Glibly.

I instantly retorted a denial. 'I never said any thing of the kind,
Mr. Glibly. But I should be very sorry indeed if it were published.'

'Nay, my dear fellow, according to your own principles, if I do not mistake them, that which ought not to be published ought not to be written.'

The remark was acute: it puzzled me, and I was silent. He proceeded.

'It is a business that admits of no delay. I should be extremely chagrined, extremely, upon my honor, that my dear friend Trevor should commit himself to the public, in this affair. He that wantonly attacks the characters of others does but strike at his own.'

I again eagerly replied 'The attack from me, sir, was not wanton. It was provoked by acts of the most flagrant injustice.'

Glibly as eagerly interrupted me.

'My dear fellow, why are you so warm? I was only delivering a general maxim. I made no application of it; and I am surprised that you should.'

The traps of Glibly were numberless; and not to be escaped. Words are too equivocal and phrases too indefinite, for men like him not to profit by their ambiguity. To them a quirk in the sense is as profitable as a pun or a quibble in the sound. They snap at them, as dogs do at flies. It is no less worthy of observation that, though some of his actions seemed to laugh severity of moral principle out of countenance, he continually repeated others which, had his conduct been regulated by them, would have ranked him among the most worthy of mankind.

After farther explanation from Quisque, it was admitted that the interest of all parties made it necessary for him to act with great diligence, speed, and caution.

Through the whole of this scene, Glibly was consistent with himself; in giving it such a turn and complexion as to make it requisite, for the preservation of my character above the rest, to prevent the pamphlet from being published. If, whenever I detected his drift, I urged the true motives by which I was actuated, he always immediately admitted them, praised them, and allowed them to be superlatively excellent: but never failed to give them such an air as should suit the project he had conceived; and allow of such an interpretation, in future, as would exculpate my opponents and criminate myself. But he effected this with such fluency, and so glossed over and coloured his intention that, like profound darkness, it was every where present, but neither could be felt nor seen.

My own activity in this affair, which if I meant to render my interference effectual was inevitable, contributed to the same end. I accompanied the whole party, Quisque being one, to the shop of the publisher.

Here I detailed the consequences, as well to myself as to the Earl and the Bishop; and vehemently denounced threats, if the villany that was begun should be carried into execution. Not all the quieting hints of my assistants could keep my anger under. I lost all patience, at every word. My utmost indignation was excited by so black a business.

The situation was not a new one to the dealer in the alphabet. He was an old depredator; and had before encountered angry authors, and artful lawyers. He was cool, collected, and unabashed. Not indeed entirely: but sufficiently so to excite astonishment.

He affirmed the copy-right to be his own: would prove he had obtained it legally; and would face any prosecution that we could bring. He knew what he was about; and was not to be frightened. He had printed one edition; and had no doubt that several would be sold. He was an honest tradesman; and must not be robbed of his profits. What would the country be if it were not for trade? It ought to be protected: ay and would be too. The law was as open to an industrious fair trader as to any lord in the land. Let him too be no loser and then it would be a different thing: but, as for big words, they broke no bones; and he knew his ground.

The hints of the honest trader were too broad to be misunderstood; and Quisque replied—'I think you mean, sir, that you wish to be repaid the expence you have sustained?'

The fellow answered, with the utmost effrontery, 'I have a right, sir, to be indemnified for the loss of my profits on the sale of the work.'

Anger and argument were equally vain. There were two ways of proceeding. Silence and safety might be purchased: or the law might be let loose on a knave, who set it at defiance. The one was secure: the other problematical; and replete with the danger which we wished to avert.

Quisque asked him what was the sum that he demanded? His reply was more moderate than from appearances we had reason to expect: it was one hundred pounds.

Glibly desired he would permit us to consult five minutes among ourselves. He withdrew; and the fluent agent remarked the sum was a trifle: but, trifling as it was, he had no doubt but feelings of delicacy and honor would dictate that it ought to be jointly paid, by the three parties principally concerned.

He had urged a motive which I knew not how to resist, and I gave my assent. By this manoeuvre he gained the point which he intended. He implicated me, as paying to suppress a pamphlet which, according to his interpretation, I at present allowed to be defamatory, and unjust. The money however was paid, and the copies of the pamphlet were delivered: and, being determined if possible to avoid such another accident, those that I had caused to be printed were dislodged from their garret; both editions, a single copy of each excepted, were taken into the fields by night, and burned; and thus expired a production which had aided to drain my pocket, waste my time, and inflame my passions.

END OF VOLUME V