Note 31 — Chapter III

‘There was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.’—Macaulay’s Essay. This passage has been often quoted and admired. Yet is not such writing rather too much in the style of Mr. Bludyer, who, the reader will remember, was reproached with mangling his victims? Compare Macaulay’s swashing blow with the deadly thrust of a true master of sarcasm. ‘Nobody was stronger in dates than Mr. Rigby; ... detail was Mr. Rigby’s forte; ... it was thought no one could lash a woman like Rigby. Rigby’s statements were arranged with a formidable array of dates—rarely accurate.’—Coningsby.