Montagu's
daughter, nor she who wrote the letter this morning to a poor battered
author.
PS. I eat any plain joint, of the plainer order, beef or mutton:--and
you know I care for nothing at dinner, so that it does not hurt me.
Friends' company is the thing.
To A FRIEND
_Offence and punishment_
Wimbledon, 11 and 12 _August_, 1846.
... I find I made a great confusion of my _portion_ of the legal
expenses incurred by the _Examiner_, with the _whole_ of them. That
portion only amounted to L750, the whole being L1500. Of this L750 out
of my pocket (which was quite enough), L250 went to pay for
expenses (counsel, &c.) attendant on the _failure_ of two Government
prosecutions,--one for saying (_totidem verbis_) that 'of all monarchs
since the Revolution, the successor of George III would have the
finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular'; (think, nowadays,
of being prosecuted for _that_!) and the other for copying from the
_Stamford News_ the paragraph against military flogging, alluded to
the other day in the _Daily News_. (Think, now, this moment, of being
prosecuted for _That_!) The L500 fine and two years' imprisonment was
for ludicrously contrasting the _Morning Post's_ picture of the Regent
as an 'Adonis', &c. with the old and real fat state of the case, and
for adding that his Royal Highness had lived for 'upwards of half
a century without doing anything to deserve the admiration of his
contemporaries or the gratitude of posterity'.
Pages:
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376