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Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
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Sir—I have this moment read a most violent
It really is rather laughable, to read some of their charges against you. They indeed are very indignant at the just castigation you have bestowed
upon that miserable gang, to whom you have so aptly given the name of the Cockney
School—a censure universally allowed to have been most deserved; and they vapour most
heroically about personalities. But,
Or, (for it is probable they will not know the meaning of the words I have quoted) who can
do any thing else but laugh at such a charge, coming from a Magazine, which, during the short
space of its existence, has accused at hawk and buzzard between character and conscience,” of
“making his affectation of principle a stalking-horse to his
pitiful desire of distinction,” of “being a man whose
reputation costs him nothing,” with much more such slander on that eminent
person;—which has called an inanimate automaton;” and described combining the pertness of a school-boy
with the effrontery of a prostitute;” which has sneered at the you, as I could on almost every point of their
accusation; but as for them,—why Sir, their hypocrisy in this
respect, is too thick and palpable to deceive even the most foggy-headed native of Cockaigne.
I should most certainly never have noticed the
In a and
I proved my assertion. I leave the decision of the question to any Hebraist, to any
man of common sense in the land. I proved that he was actuated by a hostility to the language
of revelation, simply because it was so; and I defy any one to refute me. This unfortunate
Cockney, who is lamenting over my hard treatment of the Professor, of course cannot be supposed
to know any thing about the matter in dispute; but what I am saying is not the less true on
that account. As I am on the subject, I may remark, that I was, at first, a little surprised to
find, that in the second edition of the philosophy of arithmetic, which was announced since I
had pointed out
Here then is the vile offence against decency as committed by me. What reason
have I to respect betisesnow,
I beseech you, at his
What other claims to respect he possesses I know not, except his having made some
neat second-rate chemical experiments, and invented some handy little instruments; but even if
his claims were ten times as weighty, they should not have deterred me from speaking as I
thought. A man who could go out of his path, in an inquiry on the nature of heat, to recommend
an impious work, and, in a treatise on arithmetic, to cast an ignorant sarcasm on the language
of the Bible, or to sneer at the “fancies” of one of the apostles, must ever be an
object of suspicion to those who hold the Scriptures in honour, and impiety in detestation. We
have no assurance that he may not digress as culpably hereafter; and if he does so, it is only
fair to give him warning, that I shall take care to point it out. With grief I have perceived
that many individual, of this weighty charge—but the fact is undeniable. I rejoice,
therefore, whenever it is in my power, even in the most trivial degree, to show that the lights
of the famous Northern sect are not infallible; that under affected knowledge gross ignorance
may lurk; and that considerable intolerance may sometimes be the characteristic feature of
philosophic liberality. I rejoice also, but much more sincerely, to learn, that a better spirit
is arising in your famous university; and, in spite of its levity, its humour, its follies,
nay, even its transgressions, I think your Magazine has been instrumental in this good work.
So much for my share in the tirade against you. The error I exposed was trifling,
but it marked a bad spirit, and therefore I noticed it. If