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But for the scurrility heaped upon us by what claims to be the higher British press we were totally unprepared, and for this good reason, that such malignity of criticism as is possible in America could never have suggested it. Let us not be misunderstood. We acknowledge the "Rowdy Journal" and Mr. Jefferson Brick. Undoubtedly, newspapers exist among us of which the description of Mr.
By propagating the subscriptions of such fellows, people are tired out and withhold their contributions to men of real merit; and, at the same time, you are contributing to fill the world, not only with nonsense, but with all the scurrility, indecency, and profaneness with which the age abounds, and with which all bad writers supply the defect of genius."
One side said that so soon as the people had had a voice, a wild scramble for place and power had ensued; that "freedom of the Press" had loosed such a flood of scurrility, abuse, and libel that it had to be suppressed by force; that finding themselves thwarted, a gang of malcontents had plotted to assassinate the Prince some said Prince Danilo, too and to seize power themselves; that they had been in communication with Russia and Serbia, and had arranged the affair in the latter country; that severe example should be made, and wholesale executions take place.
There are, indeed, some passages which would not disgrace the greatest abilities, and some maxims true in themselves, though perhaps fallaciously applied, and at least such an appearance of reasoning and knowledge, as sets the writer far above the level of the contemptible scribblers of the ministerial vindications: a herd of wretches whom neither information can enlighten, nor affluence elevate; low drudges of scurrility, whose scandal is harmless for want of wit, and whose opposition is only troublesome from the pertinaciousness of stupidity.
Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled licence. All this while the peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single favourite. Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and contemptible impunity.
And the defect, call it Angerlessness or what you will, is blamed: I mean, they who are not angry at things at which they ought to be angry are thought to be foolish, and they who are angry not in right manner, nor in right time, nor with those with whom they ought; for a man who labours under this defect is thought to have no perception, nor to be pained, and to have no tendency to avenge himself, inasmuch as he feels no anger: now to bear with scurrility in one's own person, and patiently see one's own friends suffer it, is a slavish thing.
Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them.
And therefore an impertinent jeerer makes the whole company seem ill-natured and abusive, as being pleased with and consenting to the scurrility of the jeer. It was one of the excellent laws in Sparta, that none should be bitter in their jests, and the jeered should patiently endure; but if he took offence, the other was to forbear, and pursue the frolic no farther.
Timidly yes; for the awful chances heavily oppressed him; and the horrible scurrility and savagery that greeted him on all sides made his heart faint at the thought of his Lily in this cage of foul animals.
Such language as this, which was a mild specimen of the writer's trenchant style, was not, upon the whole, too strong for the occasion. In other instances he was roused to greater fury on less provocation, and used phrases unbefitting the columns of any paper which aspires to be a public instructor. But he was not alone in his scurrility.
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