n the recognition
of his contemporaries, he excused with much liberality their rather
rough treatment of other theorists whose basis was less perfect. His own
periodical criticisms had never before been so amiable: he was sorry for
that unlucky majority whom the spirit of the age, or some other
prompting more definite and local, compelled to write without any
particular ideas. The possession of an original theory which has not yet
been assailed must certainly sweeten the temper of a man who is not
beforehand ill-natured. And Merman was the reverse of ill-natured.

But the hour of publication came; and to half-a-dozen persons, described
as the learned world of two hemispheres, it became known that Grampus
was attacked. This might have been a small matter; for who or what on
earth that is good for anything is not assailed by ignorance, stupidity,
or malice--and sometimes even by just objection? But on examination it
appeared that the attack might possibly be held damaging, unless the
ignorance of the author were well exposed and his pretended facts shown
to be chimeras of that remarkably hideous kind begotten by imperfect
learning on the more feminine element of original incapacity. Grampus
himself did not immediately cut open the volume which Merman had been
careful to send him, not without a very lively and shifting conception
of the possible effects which the explosive gift might produce on the
too eminent scholar--effects that must certainly have set in on the
third day from the despatch of the parcel. But in point of fact Grampus
knew nothing of the book until his friend Lord Narwhal sent him an
American newspaper containing a spirited article by the well-known
Professor Sperm N. Whale which was rather equivocal in its bearing, the
passages quoted from Merman being of rather a telling sort, and the
paragraphs which seemed to blow defiance being unaccountably feeble,
coming from so distinguished a Cetacean. Then, by another post, arrived
letters from Butzkopf and Dugong, both men whose signatures were
familiar to the Teutonic world in the _Selten-erscheinende
Monat-schrift_ or Hayrick for the insertion of Split Hairs, asking their
Master whether he meant to take up the combat, because, in the contrary
case, both were ready.

Thus America and Germany were roused, though England was still drowsy,
and it seemed time now for Grampus to find Merman's book under the heap
and cut it open. For his own part he was perfectly a