of the various kinds of nonsense prevalent in
England, he shall make himself a multitude of enemies; but he is not
going to conceal the truth, or to tamper with nonsense, from the fear of
provoking hostility. He has a duty to perform, and he will perform it
resolutely; he is the person who carried the Bible to Spain; and as
resolutely as he spoke in Spain against the superstitions of Spain, will
he speak in England against the nonsense of his own native land. He is
not one of those who, before they sit down to write a book, say to
themselves, What cry shall we take up? what principles shall we advocate?
What principles shall we abuse? Before we put pen to paper we must find
out what cry is the loudest, what principle has the most advocates,
otherwise, after having written our book, we may find ourselves on the
weaker side.

A sailor of the _Bounty_, waked from his sleep by the noise of the
mutiny, lay still in his hammock for some time, quite undecided whether
to take part with the captain or to join the mutineers. 'I must mind
what I do,' said he to himself, 'lest in the end I find myself on the
weaker side.' Finally, on hearing that the mutineers were successful, he
went on deck, and seeing Bligh pinioned to the mast, he put his fist to
his nose, and otherwise insulted him. Now, there are many writers of the
present day whose conduct is very similar to that of the sailor. They
lie listening in their corners till they have ascertained which principle
has most advocates; then presently they make their appearance on the deck
of the world with their book; if truth has been victorious, then has
truth their hurrah! but if truth is pinioned against the mast, then is
their fist thrust against the nose of truth, and their gibe and their
insult spirted in her face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the
strongest party has almost invariably the writer of the present day.

CHAPTER IX--PSEUDO-CRITICS

A certain set of individuals calling themselves critics have attacked
'Lavengro' with much virulence and malice. If what they call criticism
had been founded on truth, the author would have had nothing to say. The
book contains plenty of blemishes, some of them, by-the-by, wilful ones,
as the writer will presently show; not one of these, however, has been
detected and pointed out; but the best passages in the book, indeed,
whatever was calculated to make the book valuable, have been assailed
with abuse and m