r he would declare--and this was his more
frequent course--"So-and-so has dared to hint a fault in one of us;
he has hesitated an offensive dislike. Let him be scarified," and
forthwith the painted and feathered young braves drew forth their axes
and scalping-knives, and the work of slaughter went merrily forward.
Youth, modesty, honest effort, genuine merit, a manifest desire to
range apart from the loud storms of literary controversy, these were
no protection to the selected victim. And of course the operations of
the Chepstowe-ites, like the "plucking" imagined by _Major Pendennis_,
were done in public. For they had their organ. Week by week in _The
Metropolitan Messenger_ they disburdened themselves, each one of his
little load of spite and insolence and vanity, and with much loud
shouting and blare of adulatory trumpets called the attention of the
public to their heap of purchasable rubbish. There lived at this time
a great writer, whose name and fame are still revered by all who love
strong, nervous English, vivid description, and consummate literary
art. He stood too high for attack. Only in one way could the herd
of passionate prigs who waited on CHEPSTOWE do him an injury. They
could attempt, and did, to imitate his style in their own weekly
scribblings. _Corruptio optimi pessima_. There is no other phrase
that describes so well the result of these imitative efforts. All the
little tricks of the great man's humour were reproduced and defaced,
the clear stream of his sentences was diverted into muddy channels,
the airy creatures of his imagination were weighted with lead and made
to perform hideous antics. Never had there been so riotous a jargon
of distorted affectation and ponderous balderdash. Smartness--of a
sort--these gentlemen, no doubt, possessed. It is easy to be accounted
smart in a certain circle, if only you succeed in being insolent.
Merit of this order the band could boast of plenteously.

One peculiarity, too, must be noted in _The Metropolitan Messenger_.
It had a magnetic attraction for all the sour and sorry failures whose
reputation and income, however greatly in excess of their deserts,
had not equalled their expectation. The Cave of Adullam could not have
been more abundantly stocked with discontent. It is the custom of the
_rates_ everywhere to attempt to prevent, or, if that be impossible,
to decry success in others, in order to exalt themselves. The
"Metropolitans" followed the example of