re,--is this tolerable press
practice, legitimate joking, or honorable warfare? I have not the honor
to know my next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his
friends at dinner; I see his wife and children pass constantly; I even
know the carriages of some of the people who call upon him, and could
tell their names. Now, suppose his servants were to tell mine what the
doings are next door, who comes to dinner, what is eaten and said, and I
were to publish an account of these transactions in a newspaper, I could
assuredly get money for the report; but ought I to write it, and what
would you think of me for doing so?

And suppose, Mr. Saturday Reviewer--you censor morum, you who pique
yourself (and justly and honorably in the main) upon your character of
gentleman, as well as of writer, suppose, not that you yourself invent
and indite absurd twaddle about gentlemen's private meetings and
transactions, but pick this wretched garbage out of a New York street,
and hold it up for your readers' amusement--don't you think, my friend,
that you might have been better employed? Here, in my Saturday Review,
and in an American paper subsequently sent to me, I light, astonished,
on an account of the dinners of my friend and publisher, which are
described as "tremendously heavy," of the conversation (which does not
take place), and of the guests assembled at the table. I am informed
that the proprietor of the Cornhill, and the host on these occasions, is
"a very good man, but totally unread;" and that on my asking him whether
Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, "God bless my soul,
my dear sir, there's no person by the name of Johnson here, nor any
one behind the screen," and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I
am informed by the same New York correspondent that I have touched up a
contributor's article; that I once said to a literary gentleman, who was
proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his writing, "Ah! I thought
I recognized YOUR HOOF in it." I am told by the same authority that the
Cornhill Magazine "shows symptoms of being on the wane," and having sold
nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) "should think
forty thousand was now about the mark." Then the graceful writer passes
on to the dinners, at which it appears the Editor of the Magazine "is
the great gun, and comes out with all the geniality in his power."

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue? Suppose the