COURT PHYSICIANS AND TREASURY HACKS. ALTHOUGH, our business as journalists
being- with public measures and public men, we seldom turn aside to criticise newspapers timings of our own metier—yet doubtless, On strong provocation, we have occasionally been obliged to expose the frailties of an evening contemporary, the Globe ; and it may have happened that the exposure was sometimes made ludicrous by the quality of the matter in hand rather than by our own efforts; for we never wanted to incense so harmless a writer, but only to disable him from com- mitting further mischief—as one might lame a poacher in preference to killing him. It appears, however, that if we have made him less noxious, we have not made him less malignant. Whether it is that an old laugh or two still rings in his ears and remains unforgiven- laughter, as we have just declared, not raised by any labour of ours, but entirely made up, as they say at the linendrapees, from the " gentleman's own materials,"—or whether it is that he bears us immortal enmity for the more serious because total extinguisher we lately put upon the flaming torch of his Treasury champion- ship in the a-filtir of the "Exchequer Job," in which after flaring and smoking away day after day to the imminent peril of the river Thames (though even then, as we thought, not without some
smell of socket in it,) his
"very fiery particle Could let itself be snuff'd out by an article,"
(for that one article of' ours has remained, and will remain, un- answered)—be this as it may, certain it is he loves us not, and will bite as long as his teeth serve. A little sample of the desire rather than the achievement of biting, was afforded on Monday last, in a very short, but what was probably intended to be a proportionably sharp commentary on our examination of Sir JAMES CLARK'S " Statement." The writer says he won't disgust his readers by giving any specimens of the article ; and then proceeds, in safety, to misstate the whole tenor of it, it son ordinaire. Now we, begging pardon of our own readers, zed/ venture to disgust them ; for we will subjoin, not " speci- mens" of the Globe's article, but the article itself—as one entire spe. chnen of the writer's honesty, veracity, and other accomplishments.
" The Spectator disgraces itself exceedingly by a tardy article on Sir James Clark's statement, relative to an affair in which we really thought malice was exhausted.
" We do not allude merely to a false quotation in inverted commas; though i such artifices are inexcusable n quoting such statements. We allude to a vent of coarse, calumnious wholly gratuitous malice throughout. Cher readers weed vot fear we shall dispst them with vecimens. The class (limited, we trust) who delight in such slow venom' may seek it at its source. We wish merely to observe that in this, and all former attacks of the kind, it has been assumed that some conspiracy is necessary to account for the origin of suspi. cions which extraordinary appearances justified; and it is further assumed that the lady's physician should have been able to repel such suspicions, whereas it appears from Sir James Clark's statement, that lie was not allowed by his patient to satisfy himself as to the symptoms, in the manner he thought necessary. " It is easy to say that no suspicions should have been formed, or acted on. Those suspicions, as Sir James Clark expressed them, pointed at private mar- riage. It was regarded as necessary, and it was necessary, that the matter should be cleared up.' A conspiracy does not generally proceed by seeking for an eckdreissentent.'
- Will the Globe have the kindness so far to "disgust its readers" as to give them the specimen of our "false quotation "—or else stand convicted of uttering a wilful, barefaced lie ? Did the Globe labour under the mistake that Sir JAMES Cnarties Statement had not been published in our columns, and that our readers would be unable to refute for themselves his charge of false quotation ? The Statement, unfortunately, appeared in the Spectator of the 12th in- stant ; and such of our readers as have not parted with that number of our paper will perhaps assist the Globe, if they can, in discover- ing the "false quotation in inverted commas."
For the rest of this article, it will be perceived that it does not anywhere conic for a moment within sight of the real question it would be thought to handle, but manages, short as it is, to be altogether circuitous and remote.
The writer talks of Sir JAMES CLARK'S inability to repel the suspicions which were entertained: but, like Sir JAMES himself, he chooses to forget that the offence of which that gentleman stands accused concerns what he did, not what he was unable to do. He could not repel the suspicions—Why did be promote thent? A merchant who is unable to take up a bill may be a bankrupt ; but,
i
because you happen to have no proof that he s not a bankrupt, you are not to go and proclaim Oil these grounds, and on high 'change too, that in your opinion he A one. Most especially you are not to do so if you further happen to be his clerk, and are generally sup- posed for that reason to know all about his affairs. But the Globe lays great emphasis on the fact, that Sir JAMES CLARK did not use indecent language, but, with an ingenious polite- ness of phraseology devised for the occasion simply charged poor Lady FLORA with a " private marriage." 'rids is excellent. So, in the same spirit, we have heard common prostitutes called "iii- dependent females," and their rogues " protectors ;" so the cant for a thief is " a conveyancer," robbery is sometimes named " mis- appropriation," and a lie " an erroneous impression." We dare say there is a polite way of saying every thing—that reputations may be bowed out of the drawing-room in exquisite taste—that one may even in the most mellifluous fashion be ruined : no doubt, a man may
" smile and smile—and be a villain."
That Lady FLORA was stabbed to the heart in good smiling Court fashion, we never doubted ; and we are equally willing to admit that malice can never want a cloak, nor brutality a polite phrase, while Court physicians and Treasury hacks are true to one another.
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