The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
This paper presents, in fifty-four articles, duly numbered, objections
to the course and policy of Fox. It was, in brief, an arraignment of
that distinguished gentleman. But it was not intended for publication,
at least at that time. It was transmitted to the Duke of Portland, with
a letter, asking that it might not even be read at once, but that the
Duke would keep it locked in the drawer of his library-table, and when a
day of compulsory reflection came, then be pleased to turn to it.
Communicated thus in confidence, it might have remained indefinitely, if
not always, unknown to the public, locked in the ducal drawer, if the
amanuensis whom Burke employed in copying it had not betrayed him. This
was none other than Swift, to whom the familiar letters were addressed.
Unknown to his employer, he had appropriated to himself a copy in his
own handwriting, with corrections and additions by Burke, which seems to
have come between the original rough draught and the final copy
transmitted to the Duke of Portland. Some time afterwards, while Burke
was in his last illness, feeble and failing fast, this faithless
scrivener communicated this copy to an equally faithless publisher, by
whom it was advertised as "Fifty-Four Articles of Impeachment against
the Eight Honorable C.J. Fox." When this was seen by Mrs. Burke, she
felt it her duty to keep all newspapers and letters from her husband,
that he might know nothing of the treachery, at least until it was
relieved so far as it could be. Dr. Lawrence and Dr. King, assisted by
the affidavit of Mr. Rivington, succeeded in obtaining an injunction
against the publisher on the very day when the tract appeared. But two
thousand copies had already stolen abroad.
It was not until Mrs. Burke, on opening a letter from Dr. Lawrence to
her husband, learned that the injunction had been obtained, that, at two
o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of February, 1797, she delivered to
him his newspapers and correspondence for the past week. He was less
disturbed than had been expected. "This affair does vex me," he said;
"but I am not in a state of health at present to be deeply vexed at
anything. Had I intended it for the public, I should have been more
exact and full. Many temperaments and explanations there would have
been, if ever I had had a notion that it should meet the public eye." He
was justly indignant at the knavish publisher, whose conduct surpassed
that of the Dublin pirates, or Edmund Curll. But he was at a loss to
know how the publisher obtained a copy. He did not suppose that the Duke
of Portland had given up his, and he remembered only "the rough and
incorrect papers" constituting the first draught, which, it seems, Dr.
Lawrence, about a year before, had paid the false Swift a guinea to
deliver back. He had forgotten the intermediate copy made by Swift and
corrected by himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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