you can't make this stuff up
Sometimes I love my job.
I just discovered (via a footnote in another text) that one Grantley Berkeley, in his 1865 memoirs, wrote about having been asked by Letitia Landon (though he never calls her by name--we can infer it's Landon from a handful of textual clues--obviously, as a gentleman, Berkeley can't name her) for help in fending off William Maginn, a critic who Berkeley claims Landon told him seduced and blackmailed her. So I tracked down Berkeley's memoir on GoogleBooks (LOVE, btw), and discovered that this might be the best. book. ever.
This entire chapter is dedicated to his vendetta against Maginn--first, for Maginn's alleged treatment of Landon, and second, for Maginn having published slanderous insinuations against Berkeley and his family in some review of Berkeley's work in Fraser's Magazine. What does Berkeley decide to do about this? First, he publicly horsewhips James Fraser when Fraser refuses to give up Maginn's name (the review having been published anonymously), and when he does get the name, he challenges Maginn to a duel, in which Maginn very nearly shoots himself in the foot.
The duel ending sans serious bloodshed, both men go their merry ways (though Berkeley makes it sound like Maginn may have basically run off before the completion of the duel) and a few months later, Maginn (apparently not having learned his lesson), publishes *more* crap about the Berkeleys in Frasers.
This brings us to the quotation I am putting in here. Grantley Berkeley's brother Henry responds to Maginn's insinuations with a letter, and closes it as follows:
I am perfectly content that the public, to whom you appeal, should form their own decision on the subject of Mr. Grantley Berkeley's chastisement of your employer, as a jury has already done, but there is one single sentence in your article, which I consider worthy of notice, and which is to this effect--'I am a man whom no one can insult without exposing himself to those consequences which are the alternative of a gentleman.'[ie, a duel] I feel peculiar pleasure in taking the opportunity you so obligingly offer, of assuring you of my perfect conviction that you are a blackguardly hireling of the most profligate part of the press, a stipendiary assassin of character, and a mean and malignant liar.
Isn't that positively *gorgeous*? A stipendiary assassin! A blackguardly hireling! You just can't find insults like that today.
Maginn, incidentally, seems to have squirmed like a worm on a hook to avoid calling out a duel. He tells Henry Berkeley that "it would be strange indeed if the mere offering of vague and commonplace abuse constituted a claim to the privilege of a gentleman." Nevermind that that is *precisely* the sort of abuse that did constitute justification for a duel.
Really, modern scandals are so dull compared to this. PUBLIC HORSEWHIPPING. (Yes, Berkeley was brought up on assault charges, to which he responded by filing libel charges against Fraser. Fraser won about 100 pounds--enough to pay the doctors' bills for the assault--and both men eventually agreed to drop their cases and be done with it.)
I just discovered (via a footnote in another text) that one Grantley Berkeley, in his 1865 memoirs, wrote about having been asked by Letitia Landon (though he never calls her by name--we can infer it's Landon from a handful of textual clues--obviously, as a gentleman, Berkeley can't name her) for help in fending off William Maginn, a critic who Berkeley claims Landon told him seduced and blackmailed her. So I tracked down Berkeley's memoir on GoogleBooks (LOVE, btw), and discovered that this might be the best. book. ever.
This entire chapter is dedicated to his vendetta against Maginn--first, for Maginn's alleged treatment of Landon, and second, for Maginn having published slanderous insinuations against Berkeley and his family in some review of Berkeley's work in Fraser's Magazine. What does Berkeley decide to do about this? First, he publicly horsewhips James Fraser when Fraser refuses to give up Maginn's name (the review having been published anonymously), and when he does get the name, he challenges Maginn to a duel, in which Maginn very nearly shoots himself in the foot.
The duel ending sans serious bloodshed, both men go their merry ways (though Berkeley makes it sound like Maginn may have basically run off before the completion of the duel) and a few months later, Maginn (apparently not having learned his lesson), publishes *more* crap about the Berkeleys in Frasers.
This brings us to the quotation I am putting in here. Grantley Berkeley's brother Henry responds to Maginn's insinuations with a letter, and closes it as follows:
I am perfectly content that the public, to whom you appeal, should form their own decision on the subject of Mr. Grantley Berkeley's chastisement of your employer, as a jury has already done, but there is one single sentence in your article, which I consider worthy of notice, and which is to this effect--'I am a man whom no one can insult without exposing himself to those consequences which are the alternative of a gentleman.'[ie, a duel] I feel peculiar pleasure in taking the opportunity you so obligingly offer, of assuring you of my perfect conviction that you are a blackguardly hireling of the most profligate part of the press, a stipendiary assassin of character, and a mean and malignant liar.
Isn't that positively *gorgeous*? A stipendiary assassin! A blackguardly hireling! You just can't find insults like that today.
Maginn, incidentally, seems to have squirmed like a worm on a hook to avoid calling out a duel. He tells Henry Berkeley that "it would be strange indeed if the mere offering of vague and commonplace abuse constituted a claim to the privilege of a gentleman." Nevermind that that is *precisely* the sort of abuse that did constitute justification for a duel.
Really, modern scandals are so dull compared to this. PUBLIC HORSEWHIPPING. (Yes, Berkeley was brought up on assault charges, to which he responded by filing libel charges against Fraser. Fraser won about 100 pounds--enough to pay the doctors' bills for the assault--and both men eventually agreed to drop their cases and be done with it.)