March.—So the Quarterly has let loose
its dogs of war again on me, under the new groom of the kennel, Mr. Lockhart, of John Scott celebrity and Walter
Scott’s auspices. The Scotch reviews accuse my poor
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 281 |
Now I have a right, like other British subjects, to be judged by my peers, and I summon a jury of matrons, of the most intact reputation, mothers “who wear pockets, and don’t hold opera-boxes signs of inward grace,” to say if they detect in my pages one line that tends to make one honest man my foe. Why, then, if they do, I submit to be branded with that horrible stigma with which a modest woman and a moral writer is now impugned withal. But I have been tried already before that truly Grand Jury, the Public, from which there is no appeal, and acquitted; and I have before me a letter from Mr. Constable, offering me the same terms as Sir W. Scott.
I see in the papers, to-day, the death of Mr. Gifford—the direst, darkest enemy I ever had. We never saw each other; he hated me for my success and my principles.
Mort la bête, mort le venin, |
Gifford was, it is said, in the receipt
of a large income. During the time that he was editor of The Quarterly Review,
Mr. Murray paid him nine hundred
pounds a year. He received annually, as one of the comptrollers of the Lottery
Office, six hundred pounds. He had a salary of three hundred pounds as
paymaster of the band of Gentlemen Pensioners, two hundred a year as clerk of
the Estreats in the Court of Exchequer; and, in addition to all these sums, he
enjoyed a pen-
| 282 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
April 4.—Just dispatched to Colburn my preface to the Book of the Boudoir, which is to appear immediately. We are off to England, ourselves, and thence shortly to France.
April 6.—Adieu to care and home, to some whom I love, and to all whom I hate! I leave my trash bag behind me.
