Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/209

 "The reason for a false assertion falls, together with the falsehood of the assertion, and only serves to render the falsehood double.

"It will be remembered, that the Dublin Reviewer — perhaps throughout he will claim the benefit of an Irish bull — has thought fit, under shelter of the Prussian professor, to impugn the learning, as well as 'study' of the author of the Memoirs. I am not at all concerned to vindicate the learning of that author: but I am concerned to expose to the public the sheer invention, the palpable, interested, calumnious, and, I fear, I must add, intentional falsehood, of the gratuitous addition.

"The reader who examines well the extract from the Dublin Reviewer, will probably admire the dexterous construction of the whole, and the art displayed in it of intertwining so much neutral truth with so much substantial, though similar, untruth, as either to recommend the fabrication in a lump, or provide a point of defence on detection, as the case may require.

"I cannot, however, conclude without offering the critic my best thanks, for the real, though involuntary, compliment which he has paid my work. If there were not something