Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/291

Rh to European ideas, and forthwith tossed up in his doggerel frying-pan, an invective against the absurd meanness of the compliance; not sparing, of course, the Government that appointed Lord Macartney, and so on. Had he not been in haste to show that "one fool makes many," he might, by waiting a few days, or, perhaps a few hours, have avoided falling out of the frying-pan into the fire; and rescued the slattern, his Muse, from the imputation of hearing aloud that "a greater liar Parthia never bred." Yet, possibly finding the more you stir it, the more it will stink, he never apologized to his readers for a blunder by which he was holding them dog-cheap. And soon after, it is likely, in the ordinary coarse of his business, he would thrust on them some stuff from the Palace, impressed on doubting people by the conviction that A had it from B, who was told it by C, who had just then met D, piping-hot from the coffee-house, where he had seen E, who is known to be the half-brother to the first scullion on the establishment; and uncle besides to the deputy clerk of the kitchen, and so forth.

Such, or something like it, seems to have been the source of that quarto catch-penny scurrility which proved so palatable to that numerous class in society, called by Lord Chesterfield, male gossips; and soon found its way into Lady Tabby Touchup's drawing-room and Sir Pontius Periwinkle's peripatetic repository, and—where else, those (equivocal) gentlemen who were not ashamed to invite him to their tables, could say.