extensive in a reputation, that could either require or stand so
merciless and long-continued a cannonading. Without any feeling of
anger therefore--(for which indeed, on my own account, I have no
pretext)--I may yet be allowed to express some degree of surprise,
that, after having run the critical gauntlet for a certain class of
faults which I had, nothing having come before the judgment-seat in
the interim, I should, year after year, quarter after quarter, month
after month--(not to mention sundry petty periodicals of still quicker
revolution, "or weekly or diurnal")--have been, for at least seventeen
years consecutively, dragged forth by them into the foremost ranks of
the proscribed, and forced to abide the brunt of abuse, for faults
directly opposite, and which I certainly had not. How shall I explain
this?

Whatever may have been the case with others, I certainly cannot
attribute this persecution to personal dislike, or to envy, or to
feelings of vindictive animosity. Not to the former, for with the
exception of a very few who are my intimate friends, and were so
before they were known as authors, I have had little other
acquaintance with literary characters, than what may be implied in an
accidental introduction, or casual meeting in a mixed company. And as
far as words and looks can be trusted, I must believe that, even in
these instances, I had excited no unfriendly disposition. Neither by
letter, nor in conversation, have I ever had dispute or controversy
beyond the common social interchange of opinions. Nay, where I had
reason to suppose my convictions fundamentally different, it has been
my habit, and I may add, the impulse of my nature, to assign the
grounds of my belief, rather than the belief itself; and not to
express dissent, till I could establish some points of complete
sympathy, some grounds common to both sides, from which to commence