164 A Modest Defence of Literary Puffing. [FEB. 



siderately points out to us the tit-bits of literature, makes us think the 

 better of one another, and inculcates a liberality of judgment, which 

 must be equally gratifying and improving to all parties, ever excepting 

 the critics. Has not the eulogist, moreover, when by constant puffing 

 he spreads and diffuses the leaves of his favourite book, and purifies the 

 peccant humours of the critical world, the example of Nature before 

 him, who by a similar process unfolds the vegetable leaves, and dis- 

 perses the foulness and ill humours of the atmosphere? Even should 

 the amiable encomiast undesignedly bring grist to his own mill, by 

 availing himself of a natural and most useful auxiliary, surely he is not 

 more culpable than the miller who confessedly lives by puffs, and yet 

 pursues his avocation without impeachment ; so true is it that one man 

 may steal a horse, while another must not look over the hedge. 



A few words as to the alleged evils of this system, which, accord- 

 ing to the reviewer, is to effect an universal corruption, a pervading dis- 

 regard of truth, a total depravation of literature, results long since pre- 

 dicated from the abuse of criticism, but no more likely to be realized in 

 the one case than the other. Reviews having been detected, have 

 utterly lost their influence, and such must speedily be the fate of puff- 

 ing. Both evils will work out their own cure, and the latter the most 

 rapidly, and certainly, if there be any truth in the dictum, that " praise 

 undeserved is censure in disguise/' or that 



" A vile encomium doubly ridicules, 



Since nothing blackens like the ink of fools." 



The wine-merchant and the blacking- vender, whose trades ought to 

 be united, like those of the ancient barbers and surgeons, in the same 

 company, have not injured the genuine commodity, by puffing the 

 spurious one ; it does but occasion us a little more trouble to examine 

 our money, when we know that counterfeit coin is abroad. No one will 

 be twice taken in by the same imposture, or if he is, qui vult decipi, 

 dedpiatur. Auctioneers' statements, such as those of a hanging wood, 

 where there is nothing but a gibbet, or of a purling stream, which is 

 represented by a stagnant gutter, do not operate any delusion, being 

 now looked upon as professional lies, a mere faqon de purler. In this 

 instance, then, the evil has effectually wrought its own cure, as it will 

 ultimately, ay, and speedily too, in the case of literary puffing. Minor 

 publishers will follow the example of the first offender, their paragraphs 

 will be huddled together in the same corner of the paper, the public 

 will take no more notice of them than they do of the wall- writing of 

 rival competitors in blacking, and the booksellers will gladly discontinue 

 an expense, when they find it to be at once burthensome and unavail- 

 ing. In the event of such a consummation, it is to be hoped they will 

 add the amount saved to the copyright, the authors being the only par- 

 ties who have any real right to complain in the whole transaction. 



It is a mistake to suppose that puffing is a peculiar characteristic of 

 the present era, or even that it has suffered any material increment in 

 the last half century, as any one may see who will read over the Critic, 

 published nearly fifty years ago. The suppression of lotteries has in 

 fact very much diminished the quantum of this offence, and even the 

 asserted augmentation and flagrancy of literary puffing is rather a 

 change of form than any addition of substance. All publishers in their 

 advertisements are in the habit of subjoining commendatory extracts to 



