222 Notes of the Month on [FEB. 



shape of lying lives of actresses, &c., and, consequently, his memory 

 deserves to be embalmed in the columns of the best public instructors. 

 He was the Jack Ketch to the Court of Scandal, and would execute any 

 one for less than hangman's fees. He was one of those filthy satyrs, who 

 drag on a life of dirt and drunkenness, by poisoning the minds of the 

 young, and pandering to the impotence of the old. It was therefore 

 fitting that his departure from this world should be reported with due 

 emphasis by our daily and weekly contemporaries, who, in the plenitude 

 of their charity sank the iniquity* of their hero, and touched with grace- 

 ful regret upon his incidental weaknesses. However, it cannot be dis- 

 fuised, that the booksellers will have a heavy loss in Jack. He was the 

 ir Walter Scott of a crim. con. case, and for the illustrating a seduc- 

 tion, the colours of Charles Phillips were dull and leaden compared to 

 the rainbow tints of this literary Bishop. He burked a reputation with 

 the readiest dispatch, and on the most moderate terms : one glass per 

 character was his usual price ; and any advance on this, his general fee, 

 would purchase the worldly perdition of a whole family. Jack's ap- 

 pearance was in unison with his no character : the shell was worthy of 

 the pearl. He looked the offspring of crime and misery. We never 

 saw a human creature bearing more indelible marks of the filthiness of 

 his craft. He looked as though, a moral ogre, he lived upon murdered 

 reputations. The dirty means by which he gained his " daily gin" 

 seemed to corrode even his outward man : active depravity had antici- 

 pated the marks of age, and stamped him prematurely old. Of his 

 acquirements, one of his biographers speaks as follows : 



" Jack Mitford's acquirements were very varied. His name is, unfortunately, 

 too much associated with a class of works in our literature (! !), which, to name, 

 would sully the purity of our pages. But, alas, Jack Mitford was but little to 

 blame for this prostitution of his pen ! Those filthy miscreants who live by pan- 

 dering upon the worst of vices, and excite in action those feelings which, if suf- 

 fered to mature, would undermine the very fabric of society, found in the needy 

 resources of this unfortunate man, and his taste for gin, an engine suited to their 

 purposes. Under the influence of this liquor, they bought him over to their 

 interests, and while insensible of its fumes, he used his pen for purposes which 

 his saner moments viewed with horror and indignation !" 



A piece of rascality, committed in the " saner moments " of Jack Mit- 

 ford, has come to our knowledge, which in few words we will relate. 

 Mitford waited upon a gentleman engaged in the conduct of a journal, 

 with a written report of the proceedings of a libel case, tried that day in 

 the Court of King's Bench. The copy was accepted, and the case, in 

 which Mitford nourished as a witness, and most vehemently belaboured 

 Adolphus, appeared in the paper. It was scarcely published, ere a notice 

 of action, by the alleged plaintiff, in Mitford's report, was served upon 

 the proprietor of the journal. Then and unhappily not till then the 

 whole affair was discovered. The report was one of " Jack's " ingenious 

 lies, committed in his " saner moments," and the plaintiff, a gallant 

 officer, who really had a suit pending, stipulated to receive upwards of 

 ninety pounds from the duped journalist, as a consideration to forego all 

 further proceedings. Of course " sane " Jack Mitford shared in the 

 spoil, though we doubt whether he viewed it with " horror and indig- 

 nation." 



Jack, it is said, wrote the poem of Johnny Netvcome in the Navy. 

 His biographer says : 



