178 THE SQUIRE AMONG HIS NEIGHBOURS. 



nary modern country gentlemen popular ; still his 

 one failing, shared among the same number, might 

 no less damn them in the eyes of society. 



Some would, no doubt, have liked Dibdin's heroes 

 better if he had been less truthful, by making the 

 language more agreeable to the ear, by substituting, 

 as one writer has said, " dear me '' for " damme," 

 and lemonade for grog ; but such critics are what 

 Dibdin himself called *' lubbers " and " swabs." In 

 the same way, some would be for toning down the 

 characters of Squire Forester and Parson Stephens ; 

 but this would be a mistake : an artist might as well 

 smooth over with vegetation every out- cropping 

 rock he finds in his foreground. We might say a 

 great deal more about the old Squire, and the Willey 

 Rector too, but there is no reason why we should 

 say less. If we err, we err with the best and gravest 

 writers of historj^, who, without fear or favour, wrote 

 of things as they found them ; and those who are 

 familiar with the writings of men of the past — such 

 as the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, will admit that men like 

 Squire Forestar were examples of modesty. Men of 

 all grades, every day, are brought in contact with 

 much that might more strongly be objected to in 

 the public Press ; and there is no reason why the 



