684 
PROFESSOR SEWELL AND THE REPORTER. 
guard ; and as this in its fullest sense would still be imperfect, the 
fact that it is altogether withheld becomes of the graver import. 
The want of civility which accompanied the denial makes the cir- 
cumstance the more strange. Why should Mr. Sewell repel him 
whom public men invite, or resent as an insult an offer which 
other persons can esteem to be a compliment ] Are the Professors 
too modest to wish for fame, and too sensitive to sigh for notoriety] 
Paid paragraphs, special reports, unusual invitation to literary 
friends, and false titles in needless publications, do not countenance 
any such conjecture. I cannot recollect when one of them has 
shrunk from the certainty of puff ; or frowned to see his name en- 
circled by a confusion of printed panegyric. The disposition of 
the men, consequently, does not explain an affair which, on the 
contrary, it renders more extraordinary. The circumstance al- 
together is so peculiar, that to interpret it 1 am obliged to refer to 
those motives which willingly I would not allude to. 
The Professors, some of your readers may not be aware, have 
their own publication. To enrich this, Mr. Sewell’s opening lec- 
ture was reserved. It was not to be reported by one who would 
represent it accurately. The matter was to be compressed, ar- 
ranged, corrected, supervised, and edited, before it was to be given 
to the world, The sentences were to be connected, and the lan- 
guage to be amended to fit it for the public eye. Opinions were 
to be suppressed, and passages were to be introduced ; this struck 
out, and that put in ; and various alterations made to give an 
aspect of consistency, and a shew of sense, before criticism was 
allowed to see it. Not what was said, but that which might or 
ought to have been said, was to give the vulgar a notion of the 
instruction provided at the Veterinary College! Mr. Morton was 
to read and revise, to improve and adorn the Lecture, which in a 
new dress was to come forth as pleasant reading for select sub- 
scribers ! 
Now, Sir, putting all professional considerations out of the 
question, as one of the public I protest against this mode of pro- 
ceeding. I want to know what is done ; and I cannot accept 
any man’s report of his own actions, especially when that man ex- 
hibits a strong aversion to allow any other and more impartial 
testimony to be given. The dressed-up account of a certain 
speech, published after the lapse of months, and under the sanction 
of the speaker’s interested partizans, for a particular object and in 
an exclusive journal, I cannot view as a fair report, or one which 
can be supposed to be fairly reported. Every principle of candour 
or honesty arms the mind against regarding any thing of the kind 
in any other light than a deliberate imposition; and when, in 
order to secure the means of practising it, rudeness is resorted to, 
