sly puffs were of a most specious order, and attention is called to one of them by the indignation it evoked in the Monthly Review (vol. xxvii. 1762). The object of the puff paragraph had been an insipid panegyric on Lord Halifax, called “The Minister of State,” which sacrificed on the altar of Halifax the characters of all preceding premiers, from Burleigh to Bute, and the attempt to force its sale evoked the wrath of the Review, which commences as follows:—“As the practice of puffing is now arrived at the utmost height of assurance, it will not be improper for the Reviewers occasionally to mark some of the grosser instances that may occur of this kind.” Thereupon it notices the “lying paragraph,” to which we have already referred, the words within brackets being the comments of the Reviewer:
A noble Peer has absolutely given directions to his Solicitor to commence a Prosecution against the Author of the Poem called, The Minister of State, a Satire, as a most licentious and libellous composition.—The writer, no doubt, merits a severer censure of the Law than any of his brethren, because instead of employing those great talents for poetry and satire for which he is so deservedly celebrated [what does he not deserve for his effrontery?] in the service of Virtue and his Country, he has basely [basely enough!] prostituted them to the unworthy purpose of defaming, lampooning and abusing some of the greatest characters in this Kingdom. [All a puff to excite curiosity.] We think this