" When we learn, as we do from this
"Diary," what a contributor to that eminent journal is, when left to his
own devices,--that he does not know the difference between _would_ and
_should_, (which, to be sure, is excusable in an Irishman,) that he
believes _in petto_ to mean _in miniature_, uses _protagonist_ with as
vague a notion of its sense as Mrs. Malaprop had of her derangement of
epitaphs, and then recall to mind the comparative correctness of Mr.
Russell's correspondence in point of style, we conceive a hearty respect
for the proof-reader in Printing-House Square. We should hardly have
noticed these trifles, except that Mr. Russell has a weakness for
displaying the cheap jewelry of what we may call _lingo_, and that he is
rather fond of criticizing the dialect and accent of persons who were
indiscreet enough to trust him with their confidences. There is one
respect, however, in which the matter has more importance,--in its
bearing on our estimate of Mr. Russell as a trustworthy reporter of what
he saw and heard. Conscientious exactness is something predicable of the
whole moral and intellectual nature, and not of any special faculty; so
that, when we find a man using words without any sense of their meaning,
and assuming to be familiar with things of which he is wholly ignorant,
we are justified in suspecting him of an habitual inaccuracy of mind,
which to a greater or less degree disqualifies him both as observer
and reporter.
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