A Blighted Life/Supplemental Notes/Mr. John Forster
MR. JOHN FORSTER. edit
This man, who was one of Lord Lytton's tools, and who also played today for the greater part of his life to a congenial evil spirit, Sir Alexander Cockburn, is thus described by Lady Lytton. Under the name of Janus Allpuff, she alludes to her accomplished husband:--"The chief Macænas of this Fudgester (Forster) is a Sir Janus Allpuff, who not content with having hunted his unhappy Wife nearly to death, and reduced to the lowest ebb of pecuniary destitution, from defending herself against his infamous Conspiracies, also prevents her in every possible way fromearning her bre: and who so useful in this way as Fudgester? I should tell you, in order to show you the astuteness and diabolical cunning of this Infamous Gang, and the tortuous sneaking measures they adopt to prevent their dirty work being brought home to them, by always employing others, as far a-field as possible, to do it; this Fudgester, from being a known tool and toady of that vile old profligate, Sir Janus Allpuff, and declared enemy of his Victim, never reviews her books, or mentions her name in any way, in his own particular paper, The Excruciator (The Examiner), but merely sets on the ramifications of the Gang to attack and malign her in every possible way: and from the wording of some of these attacks, it is quite clear that Sir Janus gives the substance of what he wishes them to do, as the same internal evidence exists of such being the case, that does as to his furnishing the pith of the puffs about himself to those organs of his myrmidons. But after all there is nothing so silly as your over-cunning people; which the very bungling way in which Sir Janus gets his dirty work done, will ultimately prove: and indeed some of the anonymous letters which his infamous Literary Myrmidons are set to write to his Victim, strongly resemble, in their little mean cramped characters, his own, or his Jackal Fudgester's writing."