on the affections of its members—that it is too impersonal-belongs too much to books, set creeds and articles, and not enough to living men-not admitting easily of those modifications which life requires, and which guard life by adapting it to what it has to bear. Commend us to him for baiting that bugbear, Conventionality. Let whoso will, you are, how charmingly you are imposed | breadth and solidity, both as regards the upon;" on the other hand he sometimes hold it ought to have on the reason, and drops a sage remark that prompts Milverton to say: "I cannot help thinking what a shrewd man you are, Dunsford, when you choose to be so,"-and to maintain that it is Dunsford, after all, who ought to conduct great law-cases, and write essays, instead of leaving such things to his two Friends in Council, and affecting the part of a simple, unworldly, retired man, content to receive his impressions of men and things from his pupils. We share the essayist's admiration of Dunsford's mild wisdom-of the spectacle of old age gracefully filling its high calling of a continually-enlarging sympathy with the young, and tolerance for them. "A man has only to become old to be tolerant," says Goethe; and adds: "I see no fault committed which I also might not have committed." Dunsford is described as having reached to the same level of toleration by sheer goodness of nature. The essayist is, in a good sense, a freethinking and free-speaking man. Practitical, sagacious, earnest, manly, opposed to whatever is mean, narrow, or illiberal. "Years ago," he says, "an old college friend defined this present writer as a man who could say the most audacious things with the least offence." Puritanism comes in again and again for no left-handed blow from this good strong arm. Every social mischief for two centuries past, he says, has been darkened and deepened by Puritanism. It is beyond melancholy, it verges on despair, he says, to see ministers of religion immersed in heart-breaking trash from which no sect is free-here fopperies of discipline there (still more dangerous) fopperies of doctrine. His exegesis of the text which gives as a main feature of pure and undefiled religion, the keeping oneself unspotted from the world, assures many excellent clergymen that their "world," their temptation to err, lies in clerical niceness and over-sanctity, and making more and longer sermons than there is any occasion for, and insisting upon needless points of doctrine, and making Christianity a stumbling-block to many, and turning Sunday into a ghastly idol. If all clergymen had been Christians, it is observed, there would by this time have been no science of theology. An English Churchman though he be, he avows his long-entertained belief, that our Church stands upon foundations which need more praise the busy town- The picturesque of man and man." Thousands are grateful to him for his complaint how often in society a man goes out from interested or vain motives, at most unseasonable hours, in very uncomfortable clothes, to sit or stand in a constrained position, inhaling tainted air, suffering from great heat, and his sole occupation or amusement-to talk, only to talk. Grateful for his exposé of those assemblies of fine people in London, where nobody has anything to do, where nothing is going on but vapid conversation, where the ladies dare not move freely about, and where a good chorus, a childish game, or even the liberty to work or read, would be a perfect godsend to the whole assembly. Grateful for his deadset against the notion that all activity must move in certain grooves to be owned as successful and respectable. Grateful for his cross-examination, conviction, and condemnation of the theory, that self-development, or even the development of others, is not the end of life, but the getting or doing something which can be weighed, measured, ticketed, and in some way proved to the world. "As for the world," says Ellesmere, "I am one of the few persons who really care but little for it. The hissing of collected Europe, provided I knew the hissers could not touch me, would be a grateful sound rather than the reverse-that is, if heard at a reasonable distance." The essayist may not subscribe to all the flighty things Ellesmere is pleased to say, but they may pretty nearly all be taken, in spirit, as his own, cum grano,-it being his express design to represent Ellesmere as a most accomplished and a thorough gentleman, not exactly the conventional gentleman, but a man whom savages would certainly | tom. The way in which the Friends in take to be a chief in his own country, Council "ventilate" conventional humshowing high courtesy to others with a sort of coolness as regards himself, the result of being free from many of the usual small shames, petty ends, trivial vanities, and marked social operations which, he says, dwarf men in their intercourse with others, or make them like clowns daubed over in ugly patches. Thus, in regard to dress, he avows. his own private opinion to be, that the discomfort caused by injudicious dress worn entirely in deference to the most foolish of mankind, in fact to the tyrannous majority, would outweigh many an evil that sounds very big. And he conjectures that, were angels to make "perfect returns" of statistics in these matters, it might be seen that perhaps our every-day shaving, severe shirt-collars and other ridiculous garments, are equivalent to a great European war once in seven years, and that woman's stays do about as much harm, i. e. cause as much suffering, as an occasional pestilence-say, for instance, the cholera. drums, illustrates the advice given by St. Marc Girardin in one of his Essais de Morale: "Ayez des amis, si vous vivez dans les temps tranquilles et calmes, afin d'examiner avec eux les règles que le monde s'est faites, et de les vivifier par un peu de controverse: car, si le doute tue la morale, la routine la tue aussi." Or as Mrs. Browning's hero words it, For this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam, Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God. Much might be said about the essayist's earnest advocacy of the cause of progress, and the true rights of man. The most admirable precepts, he sees, are thrown from time to time upon this cauldron of human affairs, and seem oftentimes only to make it blaze the higher; but that hinders not his proffering admirable precepts of his own, nor represses his sanguine aspirations on behalf of the world, his faith in the increasing purpose that through the ages runs. He is cheery and genial-suspects that Solomon was rather melancholy than wise, when he pronounced that Wisdom is sorrow-holds that the more variety men have in their amusements the better-and believes that some day it will be found out, that to bring up a man with a genial nature, a good temper, and a happy form of mind, is a greater effect than to perfect him in much knowledge and many accomplishments. He knows of no way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with: not that people are to be self-absorbed; but they are to drink in nature and life a little: from a genial, wisely-developed man, good things radiate; whereas, your philanthropical, cutand-dried benevolent people are very apt to be one-sided and fussy, and not of the sweetest temper if others will not be good and happy in their way. Certainly one of the most charming characteristics of our essayist, is the kindly, unpretentious, unpolemical tact, with which he rather suggests than argues out, rather intimates than demonstrates, what he has to teach. Talk about this age being free from fear of the fagot or the torture-chamber? For his part, our essayist refers us to fear of the social circle, fear of the newspaper, fear of being odd, fear of what may be thought by people who never did think, still greater fear of what somebody may say-and asks, Are not these things a clinging dress of torture? The subjects of terror, he reminds us, vary so much in different times, that it is difficult to estimate the different degrees of courage shown in resisting them. "Men fear public opinion now as they did in former times the star-chamber: and those awful goddesses, Appearances, are to us what the Fates were to the Greeks." Especially are women indebted to him for what he stoutly says for them, and satirically says to them, in respect of conventionality. He advocates such changes in female education as shall free them from that "absurd timidity of mind more than of body which prevents their seeing things as they are, and makes them, and consequently men, the victims of conventionality." So wedded is the feminine nature to what it is accustomed to, that Ellesmere asserts his conviction that if it were customary to In touching on his style, and art of have the right hand thumbs of all people composition, some notice is due to that in the upper classes cut off, the women lavish use of imagery and illustration to would all vow that it was an elegant cus-which he more than once calls atten tion. Milverton is much given to the figurative and metaphoric. "Oh, I am no match for you if you once get amongst metaphors," says Ellesmere to him: "it is your trade." To which Milverton replies, that these are subjects the truth of which can never be so well brought out as by the aid of metaphors, which give body and circumstance to things incapable of adequate representation if discussed in cold though precise terms. Ellesmere is struck by this remark, and owns, in his own open way, that he dares say there's truth as well as cleverness in it-though still of opinion, that metaphors have done at least as much harm by introducing falsehood as good the other way. "But you have made a good plea," he adds, "and you may indulge in as many metaphors as you like." Milverton does indulge in a good many accordingly. His figures of speech are often pregnant with meaning, and come in with happy relief and illuminative power. Thus he says there are men whose talents for governing are not developed until they are placed in power, like the Palm-branches which spring out only at the top of the tree. Many a man, he says, has a kind of mental kaleidoscope, where the bits of broken glass are his own merits and fortunes, and they fall into harmonious arrangements and delight him-often most mischievously and to his ultimate detriment, but they are a present pleasure. Remarking on the kind of remorseful despair that is chiefly grounded on a foolish belief that individual words or actions constitute the whole life of man, whereas they are often not fair representatives of even portions of it, he illustrates his position thus: "The fragments of rock in a mountain stream may tell much of its history, are in fact results of its doings, but they are not the stream. They were brought down when it was turbid; it may now be clear: they are as much the result of other circumstances as of the action of the stream: their history is fitful: they give us no sure intelligence of the future course of the stream, or of the nature of its waters: and may scarcely show more than that it has not always been as it is." This to show, in a similitude, that the actions of men are often indifferent indications of the men themselves. To which similitude, by the way, Ellesmere objects, in the conversazione at the end of the essay, as "too much worked out" observing that when we speak of similes not going on four legs, we imply that a simile is at best but a four-legged animal-whereas this foregoing comparison of life to a mountain stream, the rocks brought down by it being the actions, is almost a centipede of a simile. Ellesmere suggests a mathematical simile of his own, in preference; but Milverton holds to the centipede. Again: on the subject of the seclusion of the world's thinking few, Milverton remarks: "The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary places:"-which his critic calls not a bad metaphor, but untrue. And when Milverton, lamenting the present aspect of our cathedrals, says that we look about, thinking when piety filled every corner, "and feel that the cathedral is too big for the Religion which is a dried-up thing that rattles in this empty space," Ellesmore declares this the boldest simile he has heard a long time. Another characteristic passage. Milverton refers to an appearance in nature, by which he has often been put in mind of the effect of temper upon men: "It is in the lowlands near the sea, where, when the tide is not up (the man out of temper), there is a shiny, patchy, diseased-looking surface of mud and sick seaweed. You pass by in a few hours, there is a beautiful lake, water up to the green grass (the man in temper again), and the whole landscape brilliant with reflected light." And to complete the likeness, Ellesmere adds, the good temper and the full tide last about the same time-with some men at least. "It is so like you, Milverton," he says, "to have that simile in your mind. There is nothing you see in nature, but you must instantly find a parallel for it in man." Certainly Milverton has a knack at making similes, and Ellesmere a zest for criticising them when made. Nor is he particular who is the maker. Dunsford sententiously observes, à propos of relaxed philanthropic efforts, that Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty alone has lent to Benevolence,-"And down comes the charitable Icarus," quoth Ellesmere,-adding, from a critical point of view, "A very good simile, my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin verse order. I almost see it worked into an hexameter and pentameter, and delight ing the heart of an Eton boy." Ellesmere a raison: Dunsford cannot compete with Milverton in this line of things. Sometimes Milverton criticises his own metaphors. As where, showing that all things are so connected together, that, in matters of study, a man who knows one subject well, cannot, if he would, fail to have acquired much besides, he continues: "And that man will not be likely to keep fewer pearls who has a string to put them on, than he who picks them up and throws them together without method." This, however, he observes, is a very poor metaphor to represent the matter for what he would aim at producing, not merely holds together what is gained, but has vitality in itself, is always growing. As the Friends in Council saunter together through the close lanes near Worth Ashton, Milverton compares a hedge they are passing, bedight with fern, and wild strawberry, and foxglove, to a picture of human life-beautiful and complete in its bold variety, whereas men would have one sturdy quickset of the same height and color-both in their fellow-men and in their hedges. "Now we are off upon our similitudes," exclaims Ellesmere, in his best be-wigged and gowned "Sir, I object" manner. "I thought it soon would be so. My dear fellow, cannot you look at a bit of nature and enjoy it for yourself without troubling yourself about resemblances, and bringing in men on all occasions ?" Milverton replies, that he does not look out for resemblances: they at once occur to him. Within a few minutes of his learned friend's rebuke, it is pleasant to find the learned friend himself, when arguing that there is more friendship at the little boy time of life than at any other, falling into metaphoric diction, and saying: "They are then evenly-formed creatures, like bricks, which can be laid close to one another. The grown-up man is like a fortress, angular-shaped, with a moat round it, standing alone." Who is it that is now involved in metaphors? Lucy asks. Ellesmere, again, is talking of the benefits of travelling, and affirms that Horace may say what he likes about care laying hold of the tow-rope of a steamer, or sitting behind the horseman like his master's coat strapped round a groom; but a judicious traveller cuts the tow-rope or undoes the buckle, and care is obliged to drop off behind. "Very Horatian these similes !" is the classical Dunsford's comment; for Dunsford's turn to criticise has come: thus does the whirligig of time bring round his revenges. A certain familiar humor, as in this paraphrase of post equitem sedet atra Cura, distinguishes many of the similes introduced in these volumes. There are perhaps as many of them quaint and homely as graceful and refined. Those who grumble that everything in life is not turned out as neat as a Long-Acre carriage, are taught that Nature herself, with her vague and flowing ways, cannot at all fit in with a rightangled person, and that as there are other precise angular creatures, it is to be expected, in the collisions of Society, that these sharp-edged persons should wound each other terribly. A man vexed by disproportionate care for little things, who accordingly finds many more causes of offence than other men, and each offence more bitter than others find it, is said to have " a garment embroidered with hooks, which catches at everything that passes by." It is Dunsford's opinion, in contempt of the booksellers' puffing system, that good books, "if there are such things, should be sought after, and not poked in the faces of purchasers like Jews' penknives at coach doors." People in authority, says Ellesmere, are as fearful of attacking any social evil as men are of cutting down old trees about their housesthough he owns there is always something to be said for the old trees. (Milverton, by-the-by, cannot resist the temptation to improve the simile; and remarks that it would be mostly better, though, to cut them down at once, and begin to plant something at the proper distance from their houses.) Virtuous people, who having been carefully tended and carefully brought up, plume themselves on their virtue, are reminded, that the dainty vase which is kept under a glass case in a drawing-room, should not be too proud of remaining without a flaw, considering its great advantages. Those who cherish the delusion that reading and writing alone will do for the education of the poor, that with the copy-book and rule of three their education may finish, are assured, that you might as well prepare for a liberal hospitality by a good apparatus for roasting and boiling, but never putting on any viands, so that the kitchen machinery went on grinding unceasingly, with no contentment to the appetites of the hun- | itself to it ;" his thought being rather of gry. Compassionately regarding the fig- what he is saying, than of how he is say trees against the wall of an English garing it-so that matter takes precedence of den, and feeling how disgusted they must manner, and assimilates it to itself, pro be at the climate which needs such a po- re natâ. "Hence he is as various as his sition for them, Milverton muses, how- themes, and always new and peculiar." ever, that the same thing is only what Sometimes he may be "crude and hard," the greatest men have had to endure, to occasionally a little difficult of construction live in an uncongenial clime, and to bring (to very light infantry readers); but takforth fruit with painful culture, and under ing him for all in all, he justifies the panemost adverse circumstances; "so you gyric that has been passed upon himmust not complain, he says," "though you that he contrives, namely, to interest you are nailed up against the wall." in every thing he says; so that whether you differ from him, or agree with him, he equally interests and fascinates your attention. "It is like listening to a person speaking with one of those melodious voices that melt into your heart. You love to hear him speak even if you dissent from every word he utters." What a thing for the essay, in its day of decline and cold obstruction, the rise and progress of such an Essay-writer as this! But of the space at our command, an inordinate measure has been bestowed on tropes and similitudes. As to the author's style in general, it is that of one "qui voudrait produire dans son style la tranquillité modeste et hardie de ses pensées." It has been remarked that, properly speaking, he has no formulæ that can be said to constitute a style: it "everywhere drops upon the subject like drapery, and shapes From the North British Review. FIELDING AND THACKERAY.* LET us set out by entering our protest | amiable persons are sometimes stupid, at against the ignorance or hypocrisy which least to a degree that would prevent their is at the base of the main complaint brought against Mr. Thackeray, by some who have not been indisposed to concede to him the possession of the most brilliant abilities. There has been a loud cry raised, (and in the name of religion too!) that this writer represents men and women as worse than they are; that the majority of his dramatis persona are mean, or malicious, or stupid, or vain, or have two or more of these and other disqualifications together; that absolutely admirable characters are not to be discovered in his social world; that his very good people are few and far between; and that his shining at a London dinner-party. Does not the accusation, put plainly, confute itself, and turn to the credit of the accused for clear-sightedness? For our parts, we should rather be disposed to charge Mr. Thackeray with the opposite error, were we not convinced that a novelist who should represent the world with its average amount of malice, stupidity, meanness and vanity, would be absolutely unreadable. Let the reader take a glance, first over the score or so of portraits in the "Newcomes," and then over the score or so of his own acquaintance-including, of course, himself, and let him candidly say whether, the numbers presupposed equal, he knows as many worthy people as Mr. Pendennis, in his editorial capacity pretends to depict. course, we are assuming, though this is, perhaps, unfair, that our reader knows Of |