is because we know and respect each other, making them feel ineir folly.

In good that the world respects us so much; that we conscience, could she do otherwise ? hold such a good position in society, and de- Would it not be on her part a lack of mean ourselves so irreproachably when there.

" Literary persons are held in such esteem sincerity to affect a gayety which she by the nation, that about two of them have has not, or a respect which she can been absolutely invited to Court during the

not feel? We understand that the present reign ; and it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be asked poor child is in need of sympathy. to dinner by Sir Robert Peel.

When she gave up her dolls, this lov. “They are such favourites with the public, ing heart became first enamoured of that they are continually obliged to have their Trenmor, a high-souled convict, the pictures taken and published ; and one or two could be pointed out, of whom the nation in fiery Sténio, Prince Djalma, and other sists upon having a fresh portra:: evin year heroes of French novels. Alas, the Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof | imaginary world is not sufficient for of the affectionate regard which the people has wounded soals, and to satisfy the crav: for its instructors.

"Literature is held in such honour in Eng- ing for the ideal, for satiety, the heart land, that there is a sum of near twelve hun. at last gives itself up to beings of this dred pounds per annum set apart to pension world. At eleven years of age Miss leserving persons following that profession. Blanche felt tender emotions towards And a great compliment this is, too, to the professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous a young Savoyard, an organ-grinder at and flourishing condition. They are generally Paris, whom she persisted in believing so rich and thrifty, that scarcely any money is to be a prince carried off from his pa. wanted to help them." *

rents ; at twelve an old and hideous We are tempted to make a mistake ; drawing master had agitated her young and to comprehend this passage, we heart; at Madame de Carmel's board must remember that, in an aristocrati- ing-school a correspondence by letter cai and monarchical society, amidst took place with two young gentlemen money-worship and adoration of rank, of the College Charlemagne. Dear poor and low-born talent is treated as forlorn girl, her delicate feet are al. its low-birth and poverty deserve ! f ready wounded by the briars in her What makes these ironies yet stronger, path of life; every day her illusions is their length; some are prolonged shed their leaves; in vain she puts during a whole tale, like the Fatal them down in verse, in a little book Boots. A Frenchman could not keep bound in blue velvet, with a clasp of up a sarcasm so long. It would escape gold, entitled Mes Larmes. In this right or left through various emotions ; isolation, what is she to do? She it would change countenance, and not grows enthusiastic over the young lasreserve so fixed an attitude - the dies whom she meets, feels a magnetic mark of such a decided animosity, so attraction at sight of them, becomes calculated and bitter. There are their sister, except that she casts them characters which Thackeray develops aside to-morrow like an old dress : we through three volumes-Blanche Am- cannot command our feelings, and ory, Rebecca Sharp -- and of whom nothing is more beautiful than the he never speaks but with insult ; both natural. Moreover, as the amiable are base, and he never introduces child has much taste, a lively imagina. them without plying them with tender- tion, a poetic inclination for change, nesses ; dear Rebecca I tender Blanche! she keeps her maid Pincott at work The tender Blanche is a sentimental day and night. Like a delicate person, and literary young creature, obliged to a genuine dilettante and lover of the live with her parents, who do not un beautiful, she scolds her for her heavy derstand her. She suffers so much, eyes and her pale face : that she ridicules them aloud before

“Our muse, with the canaour which distineverybody; she is so oppressed by the guished her, never failed to remind her attendfolly of her mother and father-in-law, ant of the real state of matters. 'I should send that she never omits an opportunity of you away.

Pincott

, for you are a great deal too

weak, and your eyes are failing you, and you are • The Book of Snobs, ch. xvi. ; on Literary always crying and snivelling, and wanting the Snabs.

doctor ; but I wish that your parents at home Stendhal says:

L'esprit et le génie per- should be supported, and I go on enduring for dent vingt-cinq pour cent de leur valeur en their sake, mind, the dear Blanche would say abordant en Angleterre."

, Pin

a

and red eyes, positively give me the migraine ; conclude that the human race is base your w.etct :d appearance and slavish manner, sardonic air of the painter, and wo and I think I shall make you wear, rouge so and stupid. Other figures less exag that you may look a little cheerful ;' cott, I can't bear, even for the sake of your gerated, are not more natural. We starving parents, that you should tear my hair see that the author throws them ex out of my head in that manner; and I will thank you to write to them and say that i dis pressly into palpable follies and mark. pense with your services.'"

ed contradictions. Such is Miss Craw. This fool of a Pincott does not appre- and a free-thinker, who praises un

ley, an old maid, without any morals, ciate her good fortune.

Can one be sad in serving such a superior being as when on the next page her nephew

equal marriages, and falls into a fit Miss Blanche ? . How delightful to makes one ; who calls Řebecca Sharp furnish her with subjects for her style ! her equal, and at the same time bids for, to confess the truth, Miss Blanche her "put some coals on the fire :" has not disdained to write "some who, on learning the departure of her very pretty verses about the lonely favorite, cries with despair, “Gracious little tiring-maid, whose heart was far

, goodness, and who's to make my chocaway,' ,” “ sad exile in a foreign land.”

olate ?" These are comedy scenes, Alasi the slightest event suffices to and not pictures of manners. There wound this too sensitive heart. At are twenty such. You see an excellent the least emotion her tears flow, her aunt, Mrs. Hoggarty, of Castle Hog; feelings are shaken, like a delicate but garty, settling down in the house of terfly, crushed as soon as touched. There she goes, aerial, her eyes fixed vast expenses, persecute his wife,

her nephew Titmarsh, throw him into on heaven, a fairt smile lingering.round drive away his friends, make his marher rosy lips, a couching sylphide, so riage unhappy. The poor ruined fel. consoling to all who surround her, that low is thrown into prison. She de. every one wishes her at the bottom of nounces him to the creditors with gena well. One step added to serious irony with perfect sincerity. The wretch has

uine indignation, and reproaches him leads us to serious caricature. Here, been his aunt's exécutioner; she has as before, the author pleads the rights been dragged by him from her home, of his neighbor; the only difference is

, tyrannized over by him, robbed by him, that he pleads them with too much

She writes : warmth ; it is insult upon insult. Un outraged by his wife. der this head it abounds in Thackeray.

“ Such waist and extravygance never, never,

never did I see. Butter waisted as if it had Some of his grotesques are outrage been dirt, coles flung away, candles burned as ous: for instance, M. Alcide de Miro- both ends; . and now you have the audas bolant, a French cook, an artist in saty, being placed in prison justly for your sauces, who declares his passion to crimes, for cheating me of €3000. Miss Blanche through the medium of come upon me to pay your detts! No, sir, it

is quite enough that your mother should go ou symbolic dishes, and thinks himself a the parish, and that your wife should sweep the gentleman; Mrs. Major O'Dowd, a streets, to which you have indeed brought sort of female grenadier, the most them ; 1, at least .::

forts to which my rank entitles me. The furni. pompous and talkative of Irishwomen, tur in this house is mine ; and as I presume bent on ruling the regiment, and marry- you intend your lady to sleep in the streets, 1 ing the bachelors will they nill they; give you warning that I shall remove it all is Miss Briggs, an old companion born to intended to leave you my intire fortune. I have

morrow. Mr. Smithers will tell

you that I had receive insults, to make phrases and to this morning, in his presents, solamly toar up shed tears; the Doctor, who proves to my, will, and hereby renounce all connectioa his scholars who write bad Greek, with you and your beggarly family., P.S.-I that habitual idleness and bad con

took a viper into my bosom, and it stung struing lead to the gallows. These This just and compassionate woman calculated deformities only excite a sad smile. We always perceive be- finds her match, a pious man, Johr

. hind the oddity of the character the Brough, Esquire, M.P., director of the

Independent West Diddlesex Fire and * These remarks are only to be found in the • The History of Samwel Timarsk med tilhe octavo edition of Pendennis.--Tr.

Great Hoggarty Diamond, ah. xi.

You

have some of the com

me."

income.

6

a

Life Insurance Company. This vir- | quirer into manners and countries tuous Christian has sniffed from afar Thus supported, the impossible mon. the cheering odor of her lands, houses, ster and the literary grotesque enter stocks, and other landed and personal upon actual existence, and the phanprope my He pounces upon the fine toms of imagination take the consist: prope:ty of Mrs. Hoggarty, is sorry to ency of objects which we touch. see that it only brings that lady four Thackeray introduces this imperture per cent., and resolves to double her bable gravity, this solid conception,

IIe calls upon her at her this talent for illusion, into his farce. lodgings when her face was shockingly Let us study one of his moral essays; swelled and bitten by — never mind he wishes to prove that in the world ghat:

we must conform to received customs, "Gracious heavens l’shouted John Brough, and he transforms this commonplaco Esquire, a lady of your rank to suffer in this into an Oriental anecdote.

Let us way!--the excellent relative of my dear boy, count up the details of manners, geog. Titmarsh! Never, madam-never let it be said raphy, chronology, cookery, the maththat Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty should be subject to such horrible humiliation, while ematical designation of every object, John Brough has a home to offer hera hum- person, and gesture, the lucidity of im. ble, happy Christian home, madam, though un- agination, the profusion of local truths ; like, perhaps, the splendour to which you have

we will then understand why his railbeen accustomed in the course of your distinguished career. Isabella, my love l-Belinda i lery produces so original and biting an speak to Mrs. Hoggarty. Tell her that John impression, and we will find here the Brough's house is hers from garret to cellar. I repeat it, madam, from garret to cellar. I der attentive energy as in the foregoing

same degree of study and the same sire-I insist-I order, that Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty's trunks should be placed this ironies and exaggerations : his humor instant in my carriage!'"*

is as reflective as his hatred; he has This style raises a laugh, if you will, changed his attitude, not his faculty : but a sad laugh. We have just learned that man is a hypocrite, unjust, tyran- self-laudation consumedly; but I can't help re

“ I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate nical, blind. In our vexation we turn lating here a circumstance illustrative of the to the author, and we see on his lips point in question, in which I must think I acted

with considerable prudence. only sarcasms, on his brow only chagrin.

“ Being at Constantinople a few years since

Yon a delicate mission)--the Russians were V.

playing a double game, between ourselves, and

it became necessary on our part to employ an Let us look carefully ; perhaps in extra negotiator Leckerbiss Pasha of Rouless grave matters we shall find sub melia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave

a diplomatic banquet at his summer palace at ject of genuine laughter. Let us con- Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee; sider, not a rascality, but a misadven- and the Russian agent Count de Diddloff on ture; rascality revolts, a misadventure his dexter side. Diddloft is a dandy who would might amuse. But amusement alone die of a rose in aromatic pain : he had tried to

have me assassinated three times in the course is not here; even in a diversion the of the negotiation : but of course we were satire retains its force, because re- friends in public, and saluted each other in the flection retains its intensity. There is most cordial and charming manner. in English fun a seriousness, an effort, string has done for him-a starch supporter of

“ The Galeongee is or was, alas ! for a bowin application that is marvellous, and the old school of Turkiza politics. We dined heir comicalities are composed with with our fingers, and had flaps of bread for us much klowledge as their sermons.

plates ; the only innovation he admitted was T'he powerful attention decomposes dulged with great gusto. He was an enor

the use of European liquors, in which he inits object in all its parts, and repro mous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large duces it with illusive detail and relief. one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in Swift describes the land of speaking capsicums, and other condiments, the most

its woo!, stuffed with prunes, garlic, assafoetida, borses, the politics of Lilliput, the in- abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or ventors of the Flying Island, with de tasted. The Galeongee ate of this hugely ; tails as precise and harmonious as an and, parsuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on experienced traveller, an

exact in helping his friends right and left, and when he

"I never shall forget the look of poor Didd. I wood, so good and te der, is enamored log, when his Excellency, rolling up a large like Amelia, of a drunken and imbecile quantity of this into a ball, and exclaiming: boor ; and her wild jealousy, exasper

Buk, Buk' (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The Russian's į ated on the slightest suspicion, implaceyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he i able against her husband, giving utterswallowed it with a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle next

ance violently to cruel words, shows him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which tha. her love springs not from virtue turned out to be French brandy, he drank off but from mood. Helen Pendennis, a r.early a pint before he knew his error. It model mother, is a somewhat silly &nished him; he was carried away from the lining-room almost dead, and laid out to cool country prude, of narrow education, in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. jealous also, and having in her jealousy

“When it came to my turn, I took down the all the harshness of Puritanism and rondiment with a smile, said * Bismillah,' passion. She faints on learning that "icked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next dish was served, made up a ball

my her son has a mistress : it is “such a self so dexterously, and popped it down the old sin, such a dreadful sin. I can't bear Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that to think that my boy should commit his heart was won. Russia was put out of such a crime. I wish he had died, Court at once, and the treaty of Kabobanople was signed. As for Diddloff, all was over with almost, before he had done it." him, he was recalled to St. Petersburg, and Sir Whenever she is spoken to of little Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. Fanny," the widow's countenance, al

. 3967, working in the Ural mines.” #

ways soft and gentle, assumed a cruel The anecdote is evidently authentic; and inexorable expression.”+ Meeting and when De Foe related the apparition Fanny at the bedside of the sick young of Mrs. Veal, he did not better imitate man, she drives her away, as if she the style of an authenticated account. were a prostitute and a servant. Ma

ternal love, in her as in the others, is VI.

an incurable blindness : her son is her Such attentive reflection is a source idol ; in her adoration she finds the of sadness. To amuse ourselves with means of making his lot unbearable, human passions, we must consider and himself unhappy. As to the love them as inquisitive men, like shifting of the men for the women, if we judge puppets, or as learned men, like regu

from the pictures of the author, we can lated wheels, or as artists, like power- but feel pity for it, and look on it as ful springs. If we only consider them ridiculous. At a certain age, according as virtuous or vicious, our lost illusions to Thackeray, nature speaks : we meet will enchain us in gloomy thoughts, Somebody; a fool or not, good or bad, and we will find in man only weakness we adore her; it is a fever. At the age and ugliness.

This is why Thackeray of six months dogs have their disease ; depreciates our whole nature. He man has his at twenty. If a man loves, does as a novelist what Hobbes does it is not because the lady is lovable, as a philosopher. Almost everywhere, but because it is his nature so to do. when he describes fine sentiments, he “Do you suppose you would drink it derives them from an ugly source. you were not thirsty, or eat if you were Tenderness, kindness, love, are in his not hungry?” | characters the effect of the nerves, of

He relates the history of this hunger instinct, or of a moral disease. Amelia and thirst with a bitter vigor. He Sedley, his favorite, and one of his seems like an intoxicated man growo masterpieces, is a poor little woman, sober, railing at drunkenness. He ex snivelling, incapable of reflection and plains at length, in a half sarcastic tone, decision, blind, a superstitious adorer the follies which Major Dobbin com: of a coarse and selfish husband, always mits for the sake of Amelia ; how the sacrificed by her own will and fault, Major buys bad wines from her father ; whose love is made up of folly and how he tells the postill ions to make weakness, often unjust, accustomed to haste, how he rouses the servants, pero see falsely, and more worthy of com- secutes his friends, to see Amelia mort passion than respect. Lady Castle quickly; how, after ten years of sacri:

a

on

6

a

• The

five, tenderness, and service, he sees | vice of his age and his country. In an that he is held second to an old portrait aristocratical and commercial society, of a faithless, coarse, selfish, and dead this vice is selfishness and pride! husband. The saddest of these ac- Thackeray therefore extols sweetness counts is that of the first love of Pen- and tenderness. Let love and kindness dennis-Miss Fotheringay, the actress, be. blind, instinctive, unreasoning, whom he loves, a matter-of-fact person, ridiculous, it matters little : such as a good housekeeper, who has the mind they are, he adores them; and there is and education of a kitchen-maid. She no more singular contrast than that of speaks to the young man of the fine his heroes and of his admiration. Ho weathe:, and the pie she has just been creates foolish women, and kneels be. making : Pendennis discovers in these fore them; the artist within him con: wo phrases a wonderful depth of in- tradicts the commentator : the first tellect and a superhuman majesty of is ironical, the second laudatory; the devotion. He asks Miss Fotheringay, first represents the pettiness of love, who has just been playing Ophelia, if the second writes its panegyric; the the latter loved Hamlet. Miss Fother- top of the page is a satire in action, the ingay answers :

bottom is a dithyramb in periods. The “* In love with such a little ojous wretch as compliments which he “lavishes that stunted manager of a Bingley?'

She Amelia

Sedley, Helen Pendennis, bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen Laura, are infinite; no author ever explained it was not of her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. Oh, indeed ; if no of

more visibly and incessantly paid court fence was meant, none was taken: but as for

to his female creations; he sacrifices
Bingley, indeed, she did not value him-not his male creations to them, not once,
that
glass of punch.' Pen next tried her

on but a hundred times :
Kotzebue. • Kotzebue? who was he?'
author of the play in which she had been per-

“Very likely female pelicans like so to bleed

under the selfish little beaks of their young forming so admirably.' 'She did not know that-the man's name at the beginning of the

ones: it is certain that women do. There must book was Thompson,' she said. "Pen laughed be some sort of pleasure which we men don't at her adorable simplicity."

understand, which accompanies the pain of " • How beautiful she is,' thought Pen, can

being sacrificed.* Do not let us men detering homewards. Pendennis, Pendennis- spise these instincts because we cannot feei

them. These women were made for our com how she spoke the word ! Emily, Emily! how good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect rest of the minor animals.t ... Be it for a

fort and delectation, gentlemen,--with all the she is!'»*

reckless husband, a dissipated son, a darling The first volume runs wholly upon this scapegrace of a brother, how ready their hearts contrast; it seems as though Thackeray are to pour out their best treasures for the

benefit of the cherished person ; and what a says to his reader: “My dear brothers deal of this sort of enjoyment are we, on our in humanity, we are rascals forty-nine side, ready to give the soft creatures! There days in fifty ; in the fiftieth, if we escape istered pleasure in that fashion to his woman

is scarce a man that reads this, but has adminpride, vanity, wickedness, selfishness, it is because we fall into a hot fever: kind, and has treated them to the luxury of for

giving + our folly causes our devotion.”

When he enters the room of a good VII.

mother, or of a young honest girl, he

casts down his eyes as on the threshold Yet, short of being Swift, a man of a sanctuary.

In the presence of must love something; he cannot always Laura resigned, pious, he checks him. be wounding and destroying; and the self: hear?, wearied of scorn and hate, needs

“And as that duty was performed quito repose in praise and tenderness. More- noiselessly-while the supplications which en over, to blame a fault is to laud the dowed her with the requisite strength for fulfillcontrary quality; and a man cannot ing it, also took place in her own chamber, away sacrifice a victim without raising an

from all mortal sight, -we, too, must be perforce

silent about these virtues of hers, which no more altar : it is circumstance which fixes bear public talking about than a Aswer will bear on the one, and which builds up the to bloom in a ball-room." S other; and the moralist who combats * Pendennis, ch, xxi. This passage is only the dominant vice of his country and his found in the octavo edition.-TR

t Ibid. ch. xxi. age. preaches the virtue contrary to the

Ibich. ch. xi. These words are only found * Pendennis, cho v.

a