comes an important element in the interest, and all "asides," however insignificant apparently, serve to point the moral, or to adorn the tale; and the irresistible introduction of beauty into the heart of terror, and along the side of the loathsome and the despicable, like the light that will shine in dark rooms after every candle has been put out, and every beam of day has been excluded-beauty, which, in Shakspeare, sows flowers upon the dreary crags of agony; and in Hogarth (a thing which Coleridge notices), brings in fine female faces into many of the coarsest, and many of the darkest of his scenes, like embodied images of Eternal Love looking down upon sorrow, and sin, and rudeness, and vice, and silently whispering, "I bide my time." Even his Cock-Pit, his Gin Street, his Beer Lane, his Marriage a La Mode, his Rake's Progress, are all haunted by the heavenly face of angelic woman; just as in Shakspeare, Cordelia bends over the dying Lear, Ophelia murmurs her tender sympathy beside the wild speeches of the melancholy Hamlet, Miranda uplifts her sweet face amid the "Tempest," and Perdita, like a sunbeam, pierces the confused mistakes and miseries of the Winter's Tale." Even more constantly than in Shakspeare does this image of female loveliness pervade the prints of Hogarth; for while in them it is rarely absent, Shakspeare has forgot to light up with its gentle ray such deep Nights of suffering and controversy as Timon" and " Macbeth."

Following Hazlitt, Thackeray dwells lovingly on Hogarth's gusto, his rich repetition of thought, as in Marriage a La Mode, where "the Earl's coronet is everywhere: on his footstool, on which reposes one gouty toe turned out; on the sconces and looking-glasses; on the dogs; on his very crutches;"-his constant moral purpose; the faithful picture his prints form of the age of the first Georges, and the comparison they suggest and enable us to substantiate between his and our own time, especially between the London of 1753 and the London of 1853. With the higher imaginative qualities of the great painter, such as those we have enumerated, be is not so familiar; and compared to the papers of Lamb and Hazlitt on the subject, his may be said to be such a sketch as Hogarth was wont to execute of his future pictures upon his thumb nail.

Smollett succeeds-a rough, roaring, ill-natured, and yet originally kind-hearted Scotchman of the last century, with three powers in extraordinary development: self-will, humor, and a certain strong poetical gift, which could only be, and was only now and then, stung into action. To see his selfwill, in its last soured and savage state, let us consult his "Travels." He was the "Smelfungus" of Sterne, who traveled from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. We are among the very few who have read the book. It is a succession of asthmatic gasps and groans, with not a particle of the humor of "Humphrey Clinker." Among his novels, "Roderick Random" is the most popular, "Peregrine Pickle" the filthiest, "Sir Launcelot Greaves" the silliest, "Clinker" the most delightful, and "Ferdinand Fathom," in parts, the most original and profound. There is a robber scene in a forest, in this last novel, surpassed by nothing in Scott, or anywhere else. His "Ode to Independence" should have been written by Burns. How that poet's lips must have watered as he repeated the lines,

"Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye"

and remembered he was not their author! He said he would have given ten pounds to have written "Donocht-head;" he would have given ten times ten, if he had had them, poor fellow! to have written the "Ode to Independence." Thackeray, who is in chase of Fielding, finds nothing very new to say of Smollett, and ignores his most peculiar and powerful works. His best sentence about him is, that he went to London, "armed with courage, hunger, and keen wits.”

"he is,

To Fielding he goes, con amore, and shows him as not robed in a marble toga, and draped and polished in a heroic attitude, but with inked ruffles, and claret stains on his tarnished laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of goodfellowship, cf illness, of kindness, and of care." Fielding, sooth to say, was, even for that age, a sad scamp. Steele probably lived as dissipated a life, but Steele did not put his depravity in circulation by printing it in his books. When men come to that, it is a fearful symptom. Paul speaks of those who not only do ill themselves, but have pleasure in them that do it. Such is the case with authors who print their obscen

ities or blasphemies. They cannot write without reproducing their own vices. They roll them as a sweet morsel. By bestowing them on ideal characters, they multiply their own enjoyment of them. Their imagination has become so polluted, that it overflows on all their pages. They sometimes are actuated, it is to be feared, by a worse motive: they wish, namely, to make others as wicked and miserable as themselves. Bit by hydrophobia, they run about everywhere, with lolling tongues, in search of others to destroy. We do not think that this latter was Fielding's motive. He, in part from depraved taste, and in part from carelessness, simply transferred his own character to his novels. Mr. Thackeray seems to us to overrate "Tom Jones" amazingly. It is a piece of admirable art, but composed of the basest materials, like a palace built of dung. "Amelia" is not so corrupt, but it is often coarse, and, as a whole, very poor and tedious. Joseph Andrews" is by far the most delightful of his writings. With less art than "Tom Jones," it has much more genius. Parson Adams is confessedly one of the most original and pleasing characters in fiction. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Joseph Cargill in "St. Ronan's Well," are both copied from him, but have not a tithe of his deep simplicity and delicious bonhommie. We predict that, in a century hence, Joseph Andrews" will alone survive to preserve Fielding's name. We wish Thackeray's plan had permitted him to say a little more of Richardson's Dutch style of novelwriting, and of those enormous books of his, reminding you of the full-bottomed periwigs of the past, in their minute and elaborate frizzle, and which yet, when shaken by the wind of passion, seem sometimes to nod as grandly as the "ambrosial curls" of Jove himself.

Sterne comes next, and his character meets with very severe and summary treatment-the more, perhaps, and deservedly, as he was a clergyman. As an author, he has been the father of an immense family of fiction writers. Goethe has had him in his eye, both in the "Sorrows of Werter" and in "Wilhelm Meister." Rousseau derived a great deal from him. Jean Paul Richter, although possessing far more sincerity and depth of spirit, has copied his affected manner. The Minerva Press was long his feeble echo. Southey's Southey's "Doctor" was

very much in his style; and the French novelists are still cmployed in imitating his putrid sentimentalism, although incapable of his humor and pathos. Plagiarist of passages, as he has been proved, he was, on the whole, an original writer; and, blackguard as he was, his vices, like those of Rousseau and Goethe, have contributed to the power and piquancy of his writings. We state this as a fact, not as a plea in his defence. He seems to have been not merely, like Fielding, a dissipated man, but, like Poe, a heartless scoundrel. It is a proof of the originality of his mind and style, that he arose and flourished in spite of cliques and coteries, and, as an author, lived and died alone. His works are now somewhat shorn of their popularity; but some parts of them, in eloquence, tenderness, and humor, are not surpassed in the English language. "Alas! poor Yorick!"

He

He

The last, and one of the finest sketches, is that of "poor dear Goldy," as Johnson used to call him. We have already tried, in a series of antitheses, to describe Steele. It would require a few hundred more such to describe Goldsmith. was one of the most amiable and most envious of men. He played with every child he met, and abused almost every contemporary author. Himself the most absurd of characters, he had the keenest perception of absurdities in others. "wrote like an angel, and talked like poor poll." He never wrote a foolish thing, and never said a wise one. He was at once Harlequin, and the good Samaritan. He divided again and again his last shilling with poor unfortunates, and told lies by the bushel. He had a keen sense of religion, and yet his life was in direct opposition to many of its precepts. Johnson said of him, "Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir; but he is so no more." Burke burst into tears at the news of his death. Reynolds, when he heard of it, painted no more that day. As a writer, he had a most enviable little garden-plot of reputation. We would rather have his fame than Homer's. What delight his one book, "The Vicar of Wakefield," has given! What shouts, screams, sweats of laughter, have his plays elicited! How many hearts his "Deserted Village" has melted within them! How many thousands in foreign lands, "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po,"

have repeated the noble lines of the "Traveler," and blessed its queer, kind-hearted author!

Thackeray closes with some striking remarks, attempting to show that the calamities of authors are, in general, owing, not to the neglect of the public, but to themselves. There is much truth in what he says. Literary men have been often improvident and immoral; but this, while it has sometimes proceeded from perverted tastes, has often also proceeded from the precariousness of their profession. Literary men, however industrious and regular, are wretchedly underpaid; and except when they have another profession or a private fortune, are poor. Now, speaking generally, they are men of respectable characters, and of working habits; and yet, does one out of ten of them die, without subscriptions being organised for behoof of their wives and children? We blame not the booksellers; they cannot be expected, taking them as a whole, to look at the matter except in a commercial point of view; but we blame, first of all, the government, for not devoting more of the public money to pensions, prizes, and similar rewards of literary merit; and, secondly, the public, which, while spending so much upon degrading vices, or foolish frivolities, or mere passing and ephemeral light literature, has so little to spare for works of genius, and gives what little it does give with an air of such supreme contempt, or such condescending patronage, or such sublime indifference.

In fine, although we have been compelled often to differ from our author, we thank him for the pleasure we have derived from his work, and especially for the opportunity it has afforded us of retreading a very delightful field in British literature.

NO. V.-THOMAS MACAULAY.

ONE great distinction between the great and the half-great 1s, we think, this: the half-great man is in his own age fully commented on and thoroughly appreciated; his character is faithfully inscribed in a multitude of reviews; his carcer is