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of pathos, that reveals to us how kind is the nature, how loving and simple the soul, from which they spring.

It is not cynicism, we believe, but a constitutional proneness to a melancholy view of life, which gives that unpleasing color to many of Mr. Thackeray's books which most readers resent. He will not let his eye rest upon a fair face, without thinking of the ugly skull beneath, and reminding himself and us "that beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.' In his heartiest mirth he seems to have in view the headache, or the labors of to-morrow. Because all humanity is frail, and all joys are fleeting, he will not hope the best of the one, nor permit us to taste heartily of the other, He insists on dashing his brightest fancies with needless shadows, and will not let us be comfortable, after he has done his best to make us so. There is a perversity in this, which Mr. Thackeray, in justice to himself and kindness to his readers, should sub.due. Let him not diminish his efforts to make them honester, and simpler, and wiser; but let him feed them more with cheerful images, and the contemplation of beauty without its flaws and worth without its drawbacks. No writer of the day has the same power of doing this, if he pleases. We could cite many passages in proof of this, but can it be doubted by any one who reads the following essay, from the series which appeared in Punch some years ago, as from the pen of

Dr. Solomon Pacifico?

ON A GOOD-LOOKING YOUNG LADY.

Some time ago I had the fortune to witness at the house of Erminia's brother a rather pretty and affecting scene; whereupon, as my custom is, I would like to make a few moral remarks. I must premise that I knew Erminia's family long before the young lady was born. Victorina her mother, Boa her aunt, Chinchilla her grandmother I have been intimate with every one of these ladies; and at the table of Sabilla, her married sister, with whom Erminia lives, have a cover laid for me whenever I choose to ask for it.

dowed this young lady with almost every kind of perfection; has given her a charming face, a perfect form, a pure heart, a fine perception and wit, a pretty sense of humor, a laugh and a voice that are as sweet as music to hear, for innocence and tenderness ring in every accent, and a grace of movement which is a curiosity to watch, for in every attitude of motion or repose her form grace accompanies her. I have before said that moves or settles into beauty, so that a perpetual I am an old fogy. On the day when I leave off admiring I hope I shall die. To see Erminia is not to fall in love with her; there are some women too handsome, as it were, for that; and I would as soon think of making myself miserable because I could not marry the moon, and make the silver-bowed Goddess Diana Mrs. Pacifico, as I should think of having any personal aspirations towards Miss Erminia.

Well, then, it happened the other day that this almost peerless creature, on a visit to the country, met that great poet, Timotheus, whose Erminia's friend, and who, upon seeing the habitation is not far from the country house of young lady, felt for her that admiration which every man of taste experiences upon beholding her, and which, if Mrs. Timotheus had not been an exceedingly sensible person, would have caused a great jealousy between her and the great bard her husband. But, charming and beautiful herself, Mrs. Timotheus can even pardon another woman for being so; nay, with perfect good sense, though possibly with a little factitious enthusiasm, she professes to share to its fullest extent the admiration of the illustrious Timotheus for the young beauty.

After having made himself well acquainted with Erminia's perfections, the famous votary of Apollo and leader of the tuneful choir did what might be expected from such a poet under such circumstances, and began to sing. This is the way in which Nature has provided that poets should express their emotions. When they see a beautiful creature they straightway fall to work with their ten syllables and eight syllables, with duty rhyming to beauty, vernal to eternal, riddle to fiddle, or what you please, and turn out to the best of their ability, and with great pains and neatness on their own part, a copy of verses in praise of the adorable object. I myself may have a doubt about the genuineness of the article produced, or of the passion which vents itself in Everybody who has once seen Erminia re- this way, for how can a man who has to assort members her. Fate is beneficent to the man carefully his tens and eights, to make his epibefore whose eyes at the parks, or churches, or thets neat and melodious, to hunt here and there theatres, or public or private assemblies, it throws for rhymes, and to bite the tip of his pen, or Erminia. To see her face is a personal kindness pace the gravel walk in front of his house for which one ought to thankful to Fortune; searching for ideas- I doubt, I say, how a man who might have shown you Caprella, with her who must go through the above process before whiskers, or Felissa, with her savage eyes, in- turning out a decent set of verses, can be actustead of the calm and graceful, the tender and ated by such strong feelings as you and I, when, beautiful Erminia. When she comes into the in the days of our youth, with no particular room, it is like a beautiful air of Mozart break-preparation, but with our hearts full of manly ing upon you; when she passes through a ball- ardor, and tender, respectful admiration, we room, everybody turns and asks who is that went to the Saccharissa for the time being, and princess, that fairy-lady? Even the women, poured out our souls at her feet. That sort of especially those who are most beautiful them- eloquence comes spontaneously; that poetry selves, admire her. By one of those kind freaks does n't require rhyme-jingling and metre-sortof favoritism which Nature takes, she has en-ing, but rolls out of you you don't know how, as

much, perhaps, to your own surprise as to that of the beloved object whom you address. In my time, I know whenever I began to make verses about a woman, it was when my heart was no longer very violently smitten about her, and the verses were a sort of mental dram and artificial stimulus with which a man worked himself up to represent enthusiasm and perform passion. Well, well; I see what you mean; I am jealous of him. Timotheus' verses were beautiful, that's the fact-confound him!- and I wish I could write as well, or half as well, indeed, or do anything to give Erminia pleasure. Like an honest man and faithful servant, he went and made the best thing he could, and laid this offering at Beauty's feet. What can a gentleman do more? My dear Mrs. Pacifico here remarks that I never made her a copy of verses. Of course not, my love. I am not a verse-making man, nor are you that sort of object that sort of target, I may say - -at which, were I poet, I would choose to discharge those winged shafts of Apollo.

When Erminia got the verses and read them, she laid them down, and with one of the prettiest and most affecting emotions which I ever saw in my life, she began to cry a little. The verses of course were full of praises of her beauty. "They all tell me that," she said; "nobody cares for anything but that," cried the gentle and sensitive creature, feeling within that she had a thousand accomplishments, attractions, charms, which her hundred thousand lovers would not see, whilst they were admiring her mere outward figure and head-piece.

less sensual than ours, is in that fact so consoling to misshapen men, to ugly men, to little men, to giants, to old men, to poor men, to men scarred with the small-pox, or ever so ungainly or unfortunate - that their ill-looks or mishaps don't influence women regarding them, and that the awkwardest fellow has a chance for a prize. Whereas, when we, brutes that we are, enter a room, we sidle up naturally towards the prettiest woman; it is the pretty face and figure which attracts us; it is not virtue, or merit, or mental charms, be they ever so great. When one reads the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast, no one is at all surprised at Beauty's being moved by Beast's gallantry, and devotion, and true-heartedness, and rewarding him with her own love at last. There was hardly any need to make him a lovely young prince in a gold dress under his horns and bearskin. Beast as he was, but good Beast, loyal Beast, brave, affectionate, upright, generous, enduring Beast, she would have loved his ugly mug without any attraction at all. It is her nature to do so, God bless her. It was a man made the story, one of those two-pennyhalfpenny men-milliner moralists, who think that to have a handsome person and a title are the greatest gifts of fortune, and that a man is not complete unless he is a lord and has glazed boots. Or it may have been that the transformation alluded to did not actually take place, but was only spiritual, and in Beauty's mind, and that, seeing before her loyalty, bravery, truth, and devotion, they became in her eyes lovely, and that she hugged her Beast with a perfect contentment to the end.

When ugly Wilkes said that he was only a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England, meaning that the charms of his conversation would make him in that time at a lady's side as agreeable and fascinating as a beau, what a compliment he paid the whole sex ! How true it is (not of course applicable to you, my dear reader and lucky dog, who possess both wit and the most eminent personal attractions, but of the world in general), we look for beauty: women for love.

I once heard of another lady, "de par le monde," as honest Des Bourdeilles says, who, after looking at her plain face in the glass, said, beautifully and pathetically, "I am sure I should have made a good wife to any man, if he could but have got over my face!" and bewailing her maidenhood in this touching and artless manner, saying that she had a heart full of love, if anybody would accept it, full of faith and devotion, could she but find some man on whom to bestow it; she but echoed the sentiment which I have mentioned above, and which caused in the pride of her beauty the melancholy of the So, fair Erminia, dry your beautiful eyes and lonely and victorious beauty. "We are full of submit to your lot, and to that adulation which love and kindness, ye men!" each says; "of all men pay you; in the midst of which court truth and purity. We don't care about your of yours the sovereign must perforce be lonely. good looks. Could we but find the right man, That solitude is a condition of your life, my dear the man who loved us for ourselves, we would young lady, which many would like to accept, endow him with all the treasures of our hearts, nor will your dominion last much longer than and devote our lives to make him happy. I my Lord Farncombe's, let us say, at the Manadmire and reverence Erminia's tears, and the sion house, whom time and the inevitable Nosimple, heart-stricken plaint of the other for-vember will depose. Another potentate will saken lady. She is Jephthah's daughter, con- ascend his throne; the toast-master will prodemned by no fault of her own, but doomed by fate to disappear from among women. The other is a queen in her splendor, to whom all the lords and princes bow down and pay worship. "Ah!" says she, "it is to the queen you are kneeling, all of you. I am a woman under this crown and this ermine. I want to be loved, and not to be worshipped; and to be allowed to love is given to everybody but me."

claim another name than his, and the cup will be pledged to another health. As with Xerxes and all his courtiers and army at the end of a few years, as with the flowers of the field, as with Lord Farncombe, so with Erminia; were I Timotheus of the tuneful quire, I might follow out this simile between lord mayors and beauties, and with smooth rhymes and quaint antitheses make a verse offering to my fair young lady. How much finer a woman's nature is than a But, madame, your faithful Pacifico is not a man's (by an ordinance of nature for the pur-poet, only a proser; and it is in truth, and not pose no doubt devised), how much purer and in numbers that he admires you.

by. When he dies of apoplexy, the Times will have a quarter of a column about his services and battles-four lines of print will be wanted to describe his titles and orders alone- and the earth will cover one of the wickedest and dullest old wretches that ever strutted over it.

Why should not Mr. Thackeray give us another Erminia in his next novel, and confute his detractors? Addison never wrote anything finer in substance or in manner than this sketch. Indeed, a selection of Mr. Thackeray's best essays would, in our opinion, eclipse the united splendor of the whole British Essayists, both for absolute value in If this book were read in every household, thought, and for purity and force of style. especially in every household where the BritHad he never written anything of this kind ish Peerage is studied, what a world of wearibut "The Book of Snobs," he would have ness and vexation of spirit, of hypocrisy and taken first honors. What a book is this, so ineanness, of triviality and foolish extravateeming with humor, character, and wisdom!gance, would be saved! We would prescribe How, like Jaques, does he "pierce through the body of the country, city, court!" Not, however, like him "invectively," but with a genial raillery which soothes while it strikes. The kindly playfulness of Horace is his model. It is only in dealing with utter worthlessness, as in his portrait of Lieutenant-General the Honorable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., K.T.S., K.II., K.S. W., &c. &c., that he wields the merciless lash of Juvenal. llow every word tells !

it as a manual for the British youth of both
sexes; containing more suggestions for use-
ful thought, more considerations for practical
exercise, in reference to the common duties
of life, than any lay volume we know. Never
was satire more wholesomely applied, more
We have read it
genially administered.
of the sagacity, the knowledge of the human
again and again with increasing admiration
heart, the humor, and the graphic brilliancy
which it displays. Every page furnishes il-
lustrations of some or all of these qualities.
Take as an example of its lighter merits this
exquisite sketch of suffering humanity at that
most inane of all fashionable inanities - a
London conversazione: :-

His manners are irreproachable generally; in society he is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough snob. A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old; and Sir George is a greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at fifteen. He distinguished him- Good Heavens! what do people mean by going self everywhere; his name is mentioned with there? What is done there, that everybody praise in a score of Gazettes; he is the man, in throngs into those three little rooms? Was the fact, whose padded breast, twinkling over with Black Hole considered to be an agreeable réunion, innumerable decorations, has already been in- that Britons in the dog-days here seek to imitate troduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what it? After being rammed to a jelly in a doorvirtues this prosperous gentleman possesses: he way (where you feel your feet going through never read a book in his life; and with his pur-Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, and get ple old gouty fingers still writes a schoolboy a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, hand. He has reached old age and gray hairs compared to which the gaze of Ugolino is quite without being the least venerable. He dresses cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow out of like an outrageously young man to the present poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, moment, and laces and pads his old carcass as if from which cushion it was impossible to remove he were still handsome George Tufto, of 1800. it, though you knew you were squeezing poor He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. Bob into an apoplexy- - you find yourself at last It is curious to mark him at table, and see him in the reception-room, and try to catch the eye heaving in his waistband, his little bloodshot of Mrs. Botibol, the conversazione-giver. When eyes gloating over his meal. He swears consid-you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, and erably in his talk, and tells fifty garrison stories she smiles too, for the four-hundredth time that after dinner. On account of his rank and ser- night; and, if she 's very glad to see you, wagvices, people pay the bestarred and betitled old gles her little hand before her face as if to blow brute a sort of reverence; and he looks down you a kiss, as the phrase is. upon you and me, and exhibits his contempt for us with a stupid and artless candor which is quite amusing to watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he would not have been the disreputable old creature he now is. But what other? He was fit for none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and gallant officer, and privately, for riding races, drinking port, fighting duels, and seducing women. He believes himself to be one of the most honorable and deserving beings in this world. About Waterloo-place, of afternoons, you may see him tottering in his varnished boots, and leering under the bonnets of the women who pass

Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I would n't kiss her for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling and telegraphing each other in this insane way? Because we are both performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society: whose dictates we all of us obey.

Well; the recognition is over -- my jaws have returned to their usual English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Boti

bol is grinning and kissing her fingers to some- roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is quabody else, who is squeezing through the aperture vering away in the music-room, under the imby which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann pression that he will be lancé in the world by Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it Botibol (Botty we call her) has her Wednesdays. is to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck, the cada- where a half-hundred of carriages are in waitverous young woman in green, with florid auburning; and where the link-boy, with that unnehair, who has published her volume of poems cessary lanthorn of his, pounces upon all who ("The Death-Shriek ;" "Damien ;""The Fag-issue out, and will insist upon getting your ot of Joan of Arc ;" and "Translations from noble honor's lordship's cab. the German". of course) the conversazione And to think that there are people who, women salute each other, calling each other, after having been to Botibol on Wednesday, will "My dear Lady Ann," and "My dear good go to Clutterbuck on Friday! Eliza," and hating each other as women hate who give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain, dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays.

-

What wonder Mr. Thackeray should be so often condemned, when the foibles and vices which he paints are just those which, more or less, infect the whole body of society? Some All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, way or other, he hits the weakness or sore and a perpetual buzz and chatter, and the flare point of us all. Nothing escapes his eye; of the wax candles, and an intolerable smell of and with an instinct almost Shakspearian he musk what the poor Snobs who write fashion-probes the secrets of a character at one Like all honest teachers, he inevitable romances call" the gleam of gems, the odor venture. of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps" aably inflicts pain; and hence the soreness of scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with wounded vanity is often at the root of the cleaned gloves, is warbling inaudibly in a corner, unfavorable criticism of which he is the subto the accompaniment of another. "The Great ject. It requires both generosity and candor Cacafogo," Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes to accept such severe lessons thankfully, and you by "A great creature, Thumpenstrumpff, to love the master who schools us with his is at the instrument - the Hetman Platoff's bitter, if salutary wisdom. But Mr. Thackepianist, you know." ray has wisely trusted to the ultimate justice To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, of public opinion; and he now stands better a hundred people are gathered together- a in it for never having stooped to flatter its bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of misses; six moody-looking lords, prejudices, nor modified the rigorous concluperfectly meek and solemn; wonderful foreign counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, stout, bald-headed conversazione-roues, whom you meet everywhere who never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught lions of the season

--

Higgs, the traveller; Biggs, the novelist; and Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is invited on account of his pretty wife, and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever she goes -que sais-je ? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white neckcloths? - Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his lodgings, in Jermyn-street, with his Gibus-hat and his little glazed pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment.

sions of his observant spirit for the sake of a speedier popularity. Despite the carping of critics, his teaching has found its way to men's hearts and minds, and helped to make them more simple, more humble, more sincere, and altogether more genuine than they would have been but for "Vanity Fair, Pendennis," and "The Book of Snobs."

66

The strength of Mr. Thackeray's genius seemed to lie so peculiarly in describing contemporary life and manners, that we looked with some anxiety for the appearance of his "Esmond," which was to revive for us the period of Queen Anne. We did not expect in it any great improvement upon his former works, in point of art, for we confess we have never felt the deficiencies in this respect, which are commonly urged against them. Minor incongruities and anachronisms are unquestionably to be found; but the characters are never inconsistent, and the events follow in easy succession to a natural close. The You go up (with your usual easy elegance canvas is unusually crowded, still there is no of manner) and talk to Miss Smith in the confusion in the grouping, nor want of pro"Oh, Mr. Snob! I'm afraid you're sadly stance unlike the novels of any other writer, portion in the figures. As they are in sub

corner.

satirical."

That's all she says. If you say it's fine so do they seem, in point of construction, to weather, she bursts out laughing; or hint that be entirely in harmony with their purpose. it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest We therefore feared that in a novel removed wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering both in subject and in style from our own on fresh arrivals; the individual at the door is times, we should miss something of the

living reality of Mr. Thackeray's former works, and of their delightful frankness of expression, without gaining anything more artistic in form. The result has, we think, confirmed these fears.

"Esmond" is admirable as a literary feat. In point of style, it is equal to anything in English literature; and it will be read for this quality when the interest of its story is disregarded. The imitation of the manner of the writers of the period is as nearly as possible perfect, except that while no less racy, the language is perhaps more grammatically correct. Never did any man write with more case under self-imposed fetters than Mr. Thackeray has done; but while we admire his skill, the question constantly recurs, why impose them upon himself at all? He has not the power who has? of reviving the tone as well as the manner of the time; and, disguise his characters as he will, in wigs, ruffles, hair-powder, and sacs, we cannot help feeling it is but a disguise, and that the forms of passion and of thought are essentially the judgment those of the historian, not the contemporary.

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license in matters of the kind. A still graver transgression has been committed in his portraiture of Marlborough, which is so masterly as a piece of writing that its deviation from historical truth is the more to be deprecated. When he has branded him for posterity in words that imbed themselves in the memory, it is idle to attempt to neutralize the impres sion by making Esmond admit that, but for certain personal slights from the hero of Blenheim, he might have formed a very different estimate of his character. This adinission is a trait true to life, but it is one which is not allowable in a novelist where the reputation of a historical personage is at stake. History is full enough of perversions without our romancers being allowed to add to them. Such defects as we have adverted to are probably inseparable from any attempt to place a fictitious character among historical incidents; but if this be the case, it only proves that the attempt should never be made.

These defects are the more to be regretted in a work distinguished by so much fine thought and subtle delineation of character) It has been alleged against it that Mr. Thackeray repeats himself that "Esmond" has his prototype in Dobbin, Lord Castlewood in Rawdon Crawley, and Beatrix Castlewood in Blanche Amory. We cannot think so. It is surely but a superficial eye which is unable to see how widely removed a little hypocritical, affected coquette like Blanche Amory is from the woman of high breeding and fiery impulse

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It is, moreover, a great mistake for a novelist to introduce into his story, as Mr. Thackeray has done, personages of either literary or political eminence, for he thereby needlessly hampers his own imagination, and places his readers in an attitude of criticism unfavorable to the success of his story. Every educated reader has formed, for example, certain ideas, more or less vivid, according to the extent of "the weed of glorious feature" - who is his reading or the vigor of his imagination, of presented for our admiration and surprise in Marlborough, Swift, Bolingbroke, Addison, or Beatrix Castlewood. It were easy to point Steele; and what chance has the novelist out in detail the differences between the promof hitting in any one feature the ideal which inent characters in this and Mr. Thackeray's his reader has so worked out for himself? The other books, but such criticism is of little avail novelist cannot, moreover, keep within the to those who cannot perceive such differences limits of the biographer, but must heighten for themselves. The only feature which it or tone down features of character for the pur- owns in common with "Vanity Fair" is the poses of his story. This he cannot do with- insane attachment of Esmond to Beatrix. out violating that rigorous truth which ought This pertinacity of devotion bears some analouniformly to be preserved wherever the char-gy to Dobbin's for Amelia. But there was acter or conduct of eminent men is concerned. nothing humiliating in Dobbin's love in EsIt would be easy to convict Mr. Thackeray mond's there is much. He is content to go not only of serious offences against this wholesome law, but also of anachronisms far more serious than any in his former works, and of inaccuracies in regard to well-known facts, which are fatal to the verisimilitude of the book as an autobiography. One of these latter is so gross as to be altogether inexcusable the betrothal of the Duke of Hamilton, just before his duel with Lord Mohun, to Beatrix Castlewood, whereas it is notorious that the Duchess of Hamilton was alive at the time. We can scarcely suppose Mr. Thackeray ignorant of a circumstance which is elaborately recorded in Swift's Journal, but in any case his perversion of the facts transcends all lawful

on besieging with his addresses a woman, who not only rejects them, but has passed from the hands of one accepted suitor to another, till the whole bloom is worn off her nature. It is taxing our credulity too far to ask us to reconcile this with the other characteristics of Esmond. We never lose our respect for Dobbin: Esmond has wearied it out long before he shakes off his fetters, and weds the lady's mother, who has been wasting her heart upon him for years. Lady Castlewood is a portrait so exquisitely made out in all the details, so thoroughly loveable, and adorned by so many gracious characteristics, that we cannot but regret Mr. Thackeray should have

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