CHAPTER IX.

Special jurymen of England who admire your country's laws,And proclaim a British jury worthy of the nation's applause,Gaily compliment each other at the issue of a cause,Which was tried at Guildford 'sizes, this day week as ever was.

Here he is indignant, not only in regard to some miscarriage of justice on that special occasion, but at the general unfitness of jurymen for the work confided to them. "Gaily compliment yourselves," he says, "on your beautiful constitution, from which come such beautiful results as those I am going to tell you!" When he reminded us that Ivanhoe had produced Magna Charta, there was a purpose of irony even there in regard to our vaunted freedom. With all your Magna Charta and your juries, what are you but snobs! There is nothing so often misguided as general indignation, and I think that in his judgment of outside things, in the measure which he usually took of them, Thackeray was very frequently misguided. A satirist by trade will learn to satirise everything, till the light of the sun and the moon's loveliness will become evil and mean to him. I think that he was mistaken in his views of things. But we have to do with him as a writer, not as a political economist or a politician. His indignation was all true, and the expression of it was often perfect. The lines in which headdresses that Pallis Court, at the end of Jacob Omnium's Hoss, are almost sublime.

O Pallis Court, you moveMy pity most profound.A most amusing sportYou thought it, I'll be bound,To saddle hup a three-pound debt,With two-and-twenty pound.Good sport it is to youTo grind the honest poor,To pay their just or unjust debtsWith eight hundred per cent, for Lor;Make haste and get your costes in,They will not last much mor!

O Pallis Court, you moveMy pity most profound.A most amusing sportYou thought it, I'll be bound,To saddle hup a three-pound debt,With two-and-twenty pound.

Good sport it is to youTo grind the honest poor,To pay their just or unjust debtsWith eight hundred per cent, for Lor;Make haste and get your costes in,They will not last much mor!

Come down from that tribewn,Thou shameless and unjust;Thou swindle, picking pockets inThe name of Truth august;Come down, thou hoary Blasphemy,For die thou shalt and must.And go it, Jacob Homnium,And ply your iron pen,And rise up, Sir John Jervis,And shut me up that den;That sty for fattening lawyers in,On the bones of honest men.

Come down from that tribewn,Thou shameless and unjust;Thou swindle, picking pockets inThe name of Truth august;Come down, thou hoary Blasphemy,For die thou shalt and must.

And go it, Jacob Homnium,And ply your iron pen,And rise up, Sir John Jervis,And shut me up that den;That sty for fattening lawyers in,On the bones of honest men.

"Come down from that tribewn, thou shameless and unjust!" It is impossible not to feel that he felt this as he wrote it.

There is a branch of his poetry which he calls,—or which at any rate is now called,Lyra Hybernica, for which no doubtThe Groves of Blarneywas his model. There have been many imitations since, of which perhaps Barham's ballad on the coronation was the best, "When to Westminster the Royal Spinster and the Duke of Leinster all in order did repair!" Thackeray in some of his attempts has been equally droll and equally graphic. That onThe Cristal Palace,—not that at Sydenham, but its forerunner, the palace of the Great Exhibition,—is very good, as the following catalogue of its contents will show;

There's holy saintsAnd window paints,By Maydiayval Pugin;Alhamborough JonesDid paint the tonesOf yellow and gambouge in.There's fountains thereAnd crosses fair;There's water-gods with urns;There's organs three,To play, d'ye see?"God save the Queen," by turns.There's statues brightOf marble white,Of silver, and of copper;And some in zinc,And some, I think,That isn't over proper.There's staym ingynes,That stands in lines,Enormous and amazing,That squeal and snortLike whales in sport,Or elephants a grazing.

There's holy saintsAnd window paints,By Maydiayval Pugin;Alhamborough JonesDid paint the tonesOf yellow and gambouge in.

There's fountains thereAnd crosses fair;There's water-gods with urns;There's organs three,To play, d'ye see?"God save the Queen," by turns.

There's statues brightOf marble white,Of silver, and of copper;And some in zinc,And some, I think,That isn't over proper.

There's staym ingynes,That stands in lines,Enormous and amazing,That squeal and snortLike whales in sport,Or elephants a grazing.

There's carts and gigs,And pins for pigs,There's dibblers and there's harrows,And ploughs like toysFor little boys,And ilegant wheel-barrows.For thim genteelsWho ride on wheels,There's plenty to indulge 'emThere's droskys snugFrom Paytersbug,And vayhycles from Bulgium.There's cabs on standsAnd shandthry danns;There's waggons from New York here;There's Lapland sleighsHave cross'd the seas,And jaunting cyars from Cork here.

There's carts and gigs,And pins for pigs,There's dibblers and there's harrows,And ploughs like toysFor little boys,And ilegant wheel-barrows.

For thim genteelsWho ride on wheels,There's plenty to indulge 'emThere's droskys snugFrom Paytersbug,And vayhycles from Bulgium.

There's cabs on standsAnd shandthry danns;There's waggons from New York here;There's Lapland sleighsHave cross'd the seas,And jaunting cyars from Cork here.

In writing this Thackeray was a little late with his copy forPunch; not, we should say, altogether an uncommon accident to him. It should have been with the editor early on Saturday, if not before, but did not come till late on Saturday evening. The editor, who was among men the most good-natured and I should think the most forbearing, either could not, or in this case would not, insert it in the next week's issue, and Thackeray, angry and disgusted, sent it toThe Times. InThe Timesof next Monday it appeared,—very much I should think to the delight of the readers of that august newspaper.

Mr. Molony's account of the ball given to the Nepaulese ambassadors by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, is so like Barham's coronation in the accountit gives of the guests, that one would fancy it must be by the same hand.

The noble Chair[7]stud at the stairAnd bade the dhrums to thump; and heDid thus evince to that Black PrinceThe welcome of his Company.[8]O fair the girls and rich the curls,And bright the oys you saw there was;And fixed each oye you then could spoiOn General Jung Bahawther was!This gineral great then tuck his sate,With all the other ginerals,Bedad his troat, his belt, his coat,All bleezed with precious minerals;And as he there, with princely air,Recloinin on his cushion was,All round about his royal chairThe squeezin and the pushin was.O Pat, such girls, such jukes and earls,Such fashion and nobilitee!Just think of Tim, and fancy himAmidst the high gentilitee!There was the Lord de L'Huys, and the PortygeeseMinisther and his lady there,And I recognised, with much surprise,Our messmate, Bob O'Grady, there.

The noble Chair[7]stud at the stairAnd bade the dhrums to thump; and heDid thus evince to that Black PrinceThe welcome of his Company.[8]

O fair the girls and rich the curls,And bright the oys you saw there was;And fixed each oye you then could spoiOn General Jung Bahawther was!

This gineral great then tuck his sate,With all the other ginerals,Bedad his troat, his belt, his coat,All bleezed with precious minerals;And as he there, with princely air,Recloinin on his cushion was,All round about his royal chairThe squeezin and the pushin was.

O Pat, such girls, such jukes and earls,Such fashion and nobilitee!Just think of Tim, and fancy himAmidst the high gentilitee!There was the Lord de L'Huys, and the PortygeeseMinisther and his lady there,And I recognised, with much surprise,Our messmate, Bob O'Grady, there.

All these are very good fun,—so good in humour and so good in expression, that it would be needless to criticise their peculiar dialect, were it not that Thackeray has made for himself a reputation by his writing of Irish. In this he has been so entirely successful that for many Englishreaders he has established a new language which may not improperly be called Hybernico-Thackerayan. If comedy is to be got from peculiarities of dialect, as no doubt it is, one form will do as well as another, so long as those who read it know no better. So it has been with Thackeray's Irish, for in truth he was not familiar with the modes of pronunciation which make up Irish brogue. Therefore, though he is always droll, he is not true to nature. Many an Irishman coming to London, not unnaturally tries to imitate the talk of Londoners. You or I, reader, were we from the West, and were the dear County Galway to send either of us to Parliament, would probably endeavour to drop the dear brogue of our country, and in doing so we should make some mistakes. It was these mistakes which Thackeray took for the natural Irish tone. He was amused to hear a major called "Meejor," but was unaware that the sound arose from Pat's affection of English softness of speech. The expression natural to the unadulterated Irishman would rather be "Ma-ajor." He discovers his own provincialism, and trying to be polite and urbane, he says "Meejor." In one of the lines I have quoted there occurs the word "troat." Such a sound never came naturally from the mouth of an Irishman. He puts in an h instead of omitting it, and says "dhrink." He comes to London, and finding out that he is wrong with his "dhrink," he leaves out all the h's he can, and thus comes to "troat." It is this which Thackeray has heard. There is a little piece called theLast Irish Grievance, to which Thackeray adds a still later grievance, by the false sounds which he elicits from the calumniated mouth of the pretended Irish poet. Slaves are "sleeves," places are "pleeces," Lord John is "Lard Jahn," fatal is "fetal," danger is "deenger," and native is "neetive."All these are unintended slanders. Tea, Hibernicé, is "tay," please is "plaise," sea is "say," and ease is "aise." The softer sound of e is broadened out by the natural Irishman,—not, to my ear, without a certain euphony;—but no one in Ireland says or hears the reverse. The Irishman who in London might talk of his "neetive" race, would be mincing his words to please the ear of the cockney.

The Chronicle of the Drumwould be a true ballad all through, were it not that there is tacked on to it a long moral in an altered metre. I do not much value the moral, but the ballad is excellent, not only in much of its versification and in the turns of its language, but in the quaint and true picture it gives of the French nation. The drummer, either by himself or by some of his family, has drummed through a century of French battling, caring much for his country and its glory, but understanding nothing of the causes for which he is enthusiastic. Whether for King, Republic, or Emperor, whether fighting and conquering or fighting and conquered, he is happy as long as he can beat his drum on a field of glory. But throughout his adventures there is a touch of chivalry about our drummer. In all the episodes of his country's career he feels much of patriotism and something of tenderness. It is thus he sings during the days of the Revolution:

We had taken the head of King Capet,We called for the blood of his wife;Undaunted she came to the scaffold,And bared her fair neck to the knife.As she felt the foul fingers that touched her,She shrank, but she deigned not to speak;She looked with a royal disdain,And died with a blush on her cheek!'Twas thus that our country was saved!So told us the Safety Committee!But, psha, I've the heart of a soldier,—All gentleness, mercy, and pity.I loathed to assist at such deeds,And my drum beat its loudest of tunes,As we offered to justice offended,The blood of the bloody tribunes.Away with such foul recollections!No more of the axe and the block.I saw the last fight of the sections,As they fell 'neath our guns at St. Rock.Young Bonaparte led us that day.

'Twas thus that our country was saved!So told us the Safety Committee!But, psha, I've the heart of a soldier,—All gentleness, mercy, and pity.I loathed to assist at such deeds,And my drum beat its loudest of tunes,As we offered to justice offended,The blood of the bloody tribunes.

Away with such foul recollections!No more of the axe and the block.I saw the last fight of the sections,As they fell 'neath our guns at St. Rock.Young Bonaparte led us that day.

And so it goes on. I will not continue the stanza, because it contains the worst rhyme that Thackeray ever permitted himself to use.The Chronicle of the Drumhas not the finish which he achieved afterwards, but it is full of national feeling, and carries on its purpose to the end with an admirable persistency;

A curse on those British assassinsWho ordered the slaughter of Ney;A curse on Sir Hudson who torturedThe life of our hero away.A curse on all Russians,—I hate them;On all Prussian and Austrian fry;And, oh, but I pray we may meet themAnd fight them again ere I die.

The White Squall,—which I can hardly call a ballad, unless any description of a scene in verse may be included in the name,—is surely one of the most graphic descriptions ever put into verse. Nothing written by Thackeray shows more plainly his power over words and rhymes. He draws his picture without a line omitted or a line too much, saying with apparent facility all that he has to say,and so saying it that every word conveys its natural meaning.

When a squall, upon a sudden,Came o'er the waters scudding;And the clouds began to gather,And the sea was lashed to lather,And the lowering thunder grumbled,And the lightning jumped and tumbled,And the ship and all the oceanWoke up in wild commotion.Then the wind set up a howling,And the poodle dog a yowling,And the cocks began a crowing,And the old cow raised a lowing,As she heard the tempest blowing;And fowls and geese did cackle,And the cordage and the tackleBegan to shriek and crackle;And the spray dashed o'er the funnels,And down the deck in runnels;And the rushing water soaks all,From the seamen in the fo'ksalTo the stokers whose black facesPeer out of their bed-places;And the captain, he was bawling,And the sailors pulling, hauling,And the quarter-deck tarpaulingWas shivered in the squalling;And the passengers awaken,Most pitifully shaken;And the steward jumps up and hastensFor the necessary basins.Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered,And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered,As the plunging waters met them,And splashed and overset them;And they call in their emergenceUpon countless saints and virgins;And their marrowbones are bended,And they think the world is ended.And the Turkish women for'ardWere frightened and behorror'd;And shrieking and bewildering,The mothers clutched their children;The men sang "Allah! Illah!Mashallah Bis-millah!"As the warning waters doused them,And splashed them and soused themAnd they called upon the Prophet,And thought but little of it.Then all the fleas in JewryJumped up and bit like fury;And the progeny of JacobDid on the main-deck wake up.(I wot these greasy RabbinsWould never pay for cabins);And each man moaned and jabbered inHis filthy Jewish gaberdine,In woe and lamentation,And howling consternation.And the splashing water drenchesTheir dirty brats and wenches;And they crawl from bales and benches,In a hundred thousand stenches.This was the White Squall famous,Which latterly o'ercame us.

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered,And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered,As the plunging waters met them,And splashed and overset them;And they call in their emergenceUpon countless saints and virgins;And their marrowbones are bended,And they think the world is ended.

And the Turkish women for'ardWere frightened and behorror'd;And shrieking and bewildering,The mothers clutched their children;The men sang "Allah! Illah!Mashallah Bis-millah!"As the warning waters doused them,And splashed them and soused themAnd they called upon the Prophet,And thought but little of it.

Then all the fleas in JewryJumped up and bit like fury;And the progeny of JacobDid on the main-deck wake up.(I wot these greasy RabbinsWould never pay for cabins);And each man moaned and jabbered inHis filthy Jewish gaberdine,In woe and lamentation,And howling consternation.And the splashing water drenchesTheir dirty brats and wenches;And they crawl from bales and benches,In a hundred thousand stenches.This was the White Squall famous,Which latterly o'ercame us.

Peg of Limavaddyhas always been very popular, and the public have not, I think, been generally aware that the young lady in question lived in truth at Newton Limavady (with one d). But with the correct name Thackeray would hardly have been so successful with his rhymes.

Citizen or SquireTory, Whig, or Radi-Cal would all desirePeg of Limavaddy.Had I Homer's fireOr that of Sergeant TaddyMeetly I'd admirePeg of Limavaddy.And till I expireOr till I go mad IWill sing unto my lyrePeg of Limavaddy.

The Cane-bottomed Chairis another, better, I think, thanPeg of Limavaddy, as containing that mixture of burlesque with the pathetic which belonged so peculiarly to Thackeray, and which was indeed the very essence of his genius.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,There's one that I love and I cherish the best.For the finest of couches that's padded with hairI never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.'Tis a bandy-legged, high-bottomed, worm-eaten seat,With a creaking old back and twisted old feet;But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair.* * * * *She comes from the past and revisits my room,She looks as she then did all beauty and bloom;So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,There's one that I love and I cherish the best.For the finest of couches that's padded with hairI never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.

'Tis a bandy-legged, high-bottomed, worm-eaten seat,With a creaking old back and twisted old feet;But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair.

* * * * *

She comes from the past and revisits my room,She looks as she then did all beauty and bloom;So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

This, in the volume which I have now before me, is followed by a picture of Fanny in the chair, to which I cannot but take exception. I am quite sure that when Fanny graced the room and seated herself in the chair of her old bachelor friend, she had not on a low dress and loosely-flowing drawing-room shawl, nor was there a footstool ready for her feet. I doubt also the headgear. Fanny on that occasion was dressed in her morning apparel, andhad walked through the streets, carried no fan, and wore no brooch but one that might be necessary for pinning her shawl.

The Great Cossack Epicis the longest of the ballads. It is a legend of St. Sophia of Kioff, telling how Father Hyacinth, by the aid of St. Sophia, whose wooden statue he carried with him, escaped across the Borysthenes with all the Cossacks at his tail. It is very good fun; but not equal to many of the others. Nor is theCarmen Lilliensequite to my taste. I should not have declared at once that it had come from Thackeray's hand, had I not known it.

But who could doubt theBouillabaisse? Who else could have written that? Who at the same moment could have been so merry and so melancholy,—could have gone so deep into the regrets of life, with words so appropriate to its jollities? I do not know how far my readers will agree with me that to read it always must be a fresh pleasure; but in order that they may agree with me, if they can, I will give it to them entire. If there be one whom it does not please, he will like nothing that Thackeray ever wrote in verse.

THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE.A street there is in Paris famous,For which no rhyme our language yields,Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is—The New Street of the Little Fields;And here's an inn, not rich and splendid,But still in comfortable case;The which in youth I oft attended,To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is,—A sort of soup, or broth, or brewOr hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes,That Greenwich never could outdo;Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace:All these you eat at Terré's tavern,In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis;And true philosophers, methinks,Who love all sorts of natural beauties,Should love good victuals and good drinks.And Cordelier or BenedictineMight gladly sure his lot embrace,Nor find a fast-day too afflictingWhich served him up a Bouillabaisse.I wonder if the house still there is?Yes, here the lamp is, as before;The smiling red-cheeked écaillère isStill opening oysters at the door.Is Terré still alive and able?I recollect his droll grimace;He'd come and smile before your table,And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse.We enter,—nothing's changed or older."How's Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?"The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder,—"Monsieur is dead this many a day.""It is the lot of saint and sinner;So honest Terré's run his race.""What will Monsieur require for dinner?""Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?""Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer,"Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il?""Tell me a good one." "That I can, sir:The chambertin with yellow seal.""So Terré's gone," I say, and sink inMy old accustom'd corner-place;"He's done with feasting and with drinking,With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse."My old accustomed corner here is,The table still is in the nook;Ah! vanish'd many a busy year isThis well-known chair since last I took.When first I saw ye, cari luoghi,I'd scarce a beard upon my face,And now a grizzled, grim old fogy,I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.Where are you, old companions trusty,Of early days here met to dine?Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty;I'll pledge them in the good old wine.The kind old voices and old facesMy memory can quick retrace;Around the board they take their places,And share the wine and Bouillabaisse.There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage;There's laughing Tom is laughing yet;There's brave Augustus drives his carriage;There's poor old Fred in theGazette;O'er James's head the grass is growing.Good Lord! the world has wagged apaceSince here we set the claret flowing,And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!I mind me of a time that's gone,When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting,In this same place,—but not alone.A fair young face was nestled near me,A dear, dear face looked fondly up,And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me!There's no one now to share my cup.* * * * *I drink it as the Fates ordain it.Come fill it, and have done with rhymes;Fill up the lonely glass, and drain itIn memory of dear old times.Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is;And sit you down and say your graceWith thankful heart, whate'er the meal is.Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse.

THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE.

A street there is in Paris famous,For which no rhyme our language yields,Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is—The New Street of the Little Fields;And here's an inn, not rich and splendid,But still in comfortable case;The which in youth I oft attended,To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is,—A sort of soup, or broth, or brewOr hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes,That Greenwich never could outdo;Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace:All these you eat at Terré's tavern,In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis;And true philosophers, methinks,Who love all sorts of natural beauties,Should love good victuals and good drinks.And Cordelier or BenedictineMight gladly sure his lot embrace,Nor find a fast-day too afflictingWhich served him up a Bouillabaisse.

I wonder if the house still there is?Yes, here the lamp is, as before;The smiling red-cheeked écaillère isStill opening oysters at the door.Is Terré still alive and able?I recollect his droll grimace;He'd come and smile before your table,And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse.

We enter,—nothing's changed or older."How's Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?"The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder,—"Monsieur is dead this many a day.""It is the lot of saint and sinner;So honest Terré's run his race.""What will Monsieur require for dinner?""Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?"

"Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer,"Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il?""Tell me a good one." "That I can, sir:The chambertin with yellow seal.""So Terré's gone," I say, and sink inMy old accustom'd corner-place;"He's done with feasting and with drinking,With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse."

My old accustomed corner here is,The table still is in the nook;Ah! vanish'd many a busy year isThis well-known chair since last I took.When first I saw ye, cari luoghi,I'd scarce a beard upon my face,And now a grizzled, grim old fogy,I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.

Where are you, old companions trusty,Of early days here met to dine?Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty;I'll pledge them in the good old wine.The kind old voices and old facesMy memory can quick retrace;Around the board they take their places,And share the wine and Bouillabaisse.

There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage;There's laughing Tom is laughing yet;There's brave Augustus drives his carriage;There's poor old Fred in theGazette;O'er James's head the grass is growing.Good Lord! the world has wagged apaceSince here we set the claret flowing,And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!I mind me of a time that's gone,When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting,In this same place,—but not alone.A fair young face was nestled near me,A dear, dear face looked fondly up,And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me!There's no one now to share my cup.* * * * *I drink it as the Fates ordain it.Come fill it, and have done with rhymes;Fill up the lonely glass, and drain itIn memory of dear old times.Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is;And sit you down and say your graceWith thankful heart, whate'er the meal is.Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse.

I am not disposed to say that Thackeray will hold a high place among English poets. He would have been the first to ridicule such an assumption made on his behalf. But I think that his verses will be more popular than those of many highly reputed poets, and that as years roll on they will gain rather than lose in public estimation.

FOOTNOTES:[7]Chair—i.e.Chairman.[8]I.e.The P. and O. Company.

FOOTNOTES:

[7]Chair—i.e.Chairman.

[8]I.e.The P. and O. Company.

A novel in style should be easy, lucid, and of course grammatical. The same may be said of any book; but that which is intended to recreate should be easily understood,—for which purpose lucid narration is an essential. In matter it should be moral and amusing. In manner it may be realistic, or sublime, or ludicrous;—or it may be all these if the author can combine them. As to Thackeray's performance in style and matter I will say something further on. His manner was mainly realistic, and I will therefore speak first of that mode of expression which was peculiarly his own.

Realism in style has not all the ease which seems to belong to it. It is the object of the author who affects it so to communicate with his reader that all his words shall seem to be natural to the occasion. We do not think the language of Dogberry natural, when he tells neighbour Seacole that "to write and read comes by nature." That is ludicrous. Nor is the language of Hamlet natural when he shows to his mother the portrait of his father;

See what a grace was seated on this brow;Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.

That is sublime. Constance is natural when she turns away from the Cardinal, declaring that

He talks to me that never had a son.

In one respect both the sublime and ludicrous are easier than the realistic. They are not required to be true. A man with an imagination and culture may feign either of them without knowing the ways of men. To be realistic you must know accurately that which you describe. How often do we find in novels that the author makes an attempt at realism and falls into a bathos of absurdity, because he cannot use appropriate language? "No human being ever spoke like that," we say to ourselves,—while we should not question the naturalness of the production, either in the grand or the ridiculous.

And yet in very truth the realistic must not be true,—but just so far removed from truth as to suit the erroneous idea of truth which the reader may be supposed to entertain. For were a novelist to narrate a conversation between two persons of fair but not high education, and to use the ill-arranged words and fragments of speech which are really common in such conversations, he would seem to have sunk to the ludicrous, and to be attributing to the interlocutors a mode of language much beneath them. Though in fact true, it would seem to be far from natural. But on the other hand, were he to put words grammatically correct into the mouths of his personages, and to round off and to complete the spoken sentences, the ordinary reader would instantly feel such a style to be stilted and unreal. This reader would not analyse it, but would in some dim but sufficiently critical manner be aware that his author was not providing him with a naturally spokendialogue. To produce the desired effect the narrator must go between the two. He must mount somewhat above the ordinary conversational powers of such persons as are to be represented,—lest he disgust. But he must by no means soar into correct phraseology,—lest he offend. The realistic,—by which we mean that which shall seem to be real,—lies between the two, and in reaching it the writer has not only to keep his proper distance on both sides, but has to maintain varying distances in accordance with the position, mode of life, and education of the speakers. Lady Castlewood inEsmondwould not have been properly made to speak with absolute precision; but she goes nearer to the mark than her more ignorant lord, the viscount; less near, however, than her better-educated kinsman, Henry Esmond. He, however, is not made to speak altogether by the card, or he would be unnatural. Nor would each of them speak always in the same strain, but they would alter their language according to their companion,—according even to the hour of the day. All this the reader unconsciously perceives, and will not think the language to be natural unless the proper variations be there.

In simple narrative the rule is the same as in dialogue, though it does not admit of the same palpable deviation from correct construction. The story of any incident, to be realistic, will admit neither of sesquipedalian grandeur nor of grotesque images. The one gives an idea of romance and the other of burlesque, to neither of which is truth supposed to appertain. We desire to soar frequently, and then we try romance. We desire to recreate ourselves with the easy and droll. Dulce est desipere in loco. Then we have recourse to burlesque. But in neither do we expect human nature.

I cannot but think that in the hands of the novelist the middle course is the most powerful. Much as we may delight in burlesque, we cannot claim for it the power of achieving great results. So much I think will be granted. For the sublime we look rather to poetry than to prose, and though I will give one or two instances just now in which it has been used with great effect in prose fiction, it does not come home to the heart, teaching a lesson, as does the realistic. The girl who reads is touched by Lucy Ashton, but she feels herself to be convinced of the facts as to Jeanie Deans, and asks herself whether she might not emulate them.

Now as to the realism of Thackeray, I must rather appeal to my readers than attempt to prove it by quotation. Whoever it is that speaks in his pages, does it not seem that such a person would certainly have used such words on such an occasion? If there be need of examination to learn whether it be so or not, let the reader study all that falls from the mouth of Lady Castlewood through the novel calledEsmond, or all that falls from the mouth of Beatrix. They are persons peculiarly situated,—noble women, but who have still lived much out of the world. The former is always conscious of a sorrow; the latter is always striving after an effect;—and both on this account are difficult of management. A period for the story has been chosen which is strange and unknown to us, and which has required a peculiar language. One would have said beforehand that whatever might be the charms of the book, it would not be natural. And yet the ear is never wounded by a tone that is false. It is not always the case that in novel reading the ear should be wounded because the words spoken are unnatural. Bulwer does not wound, though he never putsinto the mouth of any of his persons words such as would have been spoken. They are not expected from him. It is something else that he provides. From Thackeray they are expected,—and from many others. But Thackeray never disappoints. Whether it be a great duke, such as he who was to have married Beatrix, or a mean chaplain, such as Tusher, or Captain Steele the humorist, they talk,—not as they would have talked probably, of which I am no judge,—but as we feel that they might have talked. We find ourselves willing to take it as proved because it is there, which is the strongest possible evidence of the realistic capacity of the writer.

As to the sublime in novels, it is not to be supposed that any very high rank of sublimity is required to put such works within the pale of that definition. I allude to those in which an attempt is made to soar above the ordinary actions and ordinary language of life. We may take as an instanceThe Mysteries of Udolpho. That is intended to be sublime throughout. Even the writer never for a moment thought of descending to real life. She must have been untrue to her own idea of her own business had she done so. It is all stilted,—all of a certain altitude among the clouds. It has been in its time a popular book, and has had its world of readers. Those readers no doubt preferred the diluted romance of Mrs. Radcliff to the condensed realism of Fielding. At any rate they did not look for realism.Pelhammay be taken as another instance of the sublime, though there is so much in it that is of the world worldly, though an intentional fall to the ludicrous is often made in it. The personages talk in glittering dialogues, throwing about philosophy, science, and the classics, in a manner which is always suggestive and often amusing. The book isbrilliant with intellect. But no word is ever spoken as it would have been spoken;—no detail is ever narrated as it would have occurred. Bulwer no doubt regarded novels as romantic, and would have looked with contempt on any junction of realism and romance, though, in varying his work, he did not think it beneath him to vary his sublimity with the ludicrous. The sublime in novels is no doubt most effective when it breaks out, as though by some burst of nature, in the midst of a story true to life. "If," said Evan Maccombich, "the Saxon gentlemen are laughing because a poor man such as me thinks my life, or the life of six of my degree, is worth that of Vich Ian Vohr, it's like enough they may be very right; but if they laugh because they think I would not keep my word and come back to redeem him, I can tell them they ken neither the heart of a Hielandman nor the honour of a gentleman." That is sublime. And, again, when Balfour of Burley slaughters Bothwell, the death scene is sublime. "Die, bloodthirsty dog!" said Burley. "Die as thou hast lived! Die like the beasts that perish—hoping nothing, believing nothing!"——"And fearing nothing," said Bothwell. Horrible as is the picture, it is sublime. As is also that speech of Meg Merrilies, as she addresses Mr. Bertram, standing on the bank. "Ride your ways," said the gipsy; "ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram. This day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths; see if the fire in your ain parlour burn the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses; look if your ain rooftree stand the faster. Ye may stable your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh; see that the hare does not couch on the hearthstane at Ellangowan." That is romance, and reaches the veryheight of the sublime. That does not offend, impossible though it be that any old woman should have spoken such words, because it does in truth lift the reader up among the bright stars. It is thus that the sublime may be mingled with the realistic, if the writer has the power. Thackeray also rises in that way to a high pitch, though not in many instances. Romance does not often justify to him an absence of truth. The scene between Lady Castlewood and the Duke of Hamilton is one, when she explains to her child's suitor who Henry Esmond is. "My daughter may receive presents from the head of our house," says the lady, speaking up for her kinsman. "My daughter may thankfully take kindness from her father's, her mother's, her brother's dearest friend." The whole scene is of the same nature, and is evidence of Thackeray's capacity for the sublime. And again, when the same lady welcomes the same kinsman on his return from the wars, she rises as high. But as I have already quoted a part of the passage in the chapter on this novel, I will not repeat it here.

It may perhaps be said of the sublime in novels,—which I have endeavoured to describe as not being generally of a high order,—that it is apt to become cold, stilted, and unsatisfactory. What may be done by impossible castles among impossible mountains, peopled by impossible heroes and heroines, and fraught with impossible horrors,The Mysteries of Udolphohave shown us. But they require a patient reader, and one who can content himself with a long protracted and most unemotional excitement. The sublimity which is effected by sparkling speeches is better, if the speeches really have something in them beneath the sparkles. Those of Bulwer generally have. Those of his imitators are often without anything, thesparkles even hardly sparkling. At the best they fatigue; and a novel, if it fatigues, is unpardonable. Its only excuse is to be found in the amusement it affords. It should instruct also, no doubt, but it never will do so unless it hides its instruction and amuses. Scott understood all this, when he allowed himself only such sudden bursts as I have described. Even inThe Bride of Lammermoor, which I do not regard as among the best of his performances, as he soars high into the sublime, so does he descend low into the ludicrous.

In this latter division of pure fiction,—the burlesque, as it is commonly called, or the ludicrous,—Thackeray is quite as much at home as in the realistic, though, the vehicle being less powerful, he has achieved smaller results by it. Manifest as are the objects in his view when he wroteThe Hoggarty DiamondorThe Legend of the Rhine, they were less important and less evidently effected than those attempted byVanity FairandPendennis. Captain Shindy, the Snob, does not tell us so plainly what is not a gentleman as does Colonel Newcome what is. Nevertheless the ludicrous has, with Thackeray, been very powerful, and very delightful.

In trying to describe what is done by literature of this class, it is especially necessary to remember that different readers are affected in a different way. That which is one man's meat is another man's poison. In the sublime, when the really grand has been reached, it is the reader's own fault if he be not touched. We know that many are indifferent to the soliloquies of Hamlet, but we do not hesitate to declare to ourselves that they are so because they lack the power of appreciating grand language. We do not scruple to attribute to those who are indifferent some inferiority of intelligence. And in regardto the realistic, when the truth of a well-told story or life-like character does not come home, we think that then, too, there is deficiency in the critical ability. But there is nothing necessarily lacking to a man because he does not enjoyThe Heathen ChineeorThe Biglow Papers; and the man to whom these delights of American humour are leather and prunello may be of all the most enraptured by the wit of Sam Weller or the mock piety of Pecksniff. It is a matter of taste and not of intellect, as one man likes caviare after his dinner, while another prefers apple-pie; and the man himself cannot, or, as far as we can see, does not direct his own taste in the one matter more than in the other.

Therefore I cannot ask others to share with me the delight which I have in the various and peculiar expressions of the ludicrous which are common to Thackeray. Some considerable portion of it consists in bad spelling. We may say that Charles James Harrington Fitzroy Yellowplush, or C. FitzJeames De La Pluche, as he is afterwards called, would be nothing but for his "orthogwaphy so carefully inaccuwate." As I have before said, Mrs. Malaprop had seemed to have reached the height of this humour, and in having done so to have made any repetition unpalatable. But Thackeray's studied blundering is altogether different from that of Sheridan. Mrs. Malaprop uses her words in a delightfully wrong sense. Yellowplush would be a very intelligible, if not quite an accurate writer, had he not made for himself special forms of English words altogether new to the eye.

"My ma wrapped up my buth in a mistry. I may be illygitmit; I may have been changed at nus; but I've always had gen'l'm'nly tastes through life, and have no doubt that I come of a gen'l'm'nly origum." We cannotadmit that there is wit, or even humour, in bad spelling alone. Were it not that Yellowplush, with his bad spelling, had so much to say for himself, there would be nothing in it; but there is always a sting of satire directed against some real vice, or some growing vulgarity, which is made sharper by the absurdity of the language. InThe Diary of George IV.there are the following reflections on a certain correspondence; "Wooden you phansy, now, that the author of such a letter, instead of writun about pipple of tip-top quality, was describin' Vinegar Yard? Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin' to was a chased modist lady of honour and mother of a family?O trumpery! o morris!as Homer says. This is a higeous pictur of manners, such as I weap to think of, as every morl man must weap." We do not wonder that when he makes his "ajew" he should have been called up to be congratulated on the score of his literary performances by his master, before the Duke, and Lord Bagwig, and Dr. Larner, and "Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig." All that Yellowplush says or writes are among the pearls which Thackeray was continually scattering abroad.

But this of the distinguished footman was only one of the forms of the ludicrous which he was accustomed to use in the furtherance of some purpose which he had at heart. It was his practice to clothe things most revolting with an assumed grace and dignity, and to add to the weight of his condemnation by the astounding mendacity of the parody thus drawn. There was a grim humour in this which has been displeasing to some, as seeming to hold out to vice a hand which has appeared for too long a time to be friendly. As we are disposed to be not altogether sympathetic with a detective policeman who shall have spent a jolly night with a delinquent, for thesake of tracing home the suspected guilt to his late comrade, so are some disposed to be almost angry with our author, who seems to be too much at home with his rascals, and to live with them on familiar terms till we doubt whether he does not forget their rascality.Barry Lyndonis the strongest example we have of this style of the ludicrous, and the critics of whom I speak have thought that our friendly relations with Barry have been too genial, too apparently genuine, so that it might almost be doubtful whether during the narrative we might not, at this or the other crisis, be rather with him than against him. "After all," the reader might say, on coming to that passage in which Barry defends his trade as a gambler,—a passage which I have quoted in speaking of the novel,—"after all, this man is more hero than scoundrel;" so well is the burlesque humour maintained, so well does the scoundrel hide his own villany. I can easily understand that to some it should seem too long drawn out. To me it seems to be the perfection of humour,—and of philosophy. If such a one as Barry Lyndon, a man full of intellect, can be made thus to love and cherish his vice, and to believe in its beauty, how much more necessary is it to avoid the footsteps which lead to it? But, as I have said above, there is no standard by which to judge of the excellence of the ludicrous as there is of the sublime, and even the realistic.

No writer ever had a stronger proclivity towards parody than Thackeray; and we may, I think, confess that there is no form of literary drollery more dangerous. The parody will often mar the gem of which it coarsely reproduces the outward semblance. The word "damaged," used instead of "damask," has destroyed to my ear forever the music of one of the sweetest passages in Shakespeare. But it must be acknowledged of Thackeray that, fond as he is of this branch of humour, he has done little or no injury by his parodies. They run over with fun, but are so contrived that they do not lessen the flavour of the original. I have given in one of the preceding chapters a little set of verses of his own, calledThe Willow Tree, and his own parody on his own work. There the reader may see how effective a parody may be in destroying the sentiment of the piece parodied. But in dealing with other authors he has been grotesque without being severely critical, and has been very like, without making ugly or distasteful that which he has imitated. No one who has admiredConingsbywill admire it the less because ofCodlingsby. Nor will the undoubted romance ofEugene Arambe lessened in the estimation of any reader of novels by the well-told career ofGeorge de Barnwell. One may say that to laughIvanhoeout of face, or to lessen the glory of that immortal story, would be beyond the power of any farcical effect. Thackeray in hisRowena and Rebeccacertainly had no such purpose. Nothing ofIvanhoeis injured, nothing made less valuable than it was before, yet, of all prose parodies in the language, it is perhaps the most perfect. Every character is maintained, every incident has a taste of Scott. It has the twang ofIvanhoefrom beginning to end, and yet there is not a word in it by which the author ofIvanhoecould have been offended. But then there is the purpose beyond that of the mere parody. Prudish women have to be laughed at, and despotic kings, and parasite lords and bishops. The ludicrous alone is but poor fun; butwhen the ludicrous has a meaning, it can be very effective in the hands of such a master as this.

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