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stairs, laughing to find themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ton were seated in a little drawing-room, listening to the professional singers, who were sing ing according to their wont, and as if they wished to blow the windows down. And the day after there appeared, among the fashionable reunions in the Morning Post," a paragraph to the following effect: "Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a select party at dinner at their house in May Fair. Their Excellencies the Prince and Princess of Peterwasachin, II. E. Papoosh Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador (attended by Kibob Bey. dragoman of the mission), the Marquess of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Mr. Pitt and Lady Jane Crawley, Mr. Wag, etc. After dinner Mrs. Crawley had an assembly, which was attended by the Duchess (Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la Gruyère, Marchioness of Cheshire, Marchese Aléssandro Strachino, Comte de Brie, Baron Schapzugar, Chevalier Tasti, Countess of Slingstone, and Lady F. Macadam, MajorGeneral and Lady G. Macbeth, and (2) Misses Macbeth, Viscount Paddington, Sir Horace Fogey, Hon. Sands Bedwin, Bobbachy Bahawder," and an etc., which the reader may fill at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small type.

How the Crawleys got the money which was spent upon the entertainments with which they treated the polite world was a mystery which gave rise to some conversation at the time, and probably added zest to these little festivities. Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance; if he did, Becky's power over the baronet must have been extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly changed in his advanced age. Other parties hinted that it was Becky's habit to levy contributions on all her husband's friends: going to this one in tears with an account that there was an execution in the house: falling on her knees to that one, and declaring that the whole family must go to gaol, or commit suicide, unless such and such a bill could be paid. Lord Southdown, it was said, had been induced to give many hundreds through these pathetic representations. Young Feltham, of the -th Dragoons (and son of the firm of Tiler and Feltham, hatters and army accoutrement makers), and whom the Crawleys introduced into fashionable life, was also cited as one of Becky's victims in the pecuniary way. People declared that she got money from various simply disposed persons, under pretence of getting them confidential appointments under Government. Who knows what stories were or were not told of our dear and innocent friend? Certain it is, that if she had had all the money

which she was said to have begged or borrowed, or stolen, she might have capitalized, and been honest for life, whereas-but this is advancing matters.

The truth is, that by economy and good management-by a sparing use of ready money, and by paying scarcely anybody— people can manage, for a time at least, to make a great show with very little means: and it is our belief that Becky's muchtalked-of parties, which were not, after all was said, very numerous, cost this lady very little more than the candles which lighted the walls. Stillbrook and Queen's Crawley supplied her with game and fruit in abundance. Lord Steyne's cellars were at her disposal, and that excellent nobleman's famous cook presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's order the rarest delicacies from their own. I protest it is quite shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature, as people of her time abuse Becky, and I warn the public against believing onetenth of the stories against her. If every person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and cannot pay,-if we are to be peering into everybody's private life, speculating upon their income, and cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure,-why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be. Every man's hand would be against his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done away with. We should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another. Our houses would become caverns: and we should go in rags because we cared for nobody. Rents would go down. Parties wouldn't be given any more. All the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax-lights, comesti bles, rouge, crinoline petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses,-all the delights of life, I say, would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly principles, and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhung,-but do we wish to hang him therefore? No; we shake hands when we meet. If his cook is good, we forgive him, and go and dine with him; and we expect he will do the same by us. Thus trade flourishes-civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared it. Vanity Fair.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

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Fountain Court, with their hydraulic apparatus, but one never heard of a bencher disporting in the fountain; and can't but think how many a counsel learned in the law of old days might have benefited by the pump.

Nevertheless, those venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag and the Winged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom, which men always remember with pleasure. I don't know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, and says,

mused upon Lyttleton,-here Chitty toiled,

THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE. Colleges, schools, and inns of court still have some respect for antiquity, and maintain a great number of the customs and institutions, of our ancestors, with which those persons who do not particularly regard their forefathers, or perhaps are not very well acquainted with them, have long since done away. A well-ordained workhouse or prison is much better provided with the appliances of health, comfort, and cleanliness, than a respectable Foundation School, a venerable College, or a learned Inn. In the latter place of residence men are contented to sleep in dingy closets, and to pay for the sit-"Yonder Eldon lived,―upon this site Coke ting-room and the cupboard, which is their dormitory, the price of a good villa and garden in the suburbs, or of a roomy house in the neglected squares of the town. The poorest mechanic in Spitalfields has a cistern and an unbounded supply of water at his command; but the gentlemen of the inns of court, and the gentlemen of the universities, have their supply of this cosmetic fetched in jugs by laundresses and bedmakers, and live in abodes which were erected long before the custom of cleanliness and decency obtained among us. There are individuals still alive who sneer at the people and speak of them with epithets of scorn. Gentlemen, there can be but little doubt that your ancestors were the Great Unwashed and in the Temple especially, it is pretty certain, that, only under the greatest difficulties and restrictions, the virtue which has been pronounced to be next to godliness could have been practised at all.

Old Grump, of the Norfolk Circuit, who had lived for more than thirty years in the chambers under those occupied by Warrington and Pendennis, and who used to be awakened by the roaring of the shower-baths which those gentlemen had erected in their apartments, a part of the contents of which occasionally trickled through the roof into Mr. Grump's room,-declared that the practice was absurd, new-fangled, dandyfied folly, and daily cursed the laundress who slopped the staircase by which he had to pass. Grump, now much more than half a century old, had indeed never used the luxury in question. He had done without water very well, and so had our fathers before him. Of all those knights and baronets, lords and gentlemen, bearing arms, whose escutcheons are painted upon the walls of the famous hall of the Upper Temple, was there no philanthropist good-natured enough to devise a set of Hummums for the benefit of the lawyers, his fellows and successors. The Temple historian makes no mention of such a scheme. There is Pump Court and

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here Barnwell and Alderson joined in their famous labours,—here Byles composed his great work upon bills, and Smith compiled his immortal leading cases,-here Gustavus still toils, with Solomon to aid him :" but the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, or peopled by their creations as real to us at this day as the authors whose children they were,-and Sir Roger de Cov erly walking in the Temple Garden, and dis coursing with Mr. Spectator about the beau ties in hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass, is just as lively a figure to me as old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels on their way to Dr. Goldsmith's chambers in Brick Court; or IIarry Fielding, with inked ruffles and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at midnight for the Covent Garden Journal, while the printer's boy is asleep in the passage.

If we could but get the history of a single day as it passed in any one of those fourstoried houses in the dingy court where our friends Pen and Warrington dwelt, some Temple Asmodeus might furnish us with a queer volume. There may be a great parliamentary counsel on the ground floor, who drives up to Belgravia at dinner-time, when his clerk, too, becomes a gentleman, and goes away to entertain his friends, and to take his pleasure. But a short time since he was hungry and briefless in some garret of the Inn; lived by stealthy literature; hoped, and waited, and sickened, and no clients came; exhausted his own means and his friends' kindness; had to remonstrate humbly with duns, and to implore the kindness of poor creditors. Ruin seemed to be staring him in the face, when, behold, a turn of the wheel of fortune, and the lucky wretch in possession of one of those prodigious prizes which are sometimes drawn in the great lottery of the Bar. Many a better lawyer than himself does not make a fifth

using his time best. The one could afford time to think, and the other never could. The one could have sympathies, and do kindnesses; and the other must needs be always selfish. He could not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or admire a work of genius, or kindle at the sight of beauty or the song of a sweet bird,—he had no time, and no eyes for anything but his law-books. All was dark outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that was doomed to perdition. Pendennis, Chap. xxix.

CHARLES DICKENS,

born at Landport, Portsmouth, England, 1812, after a short experience as an attor ney's clerk, became a reporter for the daily press of London, and commenced his literary

part of the income of his clerk, who a few months since could scarcely get credit for blacking for his master's unpaid boots. On the first floor, perhaps, you will have a venerable man whose name is famous, who has lived for half a century in the Inn, whose brains are full of books, and whose shelves are stored with classical and legal lore. He has lived alone all these fifty years, alone and for himself, amassing learning, and com- | piling a fortune. He comes home now at night only from the club, where he has been dining freely, to the lonely chambers where he lives a godless old recluse. When he dies, his Inn will erect a tablet to his honour, and his heirs burn a part of his library. Would you like to have such a prospect for your old age, to store up learning and money and end so? But we must not linger too long by Mr. Doomsday's door. Worthy Mr. Grump lives over him, who is also an ancient inhabitant of the Inn, and who when Doomsday comes home to read Catullus, is sitting down with three steady seniors of his standing, to a steady rubber at whist, after a dinner at which they have consumed their three steady bottles of Port. You may see the old boys asleep at the Temple Church of a Sunday. Attorneys seldom trouble them, and they have small fortunes of their own. On the other side of the third land-career by his Sketches of Life and Characing, where Pen and Warrington live, till long after midnight sits Mr. Paley, who took the highest honours, and who is a fellow of his college, who will sit and read and note cases until two o'clock in the morning; who will rise at seven and be at the pleader's chambers as soon as they are open, where he will work until an hour before dinner-man & Hall, 1873, 30 vols. p. 8vo, with 546, time; who will come home from Hall and read and note cases again until dawn next day, when perhaps Mr. Arthur Pendennis and his friend Mr. Warrington are returning from some of their wild expeditions. How differently employed Mr. Paley has been! He has not been throwing himself away: he has only been bringing a great intellect laboriously down to the comprehension of a mean subject, and in his fierce grasp of that, resolutely excluding from his mind all higher thoughts, all better things, all the wisdom of philosophers and historians, all the thoughts of poets; all wit, fancy, reflexion, art, love, truth altogether, so that he may master that enormous legend of the law, which he proposes to gain his livelihood by expounding. Warrington and Paley had been competitors for university honours in former days, and had run each other hard; and everybody said now that the former was wasting his time and energies, whilst all people praised Paley for his industry. There may be doubts, however, as to which was

ter, which first appeared in The Morning Chronicle, and were published collectively as Sketches by Poz, London, 1836, 2 vols. After a literary career of great prosperity (visiting the United States in 1841 and in 1867), he died suddenly in 1870.

Works: Library edition, London, Chap

the original, illustrations: vols. i., ii., Pickwick Papers; iii., iv., Nicholas Nickleby; v., vi., Martin Chuzzlewit; vii., viii., Old Curiosity Shop, and Reprinted Pieces; ix., x., Barnaby Rudge, and Hard Times; xi., xii., Bleak House; xiii., xiv., Little Dorrit; xv., xvi, Dombey and Son; xvii., xviii., David Copperfield; xix., xx., Our Mutual Friend; xxi., Sketches by Boz; xxii., Oliver Twist; xxiii., Christmas Books; xxiv., A Tale of Two Cities; xxv., Great Expectations; xxvi., Pictures from Italy, and American Notes; xxvii., Uncommercial Traveller; xxviii., Child's History of England; xxix., Edwin Drood, and Miscellanies; xxx., Christmas Stories, from "Household Words," etc. Chapman & Hall also issue an Illustrated Library edition in 30 vols, demy 8vo, 187476, and a Household edition, in cr. 4to volumes. There is also a Charles Dickens" edition, London, 21 vols. in 16, p. 8vo.

Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston, publish an Illustrated Library edition, with Introductions, Biographical and Historical, by

CHARLES DICKENS.

E. P. Whipple, 29 vols. cr. Svo; a new Household edition, illustrated, 56 vols. 16mo; a Riverside edition, 28 vols. cr. 8vo; a Globe edition, 15 vols. 12no; and a Large Paper edition (edition de luxe), 100 sets only, 55 vols. 8vo, $275. D. Appleton & Co., New York, published a Household edition (completed in 1878), 19 vols. bound in 8 vols. square 8vo; Harper & Brothers, New York. Household edition in 16 vols. 8vo; and Peterson & Brothers, of Philadelphia, several editions.

To either of these editions should be ad

ded, Dickens Dictionary: A Key to the Characters and Principal Incidents in the Works of Charles Dickens, etc., Boston, Houghton, Osgood & Co., 12mo, pp. 590, and A Cyclopædia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens, Compiled and Alphabetically Arranged by F. G. De Fontaine, New York, E. J. Hale & Son, 1873, r. 8vo, pp. 564. See also Dickens's Life and Speeches, Lond.. r. 16mo. Dickens was the first editor of The Daily News, established by him Jan. 1, 1846, and originated and edited Household Words, 1850-59, and All the Year Round, from April, 1859, until his

death.

"Dickens as a novelist and prose poet is to be classed in the front rank of the noble company to

which he belongs. He has revived the novel of genuine practical life, as it existed in the works of Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith; but at the same time has given to his materials an individual colouring and expression peculiarly his own. His characters, like those of his great exemplars, constitute a world of their own, whose truth to nature every reader instinctively recognizes in connection

with their truth to Dickens. . . . .. Dickens's eye for the forms of things is as accurate as Fielding's, and his range of vision more extended; but he does not probe so profoundly into the heart of what he sees, and he is more led away from the simplicity of truth by a tricksy spirit of fantastic exaggeration. Mentally he is indisputably below Fielding; but in tenderness, in pathos, in that comprehensive ness of sympathy which springs from a sense of brotherhood with mankind, he is indisputably above him."-E. P.WHIPPLE: N. Amer. Rev., Ixix.

392-393, Oct. 1849.

"In the next place, the good characters of Mr.

Dickens's novels do not seem to have a wholesome moral tendency. The reason is, that many of them -all the author's favourites-exhibit an excellence flowing from constitution and temperament, and not from the influence of moral or religious motive. They act from impulse, not from principle. They present no struggle of contending passions; they are instinctively incapable of evil; they are, therefore, not constituted like other hu

man beings; and do not feel the force of temptation as it assails our less perfect breasts. It is this that makes them unreal,

'Faultless monsters, that the world ne'er saw.' This is the true meaning of the simple heart,' which Mr. Dickens so perpetually eulogizes.

In

493

deed they often degenerate into simpletons, sometimes into mere idiots. . . . Another error is the undue prominence given to good temper and kindother virtues, and an atonement for the want of ness, which are constantly made substitutes for all them; while a defect in these good qualities is the signal for instant condemnation and the charge of hypocrisy. It is unfortunate, also, that Mr. Dickens so frequently represents persons with pretensions to virtue as mere rogues and hypocrites, and never depicts any whose station as clergymen, or reputation for piety, is consistently adorned and verified."-North British Rev., vol. iv.

See also his Life by John Forster, Lond., 1872-74, 3 vols. 8vo, 15th edit., 1875, and 1875, 2 vols. demy 8vo, and Forster's Life of W. S. Landor; Life by R. S. Mackenzie, D.C.L., 1870; Story of his Life, by Theodore Taylor; Sketch of Dickens, by G. A. Sala; George Brimley's Essays; Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists; Masson's Novelists and their Styles; Buchanan's Master Spirits; Horne's New Spirit of the Age; Fields's Yesterdays with Authors (an excellent book); Selections from the Correspondence of the Late Macvey Napier, Esq., Lond., 1879, 8vo; (London) Quart. Rev., Oct. 1837 Edin. Rev., Oct. 1838, June, 1839, and March, 1843; Blackw. Mag., April, 1855; Brit. Quart. Rev., July, 1862; Westminster Rev., July and Oct. 1864, and April, 1865; Atlantic Mon., May, 1867; Contemp. Rev., Feb. 1869 (by George Stott).

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MR. PECKSNIFF.

Mr. Pecksniff had clearly not expected them for hours to come; for he was surrounded by open books, and was glancing from volume to volume, with a black-lead pencil in his mouth, and a pair of compasses in his hand, at a vast number of mathematical diagrams, of such extraordinary shapes Neither had Miss Charity expected them, that they looked like designs for fireworks. for she was busied, with a capacious wicker basket before her, in making impracticable nightcaps for the poor. Neither had Miss Mercy expected them, for she was sitting upon her stool, tying on the-oh, good gracious!-the petticoat of a large doll that she was dressing for a neighbour's child; really, quite a grown-up doll, which made it more confusing: and had its little bonnet dangling by the ribbon from one of her fair curls, to which she had fastened it, lest it should be lost or sat upon. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to conceive a family so thoroughly taken by surprise as the Pecksniffs were on this occasion.

"Bless my life!" said Mr. Pecksniff, look ing up, and gradually exchanging his abstracted face for one of joyful recognition. Here already! Martin, my dear boy, I am delighted to welcome you to my poor house!"

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With this kind greeting, Mr. Pecksniff fairly took him to his arms, and patted him several times upon the back with his right hand the while, as if to express that his feelings during the embrace were too much for

utterance.

"But here," he said, recovering, "are my daughters, Martin: my two only children, whom (if you ever saw them) you have not beheld-ah, these sad family divisions!since you were infants together. Nay, my dears, why blush at being detected in your every-day pursuits? We had prepared to give you the reception of a visitor, Martin, in our little room of state," said Mr. Pecksniff, smiling, "but I like this better,-I like this better!"

Oh, blessed star of Innocence, wherever you may be, how did you glitter in your home of ether, when the two Miss Pecksniffs put forth each her lily hand, and gave the same, with mantling cheeks, to Martin! How did you twinkle, as if fluttering with sympathy, when Mercy, reminded of the bonnet in her hair, hid her fair face and turned her head aside; the while her gentle sister plucked it out, and smote her, with a sister's soft reproof, upon her buxom shoulder!

"And how," said Mr. Pecksniff, turning round after the contemplation of these passages, and taking Mr. Pinch in a friendly manner by the elbow, "how has our friend here used you, Martin ?"

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'Very well, indeed, sir. We are on the best terms, I assure you."

"Old Tom Pinch!" said Mr. Pecksniff, looking on him with affectionate sadness. "Ah! It seems but yesterday that Thomas was a boy, fresh from a scholastic course. Yet years have passed, I think, since Thomas Pinch and I first walked the world together!"

Mr. Pinch could say nothing. He was too much moved. But he pressed his master's hand, and tried to thank him.

"You'll bear us company, Tom Pinch ?** Ah, cheerfully, though it had been to death, would Tom have followed him glad to lay down his life for such a man!

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This," said Mr. Pecksniff, opening the door of an opposite parlour, "is the little room of state I mentioned to you. My girls have pride in it, Martin! This," opening another door, is the little chamber in which my works (slight things at best) have been concocted. Portrait of myself, by Spiller. Bust by Spoker. The latter is considered a good likeness. I seem to recognize something about the left-hand corner of the nose, myself."

Martin thought it was very like. but scarcely intellectual enough. Mr. Pecksniff observed that the same fault had been found with it before. It was remarkable it should have struck his young relation too. He was glad to see he had an eye for art.

"Various books, you observe," said Mr. Pecksniff, waving his hand towards the wall, "connected with our pursuit. I have scribbled myself, but have not yet published. Be careful how you come up-stairs. This," opening another door, "is my chamber. I read here when the family suppose I have retired to rest. Sometimes I injure my health, rather more than I can quite justify to myself by doing so; but art is long, and time is short. Every facility you see for jotting down crude notions, even here."

These latter words were explained by his pointing to a small round table, on which were a lamp, divers sheets of paper, a piece of India rubber, and a case of instruments: all put ready, in case an architectural idea should come into Mr. Pecksniff's head in the night; in which event he would instantly leap out of bed, and fix it for ever.

Mr. Pecksniff opened another door on the same floor, and shut it again, all at once, as if it were a Blue Chamber. But before he had well done so, he looked smilingly around, and said, "Why not?"

"And Thomas Pinch and I," said Mr. Martin couldn't say why not, because he Pecksniff, in a deeper voice, "will walk it didn't know anything at all about it. So yet, in mutual faithfulness and friendship. Mr. Pecksniff answered himself, by throwAnd if it comes to pass that either of us being open the door, and saying: run over, in any of those busy crossings which divide the streets of life, the other will convey him to the hospital in Hope, and sit beside his bed in Bounty! Well, well, well!" he added in a happier tone, as he shook Mr. Pinch's elbow, hard. "No more of this! Martin, my dear friend, that you may be at home within these walls, let me show you how we live, and where. Come!"

With that he took up a lighted candle, and, attended by his young relative, prepared to leave the room. At the door he stopped.

"My daughters' room. A poor first floor to us, but a bower to them. Very neat. Very airy. Plants you observe; hyacinths; books again; birds." These birds, by the bye, comprise in all one staggering old sparrow without a tail, which had been borrowed expressly from the kitchen. "Such trifles as girls love are here. Nothing more. Those who seek heartless splendour, would seek here in vain."

With that he led them to the floor above. "This," said Mr. Pecksniff, throwing wide the door of the memorable two-pair

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