Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846

Or, by way of a change, what would you say to go down with your acquaintance, Lord Walter, to Melton? You ride well – that is, upon several horses, with one foot upon the crupper of the first, and the other upon the shoulder of the fourth. But a hunting-field is another matter. I think I see you attempting to assume a light and jaunty air in the saddle; your long towsy hair flowing gracefully over the collar of your spotless pink; and the nattiest of conical castors secured by a ribband upon the head which imagined the tale of Spavinhitch. You have not any very distinct idea of what is going to take place; but you resolve to demean yourself like a man, and cover your confusion with a cigar. The hounds are thrown into cover. There is a yelping and the scouring of many brushes among the furze; a red hairy creature bolts out close beside you, and, with a bray of insane triumph, you commence to canter after him, utterly regardless of the cries of your fellow-sportsmen, entreating you to hold hard. In a couple of minutes more, you are in the middle of the hounds, knocking out the brains of one, crushing the spine of another, and fracturing the legs of a third. A shout of anger rises behind; no matter – on you go. Accidents will happen in the best regulated hunting-fields – and what business had these stupid brutes to get under your horse's legs? Otherwise, you are undeniably a-head of the field; and won't you show those tip-top fellows how a serialist can go the pace? But your delusion is drawing to an end. There is a clattering of hoofs, and a resonant oath behind you – and smack over your devoted shoulders comes the avenging whip of the huntsman, frantic at the loss of his most favourite hounds, and execrating you for a clumsy tailor. "Serve him right, Jem! Give it him again!" cries the Master of the hounds – a very different person from your old friend the Master of the Ring – as the scarlet crowd rushes by; and again and again, with intensest anguish, you writhe beneath the thong wielded by the brawny groom – and, after sufficient chastisement, sneak home to anoint your aching back, and depart, ere the sportsmen return, for your own Paddingtonian domicile.

Now, Smith, are you not convinced that it would be the height of folly to expose yourself to any such unpleasant occurrences? To be sure you are; and yet there are some dozen of men, no better situated than yourself, who would barter their ears for the chance of being made such laughingstocks for life. The innate good sense and fine feeling of the upper classes, prevents these persons from assuming so extremely false and ridiculous a position, and yet this consideration is rewarded by the most foul and malignant abuse. It is high time that these gentlemen should be brought to their senses, and be taught the real value of themselves and of their writings. Personally they are objectionable and offensive – relatively they are bores – and, in a literary point of view, they have done much more to lower than to elevate the artistic standard of the age. Their affectation of philanthropy and maudlin sentiment is too shallow to deceive any one who is possessed of the ordinary intellect of a man; and in point of wit and humour, which is their stronghold, the best of them is far inferior to Paul de Kock, whose works are nearly monopolized for perusal by the flaneurs and the grisettes of Paris.

Take my advice then, and have nothing to say to the earnest and oneness-of-purpose men. They are not only weak but wicked; and they will lead you most lamentably astray. Let us now look a little into your style, which, after all, is a matter of some importance in a serial.

On the whole, I like it. It is nervous, terse, and epigrammatic – a little too high-flown at times; but I was fully prepared for that. What I admire most, however, is your fine feeling of humanity – the instinct, as it were, and dumb life which you manage to extract from inanimate objects as well as from articulately-speaking men. Your very furniture has a kind of automatonic life; you can make an old chest of drawers wink waggishly from the corner, and a boot-jack in your hands becomes a fellow of infinite fancy. This is all very pleasant and delightful; though I think, upon the whole, you give us a little too much of it, for I cannot fancy myself quite comfortable in a room with every article of the furniture maintaining a sort of espionage upon my doings. Then as to your antiquarianism you are perfect. Your description of "the old deserted stable, with the old rusty harness hanging upon the old decayed nails, so honey-combed, as it were, by the tooth of time, that you wondered how they possibly could support the weight; while across the span of an old discoloured stirrup, a great spider had thrown his web, and now lay waiting in the middle of it, a great hairy bag of venom, for the approach of some unlucky fly, like a usurer on the watch for a spendthrift," – that description, I say, almost brought tears to my eyes. The catalogue, also, which you give us of the decayed curry-combs all clogged with grease, the shankless besoms, the worm-eaten corn-chest, and all the other paraphernalia of the desolate stable, is as finely graphic as any thing which I ever remember to have read.

But your best scene is the opening one, in which you introduce us to the aërial dwelling of Estrella di Canterini, in Lambeth. I do not wish to flatter you, my dear fellow; but I hold it to be a perfect piece of composition, and I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing a very few sentences: —

"It was the kitten that began it, and not the cat. It isn't no use saying it was the cat, because I was there, and I saw it and know it; and if I don't know it, how should any body else be able to tell about it, if you please? So I say again it was the kitten that began it, and the way it all happened was this.

"There was a little bit, a small tiny string of blue worsted – no! I am wrong, for when I think again the string was pink – which was hanging down from a little ball that lay on the lap of a tall dark girl with large lustrous eyes, who was looking into the fire as intently as if she expected to see a salamander in the middle of it. Huggs, the old cat, was lying at her feet, coiled up with her tail under her, enjoying, to all appearance, a comfortable snooze: but she wasn't asleep, for all the time that she was pretending to shut her eyes, she was watching the movements of a smart little kitten, just six weeks old, who was pouncing upon, and then letting go, like an imaginary mouse, a little roll of paper, which, between ourselves, bore a strong resemblance to two or three others which occupied a more elevated position, being, in fact, placed in a festoon or sort of fancy-garland round the head of the dark girl who was so steadfastly gazing into the fire. But this sort of thing didn't last long; for the kitten, after making a violent pounce, shook its head and sneezed, as if it had been pricked by a pin, which was the case, and then cried mew, as much as to say, 'You nasty thing! if I had known that you were going to hurt me, I wouldn't have played with you so long; so go away, you greasy little rag!' And then the kitten put on a look of importance, as if its feelings had been injured in the nicest points, and then walked up demurely to Huggs, and began to pat her whiskers, as if it wanted, which it probably did, to tell her all about it. But Huggs didn't get up, or open her great green eyes, but lay still upon the rug, purring gently, as though she were dreaming that she had got into a dairy, and that there was nobody to interfere at all between her and the bowls of cream. So the smart little kitten gave another pat, and a harder one than the last, which might have roused Huggs, had it not observed at that moment the little pink string of worsted. Now the end of the little pink string reached down to within a foot of the floor, so that the smart little kitten could easily reach it; so the smart little kitten wagged its tail and stood up upon its hind-paws, and caught hold of the little pink string by the end, and gave it such a pull, that the worsted ball rolled off the girl's knee and fell upon the head of Huggs, who made believe to think that it was a rat, and got up and jumped after it, and the kitten ran too, and gave another mew, as much as to say, that the worsted was its own finding out, and that Huggs shouldn't have it at all. All this wasn't done without noise; so the tall girl looked round, and seeing her worsted ball roll away, and Huggs and the kitten after it, she said in a slightly foreign accent,

"'Worrit that Huggs!'

"All this while there was sitting at the other side of the fire, a young girl, a great deal younger than the other; in fact, a little, very little child, who was sucking a dried damson in her mouth, and looked as if she would have liked to have swallowed it, but didn't do it, for fear of the stone. Now Huggs was the particular pet of the little girl, who wouldn't have her abused on any account, and she said,

"''Twor'n't Huggs, aunt Strelly, 'twore the kitten!'

" 'Eliza Puddifoot!' replied the other, in a somewhat raucous and melo-dramatic tone – 'Eliza Puddifoot! I is perticklarly surprised, I is, that you comes for to offer to contradick me. I knows better what's what than you, and all I says is, that there 'ere Huggs goes packing out of the windor!'

"The child – she was a very little one – burst into a flood of tears."

Now, that is what I call fine writing, and no mistake. There is a breadth – a depth – a sort of chiaroscuro, about the picture which betrays the hand of a master, and shows how deeply you have studied in a school which has no equal in modern, and never had a parallel in former times.

Almost equal to this is your sketch of the soirée at Mr Grindlejerkin's, which is written with a close observance of character, and, at the same time, an ease and playfulness which cannot fail of attracting a large share of the popular regard. Your hero, Mr Spavinhitch, has distinguished himself so much by throwing a somerset through a blazing hoop, that at last he receives the honour of an invitation to the hospitalities of the Master of the Ring.

"I can tell you, that an uncommonly fine man Mr Grindlejerkin was, with a stout Roman nose, only a little warty, and black whiskers curling under his chin, and a smart little imperial that gave quite a cock to his countenance, and made him altogether look a good deal like a hero. He was dressed in bright bottle-green, was Mr Grindlejerkin – that is, in so far as regarded his coat, which was garnished with large silver buttons and a horse's head upon them: but his trousers were of a light-blue colour, a little faded or so, and creased, as if they had been sent out a good deal to the washing, and had come home without having been pressed carefully through the mangle. He had evidently been drinking, had Mr Grindlejerkin, for he leaned against the fireplace in a sort of vibratory manner, as if he were not very sure of his own equilibrium, and couldn't trust it. However, he did his best to welcome Silas, which he did with an air of patronising affability, as if he wished him to understand that he was not to be considered as letting himself down by inviting a voltigeur to his table.

"'Now, Mr Spavinhitch,' said Mr Grindlejerkin, 'glad to see you, sir, or any other rising member of the profession. May I perish of the string-halt, sir, if I do not consider you an eminent addition to the Ring! Your last vault through the hoops, sir, was extraordinary; upon my credentials, quite! It reminded me much of my late esteemed friend Goggletrumkins. Ah, what a man that was! Did you know Goggletrumkins, Mr Spavinhitch?'

"Silas modestly repudiated that honour.

"'Ah, sir, you should have known him!' replied the stately Master of the Ring. 'That was indeed a man, sir; the gem of the British arena. His Life-guardsman Shaw, sir, was one of the finest things in nature: quite statuesque, sir; it was enough to inspire a nation. You are, perhaps, not aware, sir, that he used to sit as a model for the Wellington statues?'

"'Indeed!' said Silas.

"'He did, sir,' continued Mr Grindlejerkin solemnly, 'and the boast of Astley's now lives in imperishable marble. But I forgot: you do not know my lady. Mrs Grindlejerkin, my cherub – Mr Spavinhitch, one of our most distinguished recruits.'

"Mrs Grindlejerkin was a tall lady, with black treacly hair, a good deal younger than her lord, to whom she had been only recently united. She was married off the stage, which she had ornamented since she was three years old, when she used to appear as a little fairy crawling out of paste-board tulips, and frighten, by the magic of her rod, some older imps in green, who used to shoulder their legs like muskets, and go through all sorts of strange diabolical manœuvres. Miss Clara Tiggs, such was her virgin name, then rose to the rank of the angels, and might be seen any evening flying across the stage with little gauze winglets fastened to her back, by aid of which it is not likely that she could have flown very far, if it had not been for the cross-wires and the cord attached to her waist. But she looked very pretty, did Clara Tiggs, as she fluttered from the side-wings like an exaggerated butterfly, and rained down white paper flowers upon the heads of imploring lovers. But she soon got too heavy for that business, and having no natural genius for tragedy, and being rather too splayfooted for the ballet, and too stiff-jointed for the hippodrome, she became one of those young ladies in white, who always walk before the queens in melodramatic spectacles, and who keep in pairs, and look like the most loving and affectionate creatures in the world, because they always are holding one another's hands. And it possibly might be this appearance of sisterly devotion which induced Mr Grindlejerkin to pay his addresses to Miss Clara Tiggs; for Miss Clara Tiggs never appeared in public except linked to Miss Emily Whax, another nice young lady, who was always dressed in white, and who carried around her neck a locket, which was supposed to contain the hair of a certain officer who always took a considerable number of tickets for her benefit. Such was Mrs Grindlejerkin, who now saluted Mr Spavinhitch with a pleasant smile.

"'Clara, my own dear love,' said Mr Grindlejerkin after a pause, 'can you tell me what we are to have for supper?'

"'La! Mr Grindlejerkin,' replied the lady, 'how should I know? Sassengers and pettitoes, I suppose. It's very odd,' continued she, addressing Silas – 'it's very odd, but Mr Grindlejerkin always does ask me what he is to have for supper!'

"Silas didn't think it was odd at all, for the same idea had just been floating through his mind; but as he did not think it would be right to say so, he merely smiled, whereupon Mrs Grindlejerkin, who was a good-natured body in the main, smiled too, and Mr Grindlejerkin began to smile, but checked himself, and didn't, because it might have been thought that he was letting down his dignity. So he contented himself with ringing the bell, and directed the servant-girl who answered it, rather ferociously, to bring him a tumbler of rum-and-water.

"'Ha! Bingo, my buck, how are you?' cried the Master of the Ring to the principal clown, who now entered the apartment, and who, being a personage of much consideration and importance in the theatrical circles, might be addressed with any kind of familiarity without a compromise of official reserve. 'How are ye, Bingo? Well and herty, eh? Won't you take a drop of summat?'

"'I will,' replied the clown in a melancholy voice, well corresponding to his features, which, when the paint was washed off, were haggard and malagugrious in the extreme. 'I will; but I am not well. Spasms in the heart, kidneys, merry-thought, and liver. A silent sorrow here. Age brings care. I thank you. Stop. I like it stiff.'

"'That's my rum 'un!' said Mr Grindlejerkin. 'Drown dull care in Jamaikey. But here is the Signora Estrella. Madame, you are most welcome!'

"Silas felt the blood rise to his temples. And so at last he could meet her, the lady of his heart, the bright star of his boyish existence, not in the feverish whirl of the arena, beneath the glare of gas, surrounded by clouds of sawdust and the gazing eyes of thousands, but in the calm sanctuary of private life, where, at least if he could find the courage, he might pour forth the incense of his soul, and tell her how madly, how desolatingly he had begun to love her – no, not begun, for it seemed to him as if he had loved her long before he ever saw her: as if the love of her were something implanted in his bosom before yet he knew what it was to undergo the agonies of teething; long before, like a roasting oyster, he lay in his silken cradle, and squared with tiny and ineffectual fists at the approaching phantoms of time, existence, and futurity. It seemed to him as though the doll, with which, when a very little child, he had played, had just the same dark lustrous eyes, with something bead-like and mysterious in their expression, which lent such an inexpressible fascination to the countenance of the beautiful Canterini. That doll! he had fondled it a thousand times in his baby arms: had called it his duck, his dolly, his wifikin, and numerous other terms of childish prattle and endearment: had grown jealous of it, because, when his little brother kissed it, it did not cry out or show any symptoms of anger, and so, in a mad moment of rage and remorse, he had struck the waxen features against a mantelpiece, and shivered them into innumerable fragments. What would he not have given at that moment to have recalled the doll! But it could not be. The fragments had been long, long ago swept into the dust-hole of oblivion, and though they might afterwards have been carried out and scattered over the fresh green fields, where there are trees, and cows, and little singing-birds, and flowers, they could not be – oh no, never – reunited! But the lady, the Signora! no rude hand had marred the wax of that countenance; for though very, very pale, there still lingered beneath her eyes a touch of the enchanting carmine.

"'The Signora,' said Mr Bingo. 'Fine woman. Grass though. Decidedly grass. All flesh is, you know.' And with this remark the mimic resumed his tumbler.

"The Signora turned her dark lustrous eyes upon Silas, and instantly encountered his ardent and devoted gaze. She did not shrink from it; true love never does, for it is always bold if not happy; but she grew a shade paler as she accepted that involuntary homage, and, with a graceful wave of her hand, she sunk upon a calico sofa.

"'The sassengers is dished!' said the pudding-faced servant-maid; and the whole party, now increased by the addition of Mr Jonas Fitzjunk, who did the nautical heroes, and Whang Gobretsjee Jeehohupsejee, the Brahmin conjurer, who talked English with a strong Aberdeen accent, besides one or two other notables, adjourned to the supper-room.

"'Signora, sassenger?' said Mr Grindlejerkin.

"'If you pleases; underdone and graveyless,' replied the beautiful foreigner.

"'Oh, that I were that sausage, that so I might touch those ripe and tempting lips!' thought Silas, as he reached across the Brahmin for the pickles.

"'Can the buddy no tak' a care!' cried Jeehohupsejee; 'fat's he gauen to dee wi' the wee joug?'

"'Hush, conjurer!' cried Bingo. 'Eat. Swallow. That's your sort. Life is short. Victuals become cold.'

"'Mr Grindlejerkin!' screamed the helpmate of that gentleman suddenly from the lower end of the table. 'Mr Grindlejerkin! I wish you would come here and stop Mr Fitzjunk from winking at me!'

"'Mr Fitzjunk!' thundered the Master of the Ring, 'do you know, sir, that that lady has the honour to be my wife? What do you mean by this conduct, sir? How dare you wink?'

"'Avast there, messmate!' said Fitzjunk, who always spoke as if he were in command of a Battersea steamer. 'Avast there! None of your fresh-water and loblolly-boy terms, if you please. Shiver my binnacle, if things haven't come to a pretty pass, when an old British sailor can't throw out a signal of distress to one of the prettiest craft that ever showed her sky-scrapers where Neptune's billows roll!'

"'Oh, Mr Fitzjunk! but you did wink at me!' said Mrs Grindlejerkin, considerably mollified by the compliment.

"'I knows I did,' replied the representative of the British navy. 'The more by token, as how I ha'n't got nothing here to stow away into my locker; so I shut up one deadlight twice, and burned a blue fire for a cargo of pettitoes to heave to.'

"'Was that all, sir?' said Mr Grindlejerkin, still rather sternly.

"'Ay, ay, sir!' replied the tar.

"'Then I shall be happy to drown all unkindness in a pot of porter, sir.'

"'Good!' said Mr Bingo, 'Right. Harmony preserved. Glad to join you. Cup of existence. Gall at bottom.'

"'I beg your pardink, sir,' said the Signora looking full at Silas, who was seated exactly opposite – 'I beg your pardink, sir, but vos you pleased to vish anythink?'

"'No, lady!' replied Silas blushing scarlet. 'No, lady, not I – That is – '

"'O, very vell!' observed the Signora; 'it don't much sicknify; only I thought you might vant somethink, 'cos you vos a treadin' on my toes!'"

I shall not, my dear Smith, pursue this delightful scene any further. It is enough to substantiate your claim – and I am sure the public will coincide with me in this opinion – to a very high place amongst the domestic and sentimental writers of the age. You have, and I think most wisely, undertaken to frame a new code of grammar and of construction for yourself; and the light and airy effect of this happy innovation is conspicuous not only in every page, but in almost every sentence of your work. There is no slipslop here – only a fine, manly disregard of syntax, which is infinitely attractive; and I cannot doubt that you are destined to become the founder of a far higher and more enduring school of composition, than that which was approved of and employed by the fathers of our English literature.

You work will be translated, Smith, into French and German, and other European languages. I am sincerely glad of it. It is supposed abroad that a popular author must depict both broadly and minutely the manners of his particular nation – that his sketches of character have reference not only to individuals, but to the idiosyncrasy of the country in which he dwells. Your works, therefore, will be received in the saloons of Paris and Vienna – it may be of St Petersburg – as conveying accurate pictures of our everyday English life; and I need hardly remark how much that impression must tend to elevate our national character in the eyes of an intelligent foreigner. Labouring under old and absurd prejudices, he perhaps at present believes that we are a sober, unmercurial people, given to domestic habits, to the accumulation of wealth, and to our own internal improvements. It is reserved for you, Smith, to couch his visionary eye. You will convince him that a great part of our existence is spent about the doors of theatres, in tap-rooms, pot-houses, and other haunts, which I need not stay to particularize. You will prove to him that the British constitution rests upon no sure foundation, and that it is based upon injustice and tyranny. Above all, he will learn from you the true tone which pervades society, and the altered style of conversation and morals which is universally current among us. In minor things, he will discover, what few authors have taken pains to show, the excessive fondness of our nation for a pure Saxon nomenclature. He will learn that such names as Seymour, and Howard, and Percy – nay, even our old familiars, Jones and Robinson – are altogether proscribed among us, and that a new race has sprung up in their stead, rejoicing in the euphonious appellations of Tox and Wox, Whibble, Toozle, Whopper, Sniggleshaw, Guzzlerit, Gingerthorpe, Mugswitch, Smungle, Yelkins, Fizgig, Parksnap, Grubsby, Shoutowker, Hogswash, and Quiltirogus. He will also learn that our magistrates, unlike the starched official dignitaries of France, are not ashamed to partake, in the public streets, of tripe with a common workman – and a hundred other little particulars, which throw a vast light into the chinks and crevices of our social system.

I therefore, Smith, have the highest satisfaction in greeting you, not only as an accomplished author, but as a great national benefactor. Go on, my dear fellow, steadfastly and cheerfully, as you have begun. The glories of our country were all very well in their way, but the subject is a hackneyed one, and it is scarcely worth while to revive it. Be it yours to chronicle the weaknesses and peculiarities of that society which you frequent – no man can do it better. Draw on for ever with the same felicitous pencil. Do not fear to repeat yourself over and over again; to indulge in the same style of one-sided caricature; and to harp upon the same string of pathos so long as it will vibrate pleasantly to the public ear. What we want, after all, is sale, and I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Use these hints as freely as you please, in the composition of that part of Silas Spavinhitch which is not yet completed; and be assured that I have offered them not in an arrogant spirit, but, as some of our friends would say, with an earnest tendency and a serious oneness of purpose. Good-by, my dear Smith! It is a positive pain to me to break off this letter, but I must conclude. Adieu! and pray, for all our sakes and your own, take care of yourself.