read the old authors, he emulates them;|mirth without matice, full of cracks and he steps into the footprints of their muses.jokes, that burn like everlasting candles in VOL. XI. No. ÏV. 28 This eminent writer was but little known WHO has not heard of Douglas Jerrold? | He has got the true trick of the old craft; Who has not seen the touching drama of he is every inch a classic. the "Rent Day," that noble interpretation of Wilkie's picture? And who has not to his countrymen before the year 1832, laughed a hundred times over those most when the domestic drama of the "Rent admirable letters, which he wrote under the Day" came out, and took the whole city pleasant name of Punch, dealing out to all by storm. He had already produced his England, in the person of his son, the "Black-eyed Susan," a beautiful piece; soundest admonitions, with all the jocund but the thousands of honest gazers who saw hilarity of Falstaff? What depth of ob- it performed at a minor, and most fervently servation there is lurking beneath those fa- applauded it, never thought of the author cetious remarks! What keen sagacity and they were satisfied with being pleased. So wisdom in that quiet irony! What point slowly does a man even of the first class in that humor! Alack! how does he con- | make his way to public favor. Nay, even trive it? In this age of excitement, tur- the "Rent Day," plainly stamped as it moil, and confusion, when other people was with the lineaments of a forcible mind, hedge, jostle, knock against each other, and nobly and justly directed, did not afford its every man tears his way along this bustling author that extensive reputation which he world as best he can, without snatching a deserved. Certainly it gave Jerrold the moment of leisure to husband his remarks, esteem of the thinking and inquiring, and if he make any, his mind at least has been won golden opinions from those of his proable to settle his thoughts down upon the fession; but his name did not yet become manners and spirit of the age, and to seize a household word at the family hearths of them with the perceptions of a true master. his countrymen. His character was growMoreover, he is a living proof that the old ing; but large reputations are slow in comgenius of the land, though torpid, is not ing to maturity, nor was it his fortune to extinct, for he writes with the Saxon pith of acquire his present universal fame, till he yore, and with Saxon simplicity; in an age and other fine spirits had founded the imwhen many a writer of note does not even mortal Punch, that admirable galaxy of read the old authors, he emulates them; mirth without malice, full of cracks and he steps into the footprints of their muses.jokes, that burn like everlasting candles in VOL. XI. No. IV. 28 AS HAPPY AS THE POOR. every house, MAKING THE RICH MAN ALMOST | Leigh Hunt, Doctor Maginn, the glorious writers led on by the great Christopher in Blackwood, the fine spirits who constitute the staff of Fraser's, the pleasant writers of the New Monthly, that Hercules, Charles Dickens, with Ainsworth, Albert Smith, and Mark Lemon, Gilbert à Becket: what a constellation of talent! what a SPECTATOR they might have given to their country. Douglas Jerrold has generally been considered one of the principal founders of this popular paper, and his excellent "Story of a Feather," "Punch's Letters to his Son," and the famous "Curtain Lectures of Mrs. Caudle," have been the most successful contributions to the work. "The Although these successive stories and epistles were written in detached pieces, at Among the dramatic works of Douglas isolated periods, they abound everywhere Jerrold, the two we have already named are with that robust argument, that liberal and probably the most interesting, and will manly spirit, which so few can express hap- continue to be standard plays, "Black-Eyed pily and lastingly; and the child-like drol- Susan" and "The Rent Day." He has, lery and humor to which the author stoops however, written several others of considehis mind, only renders the instruction more rable merit : "The Schoolfellow," shapely by the amusement in which it is Prisoner of War," "The Bubbles of the dressed. Many people have thought that the Day," and "Time Works Wonders ;" four "Curtain Lectures of Mrs. Caudle" were comedies sparkling with wit, and directed extended too far, and passed the limits of against the follies, foibles, and frippery of truth, and that the witty author was too the times we live in. No man has been severe upon the sex. Perhaps he was so. more successful on the stage in touching Douglas Jerrold has shown in all his works the national heart. He may, perhaps, want that he had read Fielding, that he had not the fine philosophic theory, the poetic dicstudied him in vain; he has great skill in tion of Sheridan Knowles; he may not irony, and a very marked propensity to possess the delicate suavity of Bulwer, but satire. Besides, Mrs. Caudle was written he can clutch the passions and the feelings for a country, not for a class, and if her of the people as well as either of them for frivolity, ardent temper, and persecution, he possesses as deep a pathos as the author seem excessive when applied to some sweet of "The Hunchback," and far more virityrants, there are others whose propensity lity than the author of "Money." He has to subjugate their lords by vocal thunder bis defects, certainly, as well as his beauleave even her example behind. The thou- ties. We often think he writes too hursands of English women who would scorn riedly, that he does not linger enough upon to upbraid their husbands in such lectures, a fine thought, which is of all secrets the are not represented by her. Though we greatest in the great arts of writing and said she was written for a country, she is painting, for when a moralist has got an far from being general though she is scat-idea which is striking, he should show it tered all over England, she is not the again and again under various phases before Englishwoman we all take pride in. For he passes from it, leaving the reader ample one such weed there are many flowers; and time to feel its purport and to relish its these lectures have made the weeds less numerous, and the dear, dear flowers more abundant. The "Men of Character" is an amusing series of essays, written in a jaunty, magazine style, but not so closely and concisely as Jerrold's other productions; they all point an admirable moral to the reader. "Adam Buff, the Man Without a Shirt," is one of the best of these light pieces. The subtle manner of Steele can often be traced in the current of the story; for we, too, have had our essayists, as well as our forefathers in the times of Queen Anne and the two first Georges. Why did they not see their own powers, and unite? Douglas Jerrold, Laman Blanchard, Theodore Hook, pleasantry. This habit of development, ness of his language than in the virulence | tesquieu, and keep pace with Voltaire, of his charges. Translate his fiercest at- neither of whom ever lacked anything that tacks upon men and manners into the deco- could conduce to greatness in writers; and rous and courtly language of Lesage or why? Because he gave himself long interMarivaux, of Fielding or Scott, and they vals of rest. He wrote only when his symwould lose two-thirds of the lacerating pathy was touched, when his spirit was in cruelty they seem to portray. flame, when his mind, like the teeming breast of a mother, panted for effusion. Rousseau only dealt in masterpieces. He has the sublime eloquence of Bossuet, the searching tenderness of Massillon; his ar Bruyère's, his humor not so frequent, but perfectly as quaint as Montaigne's, and his diction has all the music, if not all the graces of Voltaire. We do not blame Douglas Jerrold for the volubility of his pen; but we regret that he cannot practise a husbandry less prodigal; because we think so highly of his powers that we believe if he gave his thoughts all the maturity they might derive from composure, there is hardly any height he might not attain to in his wit and argument. But, at all events, to speak of him in all justice and candor, he is allowed to be one of the master spirits of the day, and his name shall live after him, and become one of the surviving symbols of the age, when this our busy generation, like the broad wave of a cataract, shall have swept on for ever adown the gulf of time. Of late years this distinguished instructor of the people has partially united in himself the two separate crafts of author and publisher. Without referring to Punch, which was at first a sort of joint stock spe-gument is closer than Bourdaloue's or La culation, he has successively ushered into the world the Illuminated Magazine, Douglas Jerrold's Magazine, and Douglas Jerrold's Newspaper, besides taking a share in the first establishment of the Daily News. If he did not bring the capital of money to this last journal, he brought to it the still greater capital of mind. In all these enterprises, literary and political, this able moralist had embraced with uncommon ardor the cause and interests of the great body of the people, to all which he gave 66 a local habitation and a name, ," when he founded, last year, that noble institution, the great WHITTINGTON CLUB, of which we shall treat separately hereafter. Few men have shown the generous audacity that he has displayed in advocating the rights of the INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES; none have more vividly described the inborn and gallant virtues of the English heart. We think, however, that his proper province is rather in letters than in politics; because his mind is too vigorous to be plastic and compliant, and there is too much sincerity in his nature, as there was in Blanchard's, to stoop to party views and objects. Nor is it easy for such solid mineral as his, to liquify and pour itself out with that rapid abundance that political writing demands. If he wrote an occasional "Examiner," like Swift, when the fit was on; if he reserved his extraordinary strength for uncommon instances, like the one which suggested the "Drapier's Letters," all would be well, and we should see his fine performances follow one another, not periodically, but seasonably, and with his full stamp and impress upon them. Too often exercised, the vital powers of the strongest mind begin to droop, and when the time comes for unusual exertion the muscles of the mind are both jaded and weary. Rousseau, who never went to College, who had read but few books, who saw but little good company at any time, and who at last became a voluntary hermit, was able to beat Mon ILLNESS OF WORDSWORTH'S DAUGHTER.-We regret to announce that the accomplished and only daughter of Wordsworth lies dangerously and almost hopelessly ill at Rydal Mount. The venerable poet is plunged in the deepest affliction.—Church of England Journal. MONUMENT TO CAXTON.-A public meeting to promote the erection of a monument to William Caxton, the earliest English printer, was held on the chair. The meeting was attended by a great Saturday afternoon in London-Lord Morpeth in number of gentlemen connected with literature. After appropriate addresses had been delivered, resolutions in furtherance of the object of the meeting entered into. were passed, and a subscription for the monument DEATH OF THE FATHER OF THE IRISH BAR.Thomas Dickson, Esq., LL.D., Q.C., the father of the Irish bar, died on Thursday morning, at a very advanced age. His demise was quite unexpected, as the day previous he had been engaged in the discharge of his professional duties. He was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term, 1792. |
