Pendennis and Copperfield: Thackeray and Dickens.

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ART. III.-1. The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the Younger. By CHARLES DICKENS. London, 1850. 2. The History of Pendennis. By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. London, 1850.

THACKERAY and DICKENS, Dickens and Thackeray-the two names now almost necessarily go together. It is some years since Mr. Thackeray, whose reputation as an author had until then, we believe, been of somewhat limited extent, suddenly appeared in the field of literature already so successfully occupied by Mr. Dickens. But the intrusion, if it may be called such, was made with so much talent, and so much applause followed it, that since that time the two have gone on as peers and rivals. From the printing-house of the same publishers they have simultaneously, during the last few years, sent forth their monthly instalments of amusing fiction-Dickens his "Dombey" and his "Copperfield," and Thackeray his "Vanity Fair" and his "Pendennis." Hence the public has learned to think of them in indissoluble connexion as friendly competitors for the prize of light literature. There is, indeed, a third writer often and worthily named along with them-Mr. Douglas Jerrold. But though, when viewed in the general as humorists and men of inventive talent, the three do form a triad, so that it is hardly possible to discuss the merits of any one of them without referring to the other two, yet, as the characteristic form of Mr. Jerrold's literary activity has not been specially that of the popular novelist, he is not associated with his two eminent contemporaries so closely, in this denomination, as they are associated with each other. As the popular novelists of the day, Dickens and Thackeray, and again, Thackeray and Dickens, divide the public attention. And as the public has learned thus to think of them together, so also, using its privilege of chatting and pronouncing judgments about whatever interests it, it has learned to set off the merits of the one against those of the other, and to throw as much light into the criticism of each as can be derived from the trick of contrast. One party of readers prefers Dickens, and points out, with an ardour almost polemical, that Thackeray wants such and such qualities which are conspicuous in their favourite; another party wears the Thackeray colours, and contends, with equal pertinacity, that in certain respects Thackeray is the superior writer. Very much the same things, we believe, are said on this subject both by ladies and by gentlemen at all literary parties. Now, though we cannot say that the public has as yet gone very deep in their discriminations between the two favourites, and

though we are of opinion that, with all our grumblings and criticisms, we should be willing to leave both writers to go on in their own way, and only be too glad that we have such a pair of writers to cheer on against each other at all; yet we think that, in this notion of contrast, the public has really got hold of a good thread for a critic to pursue, and we mean, as far as possible, throughout this paper, to avail ourselves of it.

It is admitted that both writers are as well represented in their last as in any of their previous productions. "Copperfield," according to the general voice of the critics, is one of the best of Mr. Dickens's stories, written with decidedly more care and effort than its immediate predecessors, as if the author had determined to shew the captious public that his genius was as fine and fresh as ever. And though we have heard" Pendennis" described as a mere continuation of "Vanity Fair," and no advance upon it in point of excellence, we believe the general opinion to be that Mr. Thackeray has not discredited himself by his recent performance, but has rather increased his popularity. Moreover, no two stories are better calculated to illustrate, in the way of contrast, the characteristic peculiarities of their respective authors. The very spirit and philosophy of all Mr. Dickens's writings is that which we find expressed in the character and life of David Copperfield, so that, did we want to describe that spirit and philosophy in a single term, we should not be far wrong in calling it Copperfieldism; and, on the other hand, in no work has Mr. Thackeray exhibited so fully that caustic, thoroughly British, and yet truly original humour, with which he regards the world and its ways, as in his sketch of the Life and Adven"Pendennis"

When we say

tures of Mr. Arthur Pendennis. and "Copperfield," therefore, it is really the same as if we said Thackeray and Dickens. And this facility of finding the two authors duly contrasted in the two stories, is increased by the fact that the stories are in some respects very similar. In both we have the life and education of a young man related, from his childhood and school-time to that terminus of all novels, the happy marriage-point; in the one, the life and education of the orphan child of a poor gentleman in Suffolk; in the other, the life and education of the only son of a West of England squire, with a long Cornish pedigree. In both, too, the hero becomes a literary man, so that the author, in following him, finds room for allusions to London literary life. There are even some resemblances of a minuter kind, such as the existence in both stories of a mysterious character of the outlaw species, who appears at intervals to ask money and throw the respectable folks of the drama into consternation; from which one might imagine that the authors, during the progress of their narratives, were not ashamed to take

hints from each other. But however that may be, there can be no doubt that the general external similarity that there is between the two stories will serve to throw into relief their essential differences of style and spirit.

These differences are certainly very great. Although following exactly the same literary walk, and both great favourites with the public, there are perhaps no two writers so dissimilar as Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray. To begin with a matter which, though in the order of strict science it comes last, as involving and depending on all the others, -the matter of style or language: here everybody must recognise a remarkable difference between the two authors. If Messrs. Bradbury and Evans would furtively supply us with a page of the manuscript of "Copperfield," together with a corresponding page of the manuscript of "Pendennis," we should probably be able, on comparing the two, and examining the state of their penmanship, to detect some characteristic differences in the habits of composition of the two novelists, and to say which of them is, on the whole, the more careful and trained, and which the more easy and fluent writer. Nay, even without having such an unusual facility afforded to us, we might, by way of a first attempt in the graphiological art, try to infer something or other (and we advise our readers to infer it) from a comparison of the free and somewhat dashing penmanship of Dickens, as exhibited to the public in the printed specimens, with the neat and elegant writing of those stray autographs of Thackeray, which, in exploring the albums of our fair friends, we have occasionally seen. But in such a case we prefer having recourse to a receipt of our own, which we have usually found effectual when we wanted some insight into the mechanism of an author's style. This receipt, which we impart to the reader on the condition that he make no ungrateful application of it, is that the critic should deliberately copy out with his own hand a suitable paragraph or two from the author whose manner he wishes to study. By this means the critic attaches himself, as it were, to the author in the act of composition, and is able to discover much-not only haste or slovenliness, if there is any; not only superfluous expression, false metaphor, or bad punctuation; but also the tricks of association, the intellectual connexions and minute flights by which the author leaps from thought to thought and from phrase to phrase. We have selected a passage from "Copperfield," and one from "Pendennis," whereon the reader, while enjoying them for their own sake, may, if he chooses, try his ingenuity. That the test may be the fairer the passages selected are as nearly as possible in the same sentimental key.

Glance at a Model Prison.-"It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course

of being set out separately, (to be handed to him in his cell,) with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk of the honest working community, of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the system' required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head and on all others, the system' put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but the system, to be considered. As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends, what were supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing and universally overriding system. I found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners-so that no one man in confinement there knew anything about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case; but as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitents as diligently as I could. And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious) even in words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception, (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories shewed,) all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them."Copperfield, pp. 603, 604.

Glance at an Inn of Court." If we could but get the history of a single day as it is passed in any one of those four-storied 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 grave Parliamentary counsel on the ground-floor, who drives off 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' kind

ness; had to remonstrate humbly with duns, and to implore the patience 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 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 compiling a fortune. He comes home now at night 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 landing, 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 dinnertime; who will come home from the 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 the wisdom of philosophers and historians, all the thoughts of poets; all wit, fancy, reflection, art, love, truth altogether so that he may master that enormous legend of the law, which he purposes to gain his livelihood by expounding."-Pendennis, vol. i. pp. 290-292.

Now, after transcribing these two extracts, we must say that our impression of the difference between the two authors in the matter of style is very much what it has always been from a general reading acquaintance with their works; namely, that Mr. Thackeray is the more terse and idiomatic, and Mr. Dickens the more diffuse and luxuriant writer. Both seem to