"_My Autobiography and Reminiscences_," by W. P. FRITH, R.A. The
Modern Hogarth, painter of "_Ramsgate Sands_," "_The Derby Day_," and
"_The Road to Ruin_," can use his pen as well as his pencil. "Where
got thou that goose-quill?" as _Macbeth_ would have said, had
SHAKSPEARE wished him to do so. How is it that Mr. FRITH has never
employed his goose-quill before? Sometimes it is soft-nibbed, and
occasionally hard-nibbed, but it is almost always well pointed; and,
though he writes with an overflowing pen--for he frequently has to
check his impulsive waywardness--yet there is scarcely a blot on the
paper throughout the two volumes.
Mr. FRITH is, first and foremost, a humorist, and, in his humour,
so like THACKERAY, and so unlike DICKENS, that it is no wonder,
considering the consistent inconsistency of human nature, he should
have loved the latter, and disliked the former. Yet, with all
his aversion to THACKERAY, personally--and "all his works" too,
apparently, as he hardly mentions them--he records something very
remarkable about the Satirist of the Snobs which could not be guessed
at from THACKERAY'S own letters, nor from the anecdotes told about
him. And it is this; that THACKERAY could make, and on occasion did
make an excellent after-dinner speech. At the Macready banquet with
BULWER LYTTON and DICKENS present, Mr. FRITH tells us, "THACKERAY also
spoke well and very humorously." And there are three other instances;
so that THACKERAY, who has recounted his own failure at the Literary
Fund dinner, and whose utter collapse at the Cornhill Magazine dinner
is a matter of Literary history, was not always a mistake as an
after-dinner speaker. The modesty exhibited by Mr. FRITH in this
autobiography is an exhibition as novel and attractive as was FRITH'S
other exhibition in Bond Street,--because few autobiographers possess
so keen a sense of humour as to be able to laugh at themselves, and to
be candid about their own foibles and follies. Indeed some persons may
think, and indeed he inclines to this opinion himself, that he goes
too far in his frankness when narrating the practical jokes of that
unscrupulous and cruel _farceur_ SOTHERN the actor, in some of which
the autobiographer appears to have played a small, but not altogether
unimportant part. In his way Mr. FRITH is as frank and open in his
revelations as to his past career, as was Cardinal NEWMAN in his
straightforward _Apologia pro sua vita_. In fact in these SOTHERN
latitudes--there was a great deal of latitude in that quarter--Mr.
FRITH'S work is suggestive less of an autobiography than of a
naughty-biography. He owns that he feels "humiliated and pained" at
recounting THACKERAY'S rude jocularity towards himself, and from the
apologetic tone with which he introduces some of SOTHERN'S caddish
practical jokes, in which Mr. FRITH had no share, and of which he was
not the victim, it may be inferred that he had already begun to feel
"humiliated and pained" at having given so much space to such stories.
How glad he must now be that he kept a "dear Diary," which has been an
invaluable aid to his memory.
Another great merit in the book is that, without ever sacrificing its
character as an Autobiography, it is never egotistical; egoism being
the great "I-sore" of such works. Should the humble individual who
writes this necessarily brief notice ever arrive at the time for
publishing his Recollections, he is perfectly sure that the book will
be unequalled as a work of imagination. Mr. FRITH tells us how he
improved his pictures by touching them up,--some people, too, are
occasionally improved by the same process, if the "touching up" is
only done judiciously,--and his self-restraint is therefore really
admirable when he rejects the temptation to embellish, or spice, a
story which no one is likely to contradict. For instance, in what may
be called the Sass-age portion of his early life, he has some amusing
anecdotes about Mr. JACOB BELL, then an Art student. BELL drew a man
hanging, and SASS, the master, told him to leave the studio, "as
such a career," as the man hanging, "is a bad example to your
fellow-pupils." Now Mr. FRITH ought to have given BELL a triumphant
exit speech--he ought to have said to SASS, "Sir, I was only
illustrating what should be the fate of every one of your successful
pupils--_to be hung on the line_. Good day." Exit BELL. Then he
recounts how JACOB BELL, who, like SOTHERN, had a taste for such
practical jokes as are utterly indefensible on the score of good taste
and gentlemanly feeling, dressed up as a woman, and went to a
Quakers' Meeting House, where he sat among the female portion of the
congregation. Thinking he was discovered, this nice young man "took
fright," and bolted. Here Mr. FRITH should have made the jovial JACOB
subsequently explain that "he left because the women were all jealous
of him, as he was the only 'BELL' among them." Mr. FRITH, full of his
fun, jests, and humour, must be congratulated on having stuck to the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And if anyone wants a first-rate ghost-story for the coming Christmas
time, let him get Mr. FRITH'S book, and read how the prosaic and
sensible Mr. WESTWOOD saw a ghost. It is simply but exquisitely told,
and were it not that Mr. FRITH had previously owned to his complicity
with SOTHERN in some of his "spiritualistic" demonstrations, there
would be no sort of ground for suspecting him capable of joking on
such serious subjects. The book is full of good stories, among which
_The Mysterious Sitter_ and _Beckford at Fonthill_ are about the best.
There is already a rail round MUDIE'S counter, and in front of all
SMITH'S stalls, to keep off the crowds from taking away FRITH'S latest
production without paying. Many of us are eye-witnesses to the fact
of the rails in front of SMITH'S bookstalls all the way down the
line wherever a train runs. Mr. FRITH'S very good health, and, as his
friend _Rip-Van-Winkle_ JEFFERSON used to say, "May he live long an'
prosber."
_De Omnibus Rebus_, by the author of _Flemish Interiors_. An odd book
to be taken up at odd times. Amusing and chatty with a good deal of
shrewd observation. He who rides may read; and as it is published by
NIMMO, this firm in this instance might adopt the old Latin motto,
"_'Nimmo' mortalium omnibus horis sapit_;" i.e. "NIMMO is wise to
bring out a book for the omnibus hours of mortals."