THE PALL-MALL GAZETTE.
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Considerable success at first attended the new journal. It was generally
stated, that an influential political party supported the paper; and
great names were cited among the contributors to its columns. Was there
any foundation for these rumors? We are not at liberty to say whether
they were well or ill-founded; but this much we may divulge, that an
article upon foreign policy, which was generally attributed to a noble
lord, whose connection with the Foreign Office is very well known, was
in reality composed by Captain Shandon, in the parlor of the Bear and
Staff public-house near Whitehall Stairs, whither the printer's boy
had tracked him, and where a literary ally of his, Mr. Bludyer, had a
temporary residence; and that a series of papers on finance questions,
which were universally supposed to be written by a great statesman of
the House of Commons, were in reality composed by Mr. George Warrington
of the Upper Temple.
That there may have been some dealings between the "Pall-Mall Gazette"
and this influential party, is very possible. Percy Popjoy (whose
father, Lord Falconet, was a member of the party) might be seen not
unfrequently ascending the stairs to Warrington's chambers; and some
information appeared in the paper which gave it a character, and could
only be got from very peculiar sources. Several poems, feeble in
thought, but loud and vigorous in expression, appeared in the "Pall-Mall
Gazette," with the signature of "P. P.," and it must be owned that his
novel was praised in the new journal in a very outrageous manner.
In the political department of the paper Mr. Pen did not take any share;
but he was a most active literary contributor. The "Pall-Mall Gazette"
had its offices, as we have heard, in Catherine-street, in the Strand,
and hither Pen often came with his manuscripts in his pocket, and with
a great deal of bustle and pleasure; such as a man feels at the outset
of his literary career, when to see himself in print is still a novel
sensation, and he yet pleases himself to think that his writings are
creating some noise in the world.
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Here it was that Mr. Jack Finucane, the sub-editor, compiled with paste
and scissors the Journal of which he was supervisor. With an eagle eye
he scanned all the paragraphs of all the newspapers which had any thing
to do with the world of fashion over which he presided. He didn't let a
death or a dinner-party of the aristocracy pass without having the event
recorded in the columns of his Journal: and from the most recondite
provincial prints, and distant Scotch and Irish newspapers, he fished
out astonishing paragraphs and intelligence regarding the upper classes
of society. It was a grand, nay, a touching sight, for a philosopher, to
see Jack Finucane, Esquire, with a plate of meat from the cookshop, and
a glass of porter from the public-house, for his meal, recounting the
feasts of the great, as if he had been present at them; and in tattered
trowsers and dingy shirt sleeves, cheerfully describing and arranging
the most brilliant _fetes_ of the world of fashion. The incongruity
of Finucane's avocation, and his manners and appearance, amused his
new friend Pen. Since he left his own native village, where his rank
probably was not very lofty, Jack had seldom seen any society but such
as used the parlor of the taverns which he frequented, whereas from his
writing you would have supposed that he dined with embassadors, and that
his common lounge was the bow-window of White's. Errors of description,
it is true, occasionally slipped from his pen; but the "Ballinafad
Sentinel," of which he was own correspondent, suffered by these, not the
"Pall-Mall Gazette," in which Jack was not permitted to write much, his
London chiefs thinking that the scissors and the paste were better
wielded by him than the pen.
Pen took a great deal of pains with the writing of his reviews, and
having a pretty fair share of desultory reading, acquired in the early
years of his life, an eager fancy and a keen sense of fun, his articles
pleased his chief and the public, and he was proud to think that he
deserved the money which he earned. We may be sure that the "Pall-Mall
Gazette" was taken in regularly at Fairoaks, and read with delight by
the two ladies there. It was received at Clavering Park, too, where we
know there was a young lady of great literary tastes; and old Doctor
Portman himself, to whom the widow sent her paper after she had got her
son's articles by heart, signified his approval of Pen's productions,
saying that the lad had spirit, taste, and fancy, and wrote, if not like
a scholar, at any rate like a gentleman.
And what was the astonishment and delight of our friend Major Pendennis,
on walking into one of his clubs, the Regent, where Wenham, Lord
Falconet, and some other gentlemen of good reputation and fashion were
assembled, to hear them one day talking over a number of the "Pall-Mall
Gazette," and of an article which appeared in its columns, making some
bitter fun of a book recently published by the wife of a celebrated
member of the opposition party. The book in question was a Book of
Travels in Spain and Italy, by the Countess of Muffborough, in which it
was difficult to say which was the most wonderful, the French or the
English, in which languages her ladyship wrote indifferently, and upon
the blunders of which the critic pounced with delighted mischief. The
critic was no other than Pen: he jumped and danced round about his
subject with the greatest jocularity and high spirits: he showed up the
noble lady's faults with admirable mock gravity and decorum. There was
not a word in the article which was not polite and gentlemanlike; and
the unfortunate subject of the criticism was scarified and laughed at
during the operation. Wenham's bilious countenance was puckered up with
malign pleasure as he read the critique. Lady Muffborough had not asked
him to her parties during the last year. Lord Falconet giggled and
laughed with all his heart; Lord Muffborough and he had been rivals ever
since they began life; and these complimented Major Pendennis, who until
now had scarcely paid any attention to some hints which his Fairoaks
correspondence threw out of "dear Arthur's constant and severe literary
occupations, which I fear may undermine the poor boy's health," and had
thought any notice of Mr. Pen and his newspaper connections quite below
his dignity as a major and a gentleman.
But when the oracular Wenham praised the boy's production; when Lord
Falconet, who had had the news from Percy Popjoy, approved of the genius
of young Pen; when the great Lord Steyne himself, to whom the major
referred the article, laughed and sniggered over it, swore it was
capital, and that the Muffborough would writhe under it, like a whale
under a harpoon, the major, as in duty bound, began to admire his nephew
very much, said, "By gad, the young rascal had some stuff in him, and
would do something; he had always said he would do something;" and with
a hand quite tremulous with pleasure, the old gentleman sate down to
write to the widow at Fairoaks all that the great folks had said in
praise of Pen; and he wrote to the young rascal, too, asking when he
would come and eat a chop with his old uncle, and saying that he was
commissioned to take him to dinner at Gaunt House, for Lord Steyne liked
any body who could entertain him, whether by his folly, wit, or by
his dullness, by his oddity, affectation, good spirits, or any other
quality. Pen flung his letter across the table to Warrington: perhaps he
was disappointed that the other did not seem to be much affected by it.
The courage of young critics is prodigious: they clamber up to the
judgment-seat, and, with scarce a hesitation, give their opinion
upon works the most intricate or profound. Had Macaulay's History or
Herschel's Astronomy been put before Pen at this period, he would have
looked through the volumes, meditated his opinion over a cigar, and
signified his august approval of either author, as if the critic had
been their born superior and indulgent master and patron. By the help
of the Biographie Universelle or the British Museum, he would be able
to take a rapid _resume_ of a historical period, and allude to names,
dates, and facts, in such a masterly, easy way, as to astonish his
mamma at home, who wondered where her boy could have acquired such a
prodigious store of reading; and himself, too, when he came to read over
his articles two or three months after they had been composed, and when
he had forgotten the subject and the books which he had consulted. At
that period of his life Mr. Pen owns, that he would not have hesitated,
at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass an opinion upon the greatest
scholars, or to give a judgment upon the Encyclopaedia. Luckily he had
Warrington to laugh at him and to keep down his impertinence by a
constant and wholesome ridicule, or he might have become conceited
beyond all sufferance; for Shandon liked the dash and flippancy of his
young _aid-de-camp_, and was, indeed, better pleased with Pen's light
and brilliant flashes, than with the heavier metal which his elder
coadjutor brought to bear.
But though he might justly be blamed on the score of impertinence and a
certain prematurity of judgment, Mr. Pen was a perfectly honest critic;
a great deal too candid for Mr. Bungay's purposes, indeed, who grumbled
sadly at his impartiality. Pen and his chief, the captain, had a dispute
upon this subject one day. "In the name of common sense, Mr. Pendennis,"
Shandon asked, "what have you been doing--praising one of Mr. Bacon's
books? Bungay has been with me in a fury this morning, at seeing a
laudatory article upon one of the works of the odious firm over the
way."
Pen's eyes opened with wide astonishment. "Do you mean to say," he
asked, "that we are to praise no books that Bacon publishes: or that,
if the books are good, we are to say they are bad?"
"My good young friend--for what do you suppose a benevolent publisher
undertakes a critical journal, to benefit his rival?" Shandon inquired.
"To benefit himself certainly, but to tell the truth too," Pen
said--"_ruat caelum_, to tell the truth."
"And my prospectus," said Shandon, with a laugh and a sneer; "do you
consider that was a work of mathematical accuracy of statement?"
"Pardon me, that is not the question," Pen said; "and I don't think you
very much care to argue it. I had some qualms of conscience about that
same prospectus, and debated the matter with my friend Warrington. We
agreed, however," Pen said, laughing, "that because the prospectus was
rather declamatory and poetical, and the giant was painted upon the
show-board rather larger than the original, who was inside the caravan;
we need not be too scrupulous about this trifling inaccuracy, but might
do our part of the show, without loss of character or remorse of
conscience. We are the fiddlers, and play our tunes only; you are the
showman."
"And leader of the van," said Shandon. "Well I am glad that your
conscience gave you leave to play for us."
"Yes, but," said Pen, with a fine sense of the dignity of his position,
"we are all party men in England, and I will stick to my party like a
Briton. I will be as good-natured as you like to our own side; he is a
fool who quarrels with his own nest; and I will hit the enemy as hard as
you like--but with fair play, captain, if you please. One can't tell all
the truth, I suppose; but one can tell nothing but the truth; and I
would rather starve, by Jove, and never earn another penny by my pen"
(this redoubted instrument had now been in use for some six weeks,
and Pen spoke of it with vast enthusiasm and respect) "than strike an
opponent an unfair blow, or, if called upon to place him, rank him below
his honest desert."
"Well, Mr. Pendennis, when we want Bacon smashed, we must get some other
hammer to do it," Shandon said with fatal good-nature; and very likely
thought within himself, "A few years hence perhaps the young gentleman
won't be so squeamish." The veteran Condottiere himself was no longer so
scrupulous. He had fought and killed on so many a side for many a year
past, that remorse had long left him. "Gad," said he, "you've a tender
conscience, Mr. Pendennis. It's the luxury of all novices, and I may
have had one once myself; but that sort of bloom wears off with the
rubbing of the world, and I'm not going to the trouble myself of putting
on an artificial complexion, like our pious friend Wenham, or our model
of virtue, Wagg."
"I don't know whether some people's hypocrisy is not better, captain,
than others' cynicism."
"It's more profitable, at any rate," said the captain, biting his
nails. "That Wenham is as dull a quack as ever quacked: and you see
the carriage in which he drove to dinner. 'Faith, it'll be a long time
before Mrs. Shandon will take a drive in her own chariot. God help
her, poor thing!" And Pen went away from his chief, after their little
dispute and colloquy, pointing his own moral to the captain's tale,
and thinking to himself, "Behold this man, stored with genius, wit,
learning, and a hundred good natural gifts: see how he has wrecked them,
by paltering with his honesty, and forgetting to respect himself. Wilt
thou remember thyself, O Pen? thou art conceited enough. Wilt thou
sell thy honor for a bottle? No, by heaven's grace, we will be honest,
whatever befalls, and our mouths shall only speak the truth when they
open."
A punishment, or, at least, a trial, was in store for Mr. Pen. In the
very next Number of the "Pall-Mall Gazette," Warrington read out, with
roars of laughter, an article which by no means amused Arthur Pendennis,
who was himself at work with a criticism for the next week's number of
the same journal; and in which the Spring Annual was ferociously
maltreated by some unknown writer. The person of all most cruelly mauled
was Pen himself. His verses had not appeared with his own name in the
Spring Annual, but under an assumed signature. As he had refused to
review the book, Shandon had handed it over to Mr. Bludyer, with
directions to that author to dispose of it. And he had done so
effectually. Mr. Bludyer, who was a man of very considerable talent, and
of a race which, I believe, is quite extinct in the press of our time,
had a certain notoriety in his profession, and reputation for savage
humor. He smashed and trampled down the poor spring flowers with no more
mercy than a bull would have on a parterre; and having cut up the volume
to his heart's content, went and sold it at a book-stall, and purchased a
pint of brandy with the proceeds of the volume.