FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH.
How Thackeray commenced his connection with _Fraser's Magazine_ I am
unable to say. We know how he had come to London with a view to a
literary career, and that he had at one time made an attempt to earn his
bread as a correspondent to a newspaper from Paris. It is probable that
he became acquainted with the redoubtable Oliver Yorke, otherwise Dr.
Maginn, or some of his staff, through the connection which he had thus
opened with the press. He was not known, or at any rate he was
unrecognised, by _Fraser_ in January, 1835, in which month an amusing
catalogue was given of the writers then employed, with portraits of
them, all seated at a symposium. I can trace no article to his pen
before November, 1837, when the _Yellowplush Correspondence_ was
commenced, though it is hardly probable that he should have commenced
with a work of so much pretension. There had been published a volume
called _My Book, or the Anatomy of Conduct_, by John Skelton, and a very
absurd book no doubt it was. We may presume that it contained maxims on
etiquette, and that it was intended to convey in print those invaluable
lessons on deportment which, as Dickens has told us, were subsequently
given by Mr. Turveydrop, in the academy kept by him for that purpose.
Thackeray took this as his foundation for the _Fashionable Fax and
Polite Annygoats_, by Jeames Yellowplush, with which he commenced those
repeated attacks against snobbism which he delighted to make through a
considerable portion of his literary life. Oliver Yorke has himself
added four or five pages of his own to Thackeray's lucubrations; and
with the second, and some future numbers, there appeared illustrations
by Thackeray himself, illustrations at this time not having been common
with the magazine. From all this I gather that the author was already
held in estimation by _Fraser's_ confraternity. I remember well my own
delight with _Yellowplush_ at the time, and how I inquired who was the
author. It was then that I first heard Thackeray's name.
The _Yellowplush Papers_ were continued through nine numbers. No further
reference was made to Mr. Skelton and his book beyond that given at the
beginning of the first number, and the satire is only shown by the
attempt made by Yellowplush, the footman, to give his ideas generally on
the manners of noble life. The idea seems to be that a gentleman may, in
heart and in action, be as vulgar as a footman. No doubt he may, but the
chances are very much that he won't. But the virtue of the memoir does
not consist in the lessons, but in the general drollery of the letters.
The "orthogwaphy is inaccuwate," as a certain person says in the
memoirs,--"so inaccuwate" as to take a positive study to "compwehend"
it; but the joke, though old, is so handled as to be very amusing.
Thackeray soon rushes away from his criticisms on snobbism to other
matters. There are the details of a card-sharping enterprise, in which
we cannot but feel that we recognise something of the author's own
experiences in the misfortunes of Mr. Dawkins; there is the Earl of
Crab's, and then the first of those attacks which he was tempted to
make on the absurdities of his brethren of letters, and the only one
which now has the appearance of having been ill-natured. His first
victims were Dr. Dionysius Lardner and Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton, as he
was then. We can surrender the doctor to the whip of the satirist; and
for "Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig," as the novelist is made to call
himself, we can well believe that he must himself have enjoyed the
_Yellowplush Memoirs_ if he ever re-read them in after life. The speech
in which he is made to dissuade the footman from joining the world of
letters is so good that I will venture to insert it: "Bullwig was
violently affected; a tear stood in his glistening i. 'Yellowplush,'
says he, seizing my hand, 'you _are_ right. Quit not your present
occupation; black boots, clean knives, wear plush all your life, but
don't turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first novelist in Europe.
I have ranged with eagle wings over the wide regions of literature, and
perched on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with eagle eyes on
the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the mysterious depths of the human
mind. All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me,
all men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom from the honeyed lips
of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of the Academies; wisdom, too,
from the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our backy in Seven Dials.
Such must be the studies, and such is the mission, in this world of the
Poet-Philosopher. But the knowledge is only emptiness; the initiation is
but misery; the initiated a man shunned and banned by his fellows. Oh!'
said Bullwig, clasping his hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the
chandelier, 'the curse of Pwomethus descends upon his wace. Wath and
punishment pursue them from genewation to genewation! Wo to genius, the
heaven-scaler, the fire-stealer! Wo and thrice-bitter desolation! Earth
is the wock on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing
wictim;--men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is
agony eternal,--gwoaning and solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush,
would penetwate these mystewies; you would waise the awful veil, and
stand in the twemendous Pwesence. Beware, as you value your peace,
beware! Withdraw, wash Neophyte! For heaven's sake! O for heaven's
sake!'--Here he looked round with agony;--'give me a glass of
bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning to disagwee with me.'" It
was thus that Thackeray began that vein of satire on his contemporaries
of which it may be said that the older he grew the more amusing it was,
and at the same time less likely to hurt the feelings of the author
satirised.
The next tale of any length from Thackeray's pen, in the magazine, was
that called _Catherine_, which is the story taken from the life of a
wretched woman called Catherine Hayes. It is certainly not pleasant
reading, and was not written with a pleasant purpose. It assumes to have
come from the pen of Ikey Solomon, of Horsemonger Lane, and its object
is to show how disgusting would be the records of thieves, cheats, and
murderers if their doings and language were described according to their
nature instead of being handled in such a way as to create sympathy, and
therefore imitation. Bulwer's _Eugene Aram_, Harrison Ainsworth's _Jack
Sheppard_, and Dickens' Nancy were in his mind, and it was thus that he
preached his sermon against the selection of such heroes and heroines by
the novelists of the day. "Be it granted," he says, in his epilogue,
"Solomon is dull; but don't attack his morality. He humbly submits
that, in his poem, no man shall mistake virtue for vice, no man shall
allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration to enter his bosom for
any character in the poem, it being from beginning to end a scene of
unmixed rascality, performed by persons who never deviate into good
feeling." The intention is intelligible enough, but such a story neither
could have been written nor read,--certainly not written by Thackeray,
nor read by the ordinary reader of a first-class magazine,--had he not
been enabled to adorn it by infinite wit. Captain Brock, though a brave
man, is certainly not described as an interesting or gallant soldier;
but he is possessed of great resources. Captain Macshane, too, is a
thorough blackguard; but he is one with a dash of loyalty about him, so
that the reader can almost sympathise with him, and is tempted to say
that Ikey Solomon has not quite kept his promise.
_Catherine_ appeared in 1839 and 1840. In the latter of those years _The
Shabby Genteel_ story also came out. Then in 1841 there followed _The
History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond_, illustrated
by Samuel's cousin, Michael Angelo. But though so announced in _Fraser_,
there were no illustrations, and those attached to the story in later
editions are not taken from sketches by Thackeray. This, as far as I
know, was the first use of the name Titmarsh, and seems to indicate some
intention on the part of the author of creating a hoax as to two
personages,--one the writer and the other the illustrator. If it were so
he must soon have dropped the idea. In the last paragraph he has shaken
off his cousin Michael. The main object of the story is to expose the
villany of bubble companies, and the danger they run who venture to have
dealings with city matters which they do not understand. I cannot but
think that he altered his mind and changed his purpose while he was
writing it, actuated probably by that editorial monition as to its
length.
In 1842 were commenced _The Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle_, which
were continued into 1843. I do not think that they attracted much
attention, or that they have become peculiarly popular since. They are
supposed to contain the reminiscences of a younger son, who moans over
his poverty, complains of womankind generally, laughs at the world all
round, and intersperses his pages with one or two excellent ballads. I
quote one, written for the sake of affording a parody, with the parody
along with it, because the two together give so strong an example of the
condition of Thackeray's mind in regard to literary products. The
"humbug" of everything, the pretence, the falseness of affected
sentiment, the remoteness of poetical pathos from the true condition of
the average minds of men and women, struck him so strongly, that he
sometimes allowed himself almost to feel,--or at any rate, to say,--that
poetical expression, as being above nature, must be unnatural. He had
declared to himself that all humbug was odious, and should be by him
laughed down to the extent of his capacity. His Yellowplush, his
Catherine Hayes, his Fitz-Boodle, his Barry Lyndon, and Becky Sharp,
with many others of this kind, were all invented and treated for this
purpose and after this fashion. I shall have to say more on the same
subject when I come to _The Snob Papers_. In this instance he wrote a
very pretty ballad, _The Willow Tree_,--so good that if left by itself
it would create no idea of absurdity or extravagant pathos in the mind
of the ordinary reader,--simply that he might render his own work absurd
by his own parody.
THE WILLOW-TREE.
No. I.
THE WILLOW-TREE.
No. II.
Know ye the willow-tree,
Whose gray leaves quiver,
Whispering gloomily
To yon pale river?
Lady, at eventide
Wander not near it!
They say its branches hide
A sad lost spirit!
Long by the willow-tree
Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother's screams
O'er the gray water.
"Where is my lovely one?
Where is my daughter?
Rouse thee, sir constable--
Rouse thee and look.
Fisherman, bring your net,
Boatman, your hook.
Beat in the lily-beds,
Dive in the brook."
Once to the willow-tree
A maid came fearful,
Pale seemed her cheek to be,
Her blue eye tearful.
Soon as she saw the tree,
Her steps moved fleeter.
No one was there--ah me!--
No one to meet her!
Vainly the constable
Shouted and called her.
Vainly the fisherman
Beat the green alder.
Vainly he threw the net.
Never it hauled her!
Quick beat her heart to hear
The far bells' chime
Toll from the chapel-tower
The trysting-time.
But the red sun went down
In golden flame,
And though she looked around,
Yet no one came!
Mother beside the fire
Sat, her night-cap in;
Father in easychair,
Gloomily napping;
When at the window-sill
Came a light tapping.
Presently came the night,
Sadly to greet her,--
Moon in her silver light,
Stars in their glitter.
Then sank the moon away
Under the billow.
Still wept the maid alone--
There by the willow!
And a pale countenance
Looked through the casement.
Loud beat the mother's heart,
Sick with amazement,
And at the vision which
Came to surprise her!
Shrieking in an agony--
"Lor'! it's Elizar!"
Through the long darkness,
By the stream rolling,
Hour after hour went on
Tolling and tolling.
Long was the darkness,
Lonely and stilly.
Shrill came the night wind,
Piercing and chilly.
Yes, 'twas Elizabeth;--
Yes, 'twas their girl;
Pale was her cheek, and her
Hair out of curl.
"Mother!" the loved one,
Blushing, exclaimed,
"Let not your innocent
Lizzy be blamed.
Yesterday, going to Aunt
Jones's to tea,
Mother, dear mother, I
Forgot the door-key!
And as the night was cold,
And the way steep,
Mrs. Jones kept me to
Breakfast and sleep."
Shrill blew the morning breeze,
Biting and cold.
Bleak peers the gray dawn
Over the wold!
Bleak over moor and stream
Looks the gray dawn,
Gray with dishevelled hair.
Still stands the willow there--
The maid is gone!
Whether her pa and ma
Fully believed her,
That we shall never know.
Stern they received her;
And for the work of that
Cruel, though short, night,--
Sent her to bed without
Tea for a fortnight.
Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany--
Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and weary;
Sing we a litany,
Wail we and weep we a wild miserere!
MORAL.
Hey diddle diddlety,
Cat and the fiddlety,
Maidens of England take caution by she!
Let love and suicide
Never tempt you aside,
And always remember to take the door-key!
Mr. George Fitz-Boodle gave his name to other narratives beyond his own
_Confessions_. A series of stories was carried on by him in _Fraser_,
called _Men's Wives_, containing three; _Ravenwing_, _Mr. and Mrs.
Frank Berry_, and _Dennis Hoggarty's Wife_. The first chapter in _Mr.
and Mrs. Frank Berry_ describes "The Fight at Slaughter House."
Slaughter House, as Mr. Venables reminded us in the last chapter, was
near Smithfield in London,--the school which afterwards became Grey
Friars; and the fight between Biggs and Berry is the record of one which
took place in the flesh when Thackeray was at the Charter House. But Mr.
Fitz-Boodle's name was afterwards attached to a greater work than these,
to a work so great that subsequent editors have thought him to be
unworthy of the honour. In the January number, 1844, of _Fraser's
Magazine_, are commenced the _Memoirs of Barry Lyndon_, and the
authorship is attributed to Mr. Fitz-Boodle. The title given in the
magazine was _The Luck of Barry Lyndon: a Romance of the last Century_.
By Fitz-Boodle. In the collected edition of Thackeray's works the
_Memoirs_ are given as "Written by himself," and were, I presume, so
brought out by Thackeray, after they had appeared in _Fraser_. Why Mr.
George Fitz-Boodle should have been robbed of so great an honour I do
not know.
In imagination, language, construction, and general literary capacity,
Thackeray never did anything more remarkable than _Barry Lyndon_. I have
quoted the words which he put into the mouth of Ikey Solomon, declaring
that in the story which he has there told he has created nothing but
disgust for the wicked characters he has produced, and that he has "used
his humble endeavours to cause the public also to hate them." Here, in
_Barry Lyndon_, he has, probably unconsciously, acted in direct
opposition to his own principles: Barry Lyndon is as great a scoundrel
as the mind of man ever conceived. He is one who might have taken as his
motto Satan's words; "Evil, be thou my good." And yet his story is so
written that it is almost impossible not to entertain something of a
friendly feeling for him. He tells his own adventures as a card-sharper,
bully, and liar; as a heartless wretch, who had neither love nor
gratitude in his composition; who had no sense even of loyalty; who
regarded gambling as the highest occupation to which a man could devote
himself, and fraud as always justified by success; a man possessed by
all meannesses except cowardice. And the reader is so carried away by
his frankness and energy as almost to rejoice when he succeeds, and to
grieve with him when he is brought to the ground.
The man is perfectly satisfied as to the reasonableness,--I might almost
say, as to the rectitude,--of his own conduct throughout. He is one of a
decayed Irish family, that could boast of good blood. His father had
obtained possession of the remnants of the property by turning
Protestant, thus ousting the elder brother, who later on becomes his
nephew's confederate in gambling. The elder brother is true to the old
religion, and as the law stood in the last century, the younger brother,
by changing his religion, was able to turn him out. Barry, when a boy,
learns the slang and the gait of the debauched gentlemen of the day. He
is specially proud of being a gentleman by birth and manners. He had
been kidnapped, and made to serve as a common soldier, but boasts that
he was at once fit for the occasion when enabled to show as a court
gentleman. "I came to it at once," he says, "and as if I had never done
anything else all my life. I had a gentleman to wait upon me, a French
_friseur_ to dress my hair of a morning. I knew the taste of chocolate
as by intuition almost, and could distinguish between the right Spanish
and the French before I had been a week in my new position. I had rings
on all my fingers and watches in both my fobs, canes, trinkets, and
snuffboxes of all sorts. I had the finest natural taste for lace and
china of any man I ever knew."
To dress well, to wear a sword with a grace, to carry away his plunder
with affected indifference, and to appear to be equally easy when he
loses his last ducat, to be agreeable to women, and to look like a
gentleman,--these are his accomplishments. In one place he rises to the
height of a grand professor in the art of gambling, and gives his
lessons with almost a noble air. "Play grandly, honourably. Be not of
course cast down at losing; but above all, be not eager at winning, as
mean souls are." And he boasts of his accomplishments with so much
eloquence as to make the reader sure that he believes in them. He is
quite pathetic over himself, and can describe with heartrending words
the evils that befall him when others use against him successfully any
of the arts which he practises himself.
The marvel of the book is not so much that the hero should evidently
think well of himself, as that the author should so tell his story as to
appear to be altogether on the hero's side. In _Catherine_, the horrors
described are most truly disgusting,--so much that the story, though
very clever, is not pleasant reading. _The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon_ are
very pleasant to read. There is nothing to shock or disgust. The style
of narrative is exactly that which might be used as to the exploits of a
man whom the author intended to represent as deserving of sympathy and
praise,--so that the reader is almost brought to sympathise. But I
should be doing an injustice to Thackeray if I were to leave an
impression that he had taught lessons tending to evil practice, such as
he supposed to have been left by _Jack Sheppard_ or _Eugene Aram_. No
one will be tempted to undertake the life of a _chevalier d'industrie_
by reading the book, or be made to think that cheating at cards is
either an agreeable or a profitable profession. The following is
excellent as a tirade in favour of gambling, coming from Redmond de
Balibari, as he came to be called during his adventures abroad, but it
will hardly persuade anyone to be a gambler;
"We always played on parole with anybody,--any person, that is, of
honour and noble lineage. We never pressed for our winnings, or declined
to receive promissory notes in lieu of gold. But woe to the man who did
not pay when the note became due! Redmond de Balibari was sure to wait
upon him with his bill, and I promise you there were very few bad debts.
On the contrary, gentlemen were grateful to us for our forbearance, and
our character for honour stood unimpeached. In latter times, a vulgar
national prejudice has chosen to cast a slur upon the character of men
of honour engaged in the profession of play; but I speak of the good old
days of Europe, before the cowardice of the French aristocracy (in the
shameful revolution, which served them right) brought discredit upon our
order. They cry fie now upon men engaged in play; but I should like to
know how much more honourable _their_ modes of livelihood are than ours.
The broker of the Exchange, who bulls and bears, and buys and sells, and
dabbles with lying loans, and trades upon state-secrets,--what is he but
a gamester? The merchant who deals in teas and tallow, is he any better?
His bales of dirty indigo are his dice, his cards come up every year
instead of every ten minutes, and the sea is his green-table. You call
the profession of the law an honourable one, where a man will lie for
any bidder;--lie down poverty for the sake of a fee from wealth; lie
down right because wrong is in his brief. You call a doctor an
honourable man,--a swindling quack who does not believe in the nostrums
which he prescribes, and takes your guinea for whispering in your ear
that it is a fine morning. And yet, forsooth, a gallant man, who sits
him down before the baize and challenges all comers, his money against
theirs, his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern moral
world! It is a conspiracy of the middle-class against gentlemen. It is
only the shopkeeper cant which is to go down nowadays. I say that play
was an institution of chivalry. It has been wrecked along with other
privileges of men of birth. When Seingalt engaged a man for
six-and-thirty hours without leaving the table, do you think he showed
no courage? How have we had the best blood and the brightest eyes too,
of Europe throbbing round the table, as I and my uncle have held the
cards and the bank against some terrible player, who was matching some
thousands out of his millions against our all, which was there on the
baize! When we engaged that daring Alexis Kossloffsky, and won seven
thousand louis on a single coup, had we lost we should have been beggars
the next day; when _he_ lost, he was only a village and a few hundred
serfs in pawn the worse. When at Toeplitz the Duke of Courland brought
fourteen lacqueys, each with four bags of florins, and challenged our
bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask? 'Sir,' said we,
'we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hundred thousand at
three months. If your highness's bags do not contain more than eighty
thousand we will meet you.' And we did; and after eleven hours' play,
in which our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and three
ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins of him. Is _this_ not
something like boldness? Does this profession not require skill, and
perseverance, and bravery? Four crowned heads looked on at the game, and
an imperial princess, when I turned up the ace of hearts and made
Paroli, burst into tears. No man on the European Continent held a higher
position than Redmond Barry then; and when the Duke of Courland lost he
was pleased to say that we had won nobly. And so we had, and spent nobly
what we won." This is very grand, and is put as an eloquent man would
put it who really wished to defend gambling.
The rascal, of course, comes to a miserable end, but the tone of the
narrative is continued throughout. He is brought to live at last with
his old mother in the Fleet prison, on a wretched annuity of fifty
pounds per annum, which she has saved out of the general wreck, and
there he dies of delirium tremens. For an assumed tone of continued
irony, maintained through the long memoir of a life, never becoming
tedious, never unnatural, astounding us rather by its naturalness, I
know nothing equal to _Barry Lyndon_.
As one reads, one sometimes is struck by a conviction that this or the
other writer has thoroughly liked the work on which he is engaged. There
is a gusto about his passages, a liveliness in the language, a spring in
the motion of the words, an eagerness of description, a lilt, if I may
so call it, in the progress of the narrative, which makes the reader
feel that the author has himself greatly enjoyed what he has written. He
has evidently gone on with his work without any sense of weariness, or
doubt; and the words have come readily to him. So it has been with
_Barry Lyndon_. "My mind was filled full with those blackguards,"
Thackeray once said to a friend. It is easy enough to see that it was
so. In the passage which I have above quoted, his mind was running over
with the idea that a rascal might be so far gone in rascality as to be
in love with his own trade.
This was the last of Thackeray's long stories in _Fraser_. I have given
by no means a complete catalogue of his contributions to the magazine,
but I have perhaps mentioned those which are best known. There were many
short pieces which have now been collected in his works, such as _Little
Travels and Roadside Sketches_, and the _Carmen Lilliense_, in which the
poet is supposed to be detained at Lille by want of money. There are
others which I think are not to be found in the collected works, such as
a _Box of Novels by Titmarsh_, and _Titmarsh in the Picture Galleries_.
After the name of Titmarsh had been once assumed it was generally used
in the papers which he sent to _Fraser_.
Thackeray's connection with _Punch_ began in 1843, and, as far as I can
learn, _Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History_ was his first
contribution. They, however, have not been found worthy of a place in
the collected edition. His short pieces during a long period of his life
were so numerous that to have brought them all together would have
weighted his more important works with too great an amount of extraneous
matter. The same lady, Miss Tickletoby, gave a series of lectures. There
was _The History of the next French Revolution_, and _The Wanderings of
our Fat Contributor_,--the first of which is, and the latter is not,
perpetuated in his works. Our old friend Jeames Yellowplush, or De la
Pluche,--for we cannot for a moment doubt that he is the same
Jeames,--is very prolific, and as excellent in his orthography, his
sense, and satire, as ever. These papers began with _The Lucky
Speculator_. He lives in The Albany; he hires a brougham; and is devoted
to Miss Emily Flimsey, the daughter of Sir George, who had been his
master,--to the great injury of poor Maryanne, the fellow-servant who
had loved him in his kitchen days. Then there follows that wonderful
ballad, _Jeames of Backley Square_. Upon this he writes an angry letter
to _Punch_, dated from his chambers in The Albany; "Has a reglar
suscriber to your amusing paper, I beg leaf to state that I should never
have done so had I supposed that it was your 'abbit to igspose the
mistaries of privit life, and to hinger the delligit feelings of umble
individyouls like myself." He writes in his own defence, both as to
Maryanne and to the share-dealing by which he had made his fortune; and
he ends with declaring his right to the position which he holds. "You
are corrict in stating that I am of hancient Normin fam'ly. This is more
than Peal can say, to whomb I applied for a barnetcy; but the primmier
being of low igstraction, natrally stikles for his horder." And the
letter is signed "Fitzjames De la Pluche." Then follows his diary,
beginning with a description of the way in which he rushed into
_Punch's_ office, declaring his misfortunes, when losses had come upon
him. "I wish to be paid for my contribewtions to your paper.
Suckmstances is altered with me." Whereupon he gets a cheque upon
Messrs. Pump and Aldgate, and has himself carried away to new
speculations. He leaves his diary behind him, and _Punch_
surreptitiously publishes it. There is much in the diary which comes
from Thackeray's very heart. Who does not remember his indignation
against Lord Bareacres? "I gave the old humbug a few shares out of my
own pocket. 'There, old Pride,' says I, 'I like to see you down on your
knees to a footman. There, old Pomposity! Take fifty pounds. I like to
see you come cringing and begging for it!' Whenever I see him in a very
public place, I take my change for my money. I digg him in the ribbs, or
clap his padded old shoulders. I call him 'Bareacres, my old brick,' and
I see him wince. It does my 'art good." It does Thackeray's heart good
to pour himself out in indignation against some imaginary Bareacres. He
blows off his steam with such an eagerness that he forgets for a time,
or nearly forgets, his cacography. Then there are "Jeames on Time
Bargings," "Jeames on the Gauge Question," "Mr. Jeames again." Of all
our author's heroes Jeames is perhaps the most amusing. There is not
much in that joke of bad spelling, and we should have been inclined to
say beforehand, that Mrs. Malaprop had done it so well and so
sufficiently, that no repetition of it would be received with great
favour. Like other dishes, it depends upon the cooking. Jeames, with his
"suckmstances," high or low, will be immortal.
There were _The Travels in London_, a long series of them; and then
_Punch's Prize Novelists_, in which Thackeray imitates the language and
plots of Bulwer, Disraeli, Charles Lever, G. P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, and
Cooper, the American. They are all excellent; perhaps Codlingsby is the
best. Mendoza, when he is fighting with the bargeman, or drinking with
Codlingsby, or receiving Louis Philippe in his rooms, seems to have come
direct from the pen of our Premier. Phil Fogerty's jump, and the younger
and the elder horsemen, as they come riding into the story, one in his
armour and the other with his feathers, have the very savour and tone of
Lever and James; but then the savour and the tone are not so piquant. I
know nothing in the way of imitation to equal Codlingsby, if it be not
The Tale of Drury Lane, by W. S. in the _Rejected Addresses_, of which
it is said that Walter Scott declared that he must have written it
himself. The scene between Dr. Franklin, Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette,
and Tatua, the chief of the Nose-rings, as told in _The Stars and
Stripes_, is perfect in its way, but it fails as being a caricature of
Cooper. The caricaturist has been carried away beyond and above his
model, by his own sense of fun.
Of the ballads which appeared in _Punch_ I will speak elsewhere, as I
must give a separate short chapter to our author's power of
versification; but I must say a word of _The Snob Papers_, which were at
the time the most popular and the best known of all Thackeray's
contributions to _Punch_. I think that perhaps they were more charming,
more piquant, more apparently true, when they came out one after another
in the periodical, than they are now as collected together. I think that
one at a time would be better than many. And I think that the first half
in the long list of snobs would have been more manifestly snobs to us
than they are now with the second half of the list appended. In fact,
there are too many of them, till the reader is driven to tell himself
that the meaning of it all is that Adam's family is from first to last a
family of snobs. "First," says Thackeray, in preface, "the world was
made; then, as a matter of course, snobs; they existed for years and
years, and were no more known than America. But presently,--ingens
patebat tellus,--the people became darkly aware that there was such a
race. Not above five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive
monosyllable, arose to designate that case. That name has spread over
England like railroads subsequently; snobs are known and recognised
throughout an empire on which I am given to understand the sun never
sets. _Punch_ appears at the right season to chronicle their history;
and the individual comes forth to write that history in _Punch_.
"I have,--and for this gift I congratulate myself with a deep and
abiding thankfulness,--an eye for a snob. If the truthful is the
beautiful, it is beautiful to study even the snobbish;--to track snobs
through history as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles;
to sink shafts in society, and come upon rich veins of snob-ore.
Snobbishness is like Death, in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you
never heard, 'beating with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking
at the gates of emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of snobs
lightly, and think they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense
percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this
mortal life. You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of snobs; to do so
shows that you are yourself a snob. I myself have been taken for one."
The state of Thackeray's mind when he commenced his delineations of
snobbery is here accurately depicted. Written, as these papers were, for
_Punch_, and written, as they were, by Thackeray, it was a necessity
that every idea put forth should be given as a joke, and that the satire
on society in general should be wrapped up in burlesque absurdity. But
not the less eager and serious was his intention. When he tells us, at
the end of the first chapter, of a certain Colonel Snobley, whom he met
at "Bagnigge Wells," as he says, and with whom he was so disgusted that
he determined to drive the man out of the house, we are well aware that
he had met an offensive military gentleman,--probably at Tunbridge.
Gentlemen thus offensive, even though tamely offensive, were peculiarly
offensive to him. We presume, by what follows, that this gentleman,
ignorantly,--for himself most unfortunately,--spoke of Public[=o]la.
Thackeray was disgusted,--disgusted that such a name should be lugged
into ordinary conversation at all, and then that a man should talk about
a name with which he was so little acquainted as not to know how to
pronounce it. The man was therefore a snob, and ought to be put down; in
all which I think that Thackeray was unnecessarily hard on the man, and
gave him too much importance.
So it was with him in his whole intercourse with snobs,--as he calls
them. He saw something that was distasteful, and a man instantly became
a snob in his estimation. "But you _can_ draw," a man once said to him,
there having been some discussion on the subject of Thackeray's art
powers. The man meant no doubt to be civil, but meant also to imply that
for the purpose needed the drawing was good enough, a matter on which he
was competent to form an opinion. Thackeray instantly put the man down
as a snob for flattering him. The little courtesies of the world and the
little discourtesies became snobbish to him. A man could not wear his
hat, or carry his umbrella, or mount his horse, without falling into
some error of snobbism before his hypercritical eyes. St. Michael would
have carried his armour amiss, and St. Cecilia have been snobbish as she
twanged her harp.
I fancy that a policeman considers that every man in the street would be
properly "run in," if only all the truth about the man had been known.
The tinker thinks that every pot is unsound. The cobbler doubts the
stability of every shoe. So at last it grew to be the case with
Thackeray. There was more hope that the city should be saved because of
its ten just men, than for society, if society were to depend on ten who
were not snobs. All this arose from the keenness of his vision into that
which was really mean. But that keenness became so aggravated by the
intenseness of his search that the slightest speck of dust became to his
eyes as a foul stain. Public[=o]la, as we saw, damned one poor man to a
wretched immortality, and another was called pitilessly over the coals,
because he had mixed a grain of flattery with a bushel of truth.
Thackeray tells us that he was born to hunt out snobs, as certain dogs
are trained to find truffles. But we can imagine that a dog, very
energetic at producing truffles, and not finding them as plentiful as
his heart desired, might occasionally produce roots which were not
genuine,--might be carried on in his energies till to his senses every
fungus-root became a truffle. I think that there has been something of
this with our author's snob-hunting, and that his zeal was at last
greater than his discrimination.
The nature of the task which came upon him made this fault almost
unavoidable. When a hit is made, say with a piece at a theatre, or with
a set of illustrations, or with a series of papers on this or the other
subject,--when something of this kind has suited the taste of the
moment, and gratified the public, there is a natural inclination on the
part of those who are interested to continue that which has been found
to be good. It pays and it pleases, and it seems to suit everybody. Then
it is continued usque ad nauseam. We see it in everything. When the king
said he liked partridges, partridges were served to him every day. The
world was pleased with certain ridiculous portraits of its big men. The
big men were soon used up, and the little men had to be added.
We can imagine that even _Punch_ may occasionally be at a loss for
subjects wherewith to delight its readers. In fact, _The Snob Papers_
were too good to be brought to an end, and therefore there were
forty-five of them. A dozen would have been better. As he himself says
in his last paper, "for a mortal year we have been together flattering
and abusing the human race." It was exactly that. Of course we
know,--everybody always knows,--that a bad specimen of his order may be
found in every division of society. There may be a snob king, a snob
parson, a snob member of parliament, a snob grocer, tailor, goldsmith,
and the like. But that is not what has been meant. We did not want a
special satirist to tell us what we all knew before. Had snobbishness
been divided for us into its various attributes and characteristics,
rather than attributed to various classes, the end sought,--the
exposure, namely, of the evil,--would have been better attained. The
snobbishness of flattery, of falsehood, of cowardice, lying,
time-serving, money-worship, would have been perhaps attacked to a
better purpose than that of kings, priests, soldiers, merchants, or men
of letters. The assault as made by Thackeray seems to have been made on
the profession generally.
The paper on clerical snobs is intended to be essentially generous, and
is ended by an allusion to certain old clerical friends which has a
sweet tone of tenderness in it. "How should he who knows you, not
respect you or your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again
if it ever casts ridicule upon either." But in the meantime he has
thrown his stone at the covetousness of bishops, because of certain
Irish prelates who died rich many years before he wrote. The
insinuation is that bishops generally take more of the loaves and fishes
than they ought, whereas the fact is that bishops' incomes are generally
so insufficient for the requirements demanded of them, that a feeling
prevails that a clergyman to be fit for a bishopric should have a
private income. He attacks the snobbishness of the universities, showing
us how one class of young men consists of fellow-commoners, who wear
lace and drink wine with their meals, and another class consists of
sizars, or servitors, who wear badges, as being poor, and are never
allowed to take their food with their fellow-students. That arrangements
fit for past times are not fit for these is true enough. Consequently
they should gradually be changed; and from day to day are changed. But
there is no snobbishness in this. Was the fellow-commoner a snob when he
acted in accordance with the custom of his rank and standing? or the
sizar who accepted aid in achieving that education which he could not
have got without it? or the tutor of the college, who carried out the
rules entrusted to him? There are two military snobs, Rag and Famish.
One is a swindler and the other a debauched young idiot. No doubt they
are both snobs, and one has been, while the other is, an officer. But
there is,--I think, not an unfairness so much as an absence of
intuition,--in attaching to soldiers especially two vices to which all
classes are open. Rag was a gambling snob, and Famish a drunken
snob,--but they were not specially military snobs. There is a chapter
devoted to dinner-giving snobs, in which I think the doctrine laid down
will not hold water, and therefore that the snobbism imputed is not
proved. "Your usual style of meal," says the satirist--"that is
plenteous, comfortable, and in its perfection,--should be that to which
you welcome your friends." Then there is something said about the
"Brummagem plate pomp," and we are told that it is right that dukes
should give grand dinners, but that we,--of the middle class,--should
entertain our friends with the simplicity which is customary with us. In
all this there is, I think, a mistake. The duke gives a grand dinner
because he thinks his friends will like it, sitting down when alone with
the duchess, we may suppose, with a retinue and grandeur less than that
which is arrayed for gala occasions. So is it with Mr. Jones, who is no
snob because he provides a costly dinner,--if he can afford it. He does
it because he thinks his friends will like it. It may be that the grand
dinner is a bore,--and that the leg of mutton with plenty of gravy and
potatoes all hot, would be nicer. I generally prefer the leg of mutton
myself. But I do not think that snobbery is involved in the other. A
man, no doubt, may be a snob in giving a dinner. I am not a snob because
for the occasion I eke out my own dozen silver forks with plated ware;
but if I make believe that my plated ware is true silver, then I am a
snob.
In that matter of association with our betters,--we will for the moment
presume that gentlemen and ladies with titles or great wealth are our
betters,--great and delicate questions arise as to what is snobbery, and
what is not, in speaking of which Thackeray becomes very indignant, and
explains the intensity of his feelings as thoroughly by a charming
little picture as by his words. It is a picture of Queen Elizabeth as
she is about to trample with disdain on the coat which that snob Raleigh
is throwing for her use on the mud before her. This is intended to
typify the low parasite nature of the Englishman which has been
described in the previous page or two. "And of these calm
moralists,"--it matters not for our present purpose who were the
moralists in question,--"is there one I wonder whose heart would not
throb with pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple
of dukes down Pall Mall? No; it is impossible, in our condition of
society, not to be sometimes a snob." And again: "How should it be
otherwise in a country where lordolatry is part of our creed, and where
our children are brought up to respect the 'Peerage' as the Englishman's
second Bible." Then follows the wonderfully graphic picture of Queen
Elizabeth and Raleigh.
In all this Thackeray has been carried away from the truth by his hatred
for a certain meanness of which there are no doubt examples enough. As
for Raleigh, I think we have always sympathised with the young man,
instead of despising him, because he felt on the impulse of the moment
that nothing was too good for the woman and the queen combined. The idea
of getting something in return for his coat could hardly have come so
quick to him as that impulse in favour of royalty and womanhood. If one
of us to-day should see the queen passing, would he not raise his hat,
and assume, unconsciously, something of an altered demeanour because of
his reverence for majesty? In doing so he would have no mean desire of
getting anything. The throne and its occupant are to him honourable, and
he honours them. There is surely no greater mistake than to suppose that
reverence is snobbishness. I meet a great man in the street, and some
chance having brought me to his knowledge, he stops and says a word to
me. Am I a snob because I feel myself to be graced by his notice? Surely
not. And if his acquaintance goes further and he asks me to dinner, am I
not entitled so far to think well of myself because I have been found
worthy of his society?
They who have raised themselves in the world, and they, too, whose
position has enabled them to receive all that estimation can give, all
that society can furnish, all that intercourse with the great can give,
are more likely to be pleasant companions than they who have been less
fortunate. That picture of two companion dukes in Pall Mall is too
gorgeous for human eye to endure. A man would be scorched to cinders by
so much light, as he would be crushed by a sack of sovereigns even
though he might be allowed to have them if he could carry them away. But
there can be no doubt that a peer taken at random as a companion would
be preferable to a clerk from a counting-house,--taken at random. The
clerk might turn out a scholar on your hands, and the peer no better
than a poor spendthrift;--but the chances are the other way.
A tufthunter is a snob, a parasite is a snob, the man who allows the
manhood within him to be awed by a coronet is a snob. The man who
worships mere wealth is a snob. But so also is he who, in fear lest he
should be called a snob, is afraid to seek the acquaintance,--or if it
come to speak of the acquaintance,--of those whose acquaintance is
manifestly desirable. In all this I feel that Thackeray was carried
beyond the truth by his intense desire to put down what is mean.
It is in truth well for us all to know what constitutes snobbism, and I
think that Thackeray, had he not been driven to dilution and dilatation,
could have told us. If you will keep your hands from picking and
stealing, and your tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering, you
will not be a snob. The lesson seems to be simple, and perhaps a little
trite, but if you look into it, it will be found to contain nearly all
that is necessary.
But the excellence of each individual picture as it is drawn is not the
less striking because there may be found some fault with the series as a
whole. What can excel the telling of the story of Captain Shindy at his
club,--which is, I must own, as true as it is graphic. Captain Shindy is
a real snob. "'Look at it, sir; is it cooked? Smell it, sir. Is it meat
fit for a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling
before him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy
has just had three from the same loin." The telling as regards Captain
Shindy is excellent, but the sidelong attack upon the episcopate is
cruel. "All the waiters in the club are huddled round the captain's
mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John for not
bringing the pickles. He utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas
has not arrived with the Harvey sauce. Peter comes tumbling with the
water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing the 'glittering canisters with
bread.'
* * * * *
"Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings
somewhere, waited upon by a charity girl in pattens."
The visit to Castle Carabas, and the housekeeper's description of the
wonders of the family mansion, is as good. "'The Side Entrance and
'All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator hover the mantelpiece was
brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a capting with Lord Hanson.
The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas family. The great
'all is seventy feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and thirty-eight
feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the buth of Venus
and 'Ercules and 'Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpture
of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, represents Painting,
Harchitecture, and Music,--the naked female figure with the
barrel-organ,--introducing George, first Lord Carabas, to the Temple of
the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is
Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to
Lionel, second marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff
in the French Revolution. We now henter the South Gallery," etc. etc.
All of which is very good fun, with a dash of truth in it also as to the
snobbery;--only in this it will be necessary to be quite sure where the
snobbery lies. If my Lord Carabas has a "buth of Venus," beautiful for
all eyes to see, there is no snobbery, only good-nature, in the showing
it; nor is there snobbery in going to see it, if a beautiful "buth of
Venus" has charms for you. If you merely want to see the inside of a
lord's house, and the lord is puffed up with the pride of showing his,
then there will be two snobs.
Of all those papers it may be said that each has that quality of a pearl
about it which in the previous chapter I endeavoured to explain. In each
some little point is made in excellent language, so as to charm by its
neatness, incision, and drollery. But _The Snob Papers_ had better be
read separately, and not taken in the lump.
Thackeray ceased to write for _Punch_ in 1852, either entirely or almost
so.