A house in a highly respectable square, where Jeames Yellowplush was in
service, had recently the fame of being haunted. No one knew exactly
what haunted this desirable mansion, or how, though a novelist was
understood to have supplied a satisfactory legend. The young man who
"investigated" the ghost rang the bell thrice violently, and then fell
down dead, nor could he in any wise satisfy the curiosity of his friends.
That fable is exploded. It was what is called an "aetiological myth;" by
the learned it was merely a story devised to account for the fact that
the house was not occupied. The imagination of man, confronted by so
strange a problem as money running to waste, took refuge in the
supernatural. Much more truly haunted than the house in "Buckley Square"
are the streets of London which are tenanted by the ghosts that genius
created. These, having never been born, can never die, and still we may
meet them in the roads and squares where they lived and took their
pastime. Mr. Rideing, an American author, has published (with Messrs.
Jarvis and Son) a little volume called "Thackeray's London," an account
of the places which that great novelist made household words, and filled
with genial spectres that time can never lay. Mr. Rideing's little book
does not strike us as being quite complete. Surely Thackeray, especially
in the "Ballads," mentions many places not alluded to by the new
topographer. Besides, Mr. Rideing says that Thackeray's readers forget
the localities in which his characters appear. Surely this is a calumny
on human memory. Who but thinks of Becky Sharp as he trudges down Curzon
Street? Has Bryanston Square properly any reason for existence, except
that the Hobson Newcomes dwelt there? Are the chambers of Captain
Costigan forgotten by the memory of any man, or those of Pen and George
Warrington? But Pen took better rooms, not so lofty, when he scored that
success with "Walter Lorraine." Where did Mr. Bowes, the hopeless
admirer of the Fotheringay, dwell? Every one should know, but that
question might puzzle some. Or where was the lair of the Mulligan? Like
the grave of Arthur, or of Moliere, it is unknown; the whole of the
postal district known as W. is haunted by that tremendous shade. "I live
there," says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge with the big stick he
carries; so his abode is in that direction, at any rate. No more has
been given to man to know.
Many minor reminiscences occur to the mind. In Pump Court we encounter
the brisk little spectre of Mr. Frederick Minchin, and who can forget
that his club was The Oxford and Cambridge, than which what better could
he desire? Mr. Thackeray himself was a member of The Garrick, The
Athenaeum, and The Reform, but the clubs of many of his characters, like
the "buth" of Jeames Yellowplush, are "wrapped up in a mistry." They are
alluded to by fancy names, but the scholiast on Thackeray will probably
be able to identify them. Is it not time, by the way, for that scholiast
to give his labours to the public? Thackeray's world is passing; the
children he knew, the boys he tipped and took to the play, are middle-
aged men--fogies, in fact. _Tempus edax rerum_, Time has an appetite as
good as that of a boy at his first club dinner. The meaning of the great
writer's contemporary allusions may be lost, like those of Villon and
Aristophanes. Such is the fate of comedy. Who knows, if we turn to
Dickens, what the "common profeel machine" was, or what were the steps of
the dance known as the Fanteag (the spelling is dubious); or what the
author meant by a "red-faced Nixon." Was it a nixie? Does the new
Professor of the English Language and Literature at Oxford hope to cast
the light of Teutonic research on these and similar inquiries? Sam
Weller found that oysters always went hand-in-hand with poverty. How
this must astonish a generation which finds the oyster nearly as extinct
as the ichthyosaurus! The "Book of Snobs" calls aloud for a commentator.
Who is the nobleman holding his boots out of the hotel window--an act
which the Snob very properly declined to classify as snobbish? Who are
the originals of Henry Foker (this, indeed, is known), and of Wagg and
Wenham? Or did Wenham's real name _rhyme_ to Foker, as, according to the
Mulligan, "Perkins rhymes to Jerkins, my man of firkins"? Posterity will
insist on an answer, which will be nothing if not authentic. Posterity,
_pace_ Mr. Rideing, will remember very well that George Osborne's father
lived in Russell Square, and will hunt in vain for 96. There is no such
number, any more than there ever was such a Pope as he to whom the
unfortunate old woman in "Candid" attributed her birth. Here once more,
as Voltaire justly remarks in a footnote, we observe the discretion of
our author.
Colonel Newcome lived, as is well known, in Fitzroy Square, and died in
the Charter House. To these shrines the pious go in pilgrimage; the
rather dingy quarters are brightened by the memory of his presence, as we
think of Scott in Castle Street, Edinburgh, or of Dr. John Brown in
Princes Street--Dr. John Brown who was a Colonel Newcome that had gone
into medicine instead of the army. Smithfield is hardly more memorable
for her martyrs than for the battles fought on neighbouring ground
between Biggs and Berry, between Cuff and old Figs. Kentish Town, but
little sought for sentimental reasons, is glorified by the memory of
Adolphus Larkins; "Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, were the scenes
of many of his exploits." Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, lent her
shelter--or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in a boarding-house--to
Miss Bunnion. Cursitor Street might be unknown as the great men before
Agamemnon (many of whom, by the way, as Meleager and Pirithous, are known
well enough) had not Cursitor Street contained the sponging-house where
Rawdon Crawley was incarcerated.
In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so little
likely to be published, we need novelists' maps and topographies of
London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some American of
leisure; they order these things better in America. When we go to Paris
we want to know where Balzac's men and women lived, Z. Marcas and Cesar
Birotteau, and Le Cousin Pons, and Le Pere Goriot, and all the duchesses,
financiers, scoundrels, journalists, and persons of both sexes and no
character "Comedie Humaine." London also might be thus spaced out--the
London of Richardson, and Fielding, and Miss Burney, as well as the
London of Thackeray or Dickens. Already, to speak of to-day, Rupert
Street is more interesting, because there, fallen in fortune, but
resolute of heart and courtly as ever, Prince Florizel of Bohemia held
his cigar divan.