I have been assured at Beiroot that they | chef of the age"), on his choice of an do not grow even their own cotton-but that aide-de-camp in the approaching campaign I can hardly believe. Even their religion is of Tancred's coming-of-age banquet: an exotic, and as they are indebted for that to Syria, it is not surprising they should import their education from Greece.

Shall we find a refuge in a committee of taste, escape from the mediocrity of one to the mediocrity of many?... But one suggestion might be made. No profession in England has done its best until it has furnished its victim. The pure administration of justice dates from the deposition of Macclesfield. . . Even our boasted navy never achieved a victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged!*

Or finally, not to embarrass with riches, in the philosophy of hot plates, where the reason of cold dinners in Paris is ascribed to the inferiority of French pottery and the author concludes quite in the manner of Sterne :

"What you have learned from me came at least from a good school. It is something to have served under Napoleon," added Prevost, with the grand air of the imperial kitchen.

"Had it not been for Waterloo I should have

had the cross, but the Bourbons and the cooks
of the empire never could understand each
who did not comprehend the taste of the age.
other. They brought over an emigrant chef
He wished to bring everything back to the
time of the ail de bouf; when Monsieur passed
my soup of Austerlitz untasted, I knew the old
There
family was doomed ; but we gossip.
He is too young. I took him to Hellingsley,
you had some hopes of him.
and he lost his head on the third day. I in-
trusted the soufflées to him, and but for the
most desperate personal exertions all would
have been lost. It was an affair of the Bridge
of Arcola."

is Andrieu

"Ah, mon Dieu, there are moments!" exclaimed Prevost.

Now if we only had that treaty of commerce Equally too of the Thackerayan flavor with France which has been so often on the is the account of Freeman and Trueman, point of completion, the fabrics of our un- the flunkeys attendant on Tancred in Palrivalled potteries in exchange for their capitalestine, who call an emir the hameer. wines would be found throughout France. The former comments on a Syrian casThe dinners of both nations would be im-tle:

proved; the English would gain a delightful

beverage, and the French for the first time in "There must have been a fine coming of their lives would dine off hot plates, an unan-age here," rejoined Trueman. swerable instance of the advantages of commercial reciprocity.

But it is not this note alone, though to our minds this note is best, that Lord Beaconsfield strikes in the scale of hu

mor.

He has rung almost all the changes it contains, from the broadest comedy to the finest irony. He has revelled in burlesque, and has yet developed characters whose humor is at once lifelike and astonishing.

The scene is laid in

"As for that," replied Freeman, "comings of age depend in a manner upon meat and drink. They ain't in no way to be carried out with coffee and pipes; without oxen roasted whole and broached hogsheads they ain't in a manner legal."

And again while near the Lebanon.

"I know what you are thinking of, John," "You are replied Mr. F. in a serious tone. thinking if anything were to happen to either of us in this heathen land we should get Christian burial."

I

"Lord love you, Mr. Freeman, no I wasn't. was thinking of a glass of ale."

"Ah!" sighed Freeman, "it softens the

·

Thackeray himself, in his Mirobolant love-making by the dishes he has cooked, had not surpassed the mock gravity of the chef's conference with which "Tan-heart to think of such things away from home cred" opens. that part of the celebrated parish of George, which is bounded on one side by cadilly, and on the other by Curzon Street. It is in this district that the cooks have ever sought an elegant abode. An air of stillness and serenity, of exhausted passion and suppressed emotion, rather than of sluggishness or dulness, distinguishes this quarter during the day.

as we are. Do you know, John, there are times when I feel very queer, there are indeed. St. I catched myself a-singing Sweet Home' one Pic-night among those savages in the wilderness. One wants consolation sometimes, one does, indeed, and for my part I do miss the family prayers and the home-brewed."

It is in such august surroundings that Papa Prevost," the veteran chef, advises young Leander, his favorite pupil (" the

* Tancred.

The Thackerayan irony is once more apparent in the picture of the sponginghouse where Ferdinand Armine finds him

self immured:

There were also indications of literary amusement in the room in the shape of a Hebrew Bible and the Racing Calendar;

and in the money-lender's advice for really it is necessary to distinguish with such a diminishing the loan required: — family as ours, you know."

"Fifteen hundred pound," ejaculated Mr. Levison. "Well, I suppose we must make it 700%. somehow or other, and you must take the rest in coals;' "

in Mrs. Guy Flouncey, sure of an ally directly the gentlemen appeared," + (a Becky Sharp in miniature) as she cries in triumph after the aristocratic ball for which she has strenuously pined, "We have done it at last, my love." And in the Radical manufacturer's confession of political faith, "I don't like extremes. A wise minister should take the duty off cotton wool." §

But the broader humor, that of Fielding and Dickens, is also forcibly represented in Lord Beaconsfield's pages. Perhaps few of our readers remember the squire in "Venetia - surely a country cousin of the little judge in "Pickwick" - when Morgana, the suspected gipsy, is brought up for trial before him.

Trust me to deal with these fellows. The hint of petty treason staggered him. The court must be cleared. Constable, clear the court. Let a stout man stand on each side of the prisoner to protect the bench. The magistracy of England will never shrink from doing their duty, but they must be protected.

Or again the music hall in "Sybil " with its entertainments redolent of Vincent Crummles and Miss Snevellicci:

Or Lady Spirituelle, described like Mrs.
Wititterly herself as
"all soul,"
Mr. Smith, the fashionable novelist, that is
to say a person who occasionally publishes
three volumes, one half of which contains the
adventures of a young gentleman in the coun-
try, and the other volume and a half the ad-
ventures of the same young gentleman in the
metropolis.†

In the same strain too is Lord Cadurcis'
prejudice against Pontius Pilate

from seeing him when I was a child on an old
Dutch_tile fireplace at Marringhurst, dressed
like a Burgomaster.‡

And the school in "Vivian Grey" kept
by sixteen young ladies, all the daughters of
clergymen, merely to attend to the morals and
the linen; terms moderate, one hundred
guineas per annum for all under six years
of age, and a few extras only for fencing, pure
milk, and the guitar.

And (to terminate this section of our illus-
trations) the celebrated Dartford election
from "Coningsby," the rival of that at
Eatanswill in "Pickwick." Its nomina-
tion day, "lounging without an object, and
luncheon without an appetite," Magog
Wrath and Bully Bluck with their rival
war-cries, and above all Rigby's speech :-

He brought in his crack theme, the guillotine, and dilated so elaborately upon its Some nights there was music on the stage. qualities, that one of the gentlemen below A young lady in a white robe with a golden could not refrain from exclaiming, "I wish harp, and attended by a gentleman in black you may get it." This exclamation gave Mr. mustachios. This was when the principal Rigby what is called a great opening, which, harpist of the king of Saxony and his first like a practised speaker, he immediately seized. fiddle happened to be passing through Mow- He denounced the sentiment as un-English, bray merely by accident on a tour of pleasure and got very much cheered. Excited by this and instruction to witness the famous scenes success, Rigby began to call everything else with of British industry. Otherwise the audience which he did not agree un-English, until menacof the "Cat and Fiddle" we beg pardon, ing murmurs began to arise, when he shifted we mean the "Temple of the Muses". the subject and rose into a grand peroration, fain to be content with four Bohemian broth-in which he assured them that the eyes of the ers, or an equal number of Swiss sisters.

were

whole empire were on this particular election (cries of "That's true on all sides), and that England expected every man to do his duty. "And who do you expect to do yours," inquired a gentleman below, "about that 'ere pension ?"

We must still, before we can consider briefly, his burlesque humor and his huour author's wit, treat, and of necessity morous development of character. The former is rifest, as is natural, in his earli est works, and overflowing with high spirits, though never of an impersonal

-

"I protest," said the king of Thessaly, against this violation of the most sacred rights."

"The marriage tie?" said Mercury. "The dinner hour?" said Jove. "It is no use talking sentiment to Ixion," said Venus, "mortals are callous."

"Adventures to the adventurous," said Mi

nerva.*

nature. Their constant reference to poli- | of, like the conventional satirists, approtics and society allies them more nearly to priating them. To borrow his own lan"Gulliver's Travels" than to "The Rose guage, "his pleasure has been," to conand the Ring," though the whimsical trast the hidden motive with the public Beckendorff and the episode in "Vivian pretext of transactions.* Because SiGrey" of the Rhine-wine dukes is an ex-donia is a paradox incarnate, we are not ception to this rule. Let us commence to forget that Lord Monmouth is a maswith the earliest : terpiece, any more than the caricatures of Acres or Mrs. Malaprop should prevent our appreciation of the two Surfaces. In the masculine gallery, Lord Monmouth, Taper, and Tadpole (creations in Sheridan's best manner, but too familiar to recapitulate here), Essper George † (the modern Sancho Panza to a master the exact reverse of Don Quixote), St. Aldegonde, Rigby, Fakredeen (the Louis Napoleon of Syrian intrigue), Lord Montfort, the cynic who "knew he was dying when he found himself disobeyed," are remarkable, as are Bertie Tremaine, who "always walked home with the member who had made the speech of the evening,' and who welcomed at his table " every one except absolute assassins," and Mr. Putney Giles, who, "intelligent, acquainted with everything except theology and metaphysics, liked to oblige, a little to patronize, never made difficulties, and always overcame them," and Mr. Phoebus, the muscular æsthete: while Lady Bellair (Lady Blessington ‡), who "hates people who are only rich," and in her old age

And the rubber between Teiresias and
Proserpine in the "Infernal Marriage:
"The trick and two by honors," said Pros-
erpine.

"Pray, my dear Teiresias, you, who are such a fine player, how came you to trump my best card?"

"Because I wanted the lead, and those who want to lead, please your majesty, must never hesitate about sacrificing their friends."

And the whole of " Popanilla," particularly the parable of the pineapples and the trial of the hero, who, arraigned on a charge of treason, discovers the indictment is for stealing camelopards, and is informed by the judge that originally Vraibleusia abounded with these splendid animals, to punish the destroyers of which his court was instituted :

"Therefore," his lordship added, "in order to try you in this court for the modern offence of high treason, you must first be introduced by fiction of law as a stealer of camelopards, and then, being in præsenti regio, in a manner, we proceed to business by a special power for the absolute offence." The judge. summed up in the most impartial manner. He told the jury that although the case was quite clear against the prisoner, they were bound to give him the advantage of every

reasonable doubt.

...

፡፡

"

always has a gay season," Lady Montfort, the Scheherezadé of society, Zenobia, and Mrs. Guy Flouncey are attrac tively so in the feminine; though in his Beaconsfield chivalrously prefers the hetreatment of woman's character, Lord roic to the humorous.

We have space to examine two only, and shall select them from what their author has styled the "dark sex."

Lord Monmouth is the Marquis of Steyne anatomized. He is the mauvais idéal of the old Tory peers who were the pillars of the "organized hypocrisy." "Never wanting in energy when his own interests were concerned,” “ disliking to hear of people who were dead," "looking on human nature with the callous eye of a jockey," ," "when he pleased rather fasci nating to young men," his superb selfish. ness and sordid sagacity are built up block by block, like some Pharoah of Egyptian antiquity:

Lord Monmouth worshipped gold, though if with the groan of a rebellious Titan, "How I necessary he could squander it like a calif. hate Sunday!" "Granville !" exclaimed Lady He had even a respect for very rich men. It St. Aldegonde, turning pale. There was a was his only weakness; the only exception to general shudder. "I mean in a country his general scorn for his species-wit, power, house," said Lord St. Aldegonde. "Of particular friendship, general popularity, pub-course I mean in a country house. I do not dislike it alone, and I do not dislike it in London, but Sunday in a country house is infernal."

lic opinion, beauty, genius, virtue, all these are to be purchased; but it does not follow that you can buy a rich man. You may not be willing or able to spare enough. A person or a thing that you could not buy became invested in the eyes of Lord Monmouth with a kind of halo, amounting almost to sanctity.

We have dilated at some length on the various aspects of Lord Beaconsfield's humor, for it is to our minds far the most His heartlessly diplomatic removal of after all it is for his daring and dazzling important feature of his writings, but Lady Monmouth through Rigby, his one wit that he will universally be rememsally of indignation provoked by his neph-bered. It is, as we have said, a rare ew's enthusiasm, "By some woman has got hold of him and made him a Wit has wings. A happy phrase becomes quality, and it is also a gift that lives. Whig," and his verdict on the Reform Bill, D- the Reform Bill. If the a proverb, and the wittier half of a work, like the favorite melodies of a composiduke had not quarrelled with Lord Grey, tion, survives the whole. The more will on a coal committee, we should never this be likely when the youn is to repeat have had the Reform Bill," complete a ourselves intellectually true, when fancy portrait worthy of Juvenal. It is a grim jumps with fact. This is, we imagine, figure, but we must not deny it almost its the secret of Lord Beaconsfield's wit. It sole virtue, and that posthumous may seem paradoxical to assert of his bequest to his creature Rigby: most popular paradoxes that they are Lord Monmouth left to the Right Honor- just, but we do so. He, like his Sidonia, able Nicholas Rigby the bust of that gentle-"said many things that were strange, yet man which he had himself presented to his they instantly appeared to be true." Be lordship, and which at his desire had been this as it may, wit is certainly the most placed in the vestibule at Coningsby Castle, plentiful element of his later novels. from the amiable motive that after Lord Monmouth's decease, Mr. Rigby might wish perhaps They are confessedly novels of conversato present it to some other friend.

- the

tion.

In life surely [he observes in "Vivian busy as he appears to be in novels and roGrey,"] man is not always as monstrously mances; we are not always in action, not always making speeches, or making money, or making war, or making love. Occasionally we talk about the weather, sometimes about ourselves, oftener about our friends, and as

often about our enemies.

A republican of the reddest dye, he was opposed to all privilege, and indeed to all orders of men except Dukes, who were a ne- This conversational treatment is an cessity. He was also strongly in favor of the element of their originality. Gradually equal division of all property except land. as his political and social career became Liberty depended on land, and the greater the land-owners the greater the liberty of a coun-in his novels recedes and the wit abounds. more definite and progressive, the humor try. He would hold forth on this topic with energy, amazed at any one differing from him. The only English prime minister who has "As if a fellow could have too much land," been a professed wit, he felt its efficacy he would urge with a voice and glance which as a weapon, used it, and we may add never abused it. Squib, repartee, epiThe meal was over. The bishop was stand-gram, and lampoon, all applied by him, ing near the mantelpiece talking to the ladies have yet never been misapplied to gloze who were clustered round him. The arch- immorality or profane religion. His very deacon, and the chaplain, and some other sneer is good humor, and if he was in clergy, a little in the background. Lord St. Aldegonde, who, whether there were a fire or any sense Diogenes, he was certainly a not, always stood with his hands in his pock- Diogenes who lived out of the tub. ets, moved discourteously among them, then assumed his usual position and listened as it were grimly for a few moments to their talk. Then he suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice

defied contradiction.

Wit, to classify roughly, is twofold. There is the lightning wit that flashes off a short sentence or an apt reply, and there is the lambent wit that sparkles

children, is Aladdin's lamp; "* and the "Treatise on a subject in which everybody is interested, in a style no one understands; "t the French actress who avers at supper, "No language makes you

either by description or dialogue. We management, no country house, and no shall begin with instances of the first. And here there is scarcely need to quote. Every one knows his aphorisms. The hansom cab, "the gondola of London," and the critics, "the men who have failed; "Tadpole's "Tory men and so thirsty as French;" and the English Whig measures," and Rigby's "little words in great capitals; Don Juan,' the style of the House of Commons, 'Paradise Lost,' that of the House of Lords; ""All the great things have been done by the little nations," and "Our young queen and our old constitution," "The Whigs bathing," and, we may add, "London, the key of India; are house

hold words.

tradesmen, who "console themselves for not getting their bills paid by inviting their customers to dinner." The utilitarian whose dogma was, "Rules are general, feelings are general, and property should be general;" and the definition of liberty, "Do as others do, and never knock men down." § There has been scarcely time to forget the advice in "Lothair" to "go into the country for the It is in "Coningsby" and "Lothair" first note of the nightingale and return to that perhaps the best of his apophthegms town for the first note of the muffin-bell; " are found. Thence spring "The govern- or perhaps to remember Zenobia in "Enment of great measures, or little men of dymion," "who liked handsome people, humbug or humdrum ;" and "Youth, the even handsome women," and Mr. Ferrars trustees of posterity; ""The Austrians, who committed suicide from a "want of the Chinese of Europe;" and "Diplom- imagination." A brace of very witty atists the Hebrews of politics; ""Paris, similes should not be here omitted. The the university of the world;" and "St. one a comparison of the Parliament-built James's Square, the Faubourg St. Ger- region of Harley Street to "a large family main of London; ""The gentlemen who of plain children, with Portland Place and played with billiard-balls games that were Portman Square for their respectable not billiards;" and "The lady who sacri- parents;" the other, that of the deficed even her lovers to her friends; "tached breakfast tables at Brentham to "Most women are vain, some men are not; " and the lawyer who "was not an intellectual Cræsus, but had his pockets full of sixpences;"" Pantheism, atheism in domino;" and " Books, the curse of the human race; ""Pearls are like girls," and "Malt tax is madness;" of Austria, "Two things made her a nation - she was German and she was Catholic, and now she is neither;" and of the Reform Bill, "It gave to Manchester a bishop and to Birmingham a dandy." But indeed words fully as good as these are to be found throughout. It is time to recall Lord Squib's definition of the value of money, very dear; " and Count Mirabel's (D'Orsay's) pleasantry, "Coffee and confidence;"† Essper George's "Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember and remembered more than I have seen;"‡ and Popanilla, most dandified of savages and the most In the same category too are those felic savage of dandies; "Venus, the god-itous turns of terse expression, whether dess of watering-places;"§ and "Bur- new or newly-shaped, which distinguish lington, with his old loves and new Lord Beaconsfield above any other modern dances;" "Good fortune with good novelist. The "Parliamentary Christian," for Protestant, and the "freetrader in

"The

a cluster of Greek or Italian republics, instead of a great metropolitan table like a central government, absorbing all the genius and resources of society;" nor should the Heinesque lyric on "Charming Bignetta," ** with its witty close, be suffered to die away unreechoed:

Charming Bignetta, charming Bignetta,
What a wicked young rogue is charming Big-
She laughs at my shyness, and flirts with his
Highness,

netta!

Yet still she is charming, that charming Big

netta!

Charming Bignetta, charming Bignetta,
What a dear little girl is charming Bignetta!
"Think me only a sister," said she trembling
- I kissed her.

What a charming young sister is charming
Bignetta!