xt7qjq0stw34_1908 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection Douglas William Jerrold clippings text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. Douglas William Jerrold clippings 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_86/Folder_10/Multipage6496.pdf 1857, undated 1857 1857, undated 
  Scope and Contents
  
Peal accession no. 8223.
 section false xt7qjq0stw34_1908 xt7qjq0stw34 _ JERROLD(D1)ugl21s). 1803—57. " Punch ”(‘11)11t1'il1utor. Authorot“ \lrs
(‘audlo‘s (,‘1urt21in illeotures.“ etc. A (folloetion of 2“) A.l1s.S. (1)111: signed with
initials). &1 Holograph M21111useript Fragment Signed. (3} pp., Svo & folio,
18:31). 185] 2(2- n..1].. to various correspondents including Cunningham,
Berwiek &1" Dear George." regarding his work. invitations, etc. The MS.
which is Closely written &1 eorreoted is l p.. l'olio, (la/ml 11111)] 11, 1850,
begins " The veteran Bloodhuhhle ” The (3 items 2‘\'1 portrait £2 2s

JONES (Henry Arthur). lSST-ISJBSL Il)1'amatist. I; pp., 8vo, Baa/cs”
Nov. 3. 188."), to Dr. lfi‘uruivall, regarding 21 performance, an Essay 011
‘ H21111let,” etc. 10s 611
JOURNAL, Bilanusoript of the l8th & early 19th century, 80 pp., 4‘00, “ A
Register of; the \Veather & Met tcomlogioal History of the Air begun in the
year 1764.1)V l.l’11i2111noi \\ ooton, 80111121 'set (a relative of Admiral llood).
This most intelesting 11121nuse1ipt is lar 111010 than its title implies 85 is in
fact also 211 journal of national 1\',1 loo 2111 e\ ents as the tollouing quotations
will demonstrate. “ 176-1. All Europe had storms at sea . . . small earth-
quake in Norfolk . . . flood in undations of the Sea did vast damage all along
the East Coast of England” " 177'). Floods. The ("ivil \Var com-
me need this Spr 111g in Amer 10a with two small actions 110211 Boston”; ‘ 7(1
0111' (xene1 211s Hone & (linton took Lona Island & New \111 L in Autrust &

111 J ‘73} “OLD (Douglas) Autograph MS.
1511/1111], at (/10 7111til.40‘ lines, 1 page, 25w (wr idea
for tuc P7112661) 21lin1> 0\ ample of his line and
closely \\1'.itten Compositions, 11 oodcut pm trait
and printed notices 5s 6d

 

 N° 1546, JUNE 13, ’57

 

income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn it!
Rehnquish your labours : you must be weary, and
let me have the happiness of giving you rest.’ I
am not sure whether Frances had accorded due
attention to my harangue ; instead of answering
me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only
smiled and said—‘How rich you are, mons1eur I’
and then she stirred uneasy in my arms. ‘Three
thousand francs !’ she murmured, ‘ while I get only
twelve hundred!’ She went on faster. ‘ How-
ever it must be so for the present ; and, 1nons1eur,
were you not saying something about my givmg up
my place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast ;’ and her
little fingers emphatically tightened on mine.—
‘Think of my marrying you to be kept by you,
monsiem‘! I could not do it; and how dull my
days would be! You would be away teaching in
close, noisy school-rooms, from morning till even-
ing, and I should be lingering at home, unem-
ployed and solitary; I should get depressed and
sullen, and you would soon tire of me.’——‘ Frances,
you could read and study—two things you like so
well.’—‘1\Ionsieur, I could not; I like a contempla-
tive life, but I like an active life better; I must
act in some way, and act with you.
notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each
other’s company for amusement, never really like
each other so well, or esteem each other so highly,
as those who work together, and perhaps suffer to-
gether.’——‘ You speak God’s truth,’ said I at last,
‘and you shall have your own way, for it is the best
way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent,
give me a voluntary kiss.’ ”

The pair open a school in Brussels, where Mr.
Hunsden sends them pupils “to be polished off.”
In ten years they make a fortune, secure a
pretty English home that lies among the moors
thirty miles from X “ The smoke of mills
has not yet sullied the verdure, the waters still

run pure.” There is a long, green, shady lane

starred with daisies, which gives a title to the
house.
mastiff ;

There is a fine boy and a favourite
and the story ends.

Miss Bronte does not exhibit her characters
in critical action, or under strong temptation.
Low chicane, astuteness, sensuality, and tyranny,
are keenly and observantly drawn ; but
throughout the novel the quietness is unnatural,
the level of fact too uniform, the restraint and
the theory of life too plain. The principles and
the art of the writer, though true, excite no
corresponding sympathy 011 the part of the
reader,———few demands being made on his softer
0r gentler nature. There is no Helen Burns
that we can watch or weep over,—no sprightly
little Adele that we can sport with. Frances
may possibly be the mother of Lucy Snow, and
Mdlle. Renter and M. Pelet the co-eflieients of
Madame Modeste and Paul Emmanuel. Simi—
larities of opinion respecting marriage may
be traced, not as a crime, but an imbe-
cility. Now and then there is a touch
of grandiloqucncc that astonishes us. lVords
and events are utilized in a way that now,
knowing the author’s opportunities, appear to
us remarkable. On the whole, this tale bears
to Currer Bell’s later works the relation which
a pre-Shakspearian story does to the drama,—it
is curious to an artist or psychologist. On
closing this posthumous chapter, and ending
Charlotte Brontc’s strange literary history, we
are reminded of a saying of Jean Paul’s—“ God
deals with poets as we do with nightingales,
hanging a dark cloth round the cage until they
sing the right tune.”

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

A Complete ilfmzsual of Short Conreg/mzeing; a‘ilh.
Explanatory Notes and a Copious Index. By Her-
man L. Prior, Ban‘ister-at-Law. (VVildy 4&2 Son.)
-—One of the happiest of H.B.’s early sketches
represents the horror of Lord Eldon on viewing
the small wig in which Lord Brougham ventured
to occupy the woolsack. “ \Ve live in awful times,”
groans that very learned obstruction. What would

I have taken i

 

a {e in a ree 1n 1e1r orms. ' or our own par , we

think that the storm will blow over, and that our
present cumbrous forms will remain in use until
our very absurd system of legal remuneration is
changed. Others may expect to find counsel and
solicitors exercising their talents in conveyancing
by way of charity, and accepting a good conscience
by way of fee,—we do not. The present book
contains a collection of forms, which are very
concise indeed, and, therefore, for the reason we
have referred to, not likely to be adopted at present.
As to the character of these forms, we can only
speak in general terms, as we apprehend that a
criticism on a “power of sale” or “covenant to
produce documents” would be about as interesting
as an extract in the Romany tongue. Speaking
generally, then, the execution of the work shows
considerable ingenuity in compression. To say
that the author occasionally oversteps the proper
line, and in the attempt to be brief becomes in-
accurate, is saying little more than that he is
thoroughly in earnest in his work. The author
is fond of new phrases, some of which do not
conduce to conciseness. “Sale money” is pre-
ferred to “purchase money,” and a “trustee” gene- .
rally appears as a “fiduciary owner.” Upon the ‘
whole, when brevity becomes the soul of convey-
ancing, this book may be useful, but, we fear,
“not till then.”

(her the See; or, Letters from an Officer in India.
to his Children at Home. (Hatcliards.)——Tliis is a
contribution to the shelves of a young people’s
library. It has the merit of not being didactic
and offensively instructive, a fault which young
people of intelligence very naturally resent. There
are amusing sketches of character, and good de-
scriptions of scenery, the truth and fidelity of
which are vouched for by the _Rev. 311'. Pears,
the editor, whose power of judging is not of the
most satisfactory, as he assiu‘es us, “I know
nothing of India myself.” He relies on his
“knowledge of the writer’s character,”———but the
most upright of men may be perfectly incapable
of judging of character or describing even a single
object before his own eyes. We do not say the
author is in this predicament. At all events, his
book is gossipping, pleasant, and instructive.

The Unprotected ; or, Fae/s in Dressmahting Life.
By a Dressmakcr. (Low 8: Co.)——This dressmaker’s
book is evidently written by one of the class which
it represents. The pictures of the interior of the
work-room, and the sketches of the young mantua-
makers, have a look of life and reality, which gives
a strong interest to the book, quite independent of
literary ability, of which there is not much. The
whole burden of the sin of oppression is laid upon
the shoulders of the thoughtless beauties, who insist
upon “ not being disappointcc ,” and who will only
give a few hours’ notice for their elaborate costumes.
This, of course, entails over—hours———sitting up all
night—over-work—-ending in a terrible per-centage
of early deaths, blindness, madness, or in a mode
of life to which the others are blessings. Of course,

 

 

 DOUGLAS JERROLD.

DEATH has taken from among us a man of vast
and peculiar force. _
their valets: distance lends cnchantincnt to the
view; but Douglas Jerrold was the greatest marvel
to those who knew him best. His reading was
wide, and his memory for what he read prodigious.
He knew the whole of Shakspcare by heart, and
every noble line or beautiful image in Faust and the
Inferno slept within his lips like the charge in a
gun. He delighted in Eddas and Zendavestas,
in the lore of the llabbis, in science and in the
mysteries of the sehoolmen. Lightlbot was familiar
to him as Habelais and h'lontaigne, Vlacon as Fuller
and Donne. Yet the powers which made his fame
were native. He was most widely known perhaps

by his wit ; for wit catches the sense like atorch in ‘

a ravme, even though the gold mines may lie un—
noticed elose by. Prophets who bear torches
through the streets will draw a crowd sooner than
those who teach the wisdom of Solomon.
wit was very nimble, crackling, and original.
man could resist its spontaneity and sparkle, and it
wrote its daily story in London life as a thing apart
and institutional. But his wit, however brilliant,
was not his finest gift. Indeed, in his serious
moments, he would laugh at his mvn repartees as
tricks as a more habit of mind~—which he could
teach any dull fellow in two lessons 5 His wit made
only one side of his genius—sprung indeed from a
central characteristic—the extraordinary rapidity
of his apprehension. He saw into the hearts of
things. He perceived analogies invisible to other
men. These analogies sometimes made him merry,
sometimes iiulignant. And as he never hung
fire, dull people often saw his wrath before they
understood his reason; and they blamed him, not
in truth because he was wrong, but because they
were slow.

Jerrold was born in London on the 3rd of
January, l8llil, while Bonaparte was at Boulogne
and London was in the riot of anticipated inva»
sion. He was chris ened Douglas \Villiam Jerrold,
:f)ouglas having been the inai< :11 name of his grand-
mother. His father, Samuel Jerrold, was manager
of the two theatres of Sheerness and Southend, and
in these seaplaces much of his childhood passed, in
sight of ships, breakers, press-gangs, theatrical
stars, female and male, black~eyed damsels, and
prisoners of war. He was the son of his father‘s
old age, and he held a theory that the children of
old men are always nervous, facile, and short—lived.
Few friends or playmates of his own age came near
him in the theatre or 'in the town; indeed, he used

" to say the only boy he knew familiarly at Sheerness
was thelittle buoy at the How. Amongthe theatrical
folks who played on his father’s stage he remem-
bered Edmund Kean with peculiar vividncss; for
the deseemlant of Halifax pleased him by carrying
him on the boards in Rollo, and still more by his
whiinsicalities in the pantomime. He app “arcd
also on the stage with Kean as the b’lranyer’s child.

N01546, JUNE 13/57

 

Author and actor came together afterwards at
Drury Lane in Jeirold’s early London life; Kean,
who remembered Jerrold, gave him orders and
oranges, and Jerrold paid him in athniration and
epigrams. Long years of theatrical success—sonic
quarrels and misunderstandings—never cooled the
ardour with which the Author of ‘ Clovernook’
always spoke of the great artist who had been
gentle to him when a boy.

Jerrold’s school-days were fei r and the results of
his studies at Sheerness unimportant. He used to
say, with a merry melancholy, that the only prize
he carried home from school was a prize ringworm.
In all ways, he was considered a (lull boy; cat nine

 

Heroes dwarf in the eyes of

 

And his ‘
No l

 

years of age he could scarcely read. Breakers were
the books which he liked to study. ll‘rigates roll--
ing past the Norc, and the grand tramp of war in
Belgium, where Bonaparte was staking his last
card, drew his imagination towards the sca——-con~
quermg, for a time, even his passion for oil~lamps,
property men, and the hot applause of the family
theatre. To sea he would go and fight the French,
—entering His Majesty’s service as a midshipman
on board the Namur. hiliddies in those days had
not learnt to drink claret, smoke cigars, and quote
Keats; and the mess-room was anything but a
crossbetween a boudoir in Park Lane and a hole
in a Cyder Cellar. The life was rough, the usage
hard, the dissipation slight. Sea life was then a
passion-it is now only a sentiment. Something
of Nelson’s genius has passed into the navy——in-
extinguishable hate of the French. Jerrold caught
this fury,—natural enough to a boy born in the
panic of invasion and trained in a war—port; and
to his last year there remained in his Writing
and in his conversation a pulse—so to say~a
breath ~ a suspicion — now taking a literary,
now a social, now a political form—of that
stern religion of the English in 180-1. Though
he afterwards lived in France for years, edu-
cated his children there, and spoke its language
with the readiness of a practised jester, he never

, seemed to ibrget his blue cap and gold band, but

rattled among the fish-wives of Boulogne and the
flower-girls of Paris with the bciiiguant vivacity of
a middy just stepped ashore. His commander,
Capt. Austen, brother of the great novelist, was
fond of theatricals, and the officers gotup private
plays. A man before the mast painted the scenery
and Jerrold superintcnded the stage. That man
before the mast was Stanfield, our incomparable
marine artist. “when Jerrold was transferred to
another ship they parted company, to meet again
after long years on, the stage of Drury Lane, when
Stanfield was painting scenery for ‘The Kent Day.7
Out of these youthful recollections arose, we believe,
that series of amateur tlicatricals which introduced
the extraordinary histrimiic genius of l‘vlr. Dickens
and hlr. Blark Lemon to the public, which secured
honourable means to two veteran authors, and made
the charm of so many London seasons. A party of
friends Were walking over Richmond Park, chatting
of other days, when Jerrold cries “ Let’s have a
play, Stanfield, like we had on board the Nannu‘.”
Mr. Dickens took up the tale and was acclaimed
manager ; ‘ Every lllan in his Humour7 \ as selected,
the parts were cast, and the row began.

After a few months Jerrold returned to shore,
and came to London in search of fortune. He found
it in a printer’s office, in a court leading from
Salisbury Square; to the proprietors of which he
was bound ’prentice. \Vorking steadily, and in
process of time a master in the mechanism of his
craft, he nevertheless only considered this employ-
ment as a means to something higher. At this
time, though the hours of labour were long, and
there were no compositors" reading-rooms for leisure
moments, he attacked Latin and Italian; rose at
three in the morning to construe Virgil and Livy,
and passed stormy hours with grammarians and
glossaries before he commenced work with the heavy
leaders and light sketches of the periodical press—-
the productions of people enjoying fame and pay
for writings in which his quick eye detected the
weak points and the faded splendours. He began
to scribble verse as soon as he learned to write ; and
his sonnets, epigrams, and songs appeared in the
sixpcnny magazines of the day. He was then a
mere boy, and looked, indeed, like. a child. An.

N° 1546, JUNE 13, ’57

THE ATHENEEUM

759

 

American writer, one of those gentlemen from over
sea who print Citizen of the \Vorld on their cards
and invent peirand-ink portraits of celebrities they
have never spoken with, once described him as a
tiny man who walked up the Strand fumbling his
thunderbolts. Tiny he was: and before his fine
fell of hair grisled into a lion’s mane, he seemed
ahnost infantinc in the delicate mould of his face
and the exquisite beauty of his expression. Eni-
boldened by success, he wrote for the stage, to
which he felt a family call, and produced clouds of
pieces ere he was l)\‘»'011tyf—-S(l11i€, of which still
keep the stage, like ‘ hlore Frightened than
Hurt,’ performed at Sadler’s \Vells. He engaged
with Davidge, then manager of the Uoburg,
to produce pieces at a salary; and some of his
plays at this time, hastily composed, and as he
thought unworthy of his powers, appeared under the
name of hlr. Henry Brownrig. In consequence
of quarrels he went from the Uoburg Theatre to
the Surrey, with ‘Dlack—Eyed Susan’ in his hand.
He had brought from the quarter—deck of the
Namur a love of the sea and a knowledge of the
service, which he turned to account on the stage
and in his general writings. Salt air sw‘eeps
through these latter like a breeze and a perfume.
‘Black-Eycd Susan,7 the most successful of his
naval plays, was written when he was scarcely
twenty years old, a piece which made the fortune
of the Surrey Theatre, restored Elliston from a
long course of disastrous mismanagement,. and
gave honour and independence to T. 1’. Uooke.
Indeed, no dramatic work of ancient or modern
days ever reached the success of this play. lt was
poi-formal, without break, for hundreds of nights.
All London went over the water, and lV‘ooke became
a personage in society, as Garrick had been in the
days of Goodman’s Fields. Covent Garden bor-
rowed the play, and engaged the actor, for an
afterpiece. A liackiicy cab carried the triumphant
William, in his blue jacket and white trousers, from
the Obelisk to Bow Street; and I\‘l:tyfair maidens
wept over the strong situations and laughed over
the searching dialogue which had moved an hour
before the tears and merriment of the Borough.
On the 300th night of rialresentation the walls of
the theatre were illuminated, and vast multitudes
filled the thoroughfares. \‘s'hen subsequently repro-
duced at Drury Lane it kept oifruin for a time even
from that magnificent misfortune. Actors and
managers throughout the country reaped a golden
harvest. Testimonials were got up for Elliston
and for Cooke on the glory of its success. But
Jerrold’s share of the gain was slight: about 7W.
of the many thousands which it realized for the
management. \Vith unapproachal )le meanness, Ellis-
ton abstained from presenting the youthful writer
with the value of a toothpick; and Elliston’s bio-
grapher, with a kindred sense of poetic justice,
while chaunting the praises ofElliston for producing
‘Black—Eyed Susan,’ forgets to say who wrote the
play! \thn the drama had run 500 nights,
Elliston said to Jerrold, with amusing coolness,
“ hiy dear boy, why don’t you get your friends to
present you with a bit of plat "3-”

hflany d ‘ainas, comic and serious, followed this
first success all shining with points and colours.
Among these were ‘ Nell L'r‘.'vf,'nne,’ ‘ The Scliifiolfel—
lows,” and ‘ The Housekeeper." Drury Lane opened
its exclusive doors to an author who had made for-
tune and fame for Elliston and Cooke. But Elli:
Osbaldiston, who only timidly perceived the range
and sweep of the youthful genius which he wooed
to his green-room, proposed the adaptation of a
French piece, offering to pay handsomely for the
labour. Adapt a French piece ! The Volunteer rose
within him, and he turned on his heel with a snort.
Drury Lane was then in the hands of the French,
freshly captured, and the boy who had gone to sea
in order to fight Napoleon refused to serve in Lon-
don uiider his literary marshals. He returned to
the theatre after a while with his ‘ Bride of Lud-
gate,’ the first of many ventures and many suc-
cesses on the same boards. ‘The Mutiny at the
Nore7 had followed the first nautical success, and
his minor pieces on the Surrey side continued to
run long and gloriously. .3ut the patent theatres,
with a monopoly of the five-act drama, were strongly
garrisoned by the French, aided by native troops

 

whom they had raised, and some of whom, such
as Poole and Blanche, were men of great technical
skill and facile talent; and he never felt his feet
secure in either theatre until the production of his
‘Hent Day,’ a play suggested and elaborated
from \Vilkie’s pictures. \Nilkic sent him a hand-
some letter and a pair of proof engravings with his
autograph. The public paid him still more amply.

A selection from the early writings for the
stage, made by himself, has been published in
the Collected Edition of his works. 3>ut many
were unjustly condemned, and among those re-
jected plays the curious seeker will find some of
the most sterling literary gold. His wit was so
prodigal, and he prized it so little, save as a delight
to others, that he threw it away like dust, never
caring for the bright children of his brain, and
smiling with complacent kindness at people who
repeated to him his jests as their own! At the
least demur, too, he would sin ‘ender his most
happy allusions and his most trenchant hits. In
one of his plays an old sailor, trying to snatch a kiss
from a pretty girl—as old sailors will—got a box

on the ear. “ There,” exclaimed Blue—jacket, “ like .
. subtle and delicate prmluctions of his muse.

n‘

my luck ; always wrecked on the coral reefs.

The manager, when the play was read in the green- 1
room, could not see the fun, and Jerrold struck it ,

out. A friend made a captions remark on a very
characteristic touch in a manuscript comedy

the touch went out :———a cynical d(,)g in a wrangle

with his much better-half said to her, “ h’ly notion I
of a wife of forty is, that a man. should be able to ,
‘ indeed, had always attracted him as they attract the

change her, like 1 bank—note, for two twenties."

The best part of many years of his life was given ,

up freely to these theatrical tasks,——for his genius
was dramatic——his family belonged to the stage—
and his own pulpit, as he thought, stood behind the
footlights. His father, his mother, and his two

sisters all adorned the stage ; his sisters, older than '
himself, had married two managers,—one the late .

llIr. Hammond, an eccentric humourist and un-
successful manager of Drury Lana—the other, h’lr.
Copeland, of the Liverpool Theatre Royal. He
himself for a moment retrod the stage, playing in
his own exquisite drama, ‘The Painter of Ghent.’
But the effort of mechanical repetition. wearied a
brain so fertile in invention; and he happily re-
turned to literature and journalism, only to re—appear
as an actor in the plays performed by the amateurs
at St. {l'aiiies’s Theatre and Devonshire H<,>11se.
After this time appeared, in succession, the
greatest and maturcst of his comedies. In ‘The
Prisoner of \Var,’ in parts :ast for them, the two
Keeleys harvested their highest comic honours.
‘ Bubbles of a Day’ followed,—the most electric
and witty play in the English language; a play
without story, scenery, or character, but which, by
mere power of dialogue, by iiasb, mvirl, and cows
cation of fancy, charn'ied one of the most intel—
lectual audiences ever gathered in the Haymarket.
Then came ‘ Time works \Vonders,’ remarkable as
being one of the few works in which the dramatist
paid much attention to story. ‘The Catspaw,’ pro-
duced at the Haymarket,—‘ St. Cupid,7 an exquisite
cal )inct piece, first produced at \Vindsor Castle, and
afterwards at the Princess’s Theatre, with 311‘s.
liean in Dorm/2y, one of the most dainty and
tender assuinj')tioiis of this charming artist, and
‘The Heart of Gold,7 also ]_>roduced by ldr. Kean,
complete the series of his later works. \Vc are
glad to announce, however, that the dramatist
has left behind a finished five-act comedy, with the
title of " The Spendthrift,’ for which the manage-
ments should be making early inquiries.
Contemjlioraneously, he had worked his way into
notice as a prose writer of a very brilliant and
original type—chiefly through the periodicals. His
passion was periodicity—«the power of being able
to throw his emotions daily, or weekly, into the
common reservoirs of thought. Silence was to
him a pain like hunger. He must talk—act upon
men—briefly, rapidly, irresistibly. For many
years he brooded over the thought of P mar/z. He
even found a publisher and a wood-engraver and
a suitable Punch appeared, but the publisher was
less rich in funds than he in epigrams, and afterfive
or six numbers the bantling died. Some time later,
his son-in-law, hlr. hlayhew, revived the thought,
—and our merry companion—now of world-wide

 

and .
‘ can new command.

 

name—appeared. All the chief writings of our
author—'exccpt ‘A Blair made of l\loney’ saw
the light in magazines, and were written with the
devil at the door. ‘lVlen of Character’ appeared in
13lov/cztood’s illu.,r/((zéac,—-‘Tlie Chronicles of Clover-
nook’ in the Illuminated JlIkIf/«zz'ne, of which he
was founder and editor,—-——‘ St. Giles and St. tl’aiiies’
in the Shilling ilfuga.2'inc, of which he was also-
foundcr and editor, and ‘ The Story of a Feather,’
‘Punch’s Letters to his Son,’ and ‘The Candle
Lectures’ iii- Punch. The exquisite gallery of
Fireside Saints which appear in Piano/L’s Alumnaclc
for the present year is from his hand. Most of
these works bear the magazine mark upon them—-
the broad arrow of their origin; but the magazine
brand in this case, like the brands of famous vin-
tages, if testifying to certain accidents of carriage,
attests also the vigour and richness of the soil from
which they come. ‘ Clovernook’ is less perfect as
a work of art than many a book born and forgotten
since the Hermit fed on dainty viands and dis-
courscd of sweet philosophy. Some of his essays,

‘ contributed at an early time to the A (llemmm and

the THOSli
But
we have recently devoted a long article to the
consideration of his literary merits, and need not
repeat in this obituary what we have said before
with greater leisure and more calmness than we,

to Bloc/moods Ll/(lj/(lfil'nc ‘ank among

For seven years past he had devoted himself
more exclusively than before to politics. .E.’olitics,.

strong and the susceptible. In the dear old days
when Leigh Hunt was sunning himself in Horse~
monger Lane for calling George the Fourth a at-
Adonis of forty and the like crimes, he composed a

‘ political work—4n a spirit which Would probably

in those days have sent him to Newgate. The book
was printed, but the jniblishers lacked coura 2., and
it was only to be had in secret. Only a few copies-
are extant. Of late years he had returned to poli-
tics ; as a writer for the Ballot under lilr. Vakley,
and as sub-editor of the Examiner under Mr. Fon-
blanque; returned to find his opinions popular in the
country and triumphant in the House of Commons.
Of his efforts as a journalist we need not speak.
He found Lloyd‘s Nazi'spapcr, as it were, in the
street, and he annexed it to literature. He found
it comparatively low in rank, and he spr "Ltl it
abroad on the wings of his genius, until its circula-
tion became a marvel of the press.

\Ve have neither time nor heart at this moment
to draw the portrait of the deceased. An ampler
biography will not long be wanting: in which
those who knew and loved him—and those who knew
him best loved him most—will be able to paint
him as the index and interpretation of his work.
Yet even at a glance, the depth of his i1 sight, the
subtlety of his analysis, the vividness of his presen—
tation must strike every one who reads. His place
among the wits of our own time is clear enough.
He had less frolic than Theodore Hook, less
elaborate humour than Sydney Smith, less quibble
and quaintncss than Thomas Hood. But he
surpassed all these in intellectual flash and
strength. His wit was all steel points, — and
his talk was like squadrons of laiicers in evo-
lution. Not one pun, we have heard, is to be
found in his writings. His wit stood nearer to
poetic fancy than to broad humour. The exquisite
confusion of his tipsy gentleman, who, after scraping
the door for an hour with his latch-key, leans back
and exclaiins, “By Jove! some scoundrel has
stolen—stolen
as any of his illustrations. His celebrated defini-
tion of Doginatism as “Puppyism come to ina~
turity” looks like a happy pun—but is something
far more deep and philosophic. letween this,
however, and such fancies as his description
of Australia “A land so fat, that if you
tickle it with a straw, it laughs with a harvest”—~
the distance is not great. In his earlier time,
before age and success had mellowed him to his
best, he was sometimes accused of ill»nature, a
charge which he vehemently resented and which
seemed only ludicrous to those privileged with his
friendship. To folly, pretence, and assumption he
gave no quarter, though in fair fight; and some of

the keyhole 2” comes as n tar farce

/

 

 760
those who tried lances with him long remembered
his home thrust. \Ve may give two instances with-
out offence, for the combatants are all gone from
the scene. One of those playwrights who occupied
Old Drury, under the French, against whom he
waged ceaseless war of epigram, was describing
himself as suffering from fever of the brain.
“Courage, my good fellow,” says Jerrold, “there
is no foundation for the fact." \Vhen the flight of
Guizot and Louis Philippe from Paris was the fresh
talk of London, a writer of no great parts was
abusing the Revolution and pitying Guizot. “ You
see,” he observed, “ Guizot and I are both historians
——we row in the same boat.”——“Aye, aye,” says
Jerrold, “but not with the same sculls.” Yet such
personal encounters were but the play of the
panther. No man ever used such powers with
greater gentleness. Indeed, to speak the plain
truth, his fault as a man—if it be a fault—was a
too great tenderness of heart. He never could say
No. His purse—when he had a purse—was at
every man’s service, as were also his time, his pen,
and his influence in the world. If he possessed a
shilling somebody would get sixpence of it from
him. He had a lending look, of which many
took advantage. The first time he ever saw
Tom Dibdin, that worthy gentleman and song—
writer said to him —— “ Youngster, have you
sufficient confidence in me to lend me a guinea 2”
— “ Oh, yes,” said the Author of ‘ Black-
Eyed Susan,’ “I have all the confidence, but I
haven’t the guinea.” A generosity which knew no
limit—not even the limit at his bankers—led
him into trials from which a colder man would
have easily escaped. To give all that he possessed
to relieve a brother from immediate trouble was
nothing; he as willingly mortgaged his future for
a friend as another man would bestow his advice or
his blessing. And yet this man was accused of ill
nature ! If every one who received a kindness at
his hands should lay a flower on his tomb, a moun-
tain of roses would rise on the last resting-place of
Douglas Jerrold.

The deceased died, after a few days’ ilhiess, from
disease of the heart, at his residence, Greville Place,
Kilburn Priory, on Monday last, the 8th of June.

No first-class portrait exists of the deceased. Mr.
Macknee, of Glasgow, painted him, but the likeness
is a failure. Two or three others tried their hands,
with even less success. lVIr. hlayall and Mr. VVat—
kins have made fair photographs of an extremely
difficult face. Dr. Diamond has also obtained some
excellent studies taken only a few days before his
death. But the only Art-