The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

quis of Lansdowne, Lord Lyndhurst, and a score
others, whose names will occur to everybody,
not being, of course, worthy of being included
in that noble category. But we may mention
as a specimen of the author's sense of justice
that Lord. Aberdeen is admired for everything
that he has done throughout his long career—
for his base subserviency to Russia, and for
being at the head of a monarchy which makes
war on Russia—for having, in a word, spent
years in trying to keep white white, and then,
under the empire of different circumstances,
coolly making it black ; whilst Mr. Disraeli,
ou the other hand, is insolently accused of
want of political principle for having assailed
the late Sir Robert Peel for betraying his

party and breaking his faith. Lord Palmerston,
on his part, is lauded for his political saga•
city in declaring himself in favour of the
Emperor Napoleon the moment his coup d'itat
was accomplished ; whilst Sir James Graham
is mentioned tenderly for having, with even
more than his customary coarseness of lan-
guage, denounced his Majesty for the same
thing. To show the manner in which his
Peelite employers have desired the author to
represent them to the good people of France,
the grim old Scotch lord who presides over
the Cabinet is anxious to make the French

believe that he possesses
A grand air, noble manners, distinction imprinted on
his forehead, and aristocratic elegance united to simple
habits, and easy language.
He also wishes them to bear in mind (p. 58)
that " the late King Louis Philippe, in re-
" ferriug to him whether in letters or convey-
" cation, never failed to say ce bon Aberdeen."'
And he has caused them to be told that he
possesses "profound sagacity," and is " one
" of the Nestors of diplomacy."
We have said that the book as a literary
production is had. It is written in a
loose, shuffling, Tristram-Shandy sort of style ;
contains nothing whatever in the shape
of new and original thought ; displays not the
slightest power of appreciating a public cha-
racter, or of placing him, with his qualities,
defects, and peculiarities, life-like before you ;
it is totally devoid of political philosophy and
political criticism; it is, in a word, all " bosh "
and slip-slop. It even shows a scandalous ig-
norance of the mechanical art of bookmaking,
which almost everybody who takes pen in
hand now-a-days possesses. Thus great part
of the notice of Lord Aberdeen is taken up
with statistical and other details of Greece
and Russia, and with a history of the diplo
matic negotiations about Turkey ; and in the
notice on Mr. Disraeli (whom, by the way, the
author strips of his title, " Right Honourable,")
he commits the egregious folly (when his pur-
pose of detraction is considered) of giving long
extracts from that gentleman's most brilliant
speeches—thereby making his own feeble,
though malignant, twaddle suffer fearfully from
the contrast with the statesman's splendid elo-
quence. Nor is this all :—almost every page is
stained with blunders which it is surprising
that any gentleman pretending to be a lit
terateur, and to " have resided many years in
" England," should have committed. Thus,
he ascribes to Tacitus the oft-quoted line,
" Penitus tote divisos orbe Brite.nnos," though
every schoolboy knows it is in Virgil's first
" Eclogue " ; he says Mr. Disraeli is " the
author of W. Grey" ; he repeatedly spells
Bentinek, Bentink ; he talks over and over
again of " Sir Graham," and mentions " Sir
Newdegater and " Sir Herbert" (apropos, why
did he not give a sketch of " Sir " Herbert," ?
for surely that zealous Peelite is as well
entitled to have his personal graces described
to the French as the theologi..B.l financier
Gladstone); he says that the schism in
the Scotch Church was caused " by a conflict
" between Presbyterianism and the dominant
" Church of England "; he discovers a Lord
Chancellor of the Exchequer ; he has found
out that Bedford is in Nottinghamshire ; that
a certain " B. Brougham" has played a great
part in political affairs ; that " his lordship
" Palmerston" is so learned as to be entitled
to the designation of a " scholastic Solon ";
that it was Canning who invented the phrase,
" civil and religious liberty"; tha: it was the
Scythians, not the Parthians as commonly
supposed, who were accustomed to discharge
their arrows flying; and that a certain ZoLlue

named Sydney Smith once had the audacity
to say that Lord John Russell's confidenne in
his own abilities was so great that he would
undertake either to command the Channel
fleet, or " to shake the corner atone of the
" Temple !"
In dismissing this foolish book we are glad
to be able to state, on the authority of Paris
letters, that it has met with a complete and
ludicrous fiasco in that capital, and that it has
rather increased than diminished the antipathy
and distrust which have always been there felt
for the Peelites in political circles, on ac-
count of their undisguised leaning towards
Russia, their lukewarmness to France, and,
above all, their notorious personal hostility to
the Emperor Napoleon. Here in England,
we doubt not, the book will cover the Peelites
with shame, by showing the meanness of the
arts to which they condescend to have re-
course to faire (mincer tears affaires.

The Rose and the Ring ; or, the History of Prince
Giglio and Prince Bulb°. By M. A. Tit•
marsh. London : Smith and Elder.

THE criticisms hitherto expressed upon this
little work of Mr. Thackeray remind us
forcibly of the attempts made by Swift'a
scientific gentleman to extract " sunbeams from
a cucumber." That harmless vegetable, though
affording a transient gratification to the
palate, yet obstinately refused, in spite of all
the efforts of the unhappy speculator, to yield
him the smallest particle of illumination. We
are not disposed to quarrel with the author of
" Vanity Fair " for employing his time and
talents in the composition of a fairy tale for
the amusement of children, but wo must
smile at the determination displayed by his
critics to discover in the work itself deep
principles of human nature, hidden satire
upon folly, or shrewd hints upon conduct,
simply because the tale is told by the satirist
of the day. Dulce eat desipere—"'Tis sweet to
play the fool," says Horace, and this is the
maxim upon which Mr. Thackeray appears to
have written. Considered in its true light, as
a fairy tale composed for a family circle, in the
broad spirit of pantomime, with grotesque masks
and serio-comic " terseness," we admit that
the book has a merit of its own ; indeed it is
almost impossible that a writer of Mr.
Thackeray's peculiar talents should fail in
such a trifle ; but we must demur to its con-
taining any more profundity than the average
of Christmas pantomimes, and those who pro-
fess to discover anything deeper, resemble the
host of critics who extracted elaborate sys-
tems of metaphysics from passages in Goethe's
" Faust," which he himself confessed to have
been written without meaning, for the sole
purpose of mystifying his commentators.
Even the woodcuts which accompany the
tale--caricatures which are only remarkable,
like all Mr. Thackeray's drawings, fur a perfect
indifference to perspective or proportion, and
with no more individuality than the characters
of a twelfth cake—are yet found to contain not
only good drawing, but fancy, character, and
exuberant humour

One of the best passages is that in which
the porter to the palace of Patlagonia, Mr.
Gruffanuff, is transformed into a knocker by
the Fairy Blackstick for refusing her ad-
mittance to the christening of the Princess
Angelica :
When the Princess Angelica was born, her parents not
only did not ask the Fairy Blackstick to the christening
party, but gave orders to their porter absolutely to refuse
her if she called. This porter's name was Gruffanuff, and
he had been selected for the post by their Royal Highnesses
because he was a very tall, fierce man, who could say " Not
at home" to a tradesman or an unwelcome visitor with a
rudeness which frightened most such persons away. He
was the husband of that countess whose picture we have
just seen, and as lung as they were together they quarrelled
from morning till night. Now this fellow tried his rude•
ness once too often, as you shall hear. For the Fairy
Blackstick coming to call upon the prince and princess,
who were actually sitting at the open drawing-room vrincow,
Gruffanuff not only denied them, but made the most odious
vulgar sign as he was going to slain the door in the fairy's
face ! " Git away, hold Blackstick 7' said he. " I tell you,
master and missis ain't at home to you :" and he was, as
we have said, going to slam the door.
But the fairy. with her wand, prevented the door being
shut; and Gruffanuff came out again in a fury, swearing
in the most abominable way, and asking the fairy "whether
she thought he was a going to stay at that there doer ha
tey

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" Yon ate going to stay at that door all day and all night,
and for many a long year," the fairy said, very majesti-
cally ; and Gruffanuff, coming out of the door, straddling
before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and
cried " Ha, ha, ha! this is a good un ! Ha—ah—what's
this ? List me down-o—o—li'm !" and then he wile
dumb!
For, as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt him-
self rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the
door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt
a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and
then his arms flew op ever his head ; and his legs, after
writhing about 'wildly, twisted under his body ; and he felt
cold, cold growing over him, as if he was turning into
metal, and he said " and could say no
more, because he was dumb.
He was turned into metal! He was from being
brasen, brass! He was neither more nor less than it
knocker ! And there he was, nailed to the door in the
blitzing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot : and
there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights,
till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the
postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy
with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And
the King and Queen (princess and prince they were then),
coming home from a walk that evening, the King said,
" Hullo, my dear ! you have had a new knocker put on the
door. Why, it's rather like our porter in the face! Whet
has become of that boozy vagabond'!" And the house-
maid came and scrubbed his nose with sandpaper; and
once, when the Princess Angelica's little sister was born,
he was tied up in an old kid glove ; and, another night,
some larking young men tried to wrench him off, and ptl#
him to the moat excruciating agony with a turnscrew.
then the Queen had a fancy to have the colour of the dock
altered; and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and
eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-
green. 1 warrant he had leisure to repent of having been
rude to the Fairy Blackstick !
The companion passage to this is the re-
transformation of Gruffanuff, just as his wife,
who has become a grand Court lady, is leading
poor Prince Gigho to the altar to make him
her husband :
Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his
arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He
only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with
her, and thought she came to insult his misery.
" Get out of the way, pray," says Gruffanuff, haughtily.
" I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other
people's affairs ?"
" Ire you determined to make this poor young man
unhappy?" says Blackstiek.
"To marry him, yes ! What business is it of yours ?
Pray, madam, don't say ' you' to a Queen," cries Gruff-
anuff.
" You won't take the money he offered you ?"
No."
" Yon won't let him off his bargain, though you know you
cheated him when you made him sign the paper."
"Impudence ! Policemen remove this woman !" cries
Gruffanuff. And the policemen were rushing forward,
but with a wave of her wand the Fairy struck them all like
so many statues in their places.
" You won't take anything in exchange for your bond,
Mrs. Gruffanuff?" cries the fairy, with awful severity. " I
speak for the last time."
" No! "

tt

-4. No! " shrieks Oruffanuff, stamping with her foot. • I'll
have my husband, my husband, my husband !"
" You shall have your husband !" the Fairy Blackstick
cried; and advancing a step laid her hand upon the nose
of the knocker.
As she touched it, the brass nose seemed to elongate,
the open mouth opened still wider, and uttered a roar which
made every body start. The eyes rolled wildly ; the arms
and legs uncurled themselves, writhed about, and seemed
to lengthen with each twist ; the knocker expanded into a
figure in yellow livery, six feet high ; the scrtws by which
it was fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and Jenkins
Grulemuff once more trod the threshold off which he had

been lifted more than twenty years ago
" Master's not at home," says Jenkins, just in his old
voice ; and Mrs. Jenkins, giving a dreadful youp, fell down
in a fit, in which nobody minded her.
Of Mr Thaekeray's pantomime style the
subjoined extract will suffice :
Little Betsinda came in to put Gruffannff's hair in
papers; and the countess was so pleased that for a wonder
she complimented Betsinda. " Betsinda!" she said, " you
dressed my hair very nicely to-day ; I promised you a little
present. Here are five sh— no, here is a pretty little ring,
that I picked—that I have had some time." And she gave
Betsindn the ring she had picked up in the court. It fitted
Betsinda exactly.
" It's like the ring the princess used to wear," says the
maid.
" No such thing," says Gruffanuff, I have had it this
ever so long. There—tuck me up quite comfortable ; and
now, as it's a very cold night ( the snow was beating in at
the window), you may go and warm dear Prince Giglio's
bed, like a good girl, and then you may unrip my green
silk, and then you can just do me up a little cap for the
morning, and then yon can mend that hole in my silk
stocking, and then you can go to bed, Betsinda. Mind, I
Shall want my cup of tea at five o'clock in the morning."
" I suppose 1 had best warm both the young gentlemen's
beds, ma'am," says Betsinda.
Gniffanuff,fer reply, said, " Hatt•aulo l--Gisn-hawhoo !
—Hong-hrho !" In fact she was snoring sound asleep.
Her room, you know, is next to the King and Queen.
and the princess is next to them. go pretty Betsinda went
away for the coals to the kitchen, and filled the royal
warming-pan.
No*, she was a very kind, merry, civil, pretty girl ; but
here must have been something very captivating about