The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-01 00:00:00

LITEJtA r vie E.

Tfu
Newennts Memoirs of a nine Retpectable.'",_ll iti4 Edited by ARTHUR. EsNorsuis, I.lwar. by
Richard Dayle. Bradbury and Es
,n,.
Although we expressed a very cordial admiratimf
of Mr. Thackeray a "Esmond P.
—thinking that it
is in many respects the highest of his works—
we arc not sorry to see him back again in the
niaeteenth century, in which we live our lives
in company with him. The truth is, that all historical
fiction demands an effort from the reader wbich the
many are not inclined to undergo; it requires
scene of aetion, and mere
jou to
raise rourself into the new region
your enjoying that
ritaYmoaftic or narrative, aims
whim' the anthem
illusionhtha sa
nchosend owuscni
all
IttlielfiemeptE at
tin
,reydu
at producing in you. ‘Vhat reader' in moving
through "Esmond.' but thought of Thackeray—and
such being the case—was not the queen Anne
scenery felt to be somewhat of un incitnibrance? At
the same time, it may be easily shown how the
author gaited by the adoption of this historical
vehicle. He took a temporary have of absence from
the Pall Mall region—from the hikers, majors,
"swells," soldiers, beauties, and fools of our own
period. He rose into a mare ideal region than he
usually meets us in, and so gave freer and more
natural play to the qualities of moral insight and
genial tenderness—which, after all, are his heat and
rarest characteristics. But for " ?unioud," the every
day general reader might have never known what
there is in 'f hackeray ; he saw there something of
his more serious mood; and generally, we think, a
deeper tone of feeling was more continuous and pro-
longed in that novel than in the author's other
performances. However, the first hint of the
name "Newcomers,' was sufficient to :how that we
were to be brought back into the department
of fiction in which Thnekeray first became famous.
Here are the yellow covers with their lively glitter
again, and before many pages are over we find our-
selves not far from Covent.gurden, and with the hum
of the most modern of modern life in our Lars. The
story (which goes on under the auspices of our friend
Arthur Pendennis) opens with a general gathering
of the beasts of the world of fable—fox, wolf, ass,
and so forth—and a satiric hit against those who
find fault with the author's way of " speaking of
human nature." Mr. Thackeray has had the senti-
mentalists to contend with all along, hat all the
merit of his writing is naturally thrown away on
them. The plain fact about him is that he is the
most utterly " real" writer of the age—the one
who both in conception and in detail is the most
natural and life-like painter of the time. Most
novels are like a game at chests —between the
author's " good" characters and his " bad" ones—in
which, after so many mores, black gets into trouble,
and is checkmated—or sometimes white dams, if the
author be in a gloomy humour. The bad men are
bad, and nothing else; the white men good, and
nothing else. But the world is not so easily to be
resolved into classes. Thackeray, with more truth-
fulness, paints lite as the various, checkered scene
that it is; and, in short, it is the very disagreeable
reality about his painting which makes some people
complain and feel uneasy. llere, front the number
before us, is his own hint of the moral—which, for
our parts, we have always recognised as that of his
books:

This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which
I jackdaws will wear peacoeks fenthers, awl awaken the
just ridicule of the peacocks; in which, while every jus-
tice is done to the peacocks themselves, the splendour of
their plumage, the gorgeousness of their daxxling necks,
and the nvgnifici nee of their tails, exception will yet be
taken to the absurdity of their ricketty strut, and the
foolish discord of their pert squeaking
in which there will be tears under orange flowers and
jokes in mourning coaches ; in %Lich there will be dinners
of herbs with contentment and without, :4nd banquets of
stalked oxen where there is care and hared—age, and kind-
ness and friendship, too, along with the feast. It does not
follow that all men are honest because they are poor ; and
I have known some who were generous although they had
plenty of money. There are some gnat landlords who do
not grind down their tenants ; there are actually bisbops
who are not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among
the whigs, and the radicals themselves are nut all aristocrats
at heart. (n. 6.)
Oa this basis of common sense and common expe-
rience the author cheerfully plants himself, and pre-
pares to give a suitable we come to all comers. Ono
likes this fresh, homely way of taking the world as
it is, which finds so apt an expression, too, in an easy,
unaffected style, which reads like the natural talk of
a thoughtful, experienced gentleman of the world.
In this first number, we have the scene opened. The
Newcomes are a new, wealthy flintily—which we see
expand into two branches—the children of the first
commercial Mr. Newcome, by his first wife, a coun-
try girl—and by his second, with Miss Hobson, the
daughter of a great City house. The second Mrs.
Newsome is a strongly drawn sketch—that of a
woman of business, who is also "serious," and of
whose comfortable Clapham palace, with its reve-
rend frequenters, we have a picture. One most
striking forte of Thackeray's—one of his best instru-
inents—is, his acquaintance with details. With
" serious " or any other people he takes in hand, he
always has the actual accessories ready, and puts in
the points of daily life with copiousness and finish.
It is not the " idea" of a character, but the solid
image of him—outside, as well us inside, true—which
figures before us as a reality. The little touches of
humour are so many jets of light by which you see
real existences. It is this way of having a cluster
of homely little facts to bring in, in illustration of
the satiric ideas, which gives to Thackeray's writings
such a real and homely air. By that he gave his
"Lectures" so much personal interest, and made the
habits, appetites, dresses, and daily life of our great
writers, throw light upon, and enable us better to
understand their books.

The son of Mr. Newcomc's first marriage goes to
India, and returns with a youngster just as the story
opens. It is pretty easy to see so far ahead as this—
that it is to this branch of the Newcomea we are to
look for the heroes we shall sympathise most with,
and that to the others (who come in for the whole of
Mrs. Newcome'a money) we may look for that fun
which we naturally expect from the history of the pro-
gress of a new fsmily into great society. Altogether
the first number of Mr. Thackeray's new book opens
with every promise of a success as complete as that
of its predecessors.

SPORTING.

LATEST BETTING AT M,
FAIDA.T.

There was a fair attendance this morning, and transac-
tions embraced a good number of horses for the Cesare-
witch, without leading to any material change in the odds,
except in the cases of King Pepin and Nabob; the former
was currently offered against at 7 to 1, and the latter freely
backed at 16 to 1. For the Cambridgeshire and Derby
there has been no change worthy of notice since our last.
CESAREWITCII.
7to 1 agst King Pepin (off)
14 to 1 Nancy (t)
15 to 1 Garforth (t)
16 to 1 Nabob (t)
16 to 1 Indian Warrior (t)
16 to 1 Joe Miller (t)
20 to 1 Torment (t)
25 to 1 Weathergage (t)
25 to 1 Teddington (t)
25 to 1 Songstress (t)
30 to 1 Nutpecki r (t)
40 to 1 King of Trumps (t)
40 to I Pancake (t)
50 to 1 Maid of Team Valley (t)
66 to 1 Radcliffe Hero (t)
750 to 50 Lord Exeter's lot (t)
CAMBRIDGESHIRE STAKES.
600 to 40 agst Orestes (t)
20 to 1 Hatchet (t)
500 to 20 Bit of Blue (t)
500 to 20 Balrownie (t)
4U to 1 Umbriel (t)
40 to 1 Annie (t)
40 to 1 Pastrycook (t)
500 to 7 Maid of Team Valley (t)
DERBY.
R to 1 apt Autocrat
12 to 1 King Tom (t)
33 to 1 Neville (t)
GREAT WARWICK HANDlCAP.—Waterfall's weight is
sst 111 b.

CLERICAL.

- -
PREFERMENTS.

The Rev. Howard St. George, to the Perpetual Curacy
of Billing', in the parish of Wigan, in the county of Lan-
caster, void by the death of Rev. .7. 13romilow ; Patron,
Rector of Wigan ; value 1651, with a house.
On Thursday, the Rev. Charles Ward, WA., was licensed
to tae Perpetual Curacy of Saint Nicholas, Ipswich, in the
county of Suffolk, on the nomination of a majority of the
inhabitants of that parish.

BATHS AND WASIIIIOUSES. —The Derby Town
Council on Monday last passed a resolution to erect public
baths and washhowss in that town.

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