The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-14 00:00:00

THACKERAY IN AMERICA.

(Irma Missals New fork V lgas;no.)

Mr. Thukeray's visit at least demoustrated that if
we are unwilling to pay English authors fur their b Kik%
we are re iily to reward them hscil.onsely for the °points.
laity of seeing sad hearing them. If Mr. Dickens, instead
of dining at other people's expense, mid making speeches at
his own, when he came to see us, had devoted an evenieg
Of two in the we. Is to lecturing, his purse would have been
fuller, his feelings sweete., and his tame fairer. It was a
Uniintie crusade, that of the copyrigly, and the eseelleit
Icon has forgiven the windmill that broke his spear.
UndouhtiAly, when it was aserrtained that Mr. Tbackc.
ray was cum ng, the public feeling on our side of the sea
was very much divided as to his probable reception.
" He'll come and humbug las, eat our dinners, pocket oar
money, sad go home and abuse us, like that unmitigated
snub nickels.," said Jonathan, chafing with the realm.
%ranee of that grand ball at the Park Theatre, and the
box tableaux, and the universal wining and dining, to
which the distinguished Dickeus was subject while he was
our guest.
_ .

--;;Vt--"bil2l bay.. his say," said others, " and we will
have our look. We will pay a dollar to hear him, if we
can see him at the same time; and as for the abuse, why
it takes eves mere than two such cubs of the roaring
British lion to frighten the American eagle. Let him
come, and give him fair play."
H. did ciao, end has had his fair play, and has re-
turned to England with a comfortable pot of gold holding
12,000 dollars, awl with the hope sad promise of seeing us
again in September, to discourse of something not less en-
tertaining than the witty men sad sparkling times of
Anne. W. think there was no disappointment with his
lectures. Those who knew his books found the wither
in the lecturer. Those who did not know the books
were charmed in the lecturer by what Is charming in the
author, the unaffected humanity, the tenderises*, the,
sweetness, the genial play of fancy, and the sad touch of '
truth, with that glancing stroke of satire, which, light-
ningilike, illumines while it withers. The lectures were
even more delightful than the books, breams the tones
of the voice, and the appearance of the man, the general
personal magnetism, explained and alleviated so mach
that would otherwise have seemed doubtful or unfair.
For those who had long felt in the writings of Tharkeray a
reality, quite iaezpreasible, there was a secret delight in find-
ing it jestilied by his speaking. For he speaks es he writes,
simply, directly, without ftourish,without any emit of oratory,
commending what he says by its intrinsic sewer, and the sym-
pathetic
and humane way is which it was spoken. Thacke-
ray is the kind of " stamp orator" that would have pleased
Carlyle. He never thrusts Wench between you end his
theeght. If his conception of the time and his estimate of
the men differ from your own, you have at least ao doubt
what his view is, nor how sincere and necessary it is to him.
Hr. Thackeray considers Swift *misanthrope. He loves
Goldsmith, and Steele, and Ilarryjielding. He has DO
love for Sterne, great admiration for Pope, and alleviated
admiration for Addison. How could it be otherwise ? How
could Thackeray not think Swift a misanthrope and Sterne
a fictitious sentimentalist ? He is a man of instincts, not
of thoughts. lie sees and feels. He would be Shakspeare's
0 call-boy" rather than dine with the Dean of St. Patrick's.
He would take a pot of ale with Goldsmith rather than a
glass of Burgundy with the " Reverend Mr. Sterne," and
that simply because he is Thackeray. He would have done
it as Fielding would have done it, because he values one
genuine emotion above the most dazzling thought, because
he is, in fine, a Bohemian, " a minion of the moon," a great,
sweet, generous human heart.
We say this with the more unction now that we have the
personal proot of it in his public and private intercourse
while he was here.

The popular Thackeray-theory, before his arrival, was of
• severe satirist, who concealed scalpels in his sleeves, and
carried probes in his waistcoat pockets; a of masks,
a scoffer and sneerer, and general infidel of all high aim
and noble character. Certainly we are justified in saying
that his presence amongst us quite corrected this idea. We
welcomed a friendly, genial man ; not at all convinced that
speech is h 's lint law, but wiliing to be silent when
there was nothing to say—who decidedly refused to be
lionised, not by sulking, but by stepping off the pedestal
and challenging the common sympathies of all he met; a
man who, in .iew of the thirty odd editions of "Martin
Farquhar Tupper," was wiling to confess that every
author should "think small beer of himself." In-
deed he has this rare quality, that his personal
Impression deepens, in kind, that of his writings.
The quiet and comprehensive grasp of the fact,
and the intellectual impossibility of holding fate anything
but the fact, is u manifest in the euist upon the Wits, as
in the author of Henry Esmond aid Vaulty Fair. Shall
we say that this is the sum of his power, and the secret of
his satire ? It is not what might be, nor what we, or other
persons of well-regulated minds, might wish ; but it is the
actual state of things, that he sees and describes. How
them can he help what we call satire, if he accepts Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley's invitation, and describes her party?
There is no more satire in it—so far as he is concerned—
than in painting lilies white. A full length portrait of the
fair Lady Buitnx, too, must needs show a gay and brilliant
iglus, superbly glittering across the vista of those stately
days. Why should Dab and Tab, the eminent critics, step up
and demand that her eyes be of pale blue, and her stomacher
higher around the meek? Do Dab and Tab expect to
gather pears from peach trees ? or, because their theory of
dendrology matinees them that an ideal fruit tree would
supply any fruit desired epos application, do they detonate
the sea-pear-bearing peach tree in the columns of their
saleable journal ? This is the drift of the fault found with
Thackeray. He is not Fenelon, he is not D:ckens, he is
not Scott ; he is not poetical, he is not ideal, be is not hu-
mane, be is not tit, he is not tat, complain the eminent
Dabs and Tabs. Of coarse he is not, because he is Thacke-
ray—a man who describes what he sees, motives as well as
appearances, • man who believes that character is better
than talent—that the,, is • worldly weakness superior to
worldly wisdom—that Dick Steele may aunt the ales-house,
and be carried home mussy, and yet be a more commendable
character than the reverend Dean of Bt. Patrick's, who has
genius enough to illuminate a century, but not sympathy
enough to sweeten a drop of beer. And he represents this
in a way that makes us set it as he does, and without ex-
aggeration, for surely nothing could be more simple than
his story of the life of " honest Capt. Dick Steele. If he
allotted to that gentleman a consideration disproportioned
to the spies be occupied in literary history, it only showed
the more strikingly, how deeply the lecturer's sympathy
was touched by Steele's honest humanity.
An article in our April number complained that the
tendency of his view of Anne's times was to a axial laxity
which might be veryexhilaratiag hut was very dangerous;
that the lecturer's warm emnimendation of fermented drinks
takers at • very early bowed the meraing in tavern rooms
and club houses was as deloodens to the moral health of
enthusiastic young noise% dimmed to the literary life, as
the beverage itself to dodo phydeal health.
But this is not • cheep te be brought against Thackeray.
It is • quarrel with Wrier, Mid with the eaters of literary
life. Artists and authors have always been the good fel-
lows of the world. That mental organisation which predis-
poses a man to the pursuit of literature and art, is made up
of talent combined with ardent social sympathy, geniality,
and passion, and leads him to taste every cup and try every
experience. There is certainly no essential necessity that
this class should be • dissipated and disreputable class; but,
by their very susceptibility to enjoyment, they will always
be the pleasure-lovers and seekers. And here is the social
compensation to the literary man for the surrender of those
chances of fortune which men of other pursuits enjoy. If
he makes less money he gets more juice out of what he
does make. If he cannot drink Burgundy he can quaff
the nut-brown ale, while the most brilliant wit, the most
salient fancy, the sweetest sympathy, the mut ge-
nial culture, shall sparkle at his board more radiantly
thee a silver service, and give him the spirit of the tropics
and the Rhine' whose fruits are on other tables. The
golden light that transfigures talent and illuminates the
world, and which we call genius, is erratic and erotic ; and
while in Milton it is austere, and in Wordsworth cool, and
in Southey methodical, in Shalnpeare it is fervent,
with- all the results of fervour, in Raphael lovely,
with all the excesses of love, in Dante moody,
with all the whims of caprice. The old quarrel of
Lombard-street with Grub .street is as profound as that of
Osiris and Typho—it is the difference of sympathy. The
Marquis of Wistininster will still take good care that no
eapertluous shilling escapes. Oliver Goldsmith will still
spend his last shilling upon a brave and unnecessary ban-
quet fir his friends.
Whether this be a final fact of human organisation or
not, it is certainly a fact of history. Every man Isaias•
Lively believes that Shakspeare stole deer, just as he disbe-
lieves that Lord Mayor Whittington ever told a lie ; and
the secret of that instinct is the conscious/senor • differ-
ent* in organisation. t. Knave, I have power to hang ye,"
says sowebody in one of Beaumont and 1-letther's plays.
" And I to be hanged and scorn ye," is the airy answer.
" I had • pleasant hour the other evening," said a friend
to us, " over my cigar and a book." " What book was
that ?" " A treatise conclusively proving the awful con-
sequences of smoking." De Oniony came up to London,
and declared war against opium. But during a little am-
nesty, in which he lapsed iato his old elysiunt, he wrote his
best book, depicting its horrors.
Our readers will not imagine that we are advocating the
claims of drunkenness, nor defending social excess. We are
only recognising the fact, and stating an obvious tendency.
The most brilliant illustrations of every virtue are to be
found in the literary guild, as well as the saddest beacons of
warning. Yet it will often occur that the lest in talent
and the first in excess of a picked company, will be the man
around whom sympathy moot kindly lingers. We love
Goldsmith more at the head of his ill-advised feast, than
Johnson and his friends leaving it, thoughtful and generous
as their conduct was. The heart despises prudence.
In this single-hearted regard we know that pity has a
larger share. Yet it is not so much that pity which is
commiseration for misfortune and deficiency as that which
is recognition of a necessary worldly ignorance. The lite-
rary class is the most innocent of all. The contempt of
practical men for the poets is based upon a coneciousuess
that they are not bad enough for a bad world. To a prac-
tical Mon nothing is eo absurd as the lack of worldly
shrewdness. The very complaint of the literary life, that
it dues not amass wealth and live in palaces, is the eco.-n of
the practical man, for he cannot uadentand that iatellee-
tual opacity which prevents the literary man from seeing
the necessity of the different pecuniary condition. It is
clear enough to the publisher who lays up fifty thousand a
year why the author ends the year in debt. Bat the author
is amazed that he who deals in ideas can only dine upon oc-
casional chops, while the man who merely binds and sells
ideas sits down to perpetual sirloin. If they should change
place', fortune would change with them. The publisher,
turned anther, would still lay by his hundred'. The pub-
lishing author would directly lame thousands. It is simply
because it is a matter of prudence, economy, and know-
ledge of the world. Theses Hood made his tea thousand