The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Carded Edition of as Writings of Doronse Janson
Part I. "Pasch" Alen
Mr. Douglas Jerrold ha been, for something like
twenty years, an active contributor to the periodical
literature of the day. He now begins to gather his
intellectual elope into sheaves and pile them fur
posterity. We mut all be glad to see that the poblio
taste is now such as to allow of this process during
his life. Too often the periodical fanciful writer is
like er e of those girls who sell violets in the atria t—
equally conspicuous fir the beauty of his occupation
sad the meanness of Lis reward. Bach a reading
public as there is now, would, twenty years ago, have
paved the brilliant Ilsxlitt many a heartache, sad
cheered Leigh Haat in his fanciful climb up that hill
of fame whirs= his old age reposes.
Mr. Jerrold began his career as a dramatist, end
his fertility in that department recalls the days of the
old Ore he. He is the ablest writer who ever laboored
at the "domestic drama"—the drama which seeks its
charm in the scenes of common daily life, and which
brought back nature to an age that had ceased to care
for remanct. Since O•way wrote his Orphfm, which
was K. brig consid. red unique, as deriving its tender-
ness not from the " sorptnid pall" of "g'rgeous tra-
gedy," hot from familial sources—no dramatist had :
pounced such an effect. Mr. Jerrold left it to others'
to brit g from the Hisabethans every thing bat their I
spirit, a, d to " try" (a the American Lowol P .ye) 1
"to drive life into their dead forms by touctiin4 them
to the blnes of those old buried prophets." He knew
that wherever there is nature there is the means of
making nature's effects; and that a the geolo-
gists ie.' us water is always to bo found by digging
through a clay stratum ; so, beneath the crust of the
most oroinary life, lie the springs of freshness and
pathos. Hence came the success of ninny and marry a
little play which still delights audiences through
England; hence the popularity of that charming little
drama (deriving its name from Gay, and which Oay
would have loved) which lhacktray tells us de-
lighted the Pendentio party at the theatre of
Ccetiren and Miss Fotheriegsy.
Bat, tevertheleu —hers comes the important fast
—tee derma is not Mr. Jerrold's firer, nor is it by
his dramas that he will be principally ream-
hued. Of these pretty flowers many have died
already. It is uuly of such writers that one can say
these pert of things. It is only a gallant MThiff
who can afford (with his thnughts on future
victory) to bear the loss of his "pretty chicken'"
with a " tune" that " goes manly." But the wan-
ering ',theatre,- who picks up—as one occasionally
y—e, ,me pretty little drama of Jerrold's that iodic°
own the stream for its Gity nights—now stranded on
• book stall—sees, as he Nada at at home, its brilliant
euthor.s de tieiency in the dramatic art. Mr. Jerrold
1
wants "eharactor." Ills plays have nature—that
genial element of warm tender blood which makes
Jun sympathise with what is said iu them—with the
etnry—with the moral. But the p.rootne do not
pugs 4 oily impress you with their reality. The men
are g.... 4 and pisestag—so is Oberon : the women are
delotiee!ol—so is Titanic! But you do not remember
them as flesh-and-blood personalities. You tepeet
their el) urge—you admire their doings . when, how-
eve T, y u r.sit them, lis as Noma visited Hgeria—to
,ear ap! abaft'. voice and get instruction—not t 3 en-
y pi resei..l communion.
This .I.tijency is a deficiency which Mr. Jerrold
fe axes in common with Ben JUO•3ID, Dr) den, Addis ,o,
toegrsyr , and Somidan, and we have every right to
gut him in such a let. lien Joason's best plsys arc
pis eisrly thole whinn arc acted now—precisely
for the said deficiency. Look for example at his
•ratiaine." In the last three acts where Cicero plays!
meth en importaet pee, lien has eaboratcd his bist-J-
-* il character to the highest degree; his speeches iu
tie. senate are admineld^ renderings of the orations
• oose Catalina., as ally one who chooses to tempura
Sem w II sac; but though the orator is there, the
ems is not, and the few glimpses of him in
Ilhaksorre are worth Ben's whole play. Look at
dehlison'e " Cato," with its many betutien and its
le 'er oblivion ! Scarcely any play (as his bivrapher,
N., Arkin, observes) furnishes so many of tie best
arms t quotations—it is an admirable literary per-
llo in.y. tv--and nobody can sit and Lear it out !
Ii anyone suppress that what we have said tends
hi dimei.li Jerrold's reputation as a writ 'r, he m's-
bk. y lorold and mist n.lerstands us. We mark the
& ..v..,1 his drainu,but we say et the same time that
Oil c mein more brill but dialogue and more acute-
MOP% 01:1•1 1411 V English writ. r now living cou'd pro-
dace. Jerrold wrote comedies', not because haegeoius
Was dramatic, but because wit is an ekinent of
Imp irtance in c e oodles, and he had more wit
than is usually given to more than oar writer in a
eertury. Wit, like in eney, moat be carried where
capital is moat re roire el. The "Time works Won-
dars."--; he " Bubble.* of the Day"—sparkle whet,
aver •.13 *ouch them, like a sea at night. They are
alive e ithepigram. But there everybody is witty, and
Witte .. L, Jerral ! The landlord in " Time Works
W,.ria.rr " serves up his bacon and ewe in epigram-
Mime siuce. The post-boy is better (ratified for a
ell..er-out. In a word, each character is Hee one of
er, walking advertisement* with boards in the Strand
-......1y that iso has sarcasms written on them!
Jeer ad's wit is a subject on which we could expo.
te !.eager than anything short of the wit itself
ir.,
Id make tolerable. It is conveyed in one of the
tis cabal. styles of 'he day. Jerrold's style is
il singular, sertiemiee, knotted, and gleaming,
. minds us of Keate's description of the serpent
1.., 11l la@

Sow, was a Rnniiur •hapr dazallas hue,
V. r rad.ua .putt. d, gc.l.ka, glen, sad blue.

I La, the etrarg. at involutions—sometimes, the most
Gmbh -4, knotty eoutortloas. Occayionally you have
• b:llliatit jest Insult in a moot quaint and stiff sen
!Le., like a Cashmere be tertly pinned to a csrd in
a ere.eono. We attribute the peculiarity of Jerrald's
et le NI two things—a love of irony, and the early
-fluency of writers of the class of Donne, Fu;ler and
C wley. 'then, again, his wit is finelfai wit—wit
Wit.. wings a Protean wit, that sometimes
Sums up embodied in • sarcasm, and some-
times .n a stroke of pathos. Some writers at e a:ways
witty. Thus, Pope's Epitaphs are epigrams ; and
1r
• pious George Herbert, the psalmist, is occa-
!tally as " quirot" as one of Shakspeare'e fools.
Usualness,' which is often attributed to Jerrold,
lit, from the union of wit with a grave intention,
A 6 4 t:uus moral. Jerrold's admirable sayirg, in
" Man made of Money," that in Australia " the
14 .• so kind thst, just tickle her with a hoe, and
licrlos with a harvest," is quite in the style of
r o:d wits. There is nothing better in Butler u
t, nor in Cowley as fancy.

- . -
e look, thraldom, on Jerrold MS a great wit and
inst, who has writtri dramas and fiction. Fri-
ri.y he is wit and satirist—fancy emptying both
hies. Often one of Hs tales touch as are found in
admirable Cakes and Ale) is only an epigram
ten out of thin. Often, his tales only convey sit,
the Gaines traders do gold-dust, the cargo being
thy fifty of the veh'.cles. But there is great in-
u.ty of construction in poise of them, particularly
the tt Men of Characer" serifs. We long to see
is republished, end are much mistaken if it does
t create great surprise and delight among hundreds
his have only hitherto kit own Mr. Jerrold by popu-
,, d admirable (bat to our mind) unequal per-
mance..
Jerr•kl's public cirmr will b• found by competent
prireai to have been clrrelative to his peculiar the-
y rmeacteriatics. Ile lye bran far too rashly
"tied with demicratic tendencies. For ourselves,
ttunk his motives in these matters more esthetic
sn prAitical. He has attacked 'tames, not systems.
• his attacked ID his writings not what offended a
et..sl as radical, but what offended a man of testa
d tam"-, of quick perceptions, of an sy for marking
rotouloue. When he hit, been "destructive," it
beri, in a gracefil, fanciful way—he has destroyed
CA hi the ancient, did the bodies of their &ad—
'utung with them shrubs and flowers, frankinores•
wine.
l' it a high praise of a mon to say that his boat
i".ts I..ave been written against the most odious
rAi. 48 Jrarold's have been. If he were less attrac-
at smelt be of lea consequenos to tugs the real,
'417. genial good-nature of a writer so cytistantly
eirieaL
The ',Ueda edition of the works of Douglas
ser,sl4 will make a charming series of vo:un•cs for
libraries.