The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-07 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIEA

The Quarterly Review. No. CXCIV.
A thoroughly genial and exquisitely appreciative
notice of Mr. Thackeray is, to our thinking, the
charm of the present number of the Quarterly.
The reviewer considers, as we ourselves have long
done, that " The Newcomes" must be regarded as our
great novelist's masterpiece. Justice is accorded to
that most masterly creation—Colonel Thomas New-
come—henceforth to be cherished in remembrance
as one of the glories of our national literature.
Scarcely enough, however, is said in commenda-
tion of Monsieur Paul de Florae, Prince de Monti.:
contour—pink and pattern of French gentlemen.
More than enough is added in praise of the skill
revealed in our satirist's excruciating portraiture
of Mrs. Mackenzie—fiend rather than woman, and
yet, though displayed as such, an actual callotype
rather than an extravagant caricature. The passages
extracted from " The Newcomes," in justification
of the panegyrics here lavished upon the writer by
the critic, are one and all of them precisely those
we ourselves have, from time to time, specified
accordingly as the numbers of the serial story is-
sued from the press periodically : passages so spe-
cified by us as brilliantly demonstrative of the wit,
the pathos, the sarcasm, the eloquence, the
humour, the tenderness, squandered by the
affluent hand of genius upon this one inimitable
masterpiece. Among these, for example, must be
remembered the celebration of the little ills of
life as those by which existence is for the most
part embittered ; the sarcastic inculcation of sel-
fishness as the primum mobile ; the droll memorial
of the political principles of the East India Colonel,
the real hero of the tale ; the humorous eulogium
pronounced upon evil tempers, as exemplified by.
the Black Dog of Lady Kew ; the memorable-disclo-
sure of the skeleton hid away somewhere or other, in
a dark cupboard, in every household in the land; the
pathetic affectation of sternness towards the woman
who falls, and the yet more pathetic truthfulness
of her career as depicted afterwards ; the life-like
sketches of the vulgar Potters of Rosebury Green,
of the delicious De Florae as an English country
gentleman, and of that horrid little group typical
of men of the tuft-hunting and toad-eating
genus, as exemplified in the presence of Mr.
Bowman, the valet, by honest Jack Todhunter
and the ever-faithful Captain Henchman. Enough:
having alluded thus far in detail to this
very delightful criticism upon " The Newcomes,"
we may now content ourselves by referring
every admirer of Mr. Thackeray to the entire
panygeric itself as pronounced upon the Field-
ing of our age by the authoritative voice of the
Quarterly Reviewer. The article on " Pitt
and Fox," though undoubtedly clever as it is,
would have been still better had the writer con-
fined his attention more immediately to the
twin subject nominally under his considera-
tion, instead of allowing his comments to
wander away so very discursively upon the Earl
of Shelburne and the Marquis of Rockingham.
We begin, formally enough, with the birth of Wil-
liam Pitt, the second son of the great Earl of Chat-
ham, on the 28th of May, 1759—we attend to the
record of his home tuition under his father's care
from six to fourteen—we follow him to his entrance,
in 1773, at Pembroke Hall, in the University of
Cambridge, and thence to the date of his being
called to the bar in 1780, and of his going the
Western Circuit—we mark his unsuccessful attempt
to be allowed to represent the University of Cam-
bridge in Parliament during the ensuing autumn,
and of his ultimate entrance into the House of Com-
mons in the January of 1781, as M.P. for the bo-
rough of Appleby—and then we are all at sea
floundering about in a chaos of loose commentaries
upon the position of parties towards the end of the
eighteenth century, hearing little or nothing about
Pitt, or about Fox, but a very great deal about
Lord North, and Lord Shelburne, and Lord Rock-
ingham, and Lord Thurlow, and the Lord knows
who else besides. The paper wants condensation.
It is altogether too long and too straggling. There
is one pa.sage, however, of a wholly episodical, or
rather parenthetical, character, which we cannot
resist the satisfaction of quoting precisely as it
stands here in the old Tory Quarterly. It occurs
whore the reviewer is speaking of Lord Shelburne,
afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne—of whom the
writer observes that in his less amiable and attrac-
tive attributes ho is—

"Favourably indeed contrasted by the son, who ulti-
mately succeeded to bis honours, and who yet lives to
command the affectionate veneration of all, who, what-
ever the differences of party, can appreciate the nature
in which a rare elevation and an exquisite suavity ad-
mit of no enmities, while cementing all friendships—
and which, gracing by accomplished culture a patriotism
not embittered by spleen nor alloyed by ambition, har-
monies into classic beauty the character of one with
whom La3lius would have eagerly associated, and whom
Cicero would havo lovingly described—' Ad inatationen
sui vocet alios ;ut sesc splcudore anima: 41 vit sum,
sicut speculum, prcvbcat civ3us.'"

Against one observation pronounced by the Quar-
terly upon the intellectual incapacity and minis-
terial fatuity of Lord Rockingham we must protest,
as against a view in every way monstrously unde-
served. It is where the writer says—"We question
whether Lord Rockingham, take him altogether,
was not the dullest man whom England ever saw
in the rank of First Minister." An opinion alto-
gether, wo repeat, monstrously undeserved, when
it is remembered that in these later times we have
had the calamity to witness at the head of affairs
a dull man—

"Dull—beyond expression—dull,"
like my Lord Aberdeen. After whom we cannot
conceive to ourselves the possibility of any further
bathos ministerially. Half-a-dozen other articles
yet remain to rejoice the readers of the Quarterly.
Foremost among these in position, and perhaps in
value, is the biographical and critical paper on the
subject of Peter Daniel Huet, his life and opinions.
Huet, the editor of " Origea," and better still and.
far more memorable, the originator or projector
of the famous Delphiu Classics !—the originator or
projector of them at least in companionship with.
the Duke of Montausier. A contribution upon
the subject of " School Sermons," together with
one upon the recently published "Caldwell Papers,"
a sort-of minor sequel to the celebrated " Paston
Letters," known so well and valued so highly by
every student of English historic literature, follow
in duo course. Subsequently to which come—a

philanthropic disquisition upon " The Charities
and the Poor of London ;" an ingenious criticism
upon certain lately compiled atin Dictiona-
ries and, to close our catalogue of the contents
of the current number of the Quarterly, a brilliant
essay upon " Men of Science," as sketched by the
master hands of Arago and Brougham.