The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-14 00:00:00

DOUGLAS JERROLD,

Popular—in the more genial acceatetion of the
_Nviird—Douglas Jerrold is not, although his writinge
have4equired'for.him a rather extended end diversi-
fied reputation. The reason of this is sufficiently ap-
parent. His sarcasm has overlaid his philanthropy.
But then, 'again, his wit has redeemed his sarcasm.
In the display of his abilities a 9 a satirist we cannot
but think, however, that Douglas Jerrold has inad-
vertently, brit, sill none the less effectually, acted- as
his owe traducer. By a perpetual play of 'achy
e 7 ebtoariahout hii compositions, he has almost invariably
'
extorted applause, if he bas not always succeeded in
winning admiratiOn. The cynical chord in his nature
has beep to him what the one string was to Pega-
nioi. He haslnade it laugh and sing; he has told
stories with it ;lie has compelled it to talk in dia-
logue ; he has Tendered it at pleasure, tragical, or gay,
or pathetic, or:grotesque—all like Paganini. .People
have 'wondered so long at the miraculous skill of his
performances„ou that one chOrd that they forget his
adroitness upi3ti all Others, they forget the genius, the
artietic gen*, he has so often displayed otherwise,
they target that his band has, before now, strung, with
the subtle and delicate touch of a master, the golden
lyre of their heart-strings----calling forth, with the
iii!ian breath of passion, the exquisitely responsive
music :.cif their vibratione. Jerrold has accom-
plished tl.is noblest of all successes in author-
ship. Hureouriet though he is, satirist
though he iseeehetae occasioaally, in his capacity as
a dramatist, 'achieved the triumph attributed to the
comedien Mupden in " his more serious moments—he
has exiade the., pulse of a whole house beat like that of
onexian. Remembering this, and remembering still
more, that 'the abilities of Douglas Jerrold have
without scarcely an exception, even when apparently
the mostsinister-:: and:the most acrimonious, been
directed with ta generous and beneficent intention, we
would commend hits as one speeking to the crowd
with a voice not only shrewd and searching,
but harmonious also, and persuasive, incul-
cating, with a strange and veriable eloquence, truThs
qaainr, 'and 'solemn, and tender, and fantastic,
and beautifuL According to his own suggestion he
may be likeped to the hedgehogs of Plutarch, which,
after. shaking the autoannal sines, roll themselves in-
geniotiely tei and fro among the fallen fruit, collecting
the grapes het :their prickles and creeping off like a
" walking chieter" to yield their young, even from
thait own bristling ugliness, a saccharine and delicious
nourishment. The illustration is, decidedly, more
complimenterr to his writings than to himself, and
evervsitpposing: the public to accept it as altogether
applicable, we doubt whether they would be induced,
like Capstick, to christen their favourite—
Velvet. His style is flavoured so frequently
with bitterness that its intermittent sweetness,
and raciness, and mellowness are not very generally
appreciated, Bitterness, we repeat it, is the pervade
ing quality, but a bitterness wholesome in its appli-
cation—the tonic of our light literature.
ConspieuOus among the influential writers of the
age, Douglas Jerrold has attained this position of
intellectual eminence by a career Of more than usual
industry, and of more than customary perseverance.
During a considerable time at the outset of that
career he bad to struggle earnestly for every separate
runeaof the ladder of Fortune : that ladder which we
well remember him to have since likened sardonically
in a parencheeis to the celestial ladder of Jacob in
the wilderpessa that ladder which affords the climber

mmediately above you such delightful facilities to
trample upon yohr fingers!' Jerrold the novelist, and
eOseria-epnedtlie athenahrohcaliirislit:h a porpe ear
seashlaifvee, bothw
hniaerhr otwh
they
might neither possibly have risen above the level of pro-
reefer,S c i e n c
hase , hdye thisv eo pa
eb
dr ut ph te cge
ifne s st
hi oen
dl
destiny
i oocfr;iot
re
of a profound and illustrious philosopher: while, in
the instance of the other boy-midshipman, a new
and original mind was evoked for the advancer
lade -k-JEeyrreciold,s,zsaanndashetnhcees,uphlesositbolyf,
one
meat :of oar „national literature. Sheerness was
dramatic pi
•
eces, not long after
hissotelectionhis
t ahelp6ailfra:nl Bee
the h e metropolis. His theatrical tastes
must, likewise, in some measure be attributed , to
the recollections of childhood, acquired in the etta-
blishcoeet of his father as a manager. Bern in
1805—the year remarkable, moreover, for the
birth of Bulwer Lytton, and Benjamin Disraeli,
and. other distiutioguished contemporaries—Dou-
glas Jerrold has already, before the maturity of
middle life has expired, revealed capacities as a man
of lettert, such as command for him the regard
of hie generation. Possibly, also, those capacities may
secure to his name from posterity, a reasonably pro-
tracted remembrance. As a dramatist his labours have
been, perhaps, the most assiduous. Besides the produc-
tion already particularized, he brought once more on
the stage the comely form and romantic story of
Nell Gwynne, making the gods and groundlings roar
at the irresistible ridiculousness of Keeley as Orange
Moll. The most brilliant achievement of this period,
however, wrs the domestic drama in two acts, in
which he painted The Rent Day no less vividly, and
no lets truthfully, to nature than David Wilkie, re-
'Vealing for the first time that mastery over the
emotional factilties, the continued advancement' of
which he has since then repeatedly demonstrated.
Here it was, according to a pleasant anecdote,
therethat uponmet
behindth
the first nisgehetnesof
ofi that London
performance,
playhouse in the--characters respectively of scene
painter and dramatist, both, even then, somewhat
celebrated, two young adventurers
.who had, on the
occasion of their former meeting, been midshipmeri in
the Royal :Navy—Stanfield and Jerrold. Adven-
turers vie_ pall them, not in the vulgar meaning' of
a phrffse which has degenerated almost to the
paltry significance of an accusation, but in its ancient
and superb importance, namely, as a word applicable
to Columbus when he went in search of the gold-run-
ning rivers cif Cathay, or to Raleigh when he crossed
the same waters of the Atlantic in quest of the no less
visionary city of the precious metals, with pantiles of
silver and columns of porphyry, the gorgeous, and al-
luring Dorado. Scarcely
less gorgeous or less alluring
than even Cathay or Dorado, must have been the
dreams conjured up in the imagination of those
creators in art—the author and the painter—alike
adventurers in ambition—alike enabled now to re-
joice in the' rapture of realization. A variety of
farces and minor pieces for the stage might, we be-
lieve, in addition to the foregoing, be enumerated as
the result of Douglas Jerrold's energetic application
at this, not least, interesting portion-of his career in
literature; but the most popular of all those subordi-
nate productions, at any rate in the minor theatres
even of now-a-days, are those already men-
tioned. Later on, and when encouraged by prac-
tice, our dramatist brought out his comedy of
The Schoolfellow, and another domestic drama (a
few seasons back represented before her Majesty and
the Court. at Windsor Castle) well-known as The
Housekeeper. Besides a humorous piece, in three
nets, produced last year, and entitled Retired from
Business, he has contributed four successful comedies
to our dramatic literature—The Catspau,, a designa-
tion of itself sufficiently suggestive to render its
satirical purpose apparent ; The Prisoner of War,
representing society as it appeared at the commence-
ment of the present century. during the supremacy cf
Napoleon ; 'l'he Bubbles of a Day, and a work no
less brilliantly characterised by the wit and vivacity
of its dialogue' Time works Wonders. By the two
last mentioned, more probably than by any other of
his compositions, the author's reputation may be per- '
petuated. '
It ass by industry elsewhere than behind the scenes •
of a theatre that Douglas Jerrold rose into intellectual '
eminence among his contemporaries. A series of
grotesque sketehest, originally issued in " Blackwood's
Magazine," were subsequently collected for separate
publication. 'The essayist gave way to the romancer.
The copyist became the creatcr. The chrysalis of the
mere periodieat contributor developed to the butterfly
celebrity of ehe recognised novelist—a change scarcely
less rematkable of its kind than would be a removal
on quarteredety from grub-street to May-fair. In
this manner the anonymous papers inserted in
Mega were acknowledged in their aggregate capa-
city as those seven luckless champions of misfortune
the .Men ,of Character. Considerable ingenuity was
displayed throughout those narratives, both in regard
to the plot aid in reference to the discrimination
ei
d'Aea-nitn s,
between the various personages introduced. In the
longest of all, :for example, the history of John
Applejoh, written supplementarily to those pub-
lished in the Magetine, comprised a diversity of vi-
cissitudes; sufficient almost to have constituted an
episode GifThas," that most wonderful master-
hthisettlosirntgundietlein
piece whioh, for incident, is a veritable encycloeseiht.
It s
delineation of
who
that
owell,"
that the viritereenthmernoratcd the jovial freaks and
noctlirmil eccentricitiea then. setting the town by the
ears, the
rid
se
havebeing the gay Marquess
of Waterord. Few who
record of. his calamities can
lose a recollection
of the contretemps by which the
soul
of Adam 'Buff are agonized, what
though
(gahnd body)
he was
in the truest sent a philosopher. Butetuh
then—he was
a philwoptier " without a shirt"—and Democritus
could scarcely have preserved his hilarity under
simi-
lar circumstances without the aid of his laundress.
Mathew Clear,, the gentleman who " saw his way,"
reminds one instinctively of the " Vert, Vert," elf
G-risset, in relation to that scurrilous old dowager of
a parrot who celebrated every matrimonial tiff with
the Ejaculation " Hooked again, by —!" Job
pippins, the " man who couldn't help it," unlike his
associate Buff,-_ his just a shirt too many, considering
its delicate texture and its still mote delicate con-
sequences.; His invalid courtship of Agnes
Caady at, the moment when his very iden.