The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-20 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

The North British _Review. No. LXXIX. Ed-
raonston and Douglas.
Although several articles of importance lend an
especial interest to the current number of the North
British Review—conspicuous among them a reve-
rential treatise upon the " Vie de Jesus," such as will
hardly satisfy the egotism of M. Reran should it
fall under his observation—we have turned, as we
conjecture every person taking up this ever•welcome
blue covered northern quarterly will turn, must
perforce turn, instinciively, inevitably, to the last
paper of all—the eighth—simply entitled
"'Thackeray." Of all the many memorials of
Thackeray yet given to the eager multitude of his
lamenting admirers since his startling demise, this
paper in the 11 orth British is, to cur mind, in
comparably the very best. To our think-
ing, it is beyond all comparison the best.
Nothing, it is true, could by possibility have been
more exactly what it ought to have been, what we
should (in our thorough appreciation of the two
men) have wished it to have been, could our wishes
have had any influence whatever in shaping out the
result—nothing could possibly base been in more
exquisite taste es an expression of manly sorrow
and fraternal sympathy than Charles Dickens's In
Memoriam paper leading eff the last number of the
Cornhill. But then it was—though of the best—so
very brief! As for Mr. Anthony Trollope's tribute
to Thackeray in the same number of Thackeray's
own especial periodical—well, it was most gene•
rous in tone and feeling, only, in point of
fact, it was too much so, for, while it was
all that, it was also to the last degree extra-
vagant. The finest novel in literature, the
most perfect creation of a character in the whole
range of fiction—why, these superlatives were
simply preposterous as applied even to '• Eamond"
(that exquisite romance !), even to Colonel New-
come, that worthy companion to other imaginary
beings, such, let us say, as Sir John Falstaff or
Sir Roger Dc Coverley. The charming little me-
moir published by Mr. Hannay, first of all, in his
own Edinburgh newspaper, and afterwards in a sepa-
rate form as a slight pamphlet, was—in bulk, or
rather in the lack of bulk—insufficient. The cone
pilation prepared for the press with such surprising
rapidity by Mr. Theodore Taylor, and published jo
very promptly the other day by Mr. Rotten of Pic-
cadilly, turns out to be, when the kindest thing that
can be said of it, is said of it, wholly and solely a
compilation. Bearing in mind, therefore, all that
has yet appeared in regard to Thackeray since the
date of his lamentably sudden demise, this eighth
and last contribution, in the current number
of the North British .Review, is, we repeat,
to our thinking, the very best, because in
every way the fullest, the most searching in its
criticism, and, therefore, all things consi-
dered, the most satisfactory. It is enough of itself
to secure to the number, as we can hardly doubt but
what it will, an unusually largo and widely scattered
circulation. Often, throughout it, we don't the
'est atom in the world agree with the writer in the
North British in his estimate of this or that among
Thackeray's writings. For example, we cannot for
the life of us regard that great writer's Lovel the
Widower as in any one respect a masterpiece. On
the contrary, it seems to us, among all his
writings, to be in almost . every particu-
lar one of the least satisfactory. It is
the old story he had so often and often related
before, told once more all over again—the tone of
it, meanwhile, as caught from one of the most pro-
minent characters in the fiction, to wit that horrid
butler, being inconceivably vulgar. Barring, how-
ever, instances like these, where our own judgment
flies to quite an opposite conclusion to the one
arrived at by the North British Reviewer, we have
to thank the latter for a memorial chapter on
our great humorous satirist, Thackeray, the
eager perusal of which has on the whole given us
the liveliest satisfaction. Among the scattered
treasures of Thackeray's own inimitably
comical writings, not to be found among his
works, even in his collected Miscellanies, we have
reason to be grateful to the North British for giving
us in its grotesque entirety, what we have often
heard sung, but never remember before this to have
seen any where in print—Thackeray's wonderfully
funny impromptu song of—