The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

O'Dowd's Good Humoured Philosophy.

Cornelius O'Dowd upon Men and Women, and other
things an general. One vol. pp, 299. Blackwood
and Sons,
Another glorious serial from Blackwood's Maga-
zine is here before us, collected together and pub-
lished separately. It is the cheeriest set of chapters—
about (slightly altering its own cub title) all things
in general and nothing in particular—that any blase
student of light literature, as it is for the most part
nowadays, could reasonably desire. In the mere
style of it, there is freshness if not absolute origina-
lity. The writer of these pages has sat down to
their composition in ap,:iarently tip-top spirits. If
he does really happen, in spite of all appearances
hero to the contrary notwithstanding—to be, even
to a moderate extent, a victim to the re e3)„.rims,
otherwise to the blue devils born of dyspepsia, he
has the ',happiest knack somshow :of hiding his
efirction from the reader's ken altogether, and en-
titles himself indubitably, in that case, to the delight-
ful repute of being the most thoroughly amiable
and sweet-tempered of valetudinarians. Judging
here merely from the manner of the man, however,
we should be disposed to picture him to ours
selves as a compound of all sorts of delect-
able contradictions or incongruities. In this wise
—to begin with—Cornelius O'Dowd is manifestly
an unmistakeable Man-of-the.world, one who has
seen a good deal of the ins and outs of life,
who has seen them, moreover, with his eyes
wide open, who has, in his time, had quite
enough and to spare of town life, who has very
closely and critically examined for himself (to adopt
a happy phrase from an essayist in the Cornhill
Magazine) " the wrong side of the stuff," all the
tags and rags and bobtails of that motley embroi-
dery, the Social System ! And who, nevertheless,
has emerged from it all, from this town life, from
these wanderings behind the scenes, from these
strayings even into the holes and corners, as
one may say, of modern civilisation--a creature,
to the last, entirely genial in his spirits, in his
nature, in his whole temperament, and not the
least bit in the world of a curmudgeon ! In
other words, Cornelius O'Dowd may be set
down at once—as a man of the world—
unspoilt by his worldly wisdom ! In his idiocyn-
creel- ho was evidently, upon setting out in life, a
right good fellow. And—he is so still. He was
so in the green leaf. Ho is so—if Mrs. O'Dowd will
but forgive us for hinting as much—now that the
once glistening, dustless green leaf gives indica-
tions of crisping into the " sure and yellow." And,
seeing all this in Cornelius O'Dowd, we have a kind•
ness for him. The glint of the gray heirs sown, here
and there, about his head and in his whiskers, in-
stead of deteriorating the gloss of those hirsute
honours of Cornelius O'Dawd's—on the contrary,
seems, in a manner, to enhance it, as it were, by a
last finishing touch of grace as with a crowning
sheen or halo ! The crowsfeet at the outer-corners
of his blithe eyes, come to him less, one might say,
from years than from frequent laughter or nonsti•
tutional merriment. His paramount characteristic
is his bonhommie. His bearing towards the
world at large, is very much indeed of the
" Hail fellow well met !" Nay—more than
that—he himeelf,ene might say, is a hale fellow, and
one, here, in these pages, decidedly well met! Read-
ing him, it is as if, in answer to his summons, we
had got our slippered feet at ease under his maho-
gany in a pleasant tae d tae, sipping bumpers of
his old crusted, cracking the ripest filberts culled
from his own nut-walk, dipping the milky kernels
of them in the attic salt of his wit, and—it is surely
needless to say, after this thoroughly enjoying
ourselves the while—when listening to his
hilarious prattle ! A prattle, too, it is—about
the chiefest charm of which is its dis-
cursiveness! Echoing our own preliminary
phrase for it, it is so much (to be plain, in about
one-and-thirty distinct chapters, or divisions) of
" Good Humoured Philosophy" Cornelius
O'Dowd's, to wit—" Upon Men and Women and
Other Things in General!' Cornelins's Mordan,
or Perry, twittering as lightly as any feather
—say as one of the grey goosequills of
the author's earlier youth—upon themes as che-
quered as—(like Ella's Mrs. Batt' e—with a diffe-
rence I) on " The Decline of Whist"—as (like Mr.
Babbage or Mr Bass—also, with a difference I) on
" The Organ Nuisance"—on " Clubs" and " Line
guists"—on " A New Hansard" and " A New In-
vestment"—on " The Decline of the Drama" and the
swarming of " Garibaldi's Worshippers." Various
as may be the opinions of Cornelius O'Dowd upon
Men and Women and Other Things in General, it is
certain, all the while, that he entertains no mean
opinion of one individual in particular, namely, the
important subject of his first paper yclept " My-
self 1" Here, in proof of this, are his qualifications
in fall—

" You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my
qualifications; but what can Ido ? It is only when I have
opened my pack and displayed my wares that you may feel
tempted to buy. lam driven, then, to tell you that I know
everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two
or three in America; that I have been everywhere—eaten of
everything—seen everything. There is not a railway guard
from Norway to Naples doesn't grin a recognition to me ;
not a waiter from the Trois Freres to the Wilde Mann
doesn't trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers
speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and prima donnas
soar above the crchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter
the pit."

With such a cicerone no wonder the book is filled
with adventure and amusement. Ono of the early
chapters "A friend of Gioberti" gives a whimsical
account of the O'Dawds' honeymoon expedition to
the Continent when an Italian Count, and friend of
Gioberti, gives Mr. and Mrs. O'D. the benefit of
some Italian lessons. The upshot being that he
(Gioberti's Friend that is) gives the unconscious
lady some Italian love letters to endite by way of
exercises, and then disposes of them at a heavy sum
to the credulous husband. An explanation ensues
thereupon, of course, between the lady and gentle•
man, but " the friend of Gioberti" has departed
with his compensation. Altogether this book penned
by Cornelius O'Dowd, of O'Dowd's Folly, in the
county of Mayo, Ireland, is as exhilarating a volume
as one could wish to have had issued from the press,
in the very nick of time, upon the eve of one's holiday
excursion—no matter whither ! Precisely the very
book of books to drop into one's valise as a fill-up
for stray moments when lounging in the corner of a
railway carriage or when sprawling at greater ease
upon the cabin sofa of a steamboat—stray moments
when, without the fatigue of talking, one enjoys
so completely through a book, just such an
intellectual companionship as that of Monsieur,
Signor, Herr, Dan Cornelius O'Dowd—this
travelling Irishman,who talks wherever:he goes, we
may be certain of that, Spanish, Garman, Italian,
French, it matters nothing which, bat each and
all of them with the one unmistakeable Mayo
accent! Not a high.flavonred, broad-spreading
accent like that of the dreadful Patland-widow in
George Meredith's "Emilia in England," what that
arch humorist himself dubs " pickled Irish"—
but a very delectable, an easily detectable taste
of the brogue—a taste of the brogue, let us say,
caught from a just casual lick of the Blarney Stone!
And, so saying, let us here cheerily—as, in truth,
alone befits a reader who stands indebted to hie
author for many a gay, nay often, too, far many a
wise and wholesome laugh—let us here cheerily
bid a cordial adieu to Cornelius O'Dowd, of
Dowd's Fol
l
y
aforesaid, the merry-eyed, frank-
speaking, open-handed owner (alas! late owner)
of Kilmuraynabachlioh, Ballaghy and Gregnaslat-
tery.

PAINCESS'S THEATRE.—Mr Edward Thompsor,
who has been connected for many years with the
box-offitya of this theatre, has announced his annual benefit
for this evening. The performances will consist of "Bore
to Good Luck" and the new drama called the "The Streets
of London." The z-2al and courtesy with which Mr Thomp-
son uniformly discharges the duties of his office give him
the strongest claims upon the patronage of the public, who
it is to be hoped will show their sense of his merits on the
present occasion.

MADAME TUSSAUD'S.—SeveraI new figures have
been lately added to the celebrated Historical Gallery in
Baker-street, among which wa would call special attention
to that of Richard 11. and his Queen Isabella ; also Henry
and his Queen Joan of Navarre, and Henry VI. and
his Queen Margaret of Apjou—all being attired iu the costly
costumes of their respective periods. A full-length model
of Archbishop Wickham, in mggnifieent ecclesiastical robes,
&0., is likewise to be seen.