The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-03 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

London People. Sketched from Life. By Charles
Bennett. One Vol., pp. 143. Smith, Elder,

and Co.

About the only thing really worthy of Charles Ben-
nett in the whole of this entertaining volume is the
tailpiece. The whimsical humour of it, is delight-
ful. Poor " Goosey," with his body buttoned up in
a waistcoat, and a comic mask tied on to his beak,
is being chaired, in a hopeless state of stupidity as
to his destination (evidently the spit !)—a couple of
horrible old foxes, sniggering, each of them, on the
sly, in his sleeve, acting as the chairmen fore and aft !
As supporters for the chair, as poles for the chair-
men, we have crayons and—goosequills. The fan-
tastic mingling of fun and sarcasm in every line
end dot of this little tail-piece—again we say
it—we can alone in the whole book regard as
really and truly worthy of Charles Bennett. We
speak thus, because we recognise in this quaint
artist an extraordinary power of humour. Some
among his earlier works are, in their way, to our
thinking, quite inimitable. There was a child's
alphabet for example, after this fashion for instance
in regard to one of the chance-selected letters of it—
" P was a Parrot, a prosy old man,
You'll be glad to get rid of as soon as you can,"

and so on, through the whole alphabet delec-
tably humorous throughout. There was another
work of his, afterwards, of larger pretensions
that was equally good after its fashion. The artist,
Charles Bennett, in effect has long since be-
come, for us, as the very /Eiep of the Pencil. But,
here, in his new volume of sketches, we
fail altogether to recognise him as at his best. As
a collection of comic drawings, though the book is
clever enough in its way, in some portions of it, in-
deed, being highly meritorious, it is in no degree,
as a whole, in any manner worthy of him—saving
and excepting alone, as we have said, in the matter
of that little grotesque drollery of the tail-piece.
All the rest of the book is of the streets streety—
quite as unmistakeably as Young Dorrit was.
These London People have been sketched, as the
title-page tells us, from the life. And, looking at
them, we perceive at once that the asser-
tion may be taken literally. But, grant-
ing that, we are constrained to add that
they are one and all of them not worth the sketch-
ing. Any forms and features more plain, ugly,
vulgar, nasty some of them, some even positively
revolting in expression, we certainly would not
wish to see, as the phrase is, upon a summer's day.
No, nor on a winter's one either. In the law courts
at Westminster; among the market stalls of Covent-
garden ; at the play, in boxes, pit, and gallery ; in
the square, in the train, up a court—we had almost
said, up a tree—here they all are, these horrid
London People, of both sexes, of all ages, of every
condition of life almost, that is, among the
middle and the lower classes. But, turning over
the pages wearily, and with a sense of anything
but gratification, we wish, firstly, that they had not
been pencilled off at all, and secondly, that if they
must needs have been sketched, they might not at
least have been sketched with such distressing truth-
fulness. The Cheap Swell in the train ; old Sally
in the market, or, let us say, for the sake of the old
rhyme, in the alley; Pegler the Publican; that
gluttonous old Consumer, who is so visibly masti-
cating the strawberry, with a relish that is quite
horrible to look at; the little gent, goggle-eyed and
open-mouthed in his horror at the melodrama
(it should have been entitled " melodramer"
underneath)—not one pleasurable sensation can
be got out of any single sketch amongst them.
The letterpress accompanying (and for that matter
explaining) the engravings, is light and readable
enough to be sure—so that we get through the book
so far agreeably, thanks to the pleasantry of tone
with which the papers, most of them, are penned by
the artist, and some of them by his friend, Mr.
John Hollingshead. Yet, as a whole, we must
confess that the work has disappointed us—our
expectations being naturally awakened in its
favour by the mere circumstance of these sketches
(from the life) of London People being from
the hand of Mr. Charles Bennett. We had our
fears, in their regard, when we glanced at them at
intervals, during the time of their piecemeal publi-
cation in the popular pages of the Cornhill 21Iaga-
zine. But now that they are collected together in a
volume, our first impression in their regard is only
confirmed. We close the book, however reluctantly,
with an unwelcome sense of the disappointment it
has afforded us, yet consoling ourselves, while we
so do, for that general disappointment, by taking
another peep at, and having another laugh over,
the extraordinary comicality of that wretched goose
and at those rascally foxes, touched off, if not from
the life, certainly to the lifer by Charles Bennett.

Ancient Christmas Carol.

Harmonised for Four Voices, by E. Fagan. Lam-

bert and Co.

We are tempted to call this charming re-arrange.
ment of a noble old Christmas Carol, of the Christ-
mas Carol par excellence, the most seasonable publi-
cation of the day. When we say the Christmas
Carol, we mean, of course, in verse : Charles
Dickens's prose Carol being to our mind just simply
matchless, one of those darling little masterpieces
of literature dear to the hearts of us all—one to be
put on the same shelf (easily within reach) side
by side with "Paul and Virginia" and the " Vicar
of Wakefield," and to be put there, on that beloved
shelf, either in the very centre of it, or as book A
No. 1. Yet even there in the immortal " Christmas
Carol in Prose by Charles Dickens," who does
not remember the mention made, almost at
the very commencement of the narrative, the
mention there made of this Christmas Carol
in Verse, this very ancient and well known song
for Christmas time beginning—

"God rest you merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay"—
when the little frost-nipped urchin peering
through the keyhole of Scrooge's office, down the
City court, in the yellow December fbg, is scared
away at the very commencement of his shrill chaunt
by the sudden flourishing up of the ruler in the
grasp of that old curmudgeon (as he was then)
Ebenezer? Here is this old, old Christmas Carol in its
entirety, every word of it—harmonised very beauti-
fully for four voices by the accomplished organist of
the Spanish Embassy, Mr. E. Fagan. Here is the old,
old Carol precisely as it was sung (as the title-page
informs us) " with great ap plause.by the Orpheus
Glee Union before her Most Gracious Majesty the
Queen," Having mentioned which, having indicated
what this " Ancient Christmas Carol " is in words,
and who it id whose hand has harmonised the
melody traditionally coupled with those words, e
melody also of very great antiquity, may we not
reasonably insist upon it that we are justified in
speaking of the publication before us as in every
respect most seasonable P

PROFESSOR FERRIER, in the forthcoming Tolume
of Wilson's " Noctes Ambrosiatm," is going to
publish the famous Chaldee Manuscript, which did so much
to set up Blackwood's Magazine, and concerning which Mr.
Ferrier supplies this interesting information :—" This
trenchant satire on men and things in the metropolis of
Scotland was published in the seventh number of Black-
wood's Magazine. It excited the most indescribable com-
motion at the time —so much noise, indeed, that never since
has it been permitted to make any noise whatever, this pro-
mising babe having been pitilessly suppressed almost in its
cradle, in consequence of threatened legal proceedings. A
set of the magazine containing it is now rarely to be met
with. The authorship of this composition has been always
a subject of doubt. Hogg used to claim the credit of having
written it. I have recently ascertained that to him the ori-
ginal conception of the Chaldee MS, is due, and also that
he was the author of the first thirty-seven verses of Chap.
I , and of one or two sentences besides. So that, out of the
one hundred and eighty verses of which the whole piece
consists, about forty are to be attributed to the Shepherd.
Hogg, indeed, wrote and sent to Mr. Blackwood mach more
of the Chaldee MS. than the forty verses aforesaid, but not
more than these were inserted in the magazine, the rest of
the production being the workmanship of Wilson and Lock-
hart. Such is the true and authentic accountne can
be littlew it h
doubt of the orig
ii.
republished
anda
thatutho hrwshiepn
this of
itala cleoevehr jed
Chaldee
a,esp
eeMSi..ie r s
annotations (and it may form a very suitable appendix to
the Noctes Arnbrosiana3') the present generation will be
as much amused by its pleasantry, and by the singular state
of feeling, literary and political, which it reveals, as our
fathers were astounded by its audacity, and frightened from
their propriety by its personalities.,,
BaeLA, is, according
atelcß oArdin
MnON, or rather, we should say, bliss
if g to rumour/ about to return to the stage.