The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-14 00:00:00

LITERATUR.E.

A Famous Forgery. By Percy Fitzgerald. One
Vol., pp. 246. Chapman and Hall.
The eccentricity of this book is something to us
quite inexplicable. How a conspicuously clever writer
like Percy Fitzgerald could have selected such a
theme as this to comment upon, simply passes our
comprehension. The author of " Never Forgotten"
—the inimitable serial story now, during many
weeks and months past, adorning the pages of Mr.
Charles Dickens's weekly periodical of All the Year
Round—the author of that singularly original
fiction—the creator of Captain Fermor, of Mr.
Romaine, of Miss Manuel, of Major Carter, of
Young Brett, of John Hanbury, of *the cast-iron
father-in-law of the hero of the tale, and of crowds
of other all but living and breathing entities, there
massed together in those vastly entertaining chapters
of " Never Forgotten "—Percy Fitzgerald, a name
henceforth (in remembrance, that is, of " Never
Forgotten") always right welcome to us on any
title-page, has certainly obeyed the oddest freak of
his eccentric fancy in setting himself down to the
task of writing the history of so disreputable a
rascal as Dr. William Dodd, of notorious memory.
The Life of Sterne, we could very well understand
his writing. But—The Life of Dodd ! For—the
" Famous Forgery" of which the particulars are
here given at very considerable length, and with all
kinds of minute detail and circumstantiality, is no
other than—as the sub-title of the book at once ex-
plains—" The Story of ' the Unfortunate' Doctor
Dodd." In place of " unfortunate" read disrepu-
table, and you will be far nearer the mark, to our
thinking. In testimony of which, only read the
story as it is here set down for our especial
edification by this celebrant of the Maca-
roni Parson ! Mr. Fitzgerald has penned other
odd and whimsical books before now—instance this,
" The Rev. Arthur Hoblush," and the fiction en-
titled " Bella Donna"—but of all his odd and
whimsical books, this is, beyond a doubt of . it, the
very oddest and whimsicallest. The person whose
career and character he has herein undertaken to
describe, is—when we come to examine him, whether
carefully or cursorily, it matters not which—
so utterly contemptible and odious at every
turn of his career, in every phase of his
character ! His very uxoriousness is something re-
volting. His very piety is nothing less than nauseat-
ing. He is so unctuous alike in his devotions and in
his affections. And, all the while, the man is such an
ineffable combination of the bore and the twaddler 1
That he was an unmittigated scoundrel in the
way of dishonesty, the most notorious act of
his life demonstrates quite conclusively and
beyond the reach of any possibility of con-
tradiction. But what good purpose can pos-
sibly be; served by the relation of his sayings, and
doings, and (worst of:a11) his scribblings—just passes
the reach of our conjecture. Beholding Doctor
Dodd, as we are now enabled to do very distinctly
indeed, through the lens of Mr. Fitzgerald's
biographic narrative, we can only marvel how it
could ever have come to pass that a sturdy, sterling,
sagacious moralist like old Samuel Johnson, could have
found even in the depths of his profound philanthropy
the smallest incentive to interpose in behalf of a
sleek and sanctimonious vagabond like Dodd. The
wretched man's nature had about it nothing, seem-
ingly, in any way akin to the nature of Dr. John-
son. One would have said that between the two
there was not discoverable anywhere the faintest
reason or plea for the mere pretence of a sympathy.
And really and truly, and quite frankly to put it,
now that we have turned the pages of this
extraordinarily painstaking record of the canting
mediocrity of the notorious Forger, Dr. Dodd,
sprinkled as this record is only too abundantly with
fragments of the blank verse, the very blank verse
of "The Unfortunate"—we regard it as an inex-
plicable mystery that such a man as William Dodd
should have found during his life a champion like
Dr. Samuel Johnson, and so many years after his
death a biographer like Mr. Percy Fitzgerald. That
crowning honour, however, the Macaroni Par-
son has here received. The narrative, as
originally penned, appeared, as the readers of
the Dublin University Magazine will very well re-
member, some time since, from month to month, in
the pages of that able periodical. It has now been
issued from the press separately, in the form of this
goodly volume alluringly entitled " A Famous For-
gery." Admirably although the materials have been
put together by the cunning hand of the
author of " Never Forgotten," those materials
themselves are, for the most part, al-
most entirely worthless. Recognising which
fact very vividly_and it is impossible to read two
chapters of the book under notice without recog-
nising it—we cannot but regret that a writer as
gifted and accomplished as the creator of Captain
Fermor should have condescended to assume to him-
self the office of being Dr. Dodd's biographer.

Can You Forgive Her? By Anthony TroHope

No. XV.

Chapman and Hall.

This March instalment of Anthony Trollope's serial
story about the Vavasours is chiefly remarkable for
its record of the fact that Mr. Palliser demonstrates
the depth of his forgiving affection forhis wife, Lady
Glencora, by sacrificing, in her interests, the ambition
of his life—the Chancellorship of the Exchequer !
The Duke of St. Bungay, coming to him with the
offer of that vacant post, finds Mr. Plantagenet
Palliser in the midst of a profound domestic cala-
mity. Lady Glencora and her husband hare
arrived at a sort of an explanation imme-
diately before the arrival of the Duke—who comes
simply as an emissary from the Prime Minister to
place within reach of Mr. Palliser's acceptance the
dream of his life, the Chancellorship of the Exche-
quer ! Conscious that the only safety for Lady
Glencora lies in immediate absence from England,
so as to put her out of the way of the wiles of that
dissipated Adonis-cousin of her's, Bargo Fitzgerald
—Mr. Palliser declines the proffered seat in the
Cabinet ! The ruffianly George Vavasor gets
deeper and deeper into the mire of his dirty diffi-
culties. How these are to end it is impossible to
conjecture. Now and then we almost look for the
sensational effect of some diabolical murder to be
perpetrated by the hand of the hon. (very hon.)
member for Chelsea.

Part I. By Captain