The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-20 00:00:00

EVEN ENG EDITION.

LITERATUE,E.

MASTER HUMPHREY' S CLOCk, No. 111.
Chapman and Hall, London, 1840.
rhough we preler this Number -to either of the two
that have preceded it, we cannot say that it is altogether
what we should have expected from Boz. 'l'hcre is too
much of the imitative about it. The author does not
write so much from his own fresh, lively impression of
men and things, as from hints and suggestions furnished
ih! ethers. Sterne and Washington Irving, particu-
lar, seem to have been uppermost in his mind, while he
%'.„43 penning the first five or six pages of the present
Number ; and in proof of what we assert, we quote a
Passage. wherein, not only Sterne's peculiar vein of sen-
timent, but his very manner of giving expression to that
sentiment, are closely imitated :---
It I
I grew still more interested in my friend. His din.
ber
done, a decanter of refine was placed before him. It
:rained untouched for a long time, but at length, with a
uivering hand,
So he filled a giass and raised it to his lips.
home tender uish to which he had been accustomed to
re utterance on that day, or some beloved name that he
d been used to pledge, trembled upon them at the mu_
mere He put it dawn very hastily—took it up once
f are_again put it down—pressed his hand upon his
and tears stole down his cheeks, I am certain.
ebout pausing to consider whether I did tight or wrong,
aid stepped across the room, and sitting down beside him,
ray hand gently on his arm."
Who would imagine that Master Humphrey wee
'Peaking in the above passage ? Who would not rather
"PPose that it was Sterne who—under his favourite
alms of Yorick—was describing same fresh rencontre
he had had, when in France, with the Calais monk, cr.
with poor Lefevre, at the time when 44 Dendertnond vas
taken by the allies ?" In the extract we are about to
make, it will be seen that Boz has dexterously caught
that. strain of kindly and pensive reflection in which
Washington Irving is so prone to indulge, though we
Will do him the justice to say that his language is much
more easy and natural than that of his prototype :--
" Who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief
in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those
Pisces which they once dearly affected; when he himself,
scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for
ever lingering upon past emotions and byegone times, and
hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and
this that warmed his heart of old ? It is thus that at
inis quiet hear I haunt house where I was born, the
rooms I used to tread, the acmes of my infancy, my boy-
hood, and my youth ; it is thus that I prowl around my
buried treasure (though not of gold or silver), and mourn
m 7 loss ; it is thus that I revisit the ashes 'of extin-
guished fires, and take my silent stand at old bed sides. If
hY spirit should ever glide back to this chamber when my
dY is mingled with the dust, it will but follow the course
it often took in the old man's lifetime, r.nd add but one
more change to the subjects of its contemplation."
In the sentence which we have marked in italics, a
tout:ll4lg sentiment is conveyed in just and felicitous
language, Not less striking in its way, is the brief
sketch of a London tavern on Christmas-day, where
lne author speaks of " the bough of misletoe sickening,
in the gas," and the " very waiter having gone home,'
and his representative, " a poor, lean, hungry man
Keeping Christmas in his jacket." In the portrait of
Jack Itedburn, the reader will again be reminded of
Washington Irving, whose arch humour Boz has imi-
tated as carefully as his more serious manners. The
Number closes with a tale which is worked up with
much graphic energy.