The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-02 00:00:00

JERROLD'S MAGAZINE.

So far as can be judged from a first Number, we
think that this cheap and conveniently-sized periodi-
cal is likely to obtain a fair share of popularity. It
opens with a tale entitled " St. Giles and St. James,"
which is avowedly from the pen of the editor, and is
written with all that pungency and earnestness so
characteristic of his better prose compositions. The
spirit, too, that animates it, is excellent, and as anti-
conversational in its tone as can be desired. We
hope it will be continued without interruption. The
" Recollections of Hazlitt" are, no doubt, true in the
main, but they are not penned in the most amiable
spirit, and they involve one or two contradictions, for
in one place the writer asserts that Hazlitt was selfish,
and in the very next sentence leads us to infer that
he was not at all so. We quote Mr. Jerrold's epi-
grammatic introduction to his new story :
" Our first paragraph shall be a confession of igno-
rance. We know not the geanealogy of St. Giles. All
we know is this. Our St. Giles was born—we can hardly
say first saw the light—in Hampshire Hog-lane. We
believe that we are pretty sure of his father, but at once
lose ourselves seeking his grandsire. We are imme-
diately in a genealogical fog, without even a link's end
from the Herald's- office to guide us. True it is, we
might, if we would, sit contentedly down in the dark-
ness, and our imagination, aided by obscurity—as men
are apt to close their eyes when they would take a bright
internal look—might in a trice discover the family tree ;
now complacently following its branches as they waved
towards the Court-end of the town, and now avoiding
them as they struck towards Tyburn. We might do this,
for it has been done many a time, and for only so much
hard cash. But can the family of St. Giles fee us for
the labour ? No. Then we trust we are not so wholly
lost to the decencies of life as to lie gratis.
"Nevertheless, we owe some explanation to the polite
reader, for that we have given typographical precedence
to St Giles to the apparent injury of St. James. We
think we have a just reason for this. There appears to
us—and sure we are the like opinion burns in the
breasts of many most respectable people---more of the
original animal man in St. Giles than in St. James. He
seems to vindicate, and that brazenly, unblushingly, the
baseness of his origin. He stands before us a creature
of the earth ; or rather, of the mud of the earth. If it be
otherwise, then has St:Giles again and again been much
abused, mistaken.

" The very nakedness of St. Giles—according to our
heraldry—makes him elder brother of St. James. As
we consider him, he is as much the elder, as the bare
ukin of man is older than the silks and velvets that have
enwrapt it. Ile may be a marked and branded vagabond ;
but, nevertheless, he is the elder brother. Contem-
plating him, we behold in his wants—in his fiereeness,
begotten of these wants—the proscribed from the con-
fines of this world's Paradise. Consider the history of
man. Your vagabond is lost in the shadows of anti-
quarian night—now, your gentleman is a common-place
of yesterday. Upon this philosophical principle do we
place St. Giles before St. James, and believe us, dear
reader, for no catchpenny reason whatever. We do not
say that a three-legged oaken stool is a finer, more com-
modious chattel, than a gilded chair ; but, in the genea-
logy of household moveables, sure we are it ranks as the
elder brother.
" St. Giles and St. James Is it possible they can be
brethren ? Every particle of their faces, every atom of
their covering, cries no ; externally, as different as the
aforesaid three-legged stool and glittering chair ; and
yet, in truth, of the same frame-work—the very same.
Impossible ! Let us see.
" What a clumsy thing is this three-legged stool.