The Nevada journal., 1858-09-24

good or harm, is question we tre con.
tinually tempted to ask 7 Thev GER
tainly have not succeeded in Correcting
their own errors by any means, either In
ancient or in modern times. Few Lave
been more severe upon the manners AMI
modes Of the present age than Thackc.
ray. He has succeeded IN showing up
the fashions and follies of Buigravia
with keen pen. Shams and shobs
have, as he boasts, no mercy at his
hands. Yet he, in turn. becomes the
subject of a criticism no less severe, and
more personal. singing and truthful
than any of his own portraits A Mr..
Yates. member Sith himself of the
Garrick Club, has taken him OF II, such
lively sly le, in one Of the London papers
that he has demanded the refraction q
the satire, .,r the expulsion of the author.
The latter has we believe, been the final
result. Dickens, however. warmly
championed Mr.. Yates The boys some
times get a small vial, into which they
contrive to slip as many spiders as they
can catch, who, after biting off each
others arms and legs, end the Combat
by the poison they infuse into tte
wounds inflicted. Just now the Garrick
Club has become vial of spiders. each
poisoning and killing all the rest, instead
of the flies, that form their wontcd food.
VIII the world be the better, or the
worse off, for this exchange Of diet?
Dickens himself, though more fairly
a humorist, than sati.ist, and a man Of
far higher type and better philosophy
than Thackeray, has been very severe
(about as bad as Thackeray himse'f)
upon a certain class of sentiments COM
monty known as Evangelical. 1t has
been hintcd that the character of Glen
mans mother, in one Of his latest novels,
was, in fac, take off, not only on the
Calvinism but the character, of his own
wife. His domestic difficulties have ac.
cordingly furnished an occasion, by no
means neglected by certain newspapers,
TO inquire whether these are the natural
results of liberal Christianity" l. e.. TO
make the house unbeara be for ar ortho-
dox wife. Byron first won MS way to
fame by his English Bards ard Scotch
Reviewers, satire in which he did no
real Injury to the Edinburg Review.
that had reused his wrath, but I'M which
he ridiculed class of poets of the high
est order, who have survived his ridi-
cule, and embalmed in amber others long
since dead. He showed indeed his own
powers as a poet, although the critics
have not lied to discover that the bold
est and most beautiful passage in the
whole satire, the figure If the stricken
eagle in the character cf Krke White.
is nothing but splendid plagiarism
His own life, too, has formed the ground
of as much censure as he ever wrote.
Buffers recent take-of, Nothing to
Wear" admirable as it is upon the
'slrcssy extravaganza of the times, has
not corrected the evil against Which it
was aimed. Hoops have gone on ex-
panding ever since, and will do SO. we
presume, until they explode in the tGS-
ular course, not of nature exactly, hut
If fashion. Nor will his more recent
and polished performance of "T#, Mill
lions" drawn out of him by Yale College,
check the specializing mania ofthe pres
ent day. What millionaire ever read
Hoods Miss K:lmanseggl" What gold
hunter ever reformed by it? Horace
wrote of the errors aud f les of the
Romans just before the Christian era,
and Juvenal Just after Both showed
up the vices of the coult and city life
as well as the shallowaess Of the pnilos.
ophy of the times. Yet who now sup
poses that they contributed to tile rcfor.
nation of single corruption ? Horace
laughed and sneered at vice, as folly,
just as Thackeray laughs and sneers;
and Juvenal waxed indignant and
earnes' just as Butler does at the close
of his pieces; yet none of them did for
Rome, or even for Caesars lohsehold:"
what the letter and the lips Of the He.
brew tent-maker did
Indeed, the chief use of satire sHetns
TO be to correct the taste and standard
of the age, and above all, to correct the
critics and satrists themselves-to carry
both back to those great and eternel
principles above all fashion and all
me that never can be criticised. Yet
they often do more mischief than good.
by descending into details that cnlighten