Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-04-25
Thacksry, Bulwer and Dickens

Thackery has in the literary world ad-
mirers who, strange to say, esteem him
the first novelist Of the age; who receive
his bitter Genunciations against human
nature as just censure, and adopt his
heartless maxims as faithful exponents
of that degradation which he professes to
believe pervades society at large. I'm
doubtedly his knowledge of mankind
the baser portion of whom he seems to
have known intimately, and studied phil
osophcaly y--s ieartully accurate. But
the misfortune is, that he draws no dis
tinctons, and because in cases coming
under his own observation, treachery and
selfshness have been ruling passions he
very sapiently sets himself to work to
prove that these, his damaged samples,
fairly represent humanity.
The fair sex, with few exceptions,
consider him in the light of a merciless
reviler, and can scarcely accord to him
common charity, where they are stared
at by the green eyes and aifronted by the
pointed chin of Beckery Sharpe--that
bitter satire on woman. Yet the genius
of the man is evinced by that artistic
skill which aims his unerring arrows, and
that pungent wit which, seeming to wound
inadvertently, yet rankles with fostering
virulence.
Thackery is bluff bold Englishman,
with great vigor of intellect, and its not
unusual accompaniment, large amount
of prejudice and this it is which debases
his style to an unhealthy state of cynic-
ism, so that the cold irony and incessant
snarling of his writings pain the reader,
who cannot withdraw the interest they
inspire, for the reason that his genius
compels that interest, however daintily
yielded. He is the Junius of novel wri-
ters, aud none the better for being so.
What contrast is this man to the
broad, thoughtful and classical Bulwer,
who with equal fidelity portrays charac-
ters of every kind, not only the distin-
gushing idiosyncracies and peculiarlties
of individuals, but the national traits and
conventionalities of ancient as well as
modern society. The subtle and luxu-
rious Greek, with all his great impulses,
vet lives and breathes before us as we
contemplate Glaucus in the palpy days
of buried Herculaneum. Again we tra-
verse the streets of the seven-hilled city,
and the pealing battle-cry Of Santo
Spirito, Cavaliers" rouses our sympathy
as though we marched with the troops
and shared the brave enterprises Of
Rome's last tribune. @
In Australian plains, in the English
farm, with Its blossomed beanheld and
slopine dell, on bleak and barren moors,
with their wide waste Of land, and pros
pective waste of water, the life-giving
Imagination Of this wonderful man con
trolls us, till his truthful delineations
glow into life, and fancy becomes reality.
Again, in the crowded thoroughfares
and brilliantly illuminated bathrooms of
his country's great metropolis, we move
along with the minds despotic leader,
and hurrying equipages and thronging
masses in the one place, and diamond,
star, and waving plume in the other,
equally defined and tangible to tire
mind eve, establish his claims to YER
satility and naturalness Of description.
But let him appeal to the passions, and
he shows himself at once the giant be is.
What inimitable pathos at the death-hed
of Florence Lascelles What mournful
pity does not the fate of poor Ceasarini
cali forth Who has not wept for the
loving and ever faithful Alice, with her
pure and powerful instinct of love ?
Who has net felt his heart throb high
when witnessing the struggles and ambi-
ton Of the lofty but unfortunate Audley
Egerton2
As an cssayist Bulwer is perfectly
unique. Throwing OF all assumption of
learning, in which that class of writers
are prone to indulge, he speaks plain
truths in plain terms, and, avoiding long
sentences, involved argument aud pc
daHtic terms, enforces what he has TO
say by clearly defining its weight and
plainly stating what it is, with its unde-
niabie anteee1ents and unavoidable re-
suits
The style Of his earlier compositions,
though always powerful, has been re-
garded by critics as somewhat inflated
and stilted. If those were faults Of this
almost universal genius, they have in his
later works been corrected
Charles Dickens is undoubtedly an
original and gifted son Of that land,
which, let others boast as they will Of
mental development, is still entitled 70