New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-11-27
LONDON LITERARY TOPICS.
NOTES ON RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

NOTES ON RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
tUHCH's CARTOONS OF DIsRAEI-AN INFERIoh
COLLECTION REPRESENTING Mr.. GLApsToNSS
RECENT CAREER-THE NEW EDITION OF THACK-
RRAY's WORKS COMPARATIVE FAILURE
BRITISH OPINIONS OF AMERICAN BOOKS
trRoM THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRiBUSb'I
LONDON Nov. 15.-If PRncRs collection OF car
toons illustrating the Political life of the Earl OF
Reaconsfeld has travelled over to you, you will
have noticed that at certain point in the series
Disraels face changes its character In the earlier
carieatures the type is variable and often weak
The Dizzy who will be known to posterity
does not make his appearance till Tenniel comes
on the scene. Nor do the first drawings of Tennlei
give thai strange face in its perfect form. Inc
great caricaturst at first trying his hand and
studying features. After score of experiments he
hit il off to the life and thenceforward he gives us
the strange impudent leer, the smirk, the con-
torted muscles of the cheek and jaw, the protrndng
under lip, and with all these the undenaOie
force and character of the half Inscruta-
BILE mask which the greatest Hebrew OF
his time has always worn. As whole, the car
toons can hardly be pleasant to the subject OF the
The volume is one long lampoOn on the Prime MIL
lister of England-whch has not prevented the e&-
tensve sale of il by of his own colleagues MI
w. II. Smith. who is First Lord of the Admiralty,
while he has been getting England's ships into
fighting order with one hand, with the other he has
been pedding terrible carcatures of his chief-the
terror of them lying in their ruthfulness, and the
most damaging truths being told by Tenniel.
But lust at this moment Tenniel has taken va
cation, and Punch of this week comes ont with
cartoon in which Lord Beaconsteld is the leading
figure. but drawn by another hand whose 1t is L
don't know. The Premer's face is recognizable but
no longer the same. The sureness of drawing, the
profound knowledge of character which marked
Tennieps portraiture are no longer there. The
face is the face of Jew, but 1T might
be any Jew-supple, cOmplaisant, entreating.
but not at all the cOuntenance of the man who
swayed the Tory party of England to his will. and
set up personal autoeracy on the temporarily
ruined fabric of that Cabinet Government whose
mysterious constitution Mr. Gladstone has lately
described for you. The Prime Minister in walters
costume-one form of the theatrical disguise in
which he is always presented-is serving his master
at table with dish labelled "Cabul Curry" and
the legend is:
Lord b." Rather hot, siri"
John Bull-"Well, yes think I'd better wait
and see what's coming"
Which does not badly depict the state of distressed
perplexity into which this mysterious mental
habitually throws his master
The success of the Punch collection encouraged a
Tory contemporary which calls itself Judy, of which
you perhaps never heard, to issue a rival series
of pictorial satres on Mr.. Gladstone They
are in every way inferior to the Others.
weak in drawing, commonplace, and wanting
in that sincerity of political study which
makes Punch, whether right or wrong at the
moment, always worth looking into. Tenniel
is the one caricaturis of these days who shows at
Judy are sometimes as vulgar, though never,
think, as brutal as Mr.. Nasts were in 1872.
The first two volumes of Messrs. Smith e. Elders
new edition of Thackeray in twenty-fOur volumes
imperial Svo, have made their appearance. This
edition is believe, meant by the publishers TO be
monument to Thackeray's memory; and If that be
so, one cannot but be reluctant to criticise
it. Nevertheless it must be described as
one of those good intentions which have
gone to wreck in the performance. The
very conception was mistake One does not want
to read Thackersy ont of a volume almost as big as
an old-fashloned folio. What is appropriate to a
County History or " Dugdale's Monasticon, is not
appropriate for modern novelist not even for the
greatest of modern nOvehsts Nor is there
ANYTHING in the execution of this vast work TO COM
pensate for the original mistake in giving it such
proportions 1t is fairly we'll printed fairly good
paper More cannot be said of it. As for the illus
trations about which so much is urged in the pros
pectus they are certainly printed "real China pa
per-" Messrs. Smith & Elder assure twice over in
tacs; and the real China paper brings out the more
clearly the fact that they worked from old ana
much worn blocks blocks which have done service
already for several editions. OF the new ilustra-
tions promised cannot speak, for have seen none.
1t must be sad nevertheless, that Messrs.
Smith s. Elder understood the public to
whom they appealed. In commercial
sense their enterprise succeeds In the be-
ginning they received subscriptions through
the booksellers. they charging the booksellers
a guinea t$5l per volume, and the bookseller
charging his customer whatever he could get, but
subscriptions being taken only for the whole set of
twenty-four volumes. In acircularlatey issued they
announce that 566 out of the 1000 copies to which
the edition is limited have been taken up, and that
the price will henceforward be "a shillings volume.
This was shortly followed by second increase-to
20 shillings and pence. But would not advise
the private buyer to take copy on speculation.
This is not the first book that has been issued by
subscription and eagerly bought by the public 1t
Is seldom that such wares maintain their price per-
manently and works of great size are precisely
those whose first cost it is most difficult to recover.
The type of BritOn who looks back upon the
eighteenth century as the Golden Age, and George
Ill. as pattern King, is not yet extinct; nor SO
rare as might be thought He crops out in the most
unexpected places In pleasant book Of travel,
"An Inland Voyage" by r. l.. Stevenson. occurs
this confession " Independent America is still the
cross of my existence; cannot think of Farmer
George without adherence; and / never feel more
warmly to my own land than when see the Stars
and Stripes, and remember what our Empire might
have BEEN" am quoting from book never read
the passage caught my eye in review Of it IN
one of the quarterlies; and the reviewer calls it
curious type of thought in these DAYS. Curious no