In this drawing we are favoured with a view of the front of the 'house;' the faces of the men in the orchestra are treated expressively. One musician's eye is peculiarly roguish, while another performer is endeavouring to combine business with pleasure; to play his flageolet, follow his score, and yet not lose sight of the deploring one.
Zephyr's turn for individual display occurs in the next plate. Dans un pas seul il exprime son extrême désespoir; and accordingly, without in any degree altering the cast of the mask of a face he wears, he proceeds to express the intensity of his desolation, by convincing the audience of the strength and activity of his lower members, in a succession of horizontal bounds which give him the aspect of a flying man. In the corner of the picture a Cupid—a plump-faced little boy, decked out as Cupid—and his elder sister (the likeness between the pair is evidently intentional) are opening their eyes and mouths with stupid astonishment at Zephyr's grief-inspired agility.
Fresh actresses arrive on the scene.
Zephyr has struck a stage attitude expressing the unconsolable state of his affections; his legs crossed, and one arm resting on the now vacant pedestal. Triste et abattu, les séductions des Nymphes le tentent en vain. The ladies of the ballet flit vainly around him, his eyes are cast down; even the fascinations which are held out by a clumsy theatrical lyre, held in a melting pose by one fair creature reposing on one knee, are insufficient to tempt him to forget the charms of the absent.
Such fidelity can be only recompensed by the 'Reconciliation of Flora and Zephyr,' which is displayed in the succeeding plate. The triumphant Zephyr, his smile, if possible, expressing less meaning than usual, is now kneeling; his arms are folded, and his head is supported at an angle by a rigid throat—for he has a weight to sustain. The faithful Flora has bounded into his arms; and, in the picture, the last triumphant tableau is before the audience. One foot of the danseuse lightly rests on Zephyr's outstretched thigh, the other is on a level with her shoulder; her arms are gracefully clasped around her companion, to preserve her balance, and her head and throat are also at a studied angle, for the sake of the equilibrium of the group. On this rapturous scene of fidelity rewarded with boundless happiness the curtain descends; but we have not seen the last of the performers.
In, presumably, the Green Room we witness 'The Retreat of Flora.' The fair creature, who is in every way decidedly French, is there with her mother and two admirers: Zephyr, of course, does not figure in this category. The two latter pictures of the series are in Thackeray's most forcible style; and indeed, for truth, expressiveness, and character, compare quite favourably with Hogarth's finer satires. One lover is a young dandy of the period: his intellectual capacities are conspicuously absent; it may be said he has neither forehead nor chin. He is sitting imbecilely astride his chair, vacantly leaning his elbows on the back, and gazing at nothing in particular; he is probably a trifle vexed at Flora's indifference, or is jealous of his elder rival. The smiles and leers of Flora's mamma are thrown away at present: the old lady is no less painted, and is possibly more artificially made up than her daughter; her eyebrows owe much to art, her cheeks are evidently high in colour, her faded smirks and glittering eyes are by no means inviting, and a band of velvet across her forehead suggests a suspicion of 'false fronts;' her bonnet is of the gaudiest, a very pinnacle of bows, ribands, and artificial flowers. This venerable creature is heavily cloaked, and carries a huge muff, having evidently walked to the theatre to rejoin her fair darling, who is standing on the hearth-rug, her toes still attitudinising; she is slightly wrapped in a shawl, ready for her fiacre. The gentleman on whom Flora is smiling, and evidently at something just a little wicked, is a big, burly, coarse, self-satisfied, elderly man, whose hands are in the pockets of his awkward straddling trousers: his face is a study of downright unflinching grinning baseness; he is probably doing a good business on the Bourse, and his wife and family are no doubt at home in their beds.
The last plate, 'Les Délassements de Zéphyr,' is perhaps the most refreshing to contemplate; for in it we see labour rejoicing over those little comforts which are its reward. Poor old Zephyr, who is after all a very homely, estimable, and hard-worked personage, who probably gives lessons, drills the ballet all day, and capers without intermission till midnight all the year round, is resting his arm on the chimney-piece, whereon his attitude is still a set pose: the preposterous wig is in the hands of the perruquier, a nobly curled barber, who, as he brushes the monstrous toupée, is complacently admiring what he evidently considers a triumph of art. Zephyr, we can now realise, is of no particular age, or race; he retains his jaded old sprightliness as he favours his capacious nose with a copious pinch of snuff, supplied to that organ from the ball of his thumb, with much apparent gratification. The gentleman who is offering this hero the courtesy of his huge snuff-box is a jolly, jaunty-looking person enough, a compound of splendour and shabbiness; probably himself attached to one of the theatres as low comedian. His jowl beams with good temper, and is ensconced in a pair of huge gills and a voluminous neckcloth; his hat and waistcoat are showy of their kind; his greatcoat has evidently suffered by wear, though still an imposing and comfortable garment. The impression of his respectability becomes fainter below; his trousers and boots are evidently out of shape and unequivocally seedy, and his old umbrella is a study of itself. An innocent-faced chubby pot-boy, with a smile of recognition for the visitor, is holding, on a tray from the nearest tavern, a foaming pot of porter for Zephyr after his saltatory exertions, and a glass of brandy-and-water to revive his friend, who has come in from the cold.
These drawings, which are certainly equal to anything Thackeray has produced, have been drawn on stone by Edward Morton, son of 'Speed the Plough,' who has, if anything, contributed to their excellence: they are remarkably well-executed examples of lithography, and are delineated with that delicate strength, truth, and thoughtful effect for which the works of this able but little-known artist are always to be praised. Each plate bears the monogram WT, which, with the M added, afterwards became tolerably familiar to the world.
It is worthy of remark that in this, as always, Thackeray ridicules the ugly and the absurd without departing from truth, or trenching on impropriety. The quality he praised highest in Cruikshank and Leech—that of never raising a blush or offending modesty—is perhaps most remarkable in himself, in treating a subject like Flora and Zephyr, where a young artist, and especially one whose training had been in Paris, might be tempted to imply a certain freedom of manners. 'The effect of looking over these juvenilia, these shafts from a mighty bow, is good, is moral; you are sorry for the hard-wrought slaves; perhaps a little contemptuous towards the idle people who go to see them.'
Thackeray had scarcely attained the age of three-and-twenty when the young literary art-student in Paris was recognised as an established contributor to 'Fraser,' worthy to take a permanent place among the brilliant staff which then rendered this periodical famous both in England and on the Continent. It was at that time under the editorship of the celebrated Maginn, one of the last of those compounds of genius and profound scholarship with reckless extravagance and loose morals, who once flourished under the encouragement of a tolerant public opinion. There can be no doubt that the editor and Greek scholar who is always in difficulties, who figures in several of his works, is a faithful picture of this remarkable man as he appeared to his young contributor. His friend, the late Mr. Hannay, says:—