Mr. Frith is, first and foremost, a humorist, and, in his humour, so like Thackeray, and so unlike Dickens, that it is no wonder, considering the consistent inconsistency of human nature, he should have loved the latter, and disliked the former. Yet, with all his aversion to Thackeray, personally—and "all his works" too, apparently, as he hardly mentions them—he records something very remarkable about the Satirist of the Snobs which could not be guessed at from Thackeray's own letters, nor from the anecdotes told about him. And it is this; that Thackeray could make, and on occasion did make an excellent after-dinner speech. At the Macready banquet with Bulwer Lytton and Dickens present, Mr. Frith tells us, "Thackeray also spoke well and very humorously." And there are three other instances; so that Thackeray, who has recounted his own failure at the Literary Fund dinner, and whose utter collapse at the Cornhill Magazine dinner is a matter of Literary history, was not always a mistake as an after-dinner speaker. The modesty exhibited by Mr. Frith in this autobiography is an exhibition as novel and attractive as was Frith's other exhibition in Bond Street,—because few autobiographers possess so keen a sense of humour as to be able to laugh at themselves, and to be candid about their own foibles and follies. Indeed some persons may think, and indeed he inclines to this opinion himself, that he goes too far in his frankness when narrating the practical jokes of that unscrupulous and cruel farçeur Sothern the actor, in some of which the autobiographer appears to have played a small, but not altogether unimportant part. In his way Mr. Frith is as frank and open in his revelations as to his past career, as was Cardinal Newman in his straightforward Apologia pro suâ vitâ. In fact in these Sothern latitudes—there was a great deal of latitude in that quarter—Mr. Frith's work is suggestive less of an autobiography than of a naughty-biography. He owns that he feels "humiliated and pained" at recounting Thackeray's rude jocularity towards himself, and from the apologetic tone with which he introduces some of Sothern's caddish practical jokes, in which Mr. Frith had no share, and of which he was not the victim, it may be inferred that he had already begun to feel "humiliated and pained" at having given so much space to such stories. How glad he must now be that he kept a "dear Diary," which has been an invaluable aid to his memory.
Another great merit in the book is that, without ever sacrificing its character as an Autobiography, it is never egotistical; egoism being the great "I-sore" of such works. Should the humble individual who writes this necessarily brief notice ever arrive at the time for publishing his Recollections, he is perfectly sure that the book will be unequalled as a work of imagination. Mr. Frith tells us how he improved his pictures by touching them up,—some people, too, are occasionally improved by the same process, if the "touching up" is only done judiciously,—and his self-restraint is therefore really admirable when he rejects the temptation to embellish, or spice, a story which no one is likely to contradict. For instance, in what may be called the Sass-age portion of his early life, he has some amusing anecdotes about Mr. Jacob Bell, then an Art student. Bell drew a man hanging, and Sass, the master, told him to leave the studio, "as such a career," as the man hanging, "is a bad example to your fellow-pupils." Now Mr. Frith ought to have given Bell a triumphant exit speech—he ought to have said to Sass, "Sir, I was only illustrating what should be the fate of every one of your successful pupils—to be hung on the line. Good day." Exit Bell. Then he recounts how Jacob Bell, who, like Sothern, had a taste for such practical jokes as are utterly indefensible on the score of good taste and gentlemanly feeling, dressed up as a woman, and went to a Quakers' Meeting House, where he sat among the female portion of the congregation. Thinking he was discovered, this nice young man "took fright," and bolted. Here Mr. Frith should have made the jovial Jacob subsequently explain that "he left because the women were all jealous of him, as he was the only 'Bell' among them." Mr. Frith, full of his fun, jests, and humour, must be congratulated on having stuck to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And if anyone wants a first-rate ghost-story for the coming Christmas time, let him get Mr. Frith's book, and read how the prosaic and sensible Mr. Westwood saw a ghost. It is simply but exquisitely told, and were it not that Mr. Frith had previously owned to his complicity with Sothern in some of his "spiritualistic" demonstrations, there would be no sort of ground for suspecting him capable of joking on such serious subjects. The book is full of good stories, among which The Mysterious Sitter and Beckford at Fonthill are about the best. There is already a rail round Mudie's counter, and in front of all Smith's stalls, to keep off the crowds from taking away Frith's latest production without paying. Many of us are eye-witnesses to the fact of the rails in front of Smith's bookstalls all the way down the line wherever a train runs. Mr. Frith's very good health, and, as his friend Rip-Van-Winkle Jefferson used to say, "May he live long an' prosber."
De Omnibus Rebus, by the author of Flemish Interiors. An odd book to be taken up at odd times. Amusing and chatty with a good deal of shrewd observation. He who rides may read; and as it is published by Nimmo, this firm in this instance might adopt the old Latin motto, "'Nimmo' mortalium omnibus horis sapit;" i.e. "Nimmo is wise to bring out a book for the omnibus hours of mortals."
Our Own Bookworm.
Madame Patti's house, in some unpronounceable Welsh place, was broken into by burglars. We hope they didn't rob her of any notes. The thieves came from Town—they were not Welshmen, oh no! Mr. Punch has always asserted of the Welsh,—
"Taffy's not a thief."
And it wasn't Taffy who went to Patti's house and stole a matter of seven pounds' worth of French francs. They found a box of M. Nicolini's cigars. But the thieves knew where to draw the line, and chucked the lot away in the garden, among the other weeds. They were "up to snuff," but not to tobacco in this form. Query, will M. Nicolini's friends be delighted to accept cigars from his case in future?