"After long experience of the world," says Junius, "I affirm before God, I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy." Very likely: another author had intimated before the observations of Junius, that even the righteous "is of few days and full of trouble."
FOOTNOTES:
[K] Nicolas Antonio.
[L] Psalm liv. 7. The Vulgate Psalm liv. is our Psalm lv.
From the North British Review.
DICKENS AND THACKERAY.
Our impression of the difference between the two authors in the matter of style is very much what it has always been from a general reading acquaintance with their works, namely, that Mr. Thackeray is the more terse and idiomatic, and Mr. Dickens the more diffuse and luxuriant writer. Both seem to be easy penmen, and to have language very readily at their command; both also seem to convey their meaning as simply as they can, and to be careful, according to their notions of verbal accuracy; but in Mr. Dickens's sentences there is a leafiness, a tendency to words and images, for their own sake; whereas, in Mr. Thackeray's, one sees the stem and outline of the thought better. We have no great respect for that canon of style which demands in English writers the use of Saxon in preference to Latin words, thinking that a rule to which there are natural limitations, variable with the writer's aim and with the subject he treats; but we should suppose that critics who do regard the rule would find Mr. Thackeray's style the more accordant with it. On the whole, if we had to choose passages at random, to be set before young scholars as examples of easy and vigorous English composition, we would take them rather from Thackeray than from Dickens. There is a Horatian strictness, a racy strength, in Mr. Thackeray's expressions, even in his more level and tame passages, which we miss in the corresponding passages in Mr. Dickens's writings, and in which we seem to recognize the effect of those classical studies through which an accurate and determinate, though somewhat bald use of words becomes a fixed habit. In the ease, and at the same time thorough polish and propriety with which Mr. Thackeray can use slang words, we seem especially to detect the university man. Snob, swell, buck, gent, fellow, fogy—these, and many more such expressive appellatives, not yet sanctioned by the dictionary, Mr. Thackeray employs more frequently, we believe, than any other living writer, and yet always with unexceptionable taste. In so doing he is conscious, no doubt, of the same kind of security that permits Oxford and Cambridge men, and even, as we can testify, Oxford and Cambridge clergymen, to season their conversation with similar words—namely, the evident air of educated manliness with which they can be introduced, and which, however rough the guise, no one can mistake. In the use of the words genteel, vulgar, female, and the like—words which men diffident of their own breeding are observed not to risk; as well as in the art of alternating gracefully between the noun lady and the noun woman, the Scylla and Charybdis, if we may say so, of shy talkers—Mr. Thackeray is also a perfect master, commanding his language in such cases with an unconscious ease, not unlike that which enables the true English gentleman he is so fond of portraying, either to name titled personages of his acquaintance without seeming a tuft-hunter, or to refrain from naming them without the affectation of radicalism. In Mr. Dickens, of course, we have the same perfect taste and propriety; but in him the result appears to arise, if we may so express ourselves, rather from the keen and feminine sensibility of a fine genius, whose instinct is always for the pure and beautiful, than from the self-possession of a mind correct under any circumstances by discipline and sure habit. Where Mr. Dickens is not exerting himself, that is, in passages of mere equable narrative or description, where there is nothing to move or excite him, his style, as we have already said, seems to us more careless and languid than that of Mr. Thackeray; sometimes, indeed, a whole page is only redeemed from weakness by those little touches of wit, and those humorous turns of conception which he knows so well how to sprinkle over it. It is due to Mr. Dickens to state, however, that in this respect his "Copperfield" is one of his most pleasing productions, and a decided improvement on its predecessor "Dombey." Not only is the spirit of the book more gentle and mellow, but the style is more continuous and careful, with fewer of those recurring tricks of expression, the dread remnants of former felicities, which constituted what was called his mannerism. Nor must we omit to remark also, that in passages where higher feeling is called into play, Mr. Dickens's style always rises into greater purity and vigor, the weakness and the superfluity disappearing before the concentrating force of passion, and the language often pouring itself forth in a clear and flowing song. This, in fact, is according to the nature of the luxuriant or poetical genius, which never expresses itself in its best or most concise manner unless the mood be high as well as the meaning clear,—for maintaining the excellence of the style of a terse and highly reflective writer, such as Thackeray, on the other hand, the presence of a clear meaning is at all times sufficient, though, of course, here also the pitch and melody will depend on the mood....
There is one piece of positive doctrine, however, in which both Pen and Warrington agree, and of which Mr. Thackeray's writings are decidedly the exponents in the present day, as Mr. Dickens's are of the doctrine of kindliness. This doctrine may be called the doctrine of anti-snobbism. Singular fact! in the great city of London, where higher and more ancient faiths seem to have all but perished, and where men bustle in myriads, scarce restrained by any spiritual law, there has arisen of late years, as there arose in Mecca of old, a native form of ethical belief, by which its inhabitants are tried and try each other. "Thou shall not be a snob;" such is the first principle at present of Cockney ethics. And observe how much real sincerity there is in this principle, how it really addresses itself to facts, and only to facts, known and admitted. It is not the major morals of human nature, but what are called the minor morals of society, and these chiefly in their æsthetic aspect, as modes of pleasant breeding, that the Cockney system of ethics recognizes. Its maxims and commands are not "Thou shalt do no wrong," "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," "Thou shalt not covet,"—but, "Thou shalt pronounce thy H's," "Thou shalt not abuse waiters as if they were dogs," "Thou shalt not falsely make a boast of dining with peers and members of Parliament." He who offends in these respects is a snob. Thus, at least, the Cockney moralist professes no more than he really believes. The real species of moral evil recognized in London, the real kind of offence which the moral sentiment there punishes, and cannot away with, is snobbism. The very name, it will be observed, is characteristic and unpretentious—curt, London-born, irreverent. When you say that a man is a snob, it does not mean that you detest and abhor him, but only that you must cut him, or make fun of him. Such is anti-snobbism, the doctrine of which Mr. Thackeray, among his other merits, has the merit of being the chief literary expounder and apostle. Now it is not a very awful doctrine, certainly; it is not, as our friend Warrington would be the first to admit, the doctrine in the strength of which one would like to guide his own soul, or to face the future and the everlasting; still it has its use, and by all means let it have, yes, let it have its scribes and preachers.