Tales of Douglas Jerrold, With Biographical Notice by J. Logie
Robertson, M.A. (William Paterson.)—Towards the end of his by no means long life, Douglas Jerrold collected from his in- numerable writings, and published in eight volumes, what he regarded as his hest work. Mr. Logie Robertson, who edits this volume, maintains, however, that there remained imgathered "many admirable papers which are well deserving of rescue from the oblivion of forgotten files of London periodicals." Several of those, even although written especially for the times in which Jerrold lived, and the constituency whose suffrages he specially sought, are still readable. Such, for example, is " The Meta- physician and the Maid," which gives the hapless love cherished by the philosopher, Lorenzo Silvertop, for his landlord's daughter. Such, also, in spite of their too obvious morals, are " Silas Flesh- pots, a Respectable Man," and " Thuddy Jones, the Clever Young Man." Tho supernatural or diabolical interest in " Ephraim Rue, the Victim of Society," is also well sustained. But we confess that tho bulk of this volume is chiefly interesting as exhibiting the rather laboured—even distended—teaching of morality by fun which seems to have been so popular with a former generation of Londoners. Many folks had time for lengthened characterisations and " digressions " in the days of Jerrold. But for that, so very clever and successf al a man would not have given up pages to the establishment of a contrast between "Desert, a pretty fellow, yet withal a timid blushing stammering knave," and "that swaggering brow-beating gold-laced lackey Success." Mr. Logic Robertson has performed his task of editing remarkably well, and his biography of Jerrold—to which, by-the-
way, he prefixes a number of the humourist's spoken witticisms— is a model of succinctness and good taste.
Previous page
