THE NEW SKETCH BOOK.*

IT may be said at once that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the papers here collected by Mr. R. S. Garnett

and attributed to Thackeray. Every one of theni bears upon its surface the marks of the familiar workmanship, and, though some allowance must be made for fashion and imita- tion, even after we have made the allowance we are still persuaded that Mr. Garnett's attribution is correct. The subjects are those which Thackeray would have chosen to treat, and they are treated with the lively expansiveness which was characteristic of Thackeray at the outset of his career. There are also traces upon every page of the senti- mentality which belonged rather to the time than to the author, but which the author was always powerless to avoid.

Both in their qualities and in their defects, then, these papers recall the author of The Paris Sketch Book, and Mr. R. S. Garnett's ingenuity has permitted us to read a new work from the pen of a great writer who has been dead well-nigh

half-a-century.

And yet the feeling with which we contemplate the boon is not one of unmixed gratitude. Thackeray was not at his

happiest in criticism, and these papers are sternly critical. The pages of The Paris Sketch Book which we like the best

are narrative. When Thackeray discourses of George Sand and Balzac, of French dramas and melodramas, he discovers a lack of sympathy which deprives his work of all value, save as a sidelong revelation of himself. It is otherwise when he tells us a story, or with all his marvellous gaiety sketches the

Cartouche of tradition. But i what Mr. Garnett incautiously calls The New Sketch Book there is no narrative, and but little fancy. The author is sternly bent upon cutting up his victims; and though he performs the operation with considerable skill,

we find it at this distance of time a trifle tedious.

The first paper is a review of Victor Hugo's book on the Rhine, and Mr. Garnett has an easy task to prove it Thackeray's. External evidence comes to the aid of internal.

In 1842 Thackeray wrote to FitzGerald that he had been trying to write about Hugo's letters all day, and had only squeezed out one page. And then to confirm the letter there appears

the article in the Foreign Quarterly Review. But internal evidence is in this case sufficient. Here is a passage which is entirely characteristic of Thackeray, even in its injustice :— "Victor Hugo alludes to Providence on fifty occasions, and shows a most intimate acquaintance with its mysteries and designs. He is not jealous of heaven, but speaks of it familiarly and on a footing of equality, though respectfully, as one great power would of another. It may be remarked, indeed, that

almost all French writers are admitted to this privilege They have divine missions too, most of them—Lamartine has celestial things revealed to him, and has seen heaven through his tears—Madame Dudevant intimates that she is a martyr (and we dare not say what more)—Laroux and Lamennais each come forward with revelations and prophecies to supersede old gospels ; even such a man as Alexandre Dumas prefaces some filthy story of blood and lust, by hinting that it contains a holy mystery of which he is the heaven-sent expounder."

In that passage you may see the limitations of Thackeray. He did not like the big drum, and the big drum was the favourite instrument of the Itornantiques, whose music was as loud as their waistcoats. There was a certain boyishness in

their energy and courage. They had got rid of the timid restraints of a worn-out classicism, and they were at last per- mitted to express their fancy in a costume less chilly than a toga. And Thackeray liked them as little as he understood them. He wrote of them without the smallest perception of their aim and purpose. He saw no difference between Balzac and Eugene Sue. Dumas and Smile were in his eyes alike ridiculous, and the criticism contained in this book is the last word of inrilarity. Nor did Thackeray grow in wisdom with the years. When be reverts to French literature, it is always with the same patronage of contempt. Of Dumas alone

he revised a hasty opinion, and it was only with the riper judgment of The Roundabout Papers that he did a

tardy justice to the prose epic of the Musketeers. As to M. de Balzac, as he calls him, he failed to detect the genius of

that great man. He did not recognise that the author of the Comedic Humaine was inventing the France of his own day,

and displaying for all those who had eyes to see the grandeur

"The Foreign quarterly Review?' Edited, with an Introduction, by E. G. • The Cathedral Builders in England. By Edward S. Prior. London : Seeley

Garnett. London: Alston Rivers. C7s. ed. net.] and Co. gs. net.]

and variety of a whole country. He attacks even Eugene Sue with an excessive gravity. "What right," he asks in a passage which may be matched almost verbally in The Paris Sketch Book, "has a reasonable being to spend precious hours over this preposterous, improbable, impossible tale ? Did you not know, all the while you read, that every one of the characters in that book were absurd caricatures ? Do you not blush to have been interested by brutal tales of vice and blood P " The confusion of thought apparent in these questions belonged to Thackeray and his time, and it is surprising that he did give his readers credit for the humour which would acknowledge Sue's characters to be caricatures, and yet delight in them. But with the positiveness which has so often led English critics astray, Thackeray objects to the Frenchman's unreality even as be laughs at him.

Moreover, where England was concerned Thackeray was always hypersensitive. He condemns Scribe and Dumas for doing violence to the truths of English history. He ridicules a great poet because his prejudices made him for the moment unjust to our countrymen. "Thus Henry Heine, the other day," says Thackeray, "went to enjoy sea-breezes, and. study English character at Boulogne. He found a gay, proud set of semi-fashionables, who had never heard of Henry Heine, who took him, in consequence, for a commonplace personage without livery servants and coach and pair, and treated him de /taut en bas. Poor Henry Heine was so susceptible and so indignant at all this, that he has become a decided foe to England and her inhabitants." Of course, this satire misses the mark. Heine did not share the ignorance of England which prevailed in France. It is true that he was not always sympathetic to the English. His love of romance, for in- stance, prevented him from understanding the greatness of Wellington. But we should not forget his noble panegyric of Canning; and be was always far too intelligent to become a hater of England merely because he was not received with respect and adulation at Boulogne.

There is no law to prevent a zealous editor from gathering specimens of fugitive journalism and publishing them as a serious contribution to literature. Were there such a law, this new volume of Thackeray's essays would never have been published. And when all is said, we cannot but regret Mr. Garnett's indiscretion. We have enough of Thackeray's best work whereon to form a judgment of his talent, and nothing is gained for his reputation by thus delving in the journalism of the past. A great writer such as Thackeray should be judged by the work which he thought worthy of preservation, and not by the forgotten articles which the ingenuity of admirers is able to father upon him.