Literary Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 6, 30 May 1848, Page 3

Literary Extracts.

Vanity Fair: Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society. By W. M. Thackeray. Nos. I. to X. The public offerings of the ci-devant Michael Angelo Titmarsh are very pleasantly welcome to us: welcome us on invitation to liquet with n graceful, well informed, and favourite friend. He is the prince of etchers and eketchers. Full of mind, wisdom, and healthy mirth, are all his works. His lightest, not less than his most serious words, are always worthy of the listener's cur. The sage is blent with the satirist; and he is equ dly master of our sunniest smiles and most unselfish tears. He speaks always with a purpose too. Fun is a means, not an end, in the extermination of the snobs. Laughter is legitimated by the b'gh aims accomplished through its in&trumeniaiity. His pencilling too, although, perhaps, lacking somewhat of the force and vigour of a master hand at drawing, have invariably a feeling about thera which suggests the artist mind, and a character which indicates an oiigiI nality of conception in the choice of means fjr the I production of striking re&u'ts. Hi 3 pencil is not, 1 however, so potent an canine as his pen. Still cvtry | thing which he does is characteristic—quaint, facile, pleasing, even when—which is seldom—he does not I visa to t'ic superb. Ths author of " Vanity Fair" is > unquestionably a man of oiiji lal mind—a mind to j which the exercise of intellectual power is natural, taiy. His genius is environed with a warm and ' slowing atmosphere of fine fccliug aud cultivated | fancies—light, playiul, kindling, acting upgu the imaJ gination ami the heart of the vender with a secret but j nresistiolc influence. A humour, remarkable for its geniality, plasticity, and spoataniety, illumines and vivifies every page. Thackeiay's s-.t'ro is of the socthiitg and cori\c ive, not of the burning and corrosive kind, liis anows are keen aud piercing, hut they ar* n't poisoned. Not to kil 1 , but to cure, is the aim of his medicinal word-. Wit he has, and of a high character; buc it is not fhaip, starring, explosive, i like a meteor or a fLsh of lightaiog, dazzling the eye and blinding it; but rather resembles the calm and steady bparole—the equable and continuous flow of light fiom a permanent star. Itigi l, unproporiioned, cast-iron character—extreme and unnatural character—spasmodic attempts to escape from the cosmuon-piaco into tUe incongruous—and ihe poverty which is forced to s.c'% for novelty iu exaggeration, and interest iu the incrediole, have no place in ihL gallery of illustrations of our many phased, but *ti;l homog ncou3 humanity. The artist ' rather Jovea to liugcr iu the coin no'i haunts aud walks of li e, finding poet y m those vUu liave never Lamed tu give it utterance ,l according to the form-," and heroism in hearts which in their gentler moments a I'ird may flutter into f. ar—no. tuc less heroic oa that accaunt —and apparen ly ne»er distrusting his own ability to invest the teeming common places of life with a dsep and touching interest. Flesh and Hood ; are tiie matcri .is which be moulds. Abstractions and idealities he asoids*. The pcrSjn..ges of his drama are real men aud women—men and women endowed with strong physique, peisomlity, and individuality—not merely types, symbols, exponents of classes and sec tions of socie'y: the interests arc material, moia', tangible—the dealing witu the duties, fortunes, and malfortunes of active life. Yot he never condescends to tla:ter the follies of one cLn.» of society, nor to applaud the vnces of another; and he keeps himself h nntraby free f»om Uut prevailing imp rtmencc oi iLOaern wriicrs for the general audience ot • je worldhe disposition to patronise the yrffrlc, "Vanity Fair, 1 en and Pencil Sketches of English S cLty"—-o far as it has yet appeared, and ju Igment can be pronounced upon a fragment—is unquestionably Mr. Thackeray's liaest and most original produet on. To the title vv,th which he has chosen to invest hia subject, and to the direct inference lo which that ■ tule points, we must, however, Uko exception. Upon i its merits as a picture of life, end nut upon the fulfil. I meat of the special intention supposed to bn involved _ in its name, must the mm I stand or fa 1, and w Vani y Fair" fan well jfi\>rd to challenge cr.tieism uyon independent grou-id. " Vani'y Fair'' a not a portraiture ot' English life. The characters drawn are, as we Siid, individuals, not types—individuals confined to a iiuii ed class and a narrow locality. Their characteristics aic not spec:a'ly nor the persons of a'l of tliem wholly so. even according to Mr. Thackeray's own authority. The tale is announced as ** a novel without a hero/' a novel undertaking, but scarcely borne out in the work, since our icsptct, sympathy, ndiiiratiou, are all powerlully centred in iVdliam Dobbin, from the opening ot the story to the latest pa°c which has yet appeared : but an heroine it has, and a most uncouimon one. In her the interest of the story dweils. This i-. Rebecca Sharp, the daughter of : an English a list, and—a French opera dancei. The ch'ld, too, inherits as much, rather more perhaps, of , the maternal idiosyncracy th in of the paternal She, ! the moving spirit, the prominent figure of ths drama, ! is more French than English to commence with. The spirit of the Paiia'an is largely iufused into her constitution ; and as time end circumstances come j to exercise thi.r mighty influences over her mental ! and moral organisation, the daring and unscrupulous j oecomes potfjriul y ue\e!oped. Thus the descent and the coiijtuutiuii ui thj heroine i.dsify tht tie. Othciwise this clnractur is drawn with extraordinary skill and power. She is at once fascinating uiid ri'puLive—an icy incarnation o! vower—-of intellect umoncrjlled by moral piuieiplcs aud goveiucd only tor selfish ends—lago's spim in a woman's form and a new set of circumstances. As a psychological cteation, it may rank beside the t»nt«t mental which g'.nius hii e\cr pa'nted in words. Cold, keen, co- <_!! rii^i—, watr'iftil, Luteal—with an ahlaent u.-iginatio-i, fi.r-t tjr lu\urv Jiid i-.d-ience, mid un>ppe i> b'e -.ti—Ut,--.', dined, s-lf-sastam- ; —-i i e:v to devi-.-, and pron;.: ; j wu it Iwr re uh less ui consfpii-tir--—a (.ru.uuiid hyrociite, and ■! perfeet mi»?re<i of the ait ot 6UCk.-ctsful Uis-imuKtiion • - i.-h is Kebcvi th.rp. the heroine of •' Vnu.'v i-'sn" dan.-cwus t'uei:«y o i'.ill move d»

She is thrown upon the world at a twelve year? age, by the death of Iter parents, who, besides her orphan* hood, bequra'hed her the inheritance of a low, or even still more questionable Her whole youth is a prolong! <1 crisis—a struggle with the world for life. A woman while yet a child, and nursed ?n the bitter school of suffering— she determine to achieve a position in society. Leaviu? school she sets about to capture a husband. By a narrow chance she misses ihe fat, shamefaced, yet vain, collector of Bogclcwhollaugb. She then lays siege to Sir Pitt Crawley, l« »rt., the old and sensualist: but he h dds out too long; and in the meantime the impatient young lady angles for, and hooks his son, who marries her clandestinely, lie is a stalwart dragoon, and is soon after bis wedding ordered to join his regiment in Belgium, whither his young wife follows lnu>. After the battle of Waterloo they go to Paris. General Tufis was already at her feet, and she is now surrounded with gollaDta, and plays tbe srand lady with infinite cclat. Fortune sra : lcs ut the dauntless little warrior—in her battle with the word sbc Is evidently conquering: but whether destiny, in the shape of Mr. Thackeray, will step in at the final close of the drama, to crown her with a coronet or condemn her to a convicts doom, is yet uncertain. Enher extreme is possible. There is enough of good and 1 ad in her to merit both# The foil to this character is Amelia Srdky—a young lady decidedly possessing more of tbe elements o£ English womanhood. She is soft, generous, confiding, in an eminent degree—even to weakness. Her lover ifterwards her lnr.bind—i< another ably drawn but disagreeable person -ge. George Oaboruo, it is to be feared, is the type of a large class who pass current in society as good fel.ows—men who combine tbe " vici - ous virtues" of youth—levity, recklessness, extravagance—with the j-ettled selfishness ot later years. He loved Anmha only because tbe affection of so beautiful a creature flattcied his vanity, and he married her alter her father's fall of fortune only because some reraunnt uf tlni' love tose up to trouble his hollow heart, and left her afterwards to swell tbe train of Becky Sharp (now Airs. Ruwdon Crawley's) adore s. He, properly enough, get; killed off in tbe charge of the Guards at Waterloo, an! leaves his widow to a worthier mate. But will she listen to the love of noble, bashful, valiaut William Dobbin? This the future must unfold* Splendidly is this fins fellow depicted. So is old Osboras too—the v.i'n, purse-proud, coarse, and tulgar father—who filched a crest from the herald's office of u great ducal family, and tried to impose upon and deceive himself iuto a belief that he was, in soun unaccountable way, connected with it, and who banisued his son for marrying the daughter of his bankrupt benefactor. Tin? picture also of that unfortunate, sitting" daily in the dark City coffee-house, fumbliug and mumbling over hts papers, with his anxious but vacant look, and brain dis:rdcriiig, is too sad and too true to be otherwise than painful. Besides these, th-re is a large gallery of portraits; the strong-minded Countess of Southdown, who sermonised and medicated all ber acquaintance and dependents with a hand, and "who would order G-»ffer «Jone%tobe con. verted ju»t as she would order Goody Hicks to have a James'powder, without appeal, res stance, or beoefit of clergythe whole and notable family of the Craw* leys—and especially ihe fastidious, worldly, and cynical MiSi Urawey—whose propeny they are all into become possessed of. These form an admirable and most amusing group; and the various form> :ir.d fortunes of their urpooiacy keep m> one of the strong centre* of i»it v rest in the uovcl. The coarsp, rough heart of a Sir IV.s Crawley—»?h«», oa finding oat bis son's muriate, tike-. a countiy wench as his tre'-s-drive* her about in the family carriage—keeps low cjinpany, and gets tiru.iU daily ia common pothouses witu most scurvy companions, we cannot imagine as the t\ pe of a cla-s now existent in England, whatever it may have been one.*. Oa the whole, 4 » Vanity Fa.r" promises to be a work of great intercut and popularity, if the Leigh lluntiai aphorism—sli o htly altered from oiu of unquestionable authenticity—that "ho who a laugh in thi* woild, where before laugh there was none, shall he entitled to the gratitude of his fcllowmen," be accepted as a true one, then Mr. Thackeray may not unreasonably look for a due acknowledgment and reward for lu» labours.