LONDON TOWN TALK.

Evening Star, Issue 4081, 25 March 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

LONDON TOWN TALK.

(From the Melbourne Argus.)

Mr Anthony Trollope is trying a new venture—not in novel writing, for that “goes without trying; ” he can keep up three at a time, as a juggler does balls in the air—but in the price of his novels. He is to publish “ The Prime Minister,” in eight monthly parts at 5s each. I wish him well, but Ido not think this will succeed. He is as popular as ever—or nearly so—but people will not give L2 for his book. He has borrowed the plan from George Elliot, who brought out “ Middlemarch ” in that way, and is about to try the same plan 1 hear with his new story. But people will not wait till George Elliot’s books are finished and to be got at the circulating libraries, and I am afraid that in Mr Trollope’s case they will exercise that patience. Speaking of Mr Gladstone, one Mr Charley, M.P., an unlicensed jestor, has been making some most extraordinary comments on the ex-Premier at a public meeting, which (as flowers are rare at this season) I cull for your edification. He drew a parallel between Mr Gladstone and the murderer Wainwright, “Mr Gladstone left his lawful spouse—Constitutional Principle—for the fulsome embraces of the Democracy, He then wooed her into the secret recess of the polling booth, and lodged ballots in her brain. Then he concealed her remains in American cloth, till Mr Disraeli—the political Stokes—penetrated the disguise.” A vote of confidence was passed by Mr Talford in this wonderful mataphor-maker as its representative, and the proceeding closed, I believe, with the song of “Charley is my Darling.” I am not personally a great admirer of Lord Derby, who, as the small boy said of Shakespeare, “ I consider to be a greatly overrated individual,” but he has been really doing good service by his speech to the students at Edinburgh. He is not, he says, a convert to “ the gospel of ‘getting on that has been so much preached of late years ; in the first place (and it is very characteristic of him to put this in the first place) “ it is a gospel that can be only preached to a small minority; and in the second, there are much better things to aim at than mere money-getting and social distinction. Mr Samuel Smiles, with his offensively good boys, who come to town with half-a-crown in their pockets and die* with half a million, universally respected (except by those who have the privilege of their private acquaintance), will, I hope, lay the words to heart.

. We are promised literary works by two notorious characters whose fame has not hitherto been made in the channel of letters. Mr Valentine Baker (excolonel) is going to give us his recollections of the Russian expedition to Khiva, to which he was attached, I believe, on the part of the war office; and Mr Harry Wainwright is preparing his autobiography—“the only legacy he has to leave to his wife and children.” In all probability it will be poor stuff, as it will not contain his which is the very thing—and the only thing—that the world wants of him. He still denies his guilt, and has made a rambling statement about some other man having offered to get rid of his victim for him, unconscious that his brother Thomas has made a clean breast of it, and fully Justified his own condemnation.

Avery curious tragedy, which has the appearance of being manufactured by Miss Braddon instead of having actually happened, has taken place at a country house in Surrey. A gentleman of the name of Carrington, who has an observatory, studied the stars to such small purpose that he took to himself a wife, some years ago, who had intimate relations with a man called Rodway, whom she represented to be her brother. This fellow kept the poor lady in abject fear of him, and at last, upon her refusal to givß him more hush-money, attacked her,

and left her for dead. Rodway wa 8 sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, and one would have thought there had been melo-drama enough for a small family in the country. However, a fortnight ago Mrs Carrington, who had quite recovered from her wounds, was found dead in bed. And last v eek, after the inquest, Mr Carrington was also found dead in the same situation. To conclude, the name of the lonely house and observatory in which these events occurred, and which is situated in the most lovely part of Surrey, is called “The Devil’s Jumps.” Avery nice place to take for the Christmas holidays. The upper circles have not got their own way in other lines of business quite so much as they used to have it. Society is so notoriously “ snobbish ” that it has been thought safe for dramatic authors to bring out any plays that appealed to “ cavalier ideas, and the Stuart sentiment”—which is merely an historical form of snobbism —no matter how they outraged the facts of history. Mr Wills ‘ Charles the First,” which had little to recommend it as a drama beyond the circumstance that Mr Irving looked “ Charles taking leave of his children ” to the life, was an example of this ; and it struck the author that he might go a step further, and make Cromwell ridiculous as well as wicked in his Rochester. In this he has reckoned, I am glad to say, without his public. They will not stomach the representation of the “ greatest prince that ever ruled in England,” as Macaulay calls him, as a purloiner of family plate; for Mr Wills absolutely makes him have an eye to Buckingham’s spoons. There is a respect for our past, it seems, after all, that forbids us to admire such as these.

A very different topic of literary gossip is the publication of a volume of “ Essays by ‘ Jacob Omnium,’ ” with an essay of Thackeray’s among them. “Captain Ray and Ensign Famish,” whom everybody remembers in the “ Book ol Snobs,” re-appear, with a very few verbal alterations, as by J. 0 or Mr Higgins, The essay was printed from J. O.’s own MS., and it is to th 3 last degree unlikely that he should have taken the trouble to write out a paper from ‘ Punch’ (where it originally appeared) when he could have cut it out in print. Moreover, as 1 have said, it is sligtly different. Now, what I have no doubt is the true state of the matter is this. Thackeray and Higains were great friends, and passed many a pleasant day together, but the latter had much more leisure than the former. «If it was not for my having to do a snob chapter for ‘ Punch,’ ” says Thackeray to his friend, “ I would go with you to the Derby (for example) with pleasure.” “ Oh, come along I’ll do the chapter for you: what is it about?” “Military Snobs.” “Very good, then I’ll do the Military Snobs,” and he did them. The literary papers demand an explanation, and are not likely to get it. Poor Jerrold used, it is said, to send round to his friends in the same way for what he called “ink” —he meant an “ article ” —when he found himself unable to do the leader for ‘ Lloyd’s.’

The mention of the Sultan, who, as the popular song says, “ lives a life of jollity,” reminds me of the Pope, who figures in the next verse, as “ leading a happy life, devoid of cares and wedded strifean attempt has been made to overhaul his private accounts also, and to bring them before the British public. This has been done by no less a person than Mr Gullenga, the Italian correspondent of ‘ The Times,’ and the best foreign writer of English extant. It was he, you may recollect, who when a member of the Italian Senate was impeached by some political adversaiy

as having, when a young man, secreted himself in the palace of Charles Albert, with the intention of polishing off that monarch with a poignard. It was a quarter of a century ago, and he had never hurt anybody, but the accusation was true, and Mr Gullenga had to give up his seat. The fact is, in his youth he was an enthusiast, and mistaking some utterance of his idol Mazzini, he thought he could earn undying fame by ridding the world of a tyrant. You may imagine how very much his sentiments must have altered by his becoming one of the “specials” of ‘The Times,’ but he has still no great love for the sovereign Pontiff. He tells ns (in his just published ‘ Italy Revisited’) that the prisoner of the Vatican is the richest Pope that has ever been, and that he has found his advantage in rejecting with scorn the income offered to him by the Italian Government—the contributions of the faithful make up a much larger figure. Strong boxes laden with “gold and precious stones” are constantly passing through the Roman Custom-house on their way to the apostolic captive. It is his pleasant habit to have golden goblets lull of gems upon his table, from which he helps his friends and favorite attendants to little pinches as if they were snuff—a very funny occupation (to say the least of it) of the only genuine descendant of St. Peter.