abuses, and it is with an honest indignation | flesh, and too illiterate to spell decently. and simple earnestness that form the dis- yet withal bold as a lion. It is pleasan tinguishing features of his serious writings. to see such a man properly depicted now He assaults all manner of social sham, and then, for the writer who does it s humbug and flunkeyism, and gives it to doing his duty to civilization by assaling them in a way that does you good to hear. the old barbarous feudal notion that me Against toadyism, affectation and mob-physical courage, which is generally foundbery, he preaches a crusade in the sturdi-ed on the consciousness of superior par est Anglo-Saxon. The charge began in cal strength and dexterity, should n the Suobs of England;" it is now fol- roughshod over moral courage and int lowed up in "Vanity Fair." Any one, lect. And Lord Steyne is a thor therefore, who reads the latter book should specimen of the aristocratic old Sybaria read the "Snob Papers" in Punch, by Others had tried their hands at this cha way of introduction to it. Tin-worship acter before-D'Israeli and that coarse and title-worship, and that "praise of of fine ladies, Lady Blessington—but ax men" which your fashionables love more of them have succeeded like Thack than the "praise of God"-Titmarsh is And Pitt Crawley is a perfect mode sworn foe to all these, and wages unre- the stiff, slow, respectable formula lenting war on them-but with none of And Osborne, Sr., is one of your reg that cant which runs all through Jerrold purse-proud cits who measure everyt and half through Dickens: he does not by what it will fetch on 'Change. I make all his poor people angels, nor all his some of the portraits are not fair eve rich people devils, because they are rich. | Vanity Fair, and that of Sir Pitt, the Nor has he any marked prejudice against Crawley, seems to us positively u Christianity in general, or the Christianity He may be a true sketch from life; r of his own church in particular-which we has indeed given him a real name are weak enough to think rather to his family; but he is too bad to be a ty credit. Moreover his sledge-hammer in- country baronets, or even of country vective against fashionable fooleries, is not And though the high-life characters. engendered of or alloyed with any rusti- bitter justice done them in most t city or inability to appreciate the refine- there is one point on which the m ments of civilized life, as a backwoodsman a little wronged: they swear too : or Down-easter might abuse things he did Allowing that a fearful amount of not comprehend; for Titmarsh has a soul fanity prevails among people who for art and poetry, and good living, and to know better, there is surely no! all that is æsthetic and elegant. sity for its being repeated. We d want to hear the thing simply bec is true, any more than we wish to tures of disgusting and frightful however faithfully to nature they r painted. But in fact English ge are not so openly profane as represents them. "Vanity Fair," then, is a satire on English society. The scene indeed is laid thirty years back, but that is of a piece with Juvenal's. "Experiar quid concedatur in illos Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina." It is meant for the present time, as the very illustrations show, in which all the male characters wear the convenient trouser (Americanice pantaloons) of our own day, instead of the stiftights" which were the habit of that period. In a work of this sort we naturally expect to find many type-characters-that is, characters who r present classes of people. Most of these are very good and true. Rawley Crawdon is a capital representative of the uneducated part of British offi-profligate Stupid in ything but c I horse The book has no hero: it opel fesses to have none. But there is t ine, at least a prominent female ei and she is equal to a dozen ordina ines and heroes. Becky Sharpe is -nal creation, not the represent. class, though there are traits ab that remind you of several clas~one who has been much in soc have had the fortune or misi meet more than one woman wh Becky in some points— us simple, unsophistica. republicans; for in truth if you only leave | oftener! We can't resist them if they do. Let out a little nonsense about titles, everything in Titmarsh's literary puppet-show will apply point-blank to our own occidental Vanity Fair. There are women as spitefully satirical as Rebecca, making mischief in the most ingenious and graceful ways-fashionable enough that, and not by any means a sin, but on the contrary no small recommendation in Vanity Fair. There are women all in the best society, who flirt with every passable man that comes near them, as Rebecca did; for observe, it is not proved that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley did anything more; her biographer does not give you to understand that she actually "committed herself" with any one-and this is very proper and pleasing in Vanity Fair. There are women who, like Rebecca, have always a plausible lie ready to excuse themselves; and this is an excusable pecadillo in Vanity Fair. There are women who, like Rebecca, ook to marriage only as a means of getting position "in society," and what can be more flattering homage to Vanity Fair? There are women, like Rebecca, who ponge upon spooneys and get money nder false pretences; and the victims ay" cut up rough" about it, but the est of Vanity Fair pass it over as a venial fence and accept their part of the spoil. 1 short, put together a number of things e practice of which is not only allowable it successful in Vanity Fair, and what a vil of a woman you will make! Such least is our idea of the moral and theory Rebecca Crawley née Sharpe. She is the daughter of a dissipated It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, e ladies of indisputable correctness and ility will condemn the action as immodest; you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this to do for herself. If a person is too poor eep a servant, he must sweep his own is: if a dear girl has no dear mamma to ⚫ matters with the young man, she must for herself. And oh! what a mercy it is hese women do not exercise their powers II. NO. IV. NEW SERIES. 28 them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once; old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field [Oh! Oh!] and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.” We have known young ladies of the same opinion that a woman may marry any man she likes-and some of them have been wofully sold in consequence, and remained utterly unmarried to the end of time. But if we are content not to state the proposition in extreme terms, we may make it sufficiently broad. The chances of a woman getting the man she wants, are to those of a man getting the woman he wants, as nineteen to one on a very moderate estimate. Where the man is the attacking party, how easily all his approaches are seen through! how they are turned to derision before his very face! And if he is really, truly, and hopelessly in love, it is a thousand times worse. Then, when it is of vital importance to him to make the best appearance, he is sure to be bungling and stupid, and not able to do himself justice. On the other hand, it is a beautiful sight, as a mere work of art, to see a man skillfully angled for, (for man before matrimony is like to a fish which is inveigled with rod and line: after the operation he resembleth the horse who is ridden with bit and bridle.) It is immensely tickling to the victim himself, and vast fun to the circumstantes-such of them, that is, as have not similar designs on the sufferer. And so, by rule, Becky ought to captivate Joseph Sedley off-hand; but that would have wound up the history too soon; so the portly exquisite is carried away from her by the lover of her particular friend, whom she afterwards pays off handsomely for the kind turn done her. Spilt milk and lost lovers are not to be cried over; so the little woman dries her tears and makes another shy-this time successfully-at the dashing, fighting, stupid young officer, Rawdon Crawley, with his expensive tastes and limited means. But Mr. and Mrs. R. C. being people of family (he is and she professes to be) must live accordingly, and so we are let into the mystery "how to live well on nothing a- | against a man of such sudden resources, and year." 66 "I suppose there is no man in this vanity fair of ours, so little observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his neighbor Jones or his neighbor Smith can make both ends meet at tho end of the year. **** Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when Rawdon Crawley and his wife were established in a very small comfortable house in Curyon street, Mayfair, there was scarcely one of the numerous friends they entertained at dinner that did not ask the above question regarding them. As I am in a situation to be able to tell the brilliant and overpowering skill. At games of cards he was equally skilful, for though he would constantly lose money at the commencement of an evening, playing so carelessly and making such blunders that new-comers were often inclined to think meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action, and awakened to caution by repeated losses, it was remarked that Crawley's play became quite different, and that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy before the night was over. Indeed very few men could say that they ever had the better of him.” And, of course, if anybody hinted that the Colonel's play was too good to be true, he had his pistols ready, "same with which he shot Captain Marker," to vindicate his honor. Are there any nice young men in Yankee land who live upon nothing in the same way? We don't pretend to know, and only ask for information. public how Crawley and his wife lived without any income, may I entreat the public newspapers which are in the habit of extracting various portions of the periodical works now published, not to reprint the following exact narrative and calculations, of which I ought, as the discoverer, (and at some expense too,) to have the benefit. My son-I would say, were I blessed with a child-you may by deep inquiry and constant intercourse with him, learn how a man lives comfortably on nothing a-year. But it is best not to be intimate with gentlemen of this profession, and to take the calculations at second hand, as you do log: arithms, for to work them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something considerable. ******* The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives elegantly on nothing ayear, we use the word nothing' to signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his establishment. Now our friend the Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance; and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box or the cue, it is natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these articles than men can possess who only occasionally handle them. To use a cue at billiards well, is like using a pencil or a smallsword-you cannot master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of billiards. Like a great general, his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavorable to him for a whole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would, with consummate skill and boldness, make some prodigious hits which would restore the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of everybody-press-so is the Chancellor, no doubt, and t f everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his reader likewise, always perfectly sure that Those who were accustomed to see it, above-named A. B. and W. T. are only pa cautious how they staked their money up a very small instalment of what they re But clever as Rebecca and her husband his elder brother, the formula before alare in this way, they can't get much from luded to, one of those people who know just enough to hold on to what they have got, which, to be sure, requires some ca pacity. "Pitt knew how poor his brother and s brother's family must be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a cool and exper enced old diplomatist, that Rawdon's family had nothing to live upon, and that houses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing. He knew very well that he was the proprietor a appropriator of the money which, according all proper calculation, ought to have fallen w his younger brother, and he had, we may b sure, some secret pangs of remorse within h which warned him that he ought to perfor some act of justice, or let us say, compers tion, towards these disappointed relations. A just, decent man, not without brains, who sa his prayers and knew his catechism, and his duty outwardly through life, he could be otherwise than aware that something ww due to his brother at his hands, and that ma he was Rawdon's creditor. But as one reg in the Times, every now and then, queer s nouncements from the Chancellor of the Echequer acknowledging the receipt of £50 frt A. B., or £10 from W. T., as conscien money, on account of taxes due by the sa B. or W. T., which payments the perbert a beg the Right Honorable gentleman o knowledge through the medium of the p owe, and that the man who sends up a twenty | wax-lights, comestibles, crinoline-pettipound note has very likely hundreds or thou- coats, diamonds, Louis-Quatorze gimcracks sands more for which he ought to account. and old china, and splendid high-stepping Such, at least, are my feelings, when I see A. B. or W. T.'s insufficient acts of repentance. carriage horses-all the delights of life, I And I have no doubt that Pitt Crawley's con- say would go to the deuce if people trition, or kindness, if you will, towards his young- did but act upon their silly principles, and er brother, by whom he had so much profited, avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. was only a very small dividend upon the capi- Whereas, by a little charity and mutual tal sum for which he was indebted to Rawdon. forbearance, things are made to go on Not everybody is willing to pay even so much. To part with money is a sacrifice beyond al- pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhung-but do we wish to hang him therefore? No, we shake hands when we meet. If his cook is good, we go and dine with him." On which accommodating principle, whenever Lord Steyne had an entertainment, "everybody went to wait upon this great man-everybody who was asked: as you the reader, (do not say nay,) or I the writer hereof, would go, if we had an invitation." most all men endowed with a sense or order. **** So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for his brother, and then thought he would think about it some other time." It is a good old maxim of Vanity Fair that Sir Pitt went upon, "Every one for himself, and God for us all." Some rich men have a habit of doing nothing for their poor relations, and then wanting to know if they are satisfied; others do a little, and talk enough about that to make up for the deficiency-if talk would do it. All this goes off in England very quietly, as being the natural course of things in a country where the eldest son legally succeeds to all the property, and the younger children are more or less starved. Here it is not so common, for if a millionaire does not divide his property equally, the law, or the lawyers generally, contrive to do it for him, and make a partition among all the family alike, however worthless or extravagant some of them may be, the beautiful consequence of which is, that three generations never occupy the same house, and it is impossible to preserve, much less increase, any private collection of paintings, books, or curiosities. We brag of our equal law of succession, but in some things it certainly stands in the way of civilization and refinement. But though Rebecca is not able to bleed her diplomatic brother-in-law, she gets the needful from a much greater manLord Steyne. To be sure his morals are not of the best, but," as little Lord Southdown says, "he's got the best dry Sillery in Europe." A right Vanity Fair apology that! It's none of my business if this man is a profligate and a villain, so long as it doesn't hurt me. He is to be damned on his own account; meanwhile why shouldn't I have the benefit of his good things as well as any one else? For, as Titmarsh says in another place, "wine, No, Mr. Titmarsh, there are people who wouldn't go at any price-people to whom you don't do full justice--your Lady Southdowns and the like-" serious people," as they are denominated on your side of the water, and "professors of religion" on ours. And because these people--having their mental optics illumined by light from above--see through the hollowness and humbug and wretched unsatisfactoriness of the things of Vanity Fair, and value them accordingly, and do act upon their (not altogether silly) principles, and don't sell them for dry Sillery, or fine music, or pretty women, or any such amusing vanities-are they to be rewarded for this by being held up to ridicule? Verily they deserve better usage from your pen and pencil. Is there any philosophy or morality or wisdom, except practical Christianity, that will enable man or woman to fight Vanity Fair and come off conqueror? And if not, why do you, who preach so earnestly against Vanity Fair, sneer down Christian men and women? Titmarsh would answer probably that he did not, by any means, intend to laugh at religion, but at counterfeits or perverted developments of religion-the mock-righteousness of some who are not righteous at all; the want of judgment of others who are righteous overmuch. And were he, or any friend of his, to advance this defence of him, we should be chari ly pre-disposed to accept it, for there re passages in this book which none but true Christian could have written-at east it seems so to us. Here are two aken at random. A poor widow is about o part from her child, whom she has not he means of supporting: "That night Amelia made the boy read the tory of Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his other, having weaned him, brought him to Eli, he High Priest, to minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude which Hannah ang; and which says, Who is it that maketh poor nd maketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth? ow the poor shall be raised up out of the dust, nd how in his own might no man shall be trong. Then he read how Samuel's mother ade him a little coat, and brought it to him rom year to year, when she came up to offer the early sacrifice. And then, in her sweet simle way, George's mother made commentaries the boy upon this affecting story. How Hannah, though she loved her son so much, ave him up because of her vow; and how he must always have thought of him, as she at at home, far away, making the little coat; nd Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his other; and how happy she must have been s the time came (and the years pass away ery quick) when she should see her boy, and ow good and wise he had grown." The same widow's old bankrupt father ies. Emmy stayed and did her duty as usual. he was bowed down by no especial grief, and ather solemn than sorrowful. She prayed She prayed hat her own end might be as calm and painess, and thought with trust and reverence of he words she had heard from her father during is illness, indicative of his faith, his resignaion, and his future hope. and my cellar of well-selected wine, to my son. I leave twenty pound a-year to my valet; and I defy any man after I am gone to say anything against my character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a different sort of dirge, and you say, 'I am a poor, blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure through life. I was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune, and confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders. I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I can't pay what I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly help less and humble; and I pray forgiveness for my weakness and throw myself with a contrite heart at the feet of the Divine mercy.' Which of these two speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral? old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and vanity sank away from under him." After reading such paragraphs as these, we feel bound to believe that it is mere pwvéia when Titmarsh says he would accept any great bad man's invitation. We don't believe that he would have dined with the Marquis of Hereford's mistress, as Croker alias Rigby used to do after slanging the immoral French novelists in that bulwark of orthodox principles, the London Quarterly. But to return to the amiable Becky. Under the patronage of the old roué whom she contrives to entice and wheedle without doing anything to compromise herself, she actually obtains a footing in " the very best society." "Her success excited, elated, and then bored her. At first no occupation was more pleasant than to invent and procure "Yes, I think that will be the better ending (the latter a work of no small trouble and f the two after all. Suppose you are particu- ingenuity by the way, in a person of Mrs. arly rich and well to do, and say on that last Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means,) to ay, 'I am very rich; I am tolerably well procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses Lown; I have lived all my life in the best so- and ornaments; to drive to the fine dinner iety, and, thank Heaven, come of a most re- parties, where she was welcomed by great pectable family. I have served my king and y country with honor. I was in Parliament people; and from the fine dinner parties or several years, where, I may say, my to fine assemblies, whither the same peopeeches were listened to, and pretty well re-ple came with whom she had been dining, eived. I don't owe any man a shilling; on the ontrary, I lent my old college friend Jack azarus fifty pounds, for which my executors ill not press him. I leave my daughters with en thousand pounds a-piece-very good porgirls. I bequeath my plate and furniuse in Baker street, with a handre, to my widow for her life; and roperty, besides money in the funds, whom she had met the night before, and |