Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

No. 12 exhibits simplicity upon a larger scale, and shows the head of the family, verifying the old proverb, "like father like son"—though it should be here like son like father. The colt was fitly turned over to the son, grave blind Blackberry was a horse for the father's art and wisdom. "By this time I began to have a most hearty contempt for the poor animal myself, and was almost alarmed at the approach of every customer." Poor Blackberry! He is quite conscious of his depreciation; he is a wise animal, and can see that "with half an eye." Alas! we fear he has not that half. Blackberry is good—yet will he sell for nothing; how patiently he lets them handle his leg, and a handle it is; we can imagine the creature thinking, "pray, sir, would you like to look at the other poor thing of a leg?" The rascally Fair, in which Mr Mulready has shown, according to his author, that the Vicar ought not to have been, is well given; but we should have liked a full length portrait of Mr Jenkinson pronouncing Αναρχον αρα και ατελενταιον το παν.

The reading the letter, the well-known letter of Mr Burchell to "The Ladies." "There seemed, indeed, something applicable to both sides in this letter, and its censures might as well be referred to those to whom it was written, as to us; but the malicious meaning was obvious, and we went no further." This, as usual, is well grouped; the Vicar ponders, and cannot tell what to make of it. We should have preferred, as a subject, the Vicar confronting Mr Burchell, and the cool effrontery of the philosopher turning the tables upon the Vicar, "and how came you so basely to presume to break open this letter?" or better still, perhaps, the encounter of art between Mr Burchell and Mrs Deborah Primrose. And why have we not Dick's episode of the dwarf and the giant? Episodes are excellent things, as good for the illustrations as for the book. No. 14, the contrivance of Mrs Primrose to entrap the squire, properly belongs to another chapter. "Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the squire that she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size, and would bid both stand up to see which was tallest." The passage is nicely told; there is, however, but one figure to arrest attention, and that is quite right, for it is Olivia's, and a sweet figure it is. Dear Olivia! We have not seen her portrait before, and we shall love her, beyond "to the end of the chapter," to the end of the volume, and the more so, that hers after all was a hard fate. It is the part of the tale which leaves a melancholy impression; Goldsmith has so determined it—and to his judgment we bow implicitly. Had any other author so wretchedly disposed of his heroine, in a work not professedly tragic, we should have been pert as critics usually are. Mrs Primrose is certainly here too young. We cannot keep our eyes off Olivia; and see, the scoundrel has slyly taken her innocent hand, and the other is put up to her neck in such modest doubt of the liberty allowed. Here, as in other instances, the squire is not the well-dressed man of the world, whose gold lace had attracted Dick's attention. We could linger longer over this illustration, but must pass on—honest Burchell has been dismissed, villany has full sway. We must leave poor Olivia to her fate, and turn to the family picture "drawn by a limner;" capital—"limner" well suiting the intended satire—some say a good-natured, sly cut at Sir Joshua. We should certainly have had Mrs Primrose as Venus, and the two little ones as Cupids, and the Vicar presenting to her his books on the Whistonian controversy, and the squire as Alexander. Whoever wishes to see specimens of this kind may see some ludicrous ones at Hampton court—particularly of Queen Elizabeth, and the three goddesses abashed by her superiority. We thought to leave poor Olivia to her fate—Mr Mulready will not let us give her up so easily, and takes us to the scene of her quitting her home for her betrayer; and this is the subject of—

"Yes, she is gone off with two gentlemen in a post-chaise; and one of them kissed her, and said he would die for her;" and there she is, hiding her beautiful face with her hands, and poor good Dick is pulling her back by her dress, that she may not go; but a villain's hand is round her waist, and one foot he has upon the step of the chaise, and the door is open. Poor Dick, you have nothing left you to do but to run home as fast as you can; and there you will find such a scene of innocent enjoyment, how to be marr'd! at the very moment, too, that the good Vicar had been feeling and saying, "I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fireside, nor such pleasant faces about it. We are descended from ancestors that knew no stain, and we shall leave a good and virtuous race of children behind us. While we live they will be our support and our pleasure here, and when we die they will transmit our honour untainted to posterity. Come, my son, we wait for a song: let us have a chorus. But where is my darling Olivia? That little cherub's voice is always sweetest in the concert." O Dick, Dick! at such a moment as this to run in and tell him to be miserable for ever; for that his cherub, his Olivia is gone, and gone, as it appears, to infamy, a thousand times more grievous than death. Was there ever so touching a scene?—Mr Mulready feared it. That is a wonderful chapter—the happiness is so domestically heightened, that the homefelt joy may be more instantly crushed. We know we shall not see dear darling Olivia again for a long, long time; and feel we want a pause and a little diversion—so we will go back to Bill the songster for amusement, and take it if we can; and here is for the purpose Bill's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog," alas! taught him, too, by honest Mr Williams; we only hope young, sturdy farmers have strong nerves, and don't break their hearts in love's disappointments. Here is Dick's Elegy; and as we, too, have a Moses at home of a "miscellaneous education," we will put on the Vicar's simplicity, and cheerful familiarity with his own flesh and blood—and thus we address our Moses, "Come, my boy, you are no hand at singing, so turn the Elegy another way: let us have a little Latin, for your music is Hexameter and Pentameter." Our Moses, "That's a hard task, sir, for one that cannot mount to Parnass Hill without his 'Gradus ad Parnassum.'" "Well, then get your Gradus, and put your foot in that first step of the ladder." Our Moses, waggishly—"I must mind my feet, sir, or they will be but lame verses, and go halting and hobbling—but I suppose you won't be very particular as to Latinity. I have heard you tell how Farmer Williams"—"No," said we, "not Williams, any other farmer you please; poor Williams is not likely to have any children; yet I know what you were going to say." "Farmer any body, then," said our Moses, "when he took his boy to school, left him with the master; and shortly returned to inform him, that, discoursing upon the subject at the 'public,' he had heard that there were two sorts of Latin, and so he brought the master a gammon of bacon, for he wished his son to have the best: now I think, sir, one of these two sorts must be 'dog Latin,' and that must be best fitted for the Elegy in question." Our Moses beats the Vicar's hollow in waggery, so we are proud of him. He takes after his mother. We condescended to be familiar enough to laugh. Now, then, Moses, to your task and we to ours. And here we are at—

The scene of Mr Arnold and his family breaking in upon his butler personating his master, we are rather inclined to think a failure. There is Mr Mulready's good grouping, but somehow or other it is rather flat for so piquant an incident; "I was struck dumb with the apprehension of my own absurdity, when whom should I next see enter the room but my dear Miss Arabella Wilmot." We should like to have seen, in illustration, the political butler ordering the Vicar out of his house, or at least a more decided portrait of Arabella Wilmot. "Beauty is," as Miss Skeggs said of virtue, "worth any price;" and we are sorry to look about, and continue, in her words, "but where is that to be found?" What had Mr Mulready to do, that he would not let us have a sight of Arabella Wilmot. We, therefore, pass on to her lover, the Vicar's eldest son George, delivering his letter of recommendation to the nobleman's footmen, with his fee, which brings us to—

"However, after bribing the servants with half my worldly fortune, I was at last shown into a spacious apartment, my letter being previously sent up for his lordship's inspection." The Vicar's son is a fine fellow in the illustration: we are glad to see him, but rather wish Mr Mulready had chosen a better subject. George's adventures were written with a nice satire; for Goldsmith knew what and whom he had to describe. The reasons why he would not do for an usher, are well put. Is it not possible that Mr Dickens took his first hint of Do-the-boys' Hall from reading this passage in Goldsmith? Indeed, there may be a suspicion that Mrs Primrose gave the idea of Mrs Nickleby, though he has made her an original. But to return to the traveller—we should like to have seen an "illustration" of his interview with the principal of the College of Louvain, a passage quite in the spirit of Le Sage. "The principal seemed at first to doubt my abilities; but of these I offered to convince him, by turning a part of any Greek author he should fix upon into Latin. Finding me perfectly earnest in my proposals he addressed me thus, 'You see, young man,' continued he, 'I never learned Greek, and I don't find that I have ever missed it. I have had a doctor's cap and gown without Greek; I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek; and, in short,' continued he, 'as I don't know Greek, I do not believe there is any good in it.'"

The office of Mr Crispe, who fitted becoming situations upon every body. "There I found a number of poor creatures, all in circumstances like myself, expecting the arrival of Mr Crispe, presenting a true epitome of English impatience." And there is Mr Crispe himself, in the distance indeed, but certainly the principal figure. The expectants are good enough, but Mr Crispe, with his audacious, confident, deceitful face, is excellent; the fellow rattling the money in both his pockets, with fraud, successful laughing fraud filling out both his cheeks. The audacious wretch! little cares he for the miserable expectants whom he means to ship off to America and slavery. Preferring to see the Vicar's son among "the harmless peasants of Flanders," we turn over the leaves.

Here is a delightful group,—a fine sturdy fellow holding his dog by a handkerchief through his collar, and how naturally the honest brute leans against his master, as claiming a sort of kindred—the expression of the young woman with the child in her arms, is attention and admiration. It is not quite certain that one of the loungers is pleased with that admiration. This is a pleasant scene, and happily illustrated. "I had some knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice, and now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of subsistence." That is a pleasant, happy scene, though the personages are the poorest. Of another character is the next scene, and quite other personages act in it; for we come again to poor Olivia in her distress, grossly, brutally insulted by the wealthy profligate.

The profligate scoundrel in the very lowest baseness of his character.—It is poor Olivia speaks. "Thus each day I grew more pensive, and he more insolent, till at last the monster had the assurance to offer me to a young baronet of his acquaintance." This scene is not fit for picture; it is seemingly nothing but successful villany, and of too gay a cast to be pathetic. The chapter from which it is taken would have furnished a much better one—the meeting between the Vicar and his poor Olivia. We can bear the suffering of a Cordelia, because all in that is great though villany be successful; but there is a littleness in mere profligacy that infects even the victim. We could have wished that Mr Mulready had taken the "Meeting" for his illustration. How exquisitely beautiful is the text! The first impulse of affection is to forget, or instantly palliate the fault. "Welcome, any way welcome, my dearest lost one, my treasure, to your poor old father's bosom!" Then how exquisite her observance of the effect of grief upon the parent's appearance. "Surely you have too much wisdom to take the miseries of my guilt upon yourself." How timely has Goldsmith thrown in this, when we are most willing to catch at a straw of excuse for the lovely sufferer! No, we say, she never contemplated the misery she has inflicted; and then how natural is the instantaneous remembrance of her guilt! The taking it up and laying it down at a moment's call, from affection, is most touchingly beautiful. "Our wisdom, young woman," replied I—"Ah, why so cold a name, papa?" cried she. "This is the first time you ever called me by so cold a name." "I ask pardon, my darling," returned I; "but I was going to observe that wisdom makes but a slow defence against trouble, though at last a sure one." Admitting the subject chosen by Mr Mulready, we do not approve of his manner of telling it; we scarcely know which is the principal figure. Nor is Olivia's good. It has nothing of the madness the text speaks of. "My answer to this proposal was almost madness." We are glad to quit the scene, though our next step is into deeper misery; and—

"The return of the Vicar to his home in flames," a pitiable sight; but here is the triumph of love over misery, and the subject is good. "Now," cried I, holding up my children, "now let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish." The scene is well told, and not the worse for a justifiable theft from Correggio in the fainting figure—it is the mother in the Ecce Homo in the National Gallery. The failing of the hands at the moment of action, is true to the original and to nature. We rejoice that Mr Mulready did not take the return of Olivia as his subject. We should not like to see Mrs Primrose in that odious light; and though admirable in the tale, she is no favourite already. The parent had called his child, "woman—young woman"—the coldness passed away, and the word was changed for "darling." The word was again to be resumed, and how applied!—to the unforgiving—That even the Vicar's anger, we must rather say indignation, should be virtuous. "Ah, madam!" cried her mother, "this is but a poor place you have come to after so much finery. My daughter Sophy and I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept company only with people of distinction. Yes, Miss Livy, your poor father and I have suffered very much of late; but I hope Heaven will forgive you." Not a word of her own forgiving, not a word of endearment; and we suspect the word madam had, when written, more blame in it than it now retains—and how do the words "my daughter Sophy and I" cut off the forlorn one from the family!—and the plural "persons" avoiding the individuality, the personality of her daughter was another deep cut into the very flesh of the lost one's heart. Now then comes the reproof, and the good man shines in the glory of goodness and greatness, indignation for love's sake. "During this reception the unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply; but I could not continue a silent spectator of her distress; wherefore, assuming a degree of severity in my voice and manner, which was ever followed with instant submission, 'I entreat, woman, that my words may be now marked once for all: I have brought you back a poor deluded wanderer: her return to duty demands the revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let us not therefore increase them by dissensions among each other." The words to the conclusion of the chapter should be written in letters of gold, were not the better place for them out of sight, upon the hearts of all; for none of us have too much charity, though some may have an excess of love.

No. 22 is an affecting scene. The Vicar with his wounded arm is on his bed, with his distressed family about him. Olivia has fainted on hearing the news of her betrayer's intended marriage, and the mother is attending her. "My compassion for my poor daughter, overpowered by this new disaster, interrupted what I had further to observe. I bade her mother support her, and after a short time she recovered." The countenance of the Vicar in this scene is the best among the illustrations—of that good man enduring affliction, that sight worthy the gods to look at, as said the Stoic. But we that have human sympathies, would willingly turn away from such a sight; and where shall we find refuge? for sorrow is coming on—sorrow upon sorrow—an accumulation of miseries no Stoic would have borne; for he, with all his boasted indifference, would have borne them no longer, but ended them and life together, if he might so end them, as he thought. And now, happily, "our Moses" comes to our relief, not with extracts from chapters on stoicism, or any other false philosophy, but holding up to us what he is pleased to call his "dogrel." So, between him and Bill the Songster, we will have a duet. But as we have no Bill present, we will take his part ourselves, and, like other acting substitutes, go through the part, reading. "Now we hope," addressing our Moses, "you have not lengthened out your Latin to four lines for the four short English in each stanza. If you have, to the flames with them!"

Our Moses.—

"CARMINA ELEGIACA IN MORTEM CUJUSDAM CANIS ISLINGTONIENSIS."

(We.—Not in such a hurry—"An Elegy on the death of a mad dog;" and what made you put in Islingtoniensis? Well, I suppose you call that a Ciceronic flourish! Now, I will read the English—you the Latin.)

We.—

 
Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song,
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Quotlibet huc, ubicunque hominum, auscultate canenti,
Si breve vos teneam;—non ego longus ero.
 

We.—

 
In Islington there was a man
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran
Whene'er he went to pray.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Quidam Islingtoniensis erat, quem donec adibat
Templa pius, sacra diximus ire via.
 

We.—

 
A kind and gentle heart he had
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Suavis amico, inimico, ita mitis, nudum ut amictu,
Quum se vestibat, cotidie indueret.
 

We.—

 
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Et canis oppido eodem erat huic, ubi plurimus, et grex
Et fæx, cum catulis plebs numerosa canum.
 

We.—

 
This dog and man at first were friends,
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Grandis amicitia, at Canis, ut sibi gratificetur
Fit rabidus, rabido dente hominemque petit.
 

We.—

 
Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Concurrunt cives, O illum Cerberun, at aiunt,
Qualem amens rabido dense momordet herum.
 

We.—

 
The wound it seem'd both sore and sad
To every Christian eye,
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
 

Our Moses.—

 
O sævum vulnus, clamant lachrymosius omnes,
En rabidus canis, et mox moriturus homo.
 

We.—

 
But soon a wonder came to light,
That show'd the rogues they lied;
The man recover'd of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
 

Our Moses.—

 
Mendaces cives monstrat res prodigiosa,
Sanus homo subito fit—moriturque canis.
 

"A very good boy, Bill, upon my word," said the Vicar, "and an Elegy that may truly be called tragical." So we present our Moses a sovereign for his verse—"A sovereign for a verse, my boy." "I will never," quoth he, "be averse to a sovereign. We have heard of a monarch who gave a crown for a song." A little refreshed, let us turn to the book. Here is

No. 23.—Very well, Mr Mulready, artistically performed; but we fear we shall not relish too many of these distressing subjects. We know, from distress to distress, you will take us into prison. Artists and writers of the present day delight in prison scenes; we are not of that class, but endure it. We would on no account sit down with that rascally-looking fellow that is driving and taking an inventory of the Vicar's stock. It is winter too. "The consequence of my incapacity was his driving my cattle that evening, and their being appraised and sold the next day for less than half their value."

No. 24—Is the attempt at a rescue. The Vicar represses and reproves the violence of his enraged parishioners. The drawing is good; but it is not a subject we delight to look at; and we begin to fear that further on we shall fare worse. Why did not Mr Mulready give us the interview between the Vicar and his old acquaintance, Mr Jenkinson? Artists of skill like to show it in grouping, and prefer that to giving character. "The consequences might have been fatal, had I not immediately interposed, and with some difficulty rescued the officers from the hands of the enraged multitude."

"The Prison." We have little wish to stay there long, and look at the odious villains that surround the good man "paying his footing." "I was apprised of the usual perquisite required upon these occasions, and immediately complied with the demand, though the little money I had was nearly exhausted." The next illustration, too, takes us into equally bad company.

The Vicar's attempt to reform the jail. The mockery, and roguery, and Vicar's perseverance, while a practised hand is picking his pocket—are admirably represented. "I therefore read them a portion of the service, with a loud unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry upon the occasion."

The penitent scene. "My design succeeded, and in less than six days some were penitent, and all attentive." We now began to say, what a happy thing it was that Dr Primrose was sent to jail. Doubtless Goldsmith intended to show how good comes out of evil. There are some good figures in this illustration.

The seizure of poor Sophia—and very good it is—not that we congratulate Mr Mulready on his Sophia here; she is rather a vulgar dowdy figure, the others are very good, and the incident well told. "A post-chaise and pair drove up to them, and instantly stopped. Upon which a well-dressed man, but not Mr Thornhill, stepping out, clasped my daughter round the waist, and, forcing her in, bid the postilion drive on, so that they were out of sight in a moment." Now, Mr Mulready, in the next edition, you must positively illustrate the rescue by Mr Burchell.

"The Vicar delivering his sermon"—Charmingly grouped are the attentive and subdued audience. Mrs Primrose is surely too young a figure. If we could get over our early impression of the Vicar's countenance, his figure here would probably please. "The prisoners assembled themselves according to my directions, for they loved to hear my counsel—my son and his mother supported me on either side."

The return of dear Sophia, with her true but singular lover and deliverer—Perhaps the vicar takes it more coolly than the text justifies. "Just as he delivered this news, my dearest girl entered, and with looks almost wild with pleasure, ran to kiss me in a transport of action." There should have been an illustration of the scene where Mr Burchell is discovered to be Sir William Thornhill; and above all, where he proposes Jenkinson to Sophia.

The complete detection of the squire's villainies, and his great disappointment. "And to convince you that I speak nothing but truth, here is the license by which you were married together." All here is good but the figure of the Squire. In appearance we are to presume that Squire Thornhill was a gentleman, or Miss Wilmot could not have endured his addresses, nor indeed would Olivia have been deceived by him. In this illustration he has neither the appearance, dress, nor attitude of one in that condition.

The last illustration, or "All's Well that End's Well." It is, however, near ending badly, both as to the incident and the illustration—in the latter all is good, excepting only Arabella Wilmot; perhaps there is a defect in the printing, which gives her an odd look—but altogether she is not a good figure. She should have been elegance personified. Burchell looks the sturdy runner that could overtake the chaise, and rescue manfully his Sophia, to win and wear a favour, though he seems here in little hurry; but that is in character. "But as I stood all this time with my book ready, I was at last quite tired of the contest, and shutting it, 'I perceive,' cried I, 'that none of you have a mind to be married.'" We should like to have seen the dinner-party, and the two Miss Flamboroughs ready to die with laughing. "One jest I particularly remember: old Mr Wilmot drinking to Moses, whose head was turned another way, my son replied, 'Madam, I thank you.' Upon which the old gentleman, winking upon the rest of the company, observed that he was thinking of his mistress; at which jest I thought the two Miss Flamboroughs would have died with laughing." We should like to have seen their faces by Mr Mulready's hand, because we are sure that the two Miss Flamboroughs were thinking of themselves, in conjunction with Moses and the jest.

We have noticed every illustration. We hope there will be another edition, and then we may have a few more plates. We have therefore, as we have gone on, ventured to suggest some subjects—but, above all, we would recommend Mr Mulready to supply a few portraits, heads only, such as that of the "Schoolmaster in the Deserted Village," by the Etching Club.