BULWER AND HIS BOOK. 375 



never heretofore our misfortune to witness. When husks are thrown 

 before men it is well that they be not projected with the air of one 

 who is casting pearls before swine. 



And, then^ the solemn foppery of the man, the ludicrously grave 

 manner in which some worthless scrap of purloined learning is pre- 

 sented to us. The considerate Mrs. Glasse instructs us, before pro- 

 ceeding to cook, to catch our hare ; but the author of " Pelham" fur- 

 nishes his ideas after he has prepared the illustration. A child feasting 

 on jelly is, with Mr. Bulwer, a tradesman at his dinner ; and why ? 

 the currant jelly reminds him of a leg of mutton. This invention of 

 of an idea from an illustration which the idea itself should suggest, is 

 productive of the most laughable results ; nor is the solemn manner in 

 which conclusions are drawn, on the strength of an absurd anecdote, 

 less fraught with materials for unbounded mirth. " There was a tribe 

 in Thessalonia," then follows the illustration " thus we see," &c. 

 " There was a certain merchant" and an anecdote is presented to us 

 involving a silly pun, made, it might be presumed, by Samuel Rogers 

 sitting on a tombstone and a philosophical conclusion is drawn from 

 the authentic incident just related. 



Let us try our hand at an anecdote let us exert our skill upon an 

 illustration let us draw our conclusion from the first let us find our 

 idea for the latter. 



" There was a certain drover in Smithfield who could not get his 

 beast along. f I say, Tom/ quoth he, ' I can't get this ere hanimal to 

 move.' ' Hit him over the raw, then/ ' He hant got none.' ( Then 

 'stablish vun.' Thus we see the native ferocity of the English cha- 

 racter." 



By taking down this folio we shall probably succeed in catching an 

 illustration. " A certain country was inhabited by a people whose 

 heads did grow beneath their shoulders." Ha ! very good : now for 

 the idea we have it. " There is a remarkable similarity between the 

 people of the country just spoken of and the people of this country : 

 here the power to bear taxation is greater than the ingenuity to inflict 

 it the shoulders are above the head." 



But now let us take a hasty survey of Mr. Bulwer's two volumes 

 We find, then, that " Book the First" is inscribed to Prince Talley- 

 rand, and comprehends a view of the English character. This would 

 seem to be tough work for a philosophical tyro, but our intellectual 

 Garagantua makes light of it. He illustrates a national prejudice 

 he draws a national distinction he draws up and exhibits the root of 

 our notions he gives us an anecdote he plucks out the heart of the 

 mystery in a trice, leaving us to wonder how the deuce it happened 

 that we never heard these things before. 



The French and the English are both, it appears " eminently vain 

 of country; yet if there be any difference between the two more 

 strong than another, it is the manner in which that vanity is shewn. 

 The vanity of the French consists (as I have somewhere read) in be- 

 longing to so great a country ; but the vanity of the Englishman ex- 

 ults in the thought, that so great a country belongs to himself." 



Whoever made the observation which we have just quoted, and which 



