1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 391 
scribing them—are irresistibly comic. His dumpy divines, with their 
thick, short legs and puffy lungs, tumble about with all the rich effect of 
Grimaldi in his better days, nor do we know, in the wide compass of 
‘modern comedy; a scene more truly laughable than the one in “ Melin- 
court,” where the fat, broad-breeched, short-winded, apopletic Mr. 
Grovel-grub is described as running at full gallop, over loose yielding 
sands, from the pursuit of Lord Anophel Achthar. To heighten the 
effect, Mr. Peacock takes leave of him in this condition, so, for aught we 
know to the contrary, the poor gentleman may be running to this hour. 
Another excellence, which our author shares equally in common with Sir 
W. Scott, is the exceeding felicity of his names. We have already 
spoken of the country-banking firm of Air-bubble, Smoke-shadow, and 
Hop-the-twig, with their clerk, Mr. Wm. Walkoff, and may mention, in 
addition, the cognomina of Mr. Portpipe, a high churchman, who requests 
his friends not to take down Homer from his allotted shelf, as he “has 
not been dusted for thirty years’—of Mr. Grovelgrub, the clerical tutor 
to a dissipated young nobleman—of Mr. Harum O’Scarum, the Irish 
fortune hunter—of Mr. Feathernest, the political sycophant—of Mr. 
Vamp, the Court reviewer—of Mr. Anyside Antijac, the uncompromising 
supporter of Ministers, “ so long as they can keep their places’”—of Sir 
Oran Haut-ton, the monkey-man of fashion, who “ never failed to feel 
himself at home at the Opera” —of Mr. Derrydown, the ballad-monger— 
of the Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney, the match-maker and wholesale dealer in 
marriages—of Miss Philomela Poppyseed,-the celebrated she-poet—and, 
above all, of the Rev. Dr. Gaster, whose highest boast is to have his 
patronymic mixed up with the recollection of the® gastric juice. 
Having. already spoken at length on the subject of: Mr. Peacock’s 
novels, we have little space left to discuss the merits of his last-published 
one, entitled “The Misfortunes of Elphin.” Luckily it is not of a nature 
to require any very minute analysis. It is a mere sylvan story, like 
«Maid Marian,” the scene’of which is laid in Wales, and at that ro- 
mantic period when King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table 
were alive in all their glory. It has no new characters, little fancy ; but 
is penned in an easy colloquial style, very different from the cumbrous 
mannerism of Mr. Peacock’s earlier tales. The best point in itis the 
brief description of the holy abbot of Avallon, who “ was a plump and 
comely man, of middle age, having three roses in his complexion ; one, 
in full blossom, on each cheek, and one, in bud, on the tip of his nose.” 
The following also possesses merit : it is the description of a minor king 
of South Wales ; one of those despotic individuals who stick fast to the 
doctrine of “ the right divine of kings to govern wrong.” 
ff nang Melvas was a man of middle age, with a somewhat round, large, 
regular-featured face, and an habitual smile of extreme self-satisfaction, which 
he could occasionally convert into a look of terrific ferocity, the more fearful 
for being rare. His manners were, for the most part, pleasant. He did much 
mischief, not for mischief’s sake, nor yet for the sake of excitement, but for the 
sake of something tangible. He had a total and most complacent indifference 
to every thing but his own will and pleasure. He took what he wanted 
wherever he could find it, by the most direct process, and without any false 
a0 He would have disdained the trick which the chroniclers ascribe to 
engist, of begging as much land as a bull’s hide would surround, and then 
shaving it into threads, which surrounded a goodly space. If he wanted a 
piece of land, he encamped upon it, saying, ‘ This is mine.’ If the former 
possessor could eject him, so; it was not his: if not, so; it remained his. 
