Atlantic Monthly | Page 6

is rich in
political as well as other forms of satire; and from various causes, about
the time of "Punch," political satire was at a low ebb. The newspapers

no longer published squibs as they once had done. The days of the
Hooks and Moores had gone by; there was nobody to do with the pen
what H. B. did with the pencil. So "Punch" was at once a novelty and a
necessity,--from its width of scope, its joint pictorial and literary
character, and its exclusive devotion to the comic features of the age.
"Figaro" (a satirical predecessor, by Mr. à Beckett) had been very
clever, but wanted many of "Punch's" features, and was, above all, not
so calculated to hit "society" and get into families.
Jerrold's first papers of mark in "Punch" were those signed "Q." His
style was now formed, as his mind was, and these papers bear the
stamp of his peculiar way of thinking and writing. Assuredly, his is a
peculiar style in the strict sense; and as marked as that of Carlyle or
Dickens. You see the self-made man in it,--a something _sui
generis_,--not formed on the "classical models," but which has grown
up with a kind of twist in it, like a tree that has had to force its way up
surrounded by awkward environments. Fundamentally, the man is a
thinking humorist; but his mode of expression is strange. The perpetual
inversions, the habitual irony, the mingled tenderness and mockery,
give a kind of gnarled surface to the style, which is pleasant when you
get familiar with it, but which repels the stranger, and to some people
even remains permanently disagreeable. I think it was his continual
irony which at last brought him to writing as if under a mask; whereas
it would have been better to write out flowingly, musically, and lucidly.
His mixture of satire and kindliness always reminds me of those lanes
near Beyrout in which you ride with the prickly-pear bristling alongside
of you, and yet can pluck the grapes which force themselves among it
from the fields. Inveterately satirical as Jerrold is, he is even "spoonily"
tender at the same time; and it lay deep in his character; for this wit and
_bon-vivant_, the merriest and wittiest man of the company, would cry
like a child, as the night drew on, and the talk grew serious. No theory
could be more false than that he was a cold-blooded satirist,--sharp as
steel is sharp, from being hard. The basis of his nature was
sensitiveness and impulsiveness. His wit is not of the head only, but of
the heart,--often sentimental, and constantly _fanciful_, that is,
dependent on a quality which imperatively requires a sympathetic
nature to give it full play. Take those "Punch" papers which soon
helped to make "Punch" famous, and Jerrold himself better known.

Take the "Story of a Feather," as a good expression of his more earnest
and tender mood. How delicately all the part about the poor actress is
worked up! How moral, how stoical, the feeling that pervades it! The
bitterness is healthy,--healthy as bark. We cannot always be
"Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet,"
in the presence of such phenomena as are to be seen in London
alongside of our civilization. If any feeling of Jerrold's was intense, it
was his feeling of sympathy with the poor. I shall not soon forget the
energy and tenderness with which he would quote these lines of his
favorite Hood:--
"Poor Peggy sells flowers from street to street, And--think of that, ye
who find life sweet!-- She hates the smell of roses."
He was, therefore, to be pardoned when he looked with extreme
suspicion and severity on the failings of the rich. They at least, he knew,
were free from those terrible temptations which beset the unfortunate.
They could protect themselves. They needed to be reminded of their
duties. Such was his view, though I don't think he ever carried it so far
as he was accused of doing. Nay, I think he sometimes had to prick up
his zeal before assuming the flagellum. For a successful, brilliant man
like himself,--full of humor and wit,--eminently convivial, and
sensitive to pleasure,--the temptation rather was to adopt the easy
philosophy that every thing was all right,--that the rich were wise to
enjoy themselves with as little trouble as possible,--and that the poor
(good fellows, no doubt) must help themselves on according as they got
a chance. It was to Douglas's credit that he always felt the want of a
deeper and holier theory, and that, with all his gaiety, he felt it
incumbent on him to use his pen as an implement of what he thought
reform. Indeed, it was a well-known characteristic of his, that he
disliked