Gryll Grange | Page 3

that description. But it
would be doing it extremely scant justice to allow any one to suppose
that its attractions consist solely, or even mainly, in 'valuable thoughts'
and expressions of sense, satire, and scholarship (to combine
Wordsworth with Warrington). In lighter respects, in respects of form
and movement, and it is absolutely impossible that he should have been
an Evangelical.
We must not dismiss without some special mention the
episode--though it is not properly an episode, inasmuch as it has
throughout an important connection with the working of the story--of
'Aristophanes in London.' This has sometimes been adversely criticised
as not sufficiently antique--which seems to overlook the obvious retort
that if it had been more so it could not by any possibility have been
sufficiently modern. Those who know something of Aristophanes and
something of London may doubt whether it could have established the
nexus much better. I have elsewhere pointed out the curious connection
with Mansel's Phrontisterion, which was considerably earlier in date,
and with the sentiments of which Peacock would have been in the
heartiest agreement. But it is extremely unlikely that he ever saw it. His
antipathy to the English universities appears to have been one of the
most enduring of his crazes, probably because it was always the most
unreasonable; and though there is no active renewal of hostilities in this
novel (or none of importance), it is noticeable there is also no direct or
indirect palinode as there is in most other cases. As for the play itself, it
seems to me very good. Miss Gryll must have looked delightful as
Circe (we get a more distinct description of her personality here than
anywhere else), Gryllus has an excellent standpoint, and the dialogue,
though unequal, is quite admirable at the best. Indeed there is a

Gilbertian tone about the whole piece which I should be rather more
surprised at being the first to note, so far as I know, if I were not pretty
well prepared to find that the study of the average dramatic critic is not
much in Peacock. The choric trochees (which by the way is a tautology)
are of the highest excellence, especially the piece beginning--
'As before the pike will fly'
in which Coeur-de-Lion's discomfiture of the 'septemvirate of quacks'
is hymned; and the finale is quite Attic. I do not know whether the
thing has ever been attempted as an actual show. Though rather
exacting in its machinery, it ought to have been.
The novel is rather full of other verse, but except 'Love and Age'--so
often mentioned, but never to be mentioned enough for its strange and
admirable commixture of sense and sentiment, of knowledge of the
heart and knowledge of life--this is not of the first class for Peacock,
certainly not worthy to be ranked with the play. 'The Death of
Philemon' is indeed a beautiful piece in its first half; the second were
better 'cut' 'The Dappled Palfrey,' a very charming fabliau in the
original, chiefly suggests the superiority of Lochinvar to which it is a
sort of counterpart and complement. 'The New Order of Chivalry' with
a good deal of truth has also a good deal of illiberality; and, amusing as
it is, is a relapse into Peacock's old vein of almost insolent personality.
Sir Moses Montefiore and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy did not deserve,
though they might afford to despise, the sort of cheap rallying here
applied to them; and might have retaliated, not without point, on
persons who drew large salaries at the India House, with frequent
additional gratifications, and stood up for 'chivalry' in their leisure
moments. And 'The Legend of St Laura' is not first rate. But the Italian
translations make us wish for more of the same.
On the whole, however, though we may like some things more and
some less here, I cannot conceive the whole being otherwise than
delightful to any person of knowledge, sense, and taste. And as we
close Peacock's novels there is this interesting though rather
melancholy thought that we 'close the book' in more senses than one.
They have never been imitated save afar off; and even the far-off

imitations have not been very satisfactory. The English Muse seems to
have set, at the joining of the old and new ages, this one person with
the learning and tastes of the ancestors, with the irreverent criticism of
the moderns, to comment on the transition; and, having fashioned him,
to have broken the mould.
George Saintsbury.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
Misnomers
CHAPTER II
The Squire and his Niece
CHAPTER III
The Duke's Folly
CHAPTER IV
The Forest--A Soliloquy on Hair
CHAPTER V.
The Seven Sisters
CHAPTER VI
The Rustic Lover

CHAPTER VII
The Vicar and his Wife--Families of Love:-- The Newspaper
CHAPTER VIII
Pantopragmatics
CHAPTER IX
Saint