The Newcomes | Page 4

the birds in the tree overhead, while I am
writing, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since there
were finches. Nay, since last he besought good-natured friends to listen
once a month to his talking, a friend of the writer has seen the New
World, and found the (featherless) birds there exceedingly like their
brethren of Europe. There may be nothing new under and including the
sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope,
scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes and quiet.
And then will wake Morrow and the eyes that look on it; and so da
capo.
This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will
wear peacocks' feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks;
in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the
splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks,
and the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the
absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert

squeaking; in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly
virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let
us hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and
white favours; in which there will be tears under orange-flower wreaths,
and jokes in mourning-coaches; in which there will be dinners of herbs
with contentment and without, and banquets of stalled oxen where
there is care and hatred--ay, and kindness and friendship too, along
with the feast. It does not follow that all men are honest because they
are poor; and I have known some who were friendly and generous,
although they had plenty of money. There are some great landlords
who do not grind down their tenants; there are actually bishops who are
not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the
Radicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart. But who ever heard
of giving the Moral before the Fable? Children are only led to accept
the one after their delectation over the other: let us take care lest our
readers skip both; and so let us bring them on quickly--our wolves and
lambs, our foxes and lions, our roaring donkeys, our billing ringdoves,
our motherly partlets, and crowing chanticleers.
There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it
appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century; when the zest
of life was certainly keener; when tavern wines seemed to be delicious,
and tavern dinners the perfection of cookery; when the perusal of
novels was productive of immense delight, and the monthly advent of
magazine-day was hailed as an exciting holiday; when to know
Thompson, who had written a magazine-article, was an honour and a
privilege; and to see Brown, the author of the last romance, in the flesh,
and actually walking in the Park with his umbrella and Mrs. Brown,
was an event remarkable, and to the end of life to be perfectly well
remembered; when the women of this world were a thousand times
more beautiful than those of the present time; and the houris of the
theatres especially so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to set
the heart in motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half an
hour previously at the door of the pit; when tailors called at a man's
lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy waistcoats; when it seemed
necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing-case, so as to be ready for
the beard which was not yet born (as yearling brides provide lace caps,

and work rich clothes, for the expected darling); when to ride in the
Park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the height of fashionable
enjoyment, and to splash your college tutor as you were driving down
Regent Street in a hired cab the triumph of satire; when the acme of
pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of Trinity at the Bedford, and to
make an arrangement with him, and with King of Corpus (who was
staying at the Colonnade), and Martin of Trinity Hall (who was with
his family in Bloomsbury Square), to dine at the Piazza, go to the play
and see Braham in Fra Diavolo, and end the frolic evening by partaking
of supper and a song at the "Cave of Harmony."--It was in the days of
my own youth, then, that I met one or two of the characters who are to
figure in this history, and whom I must ask leave to accompany for a
short while, and until, familiarised with the public, they can make their
own way. As I