the historian of the Book of Snobs and the creator of Major Dobbin.
The Characters of Men is not equal to the Conversation. The theme is a wider one; and the end proposed,—that of supplying rules for detecting the real disposition through all the social disguises which cloak and envelop it,—can scarcely be said to be attained. But there are happy touches even in this; and when the author says—“I will venture to affirm, that I have known some of the best sort of Men in the World (to use the vulgar Phrase,) who would not have scrupled cutting a Friend’s Throat; and a Fellow whom no Man should be seen to speak to, capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and Benevolence,” one recognises the hand that made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews “a Lad who hath since been transported for robbing a Hen-roost.” The account of the Terrestrial Chrysipus or Guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the Royal Society on the Fresh Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus Gualterus (Peter Walter), who had an “extraordinary Collection” of them. He died, in fact, worth L300,000. The only other paper in the volume of any value is a short one Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss of our Friends, to which we shall presently return.
The farce of Eurydice, and the Wedding Day, which, with A Journey from this World to the Next, etc., make up the contents of the second volume of the Miscellanies, have been already sufficiently discussed. But the Journey deserves some further notice. It has been suggested that this curious Lucianic production may have been prompted by the vision of Mercury and Charon in the
