delighted our young days, Darnley, and Richelieu, and Delorme[1] relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the Three Musqueteers? Does the accomplished author of the Caxtons read the other tales in Blackwood? (For example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public reading-room at the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does Uncle Tom admire Adam Bede; and does the author of the Vicar of Wrexhill laugh over the Warden and the Three Clerks? Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous pudor! I make no doubt that the eminent parties above named all partake of novels in moderation—eat jellies—but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled.
Here, dear youth aforesaid! our Cornhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a aide where thou shall sit in good company. That story of the Fox was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that account of China is told by the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks: those pages regarding Volunteers come from an honoured hand that has borne the sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the greatest siege in the world.
Shall we point out others? We are fellow-travellers, and shall make acquaintance as the voyage proceeds. In the Atlantic steamers, on the first day out (and on high and holidays subsequently), the jellies set down on table are richly ornamented; medioque in fonte leporum rise the American and British flags nobly emblazoned in tin. As the passengers remark this pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by side in friendly emulation. Novels having been previously compared to jellies—here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and flavoured with an amari aliquid very distasteful to some palates)—two novels under two flags, the one that ancient ensign which has hung before the well-known booth of Vanity Fair; the other that fresh and handsome standard which has lately been hoisted on Barchester Towers. Pray, sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped?
So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Comstock press their guests to partake of the fare on that memorable "First day out," when there is no man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on his voyage, and the good ship dips over the bar, and bounds away into the blue water.
- ↑ By the way, what a strange fate is that which has befallen the veteran novelist! He is her Majesty's Consul-General in Venice, the only city in Europe where the famous "Two Cavaliers" cannot by any possibility be seen riding together.
