Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/661

J E R R L D 633 any very marked success. His pen continued to be fruit ful of sparkling comedies till 1854, when his last piece, The Heart of Gold, was written. Meanwhile he had won his way to the pages of numerous periodicals, before 1830 of the second-rate magazines only, but after that to those of more importance; and he had almost reached comfort and ease when an obligation, undertaken for an unfortunate friend, drove him forth to fresh years of hard toil. When at last he could settle in comfort he found himself the centre of a host of friends, whose affection was his no less than their admiration; and his last years were spent in peaceful happiness. The Monthly Magazine, Blackwood 8, the Neio Monthly, and the Athenxum, all welcomed his brilliant articles. To Punch, the publication which of all others is associated with his name, ho contributed from its second number in 1841 till within a few days of his death. He founded and edited for some time, though with indifferent success, the Illuminated Magazine, Jerrold s Shilling Magazine, and Douglas Jerrold s Weekly Newspaper, and under his editor ship Lloyd s Weekly Newspaper rose from almost nonentity to a circulation of 182,000. The history of his later years is little more than a catalogue of his literary productions, interrupted now and again by brief nights to the Continent or to the country. Douglas Jerrold died at his house, Kilburn Priory, in London, on June 8, 1857. Jerrold s figure was small and spare, and in later years bowed almost to deformity. His features were strongly marked and expressive from the thin humorous lips to the keen blue eyes gleaming from beneath the shaggy eyebrows. He was brisk and active, with the careless bluffness of a sailor. Open and sincere, he concealed neither his anger nor his pleasure; to his simple frankness all polite duplicity was distasteful. Hating the conventionalities of the town, he loved to make his home in some rural retreat where he could roam at ease, with loose coat and straw hat. To his house, always hospitable, he was especially fond of attract ing young men, whom he encouraged with strong, cheery word*, and often with more material aid. The cynical side of his nature hs kept for his writings; in private life his hand was always open. In politics Jerrold was a Liberal, and he gave eager sympathy to Kossuth, Mazzini, and Louis Blanc. In social politics especially he took an eager part he never tired of declaiming against the horrors of war, the luxury of bishops, and the iniquity of capital punishment. Douglas Jerrold is now perhaps better known from his reputation as a brilliant wit in conversation than from his writings. In animated talk his retorts and fancies flew from his lips like a shower of sparks. His jests were un premeditated and unforced ; their spontaneity, which not seldom surprised Jerrold himself, was one of their most telling characteristics, and often robbed his sharpest retorts of their sting. For he let no sentimental or polite con sideration stand in the way of a brilliant rejoinder. As Dr Charles Mackay expresses it, " when his jest came to the tip of his tongue, it had to explode though the heavens should crack, and his best friend should take it amiss." Yet no one can accuse Jerrold of being spiteful. Ill-advised and thoughtless, even unjust, his wit often was ; but it was not barbed. It did not rankle in the wound. Jerrold s wit was of a tolerably high intellectual order. It is said that no pun is to be found in his writings. Their wit is the wit of burnished epigram and quaint conceit, of happy phrase and lightning retort. But the puns that abounded in his talk were often wise as well as witty. The well-known description of dogmatism as " puppyism come to maturity " is an excellent example of the flashing insight that gave life and meaning to his jests. As a dramatist Jerrold was very popular, and struck out quite a line for himself in the domestic drama. Here he dealt with rather humbler forms of social life than had commonly appeared on the stage ; and it is worthy of note that plays of this kind have had the greatest run in modern times. Jerrold was one of the first and certainly one of the most successful of those who in defence of the native English drama endeavoured to stem the tide of translation from the French, which threatened early in the 19th century altogether to drown original native talent. Thoroughly English in motive, action, and atmosphere, his plays, whether comedy or domestic drama, are all effective from their freshness, point, and spirit. The author is at his best in construction as well as in sparkling epigram and brilliant dialogue in Bulbles of the Day, and Time Works Wonders. The latter perhaps excels in plot and human interest. The tales and sketches which form the bulk of Jerrold s collected works vary much in skill and interest ; but, although the artistic symmetry is here and there marred by traces of their having been composed from week to week, they are always marked by keen satirical observation and pungent wit. While reading them it is well to remember that they have a higher aim than the beguiling an idle hour by the mere interest of the story ; for the author is always trying to call attention to some wrong, to rouse pity for some hardship, to stir up indignation against some form of social oppression or abuse. Jerrold s writings are scattered over all the periodical literature of his day; but perhaps his most important works are in the following list. Men of Character are seven sketches (collected in 1838), in which he throws sarcastic ridicule on various foibles and hypocrisies of every-day men ; Cakes and Ale, a collection of short papers of all sorts made in 1842, contains whimsical tales directed against the tyranny of riches, the folly of judging by ap pearances, with similar thrusts at the weaknesses and vices of humanity ; The Story of a Feather, which originally appeared in Punch in 1842-43, tracing the career of au ostrich feather as it passes to successive owners, affords the author opportunites of exposing shams, lashing vice, and gibbeting successful villany in every rank of life. In The Chronicles of Clovernook he ventilates his philosophy of life, and his objections to existing social and political institutions ; in A Man made of Money, where the super natural forms the basis for a story of an eminently matter- of-fact character, he fulminates against the blind worship of lucre ; St Giles and St James, perhaps his best work of this class, is described in his own words as " an endeavour to show in the person of St Giles the victim of an ignorant disregard of the social claims of the poor upon the rich, ... to present . . . the picture of the infant pauper reared in brutish ignorance." Of his professedly satirical papers the chief are Punch s Letters to his Son, Pimch s Complete Letter-Writer, and Sketches of the English. Mrs Caudles Curtain Lectures, possibly the most widely known of all Jerrold s writings, explain themselves by their title. Be sides the " Q Papers," which began in the second nuYnber of Punch, Jerrold wrote various political articles for his own and other newspapers. Were a reader now to go to Jerrold s writings, he would find much that seems commonplace and trite. The fault is not with Jerrold, but with the host of his imitators who have sought with more or less success to reproduce in the pages of every magazine the social cynicism which is apt at first view to be taken for the essence of Jerrold s style. But Jerrold has his own happy knack of handling ordinary subjects, his own singular method of regarding things. His truths may sometimes be commonplaces, and his moralizings trite ; his descriptions may sometimes drag on to tedium, and his characters stiffen into lay figures ; even his passion may sometimes attenuate to fustian, but every paragraph is lit up by quaint phrase or happy conceit; XIII. So