-of Lucian and
the Lucianists--especially as that tradition was redirected by Anthony
Hamilton. It thus comes, in one way, near part of the work of Disraeli;
though, except in point of satiric temper, its spirit is totally
different. Peacock was essentially a scholar (though a non-academic one)
and essentially a humorist. In the progress of his books from _Headlong
Hall_ (1816) to _Gryll Grange_ (1860)--the last separated from the group
to which the first belongs by more than twice as many years as were
covered by that group itself--he mellowed his tone, but altered his
scheme very little. Except in _Maid Marian_ and _The Misfortunes of
Elphin_, where the Scott influence is evident, though Peacock was
himself a rebel to Scott, the plan is always the same. _Headlong Hall_
and _Nightmare Abbey, Melincourt_ and _Crotchet Castle_ (1831), as well
as _Gryll Grange_ itself, all have the uniform, though by no means
monotonous, canvas of a party of guests assembled at a country-house and
consisting of a number of "originals," with one or more common-sense but
by no means commonplace characters to serve as contrast. It is in the
selection and management of these foils that one of Peacock's principal
distinctions lies. In his earlier books, and in accordance with the
manners of the time, there is a good deal of "high jinks"--less later.
In all, there is also a good deal of personal and literary satire, which
tones and mellows as it proceeds. At first Peacock is extremely unjust
to the Lake poets--so unjust indeed as to be sometimes hardly
amusing--to the two universities (of which it so happened that he was
not a member), to the Tory party generally, to clergymen, to other
things and persons. In _Crotchet Castle_ the progress of Reform was
already beginning to produce a beneficent effect of reaction upon him,
and in _Gryll Grange_, though the manners and cast are surprisingly
modern, the whole tone is conservative--with a small if not even with a
large C--for the most prominent and well treated character is a
Churchman of the best academic Tory type.

It is not, however, in anything yet mentioned that Peacock's charm
consists, so much as in the intensely literary, but not in the least
pedantic, tone with which he suffuses his books, the piquant but not in
the least affected turn of the phrases that meet us throughout, the
peculiar quality of his irony (most quintessenced in _The Misfortunes of
Elphin_, which is different in scheme