the whip of the satirist; and
for "Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig," as the novelist is made to call
himself, we can well believe that he must himself have enjoyed the
_Yellowplush Memoirs_ if he ever re-read them in after life. The speech
in which he is made to dissuade the footman from joining the world of
letters is so good that I will venture to insert it: "Bullwig was
violently affected; a tear stood in his glistening i. 'Yellowplush,'
says he, seizing my hand, 'you _are_ right. Quit not your present
occupation; black boots, clean knives, wear plush all your life, but
don't turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first novelist in Europe.
I have ranged with eagle wings over the wide regions of literature, and
perched on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with eagle eyes on
the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the mysterious depths of the human
mind. All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me,
all men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom from the honeyed lips
of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of the Academies; wisdom, too,
from the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our backy in Seven Dials.
Such must be the studies, and such is the mission, in this world of the
Poet-Philosopher. But the knowledge is only emptiness; the initiation is
but misery; the initiated a man shunned and banned by his fellows. Oh!'
said Bullwig, clasping his hands, and throwing his fine i's up to the
chandelier, 'the curse of Pwomethus descends upon his wace. Wath and
punishment pursue them from genewation to genewation! Wo to genius, the
heaven-scaler, the fire-stealer! Wo and thrice-bitter desolation! Earth
is the wock on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing
wictim;--men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is
agony eternal,--gwoaning and solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush,
would penetwate these mystewies; you would waise the awful veil, and
stand in the twemendous Pwesence. Beware, as you value your peace,
beware! Withdraw, wash Neophyte! For heaven's sake! O for heaven's
sake!'--Here he looked round with agony;--'give me a glass of
bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning to disagwee with me.'" It
was thus that Thackeray began that vein of satire on his contemporaries
of which it may be said that the older he grew the more amusing it was,
and at the same time less likely to hurt the feelings of the author
satirised.

The next tale of any length from Thackeray's pen, in t