amily? _O
trumpery! o morris!_ as Homer says. This is a higeous pictur of manners,
such as I weap to think of, as every morl man must weap." We do not
wonder that when he makes his "ajew" he should have been called
up to be congratulated on the score of his literary performances by
his master, before the Duke, and Lord Bagwig, and Dr. Larner, and
"Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig." All that Yellowplush says or writes are
among the pearls which Thackeray was continually scattering abroad.

But this of the distinguished footman was only one of the forms of the
ludicrous which he was accustomed to use in the furtherance of some
purpose which he had at heart. It was his practice to clothe things most
revolting with an assumed grace and dignity, and to add to the weight of
his condemnation by the astounding mendacity of the parody thus drawn.
There was a grim humour in this which has been displeasing to some, as
seeming to hold out to vice a hand which has appeared for too long a
time to be friendly. As we are disposed to be not altogether sympathetic
with a detective policeman who shall have spent a jolly night with a
delinquent, for the sake of tracing home the suspected guilt to his
late comrade, so are some disposed to be almost angry with our author,
who seems to be too much at home with his rascals, and to live with them
on familiar terms till we doubt whether he does not forget their
rascality. _Barry Lyndon_ is the strongest example we have of this style
of the ludicrous, and the critics of whom I speak have thought that our
friendly relations with Barry have been too genial, too apparently
genuine, so that it might almost be doubtful whether during the
narrative we might not, at this or the other crisis, be rather with him
than against him. "After all," the reader might say, on coming to that
passage in which Barry defends his trade as a gambler,--a passage which
I have quoted in speaking of the novel,--"after all, this man is more
hero than scoundrel;" so well is the burlesque humour maintained, so
well does the scoundrel hide his own villany. I can easily understand
that to some it should seem too long drawn out. To me it seems to be the
perfection of humour,--and of philosophy. If such a one as Barry Lyndon,
a man full of intellect, can be made thus to love and cherish his vice,
and to believe in its beauty, how much more necessary is it to avoid the
footsteps which lead to it? But, as I have said above, there is no