not escape the notice of so keen an observer as sult would be a Tombs lawyer. Very soon we Robert Macaire. Accordingly we find Robert find this indomitable Robert proposing to Berbecoming a journalist with all possible speed; trand to start a new religion. "Time is fleetand behold him in his editorial sanctum, armed ing," he says to his stolid friend with a hypowith his usual splendid audacity, and confront- critical snivel, "but fools never die. Let us ing a melancholy shareholder in the paper La occupy ourselves with eternity." So he turns Blague, journal quotidienne, which the specula- | fashionable preacher: points his white hand to tor has just started. He discourses magnificent-heaven from the pulpit, and makes an excellent ly on the prospects of the journal. "Our prof-profit on eternity.

its," he says, "arise from a new combination. The Charivari is now owned by a company. The journal costs 20 francs the year; we sell it at Messieurs Louis Huart, Clement Caraguel, and 23. One million of subscribers makes a profit Taxile Delord, edit and write therein. Mouof three million and a half of francs. There are nier, Cham, who is an outcast son of M. de Noë, my figures. Contradict me in figures, or I will ex-peer of France, and has assumed a nom de bring an action for libel." Let us hope that Rob- plume appropriate to his condition, Staal, Berert convinced this incredulous shareholder. Pres- tal, Daumier, and some others, are the artists. ently we find Robert, tired of journalism, march- But the Charivari is no longer what it once ing majestically along the Bourse. He proposes was. The Parisian press is captive and in to his friend Bertrand a notable scheme for rais- chains. Politics, the real food on which a saing the wind. "I adore commerce," he says; tirical paper should exist, are forbidden fruit. "and if you agree, we will start a bank. Capital The poor Charivari has to content itself with sofive hundred millions; the highest rates of inter-cial caricatures, and lately the opportunity which est guaranteed. We will break the banks, the the Eastern war has given it of ridiculing the Rusbankers, the bankeresses- the whole world!" sians enabled it to keep body and soul together. "But," says the timid and usually stupid Bertrand, "there are the gens d'armes !" "Fool!" shrieks the astute Robert, in a rage, "who would dare to arrest a millionaire ?"

Is this France in which this scene occurs? Is that splendid swindler who speaks of Gallic birth? Is that the Paris Bourse that fills the background of the picture? The scheme seems so familiar to me that I no longer tread on French ground. I hear the din of Broadway. The mercantile babble of Wall Street fills my

Standing upon this soil my blood boils in my veins when I turn my eyes toward Paris and behold the condition of the French Press. What sacrilege is there committed daily against the divinity of Thought! What astounding tyranny marches among men, clad in the decent garments of the Law! France is tranquil; but it is the tranquillity of terror. The Press is complaisant, but it is the submission of a slave! I see the captive and her keeper. She crouches tremblingly in a corner, forcing herself to smile and to seem happy, while the despot sits in cruel calmness, watching her every motion. Dares she to mutter at her fate; dares she to disobey the word of command that bids her loyally rejoice and cry "Long live Napoleon!" with her quivering lips-the whip is raised, the cold eye flashes, the terrible blow falls, and the poor howling creature is lashed into silence and submission. It is no longer a pleasant thing to be an editor in France. It is like living in a fine house where the servants that wait on you are bailiffs in disguise. If you have not gone to prison, it is not less certain that the prison has come to you.

tyranny to the contrast afforded by the liberty of the London Punch. This paper is an offspring of the Charivari, and acknowledges its parentage upon its title-page. It was started by a knot of wits who used to assemble at the Wrekin Tavern in Broad Court, behind the Drury Lane Theatre. These men originally composed a club called the Rationals, of which Douglas Jerrold was president, and of which the insignia of membership was a fool's cap worn while in conclave. This convivial assemblage eventual

When Macaire has exhausted the resources of the Bourse he becomes in turn lawyer, physician, head of a matrimonial office, fashionable It is pleasant to turn from this picture of beggar. He starts a patent incombustible black-horrid ing association. He builds a promising life insurance company with equal facility. As a lawyer he visits Bertrand in prison, where that worthy has been taken on account of some petty theft. "Send me one hundred crowns," he says to Bertrand, "and I will obtain your acquittal." Poor Bertrand declares his poverty. "Send me ten-five-one. No? Then lend me your boots, and I will plead extenuating circumstances." Could not this scene have occurred in the Tombs of New York? Napoleonly changed into a somewhat similar institution said of the Russians that if you skinned one you would find a Cossack beneath. Strip Robert of that Paris coat, that French accent, that Gallic air, and I fear exceedingly that the re

called the Owls. This new association possessed a tame owl that used to march along the convivial board with much majesty, and gave an air of dignity to a scene that I fear was otherwise

bacchanalian. Here were Leman Rede, and ❘ that enormous historical nose with which every

one is familiar. For two years Punch's pages were nasal with that wonderful proboscis. He joked upon it, he sang about it, he caricatured it, he tweaked it with a venomous good-will splendid to behold. I have no doubt but that learned nobleman wished heartily many a time that, like the prince in the fairy tale, he could find some kind elf who had a spell for the reduction of overgrown noses. In Punch's Letters to his Son, in the Snob Papers, in the Story of a Feather, and in Mrs. Caudle's immortal Lectures we find some of the finest social satire that has ever been written. It is at once vigorous and keen. It has the weighty swing of the broadsword with the delicate point of the rapier. It spares no one. Prince, queen, courtier, senator, all bleed, and yield to this remorseless and doughty weapon. Gallant little knight-honest, jovial Mr. Punch, I honor you; you and your band of chevaliers, who sit at that Round Table called the World, ever ready with your enchanted swords. Fly far away, ye elves of Malice, and Meanness, and Hypocrisy ! fly, and never again show your faces on the green soil of England! Here is a new King Arthur with the talisman of truth, who will lay ye low if ye dare to face the sun; here is a band of dauntless hearts against whom no false enchantments will prevail !

Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, little Keely the actor, John Brougham the Irish comedian, the two Mayhews, Laman Blanchard, and many other literary men of London. Here it was, the story runs, that the idea of a comic paper similar to the Paris Charivari was first started, and the Pen and Palette suggested as a name. This title, as may easily be imagined, was not satisfactory; and it is related that one evening at the club, Jerrold remarking that Leman Rede and Mark Lemon were both present, said, "Here are two lemons, there is whisky and hot water and sugar on the table, why not call the paper Punch?" The idea was too good not to be instantly adopted, and in a few weeks the first number of the London Punch was issued. The young periodical suffered for a while from all the diseases incidental to the childhood of newspapers. Its funds were low. Its parents were quarreling. Its circulation was not what it should be. Several literary doctors, experienced in the treatment of such cases, predicted a speedy dissolution. At the moment, however, when the patient was believed to be in articulo mortis, up came Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, the publishers, with the true panacea for dying periodicals -money. They purchased the concern, installed Mark Lemon as editor-in-chief, advertised and put in requisition all the resources of the trade; when lo! the expiring Punch arose from his bed-laughed again his terrible jeering laugh with all his old strength, and issued forth to the world with a restored constitution. Since that time the greatest names in England have been written in Mr. Punch's check-book. Jerrold, Thackeray, Dickens, Albert Smith, the two Broughs, the three Mayhews, Thomas Hood, James Hannay, John Sterling, with a host of men whose names have never gone farther. Every one now knows that the famous fat contributor was the sly Michael Angelo Titmarsh that said such bitter things in Frazer's Magazine, and traveled from Cornhill to Cairo, he being in turn closely related to one Mr. Arthur Pendennis, the wonderful historian of the New-Sidney Blanchard, the son of unhappy Laman ; comes. People know that the physiologies of and William Jerrold, the heir of the house of London life that appeared in Punch's pages were "Caudle." All these men illuminated the Pupwritten by Albert Smith, who now ascends Mont pet Show; drew up the curtain weekly, and Blanc three times a week to crowded London pulled the strings con amore. It was brilliant audiences, and that Mrs. Caudle and the Story for a time that ill-fated periodical, but it was of a Feather came from Jerrold's diamond-tipped the hectic splendor of decay. The seeds of pen. If any comic periodical deserves its suc-death were ripening within, and to the great recess it is Punch. There is not a weak, unman- gret of a large body of young Bohemians, who ly spot in the entire of its body politic. Its lived out of it, it expired tranquilly after many scorn is true English scorn. "Fair play, and no weeks of protracted suffering. It was in connecquarter!" cries Mr. Punch, as he squares at his tion with this paper that I first beheld a specienemy. What blows the little punchy fellow men of a London Bohemian, so pure and perfect does give when he has a mind to do it! What in his way that I can not refrain from introductremendous left-handers; what countering; withing him to your notice. The London Bohewhat amazing pluck he stands up to his work! mian differs from his Parisian brother in being Nothing gives him more immense pleasure than more substantially poor. He is either honester, to bully a nobleman, unless, indeed, it is to re- or the same facilities for debt do not exist in fresh himself with a dig at Prince Albert or poor the English capital. The Paris Bohemian has old Colonel Sibthorp. For a long time he found a thousand devious, and, I grieve to say, often great amusement in hitting Lord Brougham on unmentionable, shifts by which he contrives to

Of the many imitations that sprang up in the wake of Punch, unquestionably the most formidable was the Puppet Show. This periodical gathered around it some of the brightest wits and readiest pencils in the metropolis. Gavarni drew for it; so did Frank Bellew, since known in this country in the pages of this Magazine and elsewhere, whose imaginative power and sense of humor are not surpassed, perhaps, by any living caricaturist. Poor North, the Republican philosopher, who hoped so much when he sought this country, and who came to so melancholy an end after he had tried it; Hannay, the author of "Singleton Fontenoy;" Edwards, the literary Jack of all Trades, equally ready with a comedy or a catechism. The Broughs;

exist.

The Londoner also runs in debt where on the poor Bohemian. We knew whither you he can; shuns certain streets, where exasper- went when you stole away from your wild comated shop-keepers lie in wait for him at their panions. Fancy tracked your steps to that obdoors, but somehow does not contrive to keep scure street, up the crazy stairs, into the povertyup appearances as well as the Parisian. I have stricken room, until it saw your arms wreathed a private theory of my own on this subject. I around a beloved neck, and heard a beloved voice have observed through life that those persons blessing the dutiful son. What if after having without means who did not work always lived lightened that obscure home with your presence, the best. Now the London Bohemian works and poured your little pittance into the lap that sometimes; the Parisian never: hence the for- had cradled you in days of yore—what if you mer's pecuniary inferiority. came back and swaggered about in borrowed plumes of vice-your innocent disguise was sacred to us all; for we knew that there lay behind it a holy mystery of love, too beautiful and grand to be profaned even by a word!

I

My Bohemian was a wonderful fellow. should like, with your permission, to call him Tom; first, because the name is short; secondly, because that fine old stupid institution, the British Drama, has from my earliest years taught me to look upon all young fellows named Tom as careless, clever, penniless scape-graces. Tom, then, in many ways, was a source of endless wonder to me. I solemnly declare that when I knew him he was entirely composed of ink and pins. I once beheld him at his toilet, and I shall never forget that mysterious ceremony as long as I exist. Shall I tell how he artfully manufactured a shirt-bosom out of a pockethandkerchief, and a collar out of the unwritten portion of a lady's note? Shall I describe the marvelous boots which had no soles, yet which presented a goodly appearance when he walked out in the dusk? Shall I dwell on the wondrous dexterity with which, by aid of a pen and ink, he concealed ravages of time in his coat and hat? Tom affected the twilight, and really, in that soothing and reflecting hour, he presented a certain appearance of careful seediness. I, who knew how he was constructed, was always afraid lest he should come to pieces at some critical moment. Tom had his debts, or, as he called them, his "difficulties." Certain taverns had obstacles for him, and unseen ramparts of unpaid bills barricaded many otherwise agreeable thoroughfares. He subsisted chiefly by comic writing, and might be always found with half a dozen detached jokes, in a sort of rent which he called a waistcoat pocket. He was brilliant and original, but his incorrigible Bohemianism kept him miserably poor; but under that frail coat and tender waistcoat there beat a heart as noble as any that ever throbbed under Milan steel in the days of knightly honor. Tom, while the Puppet Show lived, had a salary on that periodical of some three guineas a week. On pay-day, as soon as he received his salary, he would sneak off slyly and disappear for a few hours, after which time he would reappear with a reckless dare-devil air, and only a few shillings in his pocket. If he were questioned by his friends as to what had become of his money, he would hint wildly at taverns and gamingtables, and use all innuendo possible to lead people to suppose that he had dissipated his substance in some horribly heedless manner. Ah, Tom, amiable hypocrite that you were, we knew you better! We knew that off in some dim and lonely street of that vast city there dwelt a mother and a sister, whose only hold in life was

I would that I could reconcile my own wishes and your time in the present paper. I should like to travel with you over fields that, alas! I have only time to name as I go by. You will miss many great names in my roll-call of humorists. I feel like a juggler who, being given a dozen balls to throw up, discovers that he can manage only five or six. I find my hands full already, and have to cast many a glittering name aside. It would please me much to make a foraging expedition into the lands of German comedy. To stop a while with the Fliegende Blatter, that periodical devoted to the elephantine wit peculiar to the Teutonic race; to gossip about the Dusseldorf caricaturists, and have a running dash at the Kladderadatsch Deutsche, the Punch of Germany. Then there is that supreme wit Heinrich Heine, who, stretched on a bed for twenty years, poured forth, year after year, a stream of the bitterest and clearest humorous writing. I will not speak of Tom Hood; for, with all his fecundity of wit, I can not bear to look upon him as a comic writer, making jokes for a livelihood-he, the manliest genius, the tenderest heart, the most magical poet of modern times! Jerrold, caustic, stern, remorseless, I salute as I go by. Gilbert à Beckett, comic historian of England, and contributor to Punch, I may greet another time. "Sam Slick," whose books would be unbearable were it not for the strong thread of common sense running through them; Shilliber, parent of the whimsical, popular, garrulous "Mrs. Partington;" "Mr. Philander Doesticks," whose humor is entirely original, and whose only fault is that he has given us too much of a good thing; Mr. Charles Leland, fantastic, and frequently inimitable; Mr. Donald M'Leod, with several literary et ceteras, must all make way before iron necessity. There are two gentlemen, however, whom I can not pass. Come forth, Mr. Charles Dickens! come forth, Mr. Arthur Pendennis!

I know no finer wit, no more honest gentleman, than Mr. Pendennis. People have accused him of being heartless and a cynic; of being an unbeliever in human goodness, in virtue, in honor. I see the world in his books. If he has painted Becky Sharp in no pleasant colors-if he has not punished that clever female swindler as she deserved-has he not dealt out the justice of this world? In what city in the

less refined and more poetic. I do not know of his having drawn a single lady or gentleman in his books, who acted or spoke like a lady or gentleman, with the one exception of Mr. James Steerforth, who is one of the most delicate, aerial sketches of character in all modern satirical literature. Dickens, who is quite as earnest as Pendennis, makes a greater noise, as it were, over a grievance. In the duello with Humbug into which both these gentlemen have flung themselves, they conduct themselves very differently. Pendennis appears on the ground with his delicate small-sword, salutes, plants his foot firmly, and in a flash he has whipped his weapon through his antagonist's body. He makes no fuss, but goes to work like an experienced maître d'armes as he is. Dickens must have a little of the melodrama in his encounter. He rushes in from the left with a tremendous scuffle, armed with broadsword and many pistols, and other roman

tells his enemy to come on; so that if you did not know that he was very earnest indeed you would believe him to be acting.

Union do we see poetical justice meted to the criminals of good society? Do not rogues prosper and grow fat? Do not heartless girls who have sworn perjured oaths at the altar, go down to their graves reputable matrons? He that paints society as it exists has a gloomy task to fulfill. Skeletons sit at every banquet; bloody secrets lie in coffers, fast locked until Death shall unshoot the bolt. If we only knew what deeds that hand which we grip so heartily in the street had done! If all the plots, and lies, and hypocrisies, which have seamed that dowager's cheek with wrinkles, were to be written legibly on her face; if that blooming mask of roses were torn from the maiden's countenance, and the canker that lies behind revealed; if we lived in Madame de Genlis's Palace of Truth, and every one spoke what was uppermost, I think that Mr. Arthur Pendennis would be vindicated, and all the world made unhappy. Fortunately, the novelist or satirist is never able to impress soci-tic paraphernalia. He flourishes about, and ety with a sufficient conviction of its own criminality to make it miserable. It will sow its wild oats, and reform little by little, I feel no doubt; but until then, such monitors as Mr. It is pleasant to be able to say that those two Arthur Pendennis are sorely needed. If this men are friends; that they do not hate one gentleman paints the vanities of the world until another, as the great authors did of old; that we grow ashamed of belonging to it, does he not, they do not keep hirelings paid for the purposes on the other hand, present us with some noble of mutual defamation. It seems to me that this pictures of virtue and honor? The world of friendship brightens their fame. Damon will fiction is the better, I say, for having such a be remembered for the sake of Pythias. Pythsimple, splendid old fellow as Colonel New-ias will not be forgotten as the friend of Damon. come born into it. His grand, manly smile pours like sunshine through the murky clouds of Vanity Fair. His honest hand seems to give us a portion of its own strength and earnestness It is difficult to measure the extent of the inwhen we grip it. I love his simple, generous fluence of comic literature upon the age. Cerheart; his straightforward, blundering intellect, vantes and Moliere proved its potency of old; that rides down the light logicians of the world and I think in our present day it has a greater like a heavy dragoon. Then with what artful effect than almost any other species of composistrokes of satire are other personages painted tion. A joke is, in reality, a more formidable in that wonderful panorama of English society. | weapon than invective; and a sneer in Punch Take Mr. Moss for instance. How that young reforms an abuse that perhaps the greater porHebrew art-neophyte is hit off with a single tion of the Irish members of Parliament have touch. "Clive Newcome came to see me ev-been subsisting on for years. There is someery day when I was ill," says a young comrade to Moss, reproachfully; "and sent me jellies and things; and you never came to ask after a fellow." "My dear boy," says Moss, "I didn't like to come, because I thought it might remind you of that two pound five you owe me." history of Israel is written in the sentence. In the strict sense of the word, Mr. Charles Dickens is more of a comic writer than Mr. Pendennis. The latter gentleman is always en grande tenue. His boots are varnished, his coat faultless, his neckcloth irreproachable. He satirizes with the calmness of a man of society; he speaks his epigrams with a good accent; he

It would be, indeed, glorious if our literary annals could show a few more such examples of loyal affection.

thing insinuating in a jocular attack. The public swallows it as the child swallows his medicated jelly. It feels instinctively that there is a bitter pill somewhere, but still it is pleasant to take. The strongest man is not proof against a The malicious sally. The giant will always find some David who will tumble him with a wellslung joke. I believe the comic writer, when he means well, to be as powerful as the maker of national ballads. With song and sarcasm one might sway the world!

ROUGE ET NOIR:

A MARCH REMINISCENCE OF DECEMBER.

I am

has no affectations, is simple, and well-bred; ALL the stars be thanked, it is once more and in all he says one perceives a latent strength spring! Not that I have any grudge against ready to be exerted at a moment's notice; nev-winter in a seasonable point of view. er displayed until it is wanted. So his anger is the anger of a gentleman-terrible, but never vulgar. He strikes with a gloved hand, all the while laughing at his own prowess. Dickens is

neither gouty, rheumatic, nor subject to the snuffles. In fact, I am, or was, fond of sleighing; moreover, I delight in the amusements and sociabilities of the time.

I hate to swelter away long summer days in | sent me to the oldest daughter, just out. So, a seven-by-nine box in the third story of a large being primed for the occasion, I was duly introwhite barn, courteously styled a hotel; where duced to Mrs. Lollard, Miss Lollard, and Miss the salt air sticks in my whiskers, droops my Jane Lollard-a cousin; by-the-way, they were collars, relaxes my shirt-bosom, and moulds my both named Jane-confound it! boots; where salt-water irritates the skin and ruins patent leather. I can not and will not go through all this for the sake of eating my dinner to abominable music, and dancing half the night with damp belles; and never getting a decent drive because I don't own a 2.40 horse, and all the fellows who do will take out women. Nor is it any better to endure the crush of brown linen, blue vails, and traveling-bags that invade every rail-car, and constitute a heavy atmosphere of cologne, sandwiches, peppermint, and patchouli, mixed ad lib. with dust, in order that at the end of such travel I may be boxed up in an attic, with a broken pitcher and a three-legged chair, and obliged to divert myself with drinking nauseous water and prome-thirty, or thereabout-good teeth, good eyes, nading interminable piazzas.

No: winter for me! at least I used to think so; but now I bless the coming of spring-the renewal of some variety in dress-of some difference in angelic externals-something beside this last winter's universal black and red, which, in my childish days, passed muster as the ordained mourning for the devil. Alas! it raised him with me--but I digress.

It is enough, for purposes of introduction, to say that I am a personable young man, of some property, well educated, and in a respectable business in New York. I do not know that it concerns the public to know what that business is, or whether it is supported by large capital, or if my nose is hooked, or in which pocket I carry my handkerchief, since I am not before a coroner; so I omit these specialities. I board somewhere, and I know some people, and one day last autumn I received an invitation, through the instrumentalities of the gracious Brown, who had me on his list of dancing young men, to a large party in Street, given by the superb

and splendid Mrs. Lollard.

I don't go in for descriptions of women, for very often you can't point out any extra beauty in the very woman who bewitches you; but Miss Lollard was a positive and realizable belle. She had bright brown hair, bright blue eyes, bright red lips, teeth as white as possible, and a color as regular as rouge; but it was real, for I saw it flush all over her white brows often enough to know that: besides, she had a pretty figure, and was as gay, and arch, and coquettish as she had a right to be; so, of course, I fell in love with her on the spot, and chartered all the white camelia bushes in one green-house for the winter, after she told me this was her favorite flower. Her cousin was a clever-looking woman of

and good hair-well-dressed, and a spirited polker; but she couldn't hold a candle to the other, of course.

I danced the German with Miss Lollard till full three o'clock, made more complimentary speeches than I ought to have wasted on one woman, and went home to my boarding-house dizzy with delight because she invited me to call. I got down to the office pretty late next day; found, of course, an unusual press of business, because I wasn't there to do it; smoked six cigars to cool off my head; and got away about nine, fagged out.

It was one of Rachel's nights, and I knew there was a party in the Avenue; so, between the two, I gave up the Lollards for that evening; dropped in at Niblo's-fell asleep in my seathad my pocket picked; went home and to bed. Next day Charley Gregory came in, and, after a smoke, we agreed to stroll down Broadway and see the women, who were all out, the day being clear and cold. Good gracious, how they looked! a stream of red and black, varied only by black and red! Black cloaks, black dresses, Of course I went, as I was not booked for any even black furs, picked out with red flowers, red thing better; and, once there, I did my duty. I scarfs, and here and there a red and black plaid polked with fat girls and thin girls, with low-dress; and all the pretty ones, who could afford necked houris and sparkling humanities. I to be covered up, shrouded in those provoking, never relaxed from my duty for more than breathing space till supper time; and then, having fed my last partner (a fine stout girl, with feet like snow-shovels, as my own experienced to their cost!) with as much lobster salad, wine jelly, ices, and Champagne as a girl who had worked so hard needed to refresh her, I returned her to her mother and came back for my own feed, when suddenly I was seized in a tight grip, and somebody behind me shouted,

66

mystifying, tormenting, bewitching black vails, under which the wearer sees every body and is seen by nobody. Bah! of all selfish, unbearable, deluding institutions, black lace vails with sprigs all over them are the worst—don't I know it? Hang them all!

We were just in front of the Saint Nicholas when the crowd thinned a little, and there came toward us another shape of the red and black— a black hat with rich feathers just tipped with

Halloa, old fellow! how in the world came fiery scarlet, a black velvet cloak of specially you here?"

I recognized Charley Gregory's voice, and gave him one of my two appropriated Champagne bottles, after which act of disinterested friendship we had five minutes for a talk; and he, being intimate in the house, offered to pre

stylish cut, sable furs, a black dress of that thick, shiny, crinkled stuff that women wear lately, and a black vail, through which shone scarlet flowers, glittering eyes, and teeth flashing, as the lady smiled in returning Charley's bow, like fresh rows of corn kernels,