The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XXXVI. The Pall Mall Gazette

  Considerable success at first attended the new journal. It was generallystated, that an influential political party supported the paper; andgreat names were cited amongst the contributors to its columns. Wasthere any foundation for these rumours? We are not at liberty to saywhether they were ill-founded; but this much we may divulge, that anarticle upon foreign policy, which was generally attributed to a nobleLord, whose connexion with the Foreign Office is very well known, wasin reality composed by Captain Shandon, in the parlour of the Bear andStaff public-house near Whitehall Stairs, whither the printer's boyhad tracked him, and where a literary ally of his, Mr. Bludyer, had atemporary residence; and that a series of papers on finance questions,which were universally supposed to be written by a great Statesman ofthe House of Commons, were in reality composed by Mr. George Warringtonof the Upper Temple.

  That there may have been some dealings between the Pall Mall Gazette andthis influential party, is very possible, Percy Popjoy (whose father,Lord Falconet, was a member of the party) might be seen not unfrequentlyascending the stairs to Warrington's chambers; and some informationappeared in the paper which it gave a character, and could only be gotfrom very peculiar sources. Several poems, feeble in thought, but loudand vigorous in expression, appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, with thesignature of "P. P."; and it must be owned that his novel was praised inthe new journal in a very outrageous manner.

  In the political department of the paper Mr. Pen did not take any share;but he was a most active literary contributor. The Pall Mall Gazette hadits offices, as we have heard, in Catherine Street, in the Strand, andhither Pen often came with his manuscripts in his pocket, and with agreat deal of bustle and pleasure; such as a man feels at the outsetof his literary career, when to see himself in print is still a novelsensation, and he yet pleases himself to think that his writings arecreating some noise in the world.

  Here it was that Mr. Jack Finucane, the sub-editor, compiled with pasteand scissors the Journal of which he was supervisor. With an eagle eyehe scanned all the paragraphs of all the newspapers which had anythingto do with the world of fashion over which he presided. He didn't let adeath or a dinner-party of the aristocracy pass without having the eventrecorded in the columns of his Journal; and from the most reconditeprovincial prints, and distant Scotch and Irish newspapers, he fishedout astonishing paragraphs and intelligence regarding the upper classesof society. It was a grand, nay, a touching sight, for a philosopher, tosee Jack Finucane, Esquire, with a plate of meat from the cookshop andglass of porter from the public-house, for his meal, recounting thefeasts of the great as if he had been present at them; and in tatteredtrousers and dingy shirt-sleeves, cheerfully describing and arrangingthe most brilliant fetes of the world of fashion. The incongruity ofFinucane's avocation, and his manners and appearance amused his newfriend Pen. Since he left his own native village, where his rankprobably was not very, lofty Jack had seldom seen any society but suchas used the parlour of the taverns which he frequented, whereas from hiswriting you would have supposed that he dined with ambassadors, and thathis common lounge was the bow-window of White's. Errors of description,it is true, occasionally slipped from his pen; but the BallinafadSentinel, of which he was own correspondent, suffered by these, not thePall Mall Gazette, in which Jack was not permitted to write much, hisLondon chiefs thinking that the scissors and the paste were betterwielded by him than the pen.

  Pen took a great deal of pains with the writing of his reviews, andhaving a pretty fair share of desultory reading, acquired in the earlyyears of his life an eager fancy and a keen sense of fun, his articlespleased his chief and the public, and he was proud to think that hedeserved the money which he earned. We may be sure that the Pall MallGazette was taken in regularly at Fairoaks, and read with delight by thetwo ladies there. It was received at Clavering Park, too, where we knowthere was a young lady of great literary tastes; and old Doctor Portmanhimself, to whom the widow sent her paper after she had got her son'sarticles by heart, signified his approval of Pen's productions, sayingthat the lad had spirit, taste, and fancy, and wrote, if not like ascholar, at any rate like a gentleman.

  And what was the astonishment and delight of our friend Major Pendennis,on walking into one of his clubs, the Regent, where Wenham, LordFalconet, and some other gentlemen of good reputation and fashion wereassembled, to hear them one day talking over a number of the Pall MallGazette, and of an article which appeared in its columns, making somebitter fun of the book recently published by the wife of a celebratedmember of the opposition party. The book in question was a Book ofTravels in Spain and Italy, by the Countess of Muffborough, in whichit was difficult to say which was the most wonderful, the French or theEnglish, in which languages her ladyship wrote indifferently, and uponthe blunders of which the critic pounced with delightful mischief.The critic was no other than Pen: he jumped and danced round about hissubject with the greatest jocularity and high spirits: he showed up thenoble lady's faults with admirable mock gravity and decorum. There wasnot a word in the article which was not polite and gentlemanlike; andthe unfortunate subject of the criticism was scarified and laughed atduring the operation. Wenham's bilious countenance was puckered up withmalign pleasure as he read the critique. Lady Muffborough had not askedhim to her parties during the last year. Lord Falconet giggled andlaughed with all his heart; Lord Muffborough and he had been rivals eversince they began life; and these complimented Major Pendennis, who untilnow had scarcely paid any attention to some hints which his Fairoakscorrespondence threw out of "dear Arthur's constant and severe literaryoccupations, which I fear may undermine the poor boy's health," and hadthought any notice of Mr. Pen and his newspaper connexions quite belowhis dignity as a Major and a gentleman.

  But when the oracular Wenham praised the boy's production; when LordFalconet, who had had the news from Percy Popjoy, approved of the geniusof young Pen; when the great Lord Steyne himself, to whom the Majorreferred the article, laughed and sniggered over it, swore it wascapital, and that the Muffborough would writhe under it, like a whaleunder a harpoon, the Major, as in duty bound, began to admire his nephewvery much, said, "By gad, the young rascal had some stuff in him, andwould do something; he had always said he would do something;" and witha hand quite tremulous with pleasure, the old gentleman sate down towrite to the widow at Fairoaks all that the great folks had said inpraise of Pen; and he wrote to the young rascal, too, asking when hewould come and eat a chop with his old uncle, and saying that he wascommissioned to take him to dinner at Gaunt House, for Lord Steyne likedanybody who could entertain him, whether by his folly, wit, or by hisdulness, by his oddity, affectation, good spirits, or any other quality.Pen flung his letter across the table to Warrington: perhaps he wasdisappointed that the other did not seem to be much affected by it.

  The courage of young critics is prodigious: they clamber up to thejudgment-seat, and, with scarce a hesitation, give their opinionupon works the most intricate or profound. Had Macaulay's History orHerschel's Astronomy been put before Pen at this period, he would havelooked through the volumes, meditated his opinion over a cigar, andsignified his august approval of either author, as if the critic hadbeen their born superior and indulgent master and patron. By the helpof the Biographie Universelle or the British Museum, he would be able totake a rapid resume of a historical period, and allude to names, dates,and facts, in such a masterly, easy way, as to astonish his mamma athome, who wondered where her boy could have acquired such a prodigiousstore of reading and himself, too, when he came to read over hisarticles two or three months after they had been composed, and when hehad forgotten the subject and the books which he had consulted. At thatperiod of his life, Mr. Pen owns that he would not have hesitated,at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass his opinion upon the greatestscholars, or to give a judgment upon the Encyclopaedia. Luckily hehad Warrington to laugh at him and to keep down his impertinence bya constant and wholesome ridicule, or he might have become conceitedbeyond a
ll sufferance; for Shandon liked the dash and flippancy of hisyoung aide-de-camp, and was, indeed, better pleased with Pen's light andbrilliant flashes, than with the heavier metal which his elder coadjutorbrought to bear.

  But though he might justly be blamed on the score of impertinence and acertain prematurity of judgment, Mr. Pen was a perfectly honest critic;a great deal too candid for Mr. Bungay's purposes, indeed, who grumbledsadly at his impartiality. Pen and his chief, the Captain, had a disputeupon this subject one day. "In the name of common-sense, Mr. Pendennis,"Shandon asked, "what have you been doing--praising one of Mr. Bacon'sbooks? Bungay has been with me in a fury this morning at seeing alaudatory article upon one of the works of the odious firm over theway."

  Pen's eyes opened with wide astonishment. "Do you mean to say," heasked, "that we are to praise no books that Bacon publishes: or that, ifthe books are good, we are to say they are bad?"

  "My good young friend--for what do you suppose a benevolent publisherundertakes a critical journal, to benefit his rival?" Shandon inquired.

  "To benefit himself certainly, but to tell the truth too," Pen said,"ruat coelum, to tell the truth."

  "And my prospectus," said Shandon, with a laugh and a sneer; "do youconsider that was a work of mathematical accuracy of statement?"

  "Pardon me, that is not the question," Pen said "and I don't think youvery much care to argue it. I had some qualms of conscience about thatsame prospectus, and debated the matter with my friend Warrington. Weagreed, however," Pen said, laughing "that because the prospectus wasrather declamatory and poetical, and the giant was painted upon theshow-board rather larger than the original, who was inside the caravan;we need not be too scrupulous about this trifling inaccuracy, butmight do our part of the show, without loss of character or remorse ofconscience. We are the fiddlers, and play our tunes only; you are theshowman."

  "And leader of the van," said Shandon. "Well, I am glad that yourconscience gave you leave to play for us."

  "Yes, but," said Pen, with a fine sense of the dignity of his position,"we are all party men in England, and I will stick to my party like aBriton. I will be as good-natured as you like to our own side, he is afool who quarrels with his own nest; and I will hit the enemy as hard asyou like--but with fair play, Captain, if you please. One can't tellall the truth, I suppose; but one can tell nothing but the truth; andI would rather starve, by Jove, and never earn another penny by my pen"(this redoubted instrument had now been in use for some six weeks,and Pen spoke of it with vast enthusiasm and respect) "than strike anopponent an unfair blow, or, if called upon to place him, rank him belowhis honest desert."

  "Well, Mr. Pendennis, when we want Bacon smashed, we must get some otherhammer to do it," Shandon said, with fatal good-nature; and very likelythought within himself, "A few years hence perhaps the young gentlemanwon't be so squeamish." The veteran Condottiere himself was no longer soscrupulous. He had fought and killed on so many a side for many a yearpast, that remorse had long left him. "Gad," said he, "you've a tenderconscience, Mr. Pendennis. It's the luxury of all novices, and I mayhave had one once myself; but that sort of bloom wears off with therubbing of the world, and I'm not going to the trouble myself of puttingon an artificial complexion, like our pious friend Wenham, or our modelof virtue, Wagg."

  "I don't know whether some people's hypocrisy is not better, Captain,than other's cynicism."

  "It's more profitable, at any rate," said the Captain, biting hisnails. "That Wenham is as dull a quack as ever quacked: and you see thecarriage in which he drove to dinner. Faith, it'll be a long time beforeMrs. Shandon will take a drive in her own chariot. God help her, poorthing!" And Pen went away from his chief, after their little dispute andcolloquy, pointing his own moral to the Captain's tale, and thinkingto himself, "Behold this man, stored with genius, wit, learning, and ahundred good natural gifts: see how he has wrecked them, by palteringwith his honesty, and forgetting to respect himself. Wilt thou rememberthyself, O Pen? thou art conceited enough! Wilt thou sell thy honour fora bottle? No, by heaven's grace, we will be honest, whatever befalls,and our mouths shall only speak the truth when they open."

  A punishment, or, at least, a trial, was in store for Mr. Pen. In thevery next number of the Pall Mall Gazette, Warrington read out, withroars of laughter, an article which by no means amused Arthur Pendennis,who was himself at work with a criticism for the next week's numberof the same journal; and in which the Spring Annual was ferociouslymaltreated by some unknown writer. The person of all most cruelly mauledwas Pen himself. His verses had not appeared with his own name in theSpring Annual, but under an assumed signature. As he had refusedto review the book, Shandon had handed it over to Mr. Bludyer,with directions to that author to dispose of it. And he had done soeffectually. Mr. Bludyer, who was a man of very considerable talent, andof a race which, I believe, is quite extinct in the press of our time,had a certain notoriety in his profession, and reputation for savagehumour. He smashed and trampled down the poor spring flowers with nomore mercy than a bull would have on a parterre; and having cut up thevolume to his heart's content, went and sold it at a bookstall, andpurchased a pint of brandy with the proceeds of the volume.