The Chambers and the Palace were shut to him; but the rogue, driven out of his rogue's paradise, saw "that the world was all before him where to choose," and found no lack of opportunities for exercising his wit.There was the Bar, with its roguish practitioners, rascally attorneys, stupid juries, and forsworn judges; there was the Bourse, with all its gambling, swindling, and hoaxing, its cheats and its dupes; the Medical Profession, and the quacks who ruled it, alternately; the Stage, and the cant that was prevalent there; the Fashion, and its thousand follies and extravagances.
Robert Macaire had all these to exploiter.Of all the empire, through all the ranks, professions, the lies, crimes, and absurdities of men, he may make sport at will; of all except of a certain class.Like Bluebeard's wife, he may see everything, but is bidden TO BEWARE OF THE BLUE CHAMBER.Robert is more wise than Bluebeard's wife, and knows that it would cost him his head to enter it.Robert, therefore, keeps aloof for the moment.Would there be any use in his martyrdom? Bluebeard cannot live for ever;perhaps, even now, those are on their way (one sees a suspicious cloud of dust or two) that are to destroy him.
In the meantime Robert and his friend have been furnishing the designs that we have before us, and of which perhaps the reader will be edified by a brief description.We are not, to be sure, to judge of the French nation by M.Macaire, any more than we are to judge of our own national morals in the last century by such a book as the "Beggars' Opera;" but upon the morals and the national manners, works of satire afford a world of light that one would in vain look for in regular books of history.Doctor Smollett would have blushed to devote any considerable portion of his pages to a discussion of the acts and character of Mr.Jonathan Wild, such a figure being hardly admissible among the dignified personages who usually push all others out from the possession of the historical page; but a chapter of that gentleman's memoirs, as they are recorded in that exemplary recueil--the "Newgate Calendar;" nay, a canto of the great comic epic (involving many fables, and containing much exaggeration, but still having the seeds of truth)which the satirical poet of those days wrote in celebration of him--we mean Fielding's "History of Jonathan Wild the Great"--does seem to us to give a more curious picture of the manners of those times than any recognized history of them.At the close of his history of George II., Smollett condescends to give a short chapter on Literature and Manners.He speaks of Glover's "Leonidas," Cibber's "Careless Husband," the poems of Mason, Gray, the two Whiteheads, "the nervous style, extensive erudition, and superior sense of a Corke; the delicate taste, the polished muse, and tender feeling of a Lyttelton." "King," he says, "shone unrivalled in Roman eloquence, the female sex distinguished themselves by their taste and ingenuity.Miss Carter rivalled the celebrated Dacier in learning and critical knowledge; Mrs.Lennox signalized herself by many successful efforts of genius both in poetry and prose; and Miss Reid excelled the celebrated Rosalba in portrait-painting, both in miniature and at large, in oil as well as in crayons.The genius of Cervantes was transferred into the novels of Fielding, who painted the characters and ridiculed the follies of life with equal strength, humor, and propriety.The field of history and biography was cultivated by many writers of ability, among whom we distinguish the copious Guthrie, the circumstantial Ralph, the laborious Carte, the learned and elegant Robertson, and above all, the ingenious, penetrating, and comprehensive Hume," &c.&c.We will quote no more of the passage.Could a man in the best humor sit down to write a graver satire? Who cares for the tender muse of Lyttelton? Who knows the signal efforts of Mrs.Lennox's genius? Who has seen the admirable performances, in miniature and at large, in oil as well as in crayons, of Miss Reid? Laborious Carte, and circumstantial Ralph, and copious Guthrie, where are they, their works, and their reputation? Mrs.Lennox's name is just as clean wiped out of the list of worthies as if she had never been born; and Miss Reid, though she was once actual flesh and blood, "rival in miniature and at large" of the celebrated Rosalba, she is as if she had never been at all; her little farthing rushlight of a soul and reputation having burnt out, and left neither wick nor tallow.Death, too, has overtaken copious Guthrie and circumstantial Ralph.Only a few know whereabouts is the grave where lies laborious Carte; and yet, O wondrous power of genius!
Fielding's men and women are alive, though History's are not.The progenitors of circumstantial Ralph sent forth, after much labor and pains of making, educating, feeding, clothing, a real man child, a great palpable mass of flesh, bones, and blood (we say nothing about the spirit), which was to move through the world, ponderous, writing histories, and to die, having achieved the title of circumstantial Ralph; and lo! without any of the trouble that the parents of Ralph had undergone, alone perhaps in a watch or spunging-house, fuddled most likely, in the blandest, easiest, and most good-humored way in the world, Henry Fielding makes a number of men and women on so many sheets of paper, not only more amusing than Ralph or Miss Reid, but more like flesh and blood, and more alive now than they.Is not Amelia preparing her husband's little supper? Is not Miss Snapp chastely preventing the crime of Mr.
Firebrand? Is not Parson Adams in the midst of his family, and Mr.
