_Friday._--Second reading Irish Land Bill through at last. Passed stage without division, which seems odd considering apprehension with which Opposition regard it. Situation largely due to BOANERGES RUSSELL, one of few men who understand Bill. Explained it in luminous speech, like some others thrown away on scanty audience. BOANERGES later indicated his impartial attitude by seating himself between landlord and tenant, represented by JOSEPH of Birmingham and son AUSTEN. JOE incidentally mentions he has only one tenant, that is AUSTEN, "who," he added, with plaintive note, which found echo with the Irish landlords, "pays no rent, and is always coming down on me for compensation." _Business done._--Irish Land Bill read second time. * * * * * LITERARY "FOOD AND FEEDING." The present generation affirms that it cannot away with _Pickwick_, and is not attracted by _Vanity Fair_. The balance of modern opinion would be rather in favour of THACKERAY than of DICKENS. Take, for example, the two works already quoted, _Pickwick_ and _Vanity Fair_. A common modern objection made to _Pickwick_ is, that the characters in _Pickwick_ are perpetually guttling or imbibing, or both simultaneously. This is, to a certain extent, true. But how about THACKERAY'S characters in _Vanity Fair?_ A careful student has sent us a list of the numerous eatings and drinkings in both novels. In _Pickwick_, reckoning from the brandy-and-water partaken of by _Mr. Jingle_, at the Pickwickians' expense, after the scene with the pugnacious hackney-coachman, and finishing with the breakfast that celebrated the marriage of _Mr. Snodgrass_ with _Miss Emily Wardle_, there are exactly (so we are informed) one hundred and one instances of drinking and eating; some of them being of drinking only, unqualified. In _Vanity Fair_, from the introduction of _Miss Pinkerton's_ "seed cake," to _Becky_ taking _Amelia_ a cup of tea, _vide_ chapter sixty-seven, we learn, on the same authority, that there are one hundred and fifteen cases "allowed for refreshment" in some form or other. A collection of the meals of heroes and heroines in the most popular works of fiction, and _menus_ compiled therefrom, might be found interesting, especially if carefully criticised by Sir HENRY THOMPSON in a separate chapter to be added to the next edition of his really invaluable work, namely, _Food and Feeding_. Do the modern novelists feed their characters as plentifully as did DICKENS and THACKERAY theirs? Be this as it may, these two great Twin Brethren--so utterly dissimilar in every thing except in the possession of the gift of genius--fed their readers well and bountifully. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: _ _ represents italic script. ^ represents a superscript. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 108, April 13, 1895, by Various