The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. TitmarshThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Christmas stories, English
For a woman all soul, she certainly eats as much as any woman I ever
saw. The sufferings she has had to endure, are, she says, beyond
compare; the poems which she writes breathe a withering passion, a
smouldering despair, an agony of spirit that would melt the soul of a
drayman, were he to read them. Well, it is a comfort to see that she
can dance of nights, and to know (for the habits of illustrious literary
persons are always worth knowing) that she eats a hot mutton-chop for
breakfast every morning of her blighted existence.
She lives in a boardinghouse at Brompton, and comes to the party in a
fly.
MR. HICKS.
It is worth twopence to see Miss Bunion and Poseidon Hicks, the great
poet, conversing with one another, and to talk of one to the other
afterwards. How they hate each other! I (in my wicked way) have sent
Hicks almost raving mad, by praising Bunion to him in confidence; and
you can drive Bunion out of the room by a few judicious panegyrics of
Hicks.
Hicks first burst upon the astonished world with poems, in the Byronic
manner: "The Death-Shriek," "The Bastard of Lara," "The Atabal," "The
Fire-Ship of Botzaris," and other works. His "Love Lays," in Mr. Moore's
early style, were pronounced to be wonderfully precocious for a young
gentleman then only thirteen, and in a commercial academy, at Tooting.
Subsequently, this great bard became less passionate and more
thoughtful; and, at the age of twenty, wrote "Idiosyncracy" (in forty
books, 4to.): "Ararat," "a stupendous epic," as the reviews said;
and "The Megatheria," "a magnificent contribution to our pre-Adamite
literature," according to the same authorities. Not having read these
works, it would ill become me to judge them; but I know that poor
Jingle, the publisher, always attributed his insolvency to the latter
epic, which was magnificently printed in elephant folio.
Hicks has now taken a classical turn, and has brought out "Poseidon,"
"Iacchus," "Hephaestus," and I dare say is going through the mythology.
But I should not like to try him at a passage of the Greek Delectus,
any more than twenty thousand others of us who have had a "classical
education."
Hicks was taken in an inspired attitude regarding the chandelier, and
pretending he didn't know that Miss Pettifer was looking at him.
Her name is Anna Maria (daughter of Higgs and Pettifer, solicitors,
Bedford Row); but Hicks calls her "Ianthe" in his album verses, and is
himself an eminent drysalter in the city.
MISS MEGGOT.
Poor Miss Meggot is not so lucky as Miss Bunion. Nobody comes to dance
with HER, though she has a new frock on, as she calls it, and rather a
pretty foot, which she always manages to stick out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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