Complete.

NO one who has seen Douglas Jerrold can ever forget him—a tiny, round-shouldered man, with a pale, aquiline visage, keen, bright, gray eyes; and a profusion of iron-brown hair; usually rather taciturn (though with a never-ceasing play of eye and lips), till an opportunity occurred for shooting forth one of those flashes of wit which made him the conversational chief of his day. The son of a poor manager haunting Sheerness, Jerrold owed little to education or early connection. He entered life as a midshipman, but early gravitated into a London literary career. His first productions were plays, whereof one, based on the ballad of “Black-Eyed Susan” (written when the author was scarce twenty), obtained such success as redeemed theatres and made theatrical reputations, and yet Jerrold never realized from it above seventy pounds. He also wrote novels, but his chief productions were contributions to periodicals. In this walk he had for a long course of years no superior. His “Caudle Lectures,” contributed to Punch, were perhaps the most attractive series of articles that ever appeared in any periodical work.

  The drollery of his writings, though acknowledged to be great, would not perhaps have made Douglas Jerrold the remarkable power he was, if he had not also possessed such a singular strain of colloquial repartee. In his day no man in the metropolis was one half so noted for the brilliancy and originality of his sayings. Jerrold’s wit proved itself to be, unlike Sheridan’s, unpremeditated, for his best sayings were answers to the remarks of others; often, indeed, they consisted of clauses or single words deriving their significancy from their connection with what another person had said. Seldom or never did it consist of a pun or quibble. Generally, it derived its value from the sense lying under it. Always sharp, often caustic, it was never morose or truly ill-natured. Jerrold was, in reality, a kind-hearted man, full of feeling and tenderness, and of true goodness and worth, talent and accomplishment. He was ever the hearty admirer.

  Specimens of conversational wit, apart from the circumstances which produced them, are manifestly placed at a great disadvantage; yet some of Jerrold’s good things bear repetition in print. His definition of dogmatism as “puppyism come to maturity” might be printed by itself in large type and put upon a church door, without suffering any loss of point. What he said on passing the flamingly uxorious epitaph put up by a famous cook on his wife’s tomb—“Mock Turtle!”—might equally have been placed on the tomb itself with perfect preservation of its poignancy. Similarly independent of all external aid is the keenness of his answer to a fussy clergyman, who was expressing opinions very revolting to Jerrold,—to the effect that the real evil of modern times was the surplus population,—“Yes, the surplice population.” It is related that a prosy old gentleman, meeting him as he was passing at his usual quick pace along Regent Street, poised himself into an attitude and began: “Well, Jerrold, my dear boy, what is going on?” “I am,” said the wit, instantly shooting off. Such is an example of the brief, fragmentary character of the wit of Jerrold. On another occasion it consisted of but a monosyllable. It was at a dinner of artists that a barrister present, having his health drunk in connection with the law, began an embarrassed answer by saying he did not see how the law could be considered as one of the arts, when Jerrold jerked in the word “black,” and threw the company into convulsions. A bore in company remarking how charmed he was with the Prodigue, and that there was one particular song which always quite carried him away,—“Would that I could sing it!” ejaculated the wit.

  What a profound rebuke to the inner consciousness school of modern poets there is in a little occurrence of Jerrold’s life connected with a volume of the writings of Robert Browning! When recovering from a violent fit of sickness, he had been ordered to refrain from all reading and writing, which he had obeyed wonderfully well, although he found the monotony of a seaside life very trying to his active mind. One morning he had been left by Mrs. Jerrold alone, while she had gone shopping, and during her absence a parcel of books from London arrived, among them being Browning’s “Sordello,” which he commenced to read. Line after line, page after page, was devoured by the convalescent wit, but not a consecutive idea could he get from that mystic production. The thought then struck him that he had lost his reason during his illness, and that he was so imbecile that he did not know it. A perspiration burst from his brow, and he sat silent and thoughtful. When his wife returned, he thrust the mysterious volume into her hands, crying out, “Read this, my dear!” After several attempts to make any sense out of the first page or so, she returned it, saying: “Bother the gibberish! I don’t understand a word of it!” “Thank heaven,” cried the delighted wit, “then I am not an idiot!”

  His winding up of Wordsworth’s poems was equally good, “He reminds me,” said Jerrold, “of the Beadle of Parnassus, strutting about in a cocked hat, or, to be more poetical, of a modern Moses, who sits on Pisgah with his back obstinately turned to that promised land, the Future; he is only fit for those old-maid tabbies, the Muses! His Pegasus is a broken-winded hack, with a grammatical bridle, and a monosyllabic bit between his teeth!”

  Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, in his Life of his father, groups a few additional good things which will not here be considered superfluous. “A dinner is discussed. Douglas Jerrold listens quietly, possibly tired of dinners, and declining pressing invitations to be present. In a few minutes he will chime in: ‘If an earthquake were to engulf England to-morrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.’ A friend drops in, and walks across the smoking-room to Douglas Jerrold’s chair. The friend wants to rouse Mr. Jerrold’s sympathies in behalf of a mutual acquaintance who is in want of a round sum of money. But this mutual friend has already sent his hat about among his literary brethren on more than one occasion. Mr. ——’s hat is becoming an institution, and friends were grieved at the indelicacy of the proceeding. On the occasion to which I now refer, the bearer of the hat was received by my father with evident dissatisfaction. ‘Well,’ said Douglas Jerrold, ‘how much does —— want this time?’ ‘Why, just a four and two noughts will, I think, put him straight,’ the bearer of the hat replied. Jerrold: ‘Well, put me down for one of the noughts.’ ‘The Chain of Events,’ playing at the Lyceum Theatre, is mentioned. ‘Humph!’ says Douglas Jerrold. ‘I am afraid the manager will find it a door chain, strong enough to keep everybody out of the house.’ Then somewhat lackadaisical young members drop in. They assume that the Club is not sufficiently west; they hint at something near Pall Mall, and a little more style. Douglas Jerrold rebukes them. ‘No, no, gentlemen; not near Pall Mall; we might catch coronets.’ A stormy discussion ensues, during which a gentleman rises to settle the matter in dispute. Waving his hands majestically over the excited disputants, he begins: ‘Gentlemen, all I want is common sense.’ ‘Exactly,’ says Douglas Jerrold, ‘that is precisely what you do want.’ The discussion is lost in a burst of laughter. The talk lightly passes to the writings of a certain Scot. A member holds that the Scot’s name should be handed down to a grateful posterity. Douglas Jerrold: ‘I quite agree with you that he should have an itch in the Temple of Fame.’ Brown drops in. Brown is said by all his friends to be the toady of Jones. The assurance of Jones in a room is a proof that Brown is in the passage. When Jones has the influenza, Brown dutifully catches a cold in the head. Douglas Jerrold to Brown: ‘Have you heard the rumor that’s flying about town?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, they say Jones pays the dog tax for you.’ Douglas Jerrold is seriously disappointed with a certain book written by one of his friends, and has expressed his disappointment. Friend: ‘I have heard you said —— was the worst book I ever wrote.’ Jerrold: ‘No, I didn’t. I said it was the worst book anybody ever wrote.’ A supper of sheep’s heads is proposed, and presently served. One gentleman present is particularly enthusiastic on the excellence of the dish, and as he throws down his knife and fork, exclaims: ‘Well, sheep’s head forever, say I!’ Jerrold: ‘There’s egotism!’”

  It is worth while to note the succession of the prime jokers of London before Jerrold. The series begins with King Charles II., to whom succeeded the Earl of Dorset, after whom came the Earl of Chesterfield, who left his mantle to George Selwyn, whose successor was a man he detested, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, after whom was Jekyl, then Theodore Hook, whose successor was Jerrold; eight in all during a term of nearly two hundred years.