MR. SALA'S LECTURES.

Press, Volume XLII, Issue 6247, 26 September 1885, Page 3

MR. SALA'S LECTURES.

* DJCKENS Am THACKERAY. "In announcing the Jatla of hie last lecture lit Sala conjured with two potent names, cad it was not surprising that he succeeded in calling together an audience not only larger than those that preceded it, but also,more representative of all classes. The lecture was the best of his series. Mr Sala began his account of Dickens by describing hitn as the reviver o£ the humorous epia, the form in which Fielding and Smollett had: done such good work. His books were pictures of life, written pueris virginibusquc. Hβ appeared when " Tom and Jen;" wa3 the beet specimen of comic - fiction, which had sunk to coarseness and brutality. The lecturer sketched Dickens* early career, and arriving at the publication of •• Pickurick" dwelt on the genius which transformed the contemptible characters of i*s first pages into the loveable friends i of ita lasst. The novels which followed it he praised, not only for themselves, bat for the great reforms advocated beneath their surface. Their author was eminently beautiful. He had a slight oval face, soft silky hair, auburn whiskers, and blue-grey eyes; and hia emile was very sweet. He was the greatest dandy of the day, always excepting Count d'Oraay. He was not a good editor of tbe "Daily News," but his weekly journal, "Household "Words/ , was a great success. It was through that journal, as already described in these columns, that Mr Sala made his acquaintance, and a very close acquaintance it seems to have bees, for Mr Sala was a frequent visitor at GadshUl, where Dickens delighted in an eccentric but hearty hospitality. Owing to his lack of early academic culture, his talk was not of books but of the l*et play or the last murder., ■Hβ was in politics a radical, in easiness an ideal organiser, and in hie leisure an accomplished actor and stage manager.; His charity was great, but there was a limit to it, and he was never victimised twice by one impostor. His la3t years were spoiled, and hie death hastened by overwork, to which he was tempted by an insane desire to heap up wealth. As for hia place in literature is could not yet be ascertained, but he was at least certain to stand among the greatest, while every year would - give him new thousands of readers wherever the English language was spoken. [Applause.] Mr Sala's acquaintance with Thackeray, as an author, began with the early writings in Prazer—the " Yellowplush Papers," "Men's "Wives," and the " Pitzboodle Papers"—in which, though they appeared over various signatures, he recognised the same caustic nervous satirical style, the same waggery, the same real pathos. Then he met the man .himself—very tall, with brown hair, and a face whose features were finely chiselled, but whose beauty was marred by the nose -having been crushed and flattened in a schoolboy fight, so that it looked as the noses,of eculptured recumbent warriors in old ißngiiWh churches often look. He was so tall that a utory was told of Mβ having gone to see a> giant, the showman refusing to let him pay on the ground that he never took money from i professionals. He ~ always carried his ; hands in his packets, and is so reprej sen ted in his portrait at the Eeform Club. He was remarkably frank in conver- • cation, and Mr Sala was so fortunate as to ] gain his friendship. Owing to his faacy for concealing hia individuality as a writer, Thackeray was at this time very, little known outside the literary world. Iα that the clever. contributor to " Punch and "Praser" was recognised as a great scholar and a great artist; but of the honeatand able work he bad done in the writing of leading articles, few were aware. The ballade of " Pleeceman X," his moet popular productions, had appeared anony- | mously. Suddenly all this obscurity was > dissipated by the- enormous success of " Vanity Pair," and Tnackeray was famous. "Vanity Pair,* , refused by four publiahere before Bradbury and Evans accepted it, placed its author, at one bound,' on! a level with the popular idol Dickens. It i showed the nation a gallery of portraits I never sees before—the Marquis of Steyne, ; j Bawdon Crawley, Amelia Osborne, anil ,! Becky Sharp—Becky Sharp, who is sV ' i clever, that Mr Sala does not know i j whether to love or hate her. It took' the reader Behind the scenes df the Battle of Waterloo; and avoid-" , ing all description of the battle j save two lines to tell of George • Oeborae lying dead on Mont St. Jean, iit showed aim as never was shown before what such a battle really means. That was Thackeray's greatest work, the lecturer thought. There was ] comes," with pure, blameless, gallant : Colonel Newcome^-CoheereJ—whom to know was to love; bat it was a j kind of artifltio reflection of Don Quixote, ! and as such he could not endorse the ' preference Thackeray- himself gave it. I Thackeray made a successful reading tour I in America, but showed his taste and wisdom by writing: nothing about toe ' Americans when he-returned. He made a ' great success,with the," Cornhill Magij zinc," and a dismal failure with his public ! speaking whenever he attempted it, al-, I though he read and lectured beautifully. j When he died he was deeply regretted, for jhe had aboundeq in charity and good ; deeds. . - _ r To sum up, Dickens was a great creator, a delineator, a dramatist; Thackeray; an unrivalled dißseotor of the human heart. Both were princes of the pen, who used their sovereignty not only to amuse, divert, an 4 terrify, but t» do good and further" the cause of .civilisation and of posterity. • '•■<>' Mr H. K. Wbbb briefly proposed a vote of thanks to Mr Sala for the pleasure his lectures had given, and it was carried by acclamation. Mr. Bai,£, in returning thanks, expressed a hope that he might come to Christchurch again.