els of
the Forties, say from 1835 to 1850, that I was requested to examine and
report upon. But I shrank from the colossal task. I am no Mr. Stanley;
and the length, the difficulties, the arduousness of the labour appalled
me. Besides, I do not know where that land lies, the land of the old
Fashionable Novel, the Kor of which Thackeray's Lady Fanny Flummery is
the Ayesha. What were the names of the old novels, and who were the
authors, and in the circulating library of what undiscoverable watering-
place are they to be found? We have heard of Mrs. Gore, we have heard of
_Tremayne_, _and Emilia Wyndham_, and the _Bachelor of the Albany_; and
many of us have read _Pelham_, or know him out of Carlyle's art, and
those great curses which he spoke. But who was the original, or who were
the originals, that sat for the portrait of the "Fashionable Authoress,"
Lady Fanny Flummery? and of what work is _Lords and Liveries_ a parody?
The author is also credited with _Dukes and Dejeuners_, _Marchionesses
and Milliners_, etc. Could, any candidate in a literary examination name
the prototypes? "Let mantua-makers puff her, but not men," says
Thackeray, speaking of Lady Fanny Flummery, "and the Fashionable
Authoress is no more. Blessed, blessed thought! No more fiddle-faddle
novels! When will you arrive, O happy Golden Age!"

Well, it has arrived, though we are none the happier for all that. The
Fashionable Novel has ceased to exist, and the place of the fashionable
authoress knows her no more. Thackeray plainly detested Lady Fanny. He
writes about her, her books, her critics, her successes, with a certain
bitterness. Can it be possible that a world which rather neglected
_Barry Lyndon_ was devoted to _Marchionesses and Milliners_? Lady Fanny
is represented as having editors and reviewers at her feet; she sits
among the flowers, like the Sirens, and around her are the bones of
critics corrupt in death. She is puffed for the sake of her bouquets,
her dinners, her affabilities and condescensions. She gives a reviewer a
great garnet pin, adorned wherewith he paces the town. Her adorers
compare her to "him who sleeps by Avon." In one of Mr. Black's novels
there is a lady of this kind, who captivates the tribe of "Log Rollers,"
as Mr. Black calls them. This lady appears to myself to be a quite
impossible She. One has never met her with her wiles, nor come across
her track, even, and seen the bodies and the bones of those