nd gave the 'whoop' in chorus
with general applause. He rode to hounds in a pepper and salt
frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the county."

The following is a sample of the conversation he holds with his wife,
who, we are told "wrote this worthy Divine's sermons"--

"'Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion
of the living, and that Methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to
Parliament,' continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.

"'Sir Pitt will do anything,' said the Rector's wife, 'we must get
Miss Crawley to make him promise it, James.'

"'Pitt will promise anything,' replied the brother, 'he promised
he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd
build the new wing to the Rectory. And it is to this man's
son--this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer, of a Rawdon
Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say it's
unchristian. By Jove it is. The infamous dog has got every vice
except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother."

"'Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds,' interposed
his wife.

"'I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don't bully me. Didn't
he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't he rob young Lord Dovedale at the
Cocoa Tree? Didn't he cross the fight between Bill Soames and the
Cheshire Trump by which I lost forty pound? You know he did; and as
for women, why you heard that before me, in my own magistrates
room--'

"'For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley,' said the lady, 'spare me the
details.'"

It was in a great measure to this severe sarcasm that Thackeray owed his
popularity. He justly observes:--

"My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you ... such
people there are living in the world, faithless, hopeless,
charityless; let us have at them, dear friends, with might and
main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and
fools; and it was to combat and expose such as those no doubt, that
laughter was made."

But he does not always seem to attribute merriment to this humble and
unpleasant origin; he produces some passages really meant for enjoyment,
and doing justice to his gift, attacks frivolities and failings, which
are not of an important kind. Thus, he speaks in a jocund strain of the
vanity of "fashionable fiddle-daddle and feeble court slip-slop," a