y her husband, and a flimsy and artificial young
lady, are the personages in whom we are expected to find amusement.
Two individuals alone form an exception to the above category, and are
offered to the respectful admiration of the reader,--the one, a shadowy
serjeant-at-law, Mr. Titmarsh's travelling companion, who escapes with
a few side puffs of flattery, which the author struggles not to render
ironical, and a mysterious countess, spoken of in a tone of religious
reverence, and apparently introduced that we may learn by what delicate
discriminations our adoration of rank should be regulated.

"To those who love to hug themselves in a sense of superiority by
admeasurement with the most worthless of their species, in their most
worthless aspects, the Kickleburys on the Rhine will afford an agreeable
treat, especially as the purveyor of the feast offers his own moments of
human weakness as a modest entree in this banquet of erring mortality.
To our own, perhaps unphilosophical, taste the aspirations towards
sentimental perfection of another popular author are infinitely
preferable to these sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose
lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster. Much, in the
present instance, perhaps all, the disagreeable effect of his subject is
no doubt attributable to the absence of Mr. Thackeray's usual brilliancy
of style. A few flashes, however, occur, such as the description of M.
Lenoir's gaming establishment, with the momentous crisis to which it was
subjected, and the quaint and imaginative sallies evoked by the
whole town of Rougetnoirbourg and its lawful prince. These, with the
illustrations, which are spirited enough, redeem the book from an
absolute ban. Mr. Thackeray's pencil is more congenial than his pen. He
cannot draw his men and women with their skins off, and, therefore, the
effigies of his characters are pleasanter to contemplate than the flayed
anatomies of the letter-press."

There is the whole article. And the reader will see (in the paragraph
preceding that memorable one which winds up with the diseased oyster)
that he must be a worthless creature for daring to like the book, as he
could only do so from a desire to hug himself in a sense of superiority
by admeasurement with the most worthless of his fellow-creatures!

The reader is worthless for liking a book of which all the characters
are worthless, except two, which are offered to his respectful
admirati