sed the word
"buz" nowadays some wiseacre would accuse him of vulgarity or of false
English.) The general criticism in his work is always sane and vigorous,
even though there may be flaws in the particular censures; and it is
very seldom that even in his utterances of most flagrant prejudice
anything really illiberal can be found. He had read much too widely and
with too much discrimination for that. His reading had been corrected by
too much of the cheerful give-and-take of social discussion, his dry
light was softened and coloured by too frequent rainbows, the Apollonian
rays being reflected on Bacchic dew. Anything that might otherwise seem
hard and harsh in Peacock's perpetual ridicule is softened and mellowed
by this pervading good fellowship which, as it is never pushed to the
somewhat extravagant limits of the _Noctes Ambrosianae_, so it
distinguishes Peacock himself from the authors to whom in pure style he
is most akin, and to whom Lord Houghton has already compared him--the
French tale-tellers from Anthony Hamilton to Voltaire. In these, perfect
as their form often is, there is constantly a slight want of geniality,
a perpetual clatter and glitter of intellectual rapier and dagger which
sometimes becomes rather irritating and teasing to ear and eye. Even the
objects of Peacock's severest sarcasm, his Galls and Vamps and
Eavesdrops, are allowed to join in the choruses and the bumpers of his
easy-going symposia. The sole nexus is not cash payment but something
much more agreeable, and it is allowed that even Mr. Mystic had "some
super-excellent madeira." Yet how far the wine is from getting above the
wit in these merry books is not likely to escape even the most
unsympathetic reader. The mark may be selected recklessly or unjustly,
but the arrows always fly straight to it.

Peacock, in short, has eminently that quality of literature which may be
called recreation. It may be that he is not extraordinarily instructive,
though there is a good deal of quaint and not despicable erudition
wrapped up in his apparently careless pages. It may be that he does not
prove much; that he has, in fact, very little concern to prove anything.
But in one of the only two modes of refreshment and distraction possible
in literature, he is a very great master. The first of these modes is
that of creation--that in which the writer spirits his readers away into
some scene and manner of life quite different from that with which they
are