self-complacent age, in which every one was shouting "Forward!" and no
one was expected to inquire "Whither?" he was necessarily out of
sympathy. To the shouters he seemed irrational and irrelevant. They
called him "immoral" when they were solemn, and "whimsical" when they
were merry; and "whimsical" is the epithet with which we are tempted to
label him, if labelled he must be. Genius makes strange bedfellows; and
Peacock's intellectual candour finds itself associated with the
emotional capriciousness of Sterne. Truly, he is always unexpected, and
as often as not superficially inconsequent. To state the three parts of
a syllogism is not in his way; and by implication he challenged half the
major premises in vogue. His scorn of rough-and-ready standards,
commonplaces, and what used to be called "the opinion of all sensible
men" made him disrespectful to common sense. It was common sense once to
believe that the sun went round the earth, and it is still the mark of a
sensible man to ignore, on occasions, the law of contradictions. To that
common sense which is compounded of mental sluggishness and a taste for
being in the majority Peacock's wit was a needle. He was intellectual
enough to enjoy pricking bladders, and so finished a performer that we
never tire of watching him at his play.

He was, in fact, an artist with intellectual curiosity; and just as he
lacked the depth of a philosopher so he wanted the vision of a poet.
That he possessed genius will not be denied; but his art is fanciful
rather than imaginative and of creative power he had next to none. His
life was neither a mission nor a miracle. But he was blessed with that
keen delight in his own sensations which makes a world full of beautiful
and amusing things, charming people, wine, and warm sunshine seem, on
the whole, a very tolerable place, and all metaphysical speculation and
political passion a little unnecessary. He made an art of living, and
his novels are a part of his life. He wrote them because he had a subtle
sense of the ludicrous, a turn for satire, and style. He wrote because
he enjoyed writing; and, with a disregard for the public inconceivable
in a man of sense, he wrote the sort of books that he himself would have
liked to read. They are the sort, we think, that will always be worth
reading.

II[6]

[Sidenote: _Athenaeum_ _Oct. 1911_]

"Between the publication of his [Peacock's] first and last poem
sixty years had elapsed;