m
Weller found that oysters always went hand-in-hand with poverty. How
this must astonish a generation which finds the oyster nearly as extinct
as the ichthyosaurus! The "Book of Snobs" calls aloud for a commentator.
Who is the nobleman holding his boots out of the hotel window--an act
which the Snob very properly declined to classify as snobbish? Who are
the originals of Henry Foker (this, indeed, is known), and of Wagg and
Wenham? Or did Wenham's real name _rhyme_ to Foker, as, according to the
Mulligan, "Perkins rhymes to Jerkins, my man of firkins"? Posterity will
insist on an answer, which will be nothing if not authentic. Posterity,
_pace_ Mr. Rideing, will remember very well that George Osborne's father
lived in Russell Square, and will hunt in vain for 96. There is no such
number, any more than there ever was such a Pope as he to whom the
unfortunate old woman in "Candid" attributed her birth. Here once more,
as Voltaire justly remarks in a footnote, we observe the discretion of
our author.

Colonel Newcome lived, as is well known, in Fitzroy Square, and died in
the Charter House. To these shrines the pious go in pilgrimage; the
rather dingy quarters are brightened by the memory of his presence, as we
think of Scott in Castle Street, Edinburgh, or of Dr. John Brown in
Princes Street--Dr. John Brown who was a Colonel Newcome that had gone
into medicine instead of the army. Smithfield is hardly more memorable
for her martyrs than for the battles fought on neighbouring ground
between Biggs and Berry, between Cuff and old Figs. Kentish Town, but
little sought for sentimental reasons, is glorified by the memory of
Adolphus Larkins; "Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, were the scenes
of many of his exploits." Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, lent her
shelter--or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in a boarding-house--to
Miss Bunnion. Cursitor Street might be unknown as the great men before
Agamemnon (many of whom, by the way, as Meleager and Pirithous, are known
well enough) had not Cursitor Street contained the sponging-house where
Rawdon Crawley was incarcerated.

In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so little
likely to be published, we need novelists' maps and topographies of
London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some American of
leisure; they order these things better in America. When we go to Paris
we want to know where Balzac's men and women