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PEACOCK 51
are as amateurish as the earliest works of his
friend Shelley and as thin and conventional
as the worst of Goldoni. Nevertheless they
are readable so ; we need not stay to quarrel
with the enthusiastic editor who claims that
they are " replete with fun, written in a
flexible
style, and bearing the imprint of a
scholarly discrimination."
English prose and humour are certainly the
richer for one or two speeches in this little
book, but the service it performs, or can be
made to perform, is greater than that of
rescuing a few fragments of humorous prose
or even of filling a gap on our shelves. It sends
us back to perhaps the least known of the
great English writers. The " Life " of Peacock
has yet to be written : an ineffectual memoir
by Sir Henry Cole, some personal recollections
by the author's granddaughter Mrs. Clarke,
a critical essay from the versatile but vapid
pen of Lord Houghton, the gossip of Robert
Buchanan, and editorial notices by Prof.
Saintsbury and the late Richard Garnett,
together afford nothing more than a perfunctory
appreciation. Two writers, indeed,
have attempted a more elaborate estimate :
James Spedding, an able prig, 1 reviewed
Peacock's novels in the Edinburgh of January
1 The week after this article appeared Sir Frederick
Pollock wrote to the Athenceum complaining of my having