tolerance, into the Lectures--into those, for instance, of Sterne and
Fielding: that the simile of the "elder brother" carries different
suggestions for Mr. Marzials and for me: and that the lecturer's
attitude is to me less suggestive of a peer among his peers than of a
tall "bobby"--a volunteer constable--determined to warn his polite
hearers what sort of men these were whose books they had hitherto read
unsuspectingly.

And even so--even though the lives and actions of men who lived too
early to know Victorian decency must be held up to shock a crowd in
Willis's Rooms, yet it had been but common generosity to tell the
whole truth. Then the story of Fielding's _Voyage to Lisbon_ might
have touched the heart to sympathy even for the purely fictitious low
comedian whom Thackeray presented: and Sterne's latest letters might
have infused so much pity into the polite audience that they, like his
own Recording Angel, might have blotted out his faults with a tear.
But that was not Thackeray's way. Charlotte Brontë found "a finished
taste and ease" in the Lectures, a "something high bred." Motley
describes their style as "hovering," and their method as "the
perfection of lecturing to high-bred audiences." Mr. Marzials quotes
this expression "hovering" as admirably descriptive. It is. By
judicious selection, by innuendo, here a pitying aposiopesis, there an
indignant outburst, the charges are heaped up. Swift was a toady at
heart, and used Stella vilely for the sake of that hussy Vanessa.
Congreve had captivating manners--of course he had, the dog! And we
all know what that meant in those days. Dick Steele drank and failed
to pay his creditors. Sterne--now really I know what Club life is,
ladies and gentlemen, and I might tell you a thing or two if I would:
but really, speaking as a gentleman before a polite audience, I warn
you against Sterne.