*JERROLD, DOUGLAS. With the higher order of minds every surrounding circumstance, especially of their earliest years, is edu cation. The education of the child Douglas Jerrold was within the verge of a theatre; the education of the boy was ou the deck of a mamotwar ; the education of the youth was in a printing-office. We can trace the fields of observation in which the dramatist., essayist, and journalist gathered his materials, aud in which his habits of thought and study were formed. Douglas Jerrold was born in Londou, ou the 3rd of January 1803. His father was manager of the Sheerness Theatre : the " many-coloured life" of the drama was thus familiar to him in his first years; and those who know bow strong are the impressions which an intelligent child thus receives will understand the influence of this experience upon the pursuits of the man. But the boy was surrounded by grand and moat attractive realities : the docks and the arsenal of Sheerness—ships coming home to refit after tedious cruises—sailors who could talk of the Nile and Trafalgar. The lad, delicate, sensitive, was smitten with a passion for the life at sea; and, his wishes prevailing, a midshipman's appointment was obtained for him from Captain Austen, brother of Miss Austen, the novelist. At the end of the war he quitted the service, and another calling bad to be chosen. He was apprenticed to a printer in London. The labours of a printer's apprentice are not ordinarily favourable to intellectual development ; the duties of a compositor are so purely mechanical, and yet demand such a constant attention, that the subject-matter of his employ can rarely engage his thoughts. It was not in the printing-office that the mind of Douglas Jerrold was formed, although the aspirations of the boy might have thought that there was the home of literature. He became his own instructor after the hours of labour. He made himself master of several lan guages. His "one book " was Shakspere. He cultivated the habit of expressing his thoughts in writing; and gradually the literary ambition was directed into a practicable road. He was working as a compositor on a newspaper, when he thought he could write something as good as the criticism which there appeared. He dropped into the editor's letter-box an essay on the opera of 'Der Frieschiitz,' which perform ance he had witnessed with wonder and delight. Ilia own copy, an
anonymous contribution, was handed over to him to put in type. An earnest editorial "notice," soliciting other contributions from our "correspondent," &c., was the welcome of the young writer, whose vocation was now determined. His first dramatic production, Black eyed Susan '—the most popular drama of modern times, or of any time—was written before Mr. Jerrold had attained his twenty-first year. It was produced at the Surrey Theatre, with a success which Miami, the manager, very unequally shared with the struggling author. It deferred the ruin of Drury Lane Theatre for a season.
The original boasted, a year or two ago, that he had appeared in the part seven hundred times. ' The Rent Day' followed this first triumph. Jerrold was now the most popular dramatist of the period ; and ho has continued to write for the stage till within the last few years. Equally a master of wit and of pathos, all his playa have a decided originality ; they are thoroughly English. His serious dramas are built upon English home affections. The joys and griefs of his scenes are not the tawdry sentimentalities and extravagant passions of adaptatioos from the French—gaudy exotics, which flower for a little while under artificial cultivation, and then are thrown away as worthless weeds. Jerrold'? comedies are also as thoroughly English in their characterisation and their language : they have the true ring of the old national currency of wit and humour and keen satire ; but they require excellent actors and intelligent audiences, and, according to some authorities, these requisites for a high drama are passing away. In our day the gratification of the eye, in prefer ence to every other faculty, has degraded Shakapere, even, from a poet to a ahowmau; and this false taste naturally extends to other walks, to make exaggeration the great requisite of the dramatic artist. Mr. Jerrold's most successful plays, in addition to those we have mentioned, are ' Nell Gwynne," The Prisoner of War,' and The Housekeeper;' and amongst his comedies wo may especially mention Time works Wonders,' and "The Bubbles of the Day.' Of the latter there has beeu recently published a German translation, executed with remarkable spirit and fidelity.