Page:Points of friction.djvu/234

 David calls for at the public house. No writer except Peacock treats his characters, high and low, as royally as does Dickens; and Peacock, although British publishers keep issuing his novels in new and charming editions, is little read on this side of the sea. Moreover, he is an advocate of strong drink, which is very reprehensible, and deprives him of candour as completely as if he had been a teetotaller. We feel and resent the bias of his mind; and although he describes with humour that pleasant middle period, "after the Jacquerie were down, and before the march of mind was up," yet the only one of his stories which is innocent of speciousness is "The Misfortunes of Elphin."

Now to the logically minded "The Misfortunes of Elphin" Is a temperance tract. The disaster which ruins the countryside is the result of shameful drunkenness. The reproaches levelled by Prince Elphin at Seithenyn ap 222