night, he got up and ran three times round his bedroom. It must have been a very stupid public. Vanity Fair was refused by Colburn's Magazine and was eventually published by Bradbury and Evans in the Yellow numbers. It was rather a rickety infant. It very nearly died from lack of sustenance. There is the story told by Lady Ritchie, how, when walking from the bow-windowed house in Young Street with one of the early numbers, across Kensington Gardens to a family friend, she was stopped by her father and told that perhaps after all it was no good taking it. However, it had its appreciators. Mrs. Carlyle writes on a visit that she brought away the last four numbers and read them over in bed and found them "very good indeed." And Charlotte Brontë, from that grim Yorkshire Vicarage, detected "an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries had yet recognized." It was an article by Abraham Hayward in the Edinboro Review-and it is said, the lighter humor of Mrs. Perkins' Ball and indeed the "O-Mulligan" could have saved a very different book-that first put Vanity Fair on its feet.

Mr. Carlyle defined genius as an infinite capacity for taking pains. This was, of course, only his fun, but the worst of a Scotchman's fun is that no one suspects it and we have been dominated by dullards ever since who realized that the world is at the mercy of any one who will get up at five o'clock in the morning. The exact reverse, of course, is true. Genius is intuitive, and a wonderful instance is seen of this in Mr. Thackeray's description of Brussels at the time of Waterloo. turn to the entertaining Memoirs of Mr. Creevy, it reads like a page out of Vanity Fair. We find it told how the English army is in retreat. On the 18th, his stepdaughter runs into his room and tells him the French are in the town; he goes out and meets an

If we

in

English M.P. who says: "Everything looks as bad as possible, I shall keep the horses at the door," more lucky than Lady Bareacres in their possession, and finds a soldier friend bringing in a wounded General who says that the battle is lost and that he had better lose no time in getting away, until one can almost sympathize with Jos Sedley when he cuts off his moustaches. However, stout Creevy, like Becky Sharp, and unlike the recreant Jos, remains behind and is rewarded by his famous interview with the Duke of Wellington.

To mention Waterloo is to recall that immortal passage-after the kindly humor akin to tears of Mrs. O'Dowd polishing the Major's accoutrementsGeorge kissing Amelia-Becky counting up Rawdon's assets, not forgetting the pistols in a rosewood case "same as I shot Captain Markham," and calculating that she can do with the pension of an officer's widow-"No more firing was heard at Brussels-the pursuit rolled miles away-Darkness came down on field and city: and Amelia was praying for George who was lying on his face dead, with a bullet through his heart." There is no better example of Mr. Thackeray's exquisite style. Its dignity-its reticence-in a few words the tragedy and circumstance of war-after all these years about people who never lived difficult to read unmoved.

Objection is often taken, generally by women, to the character of Amelia. I hold that Amelia is a true representative of the real English woman. She would undoubtedly have made a good wife. It may be said the sort of good wife that makes a bad husband. She might bore him it is true, but after all, the only difference between marrying a stupid woman and a clever one is this. If you marry a stupid woman she bores you, and if you marry a clever woman you bore her, and I have never had any

то

пого

doubt that Amelia made Dobbin extremely happy. Of late the modern woman has made desperate efforts to get away from Amelia-they try to be wicked and only become vulgar, they try to be intellectual and write books "which make a publisher's reader blush, they try to be politicians and bite policemen, but if you scratch the most modern of women you come eventually to the Amelia type. If you don't like it your only resource is to turn to the Latin or the Celt and whether you like it or not you are wise to marry it.

Af

Another test of genius is its antiseptic quality. The great book is as fresh to-day as when it was written. Becky's rise and fall in Mayfair might and perhaps did happen yesterday. A remarkable instance of this is found in the Book of Snobs, one of the few books which have affected the character of a nation. Nothing will ever prevent the English being a snobbish people. ter all, it is part of our political constitution, but since that work we have had at any rate the grace to be ashamed of it. "What," says Jawkins in the No Surrender Club, "did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the corn laws you touch the sugar question—if you touch the sugar you touch the tea. I am no monopolist, I am a Liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a precipice and if we are to have Free Trade give me reciprocity."

Then Captain Spitfire, R.N., who "does not care so much for home politics but is great on foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere but in clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles at the expense of some £10,000 a year each. He is the man who really is seriously uncomfortable about the de signs of Russia and the atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe and expects a foreign fleet in the Thames." With hardly an alteration it is the

home and foreign policy of a great party in the State to-day.

The mystery of Miss Shum's husband was repeated in a police court last year and one need not look beyond a recent cause célèbre to be reminded of the luck of Barry Lyndon. From that astounding book even the superior Mr. Whibley cannot withhold a grudging praise, but in order to labor his sentimental point he misses for once his mark. When Barry drops a tear of sympathy over the misery of his mother we are told "such a son as he showed himself would be indifferent whether his mother starved or not." The truth is your scoundrel is as often as not sentimental. His feelings are admirable, but unfortunately he does not translate them into action-that is where morally he fails-his virtues are purely abstract. Nor is he more happy in comparing Barry Lyndon adversely with Jonathan Wild, a dull mechanical work, the whole plan of which is a blunder. Fielding makes the essential mistake of not letting Wild tell his own story, and so never convinces the reader. It is inconceivable that any one except himself should be found a serious appraiser of such a villain, but that Barry should sincerely admire his own misdeeds is exactly what one would expect and gives the plausibility upon which all successful irony depends.

Pendennis, Lady Ritchie somewhere says, is the happiest of her father's books. You must go to Ottery St. Mary and Exeter to understand how the author has caught the gentle charm of Devonshire, and of all his characters none ring truer than the immortal figure of Major Pendennis; as the man of fashion, the philosopher of Pall Mall, the defeater of the rascally Morgan he is alike admirable. The literary episodes are largely drawn from the author's own experiences, in fact, Pendennis may almost be said to be his

listen

The

Then were there ever pleasanter characters than Chevalier Strong and delightful Harry Foker, Captain Costigan, like all Thackeray's Irishmen, is a perpetual joy, and Altamount is such a cheery ruffian that one is quite glad the drain-pipe didn't break. modern carpers can never forgive Pendennis for his behavior to Fanny Bolton. They are like the lady in the play who could not forgive her husband for deceiving her before marriage by saying he had never loved another woman and afterwards finding out it was true.

Of course, it is a dreadful shock to find a hero who is virtuous and Mr. Whibley is so properly annoyed that he falls into the very error he alleges against "the English Humorists" of judging one generation by the standard of the next. The Victorian public was a very curious one. The novel was rather regarded as a form of fairy tale for those of riper years. I believe in order to understand it thoroughly one should study with care that remarkable book by Mr. Gosse, Father and Son. It was expected of a novelist to improve. Anthony Trollope says it is the business of a novelist to instruct in morals and amuse, and Lady Ritchie says that her father always considered himself rather as a lay preacher. Indeed, he was severely attacked by the British Matrons of both sexes as it was.

When we read in the Quarterly Review about Jane Eyre that "no Christian grace is perceptible upon her," that "the book is permanently an anti-Christian composition, there is throughout it a murmuring against the comforts of the rich and the privations of the poor, which, as far as each individual is

concerned is against God's appointment," and the inference that "if it was written by a woman it must have been written by one who, for some sufficient reason, has forfeited the society of her own sex," one appreciates in some small degree the difficulties which the novelists of those days had to contend with.

Mr. Thackeray, always his own severest critic, writes once that he wonders whether he will ever write the really complete good book which he ought to. That wonder should have been set at rest for ever when he produced Esmond, the best historical novel ever written. It gained undoubtedly in form by not being produced in numbers. His own view was it was much too grave and sad. He complains it took "As much trouble as Macaulay's history and he has the vast advantage of remembering everything he reads, while everything but impressions slip out of my head." But if it was hard writing, it certainly made easy reading, and when he created Beatrix even Mr. Street must admit Thackeray thought imperially of women.

The Newcomes was described by the Quarterly Review as his masterpiece. It is the test book of Thackeray's works. Everyone should read it first -if you don't like it, salvation is not for you. In none of his books do we find more delightful people-Clive himself, the genial Fred Bayham, James Binnie and the Painters. Of all his heroines Ethel Newcome is the most charming, and no author ever drew a truer lady than Lady Anne Newcome. The odious Barnes is found in every club. Colonel Newcome is often voted too unworldly, but if you read Lord Roberts' Indian reminiscences, you realize what a very accurate picture he is of an Indian colonel before the Mutiny.

It was after The Newcomes that Mr. Thackeray was invited to start the

Cornhill Magazine, at what he called a princely stipend, by Mr. George Smith, the famous publisher. Philip was not ready, but Mr. Trollope got up at five with his rail-rug round his knees and turned out Framley Parsonage. Of the Cornhill Magazine it may be confidently said that no magazine has ever attained such a continuous success, which in no small measure is due to the admirable lines on which it was started by its first editor. Philip is the book which I should recommend last to those who are anxious to study the genius of Mr. Thackeray. To me a delightful book from cover to cover, I can see that to some it might seem lacking in movement. It has, at any rate, one indisputable claim to our gratitude that it discovered Mr. Fred Walker, who drew some of his most charming sketches in its illustration.

The Virginians is said by those out of sympathy with our author to be too long, and the return of George in the second volume to be rather a repetition of the first, but nothing was ever more entertaining than the reception of Harry Warrington at Castlewood, or more interesting than the sketch of the Braddock Expedition in Virginia, which recalls many an incident in a recent unhappy war.

The genius of Mr. Thackeray was many-sided; his drawings would have made a substantial reputation and his verses were better than many people's poetry, but of all its phases the most gracious was his genius for friendship. No man ever had better friends, no man ever appreciated his friends more -Tennyson, Carlyle, Edmund Fitzgerald, The Bullers. The Misses Berry, socially omniscient, thought no party a real success without him, the Brookfields, his friendship with whom stands on record in the most delightful letters in English, Macaulay (do not we all remember when he was asked with the great man in Paris to meet an AmerLIVING AGE. VOL. LI. 2662

ican lady who, with the curiosity of her sex and nation was dying to meet them both, how Thackeray proposed to change places with Macaulay, each to personate the other, to find, unfortunately, that the historian did not approve of practical jokes?). They all loved him and he loved them, even grim Carlyle could find nothing worse to say of him than that he was a halfmonstrous Cornish giant, but that was after he had reviewed the French Revolution, and Carlyle wrote of him af ter his death to Emerson, "A big/fellow soul and body, a big weeping hungry man, not a strong one; he had many fine qualities, no guile or malice against any one, a big mass of a soul, but not strong in proportion, a beautiful vein of genius lay struggling about him." His generosity was astounding. Never too well stocked, his purse was open to all. He lent Magin, "Father Prout," £500 at a time when he could

very ill-afford it. Trollope describes how he met Thackeray at a time when a friend of his was in great stress for the want of £2000 and told Thackeray. "Do you mean to say I am to find £2000," said Thackeray angrily, and then as Trollope says, as if halfashamed of his meanness said, "I will go halves if any one will do the rest," which indeed, he did. We all know the story of his filling up the pill box with sovereigns for an old family friend "to be taken when wanted." What a wealth of kindness too in his description of Gore House after the downfall of Lady Blessington. "I have just come away from a dismal sight-Gore House full of snobs looking at the furniture. Foul Jews, odious, bonbazine women, driving up in mysterious flys which they had hired, the wretches, so that they could come in state to a fashionable lounge, brutes keeping their hats on in the beautiful old drawing-room-I longed to knock them off and say, 'Sir, be civil in a