FIVE years ago, in dedicating the second | edition of "Jane Eyre" to the author of "Vanity Fair," Currer Bell spoke of him thus: "Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day-as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because, I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterize his talent, They say he is like Fielding; they talk of his wit, humor, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture; Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humor attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lambent sheet-lightning, playing under the edge of the summer-cloud, does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb." When this was written, Mr. Thackeray was not the popular favorite he has since become. He counts readers now by hundreds, where VOL. XXIX. NO. II. then he only counted tens. In those days, Currer Bell's panegyric was pronounced extravagant by many who now, if they do not echo, will at least scarcely venture to dispute it; but it may be doubted whether, up to the present time, full justice has been done by any of Mr. Thackeray's critics to the peculiar genius of the man, or to the purpose with which his later books have been written. It is not, indeed, to the Press that he owes the appreciation which it is probable he values most. Its praise has generally been coupled with censure for what has occupied his most deliberate thought, and been conceived with the most earnest purpose. While it has extolled his wit, his keen eye, his graphic style, his trenchant sarcasm, his power of exposing cant and Pharisaism in all its phases, it has, at the same time, been loud in its outcry against the writer's cynicism and want of faith, the absence of heroism and elevation in his characters-the foibles of all his women, the vices of all his men. Enough, and more than enough, has been said and written upon these points; but among a large section of his readers it has long been felt, that it may not have been 10 without a purpose that Mr. Thackeray has never endowed his characters with ostentatious heroic virtues, or dwelt much on the brighter aspects of humanity; that his most unsparing ridicule, and his most pungent delineations of human folly or vice, are not tinged by the sour humors of the cynic or misanthrope, but that, through his harshest tones, there may be heard the sweet undernotes of a nature kindly and loving, and a heart warm and unspoiled, full of sympathy for goodness and all simple worth, and of reverence for all unaffected greatness. Not many years ago, when reputations which are now efféte were at their zenith, a pen was busy in our periodical literature, in which the presence of a power was felt by those who watched that literature, which seemed only to want happier circumstances to develop into forms worthy of a permanent place among English classics. Under many patronymics, its graphic sketches and original views were ushered into the world. The immortal Yellowplush, the James de-la-Pluche of a later date, the vivacious George Fitzboodle, the versatile Michael Angelo Titmarsh, were names well-known and prized within a limited circle. In Mr. Thackeray's lucubrations under all these pseudonyms, there was a freshness and force, a truthfulness of touch, a shrewdness of perception, and a freedom from conventionalism, whether in thought or expression, which argued in their originator something more akin to genius than to mere talent. Here was a man who looked below the surface of things, taking nothing for granted, and shrinking from no scrutiny of human motives, however painful; who saw clearly and felt deeply, and who spoke out his thought manfully and well. In an age of pretence, he had the courage to be simple. To strip sentimentalism of its frippery, pretension of its tinsel, vanity of its masks, and humbug, literary and social, of its disguises, appeared to be the vocation of this graphic satirist. The time gave him work to do in abundance, and manifestly neither skill nor will were wanting in him for the task. Best of all, he did not look down upon his fellow-men from those heights of contempt and scorn, which make satirists commonly the most hateful as well as the most profitless of writers. The hand that was mailed to smite had an inward side soft to caress. He claimed no superiority, arrogated for himself no peculiar exemption from the vices and follies he satirized; he had his own mind to clear of cant as well as his neighbors', and professed to know their weak side only through a consciousness of his own. Just as he proclaimed himself as Mr. Snob, par excellence, when writing of the universal snobbishness of society at a later date, so in the "Confessions of Fitzboodle," or "The Yellow plush Papers," he made no parade of being one whit wiser, purer, or more disinterested than other people. Relentless to fobbery, falsehood, and rascality, however ingeniously smoothed over or concealed, he was not prone to sneer at frailty, where it laid no claim to strength, or folly where it made no pretence of wisdom. The vices of our modern social life were the standing marks for the shafts of his ridicule, but here and there, across his pages, there shot gleams of a more pleasing light, which showed how eagerly the lynxeyed observer hailed the presence of goodness, and candor, and generosity, whenever they crossed his path. That he may, in those days, have thought them rarer than his subsequent experience has proved, is more than probable; and, indeed, this circumstance gave to many of his earlier sketches a depth of shade, which leaves an impression on the mind all the more painful, from the terrible force with which the tints are dashed in. No man ever sketched the varieties of scoundrelism or folly with more force than Yellowplush or Fitzboodle, but we cannot move long among fools and scoundrels without disgust. In these sketches, the shadows of life are too little relieved for them to be either altogether true to nature, or tolerable as works of art. We use them as studies of character, but, this purpose served, are fain to put them aside for ever after. Hence, no doubt, it was that these vigorous sketches, at the time they appeared, missed the popularity which was being won by far inferior works; and bence, too, they will never become popular even among those whom Mr. Thackeray's subsequent writings have made his warmest admirers. Bring them to the touchstone, whose test all delineations of life must bear, to be worthy of lasting repute,-the approval of a woman's mind and taste,—and they are at once found to fail. Men will read them, and smile or ponder as they read, and, it may be, reap lessons useful for after needs; but a woman lays down the book, feeling that it deals with characters and situations, real perhaps, but which she can gain nothing by contemplating. No word, image, or suggestion, indeed, is there to offend her modesty-for, in this respect, Mr. Thackeray in all his writings has shown |