17 AUGUST 1895, Page 26

Thackeray : a Study. By Adolphus Alfred Jack. (Macmillan.) —We

cannot say that Mr. Jack gives us a high idea of his insight as a critic. The most difficult book to appreciate of all that Thackeray wrote is "Vanity Fair" ; and it is here that Mr. Jack is least successful. His judgment of Rawdon Crawley, one of the novelist's finest studies, seems to us curiously mistaken in points. When, diverging for a while from Thackeray, he says that "Tom Brown is merely an average middle-aged Briton, with a better appetite and a greater interest in football," he seems to us neither more nor less than silly.