BOOKS.

THACKERAY.* WE are glad to welcome the almost simultaneous publication of Mr. Trollope's criticism on the great novelist and. of the splendid and costly edition of Thackeray's works just issued by Messrs. Smith and. Elder, with the author's own very original, though perhaps not always very adequate, illustra- tions of his own conceptions. The execution of the illustrations is marvellously fine.

There are some names before which even the boldest and. most confident of critics must feel a certain awe. Not that ho sees nothing to blame (the very excellence of the workmanship often serving to bring out innate flaws, which in aloes perfect piece were passed by without notice), but that if he is tolerably honest with himself, he must be sensible of his own immeasurable inferiority to the writer of whom ho is about to treat. All that is left for him in such a case is to say his say honestly, to point out re- spectfully what he conceives to be defects, and for the rest, to throw up his cap, and cheer for the great man as lustily as ho may. It is, then, with profound diffidence, and the heartiest love" and reverence, that we venture to write of him whose name heads our article. Mr. Trollop° has, in our judgment, done his work sensibly and well, though he does not appear over to quite realise what a very " big " man lie is chatting to us about.

A good deal of the chapter on Thackeray's life, and of that on his "style and manner of work," is quite beside the mark, and might have been left out with great advantage. We dissent, too, from Mr. Trollope on many points of detail ; but we think that, on the whole, he has brought out the chief characteristics of his author with considerable truth and precision.

What strikes one first in reading Thackeray is the amazing sense of reality which he manages to convey. Jane Austen is

the only author since the days of Fielding who at .all ap-

proaches him in this respect. George Eliot can do so, till she begins to philosophise, when the charm is at once broken, and. we become conscious (not without a deep, inward thankfulness), that we are in an imaginary world. To appreciate either of these writers requires a very special taste for the study of character. To the ordinary student of novels,

Jane Austen's delicate etchings are drill and prosy. Thackeray's work is quite as true to nature, and. when critically examined

shows at least an equal amount of care and labour, yet in brilliancy it stands unrivalled. For Thackeray works drama- tically, and uses description with a sparingness almost miserly.

The most trifling of the minor characters will serve to illus- trate his method. Even Jones (whose portrait you may see on the fifth page of Vanity Fair), oven Jones, that imaginary critic whom the showman puts up for the mere purpose of knocking him down again, is a master- piece in his way. We wonder, did any one ever read that half-page without laughing at Jones ? We have all seen him * 1. Yhe Works of Wiaiam Alakepcaoe Thatkerav. In Twenty-four Volume,. With Iflustrations by the Author, London : Smith, Elder, and Co. t Enylinla Men of lAiters. Edited by John Morley,—Thaatoroy. By Anthony Trollops. London: Macmillan and Co.

over and over again, and if any sceptic doubts of his existence, let him take up the last novel from the library, and he will see his intelligent criticisms fresh on every page. And this air of naturalness is in part the secret of Thackeray's immense power as a satirist, aa the want of it has undoubtedly lessened the evil influence of Elia's favourite playwrights of the Restoration.

Thackeray has been spoken of as a cynic. Let us hear Mr. Trollope. "Outside his fancy, &c., a certain feminine soft- ness was the most remarkable trait about him. To give some immediate pleasure was the great delight of his life ; a sovereign to a schoolboy, gloves to a girl, a dinner to a man, a compliment to a woman. His charity was overflowing. His generosity ex- cessive." We had, indeed, ever felt assured, from his stories, and without knowing a word of his life, that the father of Becky was a kindly, genial gentleman. For as it is the surest evidence of the utter degradation of a writer, to quote 1Vlacaulay's fine remark, that he should depict a rogue while striving to paint an honest man, so, too, we may infer that the artist whose rascals even, and villains, are not utterly base and abandoned, has himself a wide and generous sympathy with human nature. Becky and her worthy admirer, Lord Steyne, are probably the greatest pair of scamps in the Thackeray

and yet they have both their redeeming points about them. Becky is not ill-natured, .aud as she herself says, would have been an excellent woman with tau thousand a year. She really likes her husband, and i5. sincerely sorry for him ; she admires Dobbin, and feels a genuine pity for poor little Emmy. A bail woman Yes, but not altogether heartless, and quite willing to benefit her neighbours, when she can do so with- out inconveniencing herself. Even the "wicked nobleman" is a magnificent old sinner, with a certain groat air about him, under which, according to that distinguished philosopher, Mr. Edmund Burke, "vice itself loses half its evil, by losing all its grossness."

A thoroughly dramatic instinct is shown, as we have recently had occasion to observe, in Thackeray's highly skilful manner of handling ,natural scenery. He has a power of painting landscape in a few torso sentences which is quite his own; of giving the actual effect of sun, shade, and colour in words. We take the first instance that occurs to us, the description of Madame de Bernatein's morning walk on the terrace at Castlewood, from The 'Virginians. There are just six quiet lines of it, yet somehow they bring the breath of the morning with them as the words of no other writer can. Observe, too, in that most affecting scene where Emmy bids farewell to her worthless husband on the eve of Waterloo, how cleverly the colours are managed: Half its reality and pathos is due to the vividness of detail thus cunningly produced. But Thackeray never wastes this astonishing gift. He is not tempted to stray away from the proper human interest of his stories into long-winded descriptions. They are always intro- duced with a definite dramatic object. The calm air of the morning, the quaint garden, rich with its thousand memories, harmonise with and account for the softening of the worldly- minded old woman, and the fresh boyish confidences of the lad. Examples are endless. We will just point out one more, and. we are sure all true students of Thaekeray will be grate- ful to us, when we remind them of the delicious little dia- logues between Clive and Ethel in the mouldering Hotel de Florae. Every line tells. Even the broken-nosed Faun gives a special character, a Thackerayan flavour, to the whole thing. Ho is as suggestive as the skull in Hamlet, and much more picturesque ! Vawitas vamitatum ! Read the passage through (it will be sure to amuse you), and as you smoke on, see what a number of thoughts will come into your head ! A true test of art this,—to be not only thoughtful in. itself, but the cause of the thought that is in tither men. Mr. Trollop° has rightly insisted. upon the vividness of Thackeray's figure-painting, and has quoted the famous de- scription in Esmond, "Beatrix was a dark beauty," in proof of his position. Ho might have added. the pictures of Madame do Florae and Ethel, from The Nsuicomes. And hero we must remonstrate with Mr. Trollope on his rudeness towards this most charming young lady. He actually passes her by without notice ! Let us make her our best bow, and. protest that we have always loved and admired. her since we first had the pleasure of an introduction. When we begin to ask ourselves what is the secret of this singular power, we are obliged. to answer that it is in part due to causes almost too subtle for analysis, to that peculiar faculty for observation which constituted Thackeray's genius. But it is also in part due to " a wise thrift and economy in the use of words and ideas," as he has himself HO aptly said of Swift. He prudently husbands his resources till they are wanted, and so can make a display upon occasion.

We cannot follow Mr. Trollop° through all the books. We will limit our remarks to a few words in defence of sonic of our favourites, whom he has, as we think, misunderstood. We agree with Mr. Trollope that Esmond is perhaps the most finished work of art in the whole range of English fiction. It has not, of course, the fire and brilliancy of Vanity Fair, and with those whose lives are lives of keen excite- ment, and who turn to a novel as a relaxation. after a day of jading work, the history of Becky will always be the favourite. Esmond is not good to read piece-meal, unless by scholars who already know it as they know their Horace. Esm,ond (to use a metaphor which some may deem unworthy, but which, we are assured, the bard who sang of Bouillabaisse would be the first to appreciate)* is like a flask of fine old Bordeaux wine, and should be treated with the like reverent care. He who would duly note the excellencies of the one, as of the other; should not only have a good natural taste of his own suitably developed, but he must also be in a frame of mind proper to the indulgence he proposes to give himself. He must be free from pressing cares, and not have above a friend or two with him, so that ho may devote his whole attention. to the task he has in hand. Then, as he quietly takes his pleasure, he will, if lie is of a philosophic turn of mind, thankfully reflect on the time and the labour that have gone to ripen the berry from which such a era as that is pressed; the warm sunshine and the gentle rain, the years of lonely waiting (down in the cellar yonder), slowly softening and maturing the generous growth,—the thousand kindly influences which have helped to give the flavour that he loves. They are all there, in the book, as in the claret, for those who have the grace to see, and " Jones" takes in the one and the other, the noble wine and the mellowed thought of the great poet, and never troubles his head with thinking of all they mean. No wonder Thackeray did not love Jones, and has depicted him for posterity as we have seen.

To Beatrix Esmond, that fairest creation of the master's genius, we do not think Mr. Trollope is just. "A most detest- able young woman," other women may perhaps say of her, for hers was a nature which, we take it, few women can understand, and fewer love,—a nature wonderful in its richness and. brilliancy, glowing with that full, bold life which beams out upon us from the canvas of Titian, a nature which, in its very luxuriance and power, most women deem unfeminine. And Mr. Trollope is foolish enough to write about "the young man" vowing "that no Beatrix shall touch his heart ! " As if any man might choose ! Beatrix is irresistible, " victrix," like the great goddess of the Louvre, and we, for our part, would not give much for the "young man" who did not melt and. kindle before grace and beauty such as those. It is only gentlemen of the Barnes Newcome type who have the calm self-control of Mr. Trollope's "young man." Did not Warrington, one of the manliest and. truest of the Thackeray heroes, go to the deuce for a woman ? The first three or four perusals of Esmond leave the reader angry with Thackeray for the ruin of Beatrix, for it is a lovable and fright- fully inartistic feature in the English character to wish every story to "have a good ending." But daring as was the stroke of the master, it was undoubtedly right. Such a character, so developed, as Beatrix's, must have come to this. And what we now feel, as we ponder her sad history, is an immense grief and compassion for this brilliant, generous nature, so miserably, so inevitably fallen. Poor 'Trix ! how lonely was her life ! She had but Henry to love her, and him she could not love. "I always said I was alone," the stricken creature groans, after a terrible speech from her mother; "you never loved me, never,— and were jealous of me from the time I sat on my father's knee." And we think she was right. Lady Castlewood was too soft, too timorous, narrow, jealous, to understand. the greatness of a flatus° so opposite to her own. The same piteous sense of isola- tion appears in 'Trix's dialogue with Harry, after the" Spec- tator" scene :—

"She paused for a minute, and the smile, fading away from her April face, gave place to a menacing shower of tears. 0 how good she is, Harry !' Beatrix went on to say. 0 what a saint she is !

* "And true philosophers, methinks, Who love all sorts of natural beauties, Should love good victuals and good drinks."

—The Ballad of Bouillabaisse.

Her goodness frightens me. I'm not fit to live with her I should

he bettor, I think, if she were not HO perfect There is always, as it were, a third person present, even when I and my mother are alone. She can't be frank with me quite; who is always thinking of the next world, and of her guardian angel, perhaps that's in company." 0 Harry, I'm jealous of that guardian angel !' here broke out Mistress Beatrix. It's horrid, I know; but my mother's

life is all for Heaven, and for earth. We can never be friends quite; and then she cares more for Frank's little finger than sho does for me, I know she does. And she loves you, Sir, a great deal too much ; and I hate you for it. I would have had her all to myself, but she would not. In my childhood, it was my father she loved And then it was Frank; and now it is Heaven and the clergyman. How I would have loved her! From a child I used to be in a rage that she loved anybody but me; but she loved you all better,—all, I know she did.'" Well might Lady Castlewood talk of Beatrix's splendour of nature, but sure it was in part the mother's fault that such splendour was over dimmed,— " I think,' she says, in another confession to Harry, 'I have no heart; at least, I have never seen the man that could touch it; and had I found him, I would have followed him in raga, had he been a private soldier I would do anything for such a man, boar anything for him; but I never found one. You wore ever too much of a slave to win my heart ; evon my lord Duke could not command it. I had not been happy, had I married him ; I knew that three months after our engagement, and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry ! I cried, once or twice, not for him, but with tears of rage, because I could not be sorry for him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death; and were I joined to you, I should have the sense of servitude, the same longing to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who are as jealous as

the Duke was himself I took him, to have a great place in the world; and I lost it. I lost it, and do not deploro him; and I often thought; as I listened to his fond vows and ardent words, "Oh, if I yield to this man, and meet the other, I shall hate him, and leave him." I am not good, Harry; my mother is gentle and good, like an angel. I wonder how she should have bad such a child. She is weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong ; I am stronger than she, but I would do it, out of defiance.'"

Not good, Beatrix ? No, but one of whom much good might be made, "for she was great of heart." "Why am I not a man?" she breaks out, on another occasion ; "I would have made our name talked about !" Being only a woman, poor 'Trix had but one way of gratifying her ambition, and so she played the wretched game, and lost it, and was ruined ; and Mr. Trollope preaches over her, and the ladies call her "a most detestable young woman" (the ladies whose hearts are not big enough to feel the storms which wrecked Beatrix), and honest men turn sadly and humbly away from the sight of this brave nature, so awfully, so inscrutably laid low. But if women do not like 'Trix, they are among the heartiest admirers of Colonel Esmond, perhaps the pleasantest hero in all fiction. To draw a finished gentleman, with brains and a will, with a noble tenderness, too, and generosity of heart, at once simple and strong, this was the task which Thackeray undertook and achieved in Esmond. If "Trix is a Titiah, "my Lord Grave-airs," as the laughing girl calls him, and Lady Castlewood are Vandykes (or shall we attribute her ladyship to Sir Joshua P there is something so thoroughly English about her). We have not time to analyse these two famous portraits with the minute and loving care they merit. Round and mellow, soft and full, is the flavour of this, the choicest vintage in the Thackerayan cellar. But even in Esmond, Thackeray's familiar proved too strong for him. Nothing can be finer or more tragic than the scene at Castlewood, when the gentlemen of that house renounce their allegiance to the worthless Prince in whose ser- vice they had risked their all. But the Pretender begs the favour of crossing swords with the man whose mistress he has offered to seduce, and Thackeray goes gravely on —"Extremely touched by this immense mark of condescension and repentance for wrong done, Colonel Esmond bowed down so low as almost to kiss the gracious young hand that conferred on him such an honour, and took his guard in silence." No other writer would have had heart for this grave mockery of his own greatest crea- tion :—" See you, my friends," he cries, "hero is a perfect Few: chevalier, the best I can paint, and yet to cross swords with a prince makes him pardon the cruellest wrongs. Such was that wicked, snobbish old world, which the French Revolution, thank God, has made impossible for us."

Of Penclennis, too, Mr. Trollop° seems to us to have missed the true meaning. " Pendennis," he says, "is scorned because he is weak." We never felt any scorn for "Pen.," nor do we think that it was Thackeray's way to hold mere weakness up to scorn. Pity, as it seems to us, for weakness, and fellow-feel- ing for the weak, is the lesson taught by all tie great novels.

The laughter cannot be unkindly when, "Thyself the moral of the fable see," is never out of the story-teller's mouth. If we may quote so grave a book without offence, (and why not, since both writers teach the same lesson, each in his own way P), the sermons of this kindly lay-preacher all seem to us preached on the text from Thomas h. Kempis, "We are all frail, but none is more frail than thyself." Penclennis is in one sense the deepest of all the novels, for in this book Thackeray strove to paint the young men of his own day, and the picture would have been faithless indeed, had it not touched on the great problems which are "in the air" of such men's lives. To this we owe the noble outbursts on the sunrise in London, on truth, and on those two brothers whom the search after truth has led to such different goals ; and the beautiful passage, which few honest worldlings can read without a mournful sense of its reality, on the Sad- ducee riding by with a shrug and a smile, as Christ preaches to the poor, and turning to his roll of Plato, or his pleas- ant Greek song-book, "babbling of honey and FIybla, and nymphs, and fountains, and love." And note in this great story, that however weak and wayward and however sceptical and "fatally clear-sighted" the young men are, they have at least this of good in them,—they are no hypocrites. They are true sons of "this honest and inquiring age," as it has been justly called. But warm as is our admiration for Pendensvis, it con- tains three of the worst characters in Thackeray,—the French cook; Archer, (who is probably a portrait) ; and Milly Costigan, the actress. They would have been very well in the burlesques, but in the admirably every-day world of the novel they jar on us, as "Hymen" does in As You Like It, and the "White Lady of Avenel" in The Monastery. Captain Costigan (whose brogue, quite perfect of its kind, Mr. Trollop° has foolishly undertaken to criticise), is high comedy, Abide the broadest farce, and the intrusion of such a character mars the harmony of the whole piece.

One word on another series of papers, which Mr. Trollop° has not noticed as they deserve, and we have done. We refer to the "Sketches and Travels in London," first published in Punch. They have the peculiar Thackeray flavour, in at least an equal degree with the ballads, (of which Mr. Trollope, we are happy to see, has a proper appreciation), and in style and finish they may compare with the best of our author's work. Tho amount of worldly wisdom compressed into these little essays is wonderful, and they arc as amusing as the best bits of Vastity Fair. We would commend to the attention of our readers, (though it is difficult to select, where all arc BO good), those "On the Pleas- ures of being a Fogy," and "On Love, Marriage, Men, and Women," (invaluable to young ladies smitten with the matri- monial doctrines of Felix Holt). Finally, for the obstinate un- believers who hold by the " cynic " theory, we would prescribe a perusal of the charming paper, "On a Child's Party," suggested by John Leech's pretty picture in the same venerable journal.

We have not nearly said our say on Thackeray, one of the two or three great names which the century has given to letters, and of which we can already, with a certain confidence, assert, "These will live ;" but editors are inexorable, and we have already far exceeded our due limits. In him, future students of our history will find the thought of his time faithfully reflected in its leading phases. In him, they will see the age in its truth- fulness, its honesty, its littleness of aim, above all, in its intense self-consciousness,--the secret at once of its weakness, and of its strength, of its coldness, and hardness almost, before great ideals, and of its passion of pity for human suffering and wrong; a pity all the deeper and truer, that it goes about ashamed of its own tenderness, and loves to run veiled beneath a thin rime of intellectual scorn,—in none more commonly than in him, who has yet so unwearyingly taught that "if laughter is good, truth is better, and love best of all,"—the best, as it certainly is the shortest, summary of the ethics of William Makepeace Thackeray.