I02 PROCKE;dINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



ination in Thackeray's work is of a very high though quiet or- 

 der. It consists in a fine felicity of phrase, in witty and unex- 

 pected turns, in capital comparisons. This imaginative excel- 

 lence extends to his conception of character. A novelist's im- 

 agination must chiefly be shown in the completeness v/ith which 

 he puts himself in the place of his created creatures. And 

 Thackeray does this with almost entire success. Take Henry 

 Esmond. There are things we do not like in Henry Esmond. 

 The whole relation between the hero and lyady Castlewood is 

 strained. Beatrix is exasperating, indeed, was meant to be. 

 The denouement, though powerful and thrilling, is touched a 

 bit with theatrical tinsel. But on the whole what an amazing 

 success ! What play of light and shade upon Esmond's for- 

 tunes! How straight and manly he stands, what an air, what a 

 figure ! You cannot escape him. He will accompany you 

 henceforth through life. He is more vivid than many an his- 

 toric character. You will always associate him with the men 

 of Queen Anne's time and the Old Pretender. The same is true 

 of Pendennis, or of Colonel Newcome and Clive, or of the Os- 

 borne-family in Vanity Fair. These are not extraordinary peo- 

 ple or very great people. But you' know them better than thou- 

 sands of the great are known. You live in touch with their 

 lives, you see them, not as they think themselves or as they 

 are, but as their nearest saw them. You see them in the whole 

 circle of their social and family and business relations. 



The best artist is least conscious of his art, and Thackeray 

 was an artist in literature. He could not have told you how he 

 did it, though he did not spare toil or pains when once roused 

 to his work. We cannot enter further into the secret than to 

 say it was his nature, a gift born with him, almost as much in 

 evidence in his first work, as his last. He did not create a style ; 

 it was the free expression of himself. It is not an artificial, 

 manufactured st5de, but one that comands the ease and re- 

 serve strength of original genius. For generations to come, his 

 fictions will be read of English-speaking men, and his place is 

 secure. He will hold that place by virtue of the pleasure he 

 confers upon the mind and judgment of educated men and 



