idea of Professors Faraday and Owen, and the utmost veneration for the mental powers of these great men and their brethren; but for the millions of unknown and unknowable individuals who make up the great bulk of mankind, it is astonishing how little progress we have made in the knowledge of them since Job fell a-despairing in the Idumean wildernesses, and Moses with his human impatience forfeited the promised land. But not to go quite so far back among the historians of our race, here are Sir E. B. Lytton, Mr Thackeray, and Mr Dickens, alĺ of whom, it is certain, have much more acquaintance with science and philosophy than had that great predecessor of theirs, who perhaps, after all, only wrote his plays for the Globe Theatre, and was not prepared to see them text-books in the hands of all the world; yet these three gentlemen, with all their varied insight, will not venture to look down from their nineteenth-century elevation upon William Shakespeare, three hundred years behind them, and boast that they have attained a knowledge, denied to him, of the nature and powers of man.

Yes, it is a grand science which reads history to us out of the cast-off shattered garments of this old old world of ours interpreting those scales of rock, those morsels of shell, those fairy leaves and flowers of grass, which write, in stony characters, a record that mocks created memory; but perhaps it is a grander science still which deals with those succeeding waves of human life, generation after generation, where every man is in himself a world, with his period of chaos, his volcanoes, his petrifactions, his wonderful phases of transformation. Our patient earth takes ages for her changes; but a single hour may witness the shaking of heaven and earth, the vast convulsion which grinds the mountains to powder, and makes a desert of the sea, in the lesser universe of a single heart. Wherefore be modest in your shout of triumph, O philosophers of the nineteenth century. Your Megatherium, though probably a stripling of great promise ten thousand years ago, before time began, is but a structure of bones now, some of them not created bones, but only manufactured ones,

on approved principles; whereas the subject of our story, the hero of our speculations, this unfathomable creature, man, though he be ever so small a specimen, not up to the elbow of your gigantic skeleton, has blood in his veins to-day, and lives for ever.

Coming back, without any aid of logic, to the point we started from, it is to say, that no manner of digging into the bowels of the earth, or snatching secrets from the sky, or any of our novel arts and mighty sciences, can much increase our knowledge of ourselves our great enigma-or of the men and women who surround us. This great world of inquiry the poets held in their possession in the old ages-it has passed through sundry hands in intermediate periodsand now, at last, has come to be delivered over, in those degenerate days of ours, to the sole successors of those poets who dealt with men rather than with verses-the novel-writers of our time.

And the name of them is legion. If there still be signs and symptoms, even in this age, whereby you may ward off the too near approach of a philosopher, you must rouse your faculties to double precaution if you would avoid the swarm of young men and old men, of matrons and maidens, possessed with the spirit of divination -the knack of writing novels. That young lady in your friend's drawingroom, whom somebody asks for "a little music"-has not your friend told you that she is the author of

? And the stout gentleman in the Insurance Office where you paid your premium only yesterday, and the young priest whom you will hear to-morrow, and sundry other innocent and harmless people of whom you think no evil-have you not heard of the religious novel and the political novel, the tale on the sanitary question, and the story in illustration of university reform, given to the world by these good friends of yours? So far has the mania gone, that we have no doubt a very respectable mob could be collected of modern English novel-writers. Like other mobs, it has a few ringleaders towering over the general mass. The foremost figure of all has other claims to public notice than his works; he is a man

We are bound to say, that while Mr Thackeray has been disporting himself among the family of Newcomes, Mr Michael Angelo Titmarsh, in his episodical existence, has made great use of his time since his last appearance before the Christmas-keeping public. Mr Titmarsh may rest assured that no thunder will sour the beer which has so little acid in it by nature. The fairy Blackstick is a much more agreeable presiding genius than Lady Kicklebury; and Mr Titmarsh has never before produced so pleasant a picture-book, nor one whose pictures were so worthy of the text. These illustrations are greatly superior to all their predecessors by the same hand; they are so good that the artist is fairly entitled to rank with the author in this pleasant production; and altogether, amidst our wars and our troubles, in this Christmas which is darkened and shadowed over to so many households, and at a time when common tribulation and anxiety put us in charity with all our neighbours, we are glad that we have to thank Mr Thackeray for the honest laugh which is not at any one's expense.

Mr Thackeray, in his own proper person, has not made less progress in kindness and good humour than has his alter ego, if we trace his course from Vanity Fair to the Newcomes. Everybody praises Becky Sharp, and the history in which she fills so important a place. Does everybody like that clever, unbelieving, disagreeable book? But there is nothing to be said on the subject of Vanity Fair, which has not been said already-that all its rogues are clever and amusing, and all its good characters fools-that Amelia is a greater libel upon womankind than Becky herself, and that there is a heated crowded atmosphere in the story which has scarcely any relief, seeing that the good people are by no means a match for the bad, and cannot even pretend to balance the heavy scale of evil. There is no one in the book who has the remotest claim to our affection but Dobbin-good Dobbin, with his faithful heart and his splay feet. Why should the Major have splay feet, Mr Thackeray? Must the man who is not distinguished by moral obliquity have some physical misfortune to make amends? But

the splay feet carry their owner into the heart of our regard, despite their unloveliness. The warmest admirer of Miss Rebecca Sharp is not moved to bestow his affection upon that amiable young lady; and though poor, little, silly Amelia may chance to touch a heart for a moment as she watches in Russell Square for a glimpse of her boy, she is quite too insignificant a person to insure any regard for herself. Mr Thackeray made a very clever book; and Mr Thackeray's book made a great sensation and success. There are many admirable things in it—a great sparkle of sayings and happy turns of expression; and the scenes are cut sharp and clear in their outline, and dullness is not within these pages. Nevertheless, we carry but one personage with us in real kindness when we close the volume. Of all its men and women, only Major Dobbin is worth the least morsel of love.

In Mr Thackeray's second grand exposition of his own principles, and of the human panorama of which he is a spectator and historian-in Pendennis

we find a little more to commend. There is Warrington, who has no splay feet; there is sweet Mrs Pendennis, whom we consent to accept as an angel. It is a sad thing to think of Warrington, such a man as he is, spending his life in those chambers in Lamb Court, with nothing to do but to write articles, the fate of which he cares nothing for, only the Haunt to solace that great heart of his when the day's work is done, and no particular motive for living except the custom and habit of it. Few can paint a wasted life, and great powers wearing down with the continual dropping of every day, better than Mr Thackeray; but we are glad to think that he has still the means of rescue for this character in

the exhaustless resources of fiction. Will not Mr Thackeray take into his gracious consideration ways and means for disposing of the graceless unknown Mrs Warrington, and leave Bluebeard free to make his fortune once more? We will answer for the entire satisfaction of the general population of these British Islands with any proceeding of the kind; and we do not doubt that Mr Warrington, when he is a free man, will find some one more

faithful than Laura, and will not be forsaken a second time for such a coxcomb as Pen. Pendennis himself, though he is good-looking and fashionable, and writes a successful novel, is but a very poor fellow after all not only falling far short of an ideal hero, but not much to brag of for a very ordinary man. Mr Thackeray avowedly scorns the loftiness of common romance, and will not have an exalted personage for the principal figure on his canvass; but Mr Arthur Pendennis does not possess a single feature of the heroic. Unfortunately, when we ought to admire, we are a great deal more likely to despise; and this, though it may be original, is neither true art nor noble; it is not original either; but Mr Pen is a meaner sinner than Tom Jones.

Leaving Pen-and leaving Laura, who is a very doubtful person, and whom we do not profess to make much of-if Pen is not the best husband in the world, popular opinion, we are afraid, will pronounce that popular sentence,"Served her right!"—there is much more satisfaction in meeting with Harry Foker, who is Mr Thackeray's special property, the type of a class which our novelist has brought out of the shadows into the clearest and kindliest illumination. Good Harry Foker, who has no great share of brains-who does not spell very well, perhaps whose habits are not what they ought to be, but who is the soul of honour, of unpretending simple courage and kind-heartedness. Some score of Harry Fokers, doing, with simple straightforwardness, what their commander ordered, have ridden with open eyes, and without a moment's faltering, right into the open-mouthed destruction, and made heroes of themselves upon the wintry heights of Sebastopol. Not a refined gentleman by any means, it is only genius that can commend this brave good-hearted simpleton to all our affections. A lesser artist might have been afraid of a character so little intellectual, and felt its defective points a reproach to his invention; but Mr Thackeray has been able to seize upon the genuine sparkle of this uncut jewel, upon the reverence for goodness, the humble self-estimation, the tender-heartedness, and the unsuspected pathos

which lie in its depths. It is strange, when he has proved himself so capable of its exercise, that Mr Thackeray should so much overlook this true alchemy of genius. Is it best to drag the veil of decorum from a hidden evil, or to disclose a vein of native excellence-a secret even to its owner? Mr Thackeray, who scares his innocent readers with vague intimation of pitfalls round about them, and shocks mamma with terrific hints of the unmentionable illdoing familiar to the thoughts of her pretty boy at school, does better service when Harry Foker, and Jack Belsize, and even Rawdon Crawley, show their honest hearts to us, than when he produces Mr Pendennis, with all his gifts, as a specimen of modern education, and the civilisation of the nineteenth century. What a simple noble gentleman is Lord Kew, who rises just above the strata of the Belsize formation! Such a hero as he is would leave us little to desire.

Only in one respect does Pendennis sin more grossly than Vanity Fair. Blanche Amory is more detestable, because she is less clever than Becky. How much does Mr Thackeray owe to the world of womankind, by way of reparation for foisting into their ranks such a creation as this! Nothing less than a Desdemona can atone for such an insult. Can Mr Thackeray make a Desdemona? He has added some few pleasant people to our acquaintance in his day-Warrington may make amends for Pen, but who is to make amends for Blanche?

And here we touch upon our author's greatest imperfection. Mr Thackeray does not seem acquainted with anything feminine between a nursery-maid and a fine lady—an indiscriminate idolater of little children, and an angler for a rich husband. The "perfect woman, nobly planned," has no place in the sphere of Mr Thackeray's fancy. Perhaps the secret of this may be, that Mr Thackeray's world is a conventional world; and that even while he attacks its weak points, "society," the sphere with which he is best acquainted, represents this many-sided globe in our historian's eyes. The mother and the cousin in the little country - house,

weeping and adoring as they read the hero's letters, telling each other of his childhood, those blessed days when Pen was in petticoats, seeing in all this heaven and earth only the bit of consecrated soil under his shadow and the sky over his head, and furious at every other pretender for his gracious favour-that is one side of the picture. On the other is Miss Amory, with that bad leer in her eyes, which we are rejoiced to see has disappeared from the sketches of Mr Michael Angelo Titmarsh, calculating her chances of a husband, amusing Mr Pen into that last resource of idlenessfalling in love; weeping "Mes Larmes" in public, and in private cuffing her little brother; and Blanche is the other side of the golden shield, the obverse of the coin, the completion of Mr Thackeray's circle of female character. It is not a flattering estimate of Englishwomen which will be formed from the pages of this author, whom, of all others, we should fancy our neighbours over the Channel most likely to form their judgment from. Though Blanche has expanded into Beatrice, and Beatrice progressed to Ethel, the character is still far from satisfactory. And we must once more assure Mr Thackeray, that he owes his countrywomen an Isabella or a Desdemona to make amends.

In the one other creation of Pendennis, Mr Thackeray puts forth all his power. The Major rescues his class still more clearly out of the shadows than Harry Foker does; henceforward, instead of wordy descriptions of this old gentleman of the clubs, it will be quite enough to say that he is like Major Pendennis. This impersonation is so broad and clear that there is no mistaking it or its identity. There are certain portraits which convince us that they are admirable likenesses, though we are perfectly unacquainted with the original; and even those to whom "society is an unknown country, must recognise, as an unmistakable individual, this specimen of the aborigines of "the world." Getting on in "society" is the chief end of man to Major Pendennis-it is the grand vocation and duty of life. You must be moderately good, moderately brave and honourable, because the want of these quali

ties is apt to endanger your success in life; and with all the perseverance and ardour which wins battles or makes fortunes, the Major devotes himself to securing an invitation to Gaunt House, or a gracious recognition from the Marquis of Steyn. It would be a pure waste of sympathy, in author or readers, to condole with the loveless, joyless condition of this old man of fashion. Loves and joys are out of the Major's way-they would simply embarrass and annoy him, these troublesome emotions; the Major has his pleasures instead, and his place in society, which he fills in a manner perfectly becoming the high end he has in view.

When we leave Pendennis, we find that Mr Thackeray takes a great leap out of his ordinary domain. It is no longer the English of the present day, careless and easy, just touched with the slang for which our author has a special gift, but it is English of the Augustan age, English which is balanced with antithesis, and polished into epigram, the English of those dainty people who wore bag-wigs and ruffles, patches and powder. Though we have serious fault to find with the story of Esmond, we are constrained to admit, at the outset, that the execution of this story is exquisite. In comparison with this, almost every other historical work we are acquainted with, except the romances of Scott, is a mere piece of masquerade. The age is not a great age, we confess, in spite of its Blen heim and its Ramilies, its Steele and its Addison; but such as it is, we have it here, a picture which is not merely paint, but is about the best example of absolute reproduction which our literature possesses. Nothing can be more real or touching-more like a veritable page of biography, if biographers were usually endowed with such a style as Mr Thackeray confers upon Harry Esmond-than the story of the solitary boy at Castlewood, his patrons and his teachers. The picture is perfect in its truth to nature, which is universal, and to manners, which are limited and transitory. Harry Esmond is not a boy of Queen Victoria's time, in the little cavalier's suit proper to Queen Anne's-he is not in advance of his age, nor has any