Thackeray  leaves  the  world  of  fashion  as  he  found  it.     He
laughed  at  it,  showed  what  a  stupid  world  it  is,  how  it  dined,
and  danced,  how  it  spent  its  Saturdays  and  Sundays,  how  it
came  into  existence^  and  how  it  went  out  of  it ;  but  he  suffered
himself  to  be  carried  along  with  it,  and  never  made  an  attempt
to  befriend  any  of  its  votaries.   There  is  no  earnestness  secreting
itself  under  his  silks  and  satins.     In  this  particular  there  is  a
wide  contrast  between  him  and  Dickens.     Thackeray  has  given
us  the  incidents  of  life,  the  manners  and  customs  of  a  class  ;
but  he  fails  as  an  exponent  of  human  nature.     His  imagination
was  cramped,  so  that  he  could  not  assimilate  what  his  observa-
tion had  perceived.     Satire  is  destructive  to  humour,  and  by
frequent  use  narrows  the  faculties  of  the  mind,  checks  sympathy
and  generosity,  and  makes  geniality  and  warm-heartedness  im-
possible.    Thackeray  was  a  satirist  and  a  wit,  not  a  humourist.
He  had  not  breadth   enough  for  a  genuine  humourist.     The
humourist   is  born ;    the  wit   is   manufactured.     That  which
excited  the  sneer  of  Thackeray  gained  the  commiseration  of
Dickens.  ..."

**  Satirists  have  stormed  against  the  abuses  of  the  court,  and
governments,  the  intrigues  of  statesmen,  and  the  intolerance  of
the  pulpit.  But  Dickens  was  the  first  to  employ  fiction  as  an
instrument  to  tell  the  dark  history  of  those  human  beings  who
herd  in  the  loathsome  alleys  of  our  great  cities,  to  sho  w  that


CRITICAL.  175

men  are  allowed  to  rot  out  of  life  into  eternity  because  a  duty
was  neglected  which,  love  ought  to  have  dictated.  .  .  .'*

202

BULWER  AND  DiCKENS.     A  Contrast.
London  :   Temple  Bar.     January,  1875.     pp.  168^

180.
