stand out in full relief, and whose names have become as familiar in men's mouths as those of celebrated men. If you speak of Sir Thomas Bertram, of Fanny Price, or of Mr. Collins, the allusion will require explanation. But this is owing, not to any deficiency of skill, but to the perfection of her art. She passed her life in the sphere of a respectable, but not high-born Englishwoman-familiar with the better classes of society in country towns; with the beau monde she seems to have been altogether unacquainted. She gives us only such characters and scenes as faithfully represent the manners of the society in which she lived. To have admitted incidents and persons, which, however real in themselves, did not belong to the ordinary features of the life which she portrays, would have destroyed the harmony of the picture. Nothing more commonplace can be imagined than the routine of action which forms the groundwork of each of her tales. But neither is it possible to imagine a more faithful delineation of any phase of society, or a more admirable constructive genius than that with which, from these materials, she forms a work of art. Her plots are so skilfully framed, that, while the interest of the story is always preserved, she never oversteps the bounds of probability. She never has recourse to the clumsy expedients of common novelists, who involve themselves in labyrinths from which they can only escape by a coup-de-main-who win the game by moving their knight diagonally, or making their bishop leap over a pawn. The dénouement of her plots is as simple as the deve lopment; the difficulty is solved by natural, yet unforeseen methods. Her talent is essentially dramatic. The authoress herself is never visible, never even peeps from behind the cur tain. The characters are not described; they exhibit themselves in action and in speech; and there are no prose works of fiction in which the individuality of all the actors is so well maintained. Miss Austen's humor is rich and suggestive. She is not, however, a humorist, who sees that every object may be viewed in a sportive light. She never satirizes a class. She finds a theme for comedy only in those peculiarities which are laughed at by all the world; but she exposes these traits with a bold, yet delicate touch. "Mansfield Park " has more variety of incident than any of her other works, and is, on this account perhaps, a more general favorite. "Pride and Prejudice," however, is superior in wit and humor; while the plot of "Emma" is equal to that of any of Ben Jonson's comedies. "Sense and Sensibility," the earliest of her stories, is the least pleasing of them all; yet in none does she exhibit so profound an insight into human nature; and we have never read the work without astonishment that the most subtle play of motives, and the most delicate traits of character should have been thus faithfully portrayed by a woman at the age of twenty-five. From Miss Austen to Thackeray is an abrupt transition; for they have no qualities in common, except those which belong to all writers who give us faithful pictures of life and manners. Between the author of Vanity Fair and the author of Tom Jones, on the other hand, there is a certain similarity, obvious to every reader. The source of this resemblance cannot lie deep; for we gather from the works of these two writers very different impressions of their personal characters; and it is in the character that we must seek for the root of all that flowers in the intellect. An unaffected manliness, a singular freedom from vanity and from all the pretences and disguises in which not merely common natures, but genius itself too often lies enmeshed, we should attribute to them both. But the simplicity of Fielding is that of a flowing, vivacious spirit, whose unconstrained movements have a natural charm and grace. One can imagine him everywhere in social life, the centre of a group, delighted with his animation and with a wit that so easily harmonized with the tone of his society. Among women and children, men of culture and boon companions, he must have been equally at home, admired by all, by some- and not the worst of them- beloved. In Thackeray, on the contrary, you would probably find the plain demeanor of a man of sense and experience, who does not fascinate his company, and does not try to do it; whose qualities are not those of the cynosure and the general favorite, and who is far above aiming at a distinction that does not naturally fall to him. With all his admiration of beauty and grace, to which, indeed, he renders on all occasions the genuine homage of an artist, he is the last man to be unconscious of the bounds of his own nature, or to struggle against them. It even pleases him to exaggerate the phlegmatic temperament, and the incapacity to dazzle and captivate, of that imaginary observer of men and manners, - Mr. Spec, or Mr. Brown, or the Fat Contributor, - behind whose masks he hides his own penetrating eyes. It is a "fogy" who paints the tender passion in those soft and glowing colors; the chivalrous ardor with which Mr. Solomon Pacifico talks of Erminia is nothing more than that respectful admiration with which, in his youth, it was the custom to speak of every charming woman. It is with the manners of an earlier generation that he affects to be most familiar. He often speaks of the period when he himself was young, ardent, and enthusiastic, as one which belongs to a distant past, and sometimes assigns to it the date of 1812. Are then the biographical dictionaries all at fault, which inform us that Thackeray, W. M., was born in 1811; and had he already assumed the toga virilis, and become the victim of Miss Emily Blenkinsop's charms, at a time when the statement of the said dictionaries would lead us to infer that he was only a baby in long clothes? We suspect it is not age, but premature wisdom that has checked the swift current of his blood; for this tone is not peculiar to his later works, but belongs also to those which were written fifteen years ago. The season of illusion, it would seem, was a short one with him. He had not paid many visits to the theatre when he discovered that the ballet girls were not fairies; and if he still recollects Miss B.'s dimples and smiles, it is because real beauty and goodness leave a glow in the heart long after its fevers are all over. But if Thackeray's character wants the polish and brilliancy of Fielding's, the intrinsic qualities of the metal are, it must be owned, superior. Fielding was a man of generous impulses, who tasted to the day of his death the bitter fruits of self-indulgence. Thackeray's heart is not less noble; but he is inured to the discipline of self-denial, and wears in the bidden shrine of his conscience the laurel of self-conquest. If he has not escaped the taint of that speculative spirit which questions further than reason can reply, this is but a necessary stage in the development of a thoughtful and earnest mind. But his will is too robust, the energies of life are too strong within him, to yield to the benumbing influence of speculation. He shakes off the fatal lethargy; and the doubt which he cannot satisfy by argument he dissipates by action. On the whole, there could not be a greater contrast than between the buoyant Fielding, draining the sweet cup that life holds to his lips,-reckless of "next morning's" headache, and of the sharp necessities that follow unthrift, and the melancholy, but strong and self-sustaining Thackeray, who feels the general woe, and fights bravely in the common cause of humanity. Such a man has a right to look the world boldly in the face. And surely no eye was ever keener, no speech ever franker, than Thackeray's. The heart of every reader of his works confesses his insight into its most secret emotions. And yet it is not in sounding the depths of the soul that his peculiar and unrivalled excellence lies, but in noting all the external indications of character, in seizing, with a comprehensive glance, the multifarious and minute peculiarities of habit or appearance, by which thought and feeling betray themselves ( to a penetrating gaze. He is the greatest of observers. In the masquerade of Vanity Fair he recognizes every one; the choice of the disguise betrays the wearer, or the manner in which it is worn. No man watches with such vigilance the by-play of life. The petty artifices of vanity, the covert leers of slander and envy, the insolent courtesies of varnished vulgarity, the stolen glances of timid affection, the unbreathed sighs of patient suffering, all these he surprises on their passage, and interprets as if by intuition. He sees the soul, not naked, but draped in the customs and formulas of artificial life; and he points out how awkwardly the garments fit, and what a sorry figure it is that struts about before the admiring crowd, padded with honors and dignities, or, it may be, with virtue and respectability. He is not a detective officer, who follows a criminal to his secret haunts, and drags his dark deeds to light. It is while engaged in his open and regular pursuits and amusements, at dinner, in the theatre, while reading the newspapers, or driving in the park, that the suspected - party is under our author's surveillance. By the appearance and the manner, at such times, the dress, the gesture, the traitorous communications of the quivering lip or knitted brow, he reads the emotion and deciphers the thought. To be an adept in this mystery, to be able to discover character by those "trifles light as air" that distinguish one man from another, or the same man from himself at a different time, in actions and habits common to all, requires a knowledge of those minute details of art and science which have so much to do with men's appearance and behavior. For example, if you would qualify yourself for the observation of human nature in a fashionable sphere, you must first obtain a competent knowledge of dress, gastronomy, and etiquette. It is evident that these have been with Thackeray matters of especial study. He knows the table of precedence at every court in Europe, from imperial Versailles to high-transparent Pumpernickel; he has confidential interviews with the distinguished chef of the "Sarcophagus;" and his acquaintance with the minutiae of costume is extensive, historical, and precise. His familiarity with all the points of female attire, the command he shows of the vocabulary of the mercer, the dressmaker, and the modiste, confound the male reader, and appall the ladies. If Thackeray, therefore, unlike most novelists, never makes us acquainted with his personages by unveiling the process of their thoughts, taking up the train with the event that suggests it, and following it down to the act that results from it. He reverses this order, exhibits the action, and then points to the delicate thread which connects it with the motive. he sits beside the Misses Twigg at the play, and those young ladies, as well as their chaperon, Mrs. Captain Flathers, suddenly whisk away the neat little bouquets, which they have just before been exhibiting with considerable pride, and trample them under their feet, or cover them with their handkerchiefs, he glances around, and presently the secret of this disturbance comes to light. The Misses Cutbush have just entered the opposite box, with bouquets like little haystacks; and the small nosegays, which had quite satisfied their fair rivals until now, have become odious in their jealous little eyes. Such instances as this exemplify one of Thackeray's |