TAINES THACKERAY.

FOR a single writer to traverse the whole range of English literature without a stumble would be almost impossible. Mr. Taine, although on the whole wonderfully apt to be right, is acknowledged to have made some mistakes; and one of these mistakes is, I think, his estimation of Thackeray. It has always been the fashion to decry Thackeray as a cynic. While his critics unite in praise of his keen insight into all the foibles and vices of our nature, they are equally unanimous in declaring that he has turned this power to a bad use, that he has made it the vehicle of his sarcasm. An attentive study of all his works, and especially of those parts in which he is accused of bitterness, will discover facts which go far to refute this accusation. Setting aside those passages in which he is justly allowed to have chastised vices rather than faults, and acts more mean than weak, it will be found that, in almost every instance, his sarcasm produces a revulsion of feeling, - instead of despising, we pity.

Carlyle, for instance, draws us up to his philosophic height, and with him we learn to look down upon our fellow-men or upon our own natures. We may close the book and declare that Carlyle is the "Prince of Cynics," but we have felt and thought with him, and are inclined to acknowledge that he is right. The particular weakness he has exposed we regard with a scorn which has no mixture of pity. We may blame him for his quickness in discovering our vices and our failings, or for his slowness to appreciate our virtues; we may complain that he seeks the disease rather than the remedy; yet we seldom accuse him of untruth. But Thackeray's sarcasm is a cloak for his compassion. He is content to assume the form of derision, that he may the better excite our indignant pity.

If this view of the case is wrong, and Thackeray is really a cynic, then indeed he is a most inconsistent and tender-hearted one. No other writer is more quick to admire purity and innocence. No other writer has shown so great respect for and appreciation of true womanliness, or has so well described it. In almost every chapter he has written there are sentiments as far removed from cynicism as is the most earnest and modest charity. Whatever a man's faults may be, or however contemptible, in the common sense, he may appear, if he has a kindly or unselfish trait in his character, it is that which Thackeray dwells upon, which excites his enthusiasm. Perhaps there is no quality which we should less expect to find in a cynic than that of pathos, certainly there is none in which Thackeray more excels. And, moreover, his pathos is extremely simple and unartificial. A good instance of it is the description of Colonel Newcome's death. In this there is no introduction of surroundings for the sake of dramatic effect; the account reads like that of one whose grief was too sincere for elaboration. It seems as if the author were lost in the friend.

M. C. H.