to be quite different from any other work of the time (the later thirties); but it is very unequal and distinctly uncertain in touch. These qualities or defects also appear in his first publications in volume--the _Paris_ (1840) and _Irish_ (1843) _Sketch Books_, and the novels of _Catherine_ and _Barry Lyndon_. The _Punch_ work (which included the famous _Book of Snobs_ and the admirable attempts in misspelling on the model of Swift and Smollett known as the _Memoirs of Mr. Yellowplush_, with much else) marked a distinct advance in firmness of handling and raciness of humour; while the author, who, though now a very poor man, had access to the best society, was constantly adding to his stock of observation as well as to his literary practice. It was not, however, till 1846, when he began _Vanity Fair_, that any very large number of persons began to understand what a star had risen in English letters; nor can even _Vanity Fair_ be said to have had any enormous popularity, though its author's powers were shown in a different way during its publication in parts by the appearance of a third sketch book, the _Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, more perfect than either of its forerunners, and by divers extremely brilliant Christmas books. _Vanity Fair_ was succeeded in 1849 (for Thackeray, a man fond of society and a little indolent, was fortunately never a very rapid writer) by _Pendennis_, which holds as autobiography, though not perhaps in creative excellence, the same place among his works as _Copperfield_ does among those of Dickens. Several slighter things accompanied or followed this, Thackeray showing himself at once an admirable lecturer, and an admirable though not always quite judicial critic, in a series of discourses afterwards published as a volume on _The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century_. But it was not till 1852 that the marvellous historical novel of _Esmond_--the greatest book in its own special kind ever written--appeared, and showed at once the fashion in which the author had assimilated the Queen Anne period and his grasp of character and story. He returned to modern times in _The Newcomes_ (1853-55), which some put at the head of his work as a contemporary painter of manners. After this he had seven years of life which were well filled. He followed up _Esmond_ with The _Virginians_ (1857-58), a novel of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, which has not been generally rated high, but which contains some of his very best things; he went to America and lectured on _The Four Georges_ (lectures again brilliant in their kind); he became (1860) editor of the _Cornhill Magazine_ and wrote in it two stories, _Lovel the Widower_ and _Philip_; while he struck out a new line in a certain series of contributions called _The Roundabout Papers_, some of which were among his very last, and nearly all of them among his most characteristic and perfect work. He had begun yet another novel, _Denis Duval_, which was