At this date, Thackeray's _Esmond_ has passed from the domain of criticism into that securer region where the classics, if they do not actually "slumber out their immortality," are at least preserved from profane intrusion. This "noble story"[61]--as it was called by one of its earliest admirers--is no longer, in any sense, a book "under review." The painful student of the past may still, indeed, with tape and compass, question its details and proportions; or the quick-fingered professor of paradox, jauntily turning it upside-down, rejoice in the results of his perverse dexterity; but certain things are now established in regard to it, which cannot be gainsaid, even by those who assume the superfluous office of anatomising the accepted. In the first place, if _Esmond_ be not the author's greatest work (and there are those who, like the late Anthony Trollope, would willingly give it that rank), it is unquestionably his greatest work in its particular kind, for its sequel, _The Virginians_, however admirable in detached passages, is desultory and invertebrate, while _Denis Duval_, of which the promise was "great, remains unfinished. With _Vanity Fair_, the author's masterpiece in another manner, _Esmond_ cannot properly be compared, because an imitation of the past can never compete in verisimilitude or on any satisfactory terms with a contemporary picture. Nevertheless, in its successful reproduction of the tone of a bygone epoch, lies _Esmond's_ second and incontestable claim to length of days. Athough fifty years and more have passed since it was published, it is still unrivalled as the typical example of that class of historical fiction, which, dealing indiscriminately with characters real and feigned, develops them both with equal familiarity, treating them each from within, and investing them impartially with a common atmosphere of illusion. No modern novel has done this in the same way, nor with the same good fortune, as Esmond; and there is nothing more to be said on this score. Even if--as always--later researches should have revised our conception of certain of the real personages, the value of the book as an imaginative _tour de force_ is unimpaired. Little remains therefore for the gleaner of to-day save bibliographical jottings, and neglected notes on its first appearance. Note: [61] "Never could I have believed that Thackeray, great as his abilities are, could have written so noble a story as _Esmond_."--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, August 1856.