A somewhat significant fact of their literary history may be mentioned, before an attempt is made to appreciate Thackeray's novels. For some years after Dickens' death, which, it will be remembered, occurred six years after Thackeray's, the latter gained in critical recognition while Dickens slowly lost. There can be little question of this. Lionized and lauded as was the man of Gadshill, promptly admitted to Westminster Abbey, it came to pass in time that, in a course on modern English literature offered at an old and famous New England college, his name was not deemed worthy of even a reference. Some critics of repute have scarce been able to take Dickens seriously: for those who have steadily had the temerity to care for him, their patronage has been vocal. This marks an astonishing shift of opinion from that current in 1870. Thackeray, gaining in proportion, has been hailed as an exquisite artist, one of the few truly great and permanent English figures not only of fiction but of letters. But in the most recent years, again a change has come: the pendulum has swung back, as it always does when an excessive movement carries it too far beyond the plumb line. Dickens has found valiant, critical defenders; he has risen fast in thoughtful so well as popular estimation (although with the public he has scarcely fluctuated in favor) until he now enjoys a sort of resurrection of popularity. What is the cause of this to-and-fro of judgment? The main explanation is to be found in the changing literary ideals from 1850 to 1900. When Dickens was active, literature, broadly speaking, was estimated not exclusively as art, but as human product, an influence in the world. With the coming of the new canon, which it is convenient to dub by the catch-phrase, Art for Art's Sake, a man's production began to be tested more definitely by the technique he possessed, the skilled way in which he performed his task. Did he play the game well? That was the first question. Often it was the first and last. If he did, his subject-matter, and his particular vision of Life, were pretty much his own affair. And this modern touchstone, applied to the writings of our two authors, favored Thackeray. Simple, old-fashioned readers inclined to give Dickens the preference over him because the former's interpretation of humanity was, they averred, kindlier and more wholesome. Thackeray was cynical, said they; Dickens humanitarian; but the later critical mood rebounded from Dickens, since he preached, was frankly didactic, insisted on his mission of doing good--and so failed in his art. Now, however, that the l'art pour art shibboleth has been sadly overworked and is felt to be passing or obsolete, the world critical is reverting to that broader view which demands that the maker of literature shall be both man and artist: as a result, Dickens gains in proportion. This explanation makes it likely that, looking to the future, while Thackeray may not