The vigilance displayed by _Punch_ in this matter no doubt helped to improve matters, but even as I write, in 1921, the world of letters has been staggered by the bestowal of a decoration on the strength of literary achievements of which no record could be discovered in any publisher's catalogue or library. [Sidenote: _Thackeray and Dickens_] One of the great novelists of the Victorian Age, Thackeray, had been for many years a regular and brilliant contributor to _Punch_, and though he retired from the staff in 1854, remained a constant member of the council and sat with them only eight days before his death on Christmas Eve, 1863. The tribute in the issue of January 2, 1864, pays homage more to the affectionate and loyal comrade than to the great writer; but in the following number _Punch_ repels with spirit the charge that Thackeray was a cynic. Thackeray's contributions to _Punch_ belong to an earlier period, but the brilliant burlesques of popular novelists, which he initiated by his travesties of Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, G. P. R. James and Lever were carried on with great spirit by Burnand in _Mokeanna_ (suggested by the romances in the _London Journal_), _Chikkin Hazard_ (founded on Charles Reade's _Foul Play_), and _One and Three_ (after Victor Hugo's _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_). Burnand's burlesques were not nearly so subtle or artistic as Thackeray's; they relied more upon farcical quips and ingenious puns; but still they served a useful purpose in the elevation of parody from mere verbal mimicry into a genuine function of literary criticism, a process in which _Punch_ has played an increasingly active and successful part in recent years. Dickens's intimate relations with the _Punch_ staff have been noted in the previous volume. There had been friction with the proprietors, but all was forgotten on his death in June, 1870. The lines which recognize him as in the same category as Shakespeare, only say what even modernist critics admit to-day--that he created a new world and peopled it with creatures of his imagination who are as real as those of real life. In the same number _Punch_, with some slight reserves, espoused Disraeli's side when Goldwin Smith had rashly "put on the cap" fitted for him in _Lothair_, and publicly and vehemently protested against being libelled as a "social parasite." In some doggerel verses _Punch_ made acid reference to the professor's bilious temper, intellectual arrogance and general cantankerousness. If Disraeli's attack was cowardly and contemptible, why notice it with such passion? [Illustration: A NOVEL FACT OLD-FASHIONED PARTY (with old-fashioned prejudices): "Ah! Very clever, I dare say. But I see it's written by a lady, and _I_ want a book that my _daughters_ may read. Give me something else!"]