Thackeray is placed in the group of dyed-in-the-wool ironists mainly because he does not belong in the other. One somehow acquires the impression that ironic sayings will be plentiful as blackberries; but when one actually goes berrying, he finds the crop strangely vanished. Lacking the grave, dry, imperturbable manner and the consistently preserved attitude, he cannot avoid the temptation of relapsing into the literal and giving self-conscious explanations, as in _Barry Lyndon_, and _Catherine_. This produces something of the effect of Lydgate’s ironic titles,--_So as the Crabbe goeth forward_, and _As Straight as a Ram’s Horn_,--followed by perfectly serious moralizing. Probably nothing would astonish or distress Thackeray more than to have his humor rated as the humor of Lytton, Reade, or Kingsley; nor would this indeed be quite fair to him. Yet his lack of real spontaneity classifies him with them rather than with Dickens or Trollope, and his lack of finish and subtlety prevents him from being ranked with Peacock, Eliot, Meredith or Butler. His ironic phrasing has too often the flat, shallow sound of the man determined to be clever. Such, for instance, is the comment on the plutocratic Miss Crawley:[216] “She had a balance at the banker’s which would have made her beloved anywhere. * * * What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker’s!” Such also is this demolishing assault upon worldliness:[217] “I, for my part, have known a five pound note to interpose and knock up a half century’s attachment between two brethren; and can’t but admire, as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among worldly people.” And this upon a shoddy _noblesse oblige_:[218] “I admire that admiration which the genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty. There is no more agreeable object in life than to see May Fair folks condescending.” When he gravely admonishes, it is as follows:[219] “Praise everybody, I say to such; never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point blank to a man’s face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again.” The direct satire on Pitt Crawley as an undergraduate is given an ironic fillip by another sting in the tail:[220] “But though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insured any man a success.” Another successful bit,--this time the device of catching an unwary character in an ironic trap,--is the account of Penn’s linguistic proficiency. His friend Strong compliments him on speaking French like Chateaubriand,--[221]