ten years, 1837-1847, _The Yellowplush Papers_, _The Great Hoggarty Diamond_, _Barry Lyndon_, _The Book of Snobs_ and _The Ballads of Policeman X_. Thackeray had also published independently _The Paris Sketch-Book_ and _The Irish Sketch-Book_. _Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848) was Thackeray's first novel on the great scale. _Barry Lyndon_ was indeed an exhibition of the highest intellectual power; but it was not of the orthodox length, and it failed to bring the writer wide fame. _Vanity Fair_ did bring him fame among the more thoughtful readers, though not a popularity rivalling that of Dickens. It was followed by _Pendennis_ (1849-1850), _Esmond_ (1852) and _The Newcomes_ (1854-1855). _Esmond_ was the only one that was published as a whole, and it is significant that it is by far the best constructed of the four usually accepted as Thackeray's greatest novels. The periodical method of publication had peculiar dangers for him. He was constitutionally indolent, almost always left his work to the last moment, and sometimes had to patch up his part anyhow. In 1851 Thackeray delivered the lectures on the _Humourists of the Eighteenth Century_, and repeated the course in America in 1852-1853. The lectures on _The Four Georges_ were delivered first in America (1855-1856). Of all Thackeray's writings these two courses have probably had the most scanty justice meted out to them. Critics are frequently apologetic, sometimes condescending. Nobody need apologise, and few can afford to condescend with respect to what are really among the richest and best criticisms of this century. Thackeray knew not only the literature but the life of the eighteenth century as few have known it. In minute acquaintance with facts he has doubtless been surpassed by many professional historians; but there is no book to be compared to _Esmond_ as a picture of life in the age of Queen Anne; and the lectures on the humourists are saturated, as _Esmond_ is, with the eighteenth century spirit. The figures of the humourists live and move before our eyes. We may not always agree with the critic's opinion, but we can hardly fail to understand the subject better through his mode of treatment. Strong objection has been taken, perhaps in some respects with justice, to his handling of Swift. Yet, much as has been written about Swift, where does there exist a picture of him so vivid, so suggestive and so memorable? Who else has done such justice to Steele? Who has written better about Hogarth? Thackeray succeeded because he not only knew the work of these men but felt with them. He was at bottom of the eighteenth century type. Much of Swift himself, softened and humanised, something of Fielding, whom he justly regarded as a model, and a great deal of Hogarth may be detected in Thackeray. The best criticism is always sympathetic; and it is because sympathy is so easy to him here that Thackeray is so excellent. The treatment even of Swift is far from being unsympathetic.