Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson

by Unknown

FRASER'S MAGAZINE

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

(1811-1863)

There can be no occasion to enlarge upon this generous tribute of one of the greatest of our Victorian novelists to another. Considering how inevitably the critic is driven to compare these two, if not to set one up against the other, we can experience no feeling but pleasure and pride in humanity, before the evidence of their mutual appreciation. The Cornhill "In Memoriam" article of Charles Dickens may well stand beside this burst of glowing enthusiasm.

We have retained, by way of illustrating our general subject, a paragraph from the earlier part of the article, in which Thackeray falls foul of reviewers in general, for characteristics from which he himself was singularly free.