ould read after _Esmond_, is interesting to us for two
reasons,--because it reflects more of the details of Thackeray's life than
all his other writings, and because it contains one powerfully drawn
character who is a perpetual reminder of the danger of selfishness. The
hero is "neither angel nor imp," in Thackeray's words, but the typical
young man of society, whom he knows thoroughly, and whom he paints exactly
as he is,--a careless, good-natured but essentially selfish person, who
goes through life intent on his own interests. _Pendennis_ is a profound
moral study, and the most powerful arraignment of well-meaning selfishness
in our literature, not even excepting George Eliot's _Romola_, which it
suggests.

Two other novels, _The Newcomes_ (1855) and _The Virginians_ (1859),
complete the list of Thackeray's great works of fiction. The former is a
sequel to _Pendennis_, and the latter to _Henry Esmond;_ and both share the
general fate of sequels in not being quite equal in power or interest to
their predecessors. _The Newcomes_, however, deserves a very high place,--
some critics, indeed, placing it at the head of the author's works. Like
all Thackeray's novels, it is a story of human frailty; but here the
author's innate gentleness and kindness are seen at their best, and the
hero is perhaps the most genuine and lovable of all his characters.

Thackeray is known in English literature as an essayist as well as a
novelist. His _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_ are among the
finest essays of the nineteenth century. In the former especially,
Thackeray shows not only a wide knowledge but an extraordinary
understanding of his subject. Apparently this nineteenth-century writer
knows Addison, Fielding, Swift, Smollett, and other great writers of the
past century almost as intimately as one knows his nearest friend; and he
gives us the fine flavor of their humor in a way which no other writer,
save perhaps Larnb, has ever rivaled.[240] _The Four Georges_ is in a vein
of delicate satire, and presents a rather unflattering picture of four of
England's rulers and of the courts in which they moved. Both these works
are remarkable for their exquisite style, their gentle humor, their keen
literary criticisms, and for the intimate knowledge and sympathy which
makes the' people of a past age live once more in the written pages.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. In treating of Thackeray's view of life, as
reflected in his novels, cr