ntal. While his power of portraiture is
amazing, he often overleaps the line of character drawing and makes
side-splitting caricatures of his men and women. They are remembered
too often by a limp or a mannerism of speech, or by some other little
peculiarity, instead of by their human weaknesses and accomplishments.

Dickens is not a master in the artistic construction of his plots. The
majority of his readers do not, however, notice this failing because
he keeps them in such a delightful state of interest and suspense by
the sprightliness with which he tells a story.

He was a very rapid writer, and his English is consequently often
careless in structure and in grammar. As he was not a man of books, he
never acquired that half-unconscious knowledge of fine phrasing which
comes to the careful student of literature. No novelist has, however,
told more graphically such appealing stories of helpless childhood and
of the poor and the outcast.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863

[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. _From the painting by
Samuel Laurence, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Life_.--Though nearly a year older than Dickens, Thackeray made his
way to popularity much more slowly. These two men, who became friends
and generous rivals, were very different in character and disposition.
Instead of possessing the self-confidence, energy, and industry that
brought Dickens fame in his youth, Thackeray had to contend with a
somewhat shy and vacillating temperament, with extreme modesty, and
with a constitutional aversion to work.

Born in Calcutta in 1811, he was sent to England to be educated. He
passed through Charter House and went one year to Cambridge. He was
remembered by his school friends for his skill in caricature
sketching. He hoped to make painting a profession and went to Paris to
study; but he never attained correctness in drawing, and when he
offered to illustrate the works of Dickens, the offer was declined.
Thackeray certainly added to the charm of his own writings by his
droll and delightful illustrations.

When Thackeray came of age in 1832, he inherited a small fortune,
which he soon lost in an Indian bank and in newspaper investments. He
was then forced to overcome his idle, procrastinating habits. He
became a literary hack, and contributed humorous articles to such
magazines as _Fraser_ and _Punch_. While his pen was causing mirth and
laughter in England, his heart was torn by suffering