-Plutarchian
parallel between them is nearly as inevitable as it is common, it is a
parallel almost entirely composed of differences, carried out in matter
almost incommensurable. In the first place, Dickens, as we have seen,
and as Thackeray said (with the generous and characteristic addition "at
the head of the whole tribe"), "came and took his place calmly" and
practically at once (or with the preliminary only of "Boz") in
_Pickwick_. Whether he ever went further may at least be questioned. But
Thackeray did not take his place at once--in fact he conspicuously
failed to take it for some sixteen years: although he produced, for at
least the last ten of these, work containing indications of
extraordinary power, in a variety of directions almost as extraordinary.

To attempt to assign reasons for this comparative failure would be
idle--the fact is the only reasonable reason. But some phenomena and
symptoms can be diagnosed. It is at least noteworthy that Thackeray--in
this approaching Dickens perhaps nearer than in any other point--began
with extravaganza--to adopt perhaps the most convenient general name
for a thing which cannot be quite satisfactorily designated by any. In
both cases the adoption was probably due to the example and popularity
of Theodore Hook. But it was also due, in a higher and more metaphysical
sense, to the fact that the romance, which had had so mighty a success
in Scott's hands, was for the time overblown, and that the domestic
novel, despite the almost equally wonderful, though much quieter and
less popular achievement of Miss Austen, was not thoroughly and
genuinely ready. From extravaganza in a certain sense Dickens, as has
been said, never really departed: and he achieved most of his best work
in his own peculiar varieties of it. Thackeray was, if not to leave it
entirely aside, to use it in his later days merely as an occasional
variation and seasoning. But at first he could not, apparently, get free
from it: and he might have seemed unable to dispense with its almost
mechanical externalities of mis-spelling and the like. It must also be
remembered that circumstances were at first curiously unfavourable to
him: and that loss of fortune, domestic affliction, and other things
almost compelled him to write from hand to mouth--to take whatever
commission offered itself: whereas the, if not immediate, speedy and
tremendous success of _Pickwick_ put the booksellers entirely at
Dickens's feet. Sti