c Spirit"
as the patron of his endeavours and the inspirer of his art, Mr.
Meredith of course did no more than assert his claim to place himself in
the right race and lineage of Cervantes and Fielding. Nor, though the
claim be a bold one, can there be much dispute among competent judges
that he made it out. To the study, not in a frivolous or even merely
satirical, but in a gravely ironic mode, of the nature of humanity he
addicted himself throughout: and the results of his studies undoubtedly
enlarge humanity's conscious knowledge of itself in the way of
fictitious exemplification. In a certain sense no higher praise can be
given. To acknowledge it is at once to estate him, not only with
Cervantes and Fielding themselves, but with Thackeray, with Swift, with
Moliere, with Shakespeare. It places him well above Dickens, and, in the
opinion of the present writer, it places him above even Balzac.
But there are points wherein, according to that same opinion, he
approaches much nearer to Balzac and Dickens than to the other and
greater artistic creators: while in one of these points he stands
aloof even from these two, and occupies a position--not altogether to his
advantage--altogether by himself in his class of artistic creation. All
the six from Thackeray to Shakespeare--one might even go farther back
and, taking a more paradoxical example, add Rabelais--are, even in
extravaganza, in parody, in what you please, at once pre-eminently and
_prima facie_ natural and human. To every competent human judgment, as
soon as it is out of its nonage, and barring individual
disqualifications of property or accident, this human nature attests
itself. You may dislike some of its manifestations; you may decline or
fail to understand others; but there it is, and there it is _first_. In
Balzac and Dickens and Mr. Meredith it is not first. Of course it is
there to some extent and even to a large one: or they would not be the
great writers that they are, or great writers at all. But it is not
merely disguised by separable clothings, as in Rabelais wholly and in
parts of others, or accompanied, as in Swift and others still, by
companions not invariably acceptable. It is to a certain extent
adulterated, sophisticated, made not so much the helpmeet, or the
willing handmaid, of Art as its thrall, almost its butt. I do not know
how early criticism, which now seems to have got hold of the fact,
noticed the strong connection-contrast between Dickens