ions confessedly not up to the severe standard of
excellence required by the art critic, but admirably adapted for their
purpose, Mr. Doyle's etchings to "The Newcomes," and remark the
immeasurable superiority of the latter.

[Illustration:
W. M. THACKERAY. "_The Rose and the Ring._"

"ANGELICA ARRIVES JUST IN TIME."

_Back to p. 379._]

And yet, in justice to the great humourist of the nineteenth century,
let us hear what another great writer has to say upon the very
illustrations which seem to us to call for such severe animadversion.
After telling us that Thackeray studied drawing at Paris, affecting
especially Bonnington (the young English artist who died in 1828), Mr.
Anthony Trollope goes on to say, "He never learned to draw,--perhaps
never could have learned. That he was idle and did not do his best, we
may take for granted. He was always idle, and only on some occasions,
when the spirit moved him thoroughly, did he do his best even in after
life. But with drawing--or rather without it--he did wonderfully well,
even when he did his worst. He did illustrate his own books, and every
one knows how incorrect were his delineations. But as illustrations they
were excellent. How often have I wished that characters of my creating
might be sketched as faultily, if with the same appreciation of the
intended purpose. Let any one look at the 'plates,' as they are called,
in 'Vanity Fair,' and compare each with the scenes and the characters
intended to be displayed, and then see whether the artist--if we may
call him so--has not managed to convey in the picture the exact feeling
which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in
which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an
aide-de-camp,--messenger I had perhaps better say, lest I might affront
military feelings,--who is kneeling on the field of battle and
delivering a despatch to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease
with which the duke receives the message though the messenger's head be
gone, and the soldierlike precision with which the headless hero
finishes his last effort of military obedience, may not have been
portrayed with well-drawn figures, but no finished illustration ever
told its story better."[185] We read these remarks with profound
astonishment, and can only ask in reply: If, as Mr. Trollope has
admitted, Thackeray "never learned to draw,--perhaps never could have
learned," how he could manage "to