s shaken
off his cousin Michael. The main object of the story is to expose the
villany of bubble companies, and the danger they run who venture to have
dealings with city matters which they do not understand. I cannot but
think that he altered his mind and changed his purpose while he was
writing it, actuated probably by that editorial monition as to its
length.

In 1842 were commenced _The Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle_, which
were continued into 1843. I do not think that they attracted much
attention, or that they have become peculiarly popular since. They are
supposed to contain the reminiscences of a younger son, who moans over
his poverty, complains of womankind generally, laughs at the world all
round, and intersperses his pages with one or two excellent ballads. I
quote one, written for the sake of affording a parody, with the parody
along with it, because the two together give so strong an example of the
condition of Thackeray's mind in regard to literary products. The
"humbug" of everything, the pretence, the falseness of affected
sentiment, the remoteness of poetical pathos from the true condition of
the average minds of men and women, struck him so strongly, that he
sometimes allowed himself almost to feel,--or at any rate, to say,--that
poetical expression, as being above nature, must be unnatural. He had
declared to himself that all humbug was odious, and should be by him
laughed down to the extent of his capacity. His Yellowplush, his
Catherine Hayes, his Fitz-Boodle, his Barry Lyndon, and Becky Sharp,
with many others of this kind, were all invented and treated for this
purpose and after this fashion. I shall have to say more on the same
subject when I come to _The Snob Papers_. In this instance he wrote a
very pretty ballad, _The Willow Tree_,--so good that if left by itself
it would create no idea of absurdity or extravagant pathos in the mind
of the ordinary reader,--simply that he might render his own work absurd
by his own parody.

THE WILLOW-TREE.

No. I.

THE WILLOW-TREE.

No. II.

Know ye the willow-tree,
Whose gray leaves quiver,
Whispering gloomily
To yon pale river?
Lady, at eventide
Wander not near it!
They say its branches hide
A sad lost spirit!

Long by the willow-tree
Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother's screams
O'er the gray water.