n himself and coming from
his desire to express himself,--he will write it well, presuming him to
be capable of the effort. But if he write his book or poem simply
because a book or poem is required from him, let his capability be what
it may, it is not unlikely that he will do it badly. Thackeray
occasionally suffered from the weakness thus produced. A ballad from
_Policeman X_,--_Bow Street Ballads_ they were first called,--was
required by _Punch_, and had to be forthcoming, whatever might be the
poet's humour, by a certain time. _Jacob Omnium's Hoss_ is excellent.
His heart and feeling were all there, on behalf of his friend, and
against that obsolete old court of justice. But we can tell well when he
was looking through the police reports for a subject, and taking what
chance might send him, without any special interest in the matter. _The
Knight and the Lady of Bath_, and the _Damages Two Hundred Pounds_, as
they were demanded at Guildford, taste as though they were written to
order.

Here, in his verses as in his prose, the charm of Thackeray's work lies
in the mingling of humour with pathos and indignation. There is hardly a
piece that is not more or less funny, hardly a piece that is not
satirical;--and in most of them, for those who will look a little below
the surface, there is something that will touch them. Thackeray, though
he rarely uttered a word, either with his pen or his mouth, in which
there was not an intention to reach our sense of humour, never was only
funny. When he was most determined to make us laugh, he had always a
further purpose;--some pity was to be extracted from us on behalf of the
sorrows of men, or some indignation at the evil done by them.

This is the beginning of that story as to the _Two Hundred Pounds_, for
which as a ballad I do not care very much:

Special jurymen of England who admire your country's laws,
And proclaim a British jury worthy of the nation's applause,
Gaily compliment each other at the issue of a cause,
Which was tried at Guildford 'sizes, this day week as ever was.

Here he is indignant, not only in regard to some miscarriage of justice
on that special occasion, but at the general unfitness of jurymen for
the work confided to them. "Gaily compliment yourselves," he says, "on
your beautiful constitution, from which come such beautiful results as
those I am going to tell you!" When he reminded us that Ivanhoe had
produced Magna Charta, there