standard by which to judge of the excellence of the ludicrous as there
is of the sublime, and even the realistic.

No writer ever had a stronger proclivity towards parody than Thackeray;
and we may, I think, confess that there is no form of literary drollery
more dangerous. The parody will often mar the gem of which it coarsely
reproduces the outward semblance. The word "damaged," used instead of
"damask," has destroyed to my ear for ever the music of one of the
sweetest passages in Shakespeare. But it must be acknowledged of
Thackeray that, fond as he is of this branch of humour, he has done
little or no injury by his parodies. They run over with fun, but are so
contrived that they do not lessen the flavour of the original. I have
given in one of the preceding chapters a little set of verses of his
own, called _The Willow Tree_, and his own parody on his own work. There
the reader may see how effective a parody may be in destroying the
sentiment of the piece parodied. But in dealing with other authors he
has been grotesque without being severely critical, and has been very
like, without making ugly or distasteful that which he has imitated. No
one who has admired _Coningsby_ will admire it the less because of
_Codlingsby_. Nor will the undoubted romance of _Eugene Aram_ be
lessened in the estimation of any reader of novels by the well-told
career of _George de Barnwell_. One may say that to laugh _Ivanhoe_ out
of face, or to lessen the glory of that immortal story, would be beyond
the power of any farcical effect. Thackeray in his _Rowena and Rebecca_
certainly had no such purpose. Nothing of _Ivanhoe_ is injured, nothing
made less valuable than it was before, yet, of all prose parodies in the
language, it is perhaps the most perfect. Every character is maintained,
every incident has a taste of Scott. It has the twang of _Ivanhoe_ from
beginning to end, and yet there is not a word in it by which the author
of _Ivanhoe_ could have been offended. But then there is the purpose
beyond that of the mere parody. Prudish women have to be laughed at, and
despotic kings, and parasite lords and bishops. The ludicrous alone is
but poor fun; but when the ludicrous has a meaning, it can be very
effective in the hands of such a master as this.

"He to die!" resumed the bishop. "He a mortal like to us!
Death was not for him intended, though _communis omnibus_.
Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus!"