ne of the most
real of illustrious Henrys as well of Thackeray's characters--but his
reality is of a rather different kind from that of most of his fellows. It
is somewhat more abstract, more typical, more generalized than the reality
of English heroes usually is. He is not in the least shadowy or allegoric:
but still he is somehow "Esmondity" as well as Esmond--_the_ melancholy
rather than _a_ melancholy, clearsighted, aloofminded man. His heart and
his head act to each other as their governing powers, passion and humour,
have been sketched as acting above. He is a man never likely to be very
successful, famous, or fortunate in the world; not what is generally
called a happy man; yet enjoying constant glows and glimmers of a cloudy
happiness which he would hardly exchange for any other light. The late
Professor Masson--himself no posture-monger or man of megrims, but one of
genial temper and steady sense--described Thackeray as "a man apart"; and
so is the Marquis of Esmond. Yet Thackeray was a very real man; and so is
the Marquis too.

[Illustration]

No. 36 Onslow Square, Brompton, Where Thackeray Lived From 1853 to 1862.

The element of abstraction disappears, or rather retires into the
background, when we pass to Beatrix. She also has the _Ewigweibliche_ in
her--as much of it as any, or almost any, of Shakespeare's women, and
therefore more than anybody else's. But she is very much more than a
type--she is Beatrix Esmond in flesh and blood, and damask and diamond,
born "for the destruction of mankind" and fortunately for the delight of
them, or some of them, as well. Beatrix is beyond eulogy. "Cease! cease to
sing her praise!" is really the only motto, though perhaps something more
may be said when we come to the terrible pendant which only Thackeray has
had the courage and the skill to draw, with truth and without a disgusting
result. If she had died when _Esmond_ closes I doubt whether, in the Wood
of Fair Ladies, even Cleopatra would have dared to summon her to her side,
lest the comparison should not be favourable enough to herself, and the
throne have to be shared.

But, as usual with Thackeray, you must not look to the hero and heroine
too exclusively, even when there is such a heroine as this. For is there
not here another heroine--cause of the dubieties of the _Doctor Fidelis_ as
above cited? As to that it may perhaps be pointed out to the extreme
sentimentalists that, af