tter than _esemplastic_ which he employed there.

3 The justice or accuracy of his individual presentments and even of
his general view of the time is quite another matter. We may touch
on part of it presently. But the real point is that the whole is of
a piece at least _in potentia_: that it gives a world that might
have existed.

4 The lectures on the _Humourists_ were, of course, delivered before
_Esmond_ was published; but, in another sense, they are only
aftercrops or by-products. The notes, sometimes very interesting,
are James Hannay's.

5 As might perhaps have been expected from its original appearance,
not piecemeal but in the regular three-volume form, _Esmond_ was not
very much altered by its author in later issues. There was, indeed,
a "revised" edition in 1858, in which a considerable number of minor
changes, nearly all for the better, were made. These have been
carefully considered, but in practically every case there was really
nothing to do but to follow them silently. For it would be absurd,
in the present edition, to chronicle solemnly the rectification of
mere misprints like "H_o_xton" for "H_e_xton", or the change from
"was never" to "never was". In some points of orthography
"Chelse_a_" and "Chelse_y_", for instance, Thackeray never reached
full consistency, and he has sometimes been caught in the
intricacies of the Castlewood relations and nomenclature, &c. So,
too, Walcote, which is near _Wells_ at first, moves to the
neighbourhood of _Winchester_ later; and there are other
characteristic oversights. But, on the whole, there is little need
of comment, and none of variants, save in a very few instances,
where the "revised" edition seems to have been altered for the
worse.

On the other hand, in recent editions of Thackeray, published by his
representatives, considerable alterations to _The English
Humourists_, &c., in text and notes have been introduced, dates
being changed in accordance with later researches, quotations (in
which Thackeray was pretty lax) adjusted to their originals, and so
forth. As the chief authorities consulted in making these
alterations were the late Sir Leslie Stephen, Mr. Austin Dobson, and
Mr. Sidney Lee, there need not be much question as to their
accurac