ine, Estella, his almost sole creation of a live girl. _Our Mutual
Friend_ (1864-65), though not a return to the great days, brought these
parties somewhat together again, thanks to the Doll's Dressmaker and
Rogue Riderhood. And then, for it is impossible to found any sound
critical judgment on the fragment of _Edwin Drood_, the building of the
most extraordinary monument of the fantastic in literature ceased
abruptly.

That exactly the same fate befell the great successor, rival, and foil
of Dickens in novel writing during the middle of the century was due to
no metaphysical aid but to the simple and prosaic fact that at the time
publication in parts, independently or in periodicals, was the usual
method. Although the life of William Makepeace Thackeray was as little
eventful as Dickens' own, their origin and circumstances were as
different as their work. Dickens, as has been said, was born in
distinctly the lower section of the middle class, and had, if any
education, a very irregular one. Thackeray, who was born at Calcutta in
1811, belonged to a good family, regularly connected with English public
schools and universities, inherited a small but comfortable fortune, and
was himself educated at the Charterhouse and at Trinity College,
Cambridge, though he took no degree. Unsuccessful as an artist (it is
one of the chief pieces of literary anecdote of our times that he
offered himself fruitlessly to Dickens as an illustrator), and having by
imprudence or accident lost his private means, he began to write,
especially in the then new and audacious _Fraser's Magazine_. For this,
for other periodicals, and for _Punch_ later, he performed a vast amount
of miscellaneous work, part only of which, even with the considerable
addition made some ten years ago, has ever been enshrined in his
collected works. It is all very remarkable, and can easily be seen now
to be quite different from any other work of the time (the later
thirties); but it is very unequal and distinctly uncertain in touch.
These qualities or defects also appear in his first publications in
volume--the _Paris_ (1840) and _Irish_ (1843) _Sketch Books_, and the
novels of _Catherine_ and _Barry Lyndon_. The _Punch_ work (which
included the famous _Book of Snobs_ and the admirable attempts in
misspelling on the model of Swift and Smollett known as the _Memoirs of
Mr. Yellowplush_, with much else) marked a distinct advance in firmness
of handling and raciness of humo