ur; while the author, who, though now a
very poor man, had access to the best society, was constantly adding to
his stock of observation as well as to his literary practice. It was
not, however, till 1846, when he began _Vanity Fair_, that any very
large number of persons began to understand what a star had risen in
English letters; nor can even _Vanity Fair_ be said to have had any
enormous popularity, though its author's powers were shown in a
different way during its publication in parts by the appearance of a
third sketch book, the _Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, more
perfect than either of its forerunners, and by divers extremely
brilliant Christmas books. _Vanity Fair_ was succeeded in 1849 (for
Thackeray, a man fond of society and a little indolent, was fortunately
never a very rapid writer) by _Pendennis_, which holds as autobiography,
though not perhaps in creative excellence, the same place among his
works as _Copperfield_ does among those of Dickens. Several slighter
things accompanied or followed this, Thackeray showing himself at once
an admirable lecturer, and an admirable though not always quite judicial
critic, in a series of discourses afterwards published as a volume on
_The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century_. But it was not till
1852 that the marvellous historical novel of _Esmond_--the greatest book
in its own special kind ever written--appeared, and showed at once the
fashion in which the author had assimilated the Queen Anne period and
his grasp of character and story. He returned to modern times in _The
Newcomes_ (1853-55), which some put at the head of his work as a
contemporary painter of manners. After this he had seven years of life
which were well filled. He followed up _Esmond_ with The _Virginians_
(1857-58), a novel of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, which
has not been generally rated high, but which contains some of his very
best things; he went to America and lectured on _The Four Georges_
(lectures again brilliant in their kind); he became (1860) editor of the
_Cornhill Magazine_ and wrote in it two stories, _Lovel the Widower_ and
_Philip_; while he struck out a new line in a certain series of
contributions called _The Roundabout Papers_, some of which were among
his very last, and nearly all of them among his most characteristic and
perfect work. He had begun yet another novel, _Denis Duval_, which was
to deal with the last quarter of the century he knew