kes one as the master of the art in
French literature. It is amazing that in his own day he was not
appreciated at his full value, and that it was really left to time to
discover and vindicate his position. He is the true founder of the
realistic school in everything wherein that school deserves respect, and
has been loyal to art. He is also certain to maintain his hold and be an
example to writers after many modern realists have been utterly and
justly forgotten.

Two books from the shelf of fiction are taken down and read once a year
by a certain bookman from beginning to end, and in this matter he is now
in the position of a Mohammedan converted to Christianity, who is advised
by the missionary to choose one of his two wives to have and to hold as a
lawful spouse. When one has given his heart to _Henry Esmond_ and the
_Heart of Midlothian_ he is in a strait, and begins to doubt the
expediency of literary monogamy. Of course, if it go by technique and
finish, then _Esmond_ has it, which from first to last in conception and
execution is an altogether lovely book; and if it go by heroes--Esmond
and Butler--then again there is no comparison, for the grandson of
Cromwell's trooper was a very wearisome, pedantic, grey-coloured Puritan
in whom one cannot affect the slightest interest. How poorly he compares
with Henry Esmond, who was slow and diffident, but a very brave,
chivalrous, single-hearted, modest gentleman, such as Thackeray loved to
describe. Were it not heresy to our Lady Castlewood, whom all must love
and serve, it also comes to one that Henry and Beatrix would have made a
complete pair if she had put some assurance in him and he had installed
some principle into her, and Henry Esmond might have married his young
kinswoman had he been more masterful and self-confident. Thackeray takes
us to a larger and gayer scene than Scott's Edinburgh of narrow streets
and gloomy jails and working people and old-world theology, but yet it
may be after all Scott is stronger. No bit of history, for instance, in
_Esmond_ takes such a grip of the imagination as the story of the
Porteous mob. After a single reading one carries that night scene etched
for ever in his memory. The sullen, ruthless crowd of dour Scots, the
grey rugged houses lit up by the glare of the torches, the irresistible
storming of the Tolbooth, the abject helplessness of Porteous in the
hands of his enemies, the austere and judicial self-restraint of