Newcomes_, nor _The Virginians_ are in any sense the work of a
misanthrope. And where Thackeray speaks in his own person, in the
lectures on the _English Humourists_, he is brimful of all that is
genial, frank, lenient, and good-hearted. What we know of the man, who
loved his friends and was loved by them, and who in all his critical
and personal sketches showed himself a kindly, courteous, and
considerate gentleman, inclines us to repel this charge of cynicism.
We will not brand him as a mere satirist, and a cruel mocker at human
virtue and goodness.
This is, however, not the whole of the truth. The consent of mankind,
and especially the consent of women, is too manifest. There is
something ungenial, there is a bitter taste left when we have enjoyed
these books, especially as we lay down _Vanity Fair_. It is a long
comedy of roguery, meanness, selfishness, intrigue, and affectation.
Rakes, ruffians, bullies, parasites, fortune-hunters, adventurers,
women who sell themselves, and men who cheat and cringe, pass before us
in one incessant procession, crushing the weak, and making fools of the
good. Such, says our author, is the way of Vanity Fair--which we are
warned to loathe and to shun. Be it so:--but it cannot be denied that
the rakes, ruffians, and adventurers fill too large a canvas, are too
conspicuous, too triumphant, too interesting. They are more
interesting than the weak and the good whom they crush under foot: they
are drawn with a more glowing brush, they are far more splendidly
endowed. They have better heads, stronger wills, richer natures than
the good and kind ones who are their butts. Dobbin, as the author
himself tells us, "is a spooney." Amelia, as he says also, "is a
little fool." Peggy O'Dowd, dear old goody, is the laughing-stock of
the regiment, though she is also its grandmother. _Vanity Fair_ has
here and there some virtuous and generous characters. But we are made
to laugh at every one of them to their very faces. And the evil and
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