picture of Fanny in the chair, to which I cannot but take exception. I am quite sure that when Fanny graced the room and seated herself in the chair of her old bachelor friend, she had not on a low dress and loosely-flowing drawing-room shawl, nor was there a footstool ready for her feet. I doubt also the headgear. Fanny on that occasion was dressed in her morning apparel, and had walked through the streets, carried no fan, and wore no brooch but one that might be necessary for pinning her shawl.

The Great Cossack Epic is the longest of the ballads. It is a legend of St. Sophia of Kioff, telling how Father Hyacinth, by the aid of St. Sophia, whose wooden statue he carried with him, escaped across the Borysthenes with all the Cossacks at his tail. It is very good fun, but not equal to many of the others. Nor is the Carmen Lillionse quite to my taste. I should not have declared at once that it had come from Thackeray's hand, had I not known it.

But who could doubt the Bouillabaisse? Who else could have written that? Who at the same moment could have been so merry and so melancholy-could have gone so deep into the regrets of life, with words so appropriate to its jollities? I do not know how far my readers will agree with me that to read it always must be a fresh pleasure; but in order that they may agree with me, if they can, I will give it to them entire. If there be one whom it

does not please, he will like nothing that Thackeray ever wrote in

verse.

THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE.

A street there is in Paris famous,

For which no rhyme our language yields,
Rue Neuve des Petits Champ3 its name is-
The Ney Street of the Little Fields;
And here's a inn, not rich and sple..did,
But still in comfortable case;
The which i youth I oft attended,
To cat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is-
A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo;
Green herba, red peppe.s, mussels, saffron,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace;
All these you eat at Terre's tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis ;
And rae philosophers, methinks.

Who love all sorts of natural beauties,

Should love good vietuals and good drinks.

And Cordelier or Benedictine

Might gladly sure his lot embrace,

Nor find a fast-day too aflicting

Which served him up a Bouillabaisse.

A fair young face was nestled near me,
A dear, dear face looked fondly up,
And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me !
There's no one now to share my cup.

I drink it as the Fates ordain it.

Come fill it, and have done with rhymes;
Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it
In memory of dear old times.

Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is;
And sit you down and say your grace
With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is.
Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse.

I am not disposed to say that Thackeray will hold a high place among English poets. He would have been the first to ridicule such an assumption made on his behalf. But I think that his verses will be more popular than those of many highly reputed poets, and that as years roll on they will gain rather than lose in public estimation.

CHAPTER IX.

THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK.

"

In

A NOVEL in style should be easy, lucid, and of course grammatical. The same may be said of any book; but that which is intended to recreate should be easily understood-for which purpose lucid narration is an essential. In matter it should be moral and amusing. manner it may be realistic, or sublime or ludicrous; or it may be all these if the author can combine them. As to Thackeray's performance in style and matter I will say something further on. His manner was mainly realistic, and I will therefore speak first of that mode of expression which was peculiarly his own.

Realism in style has not all the ease which seems to belong to it, It is the object of the author who affects it so to communicate with his reader that all his words shall seem to be natural to the occasion. We do not think the language of Dogberry natural, when he tells neighbour Seacole that "to write and read comes by nature.' That is ludicrous. Nor is the language of Hamlet natural when he shows to his mother the portrait of his father;

See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove hi self:
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.

That is sublime. Constance is natural when she turns away from the Cardinal, declaring that

He talks to me that never had a son.

In one respect both the sublime and ludicrous are easier than the realistic. They are not required to be true A man with an imagination and culture may feign either of them without knowing the ways of men. To be realistic you must know accurately that which you describe. How often do we find in novels that the author makes an attempt at realism and falls into a bathos of absurdity, because he cannot use appropriate language?" No human being ever spoke like that," we say to ourselves-while we should not question the naturalness of the production, either in the grand or the ridiculous.

And yet in very truth the realistic must not be true-but just so far removed from truth as to suit the erroneous idea of truth which the reader may be supposed to entertain. For were a novelist to narrate a conversation between two persons of fair but not high education, and to use the ill-arranged words and fragments of speech which are really common in such conversations, he would seem to have sunk to the ludicrous, and to be attributing to the interlocutors a mode of language much beneath them. Though in fact true, it would seem to be far from natural. But, on the other hand, were he to put words grammatically correct into the mouths of his personages, and to round off and to complete the spoken sentences, the ordinary reader would instantly feel such a style to be stilted and unreal. This reader would not analyse it, but would in some dim but sufficiently critical manner be aware that his author was not providing him with a naturally spoken dialogue. To produce the desired effect the narrator must go between the two. He must mount somewhat above the ordinary conversational powers of such persons as are to be represented-lest he disgust. But he must by no means soar into correct phraseology— lest he offend. The realistic-by which we mean that which shall seem to be real-lies between the two, and in reaching it the writer has not only to keep his proper distance on both sides, but has to maintain varying distances in accordance with the position, mode of life, and education of the speakers. Lady Castlewood in Esmond would not have been properly made to speak with absolute precision; but she goes nearer to the mark than her more ignorant lord, the viscount; less near, however, than her better-educated kinsman, Henry Esmond. He, however, is not made to speak altogether by the card, or he would be unnatural. Nor would each of them speak always in the same strain, but they would alter their language according to their companion-according even to the hour of the day. All this the reader unconsciously perceives, and will not think the language to be natural unless the proper variations be there.

In simple narrative the rule is the same as in dialogue, though it does not admit of the same palpable deviation from correct construction. The story of any incident, to be realistic, will admit neither of sesquipedalian grandeur nor of grotesque images. The one gives an idea of romance and the other of burlesque, to neither of which is truth supposed to appertain. We desire to soar frequently, and then we try romance. We desire to recreate ourselves with the easy and droll. Dulce est desipere in loco. Then we have recourse to burlesque. But in neither do we expect human nature.

I cannot but think that in the hands of the novelist the middle course is the most powerful. Much as we may delight in burlesque, we cannot claim for it the power of achieving great results. So much, I think, will be granted. For the sublime we look rather to poetry than to prose; and though I will give one or two instances just now in which it has been used with great effect in prose fiction, it does not come home to the heart, teaching a lesson, as does the realistic. The girl who reads is touched by Lucy A-hton, but she feels herself to be convinced of the facts as to Jeanie Deans, and asks herself whether she might not emulate them.

Now as to the realism of Thackeray, I must rather appeal to my readers than attempt to prove it by quotation. Whoever it is that speaks in his pages, does it not seem that such a person would certainly have used such words on such an occasion? If there be need of examination to learn whether it be so or not, let the reader study all that falls from the mouth of Lady Castlewood through the novel called Esmond, or all that falls from the mouth of Beatrix. They are persons peculiarly situated-noble women, but who have still lived much out of the world. The former is always conscious of a sorrow; the latter is always striving after an effect-and both on this account are difficult of management. A period for the story has been chosen which is strange and unknown to us, and which has required a peculiar language. One would have said beforehand that whatever might be the charms of the book it would not be natural. And yet the ear is never wounded by a tone that is false. It is not always the case that in novel reading the ear should be wounded because the words spoken are unnatural. Bulwer does not wound, though he never puts into the mouth of any of his persons words such as would have been spoken. They are not expected from hlm. It is something else that he provides. From Thackeray they are expected-and from many others. But Thackeray never disappoints. Whether it be a great duke, such as he who was to have married Beatrix, or a mean chaplain, such as Tusher, or Captain Steele the humourist, they talknot as they would have talked probably, of which I am no judge— but as we feel that they might have talked. We find ourselves willing to take it as proved because it is there, which is the strongest possible evidence of the realistic capacity of the writer.