y; and the young man will say as he reads it, that no
Beatrix shall touch his heart.

You may go through all his characters with the same effect. Pendennis
will be scorned because he is light; Warrington loved because he is
strong and merciful; Dobbin will be honoured because he is unselfish;
and the old colonel, though he be foolish, vain, and weak, almost
worshipped because he is so true a gentleman. It is in the handling of
questions such as these that we have to look for the matter of the
novelist,--those moral lessons which he mixes up with his jam and his
honey. I say that with Thackeray the physic is always curative and
never poisonous. He may he admitted safely into that close fellowship,
and be allowed to accompany the dear ones to their retreats. The girl
will never become bold under his preaching, or taught to throw herself
at men's heads. Nor will the lad receive a false flashy idea of what
becomes a youth, when he is first about to take his place among men.

As to that other question, whether Thackeray be amusing as well as
salutary, I must leave it to public opinion. There is now being brought
out of his works a more splendid edition than has ever been produced in
any age or any country of the writings of such an author. A certain
fixed number of copies only is being issued, and each copy will cost L33
12s. when completed. It is understood that a very large proportion of
the edition has been already bought or ordered. Cost, it will be said,
is a bad test of excellence. It will not prove the merit of a book any
more than it will of a horse. But it is proof of the popularity of the
book. Print and illustrate and bind up some novels how you will, no one
will buy them. Previous to these costly volumes, there have been two
entire editions of his works since the author's death, one comparatively
cheap and the other dear. Before his death his stories had been
scattered in all imaginable forms. I may therefore assert that their
charm has been proved by their popularity.

There remains for us only this question,--whether the nature of
Thackeray's works entitle him to be called a cynic. The word is one
which is always used in a bad sense. "Of a dog; currish," is the
definition which we get from Johnson,--quite correctly, and in
accordance with its etymology. And he gives us examples. "How vilely
does this cynic rhyme," he takes from Shakespeare; and Addison speaks of
a man degenerating into a cynic. That Thackeray