up the palaver about
Sidonia and the Chosen Race. The _Novels by Eminent Hands_ are all
good: they are much more than parodies; they are real criticism, sound,
wise, genial, and instructive. Nor are they in the least unfair. If
the balderdash and cheap erudition of Bulwer and Disraeli are covered
with inextinguishable mirth, no one is offended by the pleasant
imitations of Lever, James, and Fenimore Cooper.

All the burlesques are good, and will bear continual re-reading; but
the masterpiece of all is _Rebecca and Rowena_, the continuation in
burlesque of _Ivanhoe_. It is one of the mysteries of literature that
we can enjoy both, that the warmest admirers of Scott's glorious
genius, and even those who delight in _Ivanhoe_, can find the keenest
relish in _Rebecca and Rowena_, which is simply the great romance of
chivalry turned inside out. But Thackeray's immortal burlesque has
something of the quality of Cervantes' _Don Quixote_--that we love the
knight whilst we laugh, and feel the deep pathos of human nature and
the beauty of goodness and love even in the midst of the wildest fun.
And this fine quality runs through all the comic pieces, ballads,
burlesques, pantomimes, and sketches. What genial fun in the _Rose and
the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Mrs. Perkins' Ball_, in the _Sketch
Book_, in _Yellowplush_. It is only the very greatest masters who can
produce extravaganzas, puerile tomfooleries, drolleries to delight
children, and catchpenny songs, of such a kind that mature and
cultivated students can laugh over them for the fiftieth time and read
them till they are household words. This is the supreme merit of _Don
Quixote_, of _Scapin_, of _Gulliver_, of _Robinson Crusoe_. And this
quality of immortal truth and wit we find in _Rebecca and Rowena_, in
the _Rose and the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Codlingsby_, and
_Yellowplush_. The burlesques have that Aristophanic touch of beauty,
pathos, and wisdom mingled with the wildest pantomime.

A striking example of Thackeray's unrivalled powers of imitation may be
seen in the letters which are freely scattered about his works. No one
before or since ever wrote such wonderfully happy illustrations of the
epistolary style of boy or girl, old maid or illiterate man. There
never were such letters as those of George Osborne in _Vanity
Fair_--that letter from school describing the fight between Cuff and
Figs is a masterpiece--the letters of Becky, of Rawdon, of