We must discuss “Vanity Fair” first, which, much as we were entitled to expect from its author’s pen, has fairly taken us by surprise.  We were perfectly aware that Mr. Thackeray had of old assumed the jester’s habit, in order the more unrestrainedly to indulge the privilege of speaking the truth;—­we had traced his clever progress through “Fraser’s Magazine” and the ever-improving pages of “Punch”—­which wonder of the time has been infinitely obliged to him—­but still we were little prepared for the keen observation, the deep wisdom, and the consummate art which he has interwoven in the slight texture and whimsical pattern of “Vanity Fair.”  Everybody, it is to be supposed, has read the volume by this time; and even for those who have not, it is not necessary to describe the order of the story.  It is not a novel, in the common acceptation of the word, with a plot purposely contrived to bring about certain scenes, and develop certain characters, but simply a history of those average sufferings, pleasures, penalties, and rewards to which various classes of mankind gravitate as naturally and certainly in this world as the sparks fly upward.  It is only the same game of life which every player sooner or later makes for himself—­were he to have a hundred chances, and shuffle the cards of circumstance every time.  It is only the same busy, involved drama which may be seen at any time by any one, who is not engrossed with the magnified minutiae of his own petty part, but with composed curiosity looks on to the stage where his fellow-men and women are the actors; and that not even heightened by the conventional colouring which Madame de Stael philosophically declares that fiction always wants in order to make up for its not being truth.  Indeed, so far from taking any advantage of this novelist’s licence, Mr. Thackeray has hardly availed himself of the natural average of remarkable events that really do occur in this life.  The battle of Waterloo, it is true, is introduced; but, as far as regards the story, it brings about only one death and one bankruptcy, which might either of them have happened in a hundred other ways.  Otherwise the tale runs on, with little exception, in that humdrum course of daily monotony, out of which some people coin materials to act, and others excuses to doze, just as their dispositions may be.

It is this reality which is at once the charm and the misery here.  With all these unpretending materials it is one of the most amusing, but also one of the most distressing books we have read for many a long year.  We almost long for a little exaggeration and improbability to relieve us of that sense of dead truthfulness which weighs down our hearts, not for the Amelias and Georges of the story, but for poor kindred human nature.  In one light this truthfulness is even an objection.  With few exceptions the personages are too like our every-day selves and neighbours to draw any distinct moral from.  We cannot see our way clearly.  Palliations of the