than his rival and was in a deeper sense than was Dickens a voice of the later century.  This means much, because with each decade between 1830 and 1860, English thought was moving fast toward that scientific faith, that disillusionment and that spirit of grim truth which culminated in the work of the final quarter of the century.  Thackeray was impelled more than was Dickens by the spirit of the times to speak the truth in his delineations of contemporary mankind:  and this operated to make him a satirist, at times a savage one.  The modern thing in Dickens—­and he had it—­was the humanitarian sympathy for the submerged tenth; the modern thing in Thackeray, however, was his fearlessness in uncovering the conventional shams of polite society.  The idols that Dickens smashed (and never was a bolder iconoclast) were to be seen of all men:  but Thackeray’s were less tangible, more subtle, part and parcel of his own class.  In this sense, and I believe because he began his major novel-writing about 1850, whereas the other began fifteen years before, Thackeray is more modern, more of our own time, than his great co-mate in fiction.  When we consider the question of their respective interpretations of Life it is but fair to bear in mind this historical consideration, although it would be an error to make too much of it.  Of course, in judging Thackeray and trying to give him a place in English fiction, he must stand or fall, like any other writer, by two things:  his art, and his message.  Was the first fine, the other sane and valuable—­those are the twin tests.

A somewhat significant fact of their literary history may be mentioned, before an attempt is made to appreciate Thackeray’s novels.  For some years after Dickens’ death, which, it will be remembered, occurred six years after Thackeray’s, the latter gained in critical recognition while Dickens slowly lost.  There can be little question of this.  Lionized and lauded as was the man of Gadshill, promptly admitted to Westminster Abbey, it came to pass in time that, in a course on modern English literature offered at an old and famous New England college, his name was not deemed worthy of even a reference.  Some critics of repute have scarce been able to take Dickens seriously:  for those who have steadily had the temerity to care for him, their patronage has been vocal.  This marks an astonishing shift of opinion from that current in 1870.  Thackeray, gaining in proportion, has been hailed as an exquisite artist, one of the few truly great and permanent English figures not only of fiction but of letters.  But in the most recent years, again a change has come:  the pendulum has swung back, as it always does when an excessive movement carries it too far beyond the plumb line.  Dickens has found valiant, critical defenders; he has risen fast in thoughtful so well as popular estimation (although with the public he has scarcely fluctuated in favor) until he now enjoys a sort of resurrection of popularity.  What is