He could not have done it without the “pains” to which he refers in the saying quoted above; but these pains, as usual, bore fruit more than once. It has been thought desirable to include in the present volume the two main after-crops,(4) _The English Humourists_ and _The Four Georges_. Exactly _how_ early Thackeray’s attention was drawn to the eighteenth century it would, in the necessarily incomplete state of our biographical information about him, be very difficult to say. We have pointed out that the connexion was pretty well established as early as _Catherine_. But it was evidently founded upon that peculiar congeniality, freshened and enlivened with a proper dose of difference, which is the most certain source and the purest maintainer of love in life and literature.
At the same time, the two sets of lectures are differentiated from the novel not so much by their form—for Thackeray as a lecturer had very little that smacked of the platform, and as a novelist he had a great deal that smacked of the satiric conversation-scene—as by their purport. _Esmond_, though partly critical, is mainly and in far the greater part creative. The Lectures, though partly creative—_resurrective_, at any rate—are professedly and substantially critical. Now, a good deal has been said already of Thackeray’s qualities and defects as a critic: and it has been pointed out that, in consequence of his peculiar impulsiveness, his strong likes and dislikes, his satiric-romantic temperament, and perhaps certain deficiencies in all-round literary and historical learning, his critical light was apt to be rather uncertain, and his critical deductions by no means things from which there should be no appeal. But _The English Humourists_ is by far the most important “place” for this criticism in the literary department; and _The Four Georges_ (with _The Book of Snobs_ to some extent supplementing it) is the chief place for his criticism of society, personality, and the like. Moreover, both have been, and are, violently attacked by those who do not like him. So that, for more reasons than one or two, both works deserve faithful critical handling themselves.
It is always best to disperse Maleger and his myrmidons before exploring the beauties of the House of Alma: so we may take the objections to the _Humourists_ first. They are chiefly concerned with the handling of Swift and (in a less degree) of Sterne. Now, it is quite certain that we have here, in the first case at any rate, to confess, though by no means to avoid. It is an instance of that excessive “taking sides” with or against his characters which has been noticed, and will be noticed, again and again. Nor is the reason of this in the least difficult to perceive. It is very doubtful whether Thackeray’s own estimate of average humanity was much higher than Swift’s: nor is it quite certain that the affection which Swift professed and (from more than one instance) seems to have really felt for Dick, Tom, and Harry, in particular, as opposed to mankind at large, was very much less sincere than Thackeray’s own for individuals. But the temperament of the one deepened and aggravated his general understanding of mankind into a furious misanthropy; while the temperament of the other softened _his_ into a general pardon. In the same way, Swift’s very love and friendship were dangerous and harsh-faced, while Thackeray’s were sunny and caressing. But there can be very little doubt that Thackeray himself, when the “Shadow of Vanity” was heaviest on him, felt the danger of actual misanthropy, and thus revolted from its victim with a kind of terror; while his nature could not help feeling a similar revulsion from Swift’s harsh ways. That to all this revulsion he gives undue force of expression need not be denied: but then, it must be remembered that he does not allow it to affect his _literary_ judgement. I do not believe that any one now living has a greater admiration for Swift than I have: and all that I can say is that I know no estimate of his genius anywhere more adequate than Thackeray’s. As for Sterne, I do not intend to say much. If you will thrust your personality into your literature, as Sterne constantly does, you must take the chances of your personality as well as of your literature. You practically expose both to the judgement of the public. And if anybody chooses to take up the cudgels for Sterne’s personality I shall hand them over to him and take no part on one side or another in that bout. To his _genius_, once more, I do not think Thackeray at all unjust.