Beside that
_ingenium perfervidum_ of the Scottish seer, he was but a Pall-Mall
Jeremiah after all.
It is curious to see how often Nature, original and profuse as she is,
repeats herself; how often, instead of sending one complete mind like
Shakespeare, she sends two who are the complements of each
other,--Fielding and Richardson, Goethe and Schiller, Balzac and George
Sand, and now again Thackeray and Dickens. We are not fond of
comparative criticism, we mean of that kind which brings forward the
merit of one man as if it depreciated the different merit of another,
nor of supercilious criticism, which measures every talent by some ideal
standard of possible excellence, and, if it fall short, can find nothing
to admire. A thing is either good in itself or good for nothing. Yet
there is such a thing as a contrast of differences between two eminent
intellects by which we may perhaps arrive at a clearer perception of
what is characteristic in each. It is almost impossible, indeed, to
avoid some sort of parallel _a la_ Plutarch between Thackeray and
Dickens. We do not intend to make out which is the greater, for they may
be equally great, though utterly unlike, but merely to touch on a few
striking points. Thackeray, in his more elaborate works, always paints
character, and Dickens single peculiarities. Thackeray's personages are
all men, those of Dickens personified oddities.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171