THACKERAY. Diari/ (1845-40), the Pii^e yovelisis (1847), and the iinob Papers (1846-47). Thackeray had now proved liimself a master of burlesque, and an acute critic of contemporary manners. In their kind nothing could be better than the Prize Novelists and licbeeca and Rnirena, in which he exaggerates the weaknesses of Bulwcr, Disraeli, Lever, Cooper, and Scott. Barry Lyn- don, a mock defense of gambling (1844), is superb. He had also begun, as he continued throughout life, to write occasional verse, com- monly in the balhid measure, at will grave and pathetic or richly humorous. In 184G-48 Vanity Fair appeared in monthly parts, and Thackeray assumed his place in English literature by the side of Field- ing. This, with his otFier great novels, Penden- nis (1840-50), Henry Esmond (1852), and The Aeirconies (1854-55), shows him at the height of his power. Somewliat inferior, but still to be mentioned in this context, are The Virginians (1858) and The Adventures of Philip ("1862). Henry £sm 0)kZ, especially, lias taken rank by uni- versal consent at the very head of English histor- ical fiction. To say nothing of its other merits, it is an absolute faithful reproduction, not only of the language, but of the thought and the man- ners of the early eighteenth century. This was a period by which Thackeray was alwaj-s strongly attracted ; Addison, Swift, Steele, and the eight- eenth-century novelists were his masters in lit- erature. He even thought of writing a history of the century ; and liis studies took shape in the delightful lectures on The Enfllish Humor- ists. These he delivered in America in 1852 and 1853, with such success that he came again in 1855 with The Four Georyes. In 1857 he tried for Parliament, standing for Oxford in the Lib- eral interests, but was fortunately defeated. In 1860 he became the first editor of the Cornhill Magazine, for which he wrote his last novels and the Roundabout Paiiers (1800-63), a series of essays and sketches which are the best revelation of the man and of his large heart. Though not far beyond middle life, Thackeray felt the burden of years, and resigned the editor- ship of the Cornhill in April, 1862, On the morning of December 24, 1863, he was found dead in his bed. He was admirable both as a man and as a novelist. Tennyson called him 'lovable' and 'noble-hearted.' So said Carlyle, and all who knew him well. He has been often called a cynic ; and indeed he was unsparing in the fierceness with which he plied the lash on anything which savored of sham or pretense, and his keen vision detected allov in the finest natures. Yet there is a tremendous contrast be- tween his satire and that of Swift, a truer type of the cynic, who hated and despised human nature and rejoiced in laying bare its weak- nesses. Thackeray wrote always with a noble tenderness and an utter reverence for all that was good and true. Yet it must be admitted that, almost without exception, the strongest characters in his novels are the bad ones, and that he has drawn scarcely a woman whom we can love and admire without qualification. This probably comes, however, less from what has been called his cynicism than from a more indisputable defect — his lack of poetic imagina- tion. Thackeray was a realist; in some ways he pointed out the path to the modern English 178 THADD.a:US. realistic school. "I have no brains above my eyes," he said himself; "I describe what I see." He describes the life of the upper classes, as Dickens that of the lower; and between them they give an unrivaled picture of English life in the middle of the nineteenth century, with its characteristic notes — one may say, for the first time in the history of literature, a picture of a society whose chief concern is the making or the spending of money. The interest in social ques- tions which he was among the first to import into fiction has never died out; thovigh Charlotte Bronte's enthusiastic picture of him (in the preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre) as a prophet "who comes before the great ones of society mucji as the son of Imlah came before the throned kings of Judah and Israel, and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet- like and as vital, a mien as dauntless and as daring." may seem to us overdrawn. The most indisputable of his qualities is his unfailing masterv of a singuUirly pure, perfect, and simple style — the natural unstrained expression of his thoughts, however lofty or however homelj' they may have been. "He blew on his pipe, and words came tripping round him, like children, like pretty .little children who are perfectl.y drilled for the dance; or came, did he will It, treading in their precedence, like kings, gloom- ily." His style, like the vividly realized world of his cliaraeters, is the direct outgrowth of what has been called "perhaps the most interesting personality that has expressed itself in prose." Bibliography. Out of respect for Thackeray's request, no authorized biography of him has ever been written. His daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, however, has written sketches for each volume of the Biographical Edition of his works (London, 1898-99), and his son-in-law. Sir Leslie Stephen, wrote the article on him in the Die- tionnry of Salional Biography. Another good edition of the IToWi.'! is that with introduction by Walter Jerrold (New York, 1902). Anthony Trollope's Thackeray, in the "English Jlen of Letters" series (London, 1879), is valuable fgr personal impressions. One of the latest biog- raphies and certainly the most complete one is by Lewis Melville (London, 1899). For early work, not found in the Biographical Edition, see Unidentified Contributions of Thackeray to Punch, ed. by Spielmann (ib., 1899), and Thackcrai/'s Strai/ Papers. 1821 to 1847, ed. by Melville' (ib., 1901). Consult also Hunter, The Thaekerays in India (ib., 1897) ; the biographv by Merivale and JIarzials in the "Great Writers" series (ib., 1891); Whibley (ib., 1903); Crowe, Homes and Haunts of Thackeray (ib., 1897); id., With Thackeray in Ameriea^ (ib., 1893) ; Wilson,, Thackeray in the United states (New York, 1904). For criti- cism, consult especially the essays by Harrison, in Early Victorian Literature (London, 1895) ; Browneil. in Victorian Prose Masters (New York. 1901); Scudder, Social Ideals in English Letters (Boston, 1898); Lilly, in Four English Humorists of the yineteenth Century (London, 1895); Skelton, Table Talk of Shirley (ib., 1895). THADD.ffi'TIS (Lat., from Gk. BaMaloi, Thaddaios) . The name assigned to one of the twelve Apostles in the list given in Mark iii. 16- 19. In the corresponding list in Matt. x. 2-4 the
