on the British arms. The avarice and ambition of the brilliant Churchill are forgotten as the plans of his consummate genius are unravelled. Esmond's career with General Webb is traced with intense interest, and the scenes become as real to us as they undoubtedly seemed to the author. The plot of the book is not of the happiest description, the machinations of the Jacobites being interwoven largely with the thread of the narrative. The hero loves in the outset Beatrix Esmond, daughter of a viscount, and the devotion he exhibits to the idol of his heart and his imagination is something extraordinary even in comparison with the loves of other heroes. Beatrix, however, was unworthy of it: homage she would receive, true passion she seemed incapable of returning. Self-willed to a degree, the noble nature of such a man as Esmond was as a sealed book to her. His gravest feelings she treated with levity, and at length her conduct with the Pretender broke the spell, and threw down from its lofty pedestal, once and for ever, the idol he had set up. Like the marble it was beautiful to the eye; like the marble it was cold and insensible to the touch. Finally, Esmond contracts a union with Beatrix's mother, Lady Castlewood, still handsome and comparatively young, and who had always cherished the memory of Esmond as one whom she dearly loved in his youth. Her affection for him had never waned. The volume closes with their settlement on the banks of the Potomac, in a calm and serene happiness. The autobiographer, in describing their Virginian estate and Transatlantic life, says:-'Our diamonds are turned into ploughs and axes for our plantations, and into negroes, the happiest and merriest, I think, in all this country; and the only jewel by which my wife sets any store, and from which she hath never parted, is that gold button she took from my arm on the day when she visited me in prison, and which she wore ever after, as she told me, on the tenderest heart in the world.' In reading' Esmond,' so cleverly is the story told, and with such ease and truthfulness, that the reader does not stay to note what a difficult task the novelist has set himself in venturing to deal with a plot more than commonly unattractive. Thackeray, however, is nowhere the slave of a story; and in sometimes deliberately fighting against conventional construction and probability, he has proved by his success in enlisting interest and sympathy that he wielded the pen of a master. The world can forgive its hero for not doing what ninety-nine heroes in a hundred perform, when his history is related with the fidelity and ability which distinguish Esmond.' There are more characters carefully and vividly drawn in this book than are to be found in 6 the entire novels of many popular writers; and that pungency of Thackeray's pen which cuts through individualities as sharply and clearly as the diamond cuts through the glass, is here in full operation. It was as superior to its predecessor as the latter was to almost all the novels of the time. In regard to historical portraiture it has never been excelled; to read it once is to be struck with its eloquence and power; to read it a second time is to be impressed with its fidelity and photographic accuracy. Thackeray rose to the perfection of his art in fiction in 'The Newcomes;' and it is such books as this which show us what a fine teacher and instructor the novel may become in the hands of genius. In the representation of human nature this story is worthy of Richardson or Fielding. It is the chef-d'œuvre, in our opinion, of its author. There is not lacking that infinite sarcasm observable in previous works, but the writer has touched more deeply the springs of human sympathy. Within the whole scope of fiction there is no single character which stands out more nobly for the admiration of readers to all time than that of Colonel Newcome. The painter of that portrait alone might well lay claim to an undying canvas. As faithfully and as naturally as though limned by the hand of Sir Joshua Reynolds himself the features of the old soldier appear before us. Having written 'The Newcomes,' Thackeray may be said to have shaken hands as an equal with the two or three great masters of fiction. If it be the province of the novelist to depict human nature as it is, it must be conceded, at any rate, that there was nothing else left for the author to do to entitle him to the highest honours of his class. Nor is it a little singular too that in the story just mentioned Thackeray has given us the best female character which has proceeded from his fertile brain-Ethel Newcome. She comes to us as the sweet teacher of more goodness and religion than a whole company of preachers. We are inclined to agree with her cousin Clive Newcome that to look into her eyes would be almost too much for such unworthy imperfect creatures as men, and that she is one of that rare class of beings sent into the world occasionally to tell us that Heaven has not altogether forgotten us. What a story of society The Newcomes' is! First we have the Newcome family, with Sophia Alethea, whose mission and self-imposed duty it was 'to attend to the interests of the enslaved negro; to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the truth; to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Papists; to arouse the indifferent and often blasphemous mariner; to guide the washerwoman in the |