'Herminius! I have sought thee "All round them paused the battle, Through breast-plate and through breast, Mamilius smote Herminius Through head-piece and through head. And side by side those chiefs of pride Together fell down dead. "Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, He burst through ranks of fighting men, His flanks all blood and foam, The pass was steep and rugged, The wolves they howled and whined; He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, Till he stood before his master's door And when they knew him, cries of rage And old men girt on their old swords, And went to man the wall. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 189 DRAMATISTS. The play writers of this age are neither very numerous nor very great. BULWER LYTTON produced Richelieu and The Lady of Lyons, two of the most popular of modern stage plays. JUDGE TALFOURD wrote classical dramas, the best being that named Ion. DOUGLAS JERROLD contributed two comedies, Time Works Wonders and Black-eyed Susan, both of which are great favourites; and SIR HENRY TAYLOR is the author of Philip van Artevelde, a dramatic poem. CHAPTER XVII. PROSE LITERATURE-FROM 1830 TILL THE PRESENT DAY. NOVELISTS.-Thackeray-Dickens-Lytton-Eliot-Other No velists. HISTORIANS. -Alison-Macaulay-Froude-Grote SCIENTIFIC WRITERS.-Miller-Darwin-Tyndall-Huxley IN prose literature no former period has been so productive as the age in which we live. Novels are in rich abundance. Historians, biographers, critics, and essayists have added valuable information to our previous knowledge, or provided for us a store of useful and pleasant reading. In the department of philosophy and science, the authors have been exceedingly numerous and important, and from day to day the newspaper press teems with a literature peculiar to itself, a literature containing much that is highly instructive, although scarcely of a kind that will endure. NOVELISTS. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (b. 1811, d. 1863), was born at Calcutta his father being then in the service of the East India Company. At the age of seven he was sent to England, and received his early training at the famous Charter House School. He next went to Cambridge, but did not wait to take his degree, for he had made up his mind to become an artist. Being possessed of an ample fortune, he now proceeded to the Continent and spent some time in travel. On his return to England, various losses compelled him to turn his attention to literature as a means of support, and he contributed many humorous tales and sketches, signing himself sometimes "Michael Angelo Titmarsh," and sometimes "George Fitzboodle, Esq." When Punch was started in 1841, Thackeray became one of its staff of writers, and under the name of "The Fat Contributor," wrote Jeames's Diary, and other papers of a satirical character. Hitherto, however, he had been merely regarded as a clever writer of magazine articles, and it was not till his first novel, Vanity Fair, began to make its appearance in monthly parts, that the greatness of his genius was seen and acknowledged. Pendennis came next, and then in 1851 he turned public lecturer, choosing for his subject the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. These lectures enjoyed great popularity in London, and were afterwards re-delivered in Scotland and in America. His next novels were Esmond and The Newcomes, and on the completion of these he delivered a second set of lectures, the subject on this occasion being The Four Georges. On his return from America, whither he had gone to deliver them, he wrote the Virginians, and (while editor of the Cornhill Magazine) Lovel the Widower and the Adventures of Philip. This distinguished novelist died suddenly at the close of the year 1863. Vanity Fair, which was illustrated by Thackeray himself, gives an account of two women-the one, Becky Sharp, clever, pushing, and unscrupulous; the other, Amelia Sedley, a well-meaning, virtuous creature, but brainless and insipid. The History of Pendennis is that of a young scapegrace. He falls in love with an actress, who jilts him; gets into WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 191 debt and disgrace at the University; becomes a student of the law; tires of that; takes to novel writing and poetry, in which he is successful; and wins his way into fashionable society at last. Esmond is in the form of an autobiography, supposed to be written in the time of Queen Anne. The hero, Colonel Henry Esmond, is a Jacobite, who, after serving his country as a soldier, joins those who desire the restoration of the Chevalier to the throne of the Stuarts. He woos Beatrice, the lovely daughter of Lady Castlewood, and, failing to gain her affections, marries her mother, and settles down in Virginia. Among the personages introduced into this novel, we have the Chevalier St. George, Dean Swift, Congreve, Addison, and Steele; and it remains to be added that Esmond, though by no means the most popular, is considered the most perfect of Thackeray's novels. The Newcomes relates the history of the simple, kindhearted Colonel Newcome, who is ruined through the knavery of wicked men, and dies poor within the precincts of the old Charter House. Ethel Newcome, the heroine of the story, is the best of Thackeray's female characters, and was so esteemed by the author himself. The Virginians, a tale of the times of Garrick and Johnson, gives the history of the grandsons of Esmond. The American war forms part of the plot. The Lectures of Thackeray have been published. Those on the English Humorists form one of the most pleasant books in the language; while the others, on the Four Georges, contain some frightful pictures of court life during the reigns of these sovereigns. The character of the second George is described with bitter irony, while that of the fourth is held up to special ridicule and contempt. His Thackeray's writings deal mostly with the upper classes of society. They are lively, biting, humorous. characters are portraits of real men and real women; and, through them, he shows how thoroughly noble the true man always is, and how gentle and excellent the true woman. But he more frequently shows, also, how many wicked and false-hearted persons belong to the one sex, and how many thoughtless and unprincipled characters may be found among the other. He is very satirical -maliciously so, as some think. There is reason to believe, however, that his satire was not the result of evil intent, as in Swift's case, but was like the punishment given by the parent, who chastises his child that he may thereby be taught to tread the path of virtue and of honour. BATH IN THE DAYS OF GEORGE II. "As for Bath, all history went and bathed and drank there. George II. and his queen, Prince Frederick and his court, scarce a character one can mention of the early last century, but was seen in that famous pump-room where Beau Nash presided, and his picture hung between the busts of Newton and Pope: This picture, placed these busts between, Gives Satire all its strength; But Folly at full length.' I should like to have seen the Folly. It was a splendid, embroidered, beruffled, snuffboxed, red-heeled, impetuous Folly, and knew how to make itself respected. I should like to have seen that noble old madcap Peterborough in his boots (he actually had the audacity to walk about Bath in boots!), with his blue ribbon and stars, and a cabbage under each arm, and a chicken in his hand, which he had been cheapening for his dinner. Chesterfield came there many a time and gambled for hundreds, and grinned through his gout. Mary Wortley was there, young and beautiful; and Mary Wortley, old, hideous, and snuffy. Walpole passed many a day there; sickly, supercilious, absurdly dandified, and affected; with a brilliant wit, a delightful sensibility; and, for his friends, a most tender, generous, and faithful heart. And, if you and I had been alive then, and strolling down Milsom Street-hush! we should have taken our hats off, as an awful, long, lean, gaunt figure, swathed in flannels, passed by in its chair, and a livid face looked out from the windowgreat fierce eyes staring from under a bushy, powdered wig, a terrible frown, a terrible Roman nose-and we whisper to one another, 'There he is! There's the great commoner! There is Mr. Pitt!' As we walk away, the abbey bells are set a ringing; and we meet our testy friend, Toby Smollet, on the arm of James Quin, the actor, who tells us that the bells ring for Mr. Bullock, |