(1811-1863)
There can be no occasion to enlarge upon this generous tribute of one of
the greatest of our Victorian novelists to another. Considering how
inevitably the critic is driven to compare these two, if not to set one
up against the other, we can experience no feeling but pleasure and
pride in humanity, before the evidence of their mutual appreciation.
_The Cornhill_ "In Memoriam" article of Charles Dickens may well stand
beside this burst of glowing enthusiasm.
We have retained, by way of illustrating our general subject, a
paragraph from the earlier part of the article, in which Thackeray falls
foul of reviewers in general, for characteristics from which he himself
was singularly free.