Rakes, ruffians, bullies, parasites, fortune-hunters, adventurers,
women who sell themselves, and men who cheat and cringe, pass before us
in one incessant procession, crushing the weak, and making fools of the
good. Such, says our author, is the way of Vanity Fair--which we are
warned to loathe and to shun. Be it so:--but it cannot be denied that
the rakes, ruffians, and adventurers fill too large a canvas, are too
conspicuous, too triumphant, too interesting. They are more
interesting than the weak and the good whom they crush under foot: they
are drawn with a more glowing brush, they are far more splendidly
endowed. They have better heads, stronger wills, richer natures than
the good and kind ones who are their butts. Dobbin, as the author
himself tells us, "is a spooney." Amelia, as he says also, "is a
little fool." Peggy O'Dowd, dear old goody, is the laughing-stock of
the regiment, though she is also its grandmother. _Vanity Fair_ has
here and there some virtuous and generous characters. But we are made
to laugh at every one of them to their very faces. And the evil and
the selfish characters bully them, mock them, thrust them aside at
every page--and they do so because they are more the stuff of which men
and women of any mark are made.

There are evil characters in Shakespeare, in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in
Scott: we find ruffians, rakes, traitors, and parasites. But they are
not paramount, not universal, not unqualified. Iago is utterly
overshadowed by Othello, Blifil by Alworthy, Tom Jones by Sophia
Western, Squire Thornhill by Dr. Primrose, the reprobate Staunton by
the good angel Jeanie Deans. Shakespeare, Fielding, Goethe, Scott draw
noble and generous natures quite as well as they paint the evil
natures: indeed they paint them better; they enjoy the painting of them
more; they make us enjoy them more. Take this test: if we run over the
characters of Shakespeare or of Scott we have to reflect before we find