good-humouredly said that he could have mistaken the death of
Higginbottom for his own verses. But Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent
Hands_ are superior even to the _Rejected Addresses_. _Codlingsby_,
the parody of Disraeli's _Coningsby_, may be taken as the most
effective parody in our language: intensely droll in itself, it
reproduces the absurdities, the affectations, the oriental imagination
of Disraeli with inimitable wit. Those ten pages of irrepressible
fooling are enough to destroy Disraeli's reputation as a serious
romancer. No doubt they have unfairly reacted so as to dim our sense
of Disraeli's real genius as a writer. When we know _Codlingsby_ by
heart, as every one with a sense of humour must do, it is impossible
for us to keep our countenance when we take up the palaver about
Sidonia and the Chosen Race. The _Novels by Eminent Hands_ are all
good: they are much more than parodies; they are real criticism, sound,
wise, genial, and instructive. Nor are they in the least unfair. If
the balderdash and cheap erudition of Bulwer and Disraeli are covered
with inextinguishable mirth, no one is offended by the pleasant
imitations of Lever, James, and Fenimore Cooper.

All the burlesques are good, and will bear continual re-reading; but
the masterpiece of all is _Rebecca and Rowena_, the continuation in
burlesque of _Ivanhoe_. It is one of the mysteries of literature that
we can enjoy both, that the warmest admirers of Scott's glorious
genius, and even those who delight in _Ivanhoe_, can find the keenest
relish in _Rebecca and Rowena_, which is simply the great romance of
chivalry turned inside out. But Thackeray's immortal burlesque has
something of the quality of Cervantes' _Don Quixote_--that we love the
knight whilst we laugh, and feel the deep pathos of human nature and
the beauty of goodness and love even in the midst of the wildest fun.
And this fine quality runs through all the comic pieces, ballads,