burlesques, pantomimes, and sketches. What genial fun in the _Rose and
the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Mrs. Perkins' Ball_, in the _Sketch
Book_, in _Yellowplush_. It is only the very greatest masters who can
produce extravaganzas, puerile tomfooleries, drolleries to delight
children, and catchpenny songs, of such a kind that mature and
cultivated students can laugh over them for the fiftieth time and read
them till they are household words. This is the supreme merit of _Don
Quixote_, of _Scapin_, of _Gulliver_, of _Robinson Crusoe_. And this
quality of immortal truth and wit we find in _Rebecca and Rowena_, in
the _Rose and the Ring_, in _Little Billee_, in _Codlingsby_, and
_Yellowplush_. The burlesques have that Aristophanic touch of beauty,
pathos, and wisdom mingled with the wildest pantomime.

A striking example of Thackeray's unrivalled powers of imitation may be
seen in the letters which are freely scattered about his works. No one
before or since ever wrote such wonderfully happy illustrations of the
epistolary style of boy or girl, old maid or illiterate man. There
never were such letters as those of George Osborne in _Vanity
Fair_--that letter from school describing the fight between Cuff and
Figs is a masterpiece--the letters of Becky, of Rawdon, of Amelia--all
are perfect reproductions of the writer, as are scores of letters
scattered up and down the twenty-six volumes. Nor must we omit, as
part of the style, the author's own illustrations. They are really
part of the book; they assist us to understand the characters; they are
a very important portion of the writer's method. None of our great
writers ever had this double instrument: and Thackeray has used it with
consummate effect. The sketches in _Vanity Fair_ and in _Punch_,
especially the minor thumb-nail drolleries, are delightful--true
caricatures--real portraits of character. It is true they are ill
drawn, often impossible, crude, and almost childish in their