ABSTRACT
The few extracts which we have made from the serious portions of his works are sufficient to show that he has great tragic powers. Nothing can be more exquisitely imagined or described than the parting of George Osborne and Amelia. His natural tendency, however, is towards comedy, or rather towards satire. He
But his favourite amusement is the unmasking hypocrisy. He delights to show the selfishness of kindness, the pr ide of humility, the consciousness of simplicity. If any of Mr. Thackeray’s characters had been copied from real life, and the or iginals could recognise themselves in his imitations, they never would tremble more than when some apparently good act was ascribed to them. They would expect to see in the next page the virtue turn into a vice or a weakness….
