ABSTRACT
To return to our commentary. Be the world as empty and worthless as it may, there are two modes of reproving its errors and its vices. There is the spirit of Rasselas and the spirit of Candide. The philosopher and the fool may go through the world from Dan to Beersheba and agree that all is barren. But the fool only will make no suggestion for its culture, and will evince no preference for a better state of things. Mr. Thackeray is no fool, for he is a great humorist, and we only regret that he is not a great moralist also. If he views life in too gloomy a spirit, and sees all its objects, even lisping childhood and buoyant youth, through an atmosphere of regret and saddened experience, he ought not to be far from the lessons which follow. From one who had himself fathomed the ‘vanity of human wishes’ he may borrow the moral appropriate to his theme:—
September 1855, xcvii, 350-78
Elwin (1816-1900), who became a friend of Thackeray about this time, was a country rector for over fifty years, and a contributor to the Quarterly Review, of which he was editor from 1853 to 1860. He edited five volumes of Pope’s works (1871-2).
