It was alleged against Thackeray
that he made all his good characters, like Major Dobbin and Amelia
Sedley and Colonel Newcome, intellectually feeble, and his brilliant
characters, like Becky Sharp and Lord Steyne and Blanche Amory, morally
bad. This is not entirely true, but the other complaint--that his women
are inferior to his men--is true in a general way. Somewhat inferior to
his other novels were _The Virginians_, 1858, and _The Adventures of
Philip_, 1862. All of these were stories of contemporary life, except
_Henry Esmond_ and its sequel, _The Virginians_, which, though not
precisely historical fictions, introduced historical figures, such as
Washington and the Earl of Peterborough. Their period of action was the
18th century, and the dialogue was a cunning imitation of the language
of that time. Thackeray was strongly attracted by the 18th century. His
literary teachers were Addison, Swift, Steele, Gay, Johnson, Richardson,
Goldsmith, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, and his special master and
model was Fielding. He projected a history of the century, and his
studies in this kind took shape in his two charming series of lectures
on _The English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_. These he delivered in
England and in America, to which country he, like Dickens, made two
several visits.
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