perfect, than the "Ode to the Nightingale" of Keats, or the Lycidas
of Milton. It were superfluous to linger over the humour of
Thackeray. Only Shakespeare and Dickens have graced the language
with so many happy memories of queer, pleasant people, with so many
quaint phrases, each of which has a kind of freemasonry, and when
uttered, or recalled, makes all friends of Thackeray into family
friends of each other. The sayings of Mr. Harry Foker, of Captain
Costigan, of Gumbo, are all like old dear family phrases, they live
imperishable and always new, like the words of Sir John, the fat
knight, or of Sancho Panza, or of Dick Swiveller, or that other
Sancho, Sam Weller. They have that Shakespearian gift of being ever
appropriate, and undyingly fresh.

These are among the graces of Thackeray, these and that inimitable
style, which always tempts and always baffles the admiring and
despairing copyist. Where did he find the trick of it, of the words
which are invariably the best words, and invariably fall exactly in
the best places? "The best words in the best places," is part of
Coleridge's definition of poetry; it is also the essence of
Thackeray's prose. In these Letters to Mrs. Brookfield the style is
precisely the style of the novels and essays. The style, with
Thackeray, was the man. He could not write otherwise. But
probably, to the last, this perfection was not mechanical, was not
attained without labour and care. In Dr. John Brown's works, in his
essay on Thackeray, there is an example of a proof-sheet on which
the master has made corrections, and those corrections bring the
passage up to his accustomed level, to the originality of his
rhythm. Here is the piece:-