little children who are perfectly drilled for the dance, or came, did
he will it, treading in their precedence, like kings, gloomily. And I
think it is to the credit of the reading mob that, by reason of his
beautiful style, all that he said was taken for the truth, without
questioning. But truth after all is eternal, and style transient, and
now that Thackeray's style is becoming, if I may say so, a trifle
1860, it may not be amiss that we should inquire whether his estimate
of George is in substance and fact worth anything at all. It seems to
me that, as in his novels, so in his history of the four Georges,
Thackeray made no attempt at psychology. He dealt simply with types.
One George he insisted upon regarding as a buffoon, another as a
yokel. The Fourth George he chose to hold up for reprobation as a
drunken, vapid cad. Every action, every phase of his life that went to
disprove this view, he either suppressed or distorted utterly.
`History,' he would seem to have chuckled, `has nothing to do with the
First Gentleman. But I will give him a niche in Natural History. He
shall be King of the Beasts.' He made no allowance for the
extraordinary conditions under which all monarchs live, none for the
unfortunate circumstances by which George, especially, was from the
first hampered. He judged him as he judged Barnes Newcome and all the
scoundrels lie created. Moreover, he judged him by the moral standard
of the Victorian Age. In fact, he applied to his subject the wrong
method, in the wrong manner, and at the wrong time. And yet every one
has taken him at his word. I feel that my essay may be scouted as a
paradox; but I hope that many may recognise that I am not, out of mere
boredom, endeavouring to stop my ears against popular platitude, but
rather, in a spirit of real earnestness, to point out to the mob how
it has been cruel to George. I do not despair of success. I think I
shall make converts. The mob is really very fickle and sometimes
cheers the truth.