In that he published _Lovel the
Widower_, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
Newcomes,--for it is nothing more,--entitled _The Adventures of Philip on
His Way through the World_. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but "the little sister" is a
star--there is no finer character in any of his works. _Philip_, in spite
of its likeness to _The Newcomes_, is a delightful book.
With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
1863.
ESTIMATE OF HIS POWERS.--Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
master of idiomatic English, a great moralist and reformer, and the king
of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring.
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