Dickens and
Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
philosophizing more in his _Little Dorrit_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, and
the latter attempting more of the descriptive in _The Newcomes_ and
_Philip_. Of minor pieces we may mention his _Rebecca_ and _Rowena_, and
his _Kickleburys on the Rhine_; his _Essay on Thunder_ and _Small Beer_;
his _Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, in 1846, and his
published collection of smaller sketches called _The Roundabout Papers_.
That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
gathered from his own words in _Henry Esmond_. "I would have history
familiar rather than heroic, and think Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
idea of the manners of that age in England than the _Court Gazette_ and
the newspapers which we get thence." At his death he left an unfinished
novel, entitled _Dennis Duval_. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
amanuensis.
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