[65] The critics of the time were possibly embarrassed with
this wealth of talent, for they were not, at the outset, immoderately
enthusiastic over the new arrival. The _Athenaeum_ was by no means
laudatory. _Esmond_ "harped upon the same string"; "wanted vital heat";
"touched no fresh fount of thought"; "introduced no novel forms of
life"; and so forth. But the _Spectator_, in a charming greeting from
George Brimley (since included in his _Essays_), placed the book, as a
work of art, even above _Vanity Fair_ and _Pendennis_; the "serious and
orthodox" _Examiner_, then under John Forster, was politely judicial;
the _Daily News_ friendly; and the _Morning Advertiser_ enraptured. The
book, this last declared, was the "beau-ideal of historical romance." On
December 4 a second edition was announced. Then, on the 22nd, came the
_Times_. Whether the _Times_ remembered and resented a certain
delightfully contemptuous "Essay on Thunder and Small Beer," with which
Thackeray retorted to its notice of _The Kickkburys on the Rhine_ (a
thing hard to believe!) or whether it did not,--its report of _Esmond_
was distinctly hostile. In three columns, it commended little but the
character of Marlborough, and the writer's "incomparably easy and
unforced style." Thackeray thought that it had "absolutely stopped" the
sale.
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