Thackeray occasionally suffered from the weakness thus produced.

A ballad from _Policeman X_,--_Bow Street Ballads_ they were first called,--was required by _Punch_, and had to be forthcoming, whatever might be the poet's humour, by a certain time.

_Jacob Omnium's Hoss_ is excellent.
His heart and feeling were all there, on behalf of his friend, and against that obsolete old court of justice.

But we can tell well when he was looking through the police reports for a subject, and taking what chance might send him, without any special interest in the matter.

_The Knight and the Lady of Bath_, and the _Damages Two Hundred Pounds_, as they were demanded at Guildford, taste as though they were written to order.
Here, in his verses as in his prose, the charm of Thackeray's work lies in the mingling of humour with pathos and indignation.