Its only excuse is to be found in the amusement it affords.

It should instruct also, no doubt, but it never will do so unless it hides its instruction and amuses.

Scott understood all this, when he allowed himself only such sudden bursts as I have described.

Even in _The Bride of Lammermoor_, which I do not regard as among the best of his performances, as he soars high into the sublime, so does he descend low into the ludicrous.
In this latter division of pure fiction,--the burlesque, as it is commonly called, or the ludicrous,--Thackeray is quite as much at home as in the realistic, though, the vehicle being less powerful, he has achieved smaller results by it.

Manifest as are the objects in his view when he wrote _The Hoggarty Diamond_ or _The Legend of the Rhine_, they were less important and less evidently effected than those attempted by _Vanity Fair_ and _Pendennis_.