This has been faintly adumbrated above, but the lines must be a little deepened and the contour filled in to some extent here.
By invoking (practically at the outset of his work) "the Comic Spirit" as the patron of his endeavours and the inspirer of his art, Mr.
Meredith of course did no more than assert his claim to place himself in the right race and lineage of Cervantes and Fielding.

Nor, though the claim be a bold one, can there be much dispute among competent judges that he made it out.

To the study, not in a frivolous or even merely satirical, but in a gravely ironic mode, of the nature of humanity he addicted himself throughout: and the results of his studies undoubtedly enlarge humanity's conscious knowledge of itself in the way of fictitious exemplification.

In a certain sense no higher praise can be given.

To acknowledge it is at once to estate him, not only with Cervantes and Fielding themselves, but with Thackeray, with Swift, with Moliere, with Shakespeare.