That he was so is to be seen in the handling of many of his early works,--in _Barry Lyndon_, for instance, and the _Memoirs of Mr.C.James Yellowplush_.

The sound is too certain for doubt of that kind.

But he had not then, nor did he ever achieve that assurance of public favour which makes a man confident that his work will be successful.

During the years of which we are now speaking Thackeray was a literary Bohemian in this sense,--that he never regarded his own status as certain.

While performing much of the best of his life's work he was not sure of his market, not certain of his readers, his publishers, or his price; nor was he certain of himself.
It is impossible not to form some contrast between him and Dickens as to this period of his life,--a comparison not as to their literary merits, but literary position.