Even though they had an angel to make the choice,--which they have not,--that angel would do more harm to the excluded than good to the selected.
_Pendennis_, _Esmond_, and _The Newcomes_ followed _Vanity Fair_,--not very quickly indeed, always at an interval of two years,--in 1850, 1852, and 1854.

As I purpose to devote a separate short chapter, or part of a chapter, to each of these, I need say nothing here of their special merits or demerits.

_Esmond_ was brought out as a whole.

The others appeared in numbers.

"He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." It is a mode of pronunciation in literature by no means very articulate, but easy of production and lucrative.