LIBRARY
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I
 
 W. M . TH ACK E RAY. 
 
 a ~bu.st In/ TJcvMi. in Vit yaSanaZ Prrtmit 6aJ7srv.
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE 
 
 THACKERAY 
 
 BY 
 
 LEWIS MELVILLE 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE AND COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 
 
 MDCCCXCIX
 
 COPYRIGHT I 899 BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 VOLUME I 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PREFACE - v 
 
 I. THACKERAY'S FAMILY HISTORY - 3 
 
 II. BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 13 
 
 III. AT THE CHARTERHOUSE - - 21 
 
 IV. AT CAMBRIDGE 51 
 " V. IN GERMANY 61 
 
 VI. THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, GRUB STREET, 
 
 AND PARIS - 73 
 
 VII. JOURNALISM AND MARRIAGE - - - 91 
 
 VIII. THE TRAGEDY OF HIS MARRIED LIFE 129 
 
 IX. CLUB LIFE - - - 137 
 
 X. MISCELLANEOUS AUTHORSHIP PUNCH 155 
 
 XI. NOVELIST AND CRITIC - 183 
 
 XII. THACKERAY AND THE PUBLIC - 195 
 
 XIII. "VANITY FAIR" 215 
 
 XIV. "PENDENNIS" CHARLOTTE BRONTE 243 
 XV. THACKERAY AND PUNCH - - - 257 
 
 XVI. LECTURES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA 
 THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 "ESMOND" 271
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY - Frontispiece 
 FROM A BUST BY DEVILLE IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 COVER DESIGN, "SIMPLE MELODIES" - 62 
 
 "PEN PURSUING HIS LAW STUDIES" - 74 
 
 ILLUSTRATION FROM " THE YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS " - 112 
 
 ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS" - 114 
 
 ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS" - - 116 
 
 ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK" - 122 
 
 COVER DESIGN, " COMIC TALES AND SKETCHES" - 160 
 
 "SHERRY, PERHAPS" - 166 
 
 "RuM, I HOPE" - 167 
 
 " TRACTS, BY JOVE !" - - 168 
 
 COVER DESIGN, "THE BOOK OF SNOBS" 206 
 
 COVER DESIGN, "VANITY FAIR" - - 216 
 
 TAILPIECE FROM "VANITY FAIR" 226 
 
 COVER DESIGN, " THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS " - - 248 
 
 "AUTHORS' MISERIES" 272 
 
 LETTER TO CAPTAIN ATKINSON - 284 
 
 TAILPIECE FROM "VANITY FAIR " - 302
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THOUGH it is more than five-and-thirty years since 
 his death, until now there has never been pub- 
 lished a Life of Thackeray which has had any pretensions 
 to finality. Mr. Theodore Taylor's book, Thackeray, the 
 Humourist and the Man of Letters, was admittedly only a 
 stop-gap biography ; the volume contributed eight years 
 ago to the "Great Writers Series" by Mr. Herman 
 Merivale and Mr. Frank Marzials can scarcely be regarded 
 as much more than outlining the novelist's career; while 
 Mrs. Ritchie's interesting Biographical Introductions are 
 little more than material for a full Life. 
 
 No member of his family has come forward as a 
 chronicler. There is a popular rumour to account for the 
 unusual silence. Thackeray, so the story runs, some 
 years before his death, was so disgusted with an unduly 
 fulsome biography he was reading that he laid down the 
 volume, saying to his daughters, "Let there be none of 
 this when I go. ' ' They interpreted this remark literally, 
 with the result that neither the members of his family 
 nor his intimate friends have attempted to compile an 
 "official" biography. Even assuming the story be true, 
 I cannot think Thackeray wished the story of his life to 
 remain unwritten. I think his only desire was that the 
 truth should be told, that all the scars should be painted 
 in the portrait ; for he himself liked to read of the lives 
 of literary men. "If the secret history of books could 
 be written, and the author's private thoughts noted down
 
 x preface 
 
 alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would 
 become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!" he 
 wrote in one of his essays. 
 
 His stories are frequently autobiographical there has 
 never lived an author whose writings have been more 
 personal. "This is so like print that I think I shall 
 send it to Punch, ' ' he said of a letter he was writing to 
 Mrs. Brookfield ; and this is true, in a larger degree, of 
 his life. He used his own experiences to a very great 
 extent, and the reader knowing the author's life must 
 certainly find an added pleasure in perusing the various 
 stories. 
 
 His departure from India, his arrival in England, his 
 early school-life, the Charterhouse days, Larkbeare, 
 Cambridge, the visit to Weimar, Paris, and elsewhere, 
 his misfortunes in London, his Deuceace, his life in the 
 Paris studios, the newspapers he was connected with, 
 the people he met, the places he visited, even his 
 illnesses, are all reproduced. 
 
 There is no lack of material for the biographer. 
 Nearly every one who knew Thackeray has recorded his 
 or her impression in a book or magazine-article. Sir 
 William Hunter has devoted his attention to the novel- 
 ist's ancestors; Mr. C. P. Johnson has outlined the early 
 years of the literary career ; The History of Punch contains 
 much information concerning his connection with that 
 journal; Mr. Eyre Crowe's book tells of his first Ameri- 
 can voyage, and Mr. Hodder has been the historian of 
 the return visit. Mrs. Brookfield published in 1887 a 
 most interesting and (to the biographer) instructive Col- 
 lection of Thackeray's Letters, 1847 1855. Mrs. 
 Ritchie herself, besides the series of Introductions to 
 the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's Works, pub-
 
 preface xi 
 
 lished by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, has given us a 
 few chapters from "Some Unwritten Memoirs," also 
 issued by the same publishers. From both of these 
 works extracts have been made in this volume. These, 
 with the Lives and Letters of Edward Fitzgerald, Lord 
 Houghton, Alfred Tennyson, Professor Aytoun, Char- 
 lotte Bronte, Mr. Yates, and the Autobiographies of 
 Mr. Hollingshead and Mr. Vizetelly, together with in- 
 formation gleaned from little-known or less available 
 sources, have enabled me to expand the outline of his 
 life into the present work. 
 
 My own more personal acknowledgments are due to 
 Miss Saviile, for very material assistance in the prepara- 
 tion of the work, and for her kindly encouragement ; 
 to Mr. W. T. Stevens, who has allowed me the use of his 
 valuable collection of first editions of Thackeray's works; 
 and to Mr. Arthur Patchett Martin, who, giving me the 
 benefit of his extensive literary knowledge and long 
 experience, has read and revised these volumes in 
 manuscript. 
 
 Finally, I humbly claim for myself that, to the best 
 of my ability, I have endeavoured to fill a void in the 
 literary history of the century, and while therefore I 
 think no apology is needed for presenting these volumes 
 to the public, I would plead the great difficulty of the 
 task in palliation of those errors of omission and commis- 
 sion which the reader may discover. 
 
 LEWIS MELVILLE.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THACKERAY'S FAMILY HISTORY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THACKERAY'S FAMILY HISTORY 
 
 HISTORY has ignored the Thackerays until nearly 
 the middle of the fourteenth century, when the 
 family records mention John de Thakwa as holding at 
 Hartwich, in 1336, a dwelling-house and thirty acres of 
 land of the Abbot of St. Mary of Fountains, and in 1361 
 William de Thackwra, a tenant at will of a messuage and 
 twenty-one acres at the same place. A century after- 
 wards Robert Thackra kept the Grange of Brinham, and 
 subsequently Edward Thacquarye held houses and lands 
 from the Convent. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century Walter Thackeray, 
 first of the name as now spelt, established himself at 
 Hampsthwaite, a little village close by the forest of 
 Knaresborough, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. 
 Here, through several generations, for two hundred 
 years, the family lived, doing yeoman's duty, until 1804, 
 when the last of the line, Thomas Thackeray, died child- 
 less, seven years before the novelist was born. 
 
 In 1682 Elias Thackeray had gone southwards to 
 King's College, where he became M.A. in 1709, and 
 two years later was given the rectorship of Hawkerswell, 
 in the Archdeaconry of Richmond. 
 
 Probably at his suggestion, in January, 1706, Thomas 
 Thackeray, then a boy of twelve, was sent from the 
 ancestral home at Hampsthwaite to Eton, where he was 
 
 3
 
 4 William flDafeepeace 
 
 admitted on the foundation. Here he remained until 
 1711, when he won a scholarship that took him to King's 
 College, Cambridge, where he qualified as B.A. in 1/15, 
 four years later as M.A., and was eventually elected to 
 a fellowship. He returned to Eton as assistant master, 
 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the provostship of 
 King's in 1744. In 1746 he was appointed to the head- 
 mastership of Harrow School, which, although nearly 
 two hundred years old, had been almost ruined under a 
 "drunken, disorderly, idle" principal. On his arrival, 
 there were but thirty-three boys, a number that under 
 his able rule was increased to a hundred and thirty. 
 He obtained several livings; was appointed a chaplain to 
 Frederick, Prince of Wales; and ultimately became 
 Archdeacon of Surrey. 
 
 In Richard's History of Lynn, published in 1812, a 
 letter dated 1756, from Dr. Edmund Pyle, is inserted, 
 having reference to Dr. Thackeray: 
 
 "Dr. Thackeray, who keeps a school at Harrow-on- 
 the-Hill, has one living and fourteen children; a man 
 bred at Eton, and a great scholar in the Eton way, and 
 a good one every way ; a true Whig, and proud to be so 
 by some special marks of integrity. He was a candidate 
 for the headship of King's, and would have beat all men 
 but George, and George, too, if Sir Robert Walpole had 
 not made George's promotion a point. Since this disap- 
 pointment he took the school at Harrow to educate his 
 own and other people's children, where he has performed 
 all along with great reputation. The Bishop of Win- 
 chester [Hoadley?] never saw this man in his life, but 
 had heard so much good of him, that he resolved to 
 serve him some way or other if ever he could, but said 
 nothing to anybody. On Friday last, he sent for this
 
 Ubacfeerap's dfamtls tuston? 5 
 
 Dr. Thackeray, and when he came into the room my Lord 
 gave him a parchment, and told him he had long heard 
 of his good character, and long been afraid he should 
 never be able to give him any serviceable proof of the 
 good opinion he had conceived of him ; that what he had 
 put into his hands was the Archdeaconry of Surrey, 
 which he hoped would be acceptable to him, as he might 
 perform the duty of it yearly at the time of his leisure in 
 the Easter holidays. Dr. Thackeray was so surprised 
 and overcome with this extraordinary manner of doing 
 him a favour, that he was very near fainting as he was 
 giving him institution." 
 
 The doctor died in 1760. He had married, in 1729, a 
 daughter of John Woodward, of Butler's Marston, War- 
 wickshire (another of whose girls was the wife of Dr. 
 Nicholas Boscawen, Canon of Windsor), who bore him 
 six sons and ten daughters during the first twenty years 
 of their married life. The lady died in 1797, in her nine- 
 tieth year. Of these children Elias became Provost of 
 Kings; another son chaplain at Saint Petersburg; another 
 obtained an appointment in the Customs, and kept it for 
 forty years; while two others studied medicine and prac- 
 tised, respectively, at Cambridge and Windsor. 
 
 For the youngest of this family a Writership in the 
 East India Company's Service was obtained. This was 
 William Makepeace (the curious name is said to be 
 derived from a member of the family who suffered at the 
 stake for his faith in the good old days), the grandfather 
 of the author. After a preliminary training in book-keep- 
 ing, in which it was necessary to be thoroughly grounded 
 before entering the service, he sailed in February, 1746, 
 in the Lord Camden for Calcutta. Placed in the Secre- 
 tary's office, he at once attracted the notice of his
 
 6 TIGlUliam flDafeepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 superiors, and within twelve months of his arrival was 
 promoted to be assistant-treasurer or cash-keeper under 
 the new governor, Verelst, at a salary of one thousand 
 one hundred and fifty-eight rupees, or one hundred and 
 forty-five pounds, while most of the other Writers only 
 received eighty pounds. In 1771 he was appointed 
 Factor and Fourth in Council at Dacca, where he pro- 
 ceeded to take up his residence with the two sisters who 
 had come to him from home. Both these ladies married 
 during their stay in India the elder, Jane, to Major 
 James Rennel, a celebrated geographer; the younger, 
 Henrietta, to James Harris, the Chief of Dacca, and the 
 head of the Company's Service in Eastern Bengal.* 
 
 Under Warren Hastings William Makepeace was 
 made a Chief of the frontier province of Sylhet, and in 
 1774 returned as Third in Council to Dacca, where his 
 sister Jane and her husband were still living. A year 
 later he fell in love with a very charming girl, Amelia, 
 the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond Webb, a 
 descendant of the famous victor of Weynendal, who is so 
 well portrayed in Esmond. The young couple (William 
 Makepeace was six-and-twenty, and Miss Webb eighteen) 
 were married at St. John's Cathedral, Calcutta, on Jan- 
 uary 31, 1776, and sailed for England immediately. 
 The young civil servant had been absent for nine and a 
 half years, during which time he had amassed a fortune 
 sufficient to enable him to purchase a small estate at 
 Hadley, near Chippine Barnet, where for the rest of his 
 days he led a simple, hospitable country life. His wife 
 
 *When James Harris died, it was found that his extravagance had 
 made deep inroads into his fortune ; but enough was left for his 
 widow to live comfortably, and in 1790 she settled down at Hadley, 
 near her brother. Of her sons, two distinguished themselves at 
 Balliol College, several entered the Army and Navy, and at least one 
 went to India.
 
 's jfamilp Distort 7 
 
 bore him twelve children, of whom eleven lived. She 
 died in 1810, at the age of fifty-three, and was followed 
 to the grave three years later by her husband (who was 
 then in his sixty-fifth year), that is, more than three 
 years before the boy Thackeray was sent to England. 
 
 Of the eleven children of this marriage, no less than 
 nine went to the East. Three sons entered the Madras 
 Civil Service, a fourth the Bengal Civil Service, and a 
 fifth the Bengal Army. The sixth, who died in 1846, 
 became a barrister at Calcutta, but, obtaining little prac- 
 tice, wrote leading articles for the Englishman, and 
 probably also for other newspapers. Five of the brothers 
 died in India, the sixth on a voyage to the Cape for the 
 recovery of his health. Two of the daughters married 
 Bengal civilians, and a third the Attorney-General of 
 Ceylon. The fourth daughter remained in England. 
 Francis, another son, entered the Church, and lived 
 among his books in a Hertfordshire parish, where he 
 wrote on the State of Ancient Britons under the Roman 
 Emperors, and produced a History of the Earl of 
 Chatham, that was quoted by Carlyle in Frederick the 
 Great and reviewed by Lord Macaulay. 
 
 The eldest son, William Makepeace, was born in 
 1778, and in his twentieth year went to Madras as a 
 Writer. He was the first Madras civilian who earned 
 a reward under the rules of 1797 which encouraged the 
 study of Oriental languages. For proficiency in Telugu 
 he received a government grant equivalent to about 
 400, and a good appointment. His rise was rapid. 
 He was appointed by Clive, Translator to the Govern- 
 ment, then assistant to Sir Thomas Munro, and was the 
 first judge of the Court established at Masulipatam. In 
 1806 he became a member of the Board of Revenue, and
 
 TISiilliam flDaftepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 four years later Chief Secretary to the Madras Govern- 
 ment. In 1813 he returned to England for the recovery 
 of his health, and the Court of Directors mentioned his 
 services in a despatch. He came back to India in 1816; 
 was appointed a provisional member of Council; took 
 his seat on June 10, 1820; and three days after became 
 also President of the Board of Revenue. But the cli- 
 mate had undermined his health, and in November, 1822, 
 a sea-voyage to the Cape was ordered. He died upon the 
 voyage on January n, 1823, in his forty-sixth year. 
 
 Webb Thackeray, who went out to Madras as a 
 Writer in 1806, at the age of eighteen, died within 
 a year. 
 
 St. John Thackeray, born in 1791, was one of the 
 first civilians sent out by the East India College that 
 eventually grew into Haileybury. He spent three years 
 in the Board of Revenue, five years in the diplomatic 
 department, and was killed in 1824 at Kittur Fort, where, 
 hoping to bring the insurgents to terms, he advanced, 
 without a flag of truce, and was fired upon. 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas Thackeray, of the Bengal army, 
 was killed in an action in the Nepal War during 1814. 
 He was a brave man, and his death called forth enthusi- 
 astic mention in despatches from the Commander-in- 
 Chief and the Governor-General. 
 
 Richmond Thackeray, the second son, and father of 
 the novelist, was born either on September 1 , 1781, or 
 October 21, 1782.* He was sent to Eton at the age of 
 ten, and remained there until 1796, when he underwent 
 
 *Sir William Hunter has pointed out that the tombstone says 
 Richmond Thackeray died on September 13, 1815, aged thirty-two 
 years, ten months, and twenty-three days, which would make the 
 birthday October 21, 1782, instead of September i, 1781, as stated in 
 the Family Book of the Thackerays.
 
 's Jfamfls Distort ^ 
 
 the usual training before proceeding to Bengal, where he 
 had been nominated to a Writership in the Civil Service. 
 He arrived at Calcutta on October 27, 1/98 the year in 
 which Lord Wellesley undertook the government but 
 was almost immediately prostrated by fever, and was 
 sent on a voyage to Madras for the recovery of his 
 health. On his return he studied in the College of Fort 
 William, and, as a reward for his proficiency in Arabic 
 and Persian, was appointed Collector of Midnapir. 
 
 In 1802 he was joined by his two sisters, Emily and 
 Augusta, both of whom married very shortly after their 
 arrival. Augusta was won by a great friend of her 
 brother, Mr. Elliot, and Emily (who died in India) by 
 John Talbot Shakespear. Of the latter alliance came 
 nine children, the eldest of whom, Colonel John Dowdes- 
 well Shakespear, seems to have some claim to be 
 regarded as one of the men who sat for Colonel New- 
 come. A daughter Augusta married General Sir John 
 Low. A younger son was Colonel Sir Richmond 
 Shakespear, who became Agent to the Governor-Gen- 
 eral for Central India, and was appointed by Lord Can- 
 ning to the Chief Commissionership of Mysore, which 
 post he had just accepted when death terminated his 
 career. The novelist made appreciative reference to him 
 in a Roundabout Paper: 
 
 " 'Can I do anything for you?' I remember the kind 
 fellow asking. He was always asking that question: of 
 all kinsmen; of all widows and orphans; of all the poor; 
 of young men who might need his purse or his service. 
 I saw a young officer yesterday to whom the first words 
 Sir Richmond Shakespear wrote on his arrival in India 
 were, 'Can I do anything for you?' His purse was at 
 the command of all. His kind hand was always open.
 
 io William flDafeepeace 
 
 It was a gracious fate which sent him to rescue widows 
 and captives. Where could they have had a champion 
 more chivalrous, a protector more loving and tender?" 
 To return to Richmond Thackeray. He became Col- 
 lector of Birbhum in 1803, and three years later was 
 appointed Judge of Ramgarh. In 1807 he was promoted 
 to the Secretaryship of the Bengal Board of Revenue, 
 and from this time, with the exception of some months 
 during which he acted as Judge of Midnapir, he 
 remained in the capital, where, apart from his official 
 position, he became a noted personage in the little social 
 world. Here he met and married Anne Becher, a beau- 
 tiful young girl, and a connexion of an old Bengal civil- 
 ian family, of whom perhaps the most distinguished 
 member was Richard Becher, who held high office during 
 the administration of Lord Clive. Her father, John 
 Harman Becher, whose arrival in Calcutta as a Writer is 
 dated 1779, after a long illness, or series of illnesses, had 
 died in 1800 while she was a child of seven,
 
 CHAPTER II 
 BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was 
 born at Calcutta, July 18, 1811. In the follow- 
 ing December Richmond Thackeray was promoted to 
 the Collectorship of the Calcutta districts, the most 
 important appointment in the Governor's gift. The 
 young couple resided at the official Collector's house at 
 Alipur (which enabled them to continue their intercourse 
 with the society of the capital) until the husband's death. 
 Then the widow, only three-and-twenty, and her four- 
 year-old son, stayed with relatives in India until, in 
 1817, the boy was sent to England to be educated. 
 
 Thackeray never forgot this parting, and referred to it 
 five-and-forty years after in a Roundabout Paper: 
 
 "In one of the stories by the present writer, a man is 
 described tottering 'up the steps of the ghaut,' having 
 just parted with his child, whom he is despatching to 
 England from India. I wrote this, remembering in long, 
 long distant days, such a ghaut, or river-stair, at Cal- 
 cutta; and a day when, down those steps, to a boat 
 which was in waiting, came two children, whose mothers 
 remained on the shore." The other child was Rich- 
 mond Shakespear. 
 
 "When I first saw England she was in mourning for 
 the young Princess Charlotte [died November 6, 1817], 
 the hope of the Empire," Thackeray himself has writ- 
 is
 
 14 "CClilliam flDafeepeace tlbacfeerag 
 
 ten. "I came from India as a child, and our ship touched 
 at an island on the way home, where my black servant 
 took me a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached 
 a garden, where we saw a man walking. 'That is he,' 
 said the black man ; 'that is Bonaparte! He eats three 
 sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay 
 hands on!' There were people in the British domin- 
 ions besides that poor Calcutta serving-man, of an equal 
 horror of the Corsican ogre. 
 
 "With the same childish attendant I remember peep- 
 ing through the colonnade at Carlton House, and seeing 
 the abode of the great Prince Regent. I can yet see the 
 guards pacing before the gates of the Palace. The pal- 
 ace! What palace? The palace exists no more than 
 the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It is but a name 
 now." 
 
 In England, he stayed partly with his grand-uncle 
 Moore at the Manor House at Hadley, near Chipping 
 Barnet, and partly at Chiswick with an aunt, Mrs. 
 Ritchie, from whose house and probably under whose 
 dictation on February 12, 1818, he wrote his first 
 recorded letter to his "Mama": "I hope you are quite 
 well. I have given my dear Grandmamma a kiss. My 
 Aunt Ritchie is very good to me. I like Chiswick, there 
 are so many good boys to play with. St. James's Park 
 is a very fine place. St. Paul's Church, too, I like 
 very much. It is a finer place than I expected. I hope 
 Captain Smyth is well ; give my love to him and tell him 
 he must bring you home to your affectionate little son, 
 William Thackeray." Captain Carmichael Smyth was 
 the second husband of his mother. 
 
 One amusing anecdote of this time has been preserved. 
 His aunt one day found that her husband's hat fitted
 
 JBfrtb anfc CbU&boo& 15 
 
 the little boy, and she was so astonished, and perhaps 
 alarmed, that she at once took him to Sir Charles Clark, 
 the eminent physician, who, smiling, told her not to be 
 afraid: "He has a large head, but there's a good deal in 
 it." No doubt in after years the doctor was much sur- 
 prised to find how much was in that head. At his death 
 his brain weighed nearly fifty-eight and a half ounces. 
 
 At a very early age he was sent to a school in Chis- 
 wick Mall, of which, it is suggested, he wrote in the 
 opening chapters of Vanity Fair when he described Miss 
 Pinkerton's establishment. The school was kept by Dr. 
 Turner, a distant relative of the Thackerays, and Mrs. 
 Ritchie remembers it was said in the family that when 
 the headmaster used to read the Ten Commandments of 
 a Sunday to his boys, his wife and several members of 
 the congregation had been heard to declare that to hear 
 his resounding tones reminded them of Mount Sinai 
 itself. The little boy was not happy there. Indeed, 
 soon after he came he made an attempt to run away, 
 and, in later years, when driving to Richmond or else- 
 where, would show the corner of the lane by Hammer- 
 smith Road where, frightened, he turned back and arrived 
 safely at the school, no one being any the wiser. 
 
 As years went by, however, the unpleasant recollec- 
 tions faded, and while at Charterhouse he would go on 
 half-holidays to his old school, and play chess with Mrs. 
 Turner and whist with the young ladies, until, wishing 
 to enact a part in private theatricals, he borrowed a bar- 
 rister's wig from the Doctor (who had been at the bar 
 before he went into the Church), and, losing it, did not 
 venture to call at Chiswick for some time. He was still 
 at the Chiswick school when his mother and his step- 
 father came home in 1822. "He had a perfect memory
 
 16 TKauitam flDafcepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 of me," Mrs. Smyth has since said; "he could not 
 speak, but kissed me, and looked at me again and again." 
 
 Thackeray and his step-father became excellent 
 friends; and so admirable a man was the Major that 
 those who knew him insist that the finest of all English 
 gentlemen that preux chevalier Colonel Newcome was 
 drawn from him. Thackeray loved his mother deeply, 
 and was as proud of her as she, in the time to come, was 
 of him. In his letters are frequent affectionate refer- 
 ences to her, and his only amusing complaint was that 
 "in her imperial manner" she would always endeavour 
 to make his friends understand that her son was "the 
 divinest creature in the world." 
 
 Mrs. Smyth had a salon in Paris some thirty years 
 later. 
 
 She was a very beautiful woman, "a daughter of the 
 gods, divinely tall, ' ' and, as became an Englishwoman of 
 social position in Paris, with an inborn taste in dress of 
 an unconventional kind; for we are told she "used 
 to walk out in a red merino cloak, trimmed with ermine, 
 which gave her the air of a retired empress wearing out 
 her robes." Furthermore, "she was a woman of strong 
 feeling, somewhat imperious, with a passionate love for 
 little children, and with extraordinary sympathy and 
 enthusiasm for any one in trouble. How benevolently 
 she used to look round the room at her many protege's 
 with her beautiful grey eyes!"* 
 
 Anthony Trollope, in his more matter-of-fact, prosaic 
 fashion, also described this lady. "All who knew Wil- 
 liam Makepeace, remember his mother well, a handsome, 
 spare, grey-headed lady, whom Thackeray treated with 
 a courtly deference as well as constant affection." 
 
 * Chapters from some unwritten memoirs.
 
 JSirtb anfc Cbflfcboofc 17 
 
 "There was, however, something of discrepancy 
 between them as to matters of religion," he continued. 
 "Mrs. Carmichael Smyth was disposed to the somewhat 
 austere observance of the evangelical section of the 
 Church. Such, certainly, never became the case with 
 her son. There was disagreement on the subject and 
 probably unhappiness at intervals, but never, I think, 
 quarrelling. Thackeray's house was his mother's home 
 whenever she pleased, and the home also of his step- 
 father,"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 AT THE CHARTERHOUSE
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AT THE CHARTERHOUSE 
 
 IN August, 1822, Major Smyth, with his wife, took up 
 his residence at Addiscombe, where he had been 
 appointed Governor, and the boy, William Makepeace, 
 was sent to the Charterhouse School, where at least two 
 of the English Humorists, Addison and Steele, were 
 educated. 
 
 It was a bad time for a little boy to enter the school, 
 for just then Dr. Russell was trying his great experiment 
 of offering education in a famous school at a very cheap 
 rate. This was effected by what was called the 
 "Madras" or "Bell" system, in which, to a great extent, 
 the school teaches itself. Russell never had more than 
 seven assistant masters, and the lower forms were taught 
 by "praepositi" boys of a form just below the Sixth 
 (or, as Russell called it, the first) which bore the name 
 of the "Emeriti." The reduction of fees was followed 
 by a great increase in the number of boys. Far more 
 pupils were accepted than could be comfortably accom- 
 modated, and the natural result was overcrowded class- 
 rooms and packed boarding-houses. I have read of his 
 first interview with the headmaster: "Take that boy and 
 his box," were the imperious directions thundered by Dr. 
 Crushall in his big, brassy voice to the school janitor, as 
 though sentencing a culprit for execution, "to Mrs. 
 Jones" [the matron of the boarding-house], "and make
 
 22 Milltam flDafeepeace 
 
 my compliments to Mr. Smiler" [then junior master] 
 "and tell him the boy knows nothing and will just do 
 for the lowest form." Not a pleasant introduction to 
 public-school life for a timid and sensitive boy, cer- 
 tainly. And Thackeray cordially detested Doctor Rus- 
 sell, and took him off in Pendennis. 
 
 "Pendennis, sir," he makes the Doctor say, "your 
 idleness is incorrigible, and your stupidity beyond 
 example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to 
 your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after- 
 life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described 
 to us as the root of all evil, be really what moralists have 
 represented (and I have no doubt of the correctness of 
 their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future 
 crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the 
 seed! Miserable trifler! A boy who construes d e and, 
 instead of d e but, at sixteen years of age is guilty not 
 merely of folly and ignorance, and dullness inconceiv- 
 able, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, 
 which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does 
 not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends 
 money for his education. A boy who cheats his parents 
 is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neigh- 
 bour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the 
 penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such 
 a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off) ; but 
 his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven 
 to a premature grave by his crimes, or if they live, drag 
 on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, 
 and I warn you that the very next mistake that you 
 make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod!" 
 
 But he lets the Doctor explain himself to Major 
 Pendennis: "He is a very good boy, rather idle and
 
 Ht tbe Gbarterbouse 23 
 
 unenergetic, but he is a very honest gentlemanlike little 
 fellow, though I can't get him to construe as I wish." 
 
 Thackeray was at first a boarder in Mr. Penny's 
 house in Wilderness Row, Clerkenwell Road, until the 
 middle of 1825, when he became a day boy and stayed 
 with Mrs. Boyes, a lady who took in boys belonging 
 both to the Charterhouse and the Merchant Taylor's 
 Schools. 
 
 Among his schoolfellows of 1825 were Edmund 
 Lushington, the captain of the school ; Francis Edgworth 
 and Charles Freshwater, monitors; George and Richard 
 Venables, John Murray, and Martin Tupper, in the First 
 Form ; Ralfe Bernal (afterwards Bernal Osborne), Paken- 
 ham Edgworth, Francis Beaumont, and John Stewart 
 Horner in the Second ; in the Third, besides Thackeray 
 himself, James Reynolds Young; and in the Fourth, 
 Henry George Liddell. Henry Ray Freshwater was in 
 the Seventh ; Richmond Shakspear and Alfred Gatty in 
 the Eighth; and in the Twelfth, just entering the 
 school, John Leech and Alfred Montgomery. Other 
 contemporaries, whose forms I cannot ascertain, were 
 George Shakespear, George Lock, Robert Curzon, J. F. 
 Boyes, Eubank, Carne, Stoddart, Garden, and Poynter. 
 
 Mrs. Ritchie, Mr. Merivale, and many others have 
 declared that Thackeray hated the school as long he was 
 there, and in support of their statement they quote a 
 part of one of his letters. "I really think I am becom- 
 ing terribly industrious, though I can't get Dr. Russell 
 to think so. It is so hard, when you endeavour to work 
 hard, to find your attempts nipped in the bud. 
 There are but 370 in the school. I wish. there were only 
 369." But I am inclined to think, with Mr. Davies, 
 that more pathos has been extracted from that passage
 
 24 William flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 than perhaps it really bears. It was written in 1828, 
 when Thackeray was second monitor [James Young was 
 the first] in Day-boys. He was a big fellow, just going 
 to Cambridge, and was probably anxious to have done 
 with his school-days. No doubt he disliked the head- 
 master, and no doubt also he was unhappy at first in the 
 great school perhaps most of the time he was in Mr. 
 Penny's house; but I think he was more contented dur- 
 ing his stay at Mrs. Boyes'. Certainly the numberless 
 parodies, poems, and caricatures he wrote and drew do 
 not suggest unhappiness in the schoolboy, and his letters 
 generally are not by any means dismal in tone. He 
 read everything he could lay his hands on; he acted 
 when he had the chance; he debated "We are going to 
 have a debate to-morrow night on 'The Expediency of 
 a Standing Army. ' We have not yet settled the sides 
 which we shall take in this important question"; he 
 drew "His drawings are wonderful," said his mother; 
 and he felt the inclination to write "I have not yet 
 drawn out a plan for my stories, but certain germs thereof 
 are yet budding in my mind, which I hope by assiduous 
 application will flourish yet and bring forth fruit." "I 
 always feel as if I were at home when I am writing," he 
 said in a letter, in which he apologizes for writing so 
 much every day. 
 
 At least three of his schoolfellows have recorded their 
 recollections. Here is Dr. Liddell's letter, inserted by 
 Mr. Davies in his interesting article on Thackeray in the 
 Grey friars. 
 
 "The Doctor inserted a Form between the VI. and V. 
 (or, as he would say, First and Second), which he called 
 the Emeriti, consisting of those boys who had served 
 their time in the lower Forms and were entitled to be
 
 Bt tbe Cbarterbouse 25 
 
 placed in the VI. as vacancies occurred. But before 
 joining the Emeriti we were obliged to learn all the odes 
 and epodes of Horace by heart, and to translate them 
 without book, and to answer all questions, grammatical, 
 geographical, and historical, that arose out of the book. 
 Having achieved this task, we passed into the Emeriti, 
 and were supposed to learn the same lessons as the VI. 
 We sat by and were expected to drink in the wisdom of 
 the Head Form, but seldom were called on to have our 
 diligence or attention tested. I need hardly say we did 
 not trouble ourselves to prepare the lessons; and when, 
 on rare occasions, it occurred to the Doctor to 'put us 
 on,' great was our consternation, grievous the ignorance 
 displayed, and vehement the wrath of the master. I 
 cannot remember whether it was in this curious Form 
 (between VI. and V., or in the Form below) that I con- 
 stantly sat next to Thackeray in school. It must, I 
 think, have been the Form below (the V.): for he was 
 very lazy in school-work, and I cannot think he ever 
 exerted himself sufficiently to grapple with the Horace 
 so as to rise into the Emeriti. In whichever Form it 
 was, I recollect that we spent much most of our time 
 in drawing. His handiwork was very superior to mine, 
 and his humour exhibited itself at -that time in burlesque 
 representations and scenes from Shakespeare. I remem- 
 ber one Macbeth as a butcher brandishing two blood- 
 reeking knives, and Lady Macbeth as the butcher's wife 
 clapping him on the shoulder to encourage him in his 
 bloody work." 
 
 In after life, Thackeray accused the Dean of ruining 
 his chance of scholarship by doing his verses for him ; 
 but, as Mr. Davies remarks, there is little trace of Lid- 
 dell's hand in the Latin Sapphics, a fac-simile of the MS.
 
 26 William /iDafcepeace Ubacfcerap 
 
 of which is given in the Greyfriars, nor is there any 
 evidence of divided authorship in the Holyday Song, 
 August i, 1826, some verses of which I reprint in this 
 chapter. 
 
 In 1822 Thackeray was in the Tenth Form, in 1823 
 in the Seventh, in the next year in the Sixth, and the 
 year after in the Third. The Blue Book of May, 1826, 
 shows him in the Second (or Fifth) with Henry George 
 Liddell next, and that of the following May in the First 
 (or Sixth) Form. He seems to have jumped the 
 "Emeriti." 
 
 "But, it so happens, that same year, 1826-7, was the 
 beginning of the end, and the school ran down very fast 
 in numbers," Mr. Davies (the Charterhouse Gold Medal- 
 ist for 1864) has explained. "It was perhaps force 
 majeure which pushed Thackeray up to that exalted 
 position without the ordeal of the odes and epodes. 
 Nay, more: Thackeray's copy of Horace (the writer's 
 possession) lies on the table as he writes, and if it was 
 the same copy which should have been the open sesame 
 to the 'Emeriti,' then it may be safely said that no odes 
 were ever learnt by heart out of it. It is clean, beauti- 
 fully clean, unthumbed, unsoiled what second-hand 
 booksellers describe as 'in fine condition.' 
 
 Read what some of his contemporaries have written 
 of him. 
 
 "It was when he was between thirteen and fifteen and 
 a half that I knew Thackeray best," Mr. J. F. Boyes 
 has written in the very interesting article Thackeray and 
 His Schooldays, printed in the Cornhill Magazine in 1865. 
 "He was then eminently good-tempered to all, espe- 
 cially the younger boys, and nothing of a tyrant or bully. 
 Instead of a blow or a threat, I can just hear him saying
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 27 
 
 to one of them: 'Hooky' (a soubriquet of a son of 
 the late Bishop Carr, of Bombay), 'go up and fetch me 
 a vol. of Ivanhoe out of my drawer, there's a good fel- 
 low ; in the same drawer you will perhaps find a penny, 
 which you may take for yourself.' The penny was, 
 indeed, rather problematical, but still realized sufficiently 
 often to produce excitement in the mind of the youth 
 thus addressed, and would make the service a willing 
 one. When disappointed it was more than probable 
 that the victim would call Thackeray a 'great snob,' for 
 misleading him, a title for which the only vengeance 
 would be a humourous and benignant smile. 
 
 "In the two or three years I am recording I scarcely 
 ever saw Thackeray seriously angry, or even his brow 
 wrinkled with a frown. He has been called a cynic: it 
 is doubtful if a real cynic could ever be manufactured 
 out of a boy who had such powers as he had of sarcasm, 
 and who used them so little unkindly. 
 
 "Thackeray had nearly all the materials that usually 
 go to the making of a first-rate classical scholar. He 
 had wonderful memory, an absolute faculty of imitation ; 
 he had the power of acquiring language, and 
 an intense admiration of the beautiful. He got to love 
 his Horace, . . . but never was a highly classical 
 scholar. 
 
 "He had no school industry. No one in those early 
 days could have believed that there was much work in 
 him, or that he would ever rise to the top of any tree by 
 climbing. 
 
 "His beau-ideal was the serious and sublime; he was 
 too familiar with, too much a master of, the humourous 
 to think as much of that mastery as his admirers did. 
 I have heard him speak in terms of homage to the genius
 
 28 William /IDafcepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 of Keats that he would not have vouchsafed to the whole 
 tribe of humourists. 
 
 "A rosy-faced boy, with dark curling hair and a 
 quick, intelligent eye, ever twinkling with humour 
 and good-humour. He was stout and broad-set, and 
 gave no promise of the stature which he afterwards 
 reached. It was -during a short but severe illness, just 
 before he left school, that he grew rapidly, leaving his 
 sick-bed certainly a good many inches taller than he was 
 when he entered it, and heading at once nearly all his 
 contemporaries. . . . For the usual schoolboy 
 sports and games Thackeray had no taste or passion 
 whatever, any more than in after-life for those field sports 
 which seem to have been the delight of his fellow- 
 humourist and school-fellow, Leech. 
 
 "Such amusement would have come probably next 
 to Euclid and Algebra in his list of dislikes. But he 
 was by no means what men of genius are said to have 
 been in their youth disposed to isolation or solitary 
 musing. For a non-playing boy he was wonderfully 
 social, full of vivacity and enjoyment of life; his happy 
 insouciance was constant. Never was a lad at once so 
 jovial, so healthy, and so sedentary. Good spirits and 
 merriment seemed to enable him to dispense with the 
 glow of cricket or football, and if in his still earlier 
 days he ever 'fagged out' it must have been bitterly 
 against his will. We were now and then, indeed, out 
 together in small fishing parties, but it was for the talk- 
 ing, and the change, and the green fields, and the tea 
 abroad instead of at home cakes, etc., accompanying 
 (for he was always gustative, never greedy) that Thack- 
 eray liked these expeditions. I question whether he 
 knew the difference between a roach and a gudgeon
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 29 
 
 except when fried whether he ever caught either the 
 one or the other I am much disposed to doubt; or 
 whether he cared about doing so. ... Though 
 keenly ambitious and very sensitive of failure, Thackeray 
 was wonderfully free from anything like vanity or con- 
 ceit." 
 
 "My recollection of him," his friend George Stovin 
 Venables wrote to Anthony Trollope, "though fresh 
 enough, does not furnish much material for biography. 
 He came to school young a pretty, gentle, and rather 
 timid boy. I think his experience there was not gen- 
 erally pleasant. Though he had afterwards a scholar-like 
 knowledge of Latin, he did not attain distinction in the 
 school, and I should think that the character of the 
 headmaster, Dr. Russell, which was vigorous, unsympa- 
 thetic, and stern, though not severe, was uncongenial to 
 his own. With the boys who knew him, Thackeray was 
 popular, but he had no skill in games, and I think no 
 taste for them. 
 
 "He was already known by his faculty for making 
 verses, chiefly parodies. I only remember one line of 
 one parody on a poem of L. E. L.'s about 'Violets, 
 dark blue violets' ; Thackeray's version was 'Cabbages, 
 bright green cabbages,' and we thought it very witty." 
 
 This parody, his first literary effort, has only once 
 been printed, and then in a magazine, so that it is prac- 
 tically unknown ; and it shows so clearly the sense of 
 humour and the eye for the ridiculous which distin- 
 guished all Thackeray's later works, that I venture to 
 print it here, putting, for the sake of the reader's 
 convenience, the poem of which it is a parody by its 
 side.
 
 3 
 
 'QCUlllam /iDafeepeace Ubacftera^ 
 
 VIOLETS (L. E. L.) 
 
 Violets! deep blue violets! 
 
 April's loveliest coronets: 
 
 There are no flowers grow in the 
 vale, 
 
 Kissed by the sun, woo'd by the 
 gale, 
 
 None with the dew of the twilight 
 wet, 
 
 So sweet as the deep blue vio- 
 let. 
 
 I do remember how sweet a 
 
 breath 
 Came with the azure light of a 
 
 wreath, 
 That hung round the wild harp's 
 
 golden chords 
 That rang to my dark-eyed lover's 
 
 words. 
 I have seen that dear harp 
 
 rolled 
 With gems of the East and bands 
 
 of gold, 
 But it never was sweeter than 
 
 when set 
 With leaves of the dark blue 
 
 violet. 
 
 And when the grave shall open 
 
 for me 
 I care not how soon that time 
 
 may be 
 Never a rose shall bloom on my 
 
 tomb, 
 It breathes too much of hope and 
 
 bloom; 
 But let me have there the meek 
 
 regret 
 Of the bending and deep blue 
 
 violet. 
 
 CABBAGES (W. M. T.) 
 
 Cabbages ! bright green cabbages ! 
 
 April's loveliest gifts, I guess. 
 
 There is not a plant in the gar- 
 den laid, 
 
 Raised by the dung, dug by the 
 spade, 
 
 None by the gardener watered, 
 I ween, 
 
 So sweet as the cabbage, the 
 cabbage green. 
 
 I do remember how sweet a 
 
 smell 
 Came with the cabbage I loved 
 
 so well, 
 Served up with the best that 
 
 beautiful looked 
 The beef that dark-eyed Ellen 
 
 cooked. 
 I have seen beef served with 
 
 raddish of horse, 
 I have seen beef served with 
 
 lettuce of cos, 
 But it is far nicer, far nicer, I 
 
 guess, 
 As bubble and squeak, beef and 
 
 cabbages. 
 
 And when the dinner-bell sounds 
 for me 
 
 I care not how soon that time 
 may be 
 
 Carrots shall never be served on 
 my cloth, 
 
 They are far too sweet for a boy 
 of my broth; 
 
 But let me have there a mighty 
 mess 
 
 Of smoking hot beef and cab- 
 bages.
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 31 
 
 To prophesy after the event is always an absurdity, 
 but there is no doubt that Cabbages might easily have 
 been worse. At least, Cabbages is a better parody than 
 Violets is a poem but it can, of course, be retorted 
 that this is not necessarily imputing any great merit to 
 the schoolboy parody. It is, moreover, worthy of note 
 as an index to Thackeray's mind, and as showing that, 
 while he always had a profound reverence for the beauti- 
 ful in art, as his boyish appreciation of Keats and his 
 later admiration for Tennyson demonstrate, he had a 
 corresponding natural antipathy to the mawkish or feebly 
 sentimental, which was the cause and mainspring of his 
 genius for parody and burlesque. 
 
 Anthony Trollope has printed some lines of doggerel, 
 attributed at Charterhouse to Thackeray, which show the 
 marvellous tendency to almost impossible rhymes that 
 was in itself a distinguishing merit of his humourous 
 poetry. And now I must find space for a few of the 
 eleven verses of the Holyday Song, to which I have 
 already referred, and which is printed in fac-simile in the 
 Grey friars by Mr. Davies: 
 
 Now let us dance and sing, 
 While Carthusian bells do ring; 
 Joy twangs the fiddle-string, 
 
 And Freedom blows the flute. 
 
 Tiddle-dum and Tiddle-di 
 
 What a joke for you and I 
 
 Dulce domum, let us cry 
 
 Charterhouse adieu. 
 
 Purblind Cupid still drag on 
 Some more days ere he can brag on 
 Killing game to fill a waggon, 
 And thy shooting-jacket too!
 
 32 ZKHilliam /iDafcepeace Ubacfeera^ 
 
 Yet, oh stay! thou beauteous sister 
 Who has caused heartburn and blister 
 To that paragon young mister, 
 Joseph Carne! 
 
 Queen of Beauty! Star of Harrow! 
 Thou has shot thro' heart and marrow 
 And stricken Makepeace with thy arrow 
 In the head-brain. 
 
 "His change of retrospective feeling about his school- 
 days was very characteristic," Mr. Venables continued. 
 "In his earlier books he always spoke of the Charter- 
 house as Slaughter House and Smithfield. As he be- 
 came famous and prosperous, his memory softened, and 
 Slaughter House was changed into Grey Friars where 
 Colonel Newcome ended his life." 
 
 It was with Venables that Thackeray had the fight 
 that he, at least, could never have entirely forgotten. 
 "That unlucky fight!" Mr. Ronpell, the monitor at 
 Penny's in 1822, has said. "It was on a wet half-holi- 
 day, I think, when a boy named Glossip came and asked 
 leave for Thackeray and Venables to fight. We wanted 
 some amusement, so I let them fight it out in our long 
 room, with the important result to Thackeray's nasal 
 organ." It says much for Thackeray's manliness and 
 sweetness of disposition that he and his opponent became 
 firm friends and remained so for the rest of their lives. 
 
 Yet it is from Thackeray's own pen that we have 
 what is probably the best description of himself as a boy. 
 
 "Arthur Pendennis's school-fellows at the Greyfriars 
 school state that, as a boy, he was in no ways remarkable 
 either as a dunce or as a scholar," he wrote. "He did, 
 in fact, just as much as was required of him, and no 
 more. If he was distinguished for anything it was for
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 33 
 
 verse-writing; but was his enthusiasm ever so great, it 
 stopped when he had composed the number of lines 
 demanded by the regulations (unlike your Swettenham, 
 for instance, who, with no more of poetry in his compo- 
 sition than Mr. Wakley, yet would bring up a hundred 
 dreary hexameters to the master after a half-holiday; or 
 young Fluxmore, who not only did his own verses, but 
 all the fifth form's besides). He never read to improve 
 himself out of school-hours, but, on the contrary, de- 
 voured all the novels, plays, and poetry on which he 
 could lay his hands. He never was flogged, but it was a 
 wonder how he escaped the whipping-post. When he 
 had money he spent it royally in tarts for himself and 
 his friends ; he has been known to disburse nine and six- 
 pence out of ten shillings awarded to him in a single day. 
 When he had no funds he went on tick. When he could 
 get no credit he went without, and was almost as happy. 
 He has been known to take a thrashing for a crony with- 
 out saying a word ; but a blow, ever so slight, from a 
 friend, would make him roar. To fighting he was averse 
 from his earliest youth, as indeed to physic, the Greek 
 grammar, or any other exertion, and would engage in 
 none of them, except at the last extremity. He seldom 
 if ever told lies, and never bullied little boys. Those 
 masters or seniors who were kind to him, he loved with 
 boyish ardour. And though the Doctor, when he did 
 not know his Horace, or could not construe his Greek 
 play, said that that boy Pendennis was a disgrace to the 
 school, a candidate for ruin in this world, and perdition 
 in the next ; a profligate, who would most likely bring 
 his venerable father to ruin and his mother to a dishon- 
 oured grave, and the like yet as the Doctor made 
 use of these compliments to most of the boys in the
 
 34 William /iDafeepeace Ubacfterap 
 
 place (which has not turned out an unusual number of 
 felons and pickpockets), little Pen, at first uneasy and 
 terrified by the charges, became gradually accustomed to 
 hear them ; and he has not, in fact, either murdered his 
 parents, or committed any act worthy of transportation 
 or hanging up to the present day." 
 
 Thackeray's sense of humour seems to have been very 
 early developed, as the following practical joke shows. 
 Dr. Senior, when a boy, sat next to Thackeray in the 
 class-room, and he was dozing there on a sultry summer 
 afternoon while Adam's Roman Antiquities was being 
 read aloud. A sentence had just been concluded, when 
 Senior was aroused by hearing his name called, and by 
 being asked the question: "What was provided for the 
 Senators when they met?" Not having the vaguest idea 
 of what to answer, he was delighted to hear a neighbour- 
 ing voice murmur, "Try 'Wine.' ' Thereupon Senior 
 answered boldly, "Wine"; and of course the boys were 
 convulsed with laughter. "Try 'Bread and cheese,'' 
 murmured the prompting voice. The other, however, 
 would not try any more, and a severe imposition 
 rewarded his first attempt. 
 
 The sentence on which the silly question had been 
 founded was: "The Senators met periodically in the 
 Temple of So-and-so, where seats or benches were pro- 
 vided for their accommodation" ; and it is almost need- 
 less to add the voice of the tempter was the voice of 
 Thackeray. 
 
 How clearly these days of boyhood were impressed 
 upon the man's mind can be seen when, some forty years 
 later, he wrote of these times in a Roundabout Paper 
 "Tunbridge Toys." 
 
 "At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy-tide
 
 at tbe Cbarterbouse 35 
 
 holidays came, and I was to go to my parents, who were 
 at Tunbridge Wells. My place in the coach was taken 
 by my tutor's servant. 'Bolt-in-Tun,' Fleet Street, 
 seven o'clock in the morning, was the word. My tutor, 
 
 the Rev. Edward P , had a parting interview with 
 
 me; gave me my little account for the governor; the 
 remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my 
 own expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings of an 
 old account which had been overpaid and was to be 
 restored to my family. Away I ran and paid Hawker 
 his three-and-six [for a pencil case purchased from him]. 
 Ouf ! what a weight it was off my mind ! The 
 
 next morning, of course, we were an hour before the 
 time. I and another boy shared a hackney-coach ; two- 
 and-six; porter for putting luggage on coach,, three- 
 pence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, 
 my companion, went into the 'Bolt-in-Tun' coffee-room 
 and had a good breakfast. I couldn't, because though 
 I had five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money, I 
 had none of my own, you see. I certainly intended to 
 go without breakfast, and still remember how strongly I 
 had that resolution in my mind. But there was that 
 hour to wait. A beautiful August morning I am very 
 hungry. There is Rasherwell 'tucking' away in the 
 coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I 
 had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn 
 into a court by mere chance *I vow it was by mere 
 chance and there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in 
 the window, Coffee, Twopence, Round of Buttered Toast, 
 Twopence. And here I am, hungry, penniless, with five- 
 and-twenty shilings of my parents' money in my pocket. 
 What would you have done? You see I had had my 
 money, and spent it in that pencil-case affair. The five-
 
 36 William flDafeepeace 
 
 and-twenty shillings were a trust by me to be handed 
 over. 
 
 "But then would my parents want their only child to 
 be actually without breakfast? Having this money, and 
 being so hungry, so very hungry, mightn't I take ever 
 so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I chose? 
 
 "Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent four- 
 pence. I remember the taste of the coffee and toast to 
 this day a peculiar muddy, not-sweet-enough coffee a 
 rich rancid, yet not-buttered-enough delicious toast. 
 The waiter had nothing. At any rate, fourpence, I 
 know, was the sum I spent. And my hunger appeased, 
 I got on the coach a guilty being. At the last stage 
 what is its name? I have forgotten in seven-and-thirty 
 years there is an inn with a little green and trees before 
 it: and by the trees is an open carriage. It is our car- 
 riage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; 
 and my parents in the carriage. Oh, how I had been 
 counting the days until this one came ! Oh ! how happy 
 I had been to see them yesterday! But there was that 
 fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked 
 me, and the coffee poisoned me. 
 
 "I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, 
 that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender 
 paternal voice. I pull out the twenty-four shillings and 
 eightpence with a trembling hand. 
 
 " 'Here's your money,' I gasp out, 'which Mr. P 
 
 owes you, all but fourpence. I owed three and six to 
 Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had 
 none left, and I took fourpence of yours and had some 
 coffee at a shop.' 
 
 "I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering 
 this confession.
 
 Ht tbe Gbarterbouse 37 
 
 " 'My dear boy,' says the Governor, 'why didn't you 
 go and breakfast at the hotel?' 
 
 " 'He must be starved,' says my mother. 
 
 "I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been 
 taken back to my parents' arms again. It was not a 
 very great crime as yet, or a very long career of prodi- 
 gality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a pin 
 which is not his own will take a thousand pounds when 
 occasion serves, bring his parents' gray heads with sorrow 
 to the grave, and carry his own to the gallows. 
 Oh ! Heaven be thanked, my parents' heads are still 
 above the grass, and mine is still out of the noose." 
 
 The extract is long, but this picture of the boy is one 
 to dwell upon, for it applies equally to the man. All 
 his faults were of this fourpenny order, that is to say, of 
 small importance and he worried himself about them 
 just as he did about the above trifle. How true this is 
 may be gathered from the story Mr. Bayard Taylor has 
 told of a visit that, in 1860, he paid with Thackeray to 
 Baron Marochetti, the sculptor, who was then the 
 novelist's next-door neighbour in Onslow Square. The 
 Baron took down a small engraving of Albert Diirer's 
 from the wall the subject was St. George and the 
 Dragon and gave it to Thackeray, who inspected the 
 gift with great delight for a few minutes ; and then, sud- 
 denly becoming grave, turned to his companion and 
 said, "I shall hang it near the head of my bed, where I 
 can see it every morning. We have all our dragons to 
 fight. Do you know yours? I know mine; I have not 
 one, but two. Indolence and luxury. ... I am 
 serious. I never take up the pen without an effort. I 
 work only from necessity. I never walk without seeing 
 some pretty useless thing which I want to buy. Some-
 
 38 TOlltam /iDafeepeace 
 
 times I pass the same shop window every day for months, 
 and resist the temptation and think I am safe; then 
 comes the day of weakness, and I yield. My physician 
 tells me that I must live very simply, and not dine out 
 so much; but I cannot break off the agreeable habit. I 
 shall look at this picture, and think of my dragons, 
 though I don't expect to overcome them." 
 
 But I must return to the Roundabout Paper, from 
 which I quote again. "As I look up from my desk, I 
 see Tunbridge Wells and Common in the rocks, the 
 strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. 
 Boys saunter over the green with stumps and cricket bats. 
 Other boys gallop by on the riding-master's hacks. I 
 protest it is 'Cramp, Riding Master,' as it used to be in 
 the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must 
 be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a foot- 
 man with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they 
 as good as our novels? Oh! how delightful they were! 
 Shades of Valancour, awful ghost of Manfroni, how I 
 shudder at your appearance ! Sweet image of Thaddeus 
 of Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand 
 tried to depict you in a Polish cap and richly embroi- 
 dered tights! And as for Corinthian Tom in light blue 
 pantaloons and hessians, can all the splendour of real life 
 which their eyes have subsequently beheld, and all the 
 will I have heard or read in later times, compare with 
 your fashion, with your brilliancy, with your delightful 
 grace and sparkling vivacious rattle? . . . [My eyes] 
 are looking backwards, back into forty years off, into a 
 dark room, into a little house hard by on the Common 
 here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays. The parents have 
 gone to town for two days: the house is all his own, his 
 own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 39 
 
 seated at night in the lonely drawing-room, poring over 
 Manfroni, or the One-Handed Monk, so frightened that 
 he scarce dared to turn round." 
 
 Thackeray left Charterhouse in May, 1828, but he 
 revisited it many times. In 1859 we hear of his dining 
 with Mr. John Irvine in the Masters' Common Room at 
 Charterhouse, when after dinner and chapel they went to 
 the headmaster's house, where the headmaster (Canon 
 Elwyn) produced the "Green Book," so that Thackeray 
 might con over the names of his school contemporaries. 
 When he came to his own name, Thackeray found 
 recorded, after Trin. Coll. Camb., in the space devoted 
 to "subsequent career": "Michel (?) Angelo Titmarsh, 
 sub-editor of The Globe \ and he exclaimed with much 
 (probably feigned) indignation, "I never was sub-editor 
 of The Globe. I worked for The Globe, but I never was 
 sub-editor." This statement was erased, and the new 
 entry is: "Author of Vanity Fair, The Newcomes, etc., 
 died Christmas, 1863."* 
 
 His last visit was on Founder's Day (December I2th), 
 1863, and the scene has been described by eye-witnesses. 
 
 "He was there in his usual back seat in the quaint 
 old chapel. He went thence to the oration in the Gov- 
 ernor's room; and as he walked up to the orator with 
 
 *The bed upon which Thackeray died was given by his daughters 
 to Charterhouse, and to the Head Gownboy and his successors has 
 been accorded the privilege of lying upon it; and Archdeacon Hale, 
 then Master of the Charterhouse, wrote the following inscription, 
 which was engraved at its head: 
 
 HOC LECTO RECUMBENS 
 OBDORMIVTT IN CHRISTO 
 
 GULIELMUS MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 ix KAL. JANVAR: AN. MDCCCLXIV 
 
 SCHOL.C CARTHUSIANS QUONDAM DISCIPULUS 
 MATURA ^ETATE HUJUSCE LOCI AMANTISSIMUS 
 
 UTI TESTANTUR EJUS SCRIPTA 
 
 PER ORBEM TERRARUM DIVULGATA 
 
 V1X1T ANNOS LII.
 
 40 TKBUliam flDafeepeace tlbacfeeras 
 
 his contribution, was received with such hearty applause 
 as only Carthusians can give to one who has immortalised 
 their school. At the banquet afterwards he sat at the 
 side of his old friend and artist-associate in Punch, John 
 Leech; and in a humorous speech proposed, as a toast, 
 the noble foundation which he had adorned by his liter- 
 ary fame, and made popular in his works. . . . Divine 
 Service took place at four o'clock in the quaint old 
 chapel; and the appearance of the brethren in their 
 black gowns, of the old stained glass and carving in the 
 chapel, of the tomb of Sutton, could hardly fail to give 
 a peculiar and interesting character to the service. 
 Prayers were said by the Rev. J. J. Halcombe, the reader 
 of the House. There was only the usual parochial 
 chanting of the Nunc Dimittis; the familiar Commemora- 
 tion Day psalms, 122 and 100, were sung after the third 
 collect and before the sermon; and before the general 
 thanksgiving the old prayer was offered up expressive of 
 thankfulness to God for the bounty of Thomas Sutton, 
 and of hope that all who enjoy it might make a right use 
 of it. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Henry 
 Earle Tweed, late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who 
 prefaced it with the 'Bidding Prayer,' in which he 
 desired the congregation to pray generally for all the 
 public schools and colleges, and particularly for the wel- 
 fare of the house founded by Thomas Sutton for the 
 support of age and the education of youth." 
 
 In many of his books Thackeray has mentioned the 
 school, and young Rawdon Crawley, Pendennis, Colonel 
 Newcome and his son, Philip Firmin, and many other 
 "living" characters spent their boyhood there; but The 
 Newcomes immortalised the establishment, and well 
 earned for him the title of "Carthusianus Carthusian-
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbouse 4 1 
 
 orum." It was while at the School on Founder's Day, 
 1854, that Thackeray suddenly exclaimed, "I shall put 
 all this in my book" ; and in the following April he asked 
 John Irvine, then a boy at Charterhouse, to introduce 
 him to a "Codd" (a colloquial term for the Poor Broth- 
 ers of the Charterhouse), adding, "Colonel Newcome is 
 going to beaCodd." Young Irvine, whose acquaint- 
 ance with the "Codds" was very limited, took him to 
 see Captain Light, an old army man whom blindness and 
 reduced circumstances had compelled to seek the privi- 
 leged shelters of Thomas Sutton's Hospital, where he 
 was tended during the day by his daughter. Many 
 times Thackeray went to see the veteran, who, it is 
 related, used to gleefully declare, "I'm going to sit for 
 Colonel Newcome" ; and he wound up his series of visits 
 by giving a lecture to the boys. I have only found this 
 lecture mentioned in an article by "D. D." in the 
 National Review for 1889. 
 
 " 'You little fellows perhaps won't understand a word 
 of what I'm going to say,' he addressed the juniors; 
 'but you don't care; you're so full of delight at the 
 thoughts of going home to-morrow that no words of mine 
 could make any difference, or make you feel a bit jollier. ' 
 Then, turning to the elder boys, 'The predecessor of 
 your friend, Dr. Senior, whom I well remember in that 
 chair, and who gave me the soundest reasons for well 
 remembering him, was the author of two highly popular 
 treatises, one the Grey Friars' Latin Grammar, the other 
 its Greek ditto, to which amusing works we all subscribed. 
 They ran through many editions, and, I believe, are not 
 yet quite obsolete.' Then came some facetiously pen- 
 sive recollections of his days as a fag, making So-and- 
 so's toast and blacking So-and-so's boots for a leave-day
 
 42 TKflUltam flDafeepeace 
 
 outing. Then, looking round at the 'Uppers,' 'Is there 
 still in the Purlieus of this venerable foundation a Red 
 Cow? I'm not referring to Smithfield, or rather, to 
 speak quite classically, * ' Smiffel. ' ' There was in my time. 
 She lived up a lane, and to the milk of that animal many 
 of us were strongly addicted.' Some notice of the 
 story-books he loved as a boy, and a handsome compli- 
 ment to 'Boz' for having provided the youngster with 
 Pickwick and Nickleby, concluded the lecture." 
 
 Well may the Captain have been proud, for he had 
 inspired some of the grandest pages of English literature, 
 with the quotation of one of which I shall conclude my 
 account of Thackeray's connection with the Charterhouse 
 School. 
 
 "Mention has been made once or twice in the course 
 of the history of the Grey Friars school where the 
 Colonel and Clive and I had been brought up an ancient 
 foundation of the time of James I., still subsisting in the 
 heart of London city. The death day of the founder of 
 the place is still kept solemnly by Cistercians. In their 
 chapel, where assemble the boys of the school, and the 
 fourscore old men of the Hospital, the founder's tomb 
 stands, a huge edifice, emblazoned with heraldic decora- 
 tions and clumsy carved allegories. There is an old 
 Hall, a beautiful specimen of the architecture of James's 
 time; an old Hall? many old halls; old staircases, old 
 passages, old chambers decorated with old portraits, 
 walking in the midst of which we walk as it were in the 
 early seventeenth century. To others than Cistercians, 
 Grey Friars is a dreary place possibly. Nevertheless, 
 the pupils educated there love to revisit it ; and the old- 
 est of us grow young again for an hour or two as we 
 come back into those scenes of childhood.
 
 at tbe Gbarterbouse 43 
 
 "The custom of the School is, that on the I2th De- 
 cember, the Founder's Day, the head gown-boy shall 
 make a Latin oration in praise Fundatoris Nostri and 
 upon other subjects; and a goodly company of old Cis- 
 tercians is generally brought together to attend this 
 oration ; after which we go to Chapel and tea and ser- 
 mon ; after which we adjourn to a great dinner, where 
 old condisciples meet, old toasts are given and speeches 
 are made. Before marching from the Oration Hall to 
 chapel, the stewards of the day's dinner, according to 
 old-fashioned rite, have wands put into their hands, 
 walk to church at the head of the procession, and sit 
 there in places of honour. The boys are already in their 
 seats, with shining fresh faces and shining white collars ; 
 the old black-gowned pensioners are on their benches; 
 the chapel is lighted, and Founder's Tomb, with its gro- 
 tesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and shines 
 with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he 
 lies, Fundator Noster, in his muff and gown, awaiting 
 the great examination day. We oldsters, be we ever so 
 old, become boys again as we look at that familiar old 
 tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we were 
 here, and how the doctor not the present doctor, the 
 doctor of our time used to sit yonder, and his awful 
 eye used to frighten us shuddering boys on whom it 
 lighted ; and how the boy next us would kick our shins 
 during service time, and how the monitor would cane us 
 afterwards because our shins were kicked. Yonder sit 
 forty cherry-cheeked boys thinking about home and 
 holidays to-morrow.* Yonder sit some three score old 
 
 *" Little Rawdon was there sitting, one of fifty gown-boys in the 
 Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about the sermon, but 
 about going home next Saturday, when his father would certainly tip 
 him, and perhaps would take him to the play." Vanity Fair.
 
 44 William flDafcepeace Ubacftetap 
 
 gentlemen, pensioners of the hospital, listening to the 
 prayers and psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in 
 the twilight the old reverend black-gowns. Is Codd 
 Ajax alive you wonder? the Cistercian lads called the old 
 gentlemen 'Codds, ' I know not wherefore I know not 
 wherefore but is old Codd Ajax alive, I wonder? or 
 Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd Gentleman? or has the 
 grave closed over them? A plenty of candles light up 
 this chapel, and this scene of age and youth and early 
 memories, and pompous death. How solemn the well- 
 remembered prayers are, here uttered again in the place 
 where in childhood we used to hear them ! How beau- 
 tiful and decorous the rite; how noble the ancient words 
 of the supplications which the priest utters, and to which 
 generations of fresh children and troops of bygone seniors 
 have cried Amen ! under those arches. 
 
 Thackeray spent his holidays at Addiscombe until 
 Major Smyth, retiring in 1825, settled down as a gentle- 
 man farmer at Larkbeare, on the confines of the parish 
 of Ottery St. Mary. Here Thackeray also stayed for 
 some months in the interval between leaving school and 
 going up to Cambridge, while his stepfather coached him 
 for his university career; and Mrs. Ritchie remembers 
 being told that while Euclid was child's play to her 
 father, he disliked algebra, and to the end of his days 
 declared he could never understand the difference be- 
 tween latitude and longitude. 
 
 Doctor Cornish, who was the Vicar at this time, has 
 inserted in his Short Notes on the Church and Parish of 
 Ottery St. Mary, Devon, an interesting page, headed 
 Clavering St. Mary and Pendennis. "No person of these 
 parts," he wrote, "can read Pendennis without being 
 struck with the impression which the scenery of this
 
 at tbe Cbarterbouse 45 
 
 neighbourhood must have made upon his mind, to be 
 reproduced in that remarkable story after a lapse of more 
 than twenty years. The local descriptions clearly iden- 
 tify Clavering St. Mary, Chatteris, and Baymouth, with 
 Ottery St. Mary, Exeter, and Sidmouth; and in the first 
 edition, which is ornamented with vignettes in the 
 margin, an unmistakable representation of the 'cock- 
 tower' of Ottery St. Mary is introduced. But though 
 Clavering St. Mary and Chatteris are locally identified 
 with Ottery and Exeter, the characteristics of the story 
 found no counterpart in the inhabitants of either locality. 
 "In Fraser's Magazine for November, 1854, there is 
 an article, entitled Clavering St. Mary; a talk about 
 Devonshire Worthies, which confirms this identity, where 
 it speaks of the birthplace of Pendennis, that 'little old 
 town of Clavering St. Mary,' past which the rapid river 
 Brawl holds on its shining course, and which boasts a 
 fine old church with great grey towers, of which the sun 
 illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the shadows 
 of the deep buttresses, and gilding the glittering windows 
 and flaming vane. Things have, however, changed at 
 Clavering since Mr. Thackeray spent many a pleasant 
 summer holiday there in his boyhood. The old Col- 
 legiate church has been swept and garnished, bedizened 
 with finery until it scarcely knows itself; and the Wap- 
 shot boys no longer make a good cheerful noise, scuffling 
 with their feet as they march into church and up the 
 organ-loft stairs, but walk demurely to their open seats 
 in the side aisle." Thus we see that even Dr. Portman 
 existed, in a modified form, as Dr. Cornish; and it was 
 this gentleman who sent some of Thackeray's verses to 
 The County Chronicle and Chatteris Champion, which, 
 however, was known at Exeter as The Western Luminary.
 
 46 William /IDafeepeace 
 
 And Miss Fotheringay? Did young Thackeray find 
 an angel disguised as an actress in the Exeter Theater? 
 If we think so we shall be in good company, for Mr. 
 Herman Merivale entertains a secret belief that there was 
 some one somewhere that the youngster wooed and loved 
 and (fortunately) lost. But it is only supposition. Even 
 the poem in the Western Luminary is not a love-verse, 
 but only a parody of an intended speech of Lalor Sheil's 
 upon Penenden Heath, which he was not allowed to 
 deliver, but of which, before he left town, he had taken 
 the precaution to send copies to some of the leading 
 journals for insertion. This jeu d? esprit was the first 
 appearance in print of the future author of Esmond, and 
 as such, rather than on account of its merits, obtains 
 quotation here. 
 
 IRISH MELODY 
 (Air: The Minstrel Boy.) 
 
 Mister Sheil into Kent has gone 
 
 On Penenden Heath you'll find him; 
 Nor think you that he came alone, 
 
 There's Doctor Doyle behind him. 
 
 "Men of Kent," said the little man, 
 
 " If you hate Emancipation, 
 You're a set of fools." He then began 
 
 A cut and dry oration. 
 
 He strove to speak, but the men of Kent 
 
 Began a grievous shouting, 
 When out of the waggon the little man went, 
 
 And put a stop to his spouting. 
 
 " What though these heretics heard me not! " 
 
 Quoth he to his friend Canonical, 
 " My speech is safe in the Times, I wot, 
 
 And eke in the Morning Chronicle."
 
 Ht tbe Cbarterbousc 47 
 
 We gather from these stray recollections of Thack- 
 eray's school-life at the Charterhouse, and the glimpses 
 we get of his holiday pursuits at Ottery St. Mary, that, 
 like most men of genius, his distinct bias was already 
 apparent, both in his studies and his amusements. It is 
 evident, as in the case of many another sensitive boy 
 with a predestined leaning toward literature and art, 
 that William Makepeace Thackeray was neither a model 
 student, nor had he any keen enjoyment in the rude 
 sports and pastimes of English boyhood. But he was a 
 clever, manly, and affectionate lad, with a fine sense of 
 fun and an innate gift of literary expression. Moreover, 
 his early bent was distinctly in the direction of humourous 
 parody, in which he displayed a keen eye for the foibles 
 and futilities of his fellows, and but little of that love of 
 mere sentiment which distinguishes the juvenile efforts 
 of even so masculine a mind as Byron's. In Thackeray's 
 case, as in most others, the Child was father to the Man.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT CAMBRIDGE
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT CAMBRIDGE 
 
 WHEN he was barely nineteen, in February, 1829, 
 exactly one year after Charles and Alfred Ten- 
 nyson, Thackeray went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 Major Smyth accompanied him (even as Major Penden- 
 nis went with his nephew), and they stayed for a few 
 days at Slaughter's Coffee House, in London, from 
 whence Thackeray wrote to his mother, telling her of a 
 visit to Charterhouse, where he had seen Dr. Russell and 
 some old school-fellows, of calls paid upon members of 
 the family, of one especially to his aunt, Mrs. Ritchie, 
 who had recommended him to her cousin, the Provost 
 of King's. He stayed at Cambridge for two years, and 
 then came down without taking his degree. This, how- 
 ever, was not because, like Pendennis, he was "plucked," 
 but because, going up in February instead of October, he 
 had either to meet men who had three months' advan- 
 tage of him at the May examination, or to wait for a 
 whole year until the next examinations. It was decided 
 that he should adopt the only other possibility, and he 
 left the University "unplucked" and degreeless. As with 
 the three famous Cambridge poets, Byron, Wordsworth, 
 and Tennyson, Alma Mater was able to confer no scho- 
 lastic title or distinction on the future novelist. 
 
 There is not a great deal to record of these years. 
 His letters tell of his work, his books, and his friends,
 
 52 ISIUlliam flbafeepeace TTbacfeerap 
 
 and form a journal of his daily doings that differed to no 
 particular extent from those of far less intellectual young 
 men. The tutors at this time included Whewell, Julius 
 Hare, and Cannop Thirlwall ; and among the undergrad- 
 uates were the Tennysons (Frederick, Charles, and 
 Alfred), G. S. Venables, E. Blakesley, James Spedding, 
 Arthur Hallam, Robert Monteith, Ralph Bernal (since 
 known as Bernal - Osborne), Hailstone, Heyworth, 
 Badger, Mazzingli, the Lushingtons (E. L., and Henry), 
 W. H. Thompson (subsequently Master of Trinity), 
 Charles Kennedy, Edward Horsman, Thomas Sunder- 
 land, John (now Archdeacon) Allen (the prototype of 
 Dobbin), Henry (afterwards Dean) Alford, Richard 
 Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), and Richard 
 Monckton Milnes, the first Lord Houghton. In other 
 colleges were his Charterhouse comrades : Carne, Young 
 (Caius), Moody (St. John's), and Fawcett (Corpus 
 Christi); and his friends Wells, Hine (Corpus Christi), 
 and Baker (Caius). 
 
 He was dull at first, and suffered from headache. 
 Dr. Thackeray attended him, and ordered diet and 
 leeches, and refused to take a fee. "What!" he de 
 manded, "do you take me for a cannibal?" He read 
 classics and mathematics, alternatively, with Whewell; 
 attended lectures on political economy; and indulged in 
 an immense amount of desultory reading, principally 
 fiction, poetry, and history. Indeed, Thackeray always 
 advocated the study of this last branch of learning. 
 "Read a tremendous lot of history," he one day advised 
 a young cousin, Mr. Bedingfield, as they were leaving 
 *the Reading Room in the British Museum; though, 
 speaking of this same subject to Mr. Jeaffreson, he 
 declared, "There's nothing new, and there's nothing
 
 Ht Cambridge 53 
 
 true, and it don't much signify." '"It was probably at 
 this time that he laid the foundation of his love for the 
 writers of the eighteenth century in general, and, in par- 
 ticular, for Fielding's works. "My English would have 
 been much better if I had read Fielding before I was 
 ten," he said years after. 
 
 According to a letter written in March, 1830, he 
 went to Fawcett,* his coach, three times a week, from 
 eight to nine ; to Fisher, the mathematical lecturer, from 
 nine to ten ; and to Stan, the classical lecturer, from ten 
 to eleven. He read Greek plays with Badger Badger 
 was a freshman from eleven to twelve, devoted the 
 next hour to Euclid and Algebra, and worked in the 
 evening at some one or other of these subjects, or at 
 some collateral reading connected with Thucydides or 
 ^Eschylus. "This is my plan, which I trust to be able 
 to keep," he concluded. His good intentions paved the 
 way to Fame. Indeed, his craving for work was appar- 
 ently insatiable, and, if he could find time, he determined 
 to write for a college prize competition an English essay 
 on "The Influence of the Homeric Poems on the Reli- 
 gion, the Politics, the Literature and Society of Greece." 
 However he could not find the time. 
 
 He was fortunately not too much occupied to go to 
 supper-parties, where, "though not talkative, rather 
 observant, he enjoyed the humour of the hours, and 
 sang one or two old songs ["Old King Cole" was a 
 favourite with him] with great applause, nor to practise 
 fencing, nor to play chess, nor (as he took care to record) 
 to fall asleep over a Life of Cardinal Wolsey. 
 
 *In another letter he wrote of Fawcett as a " most desperate, 
 good-hearted bore," and mentioned how the coach, while endeavouring 
 to make him au fait in trigonometry, made obscure even what he 
 thought he already understood.
 
 54 TffilUliam /iDafeepeace Ubacfterap 
 
 In the Transactions of the Union Society, printed in 
 1834, Thackeray is mentioned as a speaker in a list that 
 includes Charles Buller, Kemble, Sterling, Blakesley, 
 Milnes, Trench, Praed, Hallam, Venables, Alford, King- 
 lake, and, above all, Sunderland, who was the orator, 
 and, in the belief of the undergraduates, destined to be 
 the greatest of them all, his promising career, it is well 
 known, was unhappily cut short by insanity. Thackeray 
 spoke at the Union upon the character of Napoleon, and 
 with so little success that he wrote home of his intention 
 never to speak again. However, he subsequently deter- 
 mined to venture, when Shelley was the subject of 
 debate; but the meeting was adjourned for a few days, 
 and I do not think it is known if he ultimately delivered 
 his speech. 
 
 Shelley was the rage at Cambridge then, while Byron 
 was the ideal of the undergraduates of Oxford. Sir Francis 
 Doyle and Mr. Gladstone at Oxford invited a deputa- 
 tion from Cambridge to discuss the supremacy of these 
 poets, and Hallam, Milnes, and Sunderland were deputed 
 to maintain the fame of Shelley. Thackeray wrote that 
 he would bring with him, when he came home, Shelley's 
 Revolt of Islam, which he thought "a most beautiful 
 poem though the story is absurd, and the republican 
 sentiments conveyed in it, if possible, more absurd." 
 But soon after he altered his mind ; he would not take 
 the poem with him to Larkbeare, for "it is an odd kind 
 of book, containing poetry that would induce me to read 
 it through, and sentiments which might strongly incline 
 one to throw it in the fire." 
 
 Shelley had, nevertheless, a certain interest for him, 
 since, when the scheme of a magazine to be called the 
 Chimera was mooted at Cambridge, he volunteered and
 
 St Cambridge 55 
 
 actually wrote at Paris during the Long Vacation in 
 1829 An Essay on Shelley. But there seems to be no 
 trace of publication of either essay or magazine. 
 
 At Cambridge Thackeray contributed to a little 
 weekly paper called The Snob, a literary and scientific 
 journal not conducted by members of the University. 
 
 In 1829 the subject of the English poem for the 
 Chancellor's medal was the singularly unpromising one 
 of Timbuctoo the medal was awarded to an undergrad- 
 uate of Trinity College, by name Alfred Tennyson and 
 Thackeray sent to the Snob a poem which (so runs his 
 letter to the Editor) "was unluckily not finished on the 
 day appointed for delivery of the several copies of verses 
 on "Timbuctoo." The poem opens as follows: 
 
 " In Africa (a quarter of the world) 
 Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curled 
 And somewhere there, unknown to public view, 
 A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo." 
 
 A description then follows of the fauna and flora of 
 Timbuctoo, of a lion-hunt, of the home-life of the inhab- 
 itants and the misery caused by the introduction of slav- 
 ery ; and the whole winds up with a prophecy of dire 
 disaster to Europe. 
 
 "The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel 
 Stern Afric's wrath and writhe 'neath Afric's steel. 
 I see her tribes the hill of glory mount, 
 And sell their sugars on their own account, 
 While round her throne the prostrate nations come 
 Sue for her rice and barter for her rum." 
 
 The skit, read with the notes and elucidations pro- 
 vided by the author, is amusing enough, though it would 
 be difficult to discover in it any promise of his future 
 greatness. But whatever may be thought now among his 
 companions at Cambridge, "Timbuctoo received much
 
 56 William /l&afeepeace 
 
 laud," as Thackeray wrote to his mother, adding naively: 
 "I could not help finding out that I was very fond of 
 this same praise. The men knew not the author, but 
 praised the poem; how eagerly I sucked it in. All is 
 vanity!" 
 
 Thus even at eighteen he piped the tune that he was 
 to sing in such magnificent tones in after-life. Note, 
 too, the name of the paper The Snob! 
 
 In his correspondence from Cambridge there are many 
 references to the little weekly. On the 23rd of May, 
 1829, he wrote: "On Monday night myself and the 
 Editor of the Snob sat down to write the Snob for next 
 Thursday. We began at nine and finished at two ; but 
 I was so afflicted with laughter that I came away quite 
 ill." 
 
 A few days later he tells his parents that "the Snob 
 goeth on and prospereth. Here is a specimen of my wit 
 in the shape of an advertisement therein inserted : 
 Sidney Sussex College. Wanted, a few freshmen. 
 Apply at the Butteries, where the smallest contribution 
 will be gratefully received." From yet another letter it 
 appears that Guinivere verses, written over the signature 
 of "A Literary Snob," are his; and several critics have 
 ascribed to him the Ramsbottom Papers, and the Extract 
 from a Letter from one in Cambridge to one in Town. It 
 is possible, too, that he may have written a rhyming 
 letter published in No. 3 over the signature of "T. T."* 
 
 The first number of the Snob appeared on April 9, 
 and the eleventh and last bore the date of June 18. It 
 had been intended by Thackeray and others after the 
 long vacation to set up a periodical of a higher class, but 
 
 *The letters in the Constitutional and the Corsair were also 
 signed " T. T."
 
 Bt Cambri&oe 57 
 
 the intention fell through, and the Snob was revived in 
 November under the new name of the Gownsman. To 
 this he contributed Fdbea Tadpole (air: I'd be a But- 
 ter fly}." Probably From Anacreon, and the continued 
 Ramsbottom Papers were from his pen; and Anthony 
 Trollope has suggested also the dedication : 
 
 "To all Proctors, past, present, and future 
 Whose taste it is our privilege to follow, 
 Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate, 
 Whose presence it is our interest to avoid." 
 
 I venture to say, in spite of Anthony Trollope's con- 
 trary belief, that Thackeray's university career did him 
 an immense amount of good. Enough has .been said of 
 the course of his studies to show that, without being 
 carried to any great depths, he obtained a good general 
 knowledge of many things which proved to be of great 
 use to him in after life. Indeed, Thackeray himself 
 never underrated the value of a classical education ; and 
 once when "Eothen" Kinglake was laughing at the five 
 or six years' enforced composition in Latin to which he 
 had been subjected at Eton, he said to him, "It has 
 made you what you are," 
 
 But another great benefit was derived from Thack- 
 eray's stay at Cambridge, for (as Mr. Richmond Ritchie 
 has pointed out) "Cambridge fixed his social status. 
 Though afterwards he was to consort with Bohemians 
 and other strange acquaintances into which a man is 
 forced by adversity, he was never a Bohemian and 
 always faithful to the traditions of the class in which he 
 was born and bred." There can be no question as to 
 the truth of this; it is beyond all cavil or argument. 
 The university life gave the lad the ballast necessary to 
 carry him safely through his troubles by imbuing him
 
 5 William flDafeepeace TTbacfcerag 
 
 with a liking for the society of his equals, and a great 
 dislike to everything that smacked of vulgarity. 
 
 Sir Walter Besant and many others, who are unable 
 to understand how Thackeray could have known enough 
 of the manner of the Upper Ten to be able to depict 
 Society (the Society with the capital S) in Vanity 
 Fair, since, they insist, it was only on the success of 
 that book that he obtained the entree into those exclu- 
 sive circles, forget that Thackeray was the son of well- 
 to-do parents of the upper stratum of the middle classes, 
 that he had a public-school and university education, and 
 that, at Cambridge, he met and made lasting friendships 
 with Edward Fitzgerald, Monckton Milnes, W. H. 
 Thompson, R. C. Trench, John Sterling, Alfred Tenny- 
 son, James Spedding, John Allen, William Brookfield, 
 and many others whose names are now well known 
 several of whom were among the choice and master 
 spirits of the time, and all gentlemen of good social 
 standing. We should ever bear in mind the dictum of 
 Walter Bagehot, that the value of an English University 
 training consists more in the youthful friendships there 
 formed with fellow-students and contemporaries than in 
 the actual studies and examinations.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN GERMANY
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN GERMANY 
 
 IT was arranged that, after coming down from Trinity, 
 Thackeray should travel for a couple of years, and 
 with this end in view he took a course of German lessons 
 from a Herr Troppeneger, in London. During this con- 
 tinental tour he visited many places of interest, and 
 spent several months at Dresden and Rome and Paris 
 and Weimar. Commencing at Godesberg, as, for some 
 unknown reason, everybody did in those days, he stayed 
 there with a friend for a month, improving his knowledge 
 of the language and reading or at least buying Schil- 
 ler's works. He spent some time, too, in the studios at 
 Paris, and these experiences and those of later years 
 have been reproduced in The Newcomes and Philip, just 
 as the German travels have borne fruit in Vanity Fair 
 and other stories. 
 
 Weimar, however, is the place around which is cen- 
 tered most of the interest of these early travels. Dr. 
 Norman McLeod was there, and also his friend and fel- 
 low-student at Trinity, W. C. Lettson, since Her 
 Majesty's charge" d'affaires at Uruguay, but then 
 attached to the suite of the English Minister at Weimar; 
 and the three young men learnt German together from 
 Dr. Weissenborne. 
 
 He must have arrived there not later than the end of 
 August or the beginning of September. In the last 
 
 61
 
 62 William /iDafcepeace 
 
 week of the latter month he was presented at Court, 
 where the etiquette, in his opinion, was absurdly cere- 
 monious. The lack of a uniform in which to appear 
 seems to have worried him ; and he wrote home asking 
 for a cornetcy in Sir John Kennaway's yeomanry, as he 
 objected to the makeshift dress of black coat, waistcoat, 
 and (trousers cut down into) breeches, in which he 
 declared he looked half footman, half Methodist parson. 
 
 He liked Weimar so well that in December he said 
 that he would much appreciate an attac/ie'-ship which 
 would enable him to settle down there, where I think 
 he must have spent some of the happiest months of his 
 life. He wrote during his stay there, and read too. He 
 translated Korner, and promised to send his mother two 
 pieces though whether they were prose or verse I do 
 not know. He read Faust, but without much enthusi- 
 asm. "Of course I am delighted," he said, "but not 
 to that degree I expected." For Schiller, on the other 
 hand, he had unbounded admiration. "I have been 
 reading Shakespeare in German," he wrote; "if I could 
 ever do the same for Schiller in English, I should be 
 proud of having conferred a benefit on my country. 
 I do believe him to be, after Shakspere, 'the 
 poet'; " and it was, I think, Thackeray who, on being 
 told that some one had translated Wilhelm Tell into 
 English, and had bettered the drama in the translation, 
 replied that he held the latter process to be quite super- 
 fluous. 
 
 As, on the ground of merit, nothing that Schiller ever 
 wrote not Wilhelm Tell, or Maria Stuart, not even the 
 magnificent Wallenstein can bear comparison with 
 Goethe's masterpiece the masterpiece of German litera- 
 ture it is necessary to seek some other reason for the
 
 
 MLD 
 
 SJJ2
 
 Hn Germans 63 
 
 young Englishman's preference for the lesser genius. I 
 believe the solution of the problem is to be found in the 
 fact that Faust is, in its very essence, metaphysical, while 
 the predominant feature of Tell is love of home, which 
 latter quality appealed to Thackeray, while the former 
 made little impression on him. This will be found to be 
 only one of many instances in which his judgment came 
 from his heart, and not from his intellect ; and remember- 
 ing this, it is all the more remarkable to note how the 
 majority of his criticisms in art and literature have been 
 accepted by the critics of our generation. 
 
 He had his flirtations; he laughingly wrote to his 
 mother about a certain mademoiselle whom he adored, 
 and whom a gentleman of the Guards, with his magnifi- 
 cent waistcoats and his ten thousand a year, took away 
 from him. He bemoaned his fate by merrily translating 
 Schiller: 
 
 " The world is empty, 
 This heart is dead, 
 Its hopes and its ashes 
 Forever are fled." 
 
 Here, too, he may have met a Miss Lowe, who, with 
 the aid of her father and fiance", swindled him; and a 
 Dorothea, for whom he learnt to dance, and did dance 
 with her on the slippery floor aye, and fell too. "O 
 Dorothea! you can't forgive me you oughtn't to for- 
 give me; but I loved you madly still. My next flame 
 was Ottilia." Five-and-twenty years after, when he 
 revisited the town, he pointed out the house where Frau 
 von X. (presumably Dorothea's mother) used to live. 
 "At Venice, a year or two after our visit to Weimar," 
 Mrs. Ritchie has recorded, in the charming Chapters 
 from Some Unwritten Memoirs, ' ' we were breakfasting at
 
 64 William flDafcepeace Ubacfcerag 
 
 a long table, where a fat lady also sat a little way off, 
 with a pale, fat little boy beside her. She was stout, 
 she was dressed in light green, she was silent, she was 
 eating an egg. The sala of the great marble hotel was 
 shaded from the blaze of sunshine, but streaky gleams 
 shot across the dim hall, falling in on the palms and the 
 orange-trees beyond the lady, who gravely shifted her 
 place as the sunlight dazzled her. Our own meal was 
 also spread, and my sister and I were only waiting for 
 my father to begin. He came in presently, saying he 
 had been looking at the guest-book in the outer hall, and 
 he had seen a name which interested him very much. 
 'Frau von Z., geboren von X. It must be Amalia! 
 She must be here in the hotel, ' he said ; and as he 
 spoke he asked a waiter whether Madame von Z. was 
 still in the hotel. 'I believe that is Madame von Z.,' 
 said the waiter, pointing to the fat lady. The lady 
 looked up, and then went on with her egg, and my poor 
 father turned away, saying in a low, overwhelmed voice, 
 1 That Amalia! That cannot be Amalia!' I could not 
 understand his silence, his discomposure. 'Aren't you 
 going to speak to her? Oh, please do go and speak to 
 her,' we both cried. 'Do make sure if it is Amalia.' 
 But he shook his head. 'I can't,' he said; 'I had rather 
 not.' Amalia, meanwhile, having finished her egg, rose 
 deliberately, laid down her napkin, and walked away, 
 followed by her little boy." Does not this description 
 seem to recall Thackeray's version of the Sorrows of 
 Werther, 
 
 "Charlotte, having seen his body 
 Borne before her on a shutter, 
 Like a well-conducted person 
 Went on cutting bread and butter."
 
 tin Germans 65 
 
 The most memorable day in Thackeray's earlier 
 years, and one which he never forgot, was Wednesday, 
 October 20, 1830. On that day he wrote to his 
 mother : 
 
 "I saw for the first time old Goethe to-day; he was 
 very kind, and received me in rather a more distingut 
 manner than he has used the other Englishmen here; 
 the old man [Goethe was eighty-one] gives occasion- 
 ally a tea-party to which the English and some special 
 favourites in the town are invited ; he sent me a sum- 
 mons at twelve. I sat with him for half an hour." 
 
 Many years later Thackeray wrote again of Goethe 
 and the happy Weimar-Pumpernickel days in a letter to 
 George Henry Lewes, published in the Life of Goethe, 
 which, though written forty-four years ago, is of lasting 
 interest, and calls for reproduction here : 
 
 "LONDON, April 28, 1855. 
 
 "DEAR LEWES, I wish I had more to tell you 
 regarding Weimar and Goethe. Five-and-twenty years 
 ago, at least a score of young English lads used to live 
 at Weimar for study, for sport, or society. The Grand 
 Duke and Duchess received us with the kindliest hos- 
 pitality. The Court was splendid, but yet most pleas- 
 ant and homely. We were invited in our turns to din- 
 ners, balls, and assemblies there. Such young men as 
 had a right appeared in uniforms, diplomatic and mili- 
 tary. Some, I remember, invented gorgeous clothing: 
 the kind old Hof Marschall of those days, M. de Spiegel 
 (who had two of the most lovely daughters eyes ever 
 looked on), being in no wise difficult as to the admission 
 of these young Englanders. Of the winter nights we 
 used to charter sedan chairs, in which we were carried 
 through the snow to those pleasant Court entertain-
 
 66 *GGlUliam flDafcepeace 
 
 ments. I, for my part, had the good luck to purchase 
 Schiller's sword, which formed a part of my Court cos- 
 tume, and still hangs in my study, and puts me in mind 
 of days of youth, the most kindly and delightful.* 
 
 "We knew the whole society of the little city, and 
 but that the young ladies, one and all, spoke admirable 
 English, we surely might have learned the very best 
 German. The society met constantly. The ladies of 
 the Court had their evenings. 
 
 "The theatre was open twice or thrice in the week, 
 where we assembled a 'large family party.' Goethe had 
 retired from the direction, but the great traditions 
 remained still. The theatre was admirably conducted, 
 and besides the excellent Weimar company, famous 
 actors and singers from various parts of Germany per- 
 formed Gastrolle through the winter. In that winter I 
 remember we had Ludwig Devrient in Shylock, Hamlet, 
 Falstaff, and the Robbers; and the beautiful Schroder 
 in Fidelio. 
 
 "After three-and- twenty years' absence, I passed a 
 couple of summer days in the well-remembered place, 
 and was fortunate enough to find some of the friends of 
 my youth. Madame de Goethe was there, and received 
 me and my daughters with the kindness of old days. 
 We drank tea in the open air, at the famous cottage in 
 the park, which still belongs to the family, and had been 
 so often inhabited by her illustrious father. 
 
 "In 1831, though he had retired from the world, 
 Goethe would nevertheless very kindly receive strangers. 
 His daughter-in-law's tea-table was always spread for us. 
 
 *Thackeray gave the sword to his friend Bayard Taylor in 1857 
 or 1858, and he, in his turn, bequeathed it to the Schiller House in 
 Germany.
 
 flu Germany 67 
 
 We passed hours after hours there, and night after night, 
 with the pleasantest talk and music. We read over end- 
 less novels and poems in French, English, and German. 
 My delight in those days was to make caricatures for 
 children. I was touched to find that they were remem- 
 bered, and some even kept until the present time; and 
 very proud to be told, as a lad, that the great Goethe 
 had looked at some of them. 
 
 "He remained in his private apartments, where only 
 a very few privileged persons were admitted ; but he 
 liked to know all that was happening, and interested 
 himself about all strangers. Whenever a countenance 
 struck his fancy, there was an artist settled in Weimar 
 who made a portrait of it. Goethe had quite a gallery 
 of heads, in black and white, taken by this painter. His 
 house was all over pictures, drawings, casts, statues and 
 medals. 
 
 ' ' Of course I remember very well the perturbation of 
 spirit with which, as a lad of nineteen, I received the 
 long-expected intimation that the Herr Geheimerath 
 would see me on such a morning. This notable audience 
 took place in a little ante-chamber of his private apart- 
 ments, covered all round with antique casts and bas- 
 reliefs. He was habited in a long grey or drab redingot, 
 with a white neckcloth, and a red ribbon in his button- 
 hole. He kept his hands behind his back, just as in 
 Rauch's statuette. His complexion was very bright, 
 clear and rosy. His eyes extraordinarily dark, piercing 
 and brilliant.* I felt quite afraid before them, and 
 recollect comparing them to the eyes of the hero of a 
 
 *This must have been the effect of the position in which he sat 
 with regard to the light. Goethe's eyes were dark brown, but not 
 very dark. G. H. L.
 
 68 William flDafcepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 certain romance called Melnoth the Wanderer, which used 
 to alarm us boys thirty years ago ; eyes of an individual 
 who had made a bargain with a Certain Person, and at 
 an extreme old age retained these eyes in all their awful 
 splendour. I fancied Goethe must have been still more 
 handsome as an old man than even in the days of his 
 youth. His voice was very rich and sweet. He asked 
 me questions about myself, which I answered as best I 
 could. I recollect I was at first astonished, and then 
 somewhat relieved, when I found he spoke French with 
 not a good accent. 
 
 "Vidi tantum. I saw him but three times. Once 
 walking in the garden of his house in the Frauenplatz ; 
 once going to step into his chariot on a sunshiny day, 
 wearing a cap and a cloak with a red collar. He was 
 caressing at the time a beautiful little golden-haired 
 granddaughter, over whose sweet face the earth has long 
 since closed too. 
 
 Any of us who had books or magazines from England 
 sent them to him, and he examined them eagerly. 
 Frazer s Magazine had lately come out, and I remember 
 he was interested in those admirable outline portraits 
 which appeared for a while in its pages. But there was 
 one, a very ghastly caricature of Mr. Rogers, which, as 
 Madame de Goethe told me, he shut up and put away 
 from him angrily. 'They would make me look like that,' 
 he said, though in truth I could fancy nothing more 
 serene, majestic, and healthy looking than the grand old 
 Goethe. 
 
 "Though his sun was setting, the sky roundabout 
 was calm and bright, and that little Weimar illumined 
 by it. In every one of those kind salons the talk was 
 still of art and letters. The theatre, though possessing
 
 fln Germany 69 
 
 no very extraordinary actors, was still conducted with a 
 noble intelligence and order. The actors read books, 
 and were men of letters and gentlemen, holding a not 
 unkindly relationship with the Adel. At Court the con- 
 versation was exceedingly friendly, simple and polished. 
 The Grand Duchess (the present Grand Duchess Dow- 
 ager), a lady of very remarkable endowments, would 
 kindly borrow our books from us, lend us her own, and 
 graciously talk to us young men about our literary tastes 
 and pursuits. In the respect paid by this Court to the 
 Patriarch of letters, there was something ennobling, I 
 think, alike to the subject and sovereign. With a five- 
 and-twenty years' experience since those happy days of 
 which I write, and an acquaintance with an immense 
 variety of humankind, I think I have never seen a society 
 more simple, charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike, than 
 that of the dear little Saxon city where the good Schiller 
 and the great Goethe lived and lie buried. 
 
 "Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 It is interesting to think of the meeting of these two 
 men. The one in his old age, the other in his youth. 
 The one famous beyond all living men, as poet, drama- 
 tist, romancist, and philosopher; the other only as yet 
 dreaming of becoming a famous artist, and, perhaps, 
 flushing with pleasure to think that his host had 
 approved of some of his early drawings and "youthful 
 caricatures. 
 
 One cannot help wondering whether the aged and 
 illustrious author of Faust discerned in the English 
 youth of twenty the germs of a greatness almost rivalling 
 his own. Probably not. We know how slightingly
 
 70 TKailliam flDafcepeace 
 
 Coleridge, as an old man, regarded the more than prom- 
 ising juvenile verse of Tennyson. Rarely indeed does 
 the old world-worn man who has achieved fame and uni- 
 versal recognition look upon the most promising of the 
 aspirants of the new generation with any sense of their 
 coming greatness or recognition of their personal genius.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, GRUB STREET, AND PARIS
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, GRUB STREET, AND PARIS 
 
 IN the autumn of 1831 Thackeray entered himself as 
 a student at the Middle Temple. He had aban- 
 doned all thought of the Diplomatic service, and though 
 he did not look forward with much pleasure to practising 
 at the Bar, yet he regarded his profession (he wrote to 
 his mother) as "a noble and tangible object, an honour- 
 able calling, and, I trust in God, a certain fame." 
 
 He became the pupil of the special pleader and con- 
 veyancer, Taprell, and took chambers at No. I, Hare 
 Court, and, no doubt (as did Pendennis and Warring- 
 ton), he and his friends, "after reading pretty hard of a 
 morning, and, I fear, not law merely, but politics and 
 general history and literature, which were as necessary 
 for the advancement and instruction of a young man as 
 mere dry law, after applying with tolerable assiduity to 
 letters, to reviews, to elemental books of law, and, above 
 all, to the newspapers, until the hour of dinner was 
 drawing nigh . . . would sally out upon the town 
 with great spirits and appetite, and bent upon enjoying 
 a merry night as they had passed a pleasant forenoon." 
 Indeed, he confirmed this theory in a letter to his 
 mother: "I go regularly to my pleader's and sit with 
 him until half- past five and sometimes six; then I come 
 home and read and dine till about nine or past, when I am 
 glad enough to go out for an hour and look at the 
 
 73
 
 74 William /iDafcepeace 
 
 world." His only grievance at this time seems to have 
 been that his uncle Frank, who was very kind, would 
 ask him to dinner too often three times a week. 
 
 Thackeray does not appear to have overworked him- 
 self. His diary and letters show that, far rather than 
 study mere dry law, he preferred to spend a day with 
 Charles Buller, discussing poetry (they could not agree 
 upon the merits of the poets), or to stroll with a friend 
 in Kensington Gardens and lunch at Bayswater. With 
 Maginn, too, he spent much time. It seems, from Mr. 
 Blanchard Jerrold's account, that Father Prout in Paris 
 introduced Dr. Maginn to Thackeray as a possible editor 
 of a magazine which the ambitious young man wished 
 to bring out. Maginn, who was a big man in those 
 days, would not go into the matter until he had five 
 hundred pounds which may explain the current tale 
 that Thackeray lent him that sum. The magazine was 
 never published, but the pair struck a lively friendship. 
 The doctor took Thackeray to the Standard office in the 
 spring of 1832, where he explained the mysteries of 
 printing, and probably gave him an object-lesson in the 
 art of leader-writing. On the next day he gave him 
 dinner at the King's Head Thackeray's comment on 
 the other guests is not complimentary: "A dull party of 
 low literary men." Maginn read Homer to him, and 
 pointed out beauties that the listener had never per- 
 ceived bound him over, too, to read some Homer every 
 day. Thackeray liked him for his wit and good feeling, 
 and there is no doubt that, through Maginn, Thackeray 
 obtained his introduction to Fraser's Magazine. 
 
 During June Charles Buller was summoned by his 
 constituents at Liskeard, Cornwall, to come down imme- 
 diately. Unfortunately, however, he was too ill to
 
 /^*'^^/^^
 
 flM&Me Uemple, 6rub Street, ant) Paris 75 
 
 move, so he deputed his brother Arthur and Thackeray 
 to attend. The young men worked hard; they can- 
 vassed farmers, dined with attorneys, wrote addresses, 
 and attended meetings. One day, Thackeray told his 
 mother, he was riding for twelve hours canvassing. He 
 found time, however, in spite of the hard work, to 
 amuse himself to read Wallenstein, to draw caricatures, 
 and to make a lifelong friend of Sir William Molesworth. 
 
 Thackeray was never a very keen politician, though 
 he had decided views on some subjects, and was inter- 
 ested in and advocated certain Liberal measures of the 
 day, particularly the passing of the Reform Bill, and 
 the introduction of the Ballot, of Universal Suffrage, 
 and some of those other changes that have come about 
 in more recent years, but which at the time were thought 
 so dangerous that when a very dignified old lady asked 
 him to dinner Mrs. Ritchie is convinced it was with the 
 intention of remonstrating with him on these socialistic 
 opinions. 
 
 On the 1 8th of July he came of age. Almost the 
 first step he took, when he was his own master, was to 
 give up studying for the Bar. It was a cold-blooded 
 profession at best, he said, and a good lawyer must think 
 of nothing all his life long but law. Thackeray never 
 altered his opinion read an extract from Pendennis: 
 
 "On the other side of the third landing, where Pen 
 and Warrington lived, till long after midnight sits Mr. 
 Paley, who took the highest honours, and who is a fel- 
 low of his college, who will sit and read and note cases 
 until two o'clock in the morning; who will rise at seven 
 and be at the pleader's chambers as soon as they are 
 open, where he will work until an hour before dinner 
 time ; who will come home from Hall and read and note
 
 76 THUilliam flDafeepeace Ubacfeerap 
 
 cases again until dawn next day, when perhaps Mr. 
 Arthur Pendennis and his friend Mr. Warrington are 
 returning from some of their wild expeditions. How 
 differently employed Mr. Paley has been ! He has not 
 been throwing himself away : he has only been bringing 
 a great intellect down to the comprehension of a mean 
 subject, and in his fierce grasp of that, resolutely exclud- 
 ing from his mind all higher thoughts, all better things, 
 all the wisdom of philosophers and historians, all the 
 thoughts of the poets; all wit, fancy, reflection, art, 
 love, truth altogether so that he may master that enor- 
 mous legend of the law, which he proposes to gain his 
 livelihood by expounding. Warrington and Paley had 
 been competitors for University honours in former days, 
 and had run each other hard ; and everybody said now 
 that the former was wasting his time and energies, whilst 
 all people praised Paley for his industry. There may be 
 doubts, however, as to which was using his time best. 
 The one could afford time to think, and the other never 
 could. The one could have sympathies and do kind- 
 nesses; and the other must needs be always selfish. He 
 could not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or 
 admire a work of genius, or kindle at the sight of beauty 
 or the sound of a sweet song he had no time, and no 
 eyes for anything but his law-books. All was dark out- 
 side his reading lamp. Love and Nature and Art, 
 (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the 
 beautiful world of God), were shut out from him. And 
 as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never 
 thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and 
 went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he 
 shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington
 
 /HMDMe Uemple, Grub Street, an& Paris 77 
 
 on the stairs, and shunned him as one that was doomed 
 to perdition." 
 
 From Cornwall, it seems he went abroad to Havre, 
 first, on his way to Paris, where he arrived towards the 
 end of August. Here he stayed some months, learning 
 the language, going into society, reading, and criticising 
 what he read, drawing too, and frequenting the theatres 
 as a matter of course. It was probably the success of 
 his contributions to the Snob and Gownsman that inclined 
 Thackeray's thought towards a literary life. Charles 
 Buller wrote for the magazines, and Thackeray told his 
 mother, even before he came of age, that he much 
 desired to follow his example, only he was doubtful of 
 his own powers. How can a man know his own capa- 
 bilities? he asked. But on the other hand, he was 
 always comparing himself with Bulwer, who was then at 
 the zenith of his popularity. When, however, in Janu- 
 ary, 1833, Major Carmichael Smyth, became associated 
 with the production of The National Standard and Journal 
 of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts, 
 Thackeray, returning to London, formally entered Grub 
 Street. 
 
 On January 5 the paper appeared, under the editor- 
 ship of the then well-known ballad writer, F.W.N. 
 Bayley. Thackeray soon became a contributor, and 
 with the nineteenth number took over the editorship, 
 which change he himself announced in the columns of 
 the paper: 
 
 "Under the heading of the National Standard of ours, 
 there originally appeared the following: 'Edited by F. 
 W. N. Bayley, assisted by the most eminent men of the 
 day.' Now we have cliange" tout cela no, not exactly
 
 78 TOUUfam flDafeepeace 
 
 tout cela, for we still retain the assistance of a host of 
 literary talent; but Frederick William Naylor Bayley 
 has gone. We have got free of the Old Bailey, and 
 changed the governor." 
 
 Some weeks later he bought the paper. 
 
 His own early contributions included a Sonnet ascribed 
 to W. Wordsworth ; a review of Montgomery's Angel of 
 Life, in which, by a supposed printer's error, ten or 
 twelve lines are quoted in inverted order, but, as Thack- 
 eray explained, it is quite unnecessary to correct the 
 mistake, as they have just as much sense one way as 
 the other; a tale, The Devil's Wager* which ends with 
 the Thackerayesque touch, "The moral of this story will 
 be given in several successive numbers," .and some verses 
 addressed to Louis Philippe, which are noticeable only 
 because of the reference to 'a snob.' 
 
 " He stands in Paris as you see him before ye, 
 Little more than a snob there's an end of the story." 
 
 The late Mr. Shepherd, in his bibliography, stated 
 that Thackeray's contributions ceased on August 24. 
 This is obviously inaccurate, for Thackeray himself, in a 
 letter dated from the Garrick Club, September 6, men- 
 tioned that he was busily engaged in writing, puffing, 
 and other delightul occupations for the National Standard, 
 which, he added, was growing in repute. Another let- 
 ter from Paris, October 23, referred to A Tale of Wonder 
 (National Standard, September 13), translated from a 
 clever French story, written in a sort of patois, which he 
 had "sent to the printers as soon as it was finished, 
 when one does not know good from bad," and he added 
 
 *When The De-vifs Wager was reprinted in The Paris Sketch 
 Book, this last sentence was changed to: "The moral of this story will 
 be found in the second edition."
 
 Ube flDffcMe {Temple, Grub Street, ant) pads 79 
 
 that he had done nothing but send a cheque to the 
 paper, which, however, was rapidly improving, and 
 which he hoped would form a property that would at 
 once provide him with an occupation and an income! 
 During the next three weeks the circulation only 
 increased by twenty at which rate he said the propri- 
 etor would assuredly be ruined before his venture suc- 
 ceeded. At Christmas he was very busy. "The only 
 fault I find with the National Standard is that at the end 
 of the day I am but ill disposed, after writing and read- 
 ing so much, to read another syllable or write another 
 line." 
 
 He was anxious that on the New Year the issue 
 should be particularly good, as he was about to change 
 the name to the Literary Standard, and to increase the 
 price to threepence, hoping that with the alterations he 
 would do better. 
 
 The last number for the old year announced the 
 intended change of name finally settled as The National 
 Standard and Literary Representative surely not much of 
 an improvement and contained an editorial note, in 
 which the paper's future success was spoken of as cer- 
 tain. On January 18 he contributed Father Gahagan's 
 Exhortation, and a long and interesting review of the 
 Etude sur Mirabeau, par Victor Hugo, appeared in the paper, 
 dated February I ; which issue, in spite of the confident 
 tone of the New Year's address, was the last appearance 
 of the National Standard, etc. 
 
 It is generally, and I think correctly, believed that 
 Thackeray related the tale of this newspaper venture in 
 the pages of Lovel, the Widower, when he put the follow- 
 ing words in the mouth of Mr. Batchelor: 
 
 "They are welcome to make merry at my charges in
 
 So "Qdilliam flDafeepeace Ubacfeerap 
 
 respect of a certain bargain which I made on coming to 
 London, and in which, had I been Moses Primrose pur- 
 chasing green spectacles, I could scarcely have been 
 more taken in. My Jenkinson was an old College 
 acquaintance, whom I was idiot enough to believe a 
 respectable man. The fellow had a very smooth tongue 
 and a sleek, sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular 
 preacher, and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit. He 
 and a queer wine merchant and bill discounter, Sherrick 
 by name, had somehow got possession of that neat little 
 literary paper, The Museum, which perhaps you remem- 
 ber, and this eligible literary property my friend Honey- 
 man, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to pur- 
 chase. ... I daresay I gave myself airs as the 
 editor of that confounded Museum, and proposed to 
 educate the public taste, to diffuse morality and sound 
 literature throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal 
 salary in return for my services. I daresay I printed 
 my own sonnets, my own tragedy, my own verses. 
 I daresay I wrote satirical articles in which I 
 piqued myself on the fineness of my wit, and criticisms, 
 got up for the nonce out of encyclopaedias and biograph- 
 ical dictionaries, so that I would be actually astonished 
 at my own knowledge. ... I daresay I made a 
 gaby of myself to the world. Pray, my good friend, 
 hast thou never done likewise? If thou hast never 
 been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man." 
 
 Thackeray lost the greater part of his fortune* very 
 soon after he inherited it, and until recently there was 
 much speculation, and many romantic stories circulated 
 
 *I have read many contradictory accounts, but I believe his patri- 
 mony could have been invested to produce an income of from four 
 hundred to five hundred pounds. Sir William Hunter mentions 
 twenty thousand pounds as the sum.
 
 Ube /HMfcfcle Uemple, Grub Street, anfc Paris 81 
 
 as to the manner in which it was dispersed. Now, how- 
 ever, the truth is more or less accurately known. 
 
 The National Standard cost a good round sum. 
 Social robbers eased him of much more, as he complains 
 in the Roundabout Papers, On a Pear Tree y and Ogres: 
 
 "When I first came to London, as innocent as Mon- 
 sieur Gil Bias, I also fell in with some pretty acquaint- 
 ances, found my way into several taverns, and delivered 
 my purse to more than one gallant gentleman of the 
 road. Ogres, nowadays, need not be giants at all. . . . 
 They go about in society, slim, small, quietly dressed, 
 and showing no especially great appetite. In my own 
 young day there used to be play ogres men who would 
 devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him 
 without a bit of flesh on his bones. They were quiet, 
 gentlemanlike looking people. They got the young man 
 into their cave, champagne, pate" de foie gras, and num- 
 berless good things, were handed about; and then, hav- 
 ing eaten, the young man was devoured in his turn. " 
 This question was finally laid at rest when Thackeray 
 pointed out to Sir Theodore Martin at Spa, a broken- 
 down but gentlemanly-looking man as "the original of 
 my Deuceace. I have not seen him since the day he 
 drove me down in his cabriolet to my broker's in the 
 city, where I sold out my patrimony and handed it over 
 to him." The method of procedure employed to ease 
 Thackeray of fifteen hundred pounds may be read in the 
 Yellowplush Papers. But Thackeray bore his Deuceace 
 no malice now, and only remarked to his companion, 
 with pity in his voice, "Poor devil! my money doesn't 
 seem to have thriven with him." 
 
 More money went in an Indian bank failure, to which 
 catastrophe we probably owe the Bundelkund Bank inci-
 
 82 THUlltam flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 dent in The Newcomes; and much of his remaining 
 capital was expended in "loans" to needy friends. All 
 through his life Thackeray gave away in "loans" and 
 gifts a far greater part of his monies than prudence 
 advised; but then, Thackeray was extravagant and a 
 cynic, and with him to see distress and to endeavour to 
 alleviate it were two simultaneous impressions. 
 
 While acting as Paris correspondent of the National 
 Standard in July, Thackeray had written home: "I 
 have been thinking very seriously of turning artist. I can 
 draw better than I can do anything else, and certainly I 
 should like it better than any other occupation, as why 
 shouldn't I?" When, therefore, in the winter, the 
 paper came to an untimely end, he remained in Paris 
 his parents soon following to devote himself in all seri- 
 ousness to the study of art. 
 
 Here he stayed with his grandmother, Mrs. Butler, 
 most of the time, and with other old ladies, friends and 
 relations of hers, until at last he was able to settle down 
 in rooms in the Rue des Beaux Arts. 
 
 He spent all his days in the studios, at one time with 
 Brine, a well-known impressionist artist, and at another 
 with Gros, a favourite pupil of David. He reported 
 himself satisfied with his progress, and hoped in a year, 
 if he worked hard, he might paint something worth look- 
 ing at ; but, he naively tells his mother, it would require 
 at least that time to gain any readiness with his brush ! 
 
 He spent much time at the picture-galleries, and now 
 and then copied a picture a Watteau or a Lucas von 
 Leyden ("a better man, I think, than Albert Durer, and 
 mayhap as great a composer as Raphael himself ') ; and 
 Hayward, the Edinburgh reviewer, in his article on 
 Vanity Fair, published in January, 1848, says, "We well
 
 /Dibble Uemple, (Brub Street, anb Paris 83 
 
 remember ten or twelve years ago finding him day after 
 day engaged in copying pictures in the Louvre, in order 
 to qualify himself for his intended profession." But I 
 think instead of ten or twelve years ago, "thirteen or 
 fourteen" should have been written. 
 
 In Paris he led the life of his companion students a 
 happy Bohemian existence, that he has graphically 
 described in his article on The French School of Painting : 
 
 "The life of the young artist is the easiest, merriest, 
 dirtiest existence possible," he wrote. "He comes to 
 Paris, probably at sixteen, from his province; his parents 
 settle forty pounds a year on him, and pay his master; 
 he establishes himself in the Pays Latin, or in the new 
 quarter of Notre Dame de Lorette (which is quite peo- 
 pled with painters) ; he arrives at his atelier at a tolerably 
 early hour, and labours among a score of companions as 
 merry and as poor as himself. Each gentleman has his 
 favourite tobacco-pipe; and the pictures are painted in 
 the midst of a cloud of smoke, and a din of puns and 
 choice French slang, and a roar of choruses, of which 
 no one can form an idea who has not been present at 
 such an assembly. How he passes his evenings, at what 
 theatres, at what guinguettes, in company with what 
 seducing little milliner, there is no need to say. 
 These young men (together with the students of sciences) 
 comport themselves towards the sober citizen pretty 
 much as the German bursch towards the philister, or as 
 the military man, during the Empire, did to the pekin : 
 from the height of their poverty they look down upon 
 him with the greatest imaginable scorn a scorn, I think, 
 by which the citizen is dazzled, for his respect for the 
 Arts is intense."
 
 84 William flDafeepeace 
 
 Thackeray waxed enthusiastic over the opportunities 
 that Paris affords the art student. 
 
 "To account for a superiority over England, which I 
 think, as regards art, is incontestable it must be 
 remembered that the painter's trade in France is a very 
 good one: better appreciated, better understood, and 
 generally far better paid than with us. There are a 
 dozen excellent schools in which a lad may enter here, 
 and, under the eye of a practised master, learn the 
 apprenticeship of his art at an expense of about ten 
 pounds a year. In England there is no school except 
 the Academy, unless the student can afford to pay a very 
 large sum and place himself under the tuition of some 
 particular artist. Here, a young man, for his ten 
 pounds, has all sorts of accessory instructions, models, 
 etc., and has farther, and for nothing, numberless incite- 
 ments to study his profession which are not to be found 
 in England! the streets are filled with picture shops, 
 the people themselves are pictures walking about; the 
 churches, theatres, eating houses, concert rooms, are 
 covered with pictures; Nature herself is inclined more 
 kindly to him, for the sky is a thousand times more 
 bright and beautiful, and the sun shines for the greater 
 part of the year. Add to this incitements more selfish, 
 but quite as powerful : a French artist is paid very hand- 
 somely ; for five hundred a year is much where all are 
 poor; and has a rank in society rather above his merits 
 than below them, being caressed by host and hostesses 
 in places where titles are laughed at, and a baron is 
 thought of no more account than a banker's clerk." 
 
 And later in the same article, he declared : 
 
 "What a Paradise this gallery [of the Louvre] is 
 for French students, or foreigners who sojourn in the
 
 /HMfcMe Uemple, Grub Street, ant> Paris 85 
 
 capital! It is hardly necessary to say that the brethren 
 of the brush are not usually supplied by Fortune with 
 any extraordinary wealth or means of enjoying the 
 luxuries with which Paris, more than any other city, 
 abounds. But here they have a luxury which surpasses 
 all others, and spend their days in a palace which all the 
 money of all the Rothschilds could not buy. They 
 sleep, perhaps, in a garret, and dine in a cellar; but no 
 grandee in Europe has such a drawing-room. King's 
 houses have at best but damask hangings and gilt 
 cornices. What are these to a wall covered with canvas 
 by Paul Veronese, or a hundred yards of Rubens? 
 Artists in England who have a national gallery that 
 resembles a moderate-sized gin-shop, who may not copy 
 pictures, except under particular restrictions, and on rare 
 and particular days, may revel here to their hearts' con- 
 tent. Here is a room half-a-mile long, with as many 
 windows as Aladdin's palace, open from sunrise till even- 
 ing, and free to all manners and all varieties of study: 
 the only puzzle to the student is to select the one he 
 shall begin upon, and keep his eyes away from the rest." 
 
 Paris was Thackeray's favourite haunt all his life long. 
 He visited it for the first time in 1830 surreptitiously 
 and recalls that visit more than thirty years later in a 
 Roundabout Paper. 
 
 "I remember as a boy," he wrote in Dessetus, "at the 
 'Ship' at Dover, (imperante Carolo Decimo,) when, my 
 place to London being paid, I had but twelve shillings 
 left after a certain little Paris expedition (about which 
 my benighted parents never knew anything), ordering 
 for dinner a whiting, a beef-steak, and a glass of negus, 
 and the bill was, dinner seven shillings, a glass of negus 
 two shillings, waiter sixpence, and only half-a-crown left,
 
 86 "Cdtllfam flDafeepeace Ubacfcerap 
 
 as I was a sinner, for the guard and coachman on the 
 way to London! And I was a sinner. I had gone 
 without leave. What a long dreary, guilty four hours' 
 journey it was, from Paris to Calais, I remember. . . . 
 I met my college tutor only yesterday. We were travel- 
 ling, and stopped at the same hotel. He had the very 
 next room to mine. After he had gone into his apart- 
 ment, having shaken me quite kindly by the hand, I felt 
 inclined to knock at his door and say ' Dr. Bentley, I beg 
 your pardon, but do you remember when I was going 
 down at the Easter vacation in 1830, you asked me where 
 I was going to spend my vacation? And I said, with my 
 friend Slingsby in Huntingdonshire. Well, sir, I grieve 
 to have to confess that I told you a fib. I had got 
 twenty pounds and was going for a lark to Paris, where 
 my friend Edwards was staying.' . . . The doctor 
 will read it, for I did not wake him up." 
 
 He spent a great deal of his leisure, and, indeed, did 
 much of his writing there. He thoroughly enjoyed the 
 social gaieties of Parisian life, and loved to mix with the 
 gifted and artistic Bohemian lions. 
 
 Even in the early thirties he had a large acquaintance 
 in all ranks of society, and was much sought after. He 
 was especially a welcome guest at Mrs. Crowe's, and was 
 a friend of all her children, Amy, Eyre, and Joseph. He 
 is mentioned in the latter's Reminiscences: "Once a week, 
 on Saturdays, my mother received guests in the evening. 
 My mother at her evenings made every one bright by 
 playing Irish jigs or Scotch reels, or accompanying on 
 the piano Methfessel's students' songs and choruses, the 
 supreme enjoyment being a song from Thackeray." 
 
 In 1835 he met with an accident that might have had 
 very serious consequences, but any mention of which is
 
 ADffcMe Uemple, <3rub Street, an& Paris 87 
 
 only to be found in Mr. T. A. Trollope's Reminiscences. 
 A picnic was organised for a visit to the woods of Mont- 
 morenci, where the young people, including Thackeray, 
 thought the day would not be passed properly without a 
 ride on the famous donkeys. Half-a-dozen of the party 
 started, and urged their animals into places and paces to 
 which they were quite unused. Consequent struggles 
 between men and beasts, and Thackeray's donkey tossed 
 his rider over his head, depositing him upon a heap of 
 newly-broken stones. The fall was so severe that it was 
 thought the picnic would have a tragic ending. Soon, 
 however, it was ascertained that no serious injury had 
 been done but Thackeray bore the mark of the accident 
 to his dying day. 
 
 His natural powers of observation were not, however, 
 dimmed by social pleasures. He studied the political, 
 social, literary, and artistic manners and customs of the 
 country, expressing his opinions in his private letters, 
 and later in his writings for the Constitutional, and in the 
 articles reprinted in the Paris Sketch-Book. He passed 
 summary judgment upon matters that a great statesman 
 or philosopher would only think of in fear and hesitation. 
 The Thackeray of this time was the young Pendennis of 
 whom it is written : 
 
 "The courage of young critics is prodigious: they 
 clamber up to the judgment seat, and, with scarce a 
 hesitation, give their opinion upon works the most intri- 
 cate or profound. Had Macaulay's history or Her- 
 schel's astronomy been put before Pen at this period, 
 he would have looked through the volumes, meditated 
 his opinion over a cigar, and signified his august approval 
 of either author, as if the critic had been their born 
 superior, and indulgent master and patron. By the help
 
 88 TKHilltam /iDafeepeace 
 
 of the Biographic Universelle or the British Museum, he 
 would be able to take a rapid rtsumt of a historical period, 
 and allude to names, dates, and facts, in such a masterly, 
 easy way, as to astonish his mamma at home, who 
 wondered where her boy could have acquired such a 
 prodigious store of reading, and himself, too, when he 
 came to read over his articles two or three months after 
 they had been composed, and when he had forgotten the 
 subject and the books which he had consulted. At that 
 period of his life Mr. Pen owns that he would not have 
 hesitated, at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass an opin- 
 ion upon the greatest scholars, or to give a judgment 
 upon the encyclopaedia." 
 
 Yet many of the great novelist's decisions have coin- 
 cided with those pronounced in later years by more 
 qualified judges. 
 
 Thackeray was not destined to become a painter. 
 Fortunately for the greater public, as well as for himself, 
 he was driven by circumstances to the profession of 
 letters.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOURNALISM AND MARRIAGE
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOURNALISM AND MARRIAGE 
 
 IN 1836 Thackeray returned to London to settle the 
 preliminaries of a scheme for establishing a daily 
 newspaper projected by his stepfather. Major Smyth 
 had chosen the moment when the old newspaper tax 
 was about to be much reduced. It was proposed to 
 form a small joint-stock company, with the Major as 
 chairman, to be registered as the Metropolitan Newspaper 
 Company, with a capital of ^60,000 in six thousand 
 shares of 10 each. To this end a respectable paper 
 (with a small and ever-decreasing circulation) entitled 
 The Public Ledger was bought. The first number, pro- 
 duced under the auspices of the company as the Consti- 
 tutional and Public Ledger, and printed by Robert Dyer, 
 of 162 Fleet Street, was issued on September 15, 1836, 
 when the stamp duty on newspapers was reduced. 
 
 Laman Blanchard was appointed editor, and Thack- 
 eray Paris correspondent. Its politics were radical, or 
 what was called radical in those days, and it advocated 
 the ballot, triennial parliaments, complete freedom of 
 the press, and religious liberty and equality. Joseph 
 Hume, George Grote, George Evans, Charles Buller, 
 William Ewart, Sir William Molesworth, John Arthur 
 Roebuck, and other leaders of the advanced party, 
 promised to support the new journal. Thackeray's 
 Paris letters, signed T. T., began to appear on Septem- 
 
 91
 
 9 2 TKHilliam flDaftepeace 
 
 ber 27. They are very meagre and bare, and have abso- 
 lutely no interest at all for us now; but they at least 
 show, as we expect them to do, a great dislike to the 
 government of July. There are in all forty-four letters, 
 the last appearing on February 18 (1837), shortly after 
 which Thackeray came to town to assist at a meeting 
 called to discuss the paper's finances, which were in a 
 very precarious condition when the paper, which, on 
 March I, had been increased from six to seven columns 
 on each of its four pages, was now reduced to its former 
 dimensions, though the price still remained fivepence. 
 The Constitutional dragged on an almost saleless exist- 
 ence until July I, when the last number (249) appeared, 
 with a black border for the death of the king, and an 
 announcement, probably written by Thackeray himself, 
 explaining the cause of the failure of the paper. 
 
 "The adverse circumstances have been various," he 
 wrote. "In the philosophy of ill-luck it may be laid 
 down as a principle that every point of discouragement 
 tends to one common centre of defeat. 
 
 "When the fates do concur in one's discomfiture, their 
 unanimity is wonderful. So has it happened in the case 
 of the Constitutional. 
 
 "In the first place a delay of some months, conse- 
 quent upon the postponement of the newspaper stamp 
 reduction, operated on the minds of many who were 
 originally parties to the enterprise. In the next the 
 majority of those who remained faithful were wholly 
 inexperienced in the art and practical workings of an 
 important daily journal. In the third, and consequent 
 upon the other two, there was the want of those abun- 
 dant means, and of that wise application of resources, 
 without which no efficient organ of the interests of any
 
 Sournalism anfc Carriage 93 
 
 class of men to say nothing of the interests of the first 
 and greatest class, whose welfare has been our dearest 
 aim and most constant object can be successfully estab- 
 lished. 
 
 "Then came further misgivings on the part of friends, 
 and the delusive undertakings of friends in disunion." 
 
 And so the Constitutional went down, and in the 
 wreck was lost most of the fortune of Major Smyth, and 
 all that was left of Thackeray's patrimony; for, though 
 nominally a joint-stock company, the major and his step- 
 son were such large shareholders that they practically 
 owned the paper.* 
 
 Henry Reeve, the famous editor of the Edinburgh 
 Review, wrote [Diary, January 16, 1836]: 
 
 "That excellent and facetious being . . . has 
 fallen in love and talks of being married in less than 
 twenty years. What is there so affecting as matrimony ! 
 I dined yesterday with his object, who is a nice, simple, 
 girlish girl; a niece of old Colonel Shawe, whom one 
 always meets at the Sterling's." Early in the Constitu- 
 tional days, on August 20, 1836, Thackeray married 
 Isabella Gethen Creagh Shawe, daughter of Colonel 
 Matthew Shawe; her mother was a Creagh. 
 
 [The following is an extract from the "Register 
 Book of Marriages in the house of the British Ambassa- 
 dor in Paris" : 
 
 "William Makepeace Thackeray, of the Parish of St. 
 
 *Even the failure of both his newspaper ventures did not damp 
 Thackeray's ardour. About two years later, writing from 13, Great 
 Coram Street, he asks Jordan, " Is it fair to ask whether the Literary 
 Gazette is for sale? I should like to treat, and thought it best to 
 apply to the fountain head." 
 
 During 1840 he wrote to his mother that he was about to bring 
 out, on his own account, a weekly paper called the Foolscap Library, 
 which he laughingly adds will be so successful that he will not share 
 the profits with any bookseller.
 
 94 William flDafeepeace 
 
 John Paddington, in the County of Middlesex Batchelor 
 and Isabella Getkin Eneagh Shawe* of the Parish of 
 Donerial in the County of Cork Spinster and a Minor was 
 married in this House with the consent of her mother 
 Isabella G. Shawe this twentieth day of August in the 
 year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six. By me 
 M. H. Luscombe, Bishop and Chaplain. This marriage 
 was solemnised between us W. M. Thackeray, I. G. E. 
 Shawe, in the presence of V. Spencer, I. G. Shawe, 
 senior, J. W. Lemaire."] 
 
 Thackeray had met Miss Shawe at his grandmother's, 
 and (he told his eldest daughter) he lost his heart to her 
 when he heard her sing. He was five-and-twenty now, 
 but entirely dependent upon his salary as Paris corres- 
 pondent of the Constitutional. He was not afraid of the 
 future, and would never admit the imprudence of the 
 step he had taken. In 1849 ^ e told Mrs. Brookfield 
 how much more he admired a friend of his after "he 
 flung up his fellow and tutorship at Cambridge in order 
 to marry on nothing a year;" and twenty years after his 
 marriage he wrote to Mr. Synge, who was then about to 
 commit matrimony: "I married at your age with .400 
 paid by a newspaper which failed six months afterwards, 
 and always love to hear of a young fellow testing his 
 fortune bravely in that way, . . . though my 
 marriage was a wreck, as you know, I would do it again, 
 for behold, Love is the crown and completion of all 
 earthly good." 
 
 The young couple settled in Paris in the Rue St. 
 Augustine, and it is especially interesting to those who 
 have read the ballad of Bouillabaisse to know that the 
 Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, with its restaurant, was 
 
 *This name should be Isabella Gethen Creagh Shawe.
 
 Sournalfsm anfc Carriage 95 
 
 quite close. When they came to London in 1834 they 
 stayed with Major and Mrs. Smyth in Albion Street, 
 Hyde Park, where their eldest daughter, Anne Isabella 
 now Mrs. Ritchie was born in 1838. Afterwards they 
 moved to Great Coram Street, where John Leech and 
 Charles Keene were living at the time. Here they had 
 another child, who died in infancy. How greatly he 
 regretted this loss readers of The Great Hoggarty Dia- 
 mond will be able to estimate. 
 
 "The marriage was a very happy one," we are told, 
 "and in spite of the failure of the Constitutional, work 
 was abundant and the future promising." 
 
 It is into particulars of this work that we must now 
 enter. 
 
 His earliest writings Cabbages and the other verses 
 composed at Charterhouse, the Irish Melody, and the 
 contributions to the Snob and Gownsman, were, of course, 
 purely boyish efforts ; and even his writings in the ill- 
 fated National Standard may be counted as amateur 
 work. It is now, arrived at the period when he first seri- 
 ously adopted literature, that we are met by the ques- 
 tion: When and for what papers did he first write 
 professionally? 
 
 Mr. James Payn has recorded that Thackeray told him 
 the first money he ever received in literature ("under 
 what circumstances he did not say, but I fancy they 
 must have been droll ones") was from Mr. G. W. M. 
 Reynolds. Mr. Payn added he was so astounded that 
 he forgot to ask for what species of contribution Thack- 
 eray was paid. This knowledge, therefore, advances us 
 very little and, after all, it is most probable that these 
 articles, criticisms, tales, verses, or what not, were of 
 very little importance, and may, with safety, be ignored.
 
 9 6 "Cdilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 Turning away from the writings of minor interest, we 
 find ourselves face to face with another problem which 
 has proved a stumbling-block to the bibliographers, 
 which cannot be so lightly passed over: What were 
 Thackeray's earliest contributions to the pages of 
 Fraser s Magazine? 
 
 There are only two things to guide the perplexed 
 searcher. The first is a letter from Thackeray at Weimar, 
 in which he mentions that Fraser had just come out 
 this shows that he knew of the magazine from its first 
 appearance in 1830. The second, however, is much 
 more satisfactory, and proves beyond all doubt that he 
 had written in Fraser before 1835 an d this is to admit 
 by inference that he had at that time obtained some 
 standing in the world of letters, since the contributors to 
 the magazine were not by any means a race of "leetle" 
 men for in the January (1835) number there appeared 
 a picture by Maclure, showing the chief contributors to 
 the periodical. Maginn (the editor), Barry Cornwall, 
 Lockwood, John Gall, Ainsworth, Brydger Gleig, 
 Edward Irving, Sir David Brewster, Count D'Orsay, 
 Theodore Hook, South ey, Coleridge, Carlyle, etc., and 
 our Mr. Titmarsh dining at the house of Mr. Fraser. 
 
 No article has yet been positively identified as Thack- 
 eray's before November, 1837, when a review appeared 
 of a book that had just been published, called My Book, 
 or the Anatomy of Conduct, by John Henry Skelton, a half- 
 demented West-end linen draper, who had the immovable 
 idea that his mission was to instruct the world in the 
 true art of etiquette! The review was written in the 
 form of a letter to ' Oliver Yorke, ' and was headed Fash- 
 noble Fax and Polite Annygoats. By Charles Yellowplush, 
 Esquire, and dated "No. , Grosvenor Square, i8th
 
 Journalism ano /iDarrfage 97 
 
 October (N. B. Hairy Bell). ' ' It winds up with a note, 
 signed O. Y., though most certainly written by Thack- 
 eray, which concludes: "He who looketh from a tower 
 sees more of the battle than the knights and captains 
 engaged in it; and, in like manner, he who stands 
 behind a fashionable table knows more of society than 
 the guests who sit at the board. It is from this source 
 that our great novel-writers have drawn their experience, 
 retailing the truths which they learned. It is not impos- 
 sible that Mr. Yellowplush may continue his communica- 
 tions, when we shall be able to present the reader with 
 the only authentic picture of fashionable life which has been 
 given to the world in our time." 
 
 There must, however, have been many articles from 
 Thackeray's pen before this year. Mr. Swinburne, Dr. 
 John Brown, and Mr. Shepherd, believe the gruesome 
 Elizabeth Brownrigge (Fraser, August, September, 1832) 
 to have been written by him ; while, on the other hand, 
 Mr. C. P. Johnson says that in his opinion "after most 
 careful consideration of all they (Swinburne and Brown) 
 have written on the subject and of the story itself, it 
 seems to be impossible to concede to Elizabeth Brownrigge 
 the honour of counting Thackeray as its author.* My 
 belief is that Thackeray did write the story. The satir- 
 ical dedication to the author of Eugene Aram and the 
 Advertisement seem to me to be quite in Thackeray's 
 early style. Indeed, to me the whole tale suggests an 
 immature Catherine the motive of the two tales is the 
 same, and many of the passages are similar in intent, 
 and not vastly different in text. And since Thackeray, 
 
 ^Elizabeth Brownrigge is naturally not to be found in Thackeray's 
 collected works, but the curious will find it reprinted in the volume 
 published by Redman in 1887, entitled Sultan Stork.
 
 98 William flDafeepeace Ubacfcerap 
 
 after publication, rewrote his imitation of Beranger's 
 // 4ta.it un Roi d' Yvetot, why should he not have written two 
 stories, endeavouring in each, but with stronger pen in 
 the second, to aim a blow at what he regarded as a very 
 pernicious literary tendency? 
 
 Elizabeth Brownrigge was the story of a wretched 
 woman who murdered her two apprentices, while Cath- 
 erine, supposed to be written by Ikey Solomons, Esq., 
 junior, himself a convict, tells of a woman, named Cath- 
 erine Hayes, who was burned at Tyburn for the delib- 
 erate murder of her husband under very revolting 
 circumstances.* The object of each book is avowedly 
 "to counteract the injurious influence of some popular 
 fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen 
 and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious 
 and criminal." 
 
 In each story it is endeavoured, by ridiculing such 
 books as Eugene Aram, Jack Sheppard, and similar produc- 
 tions, to bring about a healthier taste. 
 
 Read the advertisement to Elizabeth Brownrigge: 
 
 "The author of the foregoing tale begs leave to state 
 that he is prepared to treat with any liberal and enter- 
 prising publisher, who may be inclined to embark in the 
 speculation, for a series of novels, each in three volumes, 
 
 *In 1850 Mr. Briggs, an Irishman, suddenly declared that 
 Catherine had reference to a Miss Catherine Hayes, an Irish singer 
 of some repute. The angry Irishman wrote to Thackeray that he 
 would thrash him, and took lodgings opposite to the house in Young 
 Street. After a time, finding the situation ludicrous and impossible, 
 Thackeray called on Mr. Briggs and pointed out that when the story 
 was written, in 1839, Miss Hayes was certainly unknown and prob- 
 ably in short frocks. There was no thrashing. Thackeray stood six 
 feet three inches, or more. But the reported discovery had spread, 
 and so many attacks were made upon him in the papers that at last 
 the author settled the matter once for all in a letter, Capers and 
 Anchovies, that on April 12, 1850, appeared in the columns of the 
 Morning Chronicle. See appendix.
 
 Journalism ano ^Damage 99 
 
 8vo, under the title of Tales of the Old Bailey, or Romances 
 of Tyburn Tree, in which the whole Newgate Calendar 
 shall be travestied after the manner of Eugene Aram." 
 
 And then the dedication of the same story : 
 
 "From the perusal of older works of imagination I 
 had learned so to weave the incidents of my story as to 
 interest the feelings of the reader in favour of virtue, and 
 to increase his detestation of vice. I have been taught 
 by Eugene Aram to mix vice and virtue up together in 
 such an inextricable confusion as to render it impossible 
 that any preference should be given to either, or that 
 the one indeed should be distinguishable from the other. 
 In taking my subject from the walk of life to 
 which you had directed my attention, many motives 
 conspired to fix my choice on the heroine of the ensuing 
 tale; she is a classic personage, her name has been 
 already 'linked to immortal verse' by the muse of Can- 
 ning. Besides, it is extraordinary that, as you had com- 
 menced a tragedy under the title of Eugene Aram, I had 
 already written a burletta with the title of Elizabeth 
 Brownrigge. I had indeed, in my dramatic piece, been 
 guilty of an egregious and unpardonable error: I had 
 attempted to excite the sympathy of the audience in 
 favour of the murdered apprentices, but your novel has 
 disabused me of so vulgar a prejudice, and, in my present 
 version of her story, all the interest of the reader and all 
 the pathetic powers of the author will be engaged on the 
 side of the murderess." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "I am inclined to regard you as an original discov- 
 erer in the world of literary enterprise, and to reverence 
 you as the father of a new 'lusus naturae' school. There 
 is no other title by which your manner could be so aptly
 
 ioo William /iDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 designated. I am told, for instance, that in a former 
 work, having to paint an adulterer, you described him as 
 belonging to the class of country curates, among whom, 
 perhaps, such a curate is not met with in a hundred 
 years ; while, on the contrary, being in search of a tender 
 hearted, generous, sentimental, high-minded hero of 
 romance, you turned to the pages of the Newgate Calen- 
 dar, and looked for him in the list of men who have cut 
 throats for money, among whom a person in possession 
 of such qualities could never have been met at all. 
 Wanting a shrewd, selfish, worldly, calculating valet, 
 you describe him as an old soldier, though he bears not 
 a single trait of the character which might have been 
 moulded by a long course of military service, but, on 
 the contrary, is marked by all the distinguishing features 
 of a bankrupt attorney, or a lame duck from the Stock 
 Exchange. Having to paint a cat, you endow her with 
 all the idiosyncrasies of a dog." 
 
 The moral of Elizabeth Brownrigge and Catherine is 
 identical. It is a purpose for which Thackeray was 
 never tired of labouring in both these stories, and in his 
 almost unknown article on Fielding. 
 
 "Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's 
 honest, downright books; it goes by its name, but 
 invariably gets its punishment. See the consequences 
 of honesty. Many a squeamish lady of our time would 
 throw down one of these romances with horror, but 
 would go through every page of Mr. Ainsworth's Jack 
 Sheppard with perfect comfort to herself. Ainsworth 
 dared not paint his hero as the scoundrel he knew him 
 to be. He must keep his brutalities in the background, 
 else the public morals will be outraged, and so, he pro- 
 duces a book quite absurd and unreal, and infinitely
 
 journalism anfc /IDarria^e IQI 
 
 more immoral than anything Fielding ever wrote. Jack 
 Sheppard is immoral actually because it is decorous. The 
 Spartans who used to show drunken slaves to their chil- 
 dren took care, no doubt, that the slave should be really 
 and truly drunk; sham drunkenness, which never passed 
 the limits of propriety, would be rather an object to 
 incite youth to intoxication than to deter him from it, 
 and the same late revels have always struck us in the 
 same light." 
 
 Still, the question of the authorship of Elizabeth 
 Brownrigge cannot be held as settled until fresh light 
 from some at present unknown source is thrown upon the 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. C. P. Johnson, with praiseworthy patience and 
 industry, has examined, article by article, the volumes 
 of Fraser, from its first appearance until Fashnable Fax, 
 but the result is not very satisfactory. "After all," 
 Mr. Johnson says, "I have only been able conclusively 
 to identify one solitary ballad, though there are many 
 more pieces both in prose and verse that may have been 
 and probably were by Thackeray." The ballad to which 
 he refers is the well-known imitation of Beranger's // 
 etaitun Roi d'Yvetot, which, however, was almost entirely 
 re-written before its re-publication in the Ballads. 
 
 The "doubtfuls" include: 
 
 (i) Hints for a History of Highwaymen (March, 1834), a 
 review of Lives and Exploits of English Highwaymen, Pirates, 
 and Robbers, by C. Whitehead, Esq. 
 
 (ii) A Dozen of Novels (April, 1834) criticising stories 
 of which, with perhaps the exception of Miss Edge- 
 worth's Helen, the modern reader has never heard. 
 
 (iii) Highways and Low-ways, or Ainsworth' s Dictionary, 
 with notes by Turpin (June, 1834), a review of Rookwood.
 
 102 William /IDafeepeace 
 
 (iv) Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (February, 1836), 
 an article on a book of the same name by Mr. Trollope. 
 
 (v) Another Caw from the Rookwood: Turpin out again 
 (April, 1836), a further article on Ainsworth's novel, on 
 the appearance of the third edition. 
 
 (vi) The Jew of York (September, 1836), a burlesque 
 that certainly suggests the author of Rebecca and Rowena. 
 
 (vii) Mr. Grant's Great Metropolis (December, 1836). 
 Thackeray reviewed the same author's Paris and its People 
 in December, 1843. 
 
 (viii) One or two Words about one or two Books (April, 
 1837), dealing with Savage Lander's Satire on Satirists, 
 and an anonymous tragedy entitled The Student of Padua. 
 
 But even if we accept all these articles as being from 
 Thackeray's pen and they most certainly bear traces of 
 his workmanship there must be a good many more 
 papers still hidden, especially between 1830 and 1834; 
 for Mr. Taylor says that it was early in 1834 that 
 Thackeray was recognised as an established contributor, 
 worthy to take a permanent place among the brilliant 
 staff, and he hints at some papers chiefly referring to 
 the Fine Arts (most of them having reference to Thack- 
 eray's French experiences) written while he was still 
 studying painting in Paris, and before the pseudonyms 
 of Titmarsh, Fitzboodle, Yellowplush, and Mr. Wagstaff, 
 were thought of. 
 
 When the Constitutional failed, Thackeray, having a 
 wife to provide for, and having no source of income, 
 plunged into work with immense energy, and wrote for 
 many magazines and papers, though, as most of the 
 writings were published anonymously, it is possible to 
 trace only a few of the articles. Most of the writing 
 was hack-work, and with a fine indifference he supplied
 
 Journalism ano flDarriage 103 
 
 drawings, novelettes, stories, reviews, art criticisms, 
 foreign correspondence, and poems, in great profusion to 
 Fraser's Magazine, Bentley's Miscellany, Colburn's New 
 Monthly Magazine, the Westminster Review, Cruikshank's 
 Omnibus and Comic Almanacs, the Times, the Morning 
 Chronicle (his favourite journal, with which, in spite of 
 his frequent contributions, he never succeeded in estab- 
 lishing a permanent connection), the Globe, Galignanfs 
 Messenger,* etc. 
 
 In 1837, besides the already mentioned Fashnable Fax 
 (Fraser, November) his other principal writings were : 
 
 (i) A review which appeared in the Times (August 3), 
 on Carlyle's French Revolution, of which the sage of 
 Chelsea did not entirely approve. "I understand there 
 have been many reviews of a mixed character," the 
 philosopher wrote to his brother; "I got one in the 
 Times last week. The writer is one Thackeray, a half 
 monstrous Cornish giant, kind of painter, Cambridge 
 man, and Paris newspaper correspondent, who is now 
 writing for his life in London. . . . His article is 
 rather like him, and, I suppose, calculated to do the 
 book good." 
 
 (ii) The Professor, A Tale. By Goliah Gahagan (Bentley's 
 Miscellany, September); and 
 
 (iii) A word on the Annuals (Fraser, December), in which 
 he makes a vigourous attack on the Keepsake sort of pro- 
 duction which, after works of the class parodied in Cath- 
 erine, were his pet aversion. 
 
 "It is hardly necessary to examine these books and 
 designs one by one," he wrote; "they all bear the same 
 
 *Thackeray wrote to Mrs. Brookfield in October, 1848, saying: 
 "We" [Longueville Jones and himself] "worked in Galignani's news- 
 paper for ten francs a day very cheerfully ten years ago."
 
 104 "CdUlfam flDafeepeace 
 
 character and are exactly like The Book of Beauty, Flowers 
 of Loveliness, and so on, which appeared last year. A 
 large, weak plate, done in what we believe is called the 
 stipple style of engraving, a woman badly drawn, with 
 enormous eyes a tear, perhaps, upon each cheek and 
 an exceedingly low cut dress pats a greyhound or 
 weeps into a flower pot, or delivers a letter to a bandy- 
 legged, curly-headed page. An immense train of white 
 satin fills up one corner of the plate ; an urn, a stone 
 railing, a fountain and a bunch of hollyhocks adorn the 
 other; the picture is signed Sharpe, Parris, Corbould, 
 Corbeaux, Jenkins, Brown, as the case may be, and is 
 entitled The Pearl, La Dolorosa, La Diondina, Le Gage 
 d* Amour, The Forsaken One of Florence, The Water Lily, or 
 some such name. Miss Landon, Miss Mitford, or my 
 Lady Blessington, writes a song upon the opposite page, 
 about Water Lily, chilly, stilly, shivering beside a stream- 
 let, plighted, blighted, love-benighted, falsehood sharper 
 than a gimlet, lost affection, recollection, cut connexion, 
 tears in torrents, true love-token, spoken, broken, sigh- 
 ing, dying, girl of Florence; and so on. The poetry is 
 quite worthy of the picture, and a little sham sentiment 
 is employed to illustrate a little sham art. ... It 
 cannot be supposed that Miss Landon, a woman of 
 genius Miss Mitford, a lady of exquisite wit and taste 
 should, of their own accord, sit down to indite namby- 
 pamby verses about silly, half-decent pictures ; or that 
 Jenkins, Parris, Meadows & Co., are not fatigued by this 
 time with the paltry labour assigned to them. 
 Who sets them to this wretched work? To paint these 
 eternal fancy portraits of ladies in voluptuous attitudes 
 and various stages of deshabille, to awaken the dormant 
 sensibilities of misses in their teens, or tickle the worn-
 
 Journalism ant) /IDarriage 105 
 
 out palates of rakes and routs? What a noble occupa- 
 tion for a poet ! what a delicate task for an artist ! ' How 
 sweet!' says Miss, examining some voluptuous Inez, or 
 some loving Haide"e, and sighing for an opportunity to 
 imitate her. 'How rich!' says the gloating old bach- 
 elor, who has his bedroom hung round with them, or 
 the dandy young shopman, who can only afford to pur- 
 chase two or three of the most undressed ; and the one 
 dreams of opera girls and French milliners, and the 
 other, of the 'splendid women' that he has seen in Mr. 
 Yates's last new piece at the Adelphi. 
 
 "The publishers of these prints allow that the taste 
 is execrable which renders such abominations popular, 
 but the public will buy nothing else, and the public must 
 be fed. The painter perhaps, admits that he abuses 
 his talent (that noble gift of God, which was given him 
 for a better purpose than to cater for the appetites of 
 faded debauchees); but he must live, and he has no 
 other resource. Exactly the same excuse might be made 
 by Mrs. Cole." 
 
 A little more is known of his articles in the following 
 year (1838), though there is nothing approaching a full 
 record yet compiled. To the Times he contributed 
 reviews on 
 
 (i) The Duchess of MarlborougWs Private Correspondence 
 (January 6), which review is chiefly interesting for the 
 following passages : 
 
 "The dignity of history sadly diminishes as we grow 
 better acquainted with the materials which compose it. 
 In our orthodox history books the characters move on as 
 in a gaudy play-house procession, a glittering pageant of 
 kings and warriors and stately ladies majestically appear- 
 ing and passing away. Only he who sits very near the
 
 106 TRHUltam flDafcepeace 
 
 stage can discover of what poor stuff the spectacle is 
 made. The kings are poor creatures, taken from the 
 dregs of the Company; the noble knights are dirty 
 dwarfs in tin foil ; the fair ladies are painted hags with 
 cracked feathers and soiled trains. One wonders how 
 gas and distance could ever have rendered them so 
 bewitching. The perusal of letters like these produces 
 a very similar disenchantment, and the great historical 
 figures dwindle down into the common proportions as 
 we come to view them so closely. Kings, Ministers, 
 and Generals form the principal dramatis persona; and if 
 we may pursue the stage parallel a little further, eye 
 never lighted upon a troupe more contemptible. 
 Weighty political changes had been worked in the coun- 
 try, others threatened equally great. Great questions 
 were agitated whether the Protestant Religion should 
 be the dominant creed of the State, and the Elector of 
 Hanover a king, or whether Papacy should be restored 
 and James III. placed on the throne whether the con- 
 tinental despotism aimed at by Louis should be estab- 
 lished, or the war continued to maintain the balance of 
 power in Europe, or at least to assure the ascendency of 
 England on these points our letter-writers hardly deign 
 to say a word. The political question is whether 
 Harley should be in or Godolphin, how Mrs. Masham, 
 the chambermaid, can be checked or won over, how the 
 Duchess of Marlborough can regain her lost influence 
 over the queen, or whether the duke is strong enough to 
 do without it, can force his Captain-Generalcy for life, 
 and compel the queen to ensure to his daughters the 
 pension and places of their mother." 
 
 (ii) Eros and Anferos, or Love, by Lady Charlotte Bury 
 (January n).
 
 Journalism anfc jflDarriaae 107 
 
 (iii) A Diary relative to George IV. and Queen Caroline* 
 (January 1 1), which set Thackeray on the war-path 
 again, and rightly so, as may be seen from the opening 
 and closing passages of the article now quoted, 
 
 "We never met with a book more pernicious or more 
 mean. It possesses that interest which the scandalous 
 chronicles of Brantome and Rabutin, and the ingenious 
 Mrs. Harriette Wilson, have excited before, and is pre- 
 cisely of a similar class. It does worse than chronicle 
 the small beer of a court the materials of this book are 
 infinitely more base, the foul tittle-tattle of the sweepings 
 of the Princess of Wales's bed-chamber or dressing-room, 
 her table or ante-room, the reminiscences of industrious 
 eaves-dropping, the careful records of her unguarded 
 moments, and the publication of her confidential corre- 
 spondence, are the chief foundations for this choice 
 work. Add to this scandal of the Princess of Wales, 
 sneering small talk about the Princess Charlotte, a few 
 old women's tales of familiar moving in what is called 
 high life, and paw-paw stories of their domestic infideli- 
 ties and peccadilloes, and we have an accurate catalogue 
 of the diary. . . . Was there, we ask, any need of 
 fresh information as to the Princess's life and follies? 
 Was it modest or decorous that a woman should record 
 them? a woman, too, who has eaten at her table, and 
 dipped into her purse, shared in her wild revels, and 
 doubtless flattered her and cringed to her in her time. 
 . We may read this diary, and say it is indeed a 
 ridicule to bear a towering name or to pretend to the old 
 virtue which characterised it, or the honour which for- 
 merly belonged to it. It is ridicule indeed to come of a 
 
 *This same book is the subject of a very similar attack by Yellow- 
 plush in a paper entitled Skimmings from the Diary of George IV.
 
 IDS TKHilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 noble race, and uphold the well-worn honour of an 
 ancient line. What matters it if you can read in your 
 family records the history of a thousand years of loyalty 
 and courage, of all that is noble in sentiment, honest and 
 brave in action? the pride of ancestors is a faded super- 
 stition the emulation of them a needless folly. There 
 is no need now to be loyal to your Prince, or tender of 
 his memory. Take his bounty while living, share his 
 purse and his table, gain his confidence and learn his 
 secrets, flatter him, cringe to him, vow to him an 
 unbounded fidelity, and when he is dead, write a diary 
 and betray him" 
 
 (iv) Memoirs of Holt, the Irish Rebel (January 31); and 
 
 (v) Poetical Works of Dr. Southey, collected by himself 
 (April 17). 
 
 Besides these articles, Thackeray, who was a regular 
 contributor to the Times, must have written for it many 
 articles that are as yet unknown probably criticisms of 
 books, plays, and pictures, chiefly. 
 
 It has been said I do not know on what authority 
 that he wrote for the two short-lived periodicals, the 
 Torch and the Pantheon. 
 
 The New Monthly Magazine published The Story of 
 Mary Ancel, and Some Passages in the Life of Major Gaha- 
 gan; but it was to Fraser that he contributed most of his 
 best work. 
 
 (i) On a Batch of Novels for Christmas 1837 (January, 
 1838). Reviewing Mrs. Trollope's Vicar of Wrexhill, in 
 which she writes with great bitterness against those who 
 interpreted the Scriptures in other ways than she, while 
 admitting the cleverness of her work, he said : 
 
 "A woman's religion is chiefly that of the heart, and 
 not of the head. She goes through, for the most part,
 
 Journalism an& /Carriage 109 
 
 no tedious processes of reasoning, no dreadful stages of 
 doubt, no changes of faith : she loves God as she loves 
 her husband by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith 
 is a passion with her, and not a calculation ; so that, in 
 the faculty of believing, though they far exceed the 
 other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short 
 of them. Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would 
 make puddings and mend stockings! that they would 
 not meddle with religion (what is styled religion we 
 mean) except to pray to God, to live quietly among their 
 families, and more lovingly among their neighbours! 
 Mrs. Trollope, for instance, who sees so keenly the fol- 
 lies of the other party how much vanity there is in 
 Bible meetings how much sin even at Missionary Soci- 
 eties how much cant and hypocrisy there is among 
 those who desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing 
 it up with their mean private interests and petty projects 
 Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy 
 or bigotry on her part. She who designates the rival 
 party as false and wicked and vain tracing all their 
 actions to the basest motives, declaring their worship of 
 God to be only one general hypocrisy, their conduct at 
 home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on 
 her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she 
 does as the Pharisees do. It is vanity very likely which 
 leads these people to use God's name so often, and to 
 devote all to perdition who do not coincide in their 
 peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they 
 when she declares, and merely declares, her own to be 
 the real creed, and stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is 
 Mrs. Trollope serving God, in making abusive and 
 licentious pictures of those who serve Him in a different 
 way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read it was a long
 
 no TKHUlfam /iDafeepeace 
 
 time ago! there was a woman taken in sin: people 
 brought her before a great Teacher of Truth, who lived 
 in those days. 'Shall we not kill her?' said they; 'the 
 law commands that all adulteresses should be killed.' 
 We can fancy a Mrs. Trollope in the crowd shouting, 
 'Oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable harlot! kill her, by 
 all means stoning is really too good for her!' But 
 what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as 
 anxious to prevent the crime as any Mrs. Trollope of 
 them all; but he did not make an allusion to it He 
 did not describe the manner in which the poor creature 
 was caught He made no speech to detail the indecen- 
 cies which she had committed, or to raise the fury of the 
 mob against her He said, 'Let the man who is without 
 sin himself throw the first stone!' Whereupon the 
 Pharisees and Mrs. Trollopes slunk away, for they knew 
 they were no better than she. There was as great a sin 
 in His eyes as that of the poor erring woman it was the 
 sin of pride. "* 
 
 When Ernest Maltravers fell to him for criticism, the 
 lash was applied with the utmost vigour. But in this 
 article, in his zeal for the pure and healthy in literature, 
 Thackeray went too far, and showed what might easily 
 have been construed as personal animus, against the 
 author, though it is certain none existed. He com- 
 menced with the following passage : 
 
 "What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn wisdom 
 with age and confine his attention to subjects at once 
 more grateful to the public and more suitable to his own 
 powers. He excels in the genre of Paul de Koch, and is 
 
 *Mr. Bedingfield at this time asked Thackeray to a party, but he 
 declined when he heard Mrs. Trollope would be among the guests. 
 "O, by Jove! I can't come," he exclaimed. "I've just cut up her 
 Vicar of Wrexhill in a review. I think she tells lies. '
 
 Journalism ano flDarrtage m 
 
 always striving after the style of Plato; he has a keen 
 perception of the ridiculous, and, like Liston or Cruik- 
 shank, or other comic artists, persists that his real view 
 is the sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine 
 papers, what an outpouring of fun and satire, might we 
 not have had from Neddy Bulwer, had he not thought 
 fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and 
 be Edward Lytton heaven-knows- what Bulwer, Esq., 
 and M. P., a dandy, a philosopher, a spouter at radical 
 meetings. We speak feelingly, for we knew the youth 
 at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for his 
 tomfooleries. He has thrown away the better part of 
 himself his great inclination for the LOW, namely: 
 if he would but leave off scents for his handkerchief, and 
 oil for his hair: if he would but confine himself to three 
 clean shirts in a week, a couple of coats in a year, a beef- 
 steak and onions for dinner, his beaker a pewter pot, his 
 carpet a sanded floor, how much might be made of him 
 even yet! An occasional pot of porter too much a 
 black eye in a tap-room fight with a carman a night in 
 a watch-house or a surfeit produced by Welsh rabbit 
 and gin and beer, might perhaps redden his fair face and 
 swell his slim waist ; but the mental improvement which 
 he would acquire under such treatment the intellectual 
 pluck and vigour which he would attain by the stout 
 diet the manly sports and conversation in which he 
 would join at the Coal- Hole, or the Widow's, are far bet- 
 ter for him than the feeble fribble of the Reform Club 
 (not unaptly called the Hole in the Wall); the windy 
 French dinners, which, as we take it, are his usual fare ; 
 and above all the unwholesome radical garbage which 
 forms the political food of himself and his clique in the 
 House of Commons."
 
 ii2 William flDafeepeace 
 
 Miss Landon's Ethel Churchill pleased him with its 
 wit and cleverness, but he found this book, too, un- 
 healthy in tone. "Oh!" he cried out, "oh, for a little 
 manly, honest, God-relying simplicity cheerful, unaf- 
 fected and humble." 
 
 (ii) Half-a- Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge (March), 
 in which article he dealt with a round dozen of the penny 
 and twopenny periodicals of the day. There is nothing 
 particularly worth preserving here, except, perhaps, the 
 following, as a literary curiosity : 
 
 "We next come to Oliver Twiss by 'Bos' ; a kind of 
 silly copy of Boz's admirable tale. We have not, we 
 confess, been able to read through Oliver Twiss. The 
 only amusing part of it is an advertisement by the pub- 
 lisher, calling upon the public to buy Lloyd's edition 
 of Oliver Twiss by ' Bos, ' it being the only genuine one. By 
 which we learn that there are thieves, and other thieves 
 who steal from the first thieves; even as it is said about 
 that exiguous beast the flea, there be other fleas, which 
 annoy the original animal." 
 
 (iii) Strictures on Pictures (June), to the contents of 
 which I refer elsewhere. 
 
 (iv) Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster ; with 
 Elucidations, Notes, etc., by various editors (October and 
 November), which was a review of a book called Lady 
 Carry-the- Candle's Diary. 
 
 (v) From November, 1837, until August in this year 
 the Yellowplush Correspondence appeared, seemingly 
 without attracting any great amount of attention. These 
 papers are referred to in a later chapter. 
 
 The Correspondence between Charles Yellowplush, 
 Esq., and Oliver Yorke, Esq., editor of Fraser 's Maga- 
 zine appeared :
 
 THE LAST STROKE OF FORTUNE. 
 The Yello-wplush Papers.
 
 journalism anfc Carriage 113 
 
 (i) Fashnable Fax and Polite Annygoats (November, 
 
 1837). 
 
 (ii) Miss Shum's Husband (January, 1838). 
 
 (iii) Dimond cut Dimond (February, 1838). 
 
 (iv) Skimmings from "The Diary of George IV" (March, 
 1838). 
 
 (v) Poring Parts (April, 1838). 
 
 (vi) Mr. Deuceace at Paris (May, June, 1838). 
 
 (vii) The End of Mr. Deuceace' s History (July, 1838). 
 
 (viii) Mr. Yellowplusti s Ajew (August, 1838). 
 
 It is almost needless to add that these papers were 
 carefully revised before their republication.* 
 
 When, in after days, Thackeray wrote, "I suppose 
 we all begin by being too savage. I know one who did, ' ' 
 it was of these early papers he must have been thinking 
 chiefly, no doubt, of his personal and satirical attacks on 
 Lytton (then simply Edward Bulwer) in Fraser. 
 
 In 1 86 1 a common friend of Thackeray and Lord 
 Lytton wrote to the latter: ''I saw Thackeray at Folke- 
 stone. He spoke of you a great deal, and said he would 
 have given worlds to have burnt some of his writings, 
 especially some lampoons written in his youth. He 
 wished so much to see you and express his contrition. 
 His admiration, as expressed to me, was boundless; also 
 his regret to have given vent to his youthful jealousy, 
 etc. I tell you all this because I feel certain he meant 
 me to repeat it." And shortly after this Lord Lytton 
 received the following letter (which his son thought 
 worthy of insertion in the Life and Letters) from Thack- 
 eray himself: 
 
 *The Correspondence was published in book form late in 1838 by 
 Messrs. Carey & Hart, of Philadelphia. This is the first volume ever 
 issued of any of Thackeray's writings.
 
 H4 TOUllfam flDafeepeace Ubacfeera^ 
 
 "Looking over some American reprints of my books, 
 I find one containing a preface written by me when I 
 was in New York, in which are the following words :* 
 'The careless papers written at an early period, and 
 never seen since the printer's boy carried them away, are 
 brought back and laid at the father's door, and he can- 
 not, if he would, disown his own children. Why were 
 some of the little brats brought out of their obscurity? 
 I own to a feeling of anything but pleasure in reviewing 
 some of these juvenile, misshapen creatures which the 
 publisher has disinterred and resuscitated. There are 
 two performances especially (among the critical and bio- 
 graphical works of the erudite Mr. Yellowplush) which I 
 am sorry to see reproduced, and I ask pardon of the 
 author of The Caxtons for a lampoon, which I know he 
 himself has forgiven, and which I wish I could recall. I 
 had never seen that writer but once in public when this 
 satire was penned, and wonder at the recklessness of the 
 young man who could fancy such personality was harm- 
 less jocularity, and never calculated that it might give 
 pain.' 
 
 "I don't know whether you were ever made aware of 
 this cry of { Peccavi,' but with the book in which it appears 
 just fresh before me, I think it fair to write a line to 
 acquaint you of the existence of such an apology, and to 
 assure you of the author's repentance of the past, and 
 the present sincere good will with which he is 
 "Yours most faithfully, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 To me it seems that the parody of Bulwer's style is 
 most admirable, and it is, I think, almost as good as any- 
 
 *This is to be found in the Preface, which Thackeray wrote in 
 December, 1852, to Appleton's edition of his minor works. See 
 Appendix.
 
 LORD CRABS BESTOWS UPON THE LADIES HIS PARTING BENEDICTION 
 The YelloTvflush Papers.
 
 journalism ant) flDarriage 115 
 
 thing in the Prize Novelists. Like Cabbages, the pas- 
 sages in Mr. Yellowplush's Ajew were prompted by 
 Thackeray's sense of the overstrained sentiment which 
 is so prevalent, especially in Lytton's earlier works, and 
 as I feel certain that the parody was written entirely 
 "without prejudice," I quote a couple of paragraphs, for 
 the fun is too good to miss. 
 
 This is the speech in which Bulwer dissuades the 
 footman from joining the world of letters: " 'Yellow- 
 plush,' says he, seizing my hand, 'you are right. Quit 
 not your present occupation ; black boots, clean knives, 
 wear plush all your life, but don't turn literary man. 
 Look at me. I am the first novelist in Europe. I have 
 ranged with eagle wing over the wide regions of litera- 
 ture, and perched on every eminence in turn. I have 
 gazed with eagle eyes on the Sun of Philosophy, and 
 fathomed the mysterious depths of the human mind. 
 All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are known 
 to me, all men understood by me. I have gathered wis- 
 dom from the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in 
 the gardens of the Academes, wisdom, too, from the 
 mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our "baccy" in 
 Seven Dials. Such must be the studies, and such is 
 the mission in this world, of the poet-philosopher. But 
 the Knowledge is only emptiness; the initiation is but 
 misery; the initiated a man shunned and banned by his 
 fellows.' 'Oh,' said Bulwig, clasping his hands, and 
 throwing his fine I's up to the chandelier, 'the curse of 
 Pwometheus descends upon his wace. Wath and pun- 
 ishment pursue them from genewation to genewation ! 
 Wo to Genius, the Heaven-sealer, the fire-stealer! Wo 
 and thrice bitter desolation ! earth is the wock on which 
 Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing victim men, the
 
 n6 1fl2lUliam flDafeepeace 
 
 vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is agony 
 eternal gwoaning and solitawy despair! And you, 
 Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies: you 
 would waise the awful veil, and stand in the twemendous 
 Pwesence. Beware as you value your peace, beware ! 
 Withdwaw, wash neophite! for Heaven's sake oh, for 
 Heaven's sake!' here he looked round with agony 
 'give me a glass of bwandy and water for this clawet is 
 beginning to disagwee with me. ' 
 
 Not less amusing is the speech "And pray for what," 
 is he to be made a baronet : 
 
 "What faw?" says Bulwig, "ask the Histowy of 
 Litewature what faw? Ask Colburn, ask Bentley, ask 
 Sawnders and Otley, ask the Gweat Bwitish Nation what 
 faw? The blood in my veins comes puwified thwough 
 ten thousand years of chivalwous ancestry; but that is 
 neither here nor there: my political pwincipals the 
 equal wights which I have advocated the gweat cause of 
 fweedom that I have celebwated, are known to all. But 
 this, I confess, has nothing to do with the question. 
 No ; the question is this on the thwone of litewature I 
 stand unwivalled, pwe-eminent ; and the Bwitish govern- 
 ment, honowing genius in me, compliments the Bwitish 
 nation by lifting into the bosom of the heweditawy 
 nobility, the most gifted member of the Democwacy,' 
 (the honrabble genlmn here sank down amidst repeated 
 cheers)." 
 
 Thackeray's work gradually became known among 
 his fellow- workers, and Mr. N. P. Willis, the editor of 
 the New York Corsair, secured his services for the paper 
 in which (August 24th, 1839) ne printed the following 
 appreciative passages : 
 
 "I have been delighted to find that the authors of
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 * 
 
 i i
 
 Journalism ant) dDarrfaae 117 
 
 the two best periodical series of papers that have appeared 
 for twenty years are one and the same person. One of 
 my first enquiries in London was touching the author- 
 ship of the Yellowplush Papers, next the Reminiscences of 
 Major Gahagan the only things in periodical literature, 
 except the Pickwick Papers, for which I looked with any 
 interest or eagerness. The author, Mr. Thackeray, 
 breakfasted with me yesterday, and the readers of the 
 Corsair will be delighted, I am sure, to hear that I have 
 engaged this cleverest and most gifted of the magazine 
 writers of London to become a regular correspondent of 
 the Corsair. He left London for Paris the day after, 
 and having resided in that city for many years, his let- 
 ters from thence will be pictures of life in France, done 
 with a bolder and more trenchant pen than has yet 
 attempted the subject. He will present a long letter 
 every week, and you will agree with me that he is no 
 common acquisition. Thackeray is a tall, athletic man 
 of about thirty-five, with a look of talent that could 
 never be mistaken. He has taken to literature after 
 having spent a very large inheritance, but in throwing 
 away the gifts of fortune he has cultivated his natural 
 talents very highly, and is one of the most accomplished 
 draughtsmen in England, as well as the cleverest and 
 most brilliant of periodical writers. He has been the 
 principal critic for the Times, and writes for Fraser and 
 Black-wood. You will hear from him by the first steamer 
 after his arrival in Paris, and thenceforward regularly." 
 
 To the Corsair Thackeray contributed eight Letters 
 from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersborough, etc. By the 
 author of the " Yellowplush Correspondence," the "Mem- 
 oirs of Major Gahagan," etc., etc., and seven of these 
 letters, rewritten and renamed, were published in the
 
 us TKlUUam flDafeepeace TIbacfceras 
 
 Paris Sketch Book. On September 28 Mr. Willis printed 
 the paper Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon, and openly 
 declared it by William Thackeray, author of the Yellow- 
 plush Correspondence, though the letters continued to be 
 signed T. T. as before. 
 
 During 1839 Thackeray also wrote an article on Lord 
 Brougham's Speeches for the British and Foreign Review 
 (April), in which, in the very first passage, he shows his 
 insight into the ex-Minister's character: 
 
 ' ' To discuss each speech properly, ' ' he wrote, ' ' perhaps 
 the reviewer should write a volume where the orator has 
 produced only a few pages : for, vast as the latter's genius 
 and labours are, great as have been his services, and 
 keen as are often his views regarding the events and cir- 
 cumstances of his own time, we suspect that there are 
 very few who would be disposed to take his ideas for 
 their own and to believe implicitly in his story. Lord 
 Brougham's exploits in literature, law, and politics have 
 been chiefly those of a partisan ; and as he has had, to 
 our thinking, too strong a wit and too weak a character 
 to allow him to enter the foremost rank of great men of 
 his time, he has likewise too great a vanity and too small 
 a principle to be its historian. You may hope from such 
 a person much brilliancy of remark, and occasional truth ; 
 for his genius is great and his heart good and generous 
 in the main; but the entire truth cannot be expected 
 from him. Much of it he cannot see, and much he does 
 not choose to tell. Ceaseless puffs of spleen ruffle the 
 surface of his mind, and distort the proportion of the 
 images reflected in it. His vanity is employed in mak- 
 ing perpetual excuses for his principle, and thus it con- 
 tinually thwarts his genius. While the one is wide and 
 kindly, the other is meanly unreasoning and jealous ; as
 
 Journalism an& dDarriage 119 
 
 is commonly the case, of the two adverse principles the 
 latter is the more active ; and as we have often seen in 
 marriages how a wise man will give himself abjectly over 
 to the guidance of a shrew, Lord Brougham's wisdom is 
 perpetually at the feet of his vanity, which in the con- 
 tests between them is pretty sure to have the last word." 
 
 He sent to Cruikshank's Comic Annual, Stubbs' Cal- 
 endar, or the Fatal Boots, and to Fraser, in June, A 
 Second Lecture on the Fine Arts,* and The Great Kossack 
 Epic of Demetrius Rigmarolovicz. Translated by a Lady 
 (the Legend of St. Sophia of Kioff of the Ballads) ; in 
 September The French Plutarch; (i) Cartouche' s High- 
 ways and Byways, and (2) Little Poinsinet; in October 
 The Fetes of July, and in December The French School 
 of Painting. 
 
 I am inclined to include in this list of Thackeray's 
 writings for 1839 both Paris Pastimes for the Month of 
 May, and Paris Revels of the isth of May (Fraser, June 
 and August) written in the form of letters to "Dear 
 Fraser," and signed "You know who," the fact that 
 they are not signed Titmarsh being no argument against 
 my contention, since, as he was writing so much for the 
 magazine, it may have been advisable to use another 
 nom-de-plume. 
 
 Thackeray was undoubtedly anxious to increase his 
 income, which, when all the claims upon his purse were 
 
 *A good many of Thackeray's contributions to Eraser's Magazine 
 were in the form of letters, and his headings to these are often very 
 amusing. I give a couple of examples: The Strictures on Pictures 
 is from Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh to Monsieur Anatole Victor 
 Isodore Hyacinthe Achille Hercule de Bric-a-brac, peintre (Thistoire, 
 Rue Mouffleard, a Paris ; while the Second Lecture on the Fine Arts 
 is written by the same gentleman to another Mr. Bricabrac, evidently 
 some relation of the first-mentioned owner of the name. This one is 
 to Citoyen Brutus Napoleon Bricabrac, Refuge d'avril, Bless6 de mai, 
 Condamne" de juin, Decore" de juillet, etc. Hotel Dieu, a Paris.
 
 120 TKHUliam /IDafeepeace Ubacfteras 
 
 settled, must have been a very meagre competence, and 
 he endeavoured (Charles Mackay said) during this year 
 to obtain the post of sub-editor to the Morning Chron- 
 icle fortunately, without success. It was also about 
 the same time that Mr. Cole, of the South Kensington 
 Science and Art Department, recommended him for serv- 
 ice in the Anti-Corn-Law-League, to Cobden. "The 
 artist, ' ' so ran the letter, " is a genius both with his pen 
 and his pencil. His vocation is literary. He is full of 
 humour and feeling. Hitherto he has not had occasion 
 to think much on the subject of Corn Laws, and there- 
 fore wants the stuff to work upon. He would like to 
 combine both writing and drawing, when sufficiently 
 primed, and then he would write illustrated ballads, or 
 tales, or anything. I think you would find him a useful 
 auxiliary. 
 
 Cobden suggested, as a subject for illustration, the 
 Poles on one side of a stream, offering bread to starving 
 people, standing on the other; a demon in the centre 
 preventing the exchange. Cole carried the idea to 
 Thackeray, who returned him a rough sketch with a 
 letter. 
 
 "Dear Sir," he wrote, "I shall be'glad to do a single 
 drawing, series, or what you will, for money, but I think 
 the one you sent me would not be effective enough for 
 the Circular, the figures are too many for so small a sized 
 block, and the meaning mysterious the river, to be a 
 river, should occupy a deuce of a space" [here he intro- 
 duced a loose sketch] "even this fills up your length 
 almost. What do you think of a howling group with 
 this motto : Give us this day our Daily Bread. The 
 words are startling. Of course I will do the proposed 
 design if you wish."
 
 Journalism anfc /iDarria^e 121 
 
 At this time Thackeray was trying a new method of 
 engraving (invented by a Mr. Schonblung, of Hatton 
 Garden) which, from Thackeray's next letter, dated June 
 29, 1839, did not seem to be an unqualified success. 
 
 "MY DEAR SlR, I am very sorry to tell you of my 
 misfortunes. I have made three etchings on the 
 Schonblung plan, of the Anglo-allegory, and they have 
 all failed; that is, Schonblung considers they are not fit 
 for his process ; that is, I fear the process will not succeed 
 yet. I shall, however, do the drawing to-morrow on a 
 wood-block, and will send it to you sans faute, unless I 
 hear you are not inclined to deal with a person who has 
 caused so much delay. 
 
 "Yours ever, 
 "(Signed} W. M.THACKERAY." 
 
 He eventually contributed two wood-cuts to the 
 Anti-Corn-Law-Circular: the first, Poles Offering Corn, 
 appeared in No. 8 (July 23), and the second, The Choice 
 of a Loaf, in No. 18 (December 10). 
 
 And now to refer again to the most important of all 
 these articles, reviews, and tales the first of his more 
 ambitious attempts Catherine, which appeared in Fraser 
 during May, June, July, August, November, 1839, and 
 January, 1840. 
 
 Mr. Sala has related somewhere that the public soon 
 forgot that Catherine was a professed satire on the New- 
 gate novels, and became absorbed and fascinated by a 
 wonderfully realistic fiction; while some of the critics 
 spoke of the tale as "one of the dullest, most vulgar, 
 and immoral works extant." Of course, Thackeray was 
 delighted at the abuse, and expressed himself very
 
 122 William /iDafeepeace trbacfeeras 
 
 "pleased with the disgust which his work has excited." 
 And well he might be, for he had obtained exactly 
 what he wanted. Still, satire and irony are very dan- 
 gerous weapons, since often, by virtue of their very 
 intensity, they are read as serious earnest ; and the peo- 
 ple who were disgusted with Catherine, probably, some 
 years later, thought Thackeray an admirer of Barry 
 Lyndon, Esq., and had always held Henry Fielding to 
 be a staunch sympathiser with Mr. Jonathan Wild. 
 
 Catherine, clever as it undoubtedly is, did not at the 
 time much advance Thackeray's reputation or increase 
 his popularity he was still regarded only as a useful 
 writer of magazine articles, and a fairly competent art 
 critic. 
 
 In 1840 Macrone who had brought out Dickens's 
 earliest volume, Sketches by Boz published Thackeray's 
 first book, The Paris Sketch Book, in two volumes ; but 
 the Sketch Book, which was dedicated to a tailor who had 
 once done Thackeray a kindness, and consisted of a col- 
 lection of articles and tales, about half of which had 
 already appeared in the magazines, was not well received 
 by the public and certainly it contains nothing of any 
 astonishing merit, though there is much that is well 
 written and interesting.* 
 
 During the year he sent to Fraser, Epistles to the 
 
 Literati XI 77., Ch s Y U wpl sh to Sir Edward 
 
 Lytton Bulwer, Bart., John Thomas Smith, Esq., to 
 
 *The Parts Sketch 006 contains the following articles and stories, 
 of which the first eight were reprints: An Invasion of France, The 
 Fetes of July, On the French School of Painting, Cartouche, The 
 Story of Mary Ancel, Little Poinsinet, The Devil's Wager, Madame 
 Sand and the New Apocalypse, A Caution to Travellers, The 
 Painter's Bargain, On Some French Fashionable Novels, A Gambler's 
 Death, Napoleon and His System, Beatrice Merger, Caricatures and 
 Lithography in Paris, The Case of Peytel, French Dramas and 
 Melodramas, and Meditations at Versailles.
 
 Journalism anfc flDarrtaae 123 
 
 C s Y h, Esq. (January), and a Pictorial Rhapsody 
 
 (June, July). The July paper ended abruptly. A note 
 was added nominally by "Oliver Yorke" "He has not 
 been heard of since the first day of June. He was seen 
 on that day pacing Waterloo Bridge for two hours; but 
 whether he plunged into the river, or took advantage of 
 the steamboat, and went down in it only, we cannot 
 state." After making inquiries, from the waiter at Mor- 
 land's Hotel, where Titmarsh had been staying, he 
 unravelled the mystery. "This is conclusive," he then 
 continued. "Our departed friend had many faults, but 
 he is gone, and we need not discuss them now. It 
 appears that on the first of June the Morning Post pub- 
 lished a criticism upon him, accusing him of ignorance, 
 bad taste, and partiality. His gentle and susceptible 
 spirit could not brook the rebuke ; he was not angry ; he 
 did not retort; but his heart broke. Peace to his ashes! 
 A couple of volumes of his works, we see by our adver- 
 tisements, are about immediately to appear." 
 
 This is the criticism to which the laughing reference 
 is made : 
 
 "Among other papers in the magazine is what is called 
 A Pictorial Rhapsody upon the Royal Academy, in which 
 great personal favouritism and general bad taste in the 
 criticism is boldly and unscrupulously indulged. The 
 absurdities of this notice are plenty, &s\& parmi les autres, 
 the writer defends Mulready and the postage cover." 
 
 The Bedford Row Conspiracy, which was adapted from 
 a story by Charles de Bernand, was printed in the 
 New Monthly Magazine for January and March; while 
 to the Comic Annual he sent Barber Cox, and the Cutting 
 of his Comb, on which has been founded the well-known 
 Dutch comedy Janus Tulp. An essay on The Genius of
 
 124 TKHUliam flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 George Cruikshank, which appeared in the Westminster 
 Review, sign was a kindly service to an artist whom 
 the public were forgetting. It was immediately 
 reprinted separately, and published. 
 
 For some time past Thackeray had had the rather 
 morbid desire to see a man hanged. Years before, at 
 Paris, he had gone to see an execution, but had missed 
 the dismal spectacle. Now, however, he eagerly 
 accepted an invitation, dated July 2nd, 1840, to be pres- 
 ent at the death of Curvoisier. 
 
 "Mv DEAR MILNES, I shall be very pleased to 
 make one at the Hanging, and shall expect you here. 
 
 "Yours ever, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 It was customary, then, when the hanging took place 
 at five or six o'clock in the morning, for the intending 
 spectators to "make a night of it," and to go eastwards 
 after a very late supper, and evidently Monckton Milnes 
 wrote to suggest that this should be done, for on the 
 next day Thackeray wrote to him again. "You must 
 not think me inhospitable in refusing to sit up. I must 
 go to bed, that's the fact, or I shall never be able to 
 attend to the work of to-morrow properly. If you like 
 to come here and have a sofa, it is at your service, but I 
 most strongly recommend sleep as a preparative to the 
 day's pleasure." 
 
 Thackeray's experiences were told in Fraser in the 
 article entitled Going to see a man hanged. In this he 
 spoke his mind in no measured terms.
 
 journalism anfc flDarriage 125 
 
 "There is some talk of the terror which the sight of 
 this spectacle inspires. ... I fully confess that I 
 came away . . . that morning with a disgust for 
 murder, but it was for the murder I saw done. 
 
 "This is the twentieth of July, and I may be per- 
 mitted, for my part, to declare that, for the last fourteen 
 days, so salutary has the impression of the butchery 
 been upon me, I have had the man's face continually 
 before my eyes; that I can see Mr. Ketch at this mo- 
 ment, with an easy air, taking the rope from his pocket ; 
 that I feel myself ashamed and degraded at the brutal 
 curiosity which took me to that brutal sight ; and that I 
 pray to Almighty God to cause this disgraceful sin to 
 pass from among us, and to cleanse our land of blood." 
 
 Four years later, at Cairo, when he was invited to 
 witness a similar spectacle, he only replied, "Seeing one 
 man hanged is quite enough in the course of a life. J'y 
 ai tie", as the Frenchman said of hunting." 
 
 In The Irish Sketch Book he repeated the sentiments 
 expressed in the Fraser article: 
 
 "I confess, for my part, to that common cant and 
 sickly sentimentality, which, thank God! is felt by a 
 great number of people nowadays, and which leads them 
 to revolt against murder, whether performed by a ruf- 
 fian's knife or a hangman's rope; whether accompanied 
 with a curse from the thief as he blows his victim's 
 brains out, or a prayer from my lord on the bench in his 
 wig and black cap." But nevertheless, there is reason 
 to believe that he eventually changed his opinion in this 
 matter, for when one day Mr. Bedingfield told him that 
 he had just read the "Hanging" article with admiration, 
 he remarked, "I think I was wrong. My feelings were
 
 i26 TKUilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 overwrought. These murderers are such devils, after 
 all." 
 
 Still, if he ceased to advocate the abolition of the 
 death-sentence, he always insisted that the ceremony 
 should be performed in private, and not before audiences 
 of forty to fifty thousand persons, many of whom were 
 children of tender years.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF HIS MARRIED LIFE
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF HIS MARRIED LIFE 
 
 r T~*HE best-remembered work of this year (1840) is The 
 -i- Shabby Genteel Story, which appeared in Fraser in 
 June, July, August, and October by which time nine 
 chapters had been printed when it was suddenly and 
 abruptly brought to a conclusion without a word of 
 explanation. 
 
 When, however, the fragment was reprinted in the 
 Miscellanies (published in 1857) a note was prefixed by 
 the author which to those who knew of his misfortune 
 was very touching. "It was my intention," so it ran, 
 "to complete the little story of which only the first part 
 is here written. . . . The tale was interrupted at a 
 sad period of the writer's own life. The colours are 
 long since dry; the artist's hand is changed. It is best 
 to leave the sketch as it was when it was first designed 
 seventeen years ago. The memory of the past is 
 renewed as he looks at it. 
 
 ' Die Bilder f roher Tage 
 Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf.' " 
 
 The explanation of the abrupt conclusion of the 
 Shabby Genteel Story is indeed very sad. 
 
 In May, his third child, Harriet Marion afterwards 
 Mrs. Leslie Stephen was born, and his wife became 
 very ill. The illness eventually affected her mind, and 
 Thackeray, who regarded this as only a natural sequence 
 
 129
 
 i3 TWlilliam /iDafeepeace 
 
 of the illness, which would pass away in time, when her 
 health was restored, threw all business aside, sent his 
 children to their grandparents at Paris, and for many 
 months travelled with his wife from watering-place to 
 watering-place, as the doctors as a last resource had 
 recommended, hoping against hope that the cloud on 
 her intellect would dissolve. 
 
 Writing to Mrs. Brookfield some ten years later, he 
 recalled this period: "As I am waiting ... I find 
 an old review containing a great part of an article I 
 wrote about Fielding in 1840 in the Times. . . . My 
 wife was just sickening at that moment; I wrote it at 
 Margate where I had taken her, and used to walk out 
 three miles to a little bowling green, and write there in 
 an arbour coming home and wondering what was the 
 melancholy oppressing the poor little woman. The 
 Times gave me five guineas for the article. I recollect 
 I thought it rather shabby pay, and twelve days after it 
 appeared in the paper, my poor little wife's malady 
 showed itself. How queer it is to be carried back all of 
 a sudden to that time and all that belonged to it, and 
 read this article over; doesn't the apology for Fielding 
 read like an apology for somebody else, too? God help 
 us! what a deal of cares and pleasures and struggles and 
 happiness I have had since that day in the little sunshiny 
 arbour, where, with scarcely any money in my pocket, 
 and two little children (Minnie was a baby two months 
 old), I was writing this notice about Fielding. Grief, 
 Love, Fame, if you like I have had no little of all since 
 then (I don't mean to take the fame for more than its 
 worth or brag about it with any peculiar elation)." 
 
 At last Thackeray was compelled to realise the truth 
 that his poor wife would never recover sufficiently to
 
 Ura0et>g ot bis flDarriefc %ife 131 
 
 undertake the duties of a mother and a wife. She was 
 unable to manage her life, though she took interest in 
 any pleasant things around her, especially in music; but 
 it was essential that she should be properly cared for, 
 and, with this object, she was placed with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Thompson at Leigh, in Essex. She outlived her hus- 
 band by so many years that it was with a shock, having 
 already been dead to the world for nearly forty years, 
 that the announcement of her death, in January, 1894, 
 at the age of seventy-five, was read. She was interred 
 in the same grave at Kensal Green cemetery as her hus- 
 band. 
 
 How sad, how awful, it was! The man with his 
 great heart, with his yearning for love and affection that, 
 from this time forth, breathes through all his letters and 
 all his books! 
 
 ' ' I cannot live without the tenderness of some woman, ' ' 
 he wrote, with the mixture of tears and laughter that is 
 the characteristic of all his later works, "and expect 
 when I am sixty, I shall be marrying a girl of eleven or 
 twelve, innocent, barley-sugar-loving, in a pinafore." 
 To be separated from the woman he had chosen for his 
 companion through life, and who had cheered him when 
 his fortunes were at a very low ebb, and his reputation 
 was not yet made ! How hard it was she should be 
 taken from him before she could enjoy the great fame 
 and good fortune! How much he loved her, and how 
 much he felt the blow that had shattered his happiness 
 and his home, he never divulged ; he was not a man to 
 parade his domestic sorrows in public he might think 
 of them in solitude, but if a visitor entered he would 
 immediately look up with a smile and a joke both 
 forced. Still, from one source and another, it has been
 
 is 2 TKailliam flDafeepeace 
 
 possible to glean something of the deep and sacred grief 
 which Thackeray felt on his return alone, and worse 
 than alone, to the desolate house in Great Coram Street. 
 
 "I was as happy as the day was long with her," he 
 told one of his cousins; and one day when Trollope's 
 groom said to him, "I hear you have written a book 
 upon Ireland, and are always making fun of the Irish; 
 you don't like us," Thackeray's eyes filled with tears as 
 he thought of his wife born in County Cork and he 
 replied, turning away his head, "God help me! all that 
 I have loved best in the world is Irish." 
 
 Again in after years, referring to The Great Hoggarty 
 Diamond, which was composed during this period of 
 great unhappiness, he remarked that it ''was written at 
 a time when the writer was suffering under the severest 
 personal grief and calamity," "at a time of great afflic- 
 tion, when my heart was very soft and humble. Amen. 
 Ich habe auch geliebt." 
 
 Well might Thackeray echo the lines of poor broken- 
 hearted Thekla's swan-song: 
 
 " Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck, 
 Ich habe gelebt und geliebet." 
 
 Yet even in his bitterest moments he did not cry, 
 with Thekla: 
 
 "Das Herz ist gestorben, die Welt ist leer, 
 Und waiter giebt sie dem Wunsche nicht mehr," 
 
 for, even in his most bitter grief, Thackeray remem- 
 bered his children and his parents; and the man who, 
 on hearing of a certain noble lady who, it was said, had 
 died of grief at her husband's death, only remarked, 
 
 "Ah! had she been Mrs. X , the washerwoman, with 
 
 sixteen children to provide for, she would not have 
 died," set himself resolutely to work to make money so
 
 Ube Uragefcs of bis flDarrieo OLife 133 
 
 that when his children were old enough he could provide 
 a comfortable home for them, dower them well, and, 
 when he died, leave them, at least, a competency. 
 From this time, more than ever, the thought of his 
 children was the mainspring of most of his actions. "I 
 sat up with the children and talked to them of their 
 mother," he told Mrs. Brookfield. "It is my pleasure 
 to tell them how humble-minded their mother was." 
 We see him taking them to the Colosseum on their birth- 
 day ; or to the Zoological Gardens, where they all amuse 
 themselves in finding likenesses to their friends in many 
 of the animals. ("Thank EvnsT' is Thackeray's expres- 
 sion of gratitude, "both of the girls have plenty of fun 
 and humour"); or, when he is very tired, having been 
 at the opening of the Great Exhibition, he goes with 
 them to the play "in recompense for their disappoint- 
 ment in not getting to the Exhibition, which they had 
 hopes of seeing." 
 
 It was for the sake of his children that he battled with 
 his constitutional timidity, and nerved himself to deliver 
 the two series of lectures he, to whom public speaking 
 was misery; and solely on their account he made his 
 trips to America, hating the separation from them, and 
 longing all the time of his absence for the day of his 
 return. 
 
 It is a painful subject to dwell upon even for those 
 who never knew or even saw Thackeray; a picture of 
 fearful sadness to conjure up this dreadful domestic 
 affliction. 
 
 His fortune lost, his talents unrecognised except in a 
 very small circle, his second child dead, his beloved wife 
 taken from him ! Is it marvellous that Thackeray was 
 able to see the existence of evil as well as of good in the
 
 134 THttilHam /iDaftepeace 
 
 world? The wonder is that he did not become a second 
 Swift, lashing the world and himself with a savage satire, 
 blaspheming at God, cursing at man, sneering at good 
 and evil alike, in some new Gulliver s Travels. Instead, 
 however, the great sorrow chastened his soul, and made 
 his later writings more sympathetic than his earlier; and 
 the only use he made of his grand power of sarcasm was 
 to chide, nearly always with gentle hand, the follies of his 
 fellow-men, in the endeavour to show to them the path 
 of honour, virtue, goodness, and mercy, which he himself 
 endeavoured to follow. 
 
 What words can so fitly close this brief account of the 
 terrible tragedy of Thackeray's married life as his own? 
 
 "Canst thou, O friendly reader, count upon the fidel- 
 ity of an artless heart or tender or true, and reckon 
 among the blessings which Heaven hath bestowed on 
 thee, the love of faithful women? Purify thine own 
 heart, and try to make it worthy of theirs. All the 
 prizes of life are nothing compared to that one. All the 
 rewards of ambition, wealth, pleasure, only vanity -and 
 disappointment, grasped at greedily and fought for 
 fiercely, and over and over again found worthless by the 
 weary winners."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CLUB LIFE
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 CLUB LIFE 
 
 WHEN deprived of his home, Thackeray, who was 
 still under thirty, of necessity lived a bachelor 
 life, went everywhere, saw everything, and met every- 
 body; but he never forgot his self-respect, or the pecu- 
 liar position in which he was placed. He did his best to 
 be happy, and made the best of his life as his philosophy 
 taught him ; but there was no vice in him, and, in spite 
 of his enemies (made chiefly by criticisms and satirical 
 writings) no word of scandal was ever breathed against him. 
 He became a frequenter of clubs. He had long been 
 a member of the Garrick, which then had its club-house 
 in King Street, Covent Garden, the new building in 
 Garrick Street not being completed until a year after his 
 death. This was his favourite resort. "We, the happy 
 initiated, never speak of it as the Garrick ; to us it is the 
 G., the little G., the dearest place in the world," he 
 declared in a speech at a Shakespeare Birthday Dinner, 
 then an annual event at the Club. The immense influ- 
 ence he obtained here was shown nearly twenty years 
 later, when he quarrelled with Mr. Yates.* 
 
 *There was a member of the Garrick whose presence and speech 
 seemed to irritate him, and who found pleasure in exercising his 
 power as gadfly on a thoroughbred horse. One night in the smoke- 
 room, Thackeray was in the middle of a most interesting story, when 
 his enemy suddenly entered. To every one's surprise Thackeray 
 hesitated and stopped, on which his persecutor, assuming an air of 
 the most gracious patronage, blandly encouraged him with, " Proceed, 
 sweet warbler; thy story interests me." The Memories of Dean Hole. 
 
 '37
 
 is 8 TWlilUam /iDafcepeace 
 
 He was elected a member of the Reform Club in 
 April, 1840, being proposed by Mr. Martin Thackeray, 
 and seconded by Mr. Henry Webbe. There is an inter- 
 esting description of Thackeray at this Club in CasselV s 
 Magazine (June, 1897) by Sir Wemyss Reid, in an 
 article called Some Club Ghosts. 
 
 "In the morning-room the chair at which he used to 
 sit when writing his letter is still pointed out ; and again 
 and again I have heard descriptions of how he used to 
 stand in the smoking-room, his back to the fire, his legs 
 rather wide apart, his hands thrust into the trouser- 
 pockets, and his head stiffly thrown backward, while he 
 joined in the talk of the men occupying the semi-circle 
 of chairs in front of him. No man has made more use 
 of the Reform Club in his writings than Thackeray has 
 done. It is described minutely in Brown's Letters to his 
 Nephew; it figures in many of his novels; it made its 
 own contribution to the Snob Papers. 
 
 "One of the most amusing legends concerning the 
 great writer is connected with the place. Going into 
 the coffee-room of the Reform Club one afternoon, he 
 chanced to see on the menu of the day 'beans and bacon.' 
 He was to dine with some eminent personage that night, 
 but 'beans and bacon' were more than he could resist. 
 Straightway he betook himself to the morning-room and 
 penned a note to his host, telling him that he could not 
 have the pleasure of dining with him, as he had just met 
 a very old friend whom he had not seen for years, and 
 from whom he could not tear himself. Then he went 
 back to the coffee-room and dined satisfactorily off his 
 beloved dish in a corner. So runs the tale. Let us 
 hope that it is true. . . . But we have no Thackeray 
 now. To some of us, at least, the Club is endeared by
 
 Club Xife 139 
 
 the thought that he was once one of ourselves; that he 
 sat in these chairs, dined at these tables, chatted in these 
 rooms, and with his wise, far-seeing eyes surveyed the 
 world from these same windows." 
 
 Later, on February 12, 1846, Thackeray was put up 
 at the Athenaeum Club, by the Rev. W. Harrenn, and 
 seconded by Charles Buller, junr. The ballot took 
 place in January, 1850, when, to the general surprise, 
 the author of Vanity Fair and Pendennis was black- 
 balled* All his supporters were furious, and Dean Mil- 
 man immediately wrote to Abraham Hayward a letter 
 that no doubt he intended should be shown to Thack- 
 eray. 
 
 " CLOISTERS, January 30, 1850. 
 
 "Mv DEAR HAYWARD, I cannot say how much I 
 am annoyed by the failure of my attempt to bring in 
 Thackeray at the Athenaeum. But there is no counting 
 on the stubborn stupidity of man. One voice, you know 
 excludes, and among eighteen committee-men that there 
 should not be one self-conceited I must not fill up this 
 sentence. We are bound not to reveal the secrets of 
 our Conciliabulum, but I may say it was curious to see 
 Macaulay and Croker row together in my boat with 
 Martin, etc., etc. If I had not thought myself sure of 
 my success, I should not have subjected Thackeray to 
 the chance of rejection. Pray assure him of my regret 
 and disappointment. 
 
 "Ever truly yours, 
 
 "H. H. MlLMAN." 
 
 *" He" [Thackeray] "had the honour of being rejected at the 
 ' Travellers ' (1856); and the ruling majority (the ballot is by the mem- 
 bers, not by the committee) gave as a reason that they were afraid of 
 seeing themselves in some novel of the future." JOHN HOLLINGS- 
 HEAD, My Lifetime.
 
 140 TOlliam dDafeepeace 
 
 "Every man whose opinion Mr. Thackeray would 
 value was with him."* 
 
 Thackeray took his rejection in very good part. "I 
 was," he wrote to Hayward, "quite prepared for the 
 issue of the kind effort made at the Athenaeum on my 
 behalf; indeed, as a satirical writer, I rather wonder that 
 I have not made more enemies than I have. I don't 
 mean enemies m a bad sense, but men conscientiously 
 opposed to my style, art, opinions, impertinences, and 
 so forth. There must be thousands of men to whom the 
 practice of ridicule must be very offensive; doesn't one 
 see such in Society, or in one's own family? persons 
 whom nature has not gifted with a sense of humour. 
 Such a man would be wrong not to give me a blackball, 
 or whatever it is called, a negatory nod of his honest, 
 respectable, stupid old head. And I submit to this 
 without the slightest feeling of animosity against my 
 judge. Why? Dr. Johnson would certainly have black- 
 balled Fielding, whom he pronounced 'a dull fellow, sir, 
 a dull fellow' ! Didn't I tell you once before 
 
 that I feel frightened almost at the kindness of people 
 regarding me? May we all be honest fellows, and keep 
 our heads from too much vanity." 
 
 But even the honest, respectable old committee-man 
 came in time to his senses or perhaps he died. Any- 
 way, on February 25, in the following year, the Club 
 made amends. The Committee elected Thackeray under 
 rule ii, which provides that the annual introduction of a 
 certain number of "persons of distinguished eminence in 
 science, literature, or for public services, shall be secured 
 without recourse to ballot." 
 
 Thackeray's name appears on the roll of the Club as 
 
 *A Selection from the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C.
 
 Club Xife 141 
 
 a "barrister," but he was elected as the author of 
 Vanity Fair, Pendennis, and other well-known works of 
 fiction. 
 
 In later years about November, 1861 he joined 
 "Our Club," which had been founded by Douglas 
 Jerrold. This was a social and literary meeting, and 
 included among its members some of the best known of 
 Thackeray's contemporaries Mark Lemon, Leech, 
 Horace Mayhew, and Shirley Brooks, from Punch; Samuel 
 Lucas and Davidson, respectively the chief literary and 
 the musical critic of the Times; Hepworth Dixon, of the 
 Athenczum; the publishers, Robert Chambers, Evans (of 
 Bradbury & Evans), Macmillan, and Hazlitt; as well as 
 James Hannay, David Masson, Charles Knight, George 
 Jessel, and Charles Lamb Kenney. The Club, with its 
 guinea subscription, was next door to Evans's, and the 
 members dined in a room on an upper floor of Clunn's 
 Hotel; and the annual dinner in June was held either at 
 Blackwall, Greenwich, Richmond, or Hampton Court. 
 Mr. Jeffreson says that both Thackeray (who had a nature 
 of almost womanly softness) and Jerrold were devoted to 
 Frederick Hamstide, the hon. secretary, a little hunch- 
 back, who in childhood had been crippled by a fall from 
 his nurse's arms. 
 
 Mr. Jeffreson, the historian of "Our Club," gives, in 
 his autobiography, a pleasant picture of Thackeray. "I 
 cannot conceive him to have ever been seen to greater 
 advantage than when he was sitting with a party of his 
 congenial comrades at 'Our Club,' gossipping tenderly 
 about dead authors, artists, and actors, or cheerily and 
 in the kindliest spirit about living notabilities," he writes. 
 "It was very pleasant to watch the white-haired veteran, 
 and also to hear him (though at best he sang indiffer-
 
 H 2 THUllfam flDafeepeace 
 
 ently) whilst he trotted forth his favourite ballads touch- 
 ing Little Billie and Father Martin Luther. Better still 
 it was to regard the radiant gratification of his face, 
 whilst Horace Mayhew sang The Mahogany Tree, per- 
 haps the finest and most soul-stirring of Thackeray's 
 social songs, or was throwing his soul into the passionate 
 Marseillaise. ' ' 
 
 No list of Thackeray's haunts would be complete that 
 did not make mention of another place where he was 
 frequently to be, seen at work, and where, like so many 
 men of letters, both distinguished and unknown, he felt 
 perfectly happy and quite at home I refer to the read- 
 ing-rooms in the library of the British Museum. 
 
 "Most Londoners not all have seen the British 
 Museum Library," he paid tribute in a Roundabout Paper, 
 "I speak h cceur ouvert, and pray the kindly reader to 
 bear with me. I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters 
 and Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon what not? and have 
 been struck by none of them as much as by that catholic 
 dome in Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes 
 are housed. What peace, what love, what truth, what 
 beauty, what happiness for all, what generous kindness 
 for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me 
 one cannot sit down in that place without a heart full of 
 grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the 
 table, and to have thanked Heaven for this my English 
 birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books, 
 and to speak the truth I find there." 
 
 In the summer of 1858, Motley, the historian, met 
 Thackeray there, and wrote of him to his wife. 
 
 "I believe you have never seen Thackeray," runs his 
 letter; "he has the appearance of a colossal infant 
 smooth white shiny ringletty hair, flaxen, alas! with
 
 Club Xife 143 
 
 advancing years, a roundish face, with a little dab of a 
 nose, upon which it is a perpetual wonder how he keeps 
 his spectacles, a sweet but rather piping voice, with 
 something of the childish treble about it, and a very 
 tall, slightly stooping figure such are the characteristics 
 of the great snob of England. His manner is like that 
 of every one else in England nothing original, all 
 planed down into perfect uniformity with that of his 
 fellow-creatures. There was not much more distinction 
 in his talk than in his white choker, or black coat and 
 waistcoat. . . . After breakfast I went down to the 
 British Museum. I had been immersed half an hour in 
 my manuscript, when, happening to turn my head 
 round, I found seated next to me, Thackeray, with a 
 file of old newspapers before him, writing the ninth num- 
 ber of The Virginians. He took off his spectacles to 
 see who I was, then immediately invited me to dinner 
 the next day (as he seems always to do, every one he 
 meets), which invitation I could not accept ; and he then 
 showed me the page he had been writing, a small, deli- 
 cate legible manuscript. After that we continued our 
 studies." 
 
 There is, in the Manuscript Department of the British 
 Museum Library, a letter written by Thackeray to Mr. 
 (afterwards Sir) Anthony Panizzi, when that gentleman 
 was principal Librarian. The letter, which I believe has 
 never yet been printed, is undated, but it must have 
 been written early in 1860, since it evidently refers to 
 the select Committee of the House of Commons, which 
 was ordered on April 24, 1860, "to enquire into the 
 necessity for the extension of the British Museum." I 
 have examined the minutes of the Committee, before 
 which Panizzi, Sir Charles Eastlake, Austin Layard, Pro-
 
 144 TKflilltam flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 fessors Owen and Huxley, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Henry 
 Cole, and Richard Westmacott, among others, were 
 examined, but I cannot find that Thackeray gave evi- 
 dence. The letter I have permission to insert here. 
 
 " KENSINGTON, Thursday. 
 
 "MY DEAR PANIZZI, I'm writing my number for 
 dear life; only got your number 2 letter last night, the 
 greater part of which I passed over my book, and 
 intended upon my word to answer you this very after- 
 noon as soon as I came to a halt. Don't be angry with 
 me; I'm half crazy with my work and other annoyances 
 at this minute. 
 
 "I'll gladly come and say in behalf of the B. M. what 
 little I know that I've always found the very greatest 
 attention and aid there that I once came from Paris to 
 London to write an article in a review about French 
 affairs and that I went to the Bibliotheque du Roi, I 
 could only get a book at a time, and no sight of a cata- 
 logue. But then, I didn't go often, being disgusted 
 with the place, and entering it as a total stranger, with- 
 out any recommendation. 
 
 "If this testimony can be afforded by letter, I should 
 like it much better, (it is some years old now), and, if by 
 word of mouth, for Heaven's sake don't put me before a 
 House of Commons' Committee at the end of the month. 
 
 "And don't be angry with me, my dear old fellow, 
 for not writing, indeed I thought until the receipt of 
 number 2 last night, that there was no hurry for an 
 answer, and that I might put it off till my confounded 
 month's work was done. 
 
 "Yours always truly, my dear Panizzi, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY."
 
 Club OLife H5 
 
 Thackeray was also a frequent visitor to places of a 
 very different type. He loved Bohemia, and left an 
 admirable description of that land in the Adventures of 
 Philip. 
 
 "A pleasant land, not fenced with drab Stucco like 
 Tyburnia or Belgravia; not guarded by a huge standing 
 army of footmen ; not echoing with noble chariots ; not 
 replete with polite chintz drawing-rooms and neat tea- 
 tables ; a lan/i over which hangs an endless fog, occasioned 
 by much tobacco ; a land of chambers, billiard rooms, 
 supper rooms, oysters; a land of song; a land where 
 soda-water flows freely in the morning; a land of tin 
 dish-covers from taverns, and frothing porter ; a land of 
 lotus-eating (with lots of cayenne pepper), of pulls on 
 the river, of delicious reading of novels, magazines, and 
 saunterings in many studios ; a land where men call each 
 other by their Christian names; where most are old, 
 where almost all are young, and where, if a few oldsters 
 enter, it is because they have preserved more tenderly 
 and carefully than others their youthful spirits, and the 
 delightful capacity to be idle. I have lost my way to 
 Bohemia now, but it is certain that Prague is the most 
 picturesque city in the world." 
 
 Mr. Vizetelly has recorded that, in spite of Thackeray's 
 love for ' ' Prague, ' ' there was at least one of the customs 
 of the inhabitants that he disapproved of. "I remem- 
 ber," he says, "when several smart young writers 
 whose success had emboldened them to turn their backs 
 on Bohemia and most of its free and easy ways, but who 
 were still somewhat regardless of their personal appear- 
 ance were frequent guests at Thackeray's dinner-table, 
 where every courtesy was shown them by their distin- 
 guished host. After one of these entertainments I heard
 
 146 William flDafeepeace 
 
 him remark in the hope, no doubt, that the hint would 
 be conveyed to those for whom it was intended, 'They 
 are all capital fellows, but wouldn't be a whit the worse 
 for cleaner shirts.' ' 
 
 Mr. T. H. S. Escott mentions, in his Platform and 
 Press, that Thackeray frequently dropped in, after the 
 play, to a tiny establishment in the Strand kept by two 
 elderly maiden ladies, respectable to primness, for fish 
 suppers and other light refreshments. Mr. G. A. Sala 
 recorded how he first met Thackeray at a small club on 
 the first floor of a little old-fashioned tavern in Dean 
 Street, Soho, kept by one Dicky Moreland, supposed to 
 have been the last landlord in London who wore a pig- 
 tail and top-boots, and how Thackeray that night sang 
 The Mahogany Tree. 
 
 Thackeray was an original member of the Fielding 
 Club, the title of which was chosen by him. The Club 
 succeeded the C. C. C. (Cyder Cellars Club) and was 
 established in 1852, owing to the impossibility of getting 
 supper at the Garrick Club. Among the members were 
 Andrew Arcedeckne (the Foker of Pendennis), Arthur 
 Smith, Sir Charles Taylor, Monsieur Jullien, George 
 Henry Lewes, Dr. Russell (the war correspondent), Tom 
 Macdonald (the "Laughing Tom is laughing yet" of the 
 Bouillabaisse], Tom Taylor, Pigott (after, Examiner of 
 Plays), Shirley Brooks, Charles Lamb Kenney, Frank 
 Talfourd, Baron Huddleston, Sergeant Ballantine, John 
 Leech, Leigh Murray, lastly, Albert Smith, who wrote 
 a descriptive poem of the members, the last verse (xvi) 
 of which runs: 
 
 " And then there came a mighty man who, 'tis but fair to state, 
 Among the small is Affable, though Great amongst the great 
 The good Pendennis."
 
 Club OLite 147 
 
 There still remain to be mentioned three favourite 
 haunts of Thackeray, which, had I been observing strict 
 chronological order, should have been mentioned first. 
 To these places, the "Coal Hole," the "Cyder Cellars," 
 and "Evans's," Thackeray first went soon after he came 
 of age, and continued his visits until his children began 
 to grow into companions for him. 
 
 The "Coal Hole," owned by John Rhodes, was situ- 
 ated in a court off the Strand, near Fountain Court. 
 "We became naturally hungry at twelve o'clock at 
 night," Pendennis writes in The Newcomes, "and a 
 desire for Welsh rabbits and good old glee singing led us 
 to the 'Cave of Harmony.' ' 
 
 "One night Colonel Newcome, with hrs son Clive, 
 came here ' to see the wits. ' A timely warning to the 
 landlord from Jones of Trinity that a boy was in the 
 room, and a gentleman who was quite a greenhorn, and 
 the songs were so carefully selected that 'a ladies' school 
 might have come in and, but for the smell of the cigars 
 and brandy and water, have taken no harm by what 
 occurred.' The Colonel was delighted, especially when 
 Nadab the improvisatore, devoted a verse to him and to 
 his son, and he sang a ditty himself, 'Wapping Old 
 Stairs.' Unfortunately for the peace of the evening, 
 however, Captain Costigan entered, very drunk, and 
 insisted upon singing one of his most ribald songs. 
 
 " 'Silence!' Colonel Newcome roared at the end of 
 the second verse of drunken Captain Costigan's song at 
 the 'Cave of Harmony.' ' "Go on!" ' cries the Colonel, 
 in his high voice, trembling with anger. 'Does any gen- 
 tleman say "Go on?" Does any man who has a wife 
 and sisters, or children at home, say "Go on" to such 
 disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call
 
 148 'Qdillfam /iDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 yourself a gentleman, or to say you hold the King's 
 commission and to sit down amongst Christians and men 
 of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with this 
 wicked balderdash?' 
 
 " 'Why bring young boys here, old boy?' cries a 
 voice of the malcontents. 
 
 " 'Why? Because I thought I was coming to a 
 society of gentlemen,' cried out the indignant Colonel. 
 ' Because I never could have believed that Englishmen 
 could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, 
 so to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch ! 
 Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for 
 my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see, for once 
 in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour 
 drunkenness and whisky may bring a man. Never 
 mind the change, sir! curse the change!' says the 
 Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. 'Keep it till you see 
 me in this place again, which will be never by George, - 
 never!' And shouldering his stick, and scowling round 
 at the company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant 
 gentleman stalked away, his boy after him. 
 
 "Clive seemed rather shamefaced, but I fear the rest 
 of the company looked still more foolish. ' Aussi, que 
 diable venait-il faire dans cette galeref says King of 
 Corpus to Jones of Trinity; and Jones gave a shrug of 
 his shoulders, which were smarting perhaps; for that 
 uplifted cane of the Colonel's had somehow fallen on the 
 back of every man in the room."* 
 
 *This episode in The Newcomes has something in common with 
 the following reminiscence told by Mr. Francis St. John Thackeray 
 in Temple Bar, 1893: "He" [Thackeray] "took me to the Garrick 
 Club, where I remember his checking some one in the act of blurting 
 out an oath, the utterance of which he would not tolerate in my pres- 
 ence." This illustrates what he once wrote in Ptmch : "We have a 
 love for all little boys at school, for many thousands of them read and
 
 Club Xife 149 
 
 The "Cyder Cellars," which is better known by name 
 to the present generation, was owned by William 
 Rhodes, the brother of the "Coal Hole" proprietor, and 
 on his death it was successfully managed by his widow. 
 It was situated in Maiden Lane, next to the stage door 
 of the Adelphi Theatre the site is now covered by a 
 Jewish synagogue. Porson, the Greek Professor, used 
 to come here, and for years his portrait hung upon the 
 wall, and in Thackeray's time Dr. Maginn, and most of 
 the Fraser set, were among the habitues. 
 
 It was here, too, that, in the days of his youth, 
 Thackeray heard Sloman sing his improvisations, and 
 referred to him in the verses to Braham in the National 
 Standard: "Sloman repeats the strains his father 
 sang," to which was appended a satirical note: "It is 
 needless to speak of this eminent vocalist and improvisa- 
 tore. He nightly delights a numerous and respectable 
 audience at the Cyder Cellars." 
 
 Here also, in October, 1848, he went, at least twice, 
 "to hear the man sing about going to be hanged." The 
 song was called Sam Hall, and the singer was the well- 
 known comedian, Ross. "The chant," Mr. Hollings- 
 head has recorded, "was that of a chimney-sweep before 
 he was to be hanged for murder. He was a defiant, 
 blasphemous chimney-sweep a coarse Agnostic with a 
 determination to father his crimes on those who made 
 him. . . . Ross sat astride upon a chair, leaning 
 over the back, with his face glaring at the audience. He 
 
 love Punch. May he never write a word that shall not be honest and 
 fit for them to read! " 
 
 Indeed, it may be gathered from any of his works that, while 
 saying " Children, respect your parents and your elders," he per- 
 sistently preached the quite as important, and much more often 
 forgotten, "Parents, respect your children," "Men, respect the boys."
 
 150 William flDafcepeace Hbacfeerag 
 
 told his hearers how he had robbed both great and small, 
 and at the end of each verse he damned his own eyes, 
 until his very straightforward phrase became the catch- 
 word and refrain of the convivial early morning. ' ' This 
 immensely popular song was usually given with tre- 
 mendous effect about two o'clock in the morning, and 
 as many of the guests had imbibed more liquor than was 
 good for them, the songs became so equivocal in charac- 
 ter as to quite justify Thackeray's attack in The New- 
 comes. 
 
 Albert Smith described the place in The Medical Stu- 
 dent, and The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury; and Thack- 
 eray wrote of it as the "Back Kitchen" in Pendennis, in 
 a passage that is well worth quoting: 
 
 "Healthy country tradesmen and farmers in London 
 for their business came and recreated themselves with 
 the jolly singing and suppers at the Back Kitchen; 
 squads of young apprentices and assistants the shutters 
 being closed over the scene of their labours came hither 
 for fresh air, doubtless; dashing young medical students, 
 gallant, dashing, what is called loudly dressed, and, 
 must it be owned? somewhat dirty, came here, smoking 
 and drinking and vigourously applauding the songs; 
 young University bucks were to be found here, too, 
 with that indescribable simper which is only learned at 
 the knees of Alma Mater; and handsome young guards- 
 men and florid bucks from the St. James's Street clubs; 
 nay! senators English and Irish and even members 
 of the House of Peers." 
 
 But more famous than either of the last-mentioned 
 places, and more congenial to Thackeray, was Evans's 
 Supper Rooms at the western corner of the Covent Gar- 
 den Piazza. "Evans's, late Joy's," was the punning
 
 Club Xife 151 
 
 inscription on the lamp, though in Thackeray's time the 
 proprietor was John ("Paddy") Green. This was a great 
 resort for men about town, and among the frequenters 
 were Sergeant Ballantine, Douglas Jerrold, Albert and 
 Arthur Smith, James Hannay, G. A. Sala, Lionel 
 Lawson, Horace Mayhew, and (sometimes) Leech. 
 
 The principal entertainers here, in opposition to 
 Ross's "Sam Hall," and the great bass singer (much 
 appreciated by Thackeray) Hodgsen with his song, The 
 Bodysnatcher, at the Cyder Cellars, were the tenor, 
 John Binge; the basso, S. Jones; "Paddy" Green him- 
 self (he had been a chorus singer at the opera) ; and a 
 German who sang jodling songs; while the comic ele- 
 ment was supplied by Sam Cowell, singer and actor, and 
 Sharpe, who was a great success at Vauxhall and Cre- 
 morne as well, but who took to drink and was found 
 dead from starvation in a country lane. The ribald 
 songs which were at first an element of the performances 
 were soon abandoned ; and in their place were choruses 
 sung by trained choir-boys, whose fresh young voices in 
 the old glees and madrigals of Purcell, Niedermayer, and 
 Pearsall, were a source of delight to Thackeray. 
 
 "Thackeray's liking for Evans" I again quote from 
 Mr. Hollingshead's book "was more cultivated than 
 mine, and based upon his passionate love for the last 
 century. Evans's belonged to the seventeenth nearly 
 as much as it belonged to the eighteenth 'century. It 
 was the connecting link between the old Covent Garden 
 coffee-houses the Wills and Buttons and the music 
 halls of the present. As a mansion it dates back to 
 William the Third's time, and has a carved staircase of 
 1691, which cannot be matched in England. Its most 
 celebrated resident perhaps was Admiral Lord Orford.
 
 i5 2 William /iDafcepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 In Hogarth's picture of Morning, the archi- 
 tectural frontage, unaltered for three centuries, appears. 
 . . . These and a hundred other antiquarian memories 
 served to endear the place to Thackeray, for it was a 
 material link between the days of the old Garrick Club 
 and the more beloved days when Queen Anne lived and 
 reigned. . . ."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AUTHORSHIP PUNCH
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AUTHORSHIP PUNCH 
 
 SHORTLY after his wife's break-down, Thackeray 
 was constantly in Paris, where his children were 
 staying with his grandmother; and it was during a visit 
 there, in the autumn of 1840, that, from a room open- 
 ing upon a garden in the Champs lyses he witnessed 
 the Second Funeral of Napoleon that is, the ceremony 
 of conveying the remains of the great warrior to their 
 last resting-place at the Hotel des Invalides. A descrip- 
 tion of this in the form of three letters to Miss Smith 
 of London, together with the addition of a poem entitled 
 The Chronicle of a Drum* was published early in the 
 following year by Hugh Cunningham of St. Martin's 
 Place, f the successor of Macrone, who published The 
 Paris Sketch Book; but it met with very little success, 
 
 *It is interesting to notice that this poem and Mrs. Browning's 
 Crowned and Buried conclude with the same sentiment: 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 " And somewhere now, in yonder stars, 
 Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is." 
 
 E. B. BROWNING. 
 
 " But whether 
 
 The crowned Napoleon or the buried clay 
 Be better, I discern not Angels may." 
 
 t " Have you read Thackeray's little book, The Second Funeral 
 of Napoleon?" Edward Fitzgerald wrote to W. H. Thompson on 
 February 18, 1841. "If not, pray do, and buy it, and ask others to 
 buy it: as each copy sold puts 7^d. in Thackeray's pocket: which is 
 not very heavy just now, I take it." 
 
 155
 
 156 TKflilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 though it was brought out at the low price of half-a- 
 crown. Now ^33 los. is paid for a copy. There is an 
 interesting advertisement at the end of the volume, 
 which announces that there is "preparing for immediate 
 publication Dinner Reminiscences, or the Young Gourman- 
 dizer s Guide at Paris, by Mr. M. A. Titmarsti' ; but, 
 probably discouraged by the reception accorded to The 
 Second Funeral of Napoleon, Thackeray abandoned his 
 intention, and instead of the Guide he used part of the 
 collected material for an article, The Memorials of Gour- 
 mandizing, which appeared in Fraserin. June, 1841. 
 
 This book ( The Second Funeral} is probably the book 
 most characteristic of its author. He appreciated Napo- 
 leon, but thought the whole affair humbug; and he said 
 so, though he knew he was running counter to the feel- 
 ings of two nations. For this the Times reviewer 
 blamed him, and, while praising the book, accused its 
 author of flippancy and conceit. To this charge Thack- 
 eray replied in the article, Men and Pictures (Fraser, 
 July, 1849), m t ne half-serious, half-bantering manner he 
 affected towards adverse criticism. 
 
 "Oh, you thundering old Times! Napoleon's funeral 
 was a humbug, and your constant reader said so. The 
 people engaged in it were humbugs, and this even 
 Michael Angelo hinted at. There may be irreverence 
 in this, and the process of humbug-hunting may end 
 rather awkwardly for some people. But surely there is 
 no conceit. The shamming of modesty is the most pert 
 conceit of all, the/r/i&tts* affectation of deference where 
 you don't feel it, the sneaking acquiescence in lies. It 
 is very hard that a man may not tell the truth as he 
 fancies it, without being accused of conceit : but so the 
 world wags. As has already been prettily shown in
 
 /Miscellaneous Hutborsbfp "puncb" 157 
 
 that before-mentioned little book about Napoleon, that 
 is still to be had of the Publisher, there is a Ballad in the 
 Volume which, if properly studied, will be alone worth 
 two-and-sixpence to any man. 
 
 "Well, the Funeral of Napoleon was a humbug, and 
 being so, what was a man to call it? What do we call a 
 rose? Is it disrespectful to call it by its own innocent 
 name? And, in like manner, are we bound, out of 
 respect for society, to speak of humbug only in a cir- 
 cumlocutory way to call it something else, as they say 
 some Indian people do their devil to wrap it up in rid- 
 dles and charades! Nothing is easier. Take, for 
 instance, the following couple of sonnets on the subject : 
 
 " The glad spring sun shone yesterday, as Mr. 
 M. Titmarsh wandered with his favourite lassie 
 By silver Seine, among the meadows grassy 
 
 Meadows, like mail-coach guards new clad at Easter. 
 Fair was the sight 'twixt Neuilly and Passy; 
 
 And green the field, and bright the river's glister. 
 
 "The bird sang, sang salutation to the spring; 
 
 Already buds and leaves from branches burst: 
 
 'The surly winter time hath done its worst,' 
 Said Michael; ' Lo, the bees are on the wing! ' 
 Then on the ground his lazy limbs did fling. 
 
 Meanwhile the bees pass'd by him with my first. 
 My second dare I to your notice bring, 
 
 Or name to delicate ears that animal accurst? 
 
 " To all our earthly family of fools 
 
 My whole, resistless despot, gives the law 
 Humble or great, we kneel to it the same 
 
 O'er camp and court, the Senate and the schools, 
 
 Our grand Invisible Lama sits and rules 
 By Ministers that are its men of straw. 
 
 " Sir Robert utters it place of wit 
 
 And straight the Opposition shouts ' Hear, hear! ' 
 And oh! but all the Whiggish benches cheer 
 When great Lord John retorts it, as is fit.
 
 158 William flDafeepeace Ubacfeerag 
 
 In you, my Press, each day throughout the year, 
 
 On vast broad sheets we find its praises writ. 
 Oh! wondrous are the columns that you rear 
 And sweet the many hymns you roar in praise of it! 
 
 \ 
 "(The reader can easily accommodate the line to the 
 
 name of his favourite paper. Thus : 
 
 .. T Times , , , 
 
 " In you, my -^ each day throughout the year 
 
 ,. , Herald , .. , , , 
 
 " In you, my r=r. daily through the year 
 
 or, in France: 
 
 "In you, my Galignani 's Messagere ; 
 
 "a capital paper, because you have there the very cream 
 of all the others. In the last line for, 'Morning' you 
 can read 'Evening* or 'Weekly' as circumstances 
 prompt.) 
 
 "Sacred word ! It is kept out of the Dictionaries, 
 as if the great compilers of those publications were 
 afraid to utter it. Well then, the Funeral of Napoleon 
 was a humbug, as Titmarsh wrote, and a still better 
 proof that it was a humbug was this, that nobody 
 bought Titmarsh's book, and of the 10,000 copies made 
 ready by the publisher, not above 3,000 went off. It 
 was a humbug, and an exploded humbug. Peace be to 
 it. Parlons d'autres chases." 
 
 It was not until a Quarter of a century had elapsed 
 that the article was reprinted. Then, in January, 1866, 
 it was printed in the pages of the Cornhill Magazine, with 
 an introductory note by the Editor: 
 
 "Mr. Thackeray once more appears in the pages of 
 the Cornhill Magazine. We are able to give our readers 
 some sketches of his, which have, indeed, been printed 
 before, but that was when he was writing for a genera-
 
 rtMscellaneous Butborsbfp "flMmcb" 159 
 
 tion so astonishingly dull as to see no merit in Barry 
 Lyndon; while we in our days wonder sometimes whether 
 even Thackeray himself ever surpassed that little book, 
 so wonderfully vigourous and keen. But he wrote many 
 things then that were neglected and were soon alto- 
 gether forgotten. One of them was The Second Funeral 
 of Napoleon, of which probably not one in ten thousand 
 of the readers of this Magazine ever heard. And yet it 
 was published in due form and in decent duodecimo, by 
 Mr. Hugh Cunningham, a bookseller whose shop was at 
 the corner of St. Martin's Place: he who also first pub- 
 lished The Paris Sketch Book. It was illustrated by 
 some woodcuts of no great merit, and thereto was added 
 the famous Chronicle of the Drum which the 'leading 
 Magazines' had all refused to print. And as the able 
 editors of the time rejected the ballad, so the intelligent 
 public of the time refused to read the account of The 
 Second Funeral of Napoleon, though it had all the allure- 
 ment of being written at the time, and in the presence 
 of the event it commemorates. The gentleman who 
 sends us the original MS., from which we reprint the 
 long-forgotten narrative, says: 
 
 "The Letters on the Second Funeral were a failure. I 
 had the pleasure of editing the tiny volume for Mr. 
 Thackeray, and ran it through the press. And after a 
 while, on the dismal tidings from the publisher that the 
 little effort made no impression on the public, Mr. 
 Thackeray wrote to me from Paris a pretty little note 
 commencing: 'So your poor Titmarsh has made another 
 fiasco. How are we to take the great stupid public by 
 the ears? Never mind; I think I have something which 
 will surprise them yet. . . .' This was evidently an 
 allusion to Vanity Fair, which he had begun at that time."
 
 160 TKHilliam /Ibafeepeace Ubacfeerag 
 
 In 1841 Thackeray also published, through Hugh 
 Cunningham, of St. Martin's Place, two volumes of 
 reprints under the title of Comic Tales and Sketches. 
 Edited and illustrated by Mr. Michael Angela Titmarsh, 
 with a preface dated " Paris, April I, 1841," the greater 
 part of which is well worth inserting here : 
 
 "A custom which the publishers have adopted of late 
 cannot be too strongly praised, both by authors of high 
 repute, and by writers of no repute at all, viz., the 
 custom of causing the writings of unknown literary char- 
 acters to be edited by some person who is already a 
 favourite of the public. The labour is not so difficult as 
 at first may be supposed. A publisher writes 'My dear 
 Sir, Enclosed is a draft on Messrs. So-and-So; will 
 you edit Mr. What-d'ye-call-em's book?' The well- 
 known author writes 'My dear Sir, I have to acknowl- 
 edge the receipt of so much, and will edit the book with 
 pleasure.' And the book is published; and from that 
 day until the end of the world, the well-known author 
 never hears of it again, except he has a mind to read it, 
 when he orders it from the circulating library. 
 
 "This little editorial fiction is one which can do harm 
 to nobody in the world, and only good to the young 
 author so introduced ; for who would notice him in such 
 a great, crowded, bustling world unless he came forward 
 by a decent letter of recommendation? .... 
 
 "When there came to be a question of republishing 
 the tales in these volumes, the three authors, Major 
 Gahagan, Mr. Fitzroy Yellowplush, and myself, had a 
 violent dispute upon the matter of editing; and atone 
 time we talked of editing each other all round. The 
 toss of a half-penny, however, decided the question in 
 my favour; and I shall be very glad, in a similar manner,
 
 /HMscellaneous Hutborsbip "puncb" 161 
 
 to 'edit' any works, of any author, on any subject, or 
 in any language whatever. 
 
 "Mr. Yellowplush's Memoirs appeared in Eraser's 
 Magazine, and have been reprinted accurately from that 
 publication. The elegance of their style made them 
 excessively popular in America, where they were 
 reprinted more than once. Major Gahagan's Reminis- 
 cences from the New Monthly Magazine were received by 
 our American brethren with similar piratical honours; 
 and the Editor has had the pleasure of perusing them 
 likewise; but Doctor Strumpff, the celebrated Sanskrit 
 Professor in the University of Bonn, has already deci- 
 phered the first ten pages, has compiled a copious vocabu- 
 lary and notes, has separated the mythic from the 
 historical part of the volume, and discovered it is like 
 Homer, the work of many ages and persons. He declares 
 the work to be written in the Cocknaic dialect; but, for 
 this and other conjectures, the reader is referred to his 
 essay. 
 
 ' ' The Bedford-Row Conspiracy also appeared in the New 
 Monthly Magazine ; and the reader of French novels will 
 find that one of the tales of the ingenious M. Charles de 
 Barnard is very similar to it in plot. As M. de Barnard's 
 tale appeared before the Conspiracy, it is very probable 
 that envious people will be disposed to say that the Eng- 
 lish author borrowed from the French one; a matter 
 which the public is quite at liberty to settle as it 
 chooses. 
 
 "The history of TJte Fatal Boots formed part of The 
 Comic Almanack three years since, and if the author has 
 not ventured to make designs for it, as for the other 
 tales in the volume, the reason is, that the Boots have 
 been already illustrated by Mr. George Cruikshank, a
 
 162 UClillfam /iDafeepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 gentleman upon whom Mr. Titmarsh does not wish to 
 provoke criticism. 
 
 "On the title-page the reader is presented with three 
 accurate portraits of the author of these volumes. They 
 are supposed to be marching hand-in-hand, and are just 
 on the very brink of Immortality." 
 
 The fact that The Professor, a Tale, which was included 
 in this book, is not mentioned in the preface, has led 
 more than one writer into the error of stating that it was 
 then published for the first time. As a matter of fact it 
 is the story of the same name contributed to Bentley's 
 Miscellany, then under the editorship of Boz, and at the 
 time when Oliver Twist was appearing in its pages. 
 
 From Kenny Meadows, who at this time was publish- 
 ing a series of Heads of the People Douglas Jerrold and 
 Marryat were among the contributors Thackeray 
 accepted a commission to write three sketches : Captain 
 Rook and Mr. Pigeon, and The Fashionable Authoress (by 
 William Thackeray), and The Artist (by Michael Angela 
 TitmarsJi). He also wrote for Fraser the already men- 
 tioned Memorials of Gourmandizing (June), the title of 
 which explains itself in this article first appeared one 
 of his imitations of Horace, To his Serving Boy; On Men 
 and Pictures, in which, as I have said, he defended his 
 Second Funeral of Napoleon; and Men and Coats 
 (August), an amusing paper on clothes; while to Cruik- 
 shank's Omnibus he contributed Little Spitz, A Lenten 
 Anecdote from the German Professor of Spass (October), 
 and the humourous King of Brentford 's Testament 
 (December). 
 
 But 1841 is especially memorable for the production 
 of the best of his earlier writings. "The best thing I 
 ever wrote, ' ' he himself said six years later, on the eve
 
 flMscellaneous Hutfoorsbfp "puncb" 163 
 
 of the publication of Vanity Fair, which, after being 
 rejected by Blackwood, came out from September to 
 December in Fraser The History of Samuel Titmarsh 
 and the Great Hoggarty Diamond, edited and illustrated 
 by Sam s Cousin, Michael Angela. 
 
 The excellencies of this story were quite overlooked 
 by the general reading public, who, no doubt, found it 
 clever and amusing, but had not sufficient discernment 
 to see how good it was, or to note in it the promise of 
 the future greatness of its author. There were, how- 
 ever, a few critics who were less blind than the public, 
 and amongst these was John Stirling, who wrote to his 
 mother: "I have seen no new books, but am reading 
 your last. I got hold of the two first numbers of The 
 Hoggarty Diamond, and read them with extreme delight. 
 What is there better in Fielding or Goldsmith? The 
 man is a true genius, and with quiet comfort might pro- 
 duce masterpieces which would last as long as any we 
 have, and delight millions of unborn readers. There is 
 more truth in nature in one of those papers, than in all 
 Dickens' novels put together." All of which letter 
 says a great deal for the critical faculty of the writer, but 
 unfortunately was of little avail in raising Thackeray's 
 literary status. 
 
 This year, too, saw the commencement of Thackeray's 
 long connection with Punch. 
 
 This is not the place to record the origin of this 
 famous paper, but it is worth while noting that it was 
 seriously intended by Thackeray and others to start a 
 journal on very much the same lines about a year earlier. 
 Mr. Henry Vizetelly is the historian of this unfulfilled 
 intention. "A scheme was proposed," he wrote, "to
 
 164 TJUUllfam /IDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 produce a satirical journal on the lines of Phillipon's 
 Paris Charivari, excepting that the proposed new venture 
 was to be a weekly instead of a daily publication." As 
 no capitalist could be found willing to risk his money 
 ' ' it was determined to start the London Charivari on the 
 co-operative principle. . . . After considerable 
 negotiation the following list of proprietors 
 was decided upon: Authors: Jerrold, Thackeray, 
 Laman Blanchard, and Percival Leigh; . . . Art- 
 ists: Kenny Meadows, Leech, and . . . Alfred 
 Crowquill; Engraver: Orrin Smith; Printers: Jobbin, 
 lithographic J. Vizetelly, letter-press; publisher, R. 
 Tyas. Specimen pages of the text were put into type, 
 when, by some means or other, Thackeray got 
 hold of the idea that each co-partner in the proposed 
 publication would not only be liable for its debts, but 
 also for the private debts of his co-partners; and as 
 none of the latter possessed sufficient legal knowledge 
 to point out the fallacy of this assumption, and some 
 were suspicious of the soundness of their proposed col- 
 leagues, the continuation of the London Charivari was 
 forthwith abandoned, and on the i/th July, 1841, the 
 first number of Punch appeared." 
 
 Soon after, to quote Shirley Brooks, "on a good day 
 for himself, the journal, and the world, Thackeray found 
 Punch." When Edward Fitzgerald heard of this, he 
 wrote on May 22nd to a friend, "Tell Thackeray not to 
 go into Punch yet. ' ' Thackeray disregarded this advice 
 fortunately as it happened but there is no doubt the 
 monitor was right, for the paper, originally owned by 
 three people, had been so ridiculously under-capitalized, 
 that they were compelled to sell the journal to its pres- 
 ent proprietors in order to meet their liabilities. Messrs.
 
 /UMscellaneous Butborsbip "puncb" 165 
 
 Bradbury & Evans, however, by their capital and business 
 experience, soon put the paper on a more reputable 
 footing. 
 
 Within a few weeks of Fitzgerald's warning, in the 
 same number that introduced John Oxenford's work to 
 the Punch reader, Thackeray's first contribution ap- 
 peared The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee. Miss 
 Tickletoby s Lectures on English History which are usu- 
 ally considered his earliest work for this paper, did not 
 appear until a fortnight later, at the beginning of the 
 second volume for 1842. These Lectures, no doubt, 
 suggested to Beckett and Leech the idea of The Comic 
 History of England, and The Comic History of Rome, but 
 they were not considered a success, and, indeed, were 
 discontinued after the eleventh week. 
 
 "I am sorry to learn that you were dissatisfied with 
 my contribution to Punch, ' ' Thackeray wrote from Hal- 
 vertown on September 27 to the proprietors. "I wish 
 my writing had the good fortune to please every one. 
 I shall pass the winter either in Paris or in 
 London where, very probably, I may find some other 
 matter more suitable to the paper, in which case I shall 
 make another attempt upon Punch."* 
 
 He soon caught the tone of the paper, and was able 
 to suit his writings to its requirements. For ten years 
 he poured all his best work into it. He had a free hand 
 and was able to employ all his talents he contributed, 
 with a fine indifference, duologues, sketches, love-let- 
 ters, thumb-nail drawings, criticisms, political skits, 
 social satires, poems, parodies, caricatures even illustra- 
 
 *77ie History of Pimch. It is singular to notice now inaccurate 
 the painstaking and laborious Trollope can be, when he takes to bio- 
 graphical work. He states that Thackeray began to write on Punch 
 in 1843 an d ceased writing in 1852; both of which dates are wrong.
 
 166 TKHilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 tions to other writers' works. The paper would accept 
 anything, if only it were amusing, and soon he became 
 the principal literary supporter of the worthy Mr. 
 Punch. To Number 137 (Christmas, 1843), which is 
 still famous as having contained The Song of the Shirt, 
 he contributed a Singular Letter from the Regent of 
 Spain, and three cuts illustrating sailors who had found 
 a bottle in the sea: "Sherry perhaps" "Rum, I 
 hope" "Tracts, by Jove/" With this number he took 
 his place at the Dinner, as a substitute for Albert Smith.* 
 
 Before this, he had contributed Mr. Spec's Remon- 
 strance,^ a Turkish Letter concerning the Divertisement 
 "Les Houris," a Second Turkish Letter, and with Jerrold 
 had created Jenkins to typify the Morning Post. 
 
 His other papers, under the pseudonyms of 7V/- 
 marsh, Policeman X., Our Eastern Contributor, Our Fat 
 Contributor, Solomon Pacifico, Fitzroy Clarence, Punch" s 
 
 *The plan (which I copy from the History of Punch} of the Punch 
 dinner-table in 1855 was 
 
 William Bradbury, 
 
 Douglas Jerrold, John Leech, 
 
 Tom Taylor, W. M. Thackeray, 
 
 Gilbert A. Beckett, Shirley Brooks, 
 
 Horace Mayhew, Mark Lemon, 
 
 Percival Leigh, John Tenniel, 
 
 F. M. Evans. 
 And in 1860: 
 
 William Bradbury, 
 
 W. M. Thackeray John Leech, 
 
 (when he comes), 
 
 Tom Taylor, Henry Silver, 
 
 Horace Mayhew, Charles Keene, 
 
 Shirley Brooks, John Tenniel, 
 
 Percival Leigh, Mark Lemon, 
 
 F. M. Evans. 
 
 fThe pseudonym "Spec" seems to have been used about two 
 years before, when Cunningham published Sketches by Spec. No. i, 
 Britannia Protecting the Drama. Only this No. i was published, 
 and of this the only known copy is in the possession of Mr. C. P. 
 Johnson, who had it reproduced in facsimile by the Autotype Com- 
 pany in 1885.
 
 " SHERRY, PERHAPS."
 
 " RUM, I HOPE.
 
 /HMscellaneous Hutborsbtp "ipund>" 167 
 
 Commissioner, Jeames, Paul Pindar, etc., will be men- 
 tioned later. 
 
 The account of Punch has made me anticipate a little, 
 and it is now necessary to go back to 1842. 
 
 In that year Thackeray's published writings were: 
 Sultan Stork, being the One Thousand and Second Night. 
 By Major G. O'G. Gahagan, H.E.I.C.S. (Ainsworth, 
 February, May), a continuation of the Arabian Nights 
 in the warrior's best style; Dickens in France (Fraser, 
 March), a most amusing account of Nicholas Nickleby, 
 ou Les Voleurs de Londres, then being performed at the 
 Ambigu-Comique Theater on the Boulevard; An Exhi- 
 bition Gossip (Ainsworth, June), a letter to Monsieur 
 Guillaume, peintre, criticising contemporary English 
 artists; Fitz-Boodle' s Confessions (Fraser, June); Profes- 
 sions, by George Fitz-Boodle, being appeals to the Unem- 
 ployed Younger Sons of the Nobility (Fraser, June) only 
 the first two of the three professions suggested here have 
 been republished ; and Miss Lowe (Fraser, October). 
 
 In June, 1842, Thackeray visited Ireland, where he 
 made a sort of grand tour, seeing everything and every- 
 body and going everywhere to Dublin, Waterford, 
 Cork, Killarney, Galway, Connemara, Wicklow, Belfast, 
 The Giants' Causeway, and many other places. Perhaps 
 the most interesting event of the trip was the visit paid 
 to Charles Lever, who was then living at Templerogue, 
 which lies four miles southwest of Ireland. 
 
 The two novelists had many conversations, and per- 
 haps the principal result of this intercourse was that 
 Lever's works, which had been essentially Irish before 
 this time, became more cosmopolitan in character. 
 Thackeray endeavoured to persuade him to quit Dub- 
 lin, where he was surrounded by third-rate writers, and
 
 168 TKHilliam flDafeepeace ITbacfeeras 
 
 to come to London, where he would be able to make 
 much more money without any more trouble. So much 
 advantage, indeed, did Thackeray think his fellow- 
 novelist would derive from his change of residence, that 
 he backed his advice by offers of pecuniary and other 
 assistance, if such were needed. Lever, however, for 
 various reasons, declined this proposal, and afterwards 
 told a friend that Thackeray was the most good-natured 
 man in the world, "but that help from him would be 
 worse than no help at all. ... He (Thackeray) was 
 like a man struggling to keep his head above water, and 
 who offers to teach his friend to swim." Lever also 
 added that Thackeray "would write for anything and 
 about anything, and had so lost himself that his status 
 in London was not good."* 
 
 The result of this visit to the sister isle was the Irish 
 Sketch Book,\ published in two volumes by Messrs. 
 Chapman & Hall the first book of Thackeray's brought 
 out by this firm. The Sketch-Book was signed, like 
 most of his work at this time, with the familiar Michael 
 Angela Titmarsh; but in the dedication (dated London, 
 April 27, 1843) to Charles Lever, his real name first 
 appeared "laying aside for the moment the travelling 
 title of Mr. Titmarsh, let me . . . subscribe my- 
 self, my dear Lever, most sincerely and gratefully yours, 
 W. M. Thackeray." 
 
 Lever was much blamed by some of his countrymen 
 for accepting the dedication of a book that they declared 
 
 * " Thackeray had a sincere regard for Charles, and would say any- 
 thing to him." MAJOR D. 
 
 |This work was to have come out under the Titmarshian title of 
 The Cockney in Ireland, but the publishers, preferring the delightful 
 ambiguity of " Sketch-Book," so ticketed the book. VIZETELLY, 
 Glances Back Through Seventy Years.
 
 " TRACTS, BY JOVE!
 
 /HMsceltaneous Hutborsblp "fiMmcb" 169 
 
 to be full of blunders and exaggerations though 
 Edward Fitzgerald wrote from Dublin: "It is all true. 
 I ordered a bath here, and when I got in the waiter said 
 it was heated to 90 degrees, but it was scalding ; he next 
 locked me up in the room, instead of my locking him 
 out." 
 
 Lever, however, reviewed the book himself in the 
 Dublin University Magazine, which he was then editing ; 
 and it is certain that Thackeray did not mean to annoy 
 the Irish, for in after years he paid the whole nation a 
 great compliment a very unusual thing for him to do 
 in the English Humourists, when he declared: "No, the 
 Dean was no Irishman no Irishman ever gave but with 
 a kind word and a kind heart." 
 
 Mr. Henry Vizetelly, in conjunction with Mr. Andrew 
 Spottiswoode, had just set up the Pictorial Times in 
 opposition to Ingram' s Illustrated London News (with 
 which until recently he had himself been associated), and 
 he was gathering for his staff as many promising young 
 men as he could find. 
 
 "I next saw Mr. Thackeray," he has related in his 
 autobiography. "On calling at the address given me a 
 shop in Jermyn Street, eight or ten doors from Regent 
 Street, and within a few doors of the present Museum of 
 Geology and knocking at the private entrance, a young 
 lodging house slavey, in answer to my enquiries, bade 
 me follow her upstairs. I did so, to the very top of the 
 house, and after my card had been handed in I was 
 asked to enter the front apartment, where a tall, slim 
 individual between thirty and thirty-five years of age, 
 with a pleasant, smiling countenance, and a bridgeless 
 nose, and clad in dressing-gown of decided Parisian cut, 
 rose from a small table standing close to the near window
 
 170 TJdilliam /IDafcepeace 
 
 to receive me. When he stood up the low pitch of the 
 room caused him to look even taller than he really was, 
 and his actual height was well over six feet. 
 The apartment was an exceedingly plainly furnished 
 bedroom, with common rush-seated chairs, and painted 
 French bedstead, and with neither looking-glass nor 
 prints on the bare, cold, cheerless-looking walls. On the 
 table from which Mr. Thackeray had risen a white cloth 
 was spread, on which was a frugal breakfast tray a cup 
 of chocolate and some dry toast ; and huddled together 
 at the other end were writing materials, two or three 
 numbers of Fraser's Magazine, and a few slips of manu- 
 script. I presented Mr. Nickisson's letter, and explained 
 the object of my visit, when Mr. Thackeray at once 
 undertook to write upon art, to review such books as he 
 might fancy, and to contribute an occasional article on 
 the Opera, more with reference to its frequenters than 
 from a critical point of view. So satisfied was he with 
 the three guineas offered him for a couple of columns 
 weekly, that he jocularly expressed himself willing to 
 sign an agreement for life upon these terms. I can only 
 suppose, from the eager way in which he closed with my 
 proposal, that the prospects of an additional hundred 
 and sixty pounds to his income was, at that moment, 
 anything but a matter of indifference. The humble 
 quarters in which he was installed seemed at any rate to 
 indicate that, from some reason or other, strict economy 
 was just then the order of the day with him." 
 
 Thackeray's interview with Vizetelly led to the Letters 
 on The Fine Arts, which appeared in the Pictorial Times 
 during March and April. They were six in number, and 
 included a letter on Art Unions, notices of the Academy
 
 rtMscellaneous Hutborsbfp "puncb" 171 
 
 and Water Colour Exhibitions, and reviews of Macau- 
 lay's newly collected essays, and Disraeli's Coningsby 
 the last in particular an exquisite performance. Then 
 Thackeray went Eastward Ho ! and the letters ceased. 
 Before leaving the Pictorial Times, it may be mentioned 
 that, by some error, Thackeray had not been paid for 
 the Coningsby review, and on his return to England, he 
 wrote to Vizetelly the following amusing note : "Why 
 doesn't the P. T. pay up? Rate Keys" [the publisher] 
 "for not sending on my cheque. I had more than half 
 a mind to post the holder of Queen Victoria's patent" 
 [Spottiswoode, the Crown printer] "as a defaulter at the 
 top of Cheops' pyramid for the information of future 
 gadders-about. The vigilant old centuries, which look 
 down so inquisitively, would have blinked their weary 
 eyes at the exposure." 
 
 During 1843 the continuation of the Fitz-Boodle 
 Papers Dorothea (January); Ottilia, in which are the 
 two Willow Tree poems (February) ; and the Men' 's Wives 
 series : Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry (March), The Ravens- 
 wing (April, May), Denis Haggarty 's Wife (October), 
 The 's Wife* (November), were his principal contri- 
 butions "to Fraser. But in addition Mr. Titmarsh printed 
 Jerome Paturot, with considerations on Novels in General 
 (September) and Bluebeard's Ghost (October) while Mr. 
 Fitz-Boodle sent a review of Grant's Paris and its people 
 for the December number. 
 
 The following is a letter first printed in the Book- 
 worm (May, 1890) from Thackeray to the then propri- 
 etor of Fraser' s Magazine. 
 
 The letter explains itself. 
 
 *This has not been reprinted.
 
 172 TKflllUam flDafeepeace Ubacfeerap 
 
 "13, GREAT CORAM STREET, April 8, 1843. 
 
 "MY DEAR NlCKISSON, I was at no loss, in reading 
 the amusing Illustrations of Discount in the Magazine, 
 to discover the name of the Author. Mr. Deady Keane 
 shook me by the hand only a fortnight since, and at the 
 very same time no doubt was writing the libel on me 
 which appeared, to my no small surprise, in that very 
 Article. 
 
 "I have advisedly let a week pass without deciding 
 upon the course I ought to pursue. Few people (none 
 that I have seen) know that the attack in question is lev- 
 elled at myself, nor indeed have I any desire to make the 
 public acquainted with that fact. But, as in a private 
 house or an Inn, if any person with no other provoca- 
 tion but that of drunkenness or natural malice should 
 take a fancy to call me by foul names, I should have a 
 right to appeal to the host and request him to have the 
 individual so offending put out of doors I may similarly 
 complain to you that I have been grossly insulted in 
 your Magazine. 
 
 "Having written long in it; being known to you 
 (please God) as an honest man and not an ungenerous 
 one; I have a right to complain that a shameful and an 
 unprovoked attack has been made upon me in the Maga- 
 zine and as an act of justice to demand that the writer 
 should no longer be permitted to contribute to Fraser. 
 
 "If Mr. Deady Keane continues his contributions in 
 any form, mine must cease. I am one of the oldest and 
 I believe one of the best of your contributors. A 
 private individual,- 1 have been grossly abused in the 
 Magazine, and must perforce withdraw from it unless I 
 have your word that this act of justice shall be done me. 
 
 "I make this demand not in the least as an act of
 
 /Miscellaneous Hutborsbtp "puncb" 173 
 
 retaliation against Mr. Keane, but as an act of justice I 
 owe to myself and which is forced upon me. At the 
 present at least it cannot be said that my anger is very 
 revengeful or that his attack has rendered me particularly 
 vindictive. It would be easy to fight him with the same 
 weapons which he uses did I descend to employ them ; 
 but I feel myself, and I hope one day he will discover, 
 that they are unworthy of an honest man. If he only 
 take care to let it be publicly known that it is his inten- 
 tion to abuse in the public Prints any private individuals 
 whose personal appearance or qualities may be disagree- 
 able to him, it is surprising how popular he will become, 
 how his society will be courted, and his interests in life 
 advanced. 
 
 "But I am sure you will no longer allow him to 
 exercise his office of Satirist in your Magazine, and hope 
 (without the least wish to imply a threat) that for both 
 our sakes he will make no more attacks in print upon my 
 person or my private character. 
 
 "Faithfully yours, dear Nickisson, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 "I have no copy of this letter, but if you send it to 
 Mr. Keane will you please make one?" 
 
 In the early summer of 1844 Messrs. Chapman & 
 Hall announced a Monthly Series, which was to be a 
 collection of original works of biography and fiction, to 
 be published in 8vo volumes of 350 to 420 pages. 
 "The first biography," so ran the advertisement, "will 
 be a Life of Talleyrande by W. M. Thackeray" which 
 would have been the first work published in his own 
 name. He had written from the Reform Club to the 
 firm on July 16:
 
 174 TKHilliam flDafeepeace Ubackerap 
 
 "MY DEAR SIRS, I will engage to write the volume, 
 the Life of Talleyrande, and to have the MSS. in your 
 hands by December i, health permitting, and will sign 
 an agreement to that effect, if you will have the good- 
 ness to prepare one. 
 
 "Faithfully yours, dear Sirs, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 However, the agreement was never signed, and the 
 reason of this appeared in the preface to the Notes of a 
 Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, (published in 
 1846) part of which I quote here: 
 
 "On August 20, 1844, the writer of this little book 
 
 went to dine at the' Club,' quite unconscious of 
 
 the wonderful event which fate had in store for him. 
 Mr. William was there, giving a farewell dinner to his 
 friend Mr. James (now Sir James). These two asked 
 Mr. Titmarsh to join company with them, and the con- 
 versation naturally fell upon the tour Mr. James was 
 about to take. The Peninsular and Oriental Company 
 had arranged an excursion in the Mediterranean, by 
 which in the space of a couple of months as many men 
 and cities were to be seen as Ulysses surveyed and noted 
 in ten years. Malta, Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople, 
 Jerusalem, Cairo, were to be visited, and everybody was 
 to be back in London by Lord Mayor's Day. The idea 
 of beholding these famous places inflamed Mr. Tit- 
 marsh's mind, and the charms of such a voyage were 
 eloquently impressed upon him by Mr. James. 'Come,' 
 said that kind and hospitable gentleman, 'and make one 
 of my family party ; in all your life you will never prob- 
 ably have a chance again to see so much in so short a 
 time. Consider it's as easy as a journey to Paris or to
 
 /Miscellaneous Hutborsbfp "jpuncb" 175 
 
 Baden.' Mr. Titmarsh considered all these things, but 
 also the difficulty of the situation ; he had but thirty-six 
 hours to get ready for so portentous a journey he had 
 engagements at home finally, could he afford it? In 
 spite of these objections, however, with every glass of 
 claret the enthusiasm somehow rose, and the difficulties 
 vanished. But when Mr. James, to crown all, said he 
 had no doubt that his friends the Directors of the Penin- 
 sular and Oriental Company would make Mr. Titmarsh 
 the present of a berth for the voyage,* all objection 
 ceased on his part; to break his outstanding engage- 
 ments to write letters to his amazed family, stating 
 they were not to expect him to dinner on Saturday fort- 
 night, as he would be at Jerusalem on that day to pur- 
 chase eighteen shirts and lay in a sea stock of Russia 
 ducks was the work of twenty-four hours. And on 
 August 22 the Lady Mary Wood was sailing from South- 
 ampton with the subject of the present memoir quite 
 astonished to find himself one of the passengers on 
 board. ' ' 
 
 So Thackeray went to the East, and the Life of 
 Talleyrand is only to be mentioned as among his unwrit- 
 ten works. 
 
 *When the Notes was published, Carlyle was very angry that 
 Thackeray had accepted a free passage for this trip from the P. and 
 O. directors. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy says that he compared the 
 transaction to the practice of a blind fiddler going to and fro on a 
 penny ferry boat in Scotland and playing tunes to the passengers for 
 halfpence. Sir Charles adds " Charles Buller told Thackeray of this, 
 and when he complained thought it necessary to inform him frankly, 
 it was undoubtedly his opinion that, out of respect for himself and 
 his profession, a man like him ought not to have gone fiddling for 
 halfpence or otherwise in any steamboat under the sun." 
 
 This is all very well, but I cannot see the necessity for all this 
 virtuous indignation and anxiety for the dignity of Thackeray and the 
 literary profession; for not only did Thackeray not puff the Com- 
 pany, but the free passage was not really given to him by the 
 Company, but by a friend, who had used his influence to obtain it 
 from the directors, with whom he was on intimate terms.
 
 176 TKUUliam /fcafeepeace Ubacfcerag 
 
 "Titmarsh at Jerusalem will certainly be an era in 
 Christianity," Fitzgerald said; but Jerusalem did not 
 arouse feelings of mockery in Thackeray ; there was no 
 false sentiment to excite his satire indeed, his own 
 words show clearly that he was moved at the sight of 
 this city of many traditions. 
 
 "From this terrace," he wrote about Jerusalem, 
 "whence we looked in the morning, a great part of the 
 city spread before us white domes upon domes, ter- 
 races of the same character as our own. Here and 
 there, from among these white-washed mounds round 
 about, a minaret rose, or a rare date tree ; but the chief 
 part of the vegetation near was that odious tree, the 
 prickly pear one huge green wart growing out of 
 another, armed with spikes, as odious as the aloe, with- 
 out shelter or beauty. To the right the Mosque of 
 Omar rose; the rising sun behind it. Yonder steep, 
 tortuous lane before us, flanked by ruined walls on either 
 side, has borne, time out of mind, the title of Via Dolo- 
 rosa, and tradition has fixed the spots where the 
 Saviour rested, bearing His cross to Calvary. But of 
 the mountain, rising immediately in front of us, a few 
 grey olive trees speckling the yellow sides here and 
 there, there can be no question. That is the Mount of 
 Olives. Bethany lies beyond it. The most sacred eyes 
 that ever looked on this world have gazed on those 
 ridges; it was there He used to walk and teach. With 
 shamed humility one looks towards the spot where that 
 inexpressible Love and Benevolence lived and breathed ; 
 where the great yearning heart of the Saviour interceded 
 for all our race; and whence the bigots and traitors of 
 His day led Him away to kill Him."
 
 flMscellaneous Hutborsbip "puncb" 177 
 
 There is nothing in the above passage but what any 
 believer in Christianity might write; it is full of an 
 overpowering love and awe, such as man feels under such 
 circumstances when certain emotions are aroused. 
 
 The Pyramids, however, had quite another effect. 
 This is his description of the marvels: 
 
 "Looking ahead in an hour or two, we saw the 
 Pyramids. Fancy my sensations, dear M - ; two big 
 ones and a little one : 
 
 "There they lay, rosy and solemn in the distance 
 those old majestic, mystical, familiar edifices. Several 
 of us tried to be impressed ; but breakfast supervening, 
 a rush was made at the coffee and cold pies, and the sen- 
 timent of awe was lost in the scramble for victuals. Are 
 we so blasts of the world that the greatest marvels in it 
 do not succeed in moving us? Have Society, Pall Mall 
 Clubs, and a habit of sneering, so withered up our organs 
 of veneration that we can admire no more? My sensa- 
 tion with regard to the Pyramids was that I had seen 
 them before ; then came a feeling of shame that the view 
 of them should awaken no respect. Then I wanted 
 (naturally) to see whether my neighbours were any more 
 enthusiastic than myself Trinity College, Oxford, was 
 busy with the cold ham, Downing Street was particu- 
 larly attentive to a bunch of grapes; Figtree Court 
 behaved with decent propriety; he is in good practice, 
 and of a conservative turn of mind, which leads him to 
 respect from principle les faits accomplis; perhaps he 
 remembered that one of them was as big as Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. But the truth is, nobody was seriously
 
 178 TKHUUam flDafcepeace 
 
 moved, . . . and why should they, because of an 
 exaggeration of bricks ever so enormous? I confess for 
 my part that the Pyramids are very big." 
 
 There are two extracts from the Notes I cannot refrain 
 from including here they are so full of beautiful paternal 
 love and tenderness. The first is the concluding verse 
 of the famous White Squall ballad : 
 
 "And when, its force expended, 
 The harmless storm was ended, 
 And as the sunrise splendid 
 
 Came blushing o'er the sea, 
 I thought as day was breaking, 
 My little girls were waking 
 And smiling and making 
 
 A prayer at home for me." 
 
 The second passage is even more charming, and I 
 make no apology forgiving it in its entirety: "But that 
 Alexandrian two-pair front of a Consulate was more wel- 
 come and cheering than a palace to most of us. For 
 there lay certain letters, with postmarks of Home upon 
 them, and kindly tidings, the first heard for two months ; 
 though we had seen so many men and cities since, 
 that Cornhill seemed to be a year off at least, with certain 
 persons dwelling (more or less) in that vicinity. I saw a 
 young Oxford man seize his despatches, and slink off 
 with several letters written in a light, neat hand, and 
 sedulously crossed; which any man can see, without 
 looking further, were the handiwork of Mary Anne, to 
 whom he is attached. The lawyer received a bundle 
 from his chambers, in which his clerk eased his soul 
 regarding the state of Snooks v. Rogers, Smith ats. 
 Tomkins, etc. The statesman had a packet of thick 
 envelopes decorated with that profusion of sealing wax 
 in which official recklessness lavishes the resources of the
 
 flDiscellaneous Hutborsbip "puncb" 179 
 
 country; and. your humble servant got just one little 
 modest letter, containing another, written in pencil char- 
 acters varying in size between one and two inches, but 
 how much pleasanter to read than my Lord's despatch, 
 or the clerk's account of Smith ats. Tomkins yes, even 
 than the Mary Anne correspondence! . . . Yes, my 
 dear Madam, you will understand me, when I say that it 
 was from little Polly at home, with some confidential 
 news about a cat, and the last report of her new doll. 
 It is worth while to have made the journey for the pleas- 
 ure; to have walked the deck on long nights, and 
 thought of home. You have no leisure to do so in the 
 city. You don't see the heavens shine above you so 
 purely there, or the stars so clearly."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NOVELIST AND CRITIC
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NOVELIST AND CRITIC 
 
 THE event of the year (1844) it, in fact, marks an 
 epoch in Thackeray's literary life was the pub- 
 lication in Fraser's Magazine monthly, from January to 
 December (October excepted) of The Luck of Barry 
 Lyndon, A Romance of the Last Century. By Fitz-Boodle. 
 This story, of which the later part was written during 
 his journey to and from the East, seems to have given 
 him more trouble to write than any of his earlier ones, 
 and it was with a great sense of relief that he brought it 
 to a close. Mrs. Ritchie gives three extracts from his 
 diary that are well worth recording. "Malta, Novem- 
 ber i. Wrote Barry, but slowly and with great diffi- 
 culty." "November 2. Wrote Barry with no more 
 success than yesterday." "November 3. Finished 
 Barry after great throes, late at night. ' ' The story met 
 with no great success during its publication, but the 
 discerning few who appreciated the merits of The Great 
 Hoggarty Diamond were now satisfied that they had dis- 
 covered a mighty man of genius, who must leave an 
 impression upon the pages of Victorian literature. 
 
 Thackeray must have worked harder than ever this 
 year, especially before he left England in August, for 
 his literary output was enormous. Besides Barry Lyn- 
 don he sent to Fraser: 
 
 (i) A Box of Novels (February), containing criticisms 
 
 183
 
 184 TRUUliam flDafeepeace Ubacfterap 
 
 of Tom Burke, Harry Lorrequer, L.S.D. (by Lever), 
 The Miser's Son, The Burgomaster of Berlin, and Dick- 
 ens 's Christmas Carol. 
 
 (ii) Little Travels and Roadside Sketches: From Rich- 
 mond in Surrey to Brussels in Belgium (May) Ghent to 
 Bruges (October) Waterloo (January, 1845). 
 
 (iii) May Gambols, or Titmarsh in the Picture Gal- 
 leries (June). 
 
 (iv) Carmen Lilliense, dated Lille, September 2, a 
 delightful little poem, narrating an incident that had 
 occurred to the author during his stay at Lille, when his 
 purse was stolen and he was absolutely without money 
 until he could receive remittances from England. The 
 refrain of the song runs : 
 
 " My heart is weary, my peace is gone, 
 
 How shall I e'er my woes reveal? 
 I have no money, I lie in pawn, 
 A stranger in the town of Lille." 
 
 But happiness comes to him after days of misery : 
 
 " What see I on my table stand? 
 
 A letter with a well-known seal! 
 'Tis grandmamma's! I know her hand: 
 
 ' To Mr. M. A. Titmarsh, Lille.' 
 I feel a choking in my throat, 
 
 I pant and stagger, faint and reel! 
 It is it is a ten-pound note, 
 
 And I'm no more in pawn at Lille! " 
 
 [He goes off by the diligence that evening and is 
 restored to the bosom of his happy family.] 
 
 The New Monthly Magazine received two tales from 
 Launcelot Wagstaff a relation, it may be, of The'ophile 
 Wagstaffe of Flore et Zephyr fame The Partie Fine 
 (May) and Greenwich Whitebait (July); the Morning 
 Chronicle (April 2), a review of a book by R. H. Home,
 
 IRovelist anfc Critic 185 
 
 entitled A New Spirit of the Age; and Punch, The His- 
 tory of the next French Revolution (in nine parts), and 
 The Wanderings and Travelling Notes, both by Our Fat 
 Contributor, which were continued in the following year. 
 
 About this -time Thackeray obtained the assistant 
 editorship of the Examiner, to which paper he was a 
 contributor, and he held the post until 1848, when he 
 resigned, because it took up more time than he could 
 afford to give for four guineas a week. A propos of his 
 great prolixity, Edward Fitzgerald wrote in May (1844) 
 to Frederick Tennyson: "I see in Punch a humourous 
 catalogue of supposed pictures; Prince Albert's favourite 
 spaniel and bootjack, the Queen's Micaw with a muffin, 
 etc., by Landseer, etc., in which I recognize Thackeray's 
 fancy. He is in full vigour, play, and pay in London, 
 writing in a dozen reviews, and a score of newspapers, 
 and while his health lasts he sails before the wind. . ." 
 
 In 1845 he- wrote more than ever. This was probably 
 due to the beneficial results of the voyage upon his 
 health. The New Monthly Magazine printed in July two 
 more stories by Mr. Wagstaff The Chest of Cigars (in 
 which he prints a story related to him by General Sir 
 Goliah Gahagan, H.E.I.C.S.); and, in the next month, 
 Bob Robinson s First Love. 
 
 To Cruikshank, for his Table Book, he sent A 
 Legend of the Rhine, which is a clever burlesque of the 
 elder Dumas's L 1 Othon r Archer; but Punch received a 
 whole list of contributions Punch in the East, Medita- 
 tions on Solitude, Beulah Spa, Brighton, A Brighton 
 Night's Entertainment, Meditations Over Brighton, The 
 Georges, A Doe in the City, A Lucky Speculation, with the 
 famous Jeames of Buckley Square, Jeames on Time Barg- 
 ings, and the commencement of the immortal Jeames s
 
 186 William flDafeepeace 
 
 Diary, which was largely quoted in the papers at the 
 time, and has since been dramatised. 
 
 Fraser had Picture Gossip (June), his annual criticism 
 on the May exhibitions; Barmecide Banquets (Novem- 
 ber), a review of the Practical Cook; and About a Christ- 
 mas Book. 
 
 Thackeray's art criticisms were not at all pleasant 
 reading to the painters of the day, as a single perusal 
 will convince any one, and there is rather an amusing 
 passage about the way the artists felt towards Thackeray 
 in a letter written in June by Edward Fitzgerald to Fred- 
 erick Tennyson about Picture Gossip: "If you want to 
 know something of the Exhibition, however, read 
 Fraser 's Magazine for this month ; there Thackeray has 
 a paper on the matter full of fun. I met Stone in the 
 street the other day; he took me by the button, and 
 told me in perfect sincerity and with increasing warmth 
 how, though he loved old Thackeray, yet these yearly 
 out-speakings of his sorely tried him ; not on account of 
 himself (Stone), but on account of some of his friends, 
 Charles Landseer, Maclise, etc. Stone worked himself 
 up to such a pitch under the pressure of forced calmness 
 that he at last said Thackeray would get himself horse- 
 whipped one day by one of those infuriated Appellesses. 
 At this I, who had partly agreed with Stone that ridi- 
 cule, though true, need not always be spoken, began to 
 laugh, and told him two could play at that game. These 
 painters cling together and bolster each other up to such 
 a degree that they really have persuaded themselves that 
 any one who ventures to laugh at one of their drawings, 
 exhibited publicly for the express purpose of criticism, 
 insults the whole corps. Thackeray laughs at all this, 
 and goes on in his own way ; writing hard for half a day.
 
 IRovelist ant> Critic 187 
 
 Reviews and newspapers all the morning; dining, 
 drinking, and talking of a night ; managing to preserve 
 a fresh colour and perpetual flow of spirits under a wear 
 and tear of thinking and feeding that would have 
 knocked up all the other men I know two years ago, at 
 least." 
 
 In this same year (1845) Thackeray figures for the 
 first, and I believe, the only time, as an Edinburgh 
 Reviewer. 
 
 The two following letters of Thackeray may fitly be 
 inserted here. They are taken from the Macvey-Napier 
 Papers in the British Museum Library. The first letter 
 has, I believe, not been published before, while the 
 second is of distinct literary value as giving Thackeray's 
 opinion of Eugene Sue as a writer of fiction. 
 
 " REFORM CLUB, Sunday, 6 April, [1845.] 
 "MY DEAR SIR, I hardly know what subject to 
 point out as suited to my capacity light matter con- 
 nected with art, humourous reviews, critiques of novels 
 French subjects, memoirs, poetry, history from Louis 
 XV. downwards and of an earlier period that of Frois- 
 sart and of Monstrelet German light literature and 
 poetry though of these I know but little beyond what I 
 learned in a year's residence in the country 14 years ago. 
 Finally, subjects relating to society in general, where a 
 writer may be allowed to display the humourous ego, or a 
 victim is to be gently immolated. But I am better able 
 to follow than to lead, and should hope to give satisfac- 
 tion in my small way. 
 
 "Very faithfully yours, dear Sir, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY. 
 "To T. LONGMAN, ESQ."
 
 1 88 TKliUiam flDafcepeace 
 
 [This letter is endorsed: "T. L. has written to Mr. 
 Thackeray as requested by Mr. Napier. Apr. 7 '45."] 
 
 On July 1 6 Thackeray wrote direct to Macvey Napier 
 as follows, suggesting an article for the Edinburgh. 
 
 "88, ST. JAMES ST., id July, 1845. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, I am glad to comply with your request 
 that I should address you personally, and thank you for 
 the letter which you have written to Mr. Longman 
 regarding my contribution to the Edinburgh Review. 
 
 "Eugene Sue has written a very great number of 
 novels beginning with maritime novels in the Satanic 
 style so to speak full of crime and murder of every 
 description. He met in his early work with no very 
 great success. He gave up the indecencies of language 
 and astonished the world with Mathilde three years 
 since, which had the singular quality among French 
 novels of containing no improprieties of expression. In 
 my mind it is one of the most immoral books in the 
 world. The Mysteries of Paris followed, with still 
 greater success, and the same extreme cleverness of con- 
 struction, and the same sham virtue. It has been sold 
 by tens of thousands in London in various shapes, in 
 American editions, and illustrated English translations. 
 The book just translated is an old performance it is 
 called Latreaumont in the French original. 
 
 "To go through a course of Sue's writings would 
 require, I should think, more than a short article and 
 the subject has been much dealt with in minor period- 
 icals here. 
 
 "The Glances at Life is a very kindly and agreeable 
 little book by a Cockney philosopher could it be 
 coupled in an article with N. P. Willis's Dashes at Life, 
 which Messrs. Longman now advertise?
 
 novelist anfc Critic 189 
 
 "A pleasant short paper might be written, I fancy, 
 commenting upon the humours of the pair. Should the 
 subject meet with your approval perhaps, you will give 
 me notice ; and state what space the Review can afford. 
 Should you not approve I will look through Lady Hester 
 Stanhope and hope to be able to treat it to your satis- 
 faction. I am bringing out a little book about the 
 Mediterranean which I hope shortly to have the pleasure 
 of sending you. 
 
 "Dear Sir, Your very obedient Servant, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 "PROFESSOR NAPIER." 
 
 In the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward a letter 
 is printed that Mr. Hayward received from Macvey 
 Napier, then the Editor of the Review: 
 
 "Will you tell me confidentially, of course, whether 
 you know anything of a Mr. Thackeray, about whom 
 Longman has written me, thinking he would be a good 
 hand for light articles? He says that this Mr. Thackeray 
 is one of the best writers in Punch. One requires to be 
 very much on one's guard in engaging with mere strang- 
 ers. In a Journal like the Edinburgh, it is always of 
 importance to keep up in respect of names." 
 
 It was immediately on receipt of Hay ward's answer, 
 which must have been satisfactory though I have not 
 been able to find a copy of it that Mr. Napier com- 
 municated with Thackeray. 
 
 Mr. Napier probably hesitated at entrusting a very 
 long article to a new man, and chose the alternative 
 the Willis Review which appeared in the October num- 
 ber, but very much mutilated; and it is to this that 
 Thackeray refers in a charming and graceful letter to 
 Mr. Napier, dated St. James Street, October 16, 1845 :
 
 190 Milliam flDafeepeace 
 
 "MY DEAR SIR, I have just read and acknowledge 
 with many thanks your banker's bill. From them or 
 from you, I shall always be delighted to receive com- 
 munications of this nature. From your liberal payment 
 I can't but conclude that you reward me, not only for 
 labouring, but for being mutilated in your service. I 
 assure you I suffered cruelly by the amputation which 
 you were obliged to inflict upon my poor dear paper. 
 I mourn still as what father can help doing for his 
 children? for several lovely jokes and promising facetiae 
 which were born and might have lived, but for your scis- 
 sors urged by ruthless necessity. I trust, however, that 
 there are many more which the future may bring forth, 
 and which will meet with more favour in your eyes. I 
 quite agree with your friend who says Willis was too 
 leniently used. O, to think of my pet passages gone 
 for ever! "Very faithfully yours, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY."* 
 
 "The little book about the Mediterranean" appeared 
 some months later, and its full title is Notes of a Journey 
 from Cornhill to Grand Cairo by way of Lisbon, Athens, 
 Constantinople, and Jerusalem, performed in the steamers 
 of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. By Mr. M. A . 
 Titmarsh, A uthor of ' ( The Irish Sketchbook, ' ' etc. Chap- 
 man & Hall published the volume, which bore a dedica- 
 tion dated December 24, 1845, to Captain Lewis. 
 
 In 1846 his writings were in the main confined to 
 Fraser and Punch. To the Magazine he sent the poem 
 Ronsard to his Mistress (January), A Brother of the Press 
 on the History of a Literary Man, Laman Blanchard, and 
 the Chances of the Literary Profession (March) ; On Some 
 
 *The Macvey-Napier Papers; Selections from the Correspond- 
 ence of the late Macvey Napier.
 
 Novelist ant) Critic 191 
 
 Illustrated Children s Books (April); and Proposals for 
 a Continuation of "Ivan/we" in a letter to Monsieur 
 Alexandre Dumas (August and September), which 
 later, recast and expanded, appeared as Rebecca and 
 Rowena. 
 
 Titmarsh versus Tait and Jeames on the Gauge Ques- 
 tion, came out in Punch, in which paper, on February 
 28, appeared the first number of a long series of articles 
 that of itself would have made the lasting reputation of 
 many a less famous man The Snobs of England. These 
 papers were so much liked and so well received that they 
 were continued, week after week, without any interrup- 
 tion, for a whole year, the last number appearing in the 
 issue for February 27, 1847. 
 
 While these papers were being written, Thackeray 
 gave up the chambers at 88, St. James Street, he had 
 occupied for the last two years, and in 1846 made for 
 himself a home at 13 (now 16) Young Street. It was 
 when passing by this residence in after years, with Fields, 
 the American publisher, that Thackeray exclaimed, with 
 mock gravity, "Down on your knees, you rogue, for here 
 Vanity Fair was penned ; and I will go down with you, 
 for I have a high opinion of that little production 
 myself." 
 
 To him here in the late autumn his children were 
 brought from Paris by Mrs. Smyth, who, however, soon 
 returned to her husband, when her place was taken by 
 her mother, who remained with the children until her 
 death in 1848. 
 
 He was very busy, writing hard every day, and very 
 poor nevertheless. Even Vanity Fair, though it brought 
 him fame, did not increase his income. Like his father 
 before him, he had many luxurious tastes, which he did
 
 192 Militant /IDafeepeace 
 
 not always refrain from indulging,* and he never heard 
 a tale of distress without putting his hand in his pocket 
 to relieve the sufferer as far as lay in his power. 
 
 He knew he could always make money by his pen, 
 and, though he must have received considerable sums, he 
 never saved (except the proceeds of the two courses of 
 Lectures, which he invested for his children) until the 
 last years of his life. But though he may have been 
 anxious about the future, he allowed nothing to interfere 
 with the pleasure that the arrival of his " little girls" 
 brought in its train. He had them constantly with him ; 
 and whenever he could snatch an hour or an afternoon 
 from his work, they went for those little outings that he 
 enjoyed as much as they. He was never again separated 
 from them, except when they paid a visit to his parents 
 and when he went to America, and from this time forth 
 they shared all the pleasures of his life, until it pleased 
 God to take him from them. 
 
 *" He was a man of sensibility; he delighted in luxuriously fur- 
 nished and well lighted rooms, good music, excellent wines and 
 cookery, exhilarating talk, gay and airy gossip, pretty women and 
 their toilettes, and refined and noble manners, ' le bon gout, le ris, 
 1'aimable liberteV The amenities of life, and the traditions, stimu- 
 lated his imagination." F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THACKERAY AND THE PUBLIC
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THACKERAY AND THE PUBLIC 
 
 THE letter headed Barmecide Banquets, dated October 
 25, 1845, commences as follows: 
 
 "MY DEAR LIONEL, There is a comfort to think 
 that, however, other works and masterpieces bearing my 
 humble name have been received by the public, namely 
 with what I cannot but think (and future age, will I have 
 no doubt, pronounce) to be unmerited obloquy and inat- 
 tention, the present article, at least, which I address to 
 you through the public prints, will be read by every one 
 of the numerous readers of this magazine. What a 
 quantity of writings of the same hand have you, my dear 
 friend, pored over! How much delicate wit, profound 
 philosophy (lurking hid under harlequin's vermilion) 
 how many quiet wells of deep gushing pathos have you 
 failed to remark as you hurried through those modest 
 pages, for which the author himself here makes an apol- 
 ogy ! not that I quarrel with my lot, or rebel against 
 that meanest of martyrdoms, indifference, with which a 
 callous age has visited me not that I complain because 
 I am not appreciated by the present century no, no ! 
 he who lives at this time ought to know better than to 
 be vexed by its treatment of him he who pines because 
 Smith, or Snooks, doesn't appreciate him, has a poor, 
 puny vein of endurance, and pays those two personages 
 too much honour."
 
 196 TKntllfam flDafeepeace 
 
 In this passage, apparently written in a jocular strain, 
 I think Thackeray described his feelings. He was disap- 
 pointed that the merits of his writings had not been dis- 
 covered, and rather hurt that in 1846 people only said of 
 him, as Mr. Willis had written seven years earlier: "He 
 is one of the cleverest and most gifted of the magazine 
 writers in London." "I can suit the magazines, but I 
 can't suit the public, be hanged to them!" he exclaimed, 
 with some bitterness, after the failure of The Irish Sketch 
 Book to attract notice. 
 
 Now every one is well aware of his ' ' delicate wit, ' ' 
 "profound philosophy," and "quiet wells of gushing 
 pathos," and Thackeray himself felt that his day must 
 come sooner or later (only it seemed more likely to be 
 late than early), for he was confident of his genius, 
 though perhaps ignorant of its extent. His lightest 
 sketches, even his airy criticisms, have a ring about them 
 that shows he knew his powers, and in Barry Lyndon 
 there cannot be detected a trace of mistrust in his capa- 
 bilities. Throughout the whole romance one feels the 
 hand of the artist working at his first great masterpiece, 
 with absolute confidence in the ultimate success of his 
 labours. His magazine articles were for the most part, 
 I think, regarded by him as "pot-boilers" even as late 
 as 1844 he wrote: "Poor fellows of the pen and pencil! 
 we must live. The public likes light literature, and we 
 write it. Here am I writing magazine jokes and follies, 
 and why? Because the public likes such, and will pur- 
 chase no other." 
 
 Ainsworth published Rookwood when he was twenty- 
 nine; Disraeli was famous as the author of Vivian Grey 
 at two-and-twenty, and had written The Young Dtike, 
 Contarini Fleming, The Revolutionary Epick, Alroy,
 
 anfc tbe public 197 
 
 Henrietta Temple, and Venetia, before he was eleven 
 years older; Albert Smith was only twenty-eight when 
 he made his mark with the Adventures of Mr. Ledbury; 
 Dickens had written Sketches by Boz when he was four- 
 and-twenty, Pickwick a year later, and Oliver Twist, 
 Nicholas Nicklcby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby 
 Rudge, and American Notes, before he was thirty. Yet 
 Thackeray, in his thirty-sixth year, was unknown outside 
 his circle. In this chapter I shall endeavour to show 
 how it was success came to him so (comparatively) late 
 in life. It has been said that this was due to the fact 
 that his genius took longer to mature than that, let us 
 say, of his contemporary Dickens; but I am confident 
 that this statement is unsound, even though Dickens 
 wrote Pickwick when he was twenty-five, and at the 
 same age Thackeray had written nothing of any impor- 
 tance the Great Hoggarty Diamond not being written 
 until he was thirty, or Barry Lyndon until three years 
 after. This admission might induce the superficial 
 observer to jump to conclusions and admit the plaus- 
 ibility of the argument ; but there are weighty reasons 
 beneath the surface which upset such hasty judgments. 
 Dickens was, almost from his childhood, connected with 
 journalism, and, not unnaturally, at a very early age 
 tried his hand at short stories, which, meeting with suc- 
 cess, induced him to attempt something more ambitious, 
 which became Pickwick! Thackeray's life was very dif- 
 ferent. Dickens was almost entirely self-educated, and 
 was probably a reporter while Thackeray was still at 
 Cambridge, or on his travels. Then, be it remembered, 
 Thackeray was entered at the Middle Temple when he 
 came of age, and though he may not have studied hard, 
 yet as he was a man of means he had no need to turn
 
 198 Milliam /fcafeepeace 
 
 to Literature for bread. Even when he lost his fortune, 
 it was to Art, and not to Literature, that he looked for 
 a living; and almost as late as the publication of Pick- 
 wick, Edinburgh Reviewer Hayward well remembered 
 seeing him "day after day, engaged in copying pictures 
 in the Louvre, in order to qualify himself for his profes- 
 sion." 
 
 S'asseoir entre deux selles," le cut & terres, is a proverb 
 of by no means recent origin ; and if Art and Letters 
 stand for the two stools it is easy to find at least one 
 reason why Thackeray did not write Barry Lyndon when 
 he was five-and-twenty. 
 
 See how Anthony Trollope, in the biographical intro- 
 duction to the volume in the "Men of Letters" series, 
 on "Thackeray," has endeavoured to solve the problem. 
 He tells how Thackeray had a marked want of assurance, 
 ("I can fancy," Trollope says, "that as the sheets went 
 from him every day, he told himself, with regard to 
 every sheet, that it was a failure. Dickens was quite 
 sure of his sheet"); that he was "unsteadfast, idle, 
 changeable of purpose, aware of his own intellect, but 
 not trusting it"; and lastly, that "no man ever failed 
 more than he to put his best foot foremost." Now, this 
 explanation is, on the face of it, most unconvincing, and, 
 what is far worse, misleading. Though Dickens, and 
 Trollope also, we may be certain, felt quite sure of their 
 sheets, it does not seem to me to have anything to do 
 with the question though if it has, or even if it has not, 
 it is something Thackeray never overcame. 
 
 But then, perhaps this dissatisfaction with his work 
 was because, besides being a novelist, Thackeray was an 
 artist to his finger-tips, and that, while lesser men might 
 turn away from their completed work with a self-satisfied
 
 ant) tbe public 199 
 
 smile, Thackeray would glance at his mournfully, re-read 
 it perhaps, and think, not whether the public would like 
 it, but how far from perfect in his eyes were the pages 
 he had written. Indeed, all his life long he was con- 
 scious that his work might be improved, and it was 
 with a sigh that he sent the sheets from him to the 
 printer. 
 
 The other charges of idleness, etc., may be left alone 
 for the moment, while I do my best to explain the rea- 
 son that deferred the popular acknowledgment of his 
 genius until he was thirty-seven years old. 
 
 The reason is startling: Thackeray had not given the 
 public a fair chance to discover him I hope I can prove 
 it convincingly. 
 
 Remember the number of pseudonyms he used. Had 
 he elect ed always to write over Titmarsh this would have 
 been perfectly immaterial. Titmarsh would have been 
 as much appreciated as "Thackeray" should have been. 
 But, besides his contributions to Punch over various 
 fantastic signatures, and the anonymous work for the 
 magazines and journals, while Michael Angela Titmarsh 
 wrote most of the reviews in Fraser, The Great Hoggarty 
 Diamond, The Sketch Book, and a host of short stories, 
 it was Ikey Solomon who wrote Catherine, Yellowplush 
 who wrote the Correspondence and Diary, Major Gahagan 
 who wrote his own Tremendous Adventures,* The Pro- 
 fessor, and Sultan Stork, and who supplied Mr. Wag- 
 staff with material for one of the four stories credited to 
 that gentleman. Fitz- Boodle wrote his own Confessions, 
 Professions, Men s Wives, and The Luck of Barry Lyn- 
 don; and Thackeray, under his own name, only Captain 
 
 *It is true that when republished in the Comic Tales and Sketches 
 Mr. Titmarsh edited these two stories.
 
 200 THUiliam /IDafeepeace 
 
 Rook and Mr. Pigeon, The Fashionable Authoress, and 
 Going to see a Man Hanged. 
 
 This rendered it difficult even for the initiated to 
 recognise all his work, and to the average reader each 
 name suggested a different author. 
 
 Thackeray himself has explained the necessity that 
 drove him to the use of so many noms-de-plume. "It 
 may so happen to a literary man," he wrote in Brown 
 on the Press, "that the stipend which he receives from 
 one publication is not sufficient to boil his family pot, and 
 that he must write in some other quarter. If Brown 
 writes articles in the daily papers, and articles in the 
 weekly and monthly periodicals too, and signs the same, 
 he surely weakens his force by extending his line. It 
 would be better for him to write incognito than to pla- 
 card his name in so many quarters as actors understand, 
 who do not perform in too many pieces on the same 
 night, and as painters, who know it is not worth their 
 while to exhibit more than a certain number of pictures. 
 
 He also realised that this was not the high-road to 
 fame. "It cannot be denied," he says in the same 
 article, "that men of signal ability will write for years in 
 papers and perish unknown and in so far their lot is a 
 hard one, and the chances of life are against them. It is 
 hard upon a man, with whose work the whole town is 
 ringing, that not a soul should know or care who is the 
 author who so delights the public." 
 
 Then, too, it must be remembered that the only books 
 he had published before Vanity Fair were The Paris 
 Sketch Book and Comic Tales and Sketches, which were 
 reprinted magazine articles of not the greatest value; 
 The Irish Sketch Book and From Cornhill to Grand Cairo, 
 both interesting, intelligent, and cleverly written; and
 
 Ubacfcera anfc tbe public 201 
 
 the notoriously unpopular Second Funeral of Napoleon. 
 Now all these books are very excellent reading for 
 though Thackeray's magazine articles might be hack- 
 work, they were undoubtedly very superior hack-work 
 but they scarcely showed that a new genius had arisen ; 
 and even to-day these early books are among the least 
 read of Thackeray's works. 
 
 Of course, I know it will be objected that no men- 
 tion is made of the best of Thackeray's early writings 
 The Great Hoggarty Diamond, The Luck of Barry Lyn- 
 don, and The Snobs of England and I have purposely 
 avoided naming these, for the first two had only appeared, 
 and the last was still appearing in the periodicals, and I 
 do not think it can be denied that even we, who know 
 their value, would fully appreciate the beauty of the two 
 tales, had we first so read them then, one in four, the 
 other in a dozen doses, there being a month's interval 
 between the doses. This objection, however, is somewhat 
 discounted in the case of the Snob Papers, as they might, 
 without losing their charm, indeed with advantage, be 
 read singly, being really only so many units, bound 
 together at the fountain head. But this does not 
 destroy my reasoning, for who, among the public, knew 
 that the "Snobographer" was Mr. Titmarsh? 
 
 This very simple explanation is, in my opinion, the 
 true solution of the somewhat complex problem. 
 
 But there may be some readers who may not yet be 
 convinced. For them let me adduce additional argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Let us suppose that the public, with wonderful dis- 
 cernment, had recognised all his writings, and let us 
 further suppose that, recognising them, the public had 
 had every chance to read them, and had read them how
 
 202 umilliam /iDafeepeace Ubacfeera}? 
 
 much would the position be changed? Not very much, 
 I think. He would have been more appreciated by the 
 few, perhaps, but just as much neglected by the many. 
 One important reason for this is that while most of 
 his contemporaries, in spite of (or perhaps because of) 
 this fine quality, appealed to the gallery, and on occa- 
 sions were not above playing to it. Thackeray, so far 
 from lowering himself to the level of the public, held it 
 the duty of the artist to educate it to his own intellectual 
 level a performance painfully slow and not at all 
 remunerative to the tutor.* 
 
 Apart from the high intellectual level of Thackeray's 
 writings, nothing would induce him to abate one jot of 
 his prejudices to suit the taste of the public, though no 
 one knew better than he what would suit the majority of 
 novel-readers. 
 
 "I suppose," he said in one of his lectures on the 
 Humourists, "I suppose as long as novels last, and 
 authors aim at interesting their public, there must always 
 be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked 
 monster, his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a 
 champion : bravery and virtue conquer beauty, and vice, 
 after seeming to triumph through a certain number of 
 pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when 
 
 *There is another similar instance in the case of the popularity 
 of the greatest of our living novelists the only name of our day that 
 may without absurdity be mentioned in the same breath with 
 Thackeray. Mr. George Meredith published his first volume of 
 poems when The Newcomes was still lisping in numbers: his earliest 
 masterpiece, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, when he was thirty-one 
 (in 1859); and even this remained practically unknown to the reading 
 public until the last few years. Even to-day, after the Egoist and 
 Diana of the Crossways have appeared, the circle of his readers is 
 absurdly small, and Mr. Meredith is unappreciated, unknown even 
 beyond the little world of those who see the " Master's" genius. And 
 the only reason for the lack of popularity is, the public is not yet 
 educated up to Mr. Meredith's standard of intellect.
 
 anfc tbe public 203 
 
 justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their 
 own. There never was perhaps a greatly popular story 
 but this simple plot was carried through it : mere satiric 
 wit is addressed to a class of readers quite different to 
 those simple souls who laugh and weep over the novel. 
 I fancy very few ladies indeed could be brought to like 
 Gulliver heartily, and (putting the coarseness and differ- 
 ence of manners out of the question) to relish the won- 
 derful satire of Jonathan Wild." 
 
 Yet, knowing this, and anxious as he was to obtain 
 the approbation of his female readers, he bravely and 
 deliberately wrote on in his own way, preaching his own 
 philosophy, and indulging in his own satiric humour; 
 even the finest work he produced before Vanity Fair must 
 be included in the same class as Jonathan Wild a work 
 which has never been popular with the general reader. 
 When a critic accuses him as some few still do of hav- 
 ing preached his cynical philosophy for profit, let them 
 consider how much more profitable it would have been 
 for him to write in the style of Bulwer, or Lever, or 
 Disraeli, as he so clearly showed he could have done. 
 To give an example : What success would probably have 
 rewarded the Second Funeral of Napoleon had he written 
 to please the public, instead of presenting the work to a 
 hero-loving nation in a form that he knew ran counter to 
 the feelings of the book-buyers. Read an extract from 
 the volume: 
 
 "I feel that you are angry. I can see from here the 
 pouting of your lips, and know what you are going to 
 say. You are going to say, 'I will read no more of this 
 Mr. Titmarsh. There is no subject, however solemn, 
 but he treats it with flippant reverence, and no character, 
 however great, at whom he does not sneer.'
 
 204 William /IDafeepeace 
 
 "Ah, my dear! you are young now and enthusi- 
 astic, and your Titmarsh is old, very old, sad, and grey- 
 headed. I have seen a poor mother buy a halfpenny- 
 wreath at the gate of Montmartre burying-ground, and 
 go with it to her little child's grave, and hang it there 
 over the humble little stone; and if ever you saw me 
 scorn the mean offering of the poor, shabby creature, I 
 will give you leave to be as angry as you will. . . . 
 Something great and good must have been in this man" 
 [Napoleon], "something loving and kindly, that has kept 
 his name so cherished in the popular memory, and gained 
 him such lasting reverence and affection. 
 
 "But, madam, one may respect the dead without 
 feeling awestricken at the plumes of the hearse ; and I 
 see no reason why one should sympathise with the train 
 of mutes and undertakers, however deep may be their 
 mourning." 
 
 But that was Thackeray all over. As he said in the 
 Charity and Humour lecture : 
 
 ' ' The author of this work' ' [ Vanity Fair] ' ' has lately 
 been described by the London Times newspaper as a 
 writer of considerable parts, but a dreary misanthrope, 
 who sees no good anywhere, who sees the sky above him 
 green, I think, instead of blue, and only miserable sin- 
 ners around him. So we are, as is every writer and 
 reader I ever heard of, so was every being who ever trod 
 this earth, save One. I cannot help telling the truth as 
 I view it, and describing what I see. To describe it 
 otherwise than it seems to me would be falsehood in that 
 calling in which it has pleased Heaven to place me; 
 treason to that conscience which says that men are 
 weak; that truth must be told; that faults must be
 
 anfc tbe public 205 
 
 owned ; that pardon must be prayed for ; and that Love 
 reigns supreme over all." 
 
 There is Thackeray's confession of literary faith. 
 
 But I can further support my statement that Thack- 
 eray would not have been a popular writer, even if his 
 writings had been more widely known, with the sweep- 
 ing assertion that all his earlier work, in spite of its 
 cleverness, in spite of its wit and wisdom, and in spite 
 of, or more probably because of, its very truth, is 
 most unpleasant and painful reading.* 
 
 Let me briefly discuss these writings I take the 
 appearance of the Snob Papers as bringing to a close the 
 first part of his literary life. This is no arbitrary deci- 
 sion, for it is the rightly drawn boundary-line that sepa- 
 rates the clever and brilliant, but unrecognised, writer 
 of magazine articles and short stories from the successful 
 novelist. They are best divided into (I) art-criticisms 
 and literary reviews, and (II) tales and sketches. 
 
 The former will be treated in later chapters. The 
 articles themselves are shrewd, sensible, honest, and 
 painstaking, and undoubtedly deliberately amusing for 
 the most part. But, though they are well worth read- 
 ing, both for the views advocated and for the style, they 
 are not such as to make or mar a man's reputation, and 
 no great appreciation would be awarded to the author 
 by the average reader. 
 
 It is with the latter we must concern ourselves. 
 Leaving his shorter stories out of the question, let us 
 devote our attention to those upon which his earlier 
 reputation is based : The Yellowplush Correspondence, Some 
 
 *" I really don't know where I get all these rascals for my books. 
 I have certainly never lived with such people," Thackeray said to 
 Mr. J. E. Cooke.
 
 206 Milliam flDafeepeace 
 
 Passages in the Life of Major Gahagan, Catherine, A Shabby 
 Genteel Story, The Great Hoggarty Diamond, The Fitz-Boodle 
 Papers, including Metis Wives and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. 
 
 Putting aside Major Gahagan, which is a delightful 
 extravaganza, and far more amusing than Munchausen, 
 there is not another quite pleasant story to be found. 
 
 They are wonderfully clever. Their literary merit is 
 astonishing: the style is mature, the word-pictures are 
 delightful, and there are some charming touches, and 
 some beautiful passages that are Thackerayesque in their 
 tenderness; but their predominant feature is intelligence, 
 and when has the great reading public admired a book 
 only because it is intellectual? It must be admitted that 
 the public is right not to admire such, for it is a truism 
 that a story suggesting chiefly the cleverness, or the wit, 
 or the brilliancy of the writer is not a complete success 
 it shows there is a something wanting in the story itself. 
 Readers ask more than this, and the taste that demands 
 that the writer's genius shall not be thought of until the 
 book is laid down, finished, is quite sound. 
 
 All the books are clever. Catherine is wonderful, 
 Carlyle quite rightly said ; and no one but Fielding and 
 its author could have written the marvellous Barry Lyn- 
 don: but there is a want of heart, and lack of tenderness, 
 and the books have really kept their position by virtue 
 of the genius that created them: one is impressed by 
 the author, one is depressed by the book. 
 
 There can be no doubt that for these early works 
 Thackeray drew upon his own unhappy experiences ; and 
 these, together with the cynicism that all clever young 
 men affect, give his stories a certain harshness that makes 
 them compare unfavourably with his maturer produc- 
 tions. His purpose was honest enough: he fought
 
 LONDON: PUNCH OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET. 
 
 [Pn ire 2s.
 
 TTbacfeera ant) tbe public 207 
 
 against snobbishness and vulgarity; against gambling, 
 against company-promoting swindlers, against the Jack 
 Sheppard class of novels indeed, against everything 
 that did not appeal to him as simple and honourable. 
 But he did not select his weapons carefully; he fought 
 with the button off the foil, and a /' entrance. It may 
 be taken as an axiom that all the principal characters in 
 his early books are (more or less) swindlers, scoundrels, 
 hypocrites, or fools. The briefest examination of these 
 writings shown it to have been so. 
 
 Yellowplush, who is taken from the gutter, sees no 
 reason why he should not listen at key-holes, or read his 
 master's letters, pry into his private affairs, or do a hun- 
 dred other dirty actions he has no more than a swiftly 
 passing pang of remorse when, for a bank-note, he sells 
 the master, who, with all his faults, was too good to him. 
 All the people he knows do things of this sort, and he 
 sees no particular cause for shame. 
 
 The naturalness of the Correspondence is its greatest 
 merit perhaps its chief fault against nature is that so 
 many unpleasant people could scarcely be found together. 
 
 In the farce there is the picture of the Shum family's 
 wretched life, the cowardly husband, the bullying wife, 
 the objectionable daughter, but out of the gloom comes 
 Altamont, a good fellow, and the rather lovable Mary. 
 Look at the actors in the tragedy for tragedy it 
 is undoubtedly: the scamp Yellowplush, the sharper 
 Blewitt, the silly and snobbish Dawkins, the revengeful 
 Lady Griffin, the insignificant Jemima, the terrible Earl, 
 and Deuceace himself, card-sharper, swindler, fortune- 
 hunter. Only the foolish Matilda remains, and for her 
 loyalty much may be forgiven her: "My Lord, my place 
 is with him. ' '
 
 208 'CGlilUam /iDafeepeace Ubacfterap 
 
 In these Papers Thackeray meant to draw the moral 
 that roguery comes to a bad end, but he overreached 
 himself. Deuceace does come to a bad end, so far that 
 is right enough, but the retribution that falls upon him 
 is planned by his own father; this occasions a revulsion 
 of feeling which causes the sympathy to be with the 
 swindler until the end, the most sensational Thackeray 
 ever employed. There is nothing in all his writings so 
 terrible. 
 
 In Catherine, the history of jail-birds, told by one of 
 them, we do not look for virtuous people. Mrs. Cat, 
 Brock, Galgenstein, Thomas Billings, John Hayes, Mrs. 
 Scare, and Ensign Macshane, in their several ways, are 
 as bad as bad can be so vicious, indeed, that the sym- 
 pathy is rather with the murderess ; in such company she 
 could hardly be other than she is. 
 
 The Shabby Genteel Story, which shows distinct signs of 
 growing power, presents another group of objectionable 
 people. It opens with a description of Margate lodging- 
 house society, and concludes with a mock marriage, into 
 which the family Cinderella, a loving, trusting girl, is 
 trapped. Mr. Gann, a ruined tradesman, drunk three 
 times a week with the liquor imbibed at the "Bag o' 
 Nails"; Mrs. Gann and her two daughters by a first 
 marriage; the Misses Macarty, shrews, with lady-like 
 pretensions; the tuft-hunting scoundrel Brandon, Tuft- 
 hunt himself, and the blackguard Cinqbars, are the 
 dramatis persona, which is only partially brightened by 
 the honest but vulgar Fitch. The most displeasing, 
 though not the least clever, of all the tales. 
 
 It is quite a relief to turn to The Great Hoggarty Dia- 
 mond, for that at least is more artistic than anything he
 
 tlbacfeerag an& tbe public 209 
 
 had then written; and at last on his literary horizon 
 good simple people begin to be sighted, though they are 
 still outnumbered by hypocrites and snobs. There is a 
 dreadful Aunt in the story, and a marvellous picture of a 
 swindling company-promoter. But pathos and growing 
 tenderness are to be noted, especially in the handling 
 of Sam's mother and wife; and the death of a child is 
 beautifully and reverently described. But humour is 
 sadly lacking and, in spite of its many beauties I state 
 it trembling I am afraid The Great Hoggarty Diamond is 
 dull. 
 
 Fitz-Boodle, however, is undoubtedly a humourist. 
 In his Confessions there are many touches that suggest the 
 older Thackeray. He is a good-hearted scamp, and amus- 
 ing enough. His love-affairs are well told, and though 
 Minna Lowe is a mean little wretch let us hope she was 
 forced by her father and fiance", scoundrels both yet 
 Dorothea, silly, sweet Dorothea, and that sketch for 
 Blanche Amori, Ottilia I wonder if they were both 
 drawn from Carlyle's friend are pleasanter and more 
 interesting. They are all three very real. Most of us 
 have met Dorothea and Ottilia, though perhaps our 
 Ottilias have not over-eaten themselves some of us have 
 known Minnas too, perhaps. But Fitz cannot be for- 
 given for writing those scandalous chronicles of his 
 friends' private lives Men s Wives. Curiously enough, 
 
 it is the last one of these, the 's [Executioner s] Wife, 
 
 which has never been reprinted in his collected works, 
 the story of a heartless coquette and of a brother's 
 revenge, that seems to me the most admirable. The 
 others are stories of mean lives without any redeeming 
 sun-rays to enliven the surrounding gloom. The scoun-
 
 210 William /IDafeepeace Ubacfeerav 
 
 drel Walker, the blackguard Boroski, the humbug Sir 
 George, the foolish Ravenswing herself (though she 
 improves with age), the dragon-like Mrs. Berry, and the 
 selfish, vain, snobbish, and terribly vulgar Mrs. Dennis 
 Haggarty the history of Dennis is a tragedy second 
 only to that of Deuceace, are so many people whom 
 we would rather not know, and of whom we would cer- 
 tainly rather not read. 
 
 And now, Barry Lyndon! the greatest of all these 
 stories and the first in which the author's genius shines 
 unfettered. 
 
 "In that strange apologue" {Jonathan Wild], Thack- 
 eray^ wrote in one of the lectures on the Humourists, "the 
 author takes for a hero the greatest rascal, coward, 
 traitor, tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit and experience, 
 both large in this matter, could enable him to devise or 
 depict; he accompanies this villain through all the 
 transactions of his life, with a grinning deference and a 
 wonderful mock respect, and doesn't leave him till he 
 is dangling at the gallows, when the satirist makes him 
 a low bow and wishes the scoundrel good-day." 
 
 This is what Thackeray has done in Barry Lyndon, 
 only he lets his scoundrel die of delirium tremens in the 
 nineteenth year of his residence in the Fleet Prison. 
 The stroke of genius that induced him to make Barry tell 
 his own adventures in all good faith, places the story on 
 a literary plane higher even than that of Fielding's novel. 
 Not so good or so pure as The Great Hoggarty Diamond, 
 but how much grander a conception! The humour, the 
 satire, the remorseless irony read the speech where 
 Barry defends cheating at cards the pictures of life pre- 
 sented, the minor characters depicted, place it not very 
 far below Esmond itself in the list of Thackeray's works.
 
 Ubacfeerap ant> tbe public 211 
 
 There is no short story in the language more artistically 
 beautiful than the Princess's Tragedy * 
 
 But just as JonatJian Wild is the most neglected of 
 Fielding's works, so Barry Lyndon is the least read of all 
 Thackeray's. Work of genius though it be, it is an 
 unpleasant story, as its author fully realised. 
 
 "Wherever shines the sun, you are sure to find Folly 
 basking in it. Knavery is the shadow at Folly's heels," 
 Thackeray wrote in his character sketch of Captain Rook 
 and the Pigeon. Yet it seems as if he had not quite 
 grasped the fact that there are things other than folly 
 or knavery to write about, and that a surfeit of rogues 
 has an unpleasant after-effect. 
 
 "Oh! for a little manly, honest, God-relying sim- 
 plicity, cheerful, unaffected, and humble!" Thackeray 
 had prayed many years before, in one of his earliest 
 reviews ; but it was only with Vanity Fair that he began 
 to give them. 
 
 *This was suggested by an episode in the book, now little known, 
 entitled L 'Empire, ou dix ans sous Napoleon.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "VANITY FAIR"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "VANITY FAIR" 
 
 T ET the cause be what it may, the undisputed fact 
 J ' remains that in 1846 Thackeray was unknown out- 
 side literary circles and his own intimate friends. Indeed, 
 many years after this time he complained to Mr. Fields 
 that he was nearly forty years old before he was recog- 
 nised in Literature as belonging to a class of writers at 
 all above the orginary magazinists of his day. "I turned 
 off far better things then," he said, "than I do now, and 
 I wanted money sadly (my parents were rich, but 
 respectable, and I had spent all my guineas in my youth) ; 
 but how little I got for my work ! It makes me laugh at 
 what the Times pays me now, when I think of the old 
 days, and how much better I wrote for them then, and 
 got a shilling where I now get ten." 
 
 Now Thackeray was thirty-five in 1846, and he was 
 undoubtedly discontented with his lot; and, seeing his 
 juniors and inferiors pass him in the race for popularity 
 and fame, he thought that at last the time had come for 
 him to exert his great powers to make his name a house- 
 hold word, to occupy his proper place at the head of his 
 profession, and above all, to make money to lay aside for 
 his wife and children. It was such thoughts as these 
 that led, early in January, 1847, to the appearance of 
 the first number of Vanity Fair. 
 
 On January 2 he wrote to his friend, Professor 
 Aytoun : 
 
 215
 
 216 TKftilliam /IDafeepeace 
 
 "I think I have never had any ambition hitherto, or 
 cared what the world thought my work, good or bad; 
 but now the truth forces itself upon me, if the world will 
 once take to admiring Titmarsh, all his guineas will be 
 multiplied by ten. Guineas are good. I have got chil- 
 dren, only ten years more to the fore say, etc. ; now is 
 the time, my lad, to make your A when the sun at length 
 has begun to shine. Well, I think if I can make a push 
 at the present minute if my friends will shout, Tit- 
 marsh for ever! hurrah for, etc., etc., I may go up 
 with a run to a pretty fair place in my trade, and be 
 allowed to appear before the public among the first 
 fiddles. But my tunes must be heard in the streets, and 
 organs must grind them. Ha! now do you read me? 
 
 "Why don't Blackwood give me an article? Because 
 he refused the best story I ever wrote?" [The Great 
 Hoggarty Diamond^ "Colburn refused the present 
 'Novel without a Hero,' and if any man at Blackwood 's 
 or Colburn's, and if any man since fiddle-de-dee. Upon 
 my word and honour I never said so much about myself 
 before ; but I know this, if I had the command of Black- 
 wood, and a humouristical person like Titmarsh should 
 come up, and labour hard and honestly (please God) for 
 ten years, I would give him a hand. Now try, like a 
 man, revolving these things in your soul, and see if you 
 
 *Mrs. Oliphant has spoken of Thackeray in her book on William 
 Blackwood and His Sons : "About the same time" [December, 1839] 
 "there is talk in one of Alexander's letters of sending back a bundle 
 of prose and verse mingled, written by Thackeray, who had published 
 The Yellowplush Papers. I believe it was The Irish Sketch Book. 
 The Sketches were not in those days considered good enough for the 
 Magazine." But The Irish Sketch Book was not written until after 
 the visit to Ireland in 1842. A friend subsequently wrote introducing 
 him, and Thackeray offered to do some "gossiping" articles a sort 
 of Roundabout Paper ; but his first communication was neglected, 
 and he never wrote again.
 
 la. 
 
 PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHES OF ENGLISH SOCIETY, 
 
 BY W. M. THACKERAY, 
 
 Author of " The Irish Bkttch Book :" " Journey from Corthlll to Gmnd Cairo:" of " Jeames'i Diary 
 and the "Snob Papr" in Punch ; &c. fcc. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PUBLISHED AT THE PUNCH OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET, 
 
 J. ME.VZIES, EDINBURGH ; J M'LEOD, GLASGOW ; J. M'GLASUA,N, DVBUR. 
 
 1848. 
 
 fliradburj & En ni. Pristcn. WliUefrUn.]
 
 jfafr" 217 
 
 can't help me. . . . And if I can but save a little 
 money, by the Lord I'll try and keep it. 
 
 "Some day, when less selfish, I will write to you 
 about other matters than the present ego. ... I 
 have my children with me, and am mighty happy in that 
 paternal character preside over legs of mutton com- 
 fortably go to church at early morning and like it pay 
 rates and taxes, etc., etc. Between this line and the 
 above a man has brought me the Times on the Battle of 
 Life. 'Appy Dickens ! But I love Pickwick and Crum- 
 mies too much to abuse this great man. Aliquando 
 bonus. And you, young man, coming up in the world 
 full of fight, take counsel from a venerable and peaceful 
 gladiator who has stripped for many battles. Gad, sir, 
 this caution is a very good sign. Do you remember how 
 complimentary Scott and Goethe were ? I like the patri- 
 archal air of some people."* 
 
 Some ten days afterwards, however, Thackeray deter- 
 mined to have no friendly puff. Let Vanity Fair stand 
 or fall on its own merits; his pride asserted itself in 
 another letter to Aytoun.f 
 
 "I have been thinking of the other matter on which 
 I unbosomed myself to you, and withdraw my former 
 letter. Puffs are good and the testimony of good men ; 
 but I don't think these will make a success for a man, 
 and he ought to stand as the public chooses to put him, 
 
 *Memoirs of Professor Aytoun. By Sir Theodore Martin. 
 
 {Though Thackeray refused all extraneous aid for himself, he 
 would nevertheless do all he could for others, as the following extracts 
 from letters to Mr. Bedingfield show: 
 
 (i) December 21, 1843. " I shall give you a notice in Fraser in 
 the February number; but I tell you it's no use." 
 
 (ii) November , 1847. " Don't be displeased at my not reviewing 
 you. By Jove, I have not time to do half what I ought to do, and 
 have books upon books on my table at this minute all the works of 
 private friends who want a criticism. Yours distractedly, W. M. T."
 
 2 i8 TKnilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 I will try, please God, to do my best, and the money will 
 come, perhaps, some day! Meanwhile a man so lucky 
 as myself has no cause to complain. So let all purling 
 alone, though, as you know, I am glad if I can have, 
 and deserve your good opinion. The women like Vanity 
 Fair, I find, very much, and the publishers are quite in 
 good spirits regarding that venture. This is all I have 
 to say in the solitude of midnight with a quiet cigar, 
 and the weakest gin and water in the world, ruminating 
 over a child's fall, from which I have just come, having 
 gone as chaperon to my little girls. One of them had 
 her hair plaited in two tails, the other had ringlets and 
 the most fascinating bows of blue ribbon. It was very 
 merry and likewise sentimental. We went in a fly 
 quite genteel, and law! what a comfort it was when it 
 was over. Adyou."* 
 
 ' ' I wonder whether this will take, the publishers accept 
 it and the world read it, ' ' Thackeray said when he began 
 to write Vanity Fair; and though the publishers had 
 accepted it, it still seemed doubtful if the world would 
 read. The earlier numbers failed to attract attention, 
 and even the advisability of stopping its publication was 
 mooted; but fortunately, later in the year, the sale 
 increasing with great strides, the success of the venture 
 was assured. 
 
 There has been much speculation as to what caused 
 the change from failure to such brilliant success, and 
 many reasons have been suggested. Some will have it 
 that the change in the public attitude was the result of 
 an article in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1848; 
 while others insist that the attention of the world to the 
 merits of the work was attracted by Currer Bell's eulogistic 
 
 *Memoirs of Professor Aytoun. By Sir Theodore Martin.
 
 fair" 219 
 
 dedication to Thackeray prefixed to the second edition 
 of Jane Eyre. Thackeray himself always insisted that 
 it was the success of his first Christmas book, Mrs. 
 Perkyns* Ball, that made him popular. 
 
 No doubt the review, the dedication especially, and 
 the Christmas Book, each gave an impetus to the sale of 
 the novel, but I think the most probable and simple 
 explanation is that the book recommended itself by the 
 greater interest that was to be found in its pages as it 
 progressed ; and I am to a certain extent supported in 
 this belief by a letter written in May (1847) by Fitzger- 
 ald: "Thackeray is progressing greatly in his line: he 
 publishes a novel in Nos. Vanity Fair which began 
 dull I thought, but gets better every number." How- 
 ever, not every one found the earlier parts dull. A 
 friend wrote to Thackeray, after two or three numbers 
 had come out: "Don't get nervous or think about criti- 
 cism or trouble yourself about the opinions of friends; 
 you have completely beaten Dickens out of the inner cir- 
 cle already;" and Mrs. Carlyle wrote in September 
 (1847) to her husband: "I brought away the last four 
 numbers of Vanity Fair, and read one of them during the 
 night. Very good indeed, beats Dickens out of the 
 world." 
 
 People in 1847 were accustomed to buy their fiction 
 in green-covered monthly parts, which overflowed with 
 exaggerated humour and extravagant pathos; or in pink- 
 covered numbers, containing brilliantly inaccurate and 
 thoroughly enjoyable descriptions of Irish or army life ; 
 and not unnaturally they did not at first take kindly to 
 the less exciting, though far more intellectual and artistic 
 sketches of English society, that were offered in the 
 yellow wrappers. Yet even during the time of the great-
 
 220 THlilliam flDafeepeace Ubacfterap 
 
 est success of Vanity Fair, only about six thousand copies 
 of a number were sold, while the circulation of the parts 
 of Dickens's novels was frequently as much as twenty or 
 twenty-five thousand. 
 
 But though Vanity Fair may not have appealed to the 
 general public as Dickens and Lever did, yet it is plain 
 that among the literary class, and in what is known as 
 "Society," Thackeray had now established a foremost 
 place. Such high-class journals as the Spectator specially 
 praised the novel as it was coming out in serial parts. 
 The following interesting letter appeared in a recent issue 
 of that journal (Spectator, January 14, 1899), and quite 
 bears out what has been said as to the effect produced 
 by Vanity Fair on the more educated and termed portions 
 of the community: 
 
 THACKERAY AND THE "SPECTATOR." 
 [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] 
 
 SIR, May I, as an old lady entitled to be reminiscent 
 and garrulous, "bestow my tediousness upon you" in a 
 little anecdote which relates to the Spectator? In 1847 
 we were living in Paris in the Rue Neuve de Berri. One 
 morning I saw my father (Admiral then Captain 
 Wormeley) putting the Spectator into his coat-pocket. 
 "Oh! father," I cried, "please don't take it away. It 
 only came this morning." "Yes, yes, my dear," he 
 answered; "I must take it at once to Mrs. Carmichael 
 Smyth. It has a nice review of her son's serial in it. 
 Only yesterday she was lamenting to me that no notice 
 seemed to be taken by the Press of William's book, 
 while so much was being said of Dickens's new novel, 
 and, for her part, she did not see that Dombey atid Son
 
 fair" 221 
 
 was more worthy of notice than Vanity Fair" They were 
 both coming out as serials, Vanity Fair in yellow covers, 
 Dombey in green. 
 
 I am, Sir, etc., 
 
 E. W. LATIMER. 
 
 714, PARK AVENUE, BATIMORE, MARYLAND, 
 December y>th. 
 
 It is quite conceivable that Currer Bell's dedication, 
 dated December 21, 1847, may have hastened the general 
 recognition of the genius of the Snobographer ; for 
 although now Vanity Fair is held to be the greater work, 
 yet we have it on the authority of Sara Coleridge that it 
 was not so popular, even in 1847, as Jane Eyre. 
 
 The identity of Currer Bell had not then been revealed, 
 and many were the guesses as to who the writer could 
 be. In October, 1848, Thackeray wrote to Mrs. Brook- 
 field, saying: 
 
 "Old Dilke of the Athenceum vows that Procter (Barry 
 Cornwall) and his wife between them wrote Jane Eyre, and 
 when I protest ignorance, says, 'Pooh! you know who 
 wrote it; you are the deepest rogue in England, etc.' ; I 
 wonder whether it can be true? It is just possible; and 
 then, what a singular circumstance is the cross-fire of the 
 two dedications (Jane Eyre to Thackeray, Vanity Fair to 
 Barry Cornwall"). 
 
 I quote part of this dedication, which is very interest- 
 ing still, even if only on account of the misdirected 
 eulogy it contains: 
 
 "There is a man in our own days whose words are 
 not framed to tickle delicate ears : who, to my thinking 
 comes before the great ones of society much as the son 
 of Imlah comes before the throned Kings of Judah and
 
 222 William flDafcepeace Ubacfcerag 
 
 Israel ; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as 
 prophet-like and as vital a mien as dauntless and as 
 daring. Is the satirist of Vanity Fair admired in high 
 places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those 
 amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, 
 and over whom he flashes the levin brand of his denuncia- 
 tion, were to take his warnings in time, they or their 
 seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. 
 
 "Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded 
 to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect 
 profounder and more unique than his contemporaries 
 have yet recognised ; because I regard him as the first 
 social regenerator of the day as the very master of that 
 working corps who would restore to rectitude the 
 warped system of things; because I think no commen- 
 tator on his writings has yet found the comparison that 
 suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. 
 They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, 
 humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an 
 eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, 
 but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour 
 attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious 
 genius that lambent steel lightning playing under the 
 edge of the summer cloud does to the electric death- 
 spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. 
 Thackeray because to him if he will accept the tribute 
 of a total stranger I have dedicated this second edition 
 of Jane Eyre. ' ' 
 
 In the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward it has been 
 told how, when a few numbers of Vanity Fair had ap- 
 peared, it was thought that Mr. Hayward might consent 
 to review them in the Edinburgh Review. He was very 
 good-natured about it, but happened to be busied about
 
 jfair" 223 
 
 other things, and fancied he could not - undertake it. 
 Mrs. Procter, however, kindly undertook to mark the 
 passages which might be usefully quoted, and Hayward 
 thereupon consented and wrote a review upon the basis 
 furnished by Mrs. Procter, and "the review because 
 praising a work really adorable and then only imperfectly 
 known to the general public had an immense effect, 
 and accelerated the recognition of Mr. Thackeray's repu- 
 tation and power." 
 
 Although I cannot speak from actual knowledge, I am 
 inclined to doubt the immense effect of the review, for 
 this effect would only be produced amongst the readers 
 of the quarterly, who are only to be found in the cul- 
 tured class; and even the readers of the Edinburgh 
 Review itself are not legion. Again, the article appeared 
 in January, 1848, when more than half the book had 
 already appeared, and when, I think, the commercial 
 success of the novel had been established. 
 
 But even while objecting that too much stress has 
 been laid upon the great help that the article rendered 
 to the success of the book, I willingly admit the service 
 Mr. Hayward did for the reputation of the author, and 
 that the article is fair enough except in parts, where the 
 reviewer seems to have been afraid that his enthusiasm 
 would run away with his pen, and has endeavoured to 
 steady himself by setting to work to discover imaginary 
 faults. The review opened as follows: "Full many a 
 valuable truth has been sent undulating through the air 
 by men who have lived and died unknown. At the 
 present moment the rising generation are supplied with 
 the best of their mental aliment by writers whose names 
 are a dead letter to the mass; and among the most 
 remarkable of these is Michael Angelo Titmarsh, alias
 
 224 William flDafeepeace 
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray, author of The Irish Sketch 
 Book, of A Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, oljeames's 
 Diary, of The Snob Papers in Punch, of Vanity Fair, etc., 
 etc.," all of which works the reviewer criticises, dealing, 
 with Vanity Fair, as far as it had gone (the first eleven 
 numbers). And the article concluded: "A writer with 
 such a pen as Mr. Thackeray's is an acquisition of real 
 and high value in our literature. High life, middle life, 
 and low life are (or very soon will be) pretty nearly the 
 same to him: he has fancy as well as feeling: he can 
 laugh or cry without grimacing: he can skim the surface, 
 and he can penetrate to the core. Let the public give 
 him encouragement, and let him give himself time, and 
 we can fearlessly prophesy that he will soon become one 
 of the acknowledged heads of his own peculiar walk of 
 literature." 
 
 "Vanity Fair" said the Edinburgh Reviewer, "is as 
 sure of immortality as ninety-nine hundredths of modern 
 novels are sure of annihilation." 
 
 Even to this day a general belief exists that Vanity 
 Fair was hawked round the town, and offered and 
 rejected here, there, and everywhere, before Messrs. 
 Bradbury & Evans, the proprietors and publishers of 
 Punch, brought it out in twenty monthly parts. 
 
 This view is absolutely erroneous. All the evidence 
 I have collected points to an entirely different conclu- 
 sion. Mr. Trollope says, "We are aware that the 
 monthly nurses of periodical literature did not at first 
 smile on the effort. The proprietors of magazines did 
 not see their way to undertake Vanity Fair, and the pub- 
 lishers are said to have generally looked shy upon it." 
 Mr. Marzials tells us that " Vanity Fair itself. Vanity Fair, 
 one of the unquestioned masterpieces of English litera-
 
 jfatr" 225 
 
 ture, was rejected by Colburn's Magazine." Even Mrs. 
 Ritchie says, in her Biographical Introduction to the 
 novel, "One has heard of the journeys which the manu- 
 script made to various publishers' houses before it could 
 find one ready to undertake the venture, and how long 
 its appearance was delayed by various doubts and hesita- 
 tions." 
 
 On the other hand Mr. Vizetelly, who saw a great deal 
 of Thackeray about this time, has told what I take to be 
 the true tale. "The hawking about of Vanity Fair," he 
 said, in the Glances Back Through Seventy Years, "of 
 course presupposed that the manuscript was complete, 
 and was submitted in this state to the half score fatuous 
 fools who declined it with thanks, but I'm positive that, 
 when arrangements were made with Messrs. Bradbury & 
 Evans for the publication of the work, with no further 
 knowledge on their part of its nature than could be 
 gleaned from Mr. Thackeray during a brief interview, 
 nothing beyond number one was written. I have no 
 doubt whatever that the publishers of Vanity Fair bought 
 it like most works by known authors are purchased 
 solely on its writer's then reputation, which his Snobs of 
 England in Punch had greatly extended." And then 
 Mr. Vizetelly supports his statement by adding the fol- 
 lowing passage: "One afternoon, when he [Thackeray] 
 called in Peterborough Court [at Vizetelly's offices] he 
 had a small brown paper parcel with him, and opened it 
 to show me his two careful drawings for the page plates 
 to the first number of Vanity Fair. Tied up with them 
 was the manuscript of the earlier part of the book, of 
 which he had several times spoken to me, referring to 
 the quaint character that Chiswick Mall within a stone's 
 throw of which I was then living still retained. His
 
 226 William /iDafeepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 present intention, he told me, was to see Bradbury & 
 Evans, and offer the work to them. ... In little 
 more than half an hour Thackeray again made his appear- 
 ance, and, with a beaming face, gleefully informed me 
 that he had settled the business. 'Bradbury & Evans,' 
 he said, 'accepted so readily that I am deuced sorry I 
 didn't ask them for another tenner. I am certain they 
 would have given it.' He then explained that he had 
 named fifty guineas per part, including the two sheets of 
 letter-press, a couple of etchings, and the initials at the 
 commencement of the chapters. He reckoned the text, 
 I remember, at no more than five-and-twenty shillings a 
 page, the two etchings at six guineas each, while as for 
 the few initials at the beginning of the chapters, he threw 
 those in. Such was Mr. Thackeray's own estimate of his 
 commercial value as an author and engraver, A.D. 1846. 
 I know perfectly well that after the publication com- 
 menced much of the remainder of the work was written 
 under pressure for and from the printer, and not infre- 
 quently the first instalment of 'copy' needed to fill the 
 customary thirty-two pages was penned while the 
 printer's boy was waiting in the hall at Young Street." 
 
 This proves Mr. Trollope's statement to be entirely 
 inaccurate, and I will now give another extract from Mr. 
 Taylor, that corroborates Mr. Vizetelly arid further 
 points out that Mr. Marzial's remark should be modified 
 (and this too in spite of the sentence in Thackeray's let- 
 ter to Professor Aytoun). 
 
 "Some time before" [1846], Mr. Taylor wrote in his 
 Life of Thackeray , "he, Thackeray, had sketched some 
 chapters entitled Pencil Sketches of English Society which 
 he had offered to the late Mr. Colburn for insertion in 
 The New Monthly Magazine. It formed a portion of a
 
 TAILPIECE. 
 From " Vanity Fair."
 
 "IDanfts jf air" 227 
 
 continuous story, of a length not yet determined, and 
 was rejected by Mr. Colburn after consideration. The 
 papers which Mr. Thackeray had previously contributed 
 to The New Monthly were chiefly slight comic sketches 
 and perhaps the least favourable specimens of his pow- 
 ers. They were indeed not superior to the common run 
 of magazine papers, and were certainly not equal to his 
 contributions to Fraser. In fact, as a contributor to The 
 New Monthly, he had achieved no remarkable success, 
 and his papers appear to have been little in demand 
 there. Happily the author of Pencil Sketches of English 
 Society, though suspending his projected work, did not 
 abandon it. He saw in its opening chapters certainly 
 not the best part of the story when completed the 
 foundations of a work which was to secure him at last a 
 fame among contemporary writers in his own proper 
 name. The success of Mr. Dickens's shilling monthly 
 parts suggested to him to make it the commencement of 
 a substantive work of fiction, to be published month by 
 month, with illustrations by the author." 
 
 When he offered it to Colburn he had not even 
 thought of the now famous title, which suddenly occurred 
 to him in the middle of the night. "I jumped out of 
 bed," he told Miss Perry, "and ran three times round 
 my room, uttering as I went : ' Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair! 
 Vanity Fair!' ' 
 
 Before Vanity Fair was finished Thackeray had 
 become a personage, and was in his proper place, as one 
 of the foremost men of the day. He was no longer 
 dependent on Fraser and Punch for his livelihood: he 
 stood forward as a great novelist, the equal of the great 
 humourists whom he so much admired.
 
 228 'GdUliam /iDafcepeace 
 
 Writing on May 4, Fitzgerald observed: "He is 
 become a great man, and I am told goes to Holland 
 House and Devonshire House, and for some reason or 
 another will not write a word to me. But I am sure this 
 is not because he is asked to Holland House." And a 
 couple of months later he wrote: "Thackeray is a great 
 man, goes to Devonshire House, etc., and his book (which 
 is capital) is read by the great, and will, I hope, do 
 them good." "Thackeray is winning great social suc- 
 cess, dining at the Academy, Sir Robert Peel's, etc.," 
 another old friend, Monckton Milnes, wrote in May, 
 1849. "I doubt whether he will be much the happier 
 for it, though I think people generally are for satisfied 
 ambition." 
 
 Now Thackeray was always of a sensitive disposition, 
 and the applause was to him a glorious stimulant; just 
 the thing that he had been wanting for thirteen years, 
 and which, now he had obtained it, did not make him 
 content to rest upon his laurels, but urged him on and 
 on to struggle for yet greater honours. He became a 
 lion, and remained a lion till the end of his life. He 
 went everywhere, and saw everything. "There is no 
 more dangerous or stupefying position for a man in life 
 than to be a cock of small society," he has written. 
 "It prevents his ideas from growing, it renders him intol- 
 erably conceited. A twopenny-halfpenny Caesar, a 
 Brummagem dandy, a coterie philosopher or wit, is 
 pretty sure to be an ass ; and, in fine, I lay it down as 
 an axiom that it is good for a man to live where he can 
 meet his betters, intellectual and social." He followed 
 his own advice and went everywhere Holland House, 
 Sir Robert Peel's, Devonshire House, Lord Lans- 
 downe's, Royal Academy banquets, Lady Waldegrave's,
 
 jfafr" 229 
 
 Rothschild's, etc., to balls, dinners, and receptions, 
 indiscriminately. He liked society; he felt quite at 
 home in it, and, as a well-bred gentleman, liked to meet 
 his peers ; but he never became conceited or vain, and to 
 the end of his life was amused in his quiet way at the 
 idea of being a great man. "I was going to send you a 
 letter the other day from a sculptor who wants to make 
 my bust; think of that," he wrote to a friend of his. 
 
 "Lady C , beautiful, serene, stupid old lady: she 
 
 asked, 'Isn't that the great Mr. Thackeray?' Oh, my 
 stars! think of that," he wrote later. And in a letter to 
 Mrs. Brookfield from Cambridge in 1850, he said, "I 
 think William" [Brookfield] "is a little disappointed 
 that I have not been made enough a lion of, whereas my 
 timid nature trembles before such honours, and my 
 vanity would be to go through life as a gentleman as a 
 Major Pendennis you have hit it. I believe I never do 
 think about my public character, and certainly didn't 
 see the gyps, waiters, and under-graduates whispering in 
 hall, as your William did, or thought he did." 
 
 Perhaps he wasted too much time in this way, and 
 Carlyle was right enough when he surmised that the 
 course Thackeray had got into, since he had taken to 
 cultivating dinner-eating in fashionable houses, was not 
 salutary discipline for work. But on the other hand, 
 society was useful and necessary to him. "A social 
 painter must be of the world which he depicts, and 
 native to the manners he portrays," he wrote, when 
 comparing the accuracy of Leech's drawings with the 
 many mistakes of Gilray's^ "If I don't go out and 
 mingle in society, I can't write," he once wrote to Mr. 
 Bedingfield's mother; and this was true, enough, for just 
 as Dickens portrays the lower classes, so was Thackeray
 
 230 William flDafcepeace 
 
 \ 
 
 the novelist of the higher classes. Even in his letters 
 are numerous references to the use to which he put his 
 social opportunities. He makes a speech at the Library 
 Fund Dinner at which he breaks down. "Of what I 
 said I have not the smallest idea," he wrote, "The dis- 
 comfiture will make a good chapter for Pendennis" ; or 
 he goes to a "Sybarite repast," where he "saw a chap- 
 ter or two of Pendennis in some of them" [the guests]; 
 and so on. 
 
 Candid friends hinted that he was becoming a tuft- 
 hunter. 
 
 "Mr. Thackeray has said more, and more effect- 
 ively, about snobs and snobbism than any other man," 
 Harriet Martineau has written; "and yet his frittered 
 life, and his obedience to the call of the great, are the 
 observed of all observers. As it is so, so it must be; 
 but 'O, the pity of it, the pity of it !' Great and unusual 
 allowance is to be made in his case, I am aware; but 
 this does not lessen the concern occasioned by the spec- 
 tacle of one after another of the aristocracy of nature 
 making the Ko-to to the aristocracy of accident." 
 
 "Thackeray had grown a little bias/," Sir Frederick 
 Pollock wrote in 1849; anc ^ some years later: "Thack- 
 eray . . . after he became famous, liked no subject 
 so well" [as himself and his books], and this, too, after 
 Thackeray had complained humourously, I admit to 
 Mr. Brookfield that at a dinner at the "Star and Garter" 
 with the Strutts and Romillys they talked about Vanity 
 Fair and Pendennis almost incessantly, though he declared 
 he tried to turn the conversation at least ten times, but 
 they would not let him. Very probably these people 
 who complained of Thackeray's conversation turning on
 
 "Danfts jfair" 231 
 
 his books were the very people who would not permit 
 the subject to be changed. 
 
 Compare the following extract from Macaulay's diary 
 (February 12, 1849): "I dined at Lady Charlotte Lind- 
 say's with Hallam and Kinglake. I am afraid that I 
 talked too much about my book. Yet really the fault 
 was not mine. People would introduce the subject. 
 I will be more guarded ; yet how difficult it is to hit the 
 right point ! To turn the conversation might look un- 
 gracious and affected." 
 
 And now listen to old Isaac Disraeli: "Men of genius 
 have often been accused of imaginary crimes. Their 
 very eminence attracts the lie of calumny, which tradi- 
 tion often conveys beyond possibility of refutation." 
 
 Remember the old libel, that Thackeray had drawn 
 Currer Bell in "Becky Sharp," and in revenge she had 
 portrayed him in ' ' Rochester. ' ' Well might he exclaim, in 
 a. Roundabout Paper, "Good gracious! how do lies begin?" 
 
 But to return to Thackeray and his friends. 
 
 Fitzgerald at first seems to have noticed no change in 
 him. "I have seen Thackeray three or four times," he 
 wrote. "He is just the same. All the world admires 
 Vanity Fair, and the author is courted by dukes and 
 duchesses and wits of both sexes." But in the follow- 
 ing year he remarked: "Thackeray is in such a great 
 world that I am afraid of him ; he gets tired of me, and 
 we are content to regard each other at a distance." But 
 though, as the years passed, the friends saw less of each 
 other, their love never diminished. 
 
 Thackeray had some enemies who among the for- 
 tunate has not? Has ever a successful man of genius 
 gone through the world without stirring up angry feel- 
 ings, or unconsciously rousing feelings of jealousy?
 
 232 "CdUltam flDafeepeace Ubacfeera 
 
 "Who has no enemies shall know no friends, 
 'A real good chap,' and there it ends." 
 
 Arcedeckne (supposed to be the prototype of ' ' Foker' ') 
 especially seems to have disliked him. At Epsom, on a 
 Derby Day, he warned Jeaffreson: "As you ain't a swell 
 you'd better steer clear of Thack for a little time, for 
 when I saw him and gave him the 'Hullo, Thack!' he 
 was walking with a lord." At this race-meeting Thack- 
 eray lost his gold repeater and Jeaffreson had his watch 
 stolen, so Arcedeckne may have felt himself avenged. 
 
 But Thackeray never did desert his older friends, and 
 the more strictly intellectual and artistic society of earlier 
 days. We know how he dined at Macready's house to 
 meet Sir T. Wilson, Panizzi, Landseer, and others, and 
 at Foster's, where he saw Macready, Rintoul, Kenyon, 
 Procter, Kinglake, Alfred Tennyson and Brookfield, and 
 how Macready dined with Thackeray and met the Ken- 
 yons, the Procters, Reeve, Villiers, Evans, and Stanfield, 
 and saw Miss Sartoris, S. C. Danse, White, and Gold- 
 smith in the evening. 
 
 He was quite aware of the charge of tuft-hunting that 
 was brought against him. "To know young noblemen 
 and brilliant and notorious town-bucks and leaders of 
 fashion has this great disadvantage," he wrote in Mr. 
 Brown on Friendship, "that if you talk about them or are 
 seen with them much, you offend all your friends of 
 middle life. It makes men envious to see their acquaint- 
 ance better off than themselves ; ' ' and of course Thackeray 
 had to pay the inevitable price for his social popularity 
 the loss of some of his friends of early life. "I like 
 what are called Bohemians and fellows of that sort," he 
 told Mr. J. E. Cooke. "I have seen all sorts of society 
 dukes, duchesses, lords and ladies, authors, actors, and
 
 Jfair" 233 
 
 painters and taken altogether I think I like painters 
 the best, and Bohemians generally. They are more 
 natural and unconventional: they wear their hair on 
 their shoulders if they want, and dress picturesquely and 
 carelessly." That is not like the language of a tuft- 
 hunter, nor is the following language likely to come from 
 an idolater of rank: "When I see these magnificent 
 dandies yawning out of White's or caracolling in the 
 Park, I like to think that Brummell was the greatest of 
 them all, and that Brummell's father was a footman." 
 
 But nevertheless he thoroughly admired ihej'e ne sats 
 quoi that marks the gentleman. "They" [the Kickle- 
 burys] "are travelling with Mr. Bloundell, who was a 
 gentleman once and still retains about him some faint 
 odour of that time of bloom." "It is true . . . poor 
 Plantagenet" [Gaunt] "is only an idiot ... a 
 zany, . . . and yet you see somehow that he is a 
 gentleman." These are among the lines that Thackeray 
 has written, expressive of the high value he placed on good 
 breeding. "No doubt a man may be the descendant of 
 eleven earls, and yet be a pitifully mean creature," he 
 once said to Mr. Jeaffreson; "all the same for that, I 
 am of opinion that it takes three generations to make a 
 gentleman." But a man may like to be in the company 
 of gentlemen without being a snob ! 
 
 Thackeray had a spiteful enemy in Dr. Gordon Hake, 
 who treated him very unjustly in his Memoirs. "He 
 could never realise the independent feelings of those who 
 happen to be born to fortune a thing which a man of 
 genius should be able to do with ease," the Doctor 
 wrote. "Thackeray, as if under the impression that the 
 party was invited to look at him, thought it necessary to 
 make a figure and attract attention during the dessert,
 
 234 William /iDafeepeace Zbacfcera2 
 
 by telling stories and more than half acting them: the 
 aristocratic party listening, but appearing little amused. 
 Borrow knew better how to behave in good company, 
 and kept quiet, though doubtless he felt his name." 
 Borrow may have known how to behave in good com- 
 pany, but he certainly never learnt to behave elsewhere. 
 For instance, he asked a simple, unpretending woman, 
 who said to him, "Oh, Mr. Borrow, I have read your 
 books with so much pleasure," "Pray what books do 
 you mean, madam my account books?" and when Miss 
 Strickland expressed a wish to send him a copy of her 
 Queens of England, "For Heaven's sake don't, madam; 
 I shouldn't know what to do with them"; and then, 
 turning to a friend, remarked, "What a damned fool that 
 woman is!" No, I do not think, in spite of Dr. Hake, 
 that Thackeray could have learnt much of the proprieties 
 from Borrow. 
 
 Perhaps these dislikes may be explained away by the 
 fact that Thackeray had some contempt for dull persons. 
 "Stupid people," he wrote, "who do not know how to 
 laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited, i.e. 
 bigoted, i.e. cruel, i.e. ungentle, uncharitable, unchristian." 
 
 However, the contrary evidence is overwhelming. 
 
 Major D declared that "perhaps no man was ever 
 
 so improved by success' ' ; Albert Smith insisted that 
 Thackeray was a very jolly fellow, and no "High Art 
 about him"; and similar testimony is borne by Dr. 
 John Browne, J. E. Cooke, Mrs. Kemble, Fields, Reed, 
 James Payn, Dr. Merriman, Bayard Taylor, and a great 
 number of other men and women of all classes of those 
 who met him. 
 
 "What I saw of Thackeray impressed me with his 
 gentleness and charity," Mr. John Hollingshead has
 
 tfafr" 235 
 
 written. "Far from being a cynic, he was more like a 
 good-natured schoolboy." "None of the little aside 
 sermons which he preached in his books fell by any 
 chance from his lips," Mr. Vizetelly said. "His placid 
 temper and pleasant courtesy, in spite of the mild 
 expressions in which he indulged, charmed all who came 
 into contact with him. . . . Thackeray was reticent 
 in expressing his opinion upon people whom he did not 
 like, and very rarely said ill-natured things about any 
 one."* 
 
 "There was, too, a diversity of opinion about his 
 temper and principles," Dean Hole said. "Others who 
 did not understand him have made some cruel mistakes. 
 Whoever desires to know what sort of man he was, his 
 love of goodness and contempt of evil, let him read The 
 Newcomes. ' ' 
 
 "There were times," Blanchard Jerrold has told us, 
 "when Thackeray could not break through his outward 
 austerity, even when passing an intimate friend in the 
 street. A mutual friend met him one afternoon in Fleet 
 Street, ambling to Whitefriars on his cob, and a very 
 
 *Mr. Hollingshead gives a good instance of Thackeray's practical 
 insight into human character. 
 
 " I was frankly brutal, and brutally frank, and might have been a 
 Brummagem Carlyle in the way I addressed my future editor. 
 
 '"You write a very pure style,' said Thackeray, ' May I ask where 
 you learnt it?' 
 
 '" Mostly, I am afraid, in the streets,' I replied, rather impudently, 
 ' from costermongers and skittlesharps. My model may have been 
 the first chapter of Genesis, which is composed chiefly, if I remember 
 rightly, of words of one syllable: anyway, I rarely use long words, 
 because I am not sure I always understand their meaning, and some- 
 times there might be a difficulty about the spelling.' This was 
 hardly diplomatic language from a young correspondent to a great 
 and able editor, but Thackeray was incapable of taking offence where 
 none was meant. Speaking to the wild Irish Secretary afterwards, I 
 believe he set it down to my constitutional nervousness and excite- 
 ment. He was quite right. 'Cheek' is often the offspring of bash- 
 fulness."
 
 236 Mtlltam /IDafeepeace 
 
 extraordinary figure he made. He caught sight of us, 
 and my companion was about to grasp his hand, but he 
 just touched his hat with his finger, and without opening 
 his lips, or relaxing the solemn cast of his features, he 
 passed on. My companion stamped his foot on the 
 pavement, and cried, 'Who would think we were up till 
 four o'clock this morning together? He sang his Rever- 
 end Dr. Luther, and was the liveliest of us all. ' But 
 Thackeray was a sick man as well as a hard-worked 
 one. He was threatened by several disorders of long 
 continuance and against which he stoutly fought, turning 
 his noble, placid face bravely upon the world this great 
 Achilles whom we knew, and who was most loved by 
 those who knew him best." And Mr. George Hodder, 
 who had every opportunity of knowing him well, said 
 the same thing in words not very dissimilar. 
 
 Hear Mr. Locker Lampson: "I had a sincere regard 
 for Thackeray. I well remember his striking person- 
 ality striking to those who had the ability to recognise 
 it the look of the man, the latent power, and the 
 occasional keenness of his remarks on men and their 
 actions, as if he saw through and through them. Thack- 
 eray drew many unto him, for he had engaging as well 
 as fine qualities. He was open-handed and kind-hearted. 
 He had not an overweening opinion of his literary conse- 
 quence, and he was generous as regarded the people 
 whom the world chose to call his rivals." 
 
 And lastly, read Mrs. Field's tribute to the great man : 
 "I seem to see one kindly face large, full of humour, 
 full of human sympathy. The face belongs to Thack- 
 eray, and I can recall his goodness to one who, although 
 married already, was hardly more than 'a slip of a girl,' 
 and very much afraid of him afraid, let me say, rather
 
 "Danitg fair" 237 
 
 of the idea of him, the great author and famous lecturer, 
 who was making his crowded audiences laugh and cry 
 at his simple word every evening; the great man of the 
 moment whom everybody was 'running after,' yet of 
 whom they said that he liked his friends so much better 
 than all their noise about himself, that he was always 
 trying to escape from it and here he was! coming to 
 see whom? Well, it appears it did not so much mat- 
 ter, for he was bent on kindnesses, and he took it all in 
 at a glance, and sat down by the window, and drew me 
 to him, and told me about his 'little girls' at home; how 
 he walked down the wrong side of Piccadilly one day, 
 and so lost what money he had had out of his pocket 
 money which belonged properly to these same dear girls 
 of his; therefore it came about that he made up his 
 mind though it was hard enough to come away from 
 them to get something to take back to them in place of 
 what he had lost ; and how they were the dearest girls 
 in the world and when I came to England I should find 
 them more like old friends, and should have somebody, 
 I am sure, he thought, to 'play with,' though, under 
 the circumstances, he could not use just those words ! 
 And then, soon after, he went away, leaving a great 
 train of sunshine and kindness behind him which has 
 never faded. ... I remember one other interview 
 with Thackeray during his visit to America, in New 
 York. He was coming down a long flight of steps into 
 the street after one of the lectures. We were in front, 
 and we were with Washington Irving. Thackeray 
 startled the little group by overtaking us and striking 
 Irving briskly on the shoulder (they were evidently very 
 much at home together); then, turning to us, 'And 
 here's the very little woman I was telling you of to-day !"
 
 238 Militant flDafcepeace 
 
 at which sally, since he evidently had not been telling 
 anything very serious, we all laughed, and then he began 
 to relate the experiences of the evening (his lecture). It 
 was only a touch, a glance, a nothing, as one may say, 
 but that warmth and sunlight of his nature always 
 seemed to wake a new flowing of existence into being 
 where it shone even for an instant. ... It need 
 not be told here that Thackeray loved the great world, 
 and the strange, noble, and even ignoble creatures it 
 contains, and liked to see them straight, as he says, 
 somewhere; and would have said to his favourites, as 
 Dr. Johnson said to Mrs. Thrale, 'Be brisk, be splendid, 
 and be public' ; but he loved, above all, his fireside cor- 
 ner, and his 'little girls,' and the friends they drew about 
 them." 
 
 I do not believe that Thackeray neglected his friends 
 intentionally. That he did so is a view I hold to be 
 entirely untenable his whole character, his every action, 
 shows the absurdity of this opinion. 
 
 We all know how it is if a social equal or inferior 
 pass us in the street without a word of recognition, it is 
 because he does not see us; but if a person of a much 
 higher rank do the same, then it is because he does not 
 wish to see us. The same absurd sensitiveness, which 
 can only arise from a feeling of uncertainty about one's 
 own position, may be seen when a family has lost 
 its money. They lose their friends, and then to the 
 end of the chapter they grumble at the perfidy of 
 wealthy people. But is it entirely the fault of the 
 friends? I think not. Perhaps in most cases it is 
 because the unfortunate family is on the look-out for 
 slights and insults in a way that was quite unnatural to 
 them in their days of prosperity. Thus was it with the
 
 ffair" 239 
 
 friends of Thackeray who found him blast, bored, or 
 cold. 
 
 Thackeray in a letter to Mrs. Bayne, has defended 
 himself: 
 
 "When a man gets this character (of being haughty, 
 and supercilious to old acquaintances) he never loses it. 
 This opinion once put forth against a man, all 
 his friends believe it, accommodate themselves to the 
 new theory, see coolness where none is meant. They 
 won't allow for the time an immensely enlarged acquaint- 
 ance occupies, and fancy I am dangling after lords and 
 fine people because I am not so much in their drawing- 
 rooms as in former days. They don't know in what a 
 whirl a man plunges who is engaged in my business. 
 Since I began this work [lecturing] besides travelling, 
 reading, seeing people, dining when I am forced out 
 and long to be quiet I write at the rate of five thousand 
 letters a year. I have a heap before me now. Six of 
 them are about lectures one from an old gentleman 
 whom I met on the railroad and who sends me his 
 fugitive poems. I must read them, answer them, and 
 compliment the old gentleman. Another from a poor 
 widow, in bad spelling, asking for help. Nobody knows 
 the work until he is in it. Of course with all this, old 
 friends hint you are changed, you are forsaking them for 
 great people, and so forth, and so forth."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "PENDENNIS" CHARLOTTE BRONTE
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "PENDENNIS" CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 r I CHOUGH the success of Vanity Fair made Thackeray 
 -A- independent of the magazines, he did not cease to 
 contribute to the periodical literature of the day, and if 
 he severed his connection with Fraser it was only to 
 enable him to send a greater quantity of work to Punch, 
 which paper was far more congenial to him, and, it may 
 safely be conjectured, a far better paymaster. His last 
 contribution to Fraser, with the exception of the satirical 
 Mr. Thackeray in the United States, some six years later, 
 was A Grumble at the Christmas Books. In this paper, 
 printed in January, 1847, ne took a secret farewell of the 
 unconscious readers in the following characteristic para- 
 graphs on "the very last page of the very last sheet" he 
 thought he would ever contribute to the magazine, 
 
 "Ha! what have we here? M. A. Titmarsh's Christ- 
 mas Book MRS. PERKYN'S BALL. Dedicated to the Mul- 
 ligan of Ballymulligan. Ballymulligan ! Ballyfiddlestick ! 
 What you, too, Mr. Titmarsh? You, you sneering 
 wretch, setting up a Christmas book of your own ! This, 
 then, is the meaning of your savage feelings towards 'the 
 minor fiddlers' ! Is your kit, sirrah, any bigger than 
 theirs? You, who in the columns of this very Magazine, 
 have sneered at the works of so many painters, look at 
 your own performances! Some of your folks have 
 scarcely more legs than Miss Biffin : they have fins 
 
 243
 
 244 William flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 instead of hands they squint, almost every one of 
 them ! All this is quite true. But see where 
 
 we have come to! to the very last page of the very 
 last sheet; and the writer is called upon to stop just at 
 the very moment he was going to cut his own head off. 
 So have I seen Mr. Clown (in that Christmas drama 
 which has been foremost in my thought, during all the 
 above meditations) set up the gallows, adjust the rope, 
 try the noose curiously, and tumble head over heels." 
 
 Mrs. Perkyris Ball, the Christmas Book for 1 847 like 
 its annual successors, Our Street, Dr. Birch and his Young 
 Friends, The Kickleburys on the Rhine, it contained 
 humourous letterpress, illustrated by many full-page 
 illustrations by the author was such a success that 
 Thackeray determined to take advantage of its popular- 
 ity by issuing in book-form, through Messrs. Bradbury & 
 Evans, the Snob Papers* and The Great Hoggarty Dia- 
 mond. In both these volumes his own name was printed 
 on the title-page ; but he had still a sneaking fondness 
 for his favourite pseudonym, and all his Christmas 
 Books, including The Rose and the Ring, bore the super- 
 scription of M. A. Titmarsh. 
 
 Though he was publishing his novel with success, he 
 did not dare to discontinue his other writings and devote 
 himself entirely to novel- writing. Even late in 1848 
 he said, "As if I had not enough to do I have begun to 
 blaze away in the Chronicle again; it's an awful bribe 
 that five guineas an article." He was not yet satisfied 
 with his prospects; he feared his popularity might 
 diminish. He knew well that the earnings of a man of 
 
 *Seven of the original Snob Papers were omitted in this edition, 
 for, Thackeray explained, "on re-perusing these papers I have found 
 them so ... personal, so snobbish in a word that I have with- 
 drawn them from this collection."
 
 " Ipenfcennis " Gbarlotte Bronte 245 
 
 letters are always more or less precarious, and at this 
 time he was determined to make money that could be 
 stored away for the time of necessity. With this object 
 in view he caused himself to be called to the bar by the 
 Honourable Society of the Middle Temple on May 26, 
 1848,* not with the intention of practising, but so as to 
 be able to accept, if fate would only give him the chance, 
 one of the many appointments for which a barrister is 
 eligible. Soon he was endeavouring to obtain a vacant 
 magistracy his great model, Fielding, had sat at Bow 
 Street but without success, as he told Monckton Milnes 
 in the following letter a letter in which can be discerned 
 such a longing for rest from the never-ceasing writing 
 and revising which had become almost insupportable; 
 but while the pathos is marked, a smile must be given at 
 the idea of Thackeray, who is for all time, and who had 
 not then written Esmond or The Newcomes, being able to 
 live for six years in the literary world by trading on his 
 past reputation. 
 
 "You are a good and lovable adviser and M.P., but 
 I cannot get the Magistrate's place, not being eligible. 
 I was only called to the Bar last year; and they require 
 barristers of seven years' standing. Time will qualify 
 me, however, and I hope to be able to last six years in 
 the literary world ; for though I shall write, I daresay, 
 very badly, yet the public won't find it out for some 
 time, and I shall live on my past reputation. It is a 
 pity to be sure. If I could get a place and rest, I think 
 I could do something better than I have done, and leave 
 a good and lasting book behind me ; but Fate is overrul- 
 ing. I have written to thank L for his kind letter, 
 
 *At the time it seems that Thackeray had chambers at 10, Crown 
 Office Row, Temple.
 
 246 TNHllfam /IDafeepeace Ubacfeera 
 
 and to beg him to remember me if an opportunity occurs 
 of serving me. I wonder whether Lord Palmerston 
 could? But I would rather be in London. Thank you 
 for thinking of me, and believe me I am grateful."* 
 
 In this year, too, the assistant secretaryship at the 
 post-office became vacant, and Lord Clanricarde, then 
 postmaster-general, endeavoured to obtain the situation 
 for Thackeray; but so much opposition was aroused in 
 the service at the mere mention of the appointment of 
 an outsider to a berth that required special experience, 
 that the Marquis was obliged to abandon his intention. 
 
 Others besides Thackeray himself thought he required 
 rest and quiet, and his friends continually urged him to 
 work less. In 1849 Thackeray wrote to Mrs. Brookfield: 
 "Big Higgins" \^Jacob Omnium], "who dined with me 
 yesterday, offered me, what do you think? 'If,' says 
 he, 'you are tired, and want to lie fallow for a year, 
 come to me for the money. I have much more than I 
 want.' Wasn't it kind? I like to hear and tell of kind 
 things." 
 
 Writing to the same correspondent a little later from 
 Paris, during one of his numerous visits there, he said : 
 "What brought me to this place? Well, I am glad I 
 came; it will give me a subject for at least six weeks in 
 Punch, of which I was getting so weary that I thought 
 I must have done with it. ... I went to see my 
 old haunts when I came to Paris thirteen years ago, and 
 made believe to be a painter just after I was ruined, 
 and before I fell in love, and took to marriage and writ- 
 ing. It was a jolly time. I was as poor as Job, and 
 sketched away most abominably, but pretty contented ; 
 and we used to meet in each other's little rooms and talk 
 *The Life and Letters of Monckton Milnes.
 
 " IPenbennte " Cbarlotte SSronte 247 
 
 about art, and smoke pipes, and drink bad brandy and 
 water. That awful habit still remains, but where is art, 
 that dear mistress whom I loved, though in a very indo- 
 lent, capricious manner, but with a real sincerity? I see 
 her far, very far off. I jilted her. I know it very 
 well; but you see it was Fate ordained that marriage 
 should never take place, and forced me to take on with 
 another lady, two other ladies, three other ladies I 
 mean the muse, and my wife, etc., etc." 
 
 How sad were the memories conjured up in the ballad 
 of Bouillabaisse! How easy to see the true pathos, the 
 deep feeling, the sorrowing heart, the sad man ! Who, 
 knowing the story of the writer's life, does not feel a 
 little dull after reading the exquisite verse: 
 
 "Ah me! how quick the days are flitting! 
 
 I mind me of a time that's gone, 
 When here I'd sit as now I'm sitting, 
 
 In this same sad place but not alone. 
 A fair young face was nestled near me, 
 
 A dear, dear face looked fondly up 
 And sweetly spoke, and smiled to cheer me! 
 
 There's no one now to share my cup." 
 
 He had left London for the continent immediately the 
 last number of Vanity Fair was written (July, 1848),* 
 and it was at Spa that he began his next great novel, 
 The History of Pendennis His Fortunes and Misfortunes^ and 
 his Friends and his Greatest Enemy, the first instalment of 
 which was published by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans (who 
 had just issued Vanity Fair in two-volume form) in 
 November. The publication of the new venture contin- 
 
 *Mr. Eyre Crowe has related how, when Thackeray and Mr. Torrens 
 McCullagh were lunching with his father in June, 1848, the latter said 
 to the novelist, " Well, I see you are going to shut up jour puppets 
 in their box." "Yes," Thackeray replied immediately, "and with 
 your permission I'll work up that simile." How skillfully he did this 
 all readers of the preface Before the Curtain will remember.
 
 248 William /iDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 ued regularly month after month, and the eleventh num- 
 ber had appeared in September, 1849, when the even 
 tenour of its way was suddenly interrupted, and for the 
 rest of the year Pendennis was at a standstill. Thack- 
 eray was ill so ill, indeed, during September, October, 
 and November, that it seemed only too probable that he 
 would never rise from the sick bed. It was a time of 
 dreadful anxiety to his family and to his friends. Dr. 
 Merriman attended him, and also Dr. Elliotson, to 
 whom, thirteen months later, Pendennis, on its publica- 
 tion in book form, was dedicated. It was not until 
 December that his recovery was assured. Fitzgerald 
 saw him on the /th, and wrote to Frederick Tennyson: 
 "I saw poor Thackeray in London, getting slowly better 
 of a bilious fever that had nearly killed him. 
 People in general thought Pendennis got dull as it got 
 on ; and I confess I thought so too : he would do well 
 to take the opportunity of his illness to discontinue it 
 altogether. He told me last June he himself was tired 
 of it, and must not his readers naturally tire too?" For- 
 tunately, Thackeray, after being rescued from illness, 
 was saved from his friends, and the twelfth number of 
 Pendennis appeared in January of the new year. Fitz- 
 gerald, re-reading the novel years later, altered his opin- 
 ion. ' ' I like Pendennis much, ' ' he then said ; ' ' and Alfred 
 [Tennyson] said he thought it was quite delicious; 'it 
 seemed to him so mature,' he said. You can imagine 
 Alfred saying this over one's fire, spreading his great 
 hand out." 
 
 There is probably nothing more interesting to be 
 related in the whole story of Thackeray's life than the 
 account of his slight acquaintance with Charlotte 
 Bronte, whom he first met about this time. Even before
 
 fMay.l 
 
 No. VII. 
 
 PBICB 
 
 ff 
 
 HIS FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES, 
 HIS FRIENDS AND HIS GREATEST ENE/VIY. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY, 
 
 Author of " Vanity Fwr," the "Bnob Papon" in PUNCH, &c. &c. 
 
 LONDON '. fcRAIJBURY A. EVANS. 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 
 
 t. fciHZIES, IDUtBtoQg J I. KUBJU7, OLASQOW ; AlfD J. H'OLISBA*', DUBLIK. 
 
 n-y t 8 ',. 
 
 J849.
 
 "penoennfs" Cbarlotte Bronte 249 
 
 he knew her name or sex he had sent her a copy of 
 Vanity Fair, inscribed "With the grateful regard of W. 
 M. Thackeray," and he was not a man to send indis- 
 criminately inscribed copies of his works, even to the 
 most famous writers. On the other hand, it has already 
 been told how greatly the lady admired the works of the 
 great novelist, and therefore, when the authoress of Jane 
 Eyre came up to town in 1849, she eagerly accepted the 
 offer of Mr. Smith, her publisher and host, to introduce 
 Thackeray to her. When Miss Bronte met him she was 
 much astonished. She had expected as the dedication 
 to the second edition of Jane Eyre showed to find a 
 fervent prophet, and Thackeray was simply a quiet, 
 well-bred gentleman, with nothing in appearance to dis- 
 tinguish him from hosts of other men. He was an 
 enigma to Currer Bell; she could not understand him ; 
 she was never certain whether he was speaking in jest or 
 in earnest; and she told Mrs. Gaskell that "she had (she 
 believed) completely misunderstood an inquiry of his, 
 made on the gentlemen's coming into the drawing-room. 
 He asked her 'if she had perceived the scent of their 
 cigars,' to which she literally replied, discovering in a 
 moment afterwards, by the smile on several faces, that 
 he was alluding to a passage in Jane Eyre. 
 
 Miss Bronte also wrote at this time to friends: "All 
 you say of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and character- 
 istic. He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why 
 should he lead so harassing a life? Why should his 
 mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of 
 his better moods? . . . Mr. Thackeray is a man of 
 very quiet, simple demeanour; he is, however, looked 
 up to with some awe and even distrust. . . . Thack- 
 eray is a Titan of mind. His presence and powers
 
 250 William /fcafeepeace 
 
 impress one deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not 
 know him, or see him as a man. All the others are sub- 
 ordinate. ... I was sufficiently at my ease with all 
 but Thackeray; with him I was fearfully stupid." 
 
 The truth is that she never understood Thackeray 
 read the extract from a letter written to a friend, after 
 her first meeting with the giant. 
 
 "I have had a remarkable epistle from Thackeray, 
 long, interesting, characteristic, but, unfortunately, con- 
 cludes with the strict injunction, 'Show this letter to no 
 one,' adding that if he thought his letters were seen by 
 others he should either cease to write, or write only 
 what was conventional. I have answered it at length ; 
 whether my reply will give satisfaction or displeasure 
 remains to be ascertained. Thackeray's feelings are not 
 such as can be gauged by ordinary calculation. Favour- 
 able weather is what I should ever expect from that 
 quarter. Yet in correspondence, as in verbal inter- 
 course, this would torment me." 
 
 In June of the following year she came up to London 
 again. "He [Thackeray] made a morning call," she 
 wrote, "and sat about two hours. Mr. Smith only was 
 in the room the whole time. He described it after- 
 wards as a queer scene, and I suppose it was. The 
 giant sat before me; I was moved to speak of some of 
 his shortcomings (literary, of course); one by one the 
 faults came into my head, and one by one I brought 
 them out, and sought some explanation or defence. He 
 did defend himself like a great Turk and heathen ; that 
 is to say, the excuses were often worse than the crime 
 itself. The matter ended in decent amity; if all be well 
 I am to dine at his house this evening (June 12)."* 
 
 *Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte.
 
 "penfcennis" Cbarlotte JSronte 251 
 
 In the Life of Lord Houghton Sir Wemyss Reid has 
 written: "Before me, as I write, is a little note penned 
 in the beautiful hand of Thackeray upon a card which in 
 its interest is not surpassed by any other letter among 
 the many thousands left behind him by Milnes. 'My 
 dear Milnes,' it runs, 'Miss Bronte dines here to-morrow 
 at seven. If you are by any wonder disengaged, come 
 to yours truly, W. M. Thackeray.' The invitation is 
 dated ' 13, Young Street, Tuesday.' It is, alas! the only 
 record that remains of a meeting the interest of which 
 it would be hard to exaggerate." 
 
 The Life of Lord Houghton was published in 1890, and 
 since then a full account of the dinner-party, "as amus- 
 ing as it is interesting," has been written by Mrs. 
 Ritchie. Among the guests were Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. 
 Brookfield, the Carlyles, Mrs. Eliot, Miss Perry, and 
 Mrs. Procter and her daughter. Monckton Milnes could 
 not go. 
 
 "It was a gloomy and a silent evening," Mrs. 
 Ritchie has recorded ; "every one waited for the brilliant 
 conversation which never began at all. Miss Bronte 
 returned to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low 
 word now and then to our kind governess, Miss True- 
 lock. The room looked very dark, the lamp began to 
 smoke a little, the conversation grew dimmer and more 
 dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was 
 too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be 
 able to cope with it at all. Mrs. Brookfield, who was in 
 the corner in which Miss Bronte was sitting, leant forward 
 with a little commonplace, since brilliance was not to be 
 the order of the evening. 'Do you like London, Miss 
 Bronte?' she said; another silence, a pause, then Miss 
 Bronte answered, 'Yes No,' very gravely.
 
 252 William flDafeepeace 
 
 After Miss Bronte had left, I was surprised to see my 
 father opening the front door with his hat on. He put 
 his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and 
 shut the door quietly behind him. When I went back 
 to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where 
 he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he was 
 coming back. 
 
 "Long years afterwards, Mrs. Procter, with a good 
 deal of humour, described the situation the ladies, who 
 had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, 
 and the gloom and constraint, and how, finally, over- 
 whelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the 
 room, left the house, and gone off to his club. The 
 ladies waited, wondered, and finally departed also; and 
 as we were going up to bed with our candles, after every- 
 body was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L s, in 
 
 shiny silk dresses, arriving, full of expectation. 
 
 We still said we thought our father would soon be back, 
 
 but the Miss L s declined to wait upon the chance, 
 
 laughed, and drove away almost immediately."* 
 
 Once more did the man of genius and the gifted 
 woman meet. It was in the early summer of 1851. 
 Miss Bronte's letters tell the tale: 
 
 "I came here [London] on Wednesday, being sum- 
 moned a day sooner than I expected, in order to be in 
 time for Thackeray's second lecture, which was deliv- 
 ered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may sup- 
 pose, was a great treat, and I was glad not to miss it. 
 . . . Thackeray called, too, separately. I had a long 
 talk with him, and I think he knows me now a little 
 better than he did ; but of this I cannot yet be sure ; he 
 is a great and strange man. . . . As our party left 
 
 * Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs: A. I. Ritchie.
 
 "penfcennis" Cbarlotte 3Bronte 253 
 
 the [lecture] Hall, he [Thackeray] stood at the entrance; 
 he saw and knew me, and lifted his hat ; he offered his 
 hand in passing, and uttered the words, 'Qu'en dites 
 vous?' a question eminently characteristic and remind- 
 ing me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that 
 inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I consid- 
 ered desirable self-control, which were amongst his 
 faults. He should not have cared just then to ask what 
 I thought ; or what anybody thought ; but he did care, 
 and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to 
 repress his wish. Well ! if I blamed his over-eagerness, 
 I liked his naivete. I would have praised him; I had 
 plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on my 
 lips. Who has words at the right moment? I stam- 
 mered lame expressions; but was truly glad when some 
 other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, 
 covered my deficiency by their redundancy."* 
 
 Indeed, though intensely appreciative, she proved so 
 severe a critic, both of himself and his works, that 
 Thackeray was not quite pleased with the various letters 
 (printed in Mrs. Gaskell's Life] in which she had ex- 
 pressed her opinions, and he said as much in his Last 
 Sketch, prefixed to Emma when, under his editorship, that 
 fragment appeared in the Cornhill Magazine. 
 
 "I can only say of this lady, vidi tantum. I saw her 
 first just as I rose out of an illness from which I had 
 never thought to recover. I remember the trembling 
 little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An 
 impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterise the 
 woman. Twice I recollect she took me to task for what 
 she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding 
 we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She 
 
 *Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte.
 
 254 TWlUUam /iDafeepeace ZTbacfeeras 
 
 jumped to conclusions (I have smiled at one or two 
 passages in the Biography, in which my own disposition 
 or behaviour form the subject of talk). She formed 
 conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole the- 
 ories of character upon them. New to the London 
 world, she entered it with an independent, indomitable 
 spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and 
 especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with 
 extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with 
 her favourites if their conduct or conversation fell below 
 her ideal. Often she seemed to be judging the London 
 folks prematurely: but perhaps the city is rather angry 
 at being judged. It fancied an austere little Joan of 
 Arc marching in upon us, and rebutting our easy lives, 
 our easy morals. She gave me the impression of being 
 a very pure, and lofty, and high-minded person. A 
 great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to 
 be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she 
 appeared to me."* 
 
 *In To-day the following anecdote, entitled A Crushed Ideal, was 
 inserted, I know not on what authority; but whether real or imaginary, 
 it is amusingly true of Charlotte Bronte's attitude: 
 
 It is of Thackeray's first meeting with Charlotte Bronte. The 
 tiny, intense creature had idealised Thackeray, personally unknown 
 to her, with a passion of idealisation. " Behold, a lion cometh out of 
 the North!" she quoted under her breath, as Thackeray entered the 
 drawing-room. Some one repeated to him. "Oh, Lord!" said 
 Thackeray, " and I'm nothing but a poor devil of an Englishman, 
 ravenous for my dinner! " At dinner Miss Bronte was placed oppo- 
 site Thackeray, by her own request. "And I had," said he, "the 
 miserable humiliation of seeing her ideal of me disappearing down 
 my own throat, as everything went into my mouth and nothing came 
 out of it; until at last, as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across, 
 with clasped hands and tears in her eyes, and breathed imploringly, 
 Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!"'
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THACKERAY AND PUNCH
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THACKERAY AND PUNCH 
 
 DURING 1847 an d the two following years Thack- 
 eray wrote and drew so much for Punch that it is 
 only possible to enumerate a few of his contributions. 
 An Eastern Adventure of the Fat Contributor, the immortal 
 Mahogany Tree, the Love Songs, including the well-beloved 
 Cane-bottomed Chair, the Travels in London (it was said 
 that Frank Whitestock, in The Curates' Walk, was 
 intended to be a sketch of the Rev. W. H. Brookfield), 
 the Bow Street Ballads (Ballads of Pleaceman X}, and A 
 Little Dinner at Timmins's, Besides there were Punch's 
 Prize Novelists, six in number, parodies of the styles of 
 popular authors, which were so excellent that Lever, on 
 reading Phil Fogarty, declared he might as well shut up 
 shop, and actually altered the character of his novels, 
 and that Disraeli never forgave the Codlingsby, but, in 
 Endymion, travestied the style of St. Barbe (Thackeray) 
 in Topsy Turvey (Vanity Fair) and Scaramouch (Punch)* 
 These, together with the Ballad of Bouillabaisse, and 
 Brown's Letters, must complete this list. 
 
 There is a pleasant episode to chronicle during 1848 
 in connection with Thackeray and Punch. In Edin- 
 burgh, Dr. John Brown, a great admirer of the humour- 
 ist's writings, had seen a silver statuette of Punch in a 
 
 *He had intended to write parodies both of Dickens and of him- 
 self, but Punch refused to insert that on Dickens, and so both 
 remained unwritten. 
 
 257
 
 258 TKlUliam flDafcepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 jeweller's window, and suggested to his friends that it 
 should be bought and sent to Thackeray. The cash 
 price was ten pounds, and so it was determined to 
 make the little testimonial more valuable that eighty 
 persons should subscribe for it. The subscribers included 
 Lord Jeffrey and Sir William Hamilton ; the inkstand 
 was purchased, engraved with an inscription 
 
 GULIELMO MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 ARMA VIRUMQUE 
 GRATI NECNON GRATAE EDINENSIS 
 
 L X X X 
 D D D 
 
 and forwarded with an explanatory note to Thackeray, 
 who, delighted with the unexpected tribute, hastened to 
 thank the donors through their spokesman, Dr. John 
 Brown, the author of Rob and His Friends. 
 
 "13, YOUNG STREET, KENSINGTON SQUARE, May n, 1848. 
 "MY DEAR SIR, The arms and the man arrived in 
 safety yesterday, and I am glad to know the names of 
 two of the eighty Edinburgh friends who have taken 
 such a kind method of showing their good will towards 
 me. If you are grati, I am gratior. Such tokens of 
 regard and sympathy are very precious to a writer like 
 myself, who has some difficulty still in making people 
 understand what you have been good enough to find out 
 in Edinburgh, that under the mask satirical there walks 
 about a sentimental gentleman who means not unkindly 
 to any mortal person. I can see exactly the same 
 expression under the vizard of my little friend in silver, 
 and hope some day to shake the whole octagint by the 
 hand gratos and gratas, and thank them for their friend- 
 liness and regard. I think I had better say no more on 
 the subject, lest I should be tempted into some enthu-
 
 an> "Jpuncb" 259 
 
 siastic writing of which I am afraid. I assure you 
 these tokens of what I can't help acknowledging as 
 popularity make me humble as well as grateful and 
 make me feel an awful sense of the responsibility which 
 falls upon a man in such a station. Is it deserved or 
 undeserved? Who is this that sets up to preach to 
 mankind and to laugh at many of the things which men 
 reverence? I hope I shall be able to tell the truth 
 always, etc., to see it straight, according to the eyes 
 which God Almighty gives me. And if, in the exercise 
 of my calling, I get friends and find encouragement and 
 sympathy, I need not tell you how much I feel and am 
 grateful for this support. Indeed, I can't reply lightly 
 upon this subject, or feel otherwise than very grave when 
 men praise me as you do. Wishing you and my Edin- 
 burgh friends all health and happiness, 
 
 "Believe me, my dear Sir, most faithfully yours, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 The year 1850 saw an event of much importance in 
 his literary life. 
 
 "What do you think I have done to-day?" he wrote 
 to Mrs. Brookfield. "I have sent in my resignation to 
 Punch. There appears in the next Punch an article so 
 
 wicked, I think, by poor , that upon my word I 
 
 don't think I ought to pull any longer in the same boat 
 with such a savage young Robespierre. The appearance 
 of this incendiary article has put me in such a rage that 
 I could only cool myself by a ride in the Park." 
 
 In the columns of the paper he also announced his 
 determination: "Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, 
 the biographer of Jeames, the author of the Snob Papers, 
 resigned his functions on account of Mr. Punch's assault
 
 2 6o William flDafcepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose 
 anger Jeames thought it unpatriotic to arouse."* 
 
 It seems that at the time there was some misunder- 
 standing as to the cause of his resignation. This Thack- 
 eray cleared up in a letter, dated March 20, 1855, 
 addressed to F. M. Evans (History of Punch, pp. 323-24). 
 "I had had some difference with the Conduct of Punch 
 about the abuse of Prince Albert and the Crystal Palace, 
 at which I very nearly resigned, about abuse of Lord 
 Palmerston, about abuse finally of L. Napoleon in all 
 of which Punch followed the Times, which I think and 
 thought was writing unjustly at that time, and danger- 
 ously for the welfare and peace of the country. Coming 
 from Edinburgh I bought a Punch containing the picture 
 of a Beggar on Horseback, in which the Emperor was 
 represented galloping to hell with a sword reeking with 
 blood. As soon as ever I could after my return (a day 
 or two after) I went to Bouverie Street, saw you and 
 gave in my resignation." 
 
 But even after his formal resignation he continued to 
 write for the journal. In the History of Punch we are 
 told that there are forty-one literary items and twelve 
 cuts to his credit in 1851. It is known, too, that in 
 April of this year he sent in his May-day Ode to the 
 editor which, for insertion in the next issue, should 
 have been delivered not later than Saturday morning, 
 but was not delivered until the evening, when Mark 
 Lemon either could not or would not insert it until the 
 following week. Thackeray was annoyed, and himself 
 carried the manuscript to Printing House Square; the 
 Ode appearing in the Times on the following Monday 
 
 *Richard Doyle had recently left the staff on account of the 
 attacks on the Catholics.
 
 ant> "jpuncb" 261 
 
 morning (April 30). During the next three years he 
 contributed only The Organ Boy's Appeal, which was 
 printed in the twenty-fifth volume, and then, during 
 June and July, 1854, Letters from the East by Our Own 
 Bashi Bazouk, which was his swan song as far as Punch 
 was concerned. " Wishing you all heartily well," he 
 wrote in the letter just mentioned, "I wrote a few occa- 
 sional papers last year and not liking the rate of 
 remuneration, which was less than that to which I had 
 been accustomed in my time, I wrote no more. And 
 you can say for me, as a reason why I should feel hurt 
 at your changing the old rates of payment made to me 
 that I am not a man who quarrels about a guinea or two 
 except as a point of honour; and that when I could have 
 had a much larger sum than that which you gave me for 
 my last novel I preferred to remain with old friends, 
 who had acted honourably and kindly by me. 
 And I think it now about time my old friends and pub- 
 lishers should set me right." 
 
 There is an interesting page in the History of Punch 
 on which is given a tabular account of the amount writ- 
 ten by each of the staff during the second half-year of 
 1844. Jerrold produced 139^ columns, a Beckett 94^, 
 Leigh 39, Thackeray 24^, Mayhew 16^, Taylor 6^, 
 the editor (including outside contributions) 20, Oxenford 
 i^, Laman Blanchard i^, and H. Wills I only. Each 
 member was expected to fill a certain number of columns, 
 for outside contributions have always been discouraged, 
 and to Thackeray were allotted forty-six columns per 
 half-year. 
 
 For ten years he had well and truly served the paper 
 with both pen and pencil. His collected contributions 
 would more than fill two large volumes, and this, too,
 
 262 TOlliam /iDafeepeace Ubacfeeray 
 
 in spite of the fact that he did not find the task of pro- 
 duction easy. "I must beg of you to excuse me," he 
 wrote once, after three hours' unproductive labour, 
 "for I've worked as hard for you as though I had done 
 something." His pencil, however, did not as a rule 
 give him so much trouble, and Mr. Swain has told us 
 how Thackeray would often produce a Punch drawing 
 " while you wait." He did not leave Punch in anger, 
 nor, as it has just been shown, did he desert the journal 
 to which he had rendered such signal service, and which 
 had been of so much assistance to him. "Ah, Swain," 
 he said one day, "if it had not been for Punch, I wonder 
 where I should be!" And when in later years his help 
 was asked on behalf of the widow of one of the Punch 
 staff, he offered to do all in his power, "for," he wrote, 
 "it is through my connection with Punch that I owe the 
 good chances that have lately befallen me, and have had 
 so many kind offers of help in my own days of trouble, 
 that I would thankfully aid a friend whom death has 
 called away." 
 
 One misunderstanding he did have with the Punch 
 staff, though, but one only. In December, 1854, he 
 sent to the Quarterly Review an article on John Leech's 
 Pictures of Life and Character. In this he said, "There is 
 no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John 
 Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch 
 without Leech's pictures! What would you give for it? 
 The learned gentlemen who write the work must feel 
 that without him it were as well left alone." Anthony 
 Trollope has related that for a week there existed at the 
 Punch office a grudge against Thackeray in reference to 
 this awkward question: "What would you give for your 
 Punch without John Leech?" Then he asked the con-
 
 an& "puncb" 263 
 
 fraternity to dinner more TJiackeraya.no and the confra- 
 ternity came. 
 
 The passage was undoubtedly a blunder. Not that I 
 think he was wrong in what he wrote for I believe 
 twenty people glance at the pictures in Punch for one 
 who reads the letterpress; but the statement was cer- 
 tainly one of those things better left unsaid, and it was 
 only used by Thackeray to show the great value he 
 placed on Leech's work, forgetting entirely that it would 
 read as disparagement of the various writers' handiwork. 
 He, indeed, admitted this in a letter to "Professor" 
 Percival Leigh, one of the oldest of the paper's con- 
 tributors, and the author of the Comic Latin and English 
 Grammars. 
 
 "Of all the slips of my fatal pen," he wrote, "there's 
 none I regret more than the unlucky half-line which has 
 given pain to such a kind and valued old friend as you 
 have been, and I trust will be still to me. I ought never 
 to have said, ' Punch might as well be left unwritten but 
 for Leech.' It was more than my meaning, which is 
 certainly that the drawing is a hundred times more pop- 
 ular than the writing; but I had no business to write any 
 such thing, and forget it so much that I was quite sur- 
 prised when I first heard I had been accused of sneering 
 at Punch. I knew when I came back from Paris, and 
 read the line in the Quarterly Review, which I had for- 
 gotten as utterly as many another speech* which I have 
 made and didn't ought. Jerrold has had his fire into 
 me, and, do you know, I feel rather comforted." 
 
 *This is not the only case in which Thackeray complains of his 
 memory, and in the Brookfield Letters are several mentions of his 
 forgetfulness. In July, 1850, he wrote: "I've been working all the 
 morning, and reading back numbers in order to get up names, etc., I'd 
 forgotten." And in September of the previous year: " As for Pen- 
 dennis, I began upon No. 7 to-day, and found a picture which was
 
 264 Militant flDafeepeace Ubacfeerap 
 
 To the last he would, from time to time, attend the 
 weekly dinners, where a place was always kept for him ; 
 and when he died, it was in the columns of this journal 
 that was chronicled the most sincere regret at the great 
 loss suffered, not by the death of the novelist, but by 
 the death of the comrade and friend, the man. On the 
 sad Christmas Eve "Ponny" Mayhew brought the fatal 
 news to the jovial Punch party. "I'll tell you what we'll 
 do," he said, "we'll sing the dear old boy's Mahogany 
 Tree; he'd like it." Accordingly they all stood up, 
 and with such memory of the words as each possessed, 
 and a catching of the breath here and there by about all 
 of them, the song was sung. 
 
 In the obituary notice further honour was paid. 
 "While generous tributes," it runs, "are everywhere 
 being paid to the genius of him who has been suddenly 
 called away in the fulness of his power and the maturity 
 of his fame, some who have for many years enjoyed the 
 advantage of his assistance and the delight of his society, 
 would simply record that they have lost a dear friend. 
 At an early period in the history of the periodical he 
 became a contributor to its pages, and he long continued 
 to enrich them ; and though of late he has ceased to give 
 other aid than suggestions and advice, he was a constant 
 member of our council, and sat with us on the eighth 
 day from that which has saddened England's Christmas. 
 Let the brilliancy of his trained intellect, the terrible 
 strength of his satire, the subtlety of his wit, the rich- 
 ness of his humour, and the catholic range of his calm 
 
 perfectly new, and a passage which I had as utterly forgotten as if I 
 had never read or written it. This shortness of memory frightens 
 me, and makes me have gloomy anticipations. Will poor Annie have 
 to nurse an old imbecile of a father some day, who will ramble inco- 
 herently about old days, and people whom he used to love? "
 
 ant> "ipuncb" 265 
 
 wisdom, be themes for others; the mourning friends who 
 inscribe these lines to his memory think of the affectionate 
 nature, the cheerful companionship, the large heart and 
 the open hand, the simple courteousness, the endearing 
 frankness of a brave, true, honest gentleman, whom no 
 pen but his own could depict as those who knew him 
 most desire." 
 
 On the other hand, the true compliment Thackeray 
 paid Pujich was not less magnificent: "When the future 
 inquirer shall take up your volumes, or a bundle of 
 French plays, and contrast the performance of your 
 booth with that of the Parisian theatre, he won't fail to 
 remark how different they are, and what different objects 
 we admire or satirise. As for your morality, sir, it does 
 not become me to compliment you to your venerable 
 face ; but permit me to say that there never was before 
 published so many volumes that contained so much cause 
 for laughing, and so little for blushing, so many jokes, 
 and so little harm. Why, sir, say even your modesty, 
 which astonishes me more and more every time I regard 
 you, is calculated, and not a virtue naturally inherent in 
 you, that very fact would argue for the high sense of the 
 public morality among us. We will laugh in the com- 
 pany of our wives and children; we will tolerate no 
 indecorum ; we like that our matrons and girls should be 
 pure." 
 
 During his long connection with the paper, he 
 regarded as his most important rival Douglas Jerrold 
 witty, brilliant Jerrold, who is little more than a name 
 to most of us now. When, on receiving his early num- 
 ber of the journal, he would hastily tear off the wrapper, 
 it was to see "what young Douglas has to say this week," 
 and he would remain for some moments reading the
 
 266 TKHUliam /iDafeepeace Ubacfeerag 
 
 chapter of the Caudle Lectures, or of Miss Robinson 
 Crusoe, or whatever the contribution might be, before 
 turning to the remaining contents. 
 
 It was of Jerrold, who posed as a democrat, that 
 Thackeray, on noticing at the Earl of Carlisle's a pre- 
 sentation copy of one of his (Jerrold's) books, the 
 inscription of which ran, "To the Right Hon. the Earl 
 of Carlisle, K.G., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc.," remarked, 
 "Ah! this is the sort of style in which your rigid, 
 uncompromising radical always toadies the great."* 
 Jerrold, for his part, did not understand Thackeray. "I 
 have known Thackeray for eighteen years," he com- 
 plained, "and I don't know him yet." 
 
 It was Jerrold, Mr. Cuthbert Bradley says, and not 
 Arcedeckne, who laconically criticised Thackeray's first 
 public reading of the Humourists to Mark Lemon : "Very 
 good. But wants a piano." And after Thackeray had 
 stood sponsor to a child, exclaimed, "Good Lord, Thack- 
 eray, I hope you didn't present the child with your own 
 mug." A silly rumour got afloat about the period of 
 what was called "Papal aggression," that Thackeray, 
 the staunchest of Protestant Broad Churchmen, had a 
 
 *The following extract from Taine's Notes on England is interest- 
 ing, as showing Thackeray's feeling on the subject of aristocracy- 
 worship^ I suspect, however, that the last sentence was said with a 
 twinkle in his eye: 
 
 "I had a conversation," Taine wrote, "with Thackeray, whose 
 name I mention because he is dead, and because his ideas and his 
 conversation are to be found in his books. He confirmed orally all 
 that he had written about the snobbish spirit. I told him a trivial 
 circumstance of which I was an eye-witness. At a charity meeting 
 the speaker set forth to the audience the importance of the work 
 
 undertaken by remarking that the Marquis of ," a person in such 
 
 a situation, "had kindly consented to take the chair." Thackeray 
 assured me that platitudes like these are common, . . . and that great 
 people are so habituated to see people on their knees before them, 
 that they are shocked when they meet a man of independent 
 demeanor. I myself," he added, "am now regarded as a suspicious 
 character."
 
 an& "jpuncb" 267 
 
 leaning towards the Church of Rome. "Why, they're 
 Romanizing old Thackeray," said some one to Jerrold. 
 "I hope," replied the caustic wit, "they'll begin at his 
 nose." 
 
 They said many sharp and stinging words to one 
 another and of one another, but I think a really good 
 understanding existed between them. In one of his 
 drawings Thackeray has represented Jerrold and himself 
 in a railway carriage listening, with most amusing 
 expressions on their faces, to the other two occupants 
 discussing, with quite sublime ignorance, the members 
 of the Punch staff this does not show ill-feeling. And 
 it was an overt act of friendship when Thackeray ran up 
 to town one day from Leamington, where he was lectur- 
 ing, and on his return announced to the astonished Mr. 
 Hodder, "We've got the little man in" and then, 
 noticing his bewilderment, explained, "Why, Jerrold: 
 we've elected him a member of the Reform Club." 
 Some difficulties, known to the initiated as "black- 
 balls," had been expected when Jerrold was balloted 
 for, as his wit had made him enemies, and so Thackeray 
 had gone up to town to use his influence to secure his 
 election. Again, Thackeray was honestly pleased when 
 he heard of the increased popularity to which Lloyd's 
 Newspaper attained under Jerrold's editorship, and then 
 characteristically declared, "I am quite pleased with 
 myself at finding myself pleased at men getting on in 
 the world." At Jerrold's death, too, he co-operated 
 with Dickens to raise a fund for the widow and chil- 
 dren, contributing for his share the lecture on Weekday 
 Preachers, in which he made special and admirable refer- 
 ence to Jerrold and his writings. This lecture was deliv- 
 ered on July 22, 1857, tne day after the declaration of
 
 268 William /IDafeepeace 
 
 the poll of the Oxford election in which Thackeray was 
 defeated, and the audience were on the alert for some 
 allusion to that event, and were not disappointed, for 
 the opening words of the discourse, delivered with com- 
 ical solemnity were, "Walking yesterday in the High 
 Street of a certain ancient city. . . ." "So began 
 the lecturer," says the Times, in its account of the lec- 
 ture, "and was interrupted by a storm of laughter that 
 deferred for some moments the completion of the sen- 
 tence."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LECTURES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA THE 
 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS ESMOND
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LECTURES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA THE 
 ENGLISH HUMOURISTS ESMOND 
 
 THE discussion of Thackeray's connection with Punch 
 made me drop the thread of my story of his life. 
 I must now return to the year 1850, when he published 
 Rebecca and Rowena. A Romance upon Romance. By M. 
 A. Titmarsh undoubtedly the finest burlesque of its 
 kind in English literature. A few months later appeared 
 the Christmas Book, The Kickleburys on the Rhine, which 
 produced the now famous criticism in the Times, written 
 probably by Samuel Phillips, the author of the now 
 almost-forgotten novel Caleb Stukely* The - review was 
 absurd in the highest degree, and the language inflated 
 to the verge of imbecility. Take, for example, this one 
 sentence, which is really a treasure the italics are mine ! 
 "To our, perhaps, unphilosophical taste the aspiration 
 towards sentimental perfection of another popular author 
 are infinitely preferable to these sardonic divings after the 
 pearl of truth whose lustre is eclipsed in the display of the 
 diseased oyster. ' ' 
 
 Thackeray, who with all his scorn for the ridiculous 
 and the outrt, usually ignored such criticism, for once 
 let himself go, and replied in the preface to the second 
 
 *Mr. Sala has somewhere stated that Thackeray believed the 
 review to have been written by Charles Lamb Kenny, but Mr. 
 Vizetelly declared that the novelist always spoke of it in his hearing 
 as being the work of Samuel Phillips. 
 
 271
 
 272 TKnuifam flDafeepeace tlbacfeeras 
 
 edition of The Kickleburys, in so scathing and severe, 
 though so intensely amusing, a manner, that it is difficult 
 to believe it came from his pen. 
 
 "I remember," Mr. Vizetelly, who had engraved the 
 drawings and printed the work, has written, "I remem- 
 ber Mr. Thackeray calling upon me, accompanied by 
 his fidus Achates, Mr. J. Higgins (Jacob Omnium}, of 
 colossal stature like himself, but of more stalwart build, 
 and handing me the memorable preface for the second 
 edition, An Essay on Thunder and Small Beer, in reply 
 to the recent Times criticism on the book. Thackeray 
 was in high glee over the circumstance of a second edi- 
 tion being called for at the very moment the Times was 
 launching its little thunderbolt; and in his excitement he 
 read several sentences of the preface aloud in which he 
 thought he had made his keenest thrusts. The whole 
 was apparently a mere friendly passage-at-arms, as not 
 long after the publication of Thackeray's amusing retort, 
 which to the author's delight was copied in several 
 papers, his May-Day Ode, on the opening of the 1851 
 Exhibition, came out in the Times." We know, how- 
 ever, that Thackeray had no intention, until Punch 
 refused to print the Ode, of sending it to the Times, 
 and it is exceedingly doubtful if the Thunderer ever did 
 forgive him, for it "slated" Esmond in a most malicious 
 and unjust way, gave a shorter notice of his death and 
 funeral than any other paper, and was the only daily of 
 any importance that did not insert a leading article on 
 the great loss sustained by the world of letters. 
 
 "You must be thinking of coming back to Pimlico 
 soon," Thackeray wrote on April 29, 1851, to Mrs. 
 Brookfield, "for the lectures are to begin on the I5th.
 
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 Xectures in England ant> Bmerica 273 
 
 I tried the great room at Willis's yesterday, and recited 
 part of the multiplication table to a waiter at the oppo- 
 site end, so as to try the voice. He said he could hear 
 perfectly, and I daresay he could, but the thoughts 
 somehow swell and amplify with that high-pitched voice 
 and elaborate distinctness. As I perceive how poets 
 become selfish,* I see how orators become humbugs, 
 and selfish in their way, too, absorbed in that selfish pur- 
 suit, and turning of periods. It is curious to take these 
 dips into a life new to me as yet, and try it and see how 
 I like it, isn't it?" 
 
 The lectures referred to are, of course, the series on 
 The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. 
 Anthony Trollope has devoted two pages of his short 
 biographical chapter to the discussion of the effect that 
 these lectures might have had upon Thackeray's fame as 
 a writer. He argued for and against the indignity of 
 the proceedings, and finally concluded that the money 
 made by the new venture was "earned honestly and with 
 the full approval of the world around him." Well, per- 
 haps it was ! Even the author of Vanity Fair was not 
 likely to imperil his dignity to any great extent by writing, 
 or by reading to an audience, The English Humourists 
 or The Four Georges, which (in spite of certain objec- 
 tions raised at the time against the latter) have both 
 taken their place in the classical literature of our century. 
 
 *In this same letter, apropos of the May-Day Ode, he wrote: " I 
 don't wonder at poets being selfish, such as Wordsworth and Alfred. 
 I have been for five days a poet, and have thought and remembered 
 nothing else but myself, and my rhymes, and my measure. If some- 
 body had come to me and said, ' Mrs. Brookfield has just had her 
 arm cut off,' I should have gone on with 'Queen of Innumerable Isles, 
 tidumtidy, tidumtidy,' and not stirred from the chair. The children 
 and nobody haven't seen me except at night, and now (though the 
 work is just done) ... I hardly see the paper before me, so utterly 
 beat, nervous, bilious, and overcome do I feel."
 
 274 William /iDafeepeace 
 
 The raison d'etre of the lectures was the desire to 
 make a good provision for his wife and daughters ; and 
 the subject selected seems only natural since his great 
 fondness for the Queen Anne writers dates back to the 
 early years of his life. Allusions to Steele and Addison 
 and Pope and Swift, and Stella, Venessa, Dr. Johnson, 
 Richard Savage, and others, real or unreal, may be found 
 in some of his earliest writings, especially in Catherine 
 and Barry Lyndon. 
 
 The first lecture was eventually postponed until the 
 afternoon of May 22, and the others were delivered on 
 May 29, June 12, 19, 26, and July 3. The price for a 
 reserved seat for the whole course was two guineas, 
 seven-and-sixpence was charged for an unreserved seat 
 for a single lecture, and the audiences included many of 
 the most famous persons in London. Hallam attended 
 on each occasion. So did Macaulay, who referred to one 
 of them in his Diary: "Margaret came to take me to 
 Thackeray's [third] lecture. He is full of humour and 
 imagination, and I only wish that these lectures may 
 answer, both in the way of fame and money. He told 
 me, as I was going out, that the scheme had done won- 
 ders for him ; and I told him, and from my heart, that I 
 wished he had made ten times as much." Carlyle and 
 his wife went, Harriet Martineau too, and Monckton 
 Milnes, Dickens, and Lord Carlisle, besides Charlotte 
 Bronte. 
 
 Thackeray, always averse to public speaking, very 
 naturally dreaded the ordeal, and his nervousness during 
 the half-hour previous to the delivery of the first lecture 
 was really painful. "Going thither before the time for 
 his beginning," Mrs. Kemble afterwards wrote in her
 
 lectures in Enolanfc ant> Hmerfca 275 
 
 Reminiscences, "I found him standing like a forlorn, 
 disconsolate giant in the middle of the room, gazing 
 about him. 'Oh, Lord,' he exclaimed, as he shook 
 hands with me, 'I'm sick at my stomach with fright.' 
 I spoke some words of encouragement to him, and was 
 going away, but he held my hand like a scared child, 
 crying, 'Oh, don't leave me!' 'But,' said I, 'Thackeray, 
 you mustn't stand here. Your audience are beginning 
 to come in,' and I drew him from the middle of his 
 chairs and benches, which were beginning to be occupied, 
 into the retiring-room adjoining the lecture-room, my 
 own readings having made me perfectly familiar with 
 both. Here he began pacing up and down, literally 
 wringing his hands in nervous distress. 'Now,' said I, 
 'what shall I do? Shall I stay with you till you begin, 
 or shall I go, and leave you alone to collect yourself?' 
 'Oh,' he said, 'if I could only get at that confounded 
 thing [his MS.] to have a last look at it!' 'Where is 
 it?' said I. 'Oh, in the next room on the reading-desk.' 
 'Well,' said I, 'if you don't like to go in and get it, I'll 
 fetch it for you.' And remembering well the position 
 of my reading-table, which had been close to the door 
 of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the 
 manuscript without attracting the attention of the audi- 
 ence, with which the room was already nearly full. I 
 had been used to deliver my reading seated at a very low 
 table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures stand- 
 ing, and had a reading-desk placed on the platform, 
 adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I 
 came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. 
 Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go 
 back without it, and so made a half-jump and a clutch at
 
 276 TIGlilliam flDafeepeace 
 
 the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened 
 together) came fluttering separately down about me. I 
 hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone 
 nearly on all fours, in my agony to gather up the scat- 
 tered leaves, and, retreating with them, held them out in 
 dismay to poor Thackeray, crying, 'Oh, look, look, what 
 a dreadful thing I have done!' 'My dear soul,' he 
 said, 'you couldn't have done better for me. I have 
 just a quarter of an hour to wait here, and it will take 
 me about that to page this again, and it's the best thing 
 in the world that could have happened.' With which 
 infinite kindness he comforted me, for I was all but cry- 
 ing, at having, as I thought, increased his distress and 
 troubles. So I left him to give the first of that brilliant 
 course of literary historical essays with which he en- 
 chanted and instructed countless audiences in England 
 and America." 
 
 Mrs. Ritchie was there with her grandmother and her 
 younger sister, and she has recorded her impressions: 
 how the room was crowded, and how she did not recog- 
 nise her father's voice when he began, "In treating of 
 the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, it 
 is of the men rather than of their works," etc., though 
 soon it softened and deepened, until it sounded again 
 like the familiar tones. She remembers, when it was 
 all over, the applause of the audience crowding up to 
 shake hands with the lecturer, the proud and happy look 
 of her grandmother, and the drive home, when her 
 father, in high spirits, made jokes, and they all laughed 
 and were very jolly. 
 
 It is necessary to pause here a moment to speak of 
 the style in which the lectures were delivered. I can 
 only offer an impression based upon the study of the
 
 Xectures in Englant) an& Hmerica 277 
 
 letters and reports of various distinguished critical mem- 
 bers of the audience that Thackeray appeared on the 
 platform simply as a well-bred gentleman reading, to a 
 large circle of acquaintances, certain essays with which 
 he was well acquainted. 
 
 Mr. Marzials says "the secret [charm] lay in an 
 admirable quiet delivery, that without due emphasis or 
 pause for effect, gave the hearer the full value of every 
 sentence." Charlotte Bronte wrote that the lecture she 
 heard was "delivered with a finished taste and ease 
 which is felt but cannot be described," and that she 
 "admired the gentlemanlike ease, the quiet humour, the 
 taste, the talent, the simplicity, and the originality of 
 the lecture"; while another lady Caroline Fox 
 thought he read in "a definite, dry manner, but makes 
 you understand what he is about." 
 
 Longfellow recorded that the lectures were "pleasant 
 to hear from that soft, deep, sonorous voice, " and Motley, 
 who, some years later, heard a lecture on The Four 
 Georges, wrote: "I was much impressed with the quiet, 
 graceful ease with which he [Thackeray] read just a 
 few notes above the conversational level, but never 
 rising into the declamatory. This light in hand manner 
 suits well the delicate hovering rather than superficial 
 style of the composition. He skims lightly over the 
 surface of the long epoch, throwing out a sketch here, 
 exhibiting a characteristic trait there, and sprinkling about 
 a few anecdotes, portraits, and historical allusions, run- 
 ning about from grave to gay, from lively to severe, 
 moving and mocking the sensibilities in a breath, in a 
 way which I should say was the perfection of lecturing 
 to high-bred audiences." Finally, when he went to 
 America, the representative of the New York Evening
 
 278 muiiam /IDafcepeace Ubacfceras 
 
 Post expressed himself as follows: "His [Thackeray's] 
 voice is a superb tenor, and possesses that pathetic 
 tremble which is so effective in what is called emotive 
 eloquence, while his delivery was as well suited to the 
 communication he had to make as could well have been 
 imagined. His enunciation is perfect. Every word he 
 uttered might have been heard in the remotest quarters 
 of the room, yet he scarcely lifted his voice above a col- 
 loquial tone. The most striking feature in his whole 
 manner was the utter absence of affectation of any kind. 
 He did not permit himself to appear conscious that he 
 was an object of peculiar interest in the audience, neither 
 was he guilty of the greater error of not appearing to 
 care whether they were interested in him or not." 
 
 As all the opinions I have seen are of this tenor, 
 and as there are no dissentient voices, it is needless for 
 me to add anything more. When, however, the differ- 
 ent styles of the lectures by Thackeray and Dickens are 
 compared, it should be remembered that Thackeray's 
 audience, especially in London, consisted entirely of the 
 most highly cultured class, for a discourse on literary 
 men of the eighteenth century would naturally not appeal 
 to the comparatively unintellectual in the same way 
 as a dramatic reading from Nicholas Nickleby or Dombey 
 and Son. The two performances must, of very necessity, 
 have borne to each other the same relationship as now- 
 adays do the pieces performed at the Lyceum and the 
 Adelphi or Drury Lane theatres; each is admirable of 
 its kind and there the comparison ends. 
 
 As soon as the course was delivered Thackeray, with 
 his daughters, went abroad. "Traveling as Pater- 
 familias, with a daughter in each hand, I don't like to 
 speak to our country-folks ; but give myself airs, rather,
 
 Xectures in England an& Hmerica 279 
 
 and keep off from them," he wrote to Mrs. Brookfield. 
 "If I were alone I should make up to everybody. You 
 don't see things so well ft trots as you do alone: you are 
 an English gentleman ; you are shy of queer-looking or 
 queer-speaking people ; you are in the coupt '; you are an 
 earl; confound your impudence, if you had ^5,000 a 
 year and were Tompam, Esq., you could not behave 
 yourself more high and mightily. Ah ! I recollect ten 
 years back a poor devil, looking wistfully at the few 
 napoleons in his gousset, and giving himself no airs at all. 
 He was a better fellow than the one you know perhaps; 
 not that our characters alter, only they develop and our 
 minds grow grey and bald, etc. I was a boy ten years 
 ago, breathing out my simple cries in The Great Hog- 
 garty Diamond. 
 
 It was during this Continental ramble that he revisited 
 Weimar, and he saw again both Madame Goethe and 
 Herr Weissenborne, who had taught him German, and 
 who had never lost sight of him, and knew of his fame, 
 and had read his books. He enjoyed his holiday: it 
 was not very gay, perhaps, but his children were pleased, 
 and that more than contented him. "As for my dear 
 young ones," he said in a letter, "I am as happy with 
 them as possible : Annie is a fat lump of pure gold, the 
 kindest, dearest creature, as well as a wag of the first 
 water. It is an immense blessing that Heaven has given 
 me such an artless, affectionate companion. . . . Oh ! 
 may she never fall in love absurdly, and marry an ass! 
 If she will but make her father her confidant, I think 
 the donkey won't long keep his ground in her heart." 
 
 But soon he was compelled to return to London. He 
 had indeed written to Mr. Hayward on May 23: "The 
 truth is that the lectures won't do. They were all
 
 280 Militant /IDafeepeace 
 
 friends, and a packed house, though, to be sure, it goes 
 to a man's heart to find among his friends, such men as 
 you and Kinglake and Venables, Higgins, Rawlinson, 
 Carlyle, Ashburton, Hallam, Milman, Macaulay, Wilber- 
 force, looking on." But the lectures did do. They 
 were an undoubted success "there is quite a furore for 
 them," Charlotte Bronte wrote and he had been invited 
 to repeat them by Young Men's Associations and Liter- 
 ary Clubs in all parts of the country. America, too, 
 made offers that were too tempting to be summarily 
 refused, and which later on were conditionally accepted, 
 though Thackeray could not be induced to sign anything 
 until he was actually in New York. Friends, especially 
 Sir Edward Hamley, remonstrated with him, and argued 
 that a man of such talents should not spend his time in 
 such a manner; and I think Thackeray agreed with them. 
 He told Lady Cullom that no one could conceive how it 
 mortified him to have to make money by lecturing, and 
 once, when speaking of Carlyle, he exclaimed: "He 
 would not go round making a show of himself, as I am 
 doing. But he has lectured ! He did it once and was 
 done with it." 
 
 Still, money had to be made, an hour's reading was 
 often as profitable as a fortnight's work and so eventu- 
 ally arrangements were made for him to deliver the 
 Humourists at Oxford and Cambridge, at Edinburgh, 
 Manchester, Liverpool, and many other places.* 
 
 As soon as it was announced that he would visit Edin- 
 burgh Dr. John Brown (who one day astonished the 
 world by dedicating the second series of Hor(E Subsecivce 
 
 *" Thackeray says he is getting tired of being witty and of the 
 great world," Fitzgerald wrote in 1851; "he is now gone to deliver 
 his Lectures at Edinburgh, having already given them at Oxford and 
 Cambridge."
 
 to Gladstone and Andrew Dick and Thackeray and Rus- 
 kin a strange quartet) hastened to invite the lecturer 
 to stay with him while fulfilling his engagements in the 
 city. Thackeray's reply (which I take from Mr. Peddie's 
 Recollections of Dr. John Brown) gives an idea of his 
 system of work, when he has a system at all. 
 
 "KENSINGTON, October 9, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR DR. BROWN, I find your letters on my 
 return home from the country, and thank you for them 
 and your kindnesses all. I don't know yet whether it 
 will be December or January when I shall behold Rut- 
 land Street and my friends there. I want to go to Cam- 
 bridge in November if the scheme is feasible, but can't 
 move in the matter until the vacation is over, and my 
 friends in Cambridge are returned thither. The Gates 
 of Liverpool and Manchester are also open to me, and 
 I shall take these places either before or after Edinburgh, 
 as seems best to my advisers. Until the men are back 
 in Cambridge in about a week, I can't therefore say 
 when the Titmarsh-Van will begin its career. But as I 
 don't intend to touch the proceeds of the lectures 
 myself (beyond actual travelling charges) and resolutely 
 invest all the winnings for my two girls and their poor 
 mother, I'm bolder than I should be otherwise in the 
 business, and determined to carry it through with brazen 
 resolution. In order to this end you see I must work as 
 if nothing had happened, and am under stringent engage- 
 ments to write a novel which will come out as I sail for 
 America. Now to do this, I must have my own way, my 
 own lodgings, factotum, liberty, cigar after breakfast, 
 etc., without all of which I can't work; and the forenoon 
 being spent in study, the afternoon in healthful exercise, 
 then comes the evening when we will trouble Dr. Brown
 
 282 TKHtlltam /iDafeepeace 
 
 to go down for that, etc., etc. You have brought me 
 into very good company in print. I daresay there are 
 good fish still in the sea. 
 
 "With my best thanks and regards to Mrs. Brown, 
 "Believe me, yours very faithfully, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 The novel at which he was working with such assidu- 
 ity was The History of Henry Esmond, Esquire: a Colonel 
 in the service of Queen Anne, written by himself. The 
 half title runs: Esmond, a Story of Queen Anne's Reign. 
 By W. M. Thackeray. 
 
 It was to enable him to devote himself to this great 
 work that he ceased to contribute to the periodicals, for 
 Esmond, unlike Vanity Fair and Pendennis, was to be 
 published, not in monthly parts, but as a whole, in 
 three volumes.* It also required much collateral read- 
 ing, and Mr. Eyre Crowe, who from April, 1851, was 
 Thackeray's secretary and amanuensis, has related how 
 the author, with him in attendance, spent much time in 
 the Library at the British Museum, where, after much 
 preliminary reading and research, in a room allowed him 
 for the purpose by Sir Anthony Panizzi, he dictated the 
 General Webb and Marlborough and Cadogan incident. 
 More of the book was written at the Athenaeum Club, 
 where the Secretary of Committee placed at his disposal 
 the use of one of the side rooms of the large library ; and 
 much was done at the Bedford Hotel while his children 
 were with his mother, and Major Smyth in Paris, and 
 his own house was in the painters' hands. 
 
 *"I have given up, and only had for a day or two, the notion for 
 the book in numbers; it is much too grave and sad for that," 
 Thackeray wrote in a letter quoted by Mrs. Ritchie in the Biograph- 
 ical Introduction to Esmond.
 
 ^Lectures in JEnglanb ant> Hmerica 283 
 
 While Esmond was in course of composition, Mr. 
 Vizetelly, on the part of Messrs. Smith & Elder, offered 
 Thackeray ;i,ooo to write a novel for them. Subse- 
 quently Mr. George Smith himself called and repeated 
 the offer. ''There's a young fellow just come," Thack- 
 eray said, as he burst into the room where his daughters 
 were sitting. "He has brought a thousand pounds in 
 his pocket; he has made me an offer for my book: it's 
 the most spirited, handsome offer. I scarcely like to 
 take him at his word: he's hardly more than a boy; his 
 name is George Smith ; he is waiting there now, and I 
 must go back." The offer was ultimately accepted, 
 and henceforth Messrs. Smith & Elder became his pub- 
 lishers-in-chief. 
 
 Once before Mr. Vizetelly had made Thackeray an 
 offer on behalf of a publishing firm. Mr. Bougie, in 
 1846 or the following year, had commenced to issue a 
 series of brochures called Social Zoologies, the first num- 
 ber of which, The Gent, by Albert Smith, had been phe- 
 nomenally successful. It was determined to have the 
 best writers obtainable for future volumes, and at Mr. 
 Bougie's request Mr. Vizetelly applied to Thackeray, 
 with whom he was then in close intercourse, to write as 
 many volumes as he chose to undertake at the price of a 
 hundred guineas each this, it will be remembered, was 
 double the amount he was receiving for a monthly part 
 of Vanity Fair, including the etching of a couple of 
 plates. "He frankly admitted that the offer was a 
 tempting one," Mr. Vizetelly has recorded, "but he 
 eventually declined it, by reason, it was said, of his strong 
 disinclination to ally himself with anything that Albert 
 Smith was connected with. . . . Thackeray, who 
 had an abhorrence of things vulgar, found Smith's mau-
 
 284 TKHilliam flDafeepeace Ubacfcerag 
 
 vais gout more than he could stand. When brought into 
 contact with him he treated him with contemptuous tol- 
 eration, showing him outward civility ; but the occasional 
 observations which he permitted to escape him disclosed 
 his true sentiments respecting Albert's mountebank 
 ways." This statement is, however, somewhat dis- 
 counted by Albert Smith himself, who, writing to 
 George Hodder, mentions that he had spent an evening 
 with Thackeray at the Cyder Cellars, staying until three 
 in the morning, and that "he is a jolly fellow, and no 
 'High Art' about him." 
 
 But to revert to Esmond. 
 
 ' ' Thackeray I saw for ten minutes, ' ' Fitzgerald wrote 
 on June 8, 1852. "He was just in the agony of finish- 
 ing a novel: which has arisen out of the reading necessary 
 for the Lectures, and relates to those times of Queen 
 Anne, I mean. He will get ;i,ooo for his novel. He 
 was wanting to finish it, and rush off to the Continent, 
 I think, to shake off the fumes of it." 
 
 The book was actually finished on Saturday, May 28, 
 when Thackeray gave an informal and friendly dinner- 
 party to celebrate the occasion. It has been said by 
 Mr. Vizetelly that the publishers had expected the work 
 would relate to modern times, and were in the first 
 instance disappointed with Esmond; but that the sale 
 (Mr. Smith Williams, the firm's literary adviser, told 
 him) was so much greater than had been expected, that 
 they sent the author a cheque, in addition to the pay- 
 ment agreed upon, for two hundred and fifty pounds. 
 Trollope, on the other hand, said that Thackeray com- 
 plained to him that the public did not read the book; 
 and this is perhaps borne out by the following extract 
 from a letter acknowledging the receipt of a presentation
 
 
 *** A 
 
 (vdb kiA< 
 
 rsu*<Uufi tytx^ 5<: 
 ^ ta4**t<4 
 
 W
 

 
 Xectures in England an& Bmerfca 285 
 
 copy of Curry arid Rice, sent by the author, Captain 
 Atkinson, in December, 1858: "As for the little hint 
 about Printing House Square," he wrote, "I know the 
 editor and most of the writers, and, knowing, never 
 think of asking a favour for myself or any mortal man. 
 They are awful and inscrutable, and a request for a 
 notice might bring down a slasher upon you, just as I 
 once had in the Times for one of my own books 
 [Esmond], of which the sale was absolutely stopped by 
 a Times article. ' ' 
 
 But even a thunderbolt from the "awful and inscru- 
 table" Jupiter could only check the sale of the book for 
 the moment. Esmond was bound to take its place, not 
 only as Thackeray's masterpiece, but as a book to be 
 ranked among the greatest works of historical fiction of 
 any age or country. 
 
 "It is a dull, tiresome, well-written book. You'll 
 find it dull, but it is founded on family papers"; 
 "Esmond is as stately as Sir Charles Grandison" ; "The 
 hero is a prig' ' ; were some remarks passed by the 
 author upon his greatest work;* and writing from 
 America to Mrs. Procter, he declared that the success of 
 the book had quite surprised him, for he had only looked 
 for a few to like it. I think, however, his real opinion 
 
 *He had a habit of passing criticisms upon his books for all the 
 world as if he had not written them and many remarks like the fol- 
 lowing dropped from his mouth, and are to be found scattered about 
 his correspondence. " I have just read such a stupid part of Pen- 
 dennis; but how well written it is." " I can't say I think much of 
 Pendennis at least, of the execution," he said to Mr. J. E. Cooke; 
 "it certainly drags about the middle; but I had an attack of illness at 
 the time I reached that part of the book, and could not make it any 
 better than I did." "I bought the Kickleburys, Rebecca and Rowena, 
 and the Rhine Story, and read them through with immense pleasure. 
 Do you know I think all three capital, and R. &-> R. not only made 
 me laugh, but the other thing." " I have been reading The Hoggarty 
 Diamond this morning; upon my word and honour if it doesn't make 
 you cry, I shall have a mean opinion of you."
 
 286 TKntllfam /iDafeepeace 
 
 was expressed to Mr. Fields, when the publisher, in 
 1852, met him in Beacon Street, Boston, with the 
 three volumes of Esmond tucked under his arm. "Here 
 is the very best I can do," he said; "and I am carrying 
 it to Prescott as a reward of merit for having given me 
 my first dinner in America. I stand by this book, and 
 am willing to leave it, where I go, as my card." 
 
 Meanwhile the lectures were being delivered in the 
 provinces, and they were, as a general rule, as much 
 appreciated in the country as in the capital. At Oxford 
 (where he stayed with his old friend Stoddart) the read- 
 ings were worth thirty pounds apiece ;* and Cambridge 
 showed itself nearly as appreciative as the sister univer- 
 sity. At Edinburgh, too, they were a great success a 
 hundred subscribers and two hundred other people for 
 the first lecture. The following, from the Edinburgh 
 Review, is noteworthy: "The best of his lectures is, we 
 think, that on Fielding; and we are delighted to read 
 Mr. Thackeray's bold and cordial and discriminating 
 praise of this great, but, we fear, somewhat neglected, 
 artist a novelist from whom the generation that is now 
 
 *At Oxford it was necessary to obtain the license of the 'Varsity 
 authorities before lecturing within the precincts to the undergradu- 
 ates; and Thackeray, on his arrival in the city, applied for the 
 necessary permission to the Vice-Chancellor, who, however, was no 
 student of contemporary literature, and was utterly ignorant of both 
 Thackeray and his writings. This is an account that has been handed 
 down of the interview. I cannot vouch for its authenticity: it is 
 almost too good to be true. " Pray sir, what can I do for you?" " My 
 name is Thackeray." "So I see by this card." "I seek permission 
 to lecture within your precincts." "Ah! you are a lecturer; what 
 subjects do you undertake, religious or political?" "Neither; I am 
 a literary man." "Have you written anything?" "Yes; I am the 
 author of Vanity Fair" " I presume a dissenter has that anything 
 to do with John Bunyan's book?" " Not exactly. I have also written 
 Pendennis. " Never heard of these works ; but no doubt they are 
 proper books." " I have also contributed to Punch" " Punch / I 
 have heard of that; is it not a ribald publication?" The account ends 
 abruptly here probably at this point Thackeray showed symptoms 
 of suffocation.
 
 ^Lectures in Enolanfc anfc Smertca 287 
 
 passing away imbibed a heartier contempt for meanness 
 and duplicity, and a heartier sympathy with courage, 
 frankness, and manliness, than, we fear, is to be acquired 
 from the more decorous narratives which form the men- 
 tal food of their successors." 
 
 Indeed, the audiences in Edinburgh were so large and 
 so appreciative that the visit to America, that by this 
 time he had arranged should take place about May, hung 
 in the balance. "Why, if so much money is to be made 
 in this empire, not go through with the business, and get 
 what is to be had?" he asked Mrs. Brookfield. But the 
 journey was not abandoned. "I must replace my patri- 
 mony," he told his daughters, "and make some provi- 
 sion for your mother and for you ; and you must go to 
 my mother's and spend the winter with her; you must 
 work as hard as you can, and consider yourself at college 
 in a fashion, and learn French, and a little music, to play 
 me to sleep of an evening when I come home." Then 
 he took them abroad to his mother and Major Smyth, 
 in whose charge they were to be left during his absence. 
 At the railway station at Otten, in Belgium, they 
 parted: they going to Switzerland, he returning to 
 England. He had to deliver some more lectures, to 
 revise Vanity Fair for a cheap edition, and to correct 
 the proofs of Esmond, before he could sail for America. 
 
 At the end of September he went, with Mr. Eyre 
 Crowe, to Liverpool, where he read in the Athenaeum 
 on the Tuesdays and Thursdays (September 28, 30; 
 October 5, 7, 12, 14); and to Manchester, in the Phil- 
 harmonic Hall, on the Wednesdays and Fridays (Sep- 
 tember 29; October I, 6, 8, 13, 15). The latter part of 
 October was spent in London; and on October 29 they 
 again went to Liverpool, where, on that evening, the
 
 288 ipailliam flDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 last night in England, they dined at the house of Mr. 
 Ratcliffe. The piece de resistance at the banquet was a 
 roasted sucking-pig a surprise for the great man, who 
 loved only beans and bacon better. 
 
 He was in a very despondent frame of mind, and his 
 good-byes partook more of the nature of Adieu than 
 Au revoir. ''My dearest old friend," he wrote to 
 Edward Fitzgerald just before he sailed, "I mustn't go 
 away without shaking your hand and saying Farewell 
 and God bless you. If anything happens to me, you by 
 these presents must get ready the Book of Ballads which 
 you like, and which I had not time to prepare before 
 embarking on this voyage. And I should like my 
 daughters to remember that you are the best and oldest 
 friend their father ever had, and that you would act as 
 such : as my literary executor and so forth. My books 
 would yield a something as copyrights ; and should any- 
 thing occur, I have commissioned friends, in good places, 
 to get a pension for my poor little wife. . . . Does 
 not this sound gloomily? Well, who knows what fate is 
 in store; and I feel not at all downcast, but very grave 
 and solemn, just at the brink of the great voyage. The 
 greatest comfort I have in thinking about my dear old 
 boy is that recollection of our youth when we loved each 
 other as I do now, when I write Farewell!" 
 
 On the next morning (October 30, 1852) Thackeray 
 and Eyre Crowe, with their fellow-travellers, Lowell, 
 just returning from Italy, and Arthur Hugh Clough, 
 the poet, embarked on the R.M.S. Canada (Captain 
 Lang). The proofs of Esmond had taken much longer 
 to correct than had been expected, for the original edi- 
 tion was printed in the almost obsolete type of the reign 
 of Queen Anne, and only a very small quantity of it
 
 OLectures in England ant> Hmerica 289 
 
 could be obtained. Some time, too, the manuscript of 
 the third volume was mislaid at the publishers', and it 
 seemed as if the novelist would have to postpone his 
 journey for at least six weeks while he rewrote it. As 
 a matter of fact, he only received his bound copies of 
 the book while he was on the pier, waiting for the tender 
 to convey him to the Canada* 
 
 While lecturing in Liverpool, Thackeray had seen, in 
 a New York paper, an article containing a bitter attack 
 on him. It was, indeed, very doubtful what reception 
 he would meet with from the Americans, for they were 
 still smarting under the castigation inflicted by Boz in 
 the American Notes; and not unnaturally they said of 
 Thackeray, as they thought of the Dickens Ball at the 
 Park Theatre and the "Boz" Tableaux given in honour 
 of his great contemporary: "He'll come and humbug 
 us, eat our dinners, pocket our money, and go home, 
 and abuse us like Dickens." However, it was decided 
 to give him fair-play, and within a few days of his arrival 
 he had changed fair-play into enthusiasm. "The popu- 
 lar Thackeray-theory before his arrival was of a severe 
 satirist who concealed scalpels in his sleeves and carried 
 probes in his waistcoat pocket ; a wearer of masks ; a 
 scoffer and sneerer and general infidel of all high aim and 
 
 *" Thackeray's Esmond had recently appeared and taken the 
 world by storm, when, one evening in November, 1852, a red-faced, 
 mulberry-nosed, pot-bellied person clad in a shabby clerical suit, his 
 coat fastened with pins in lieu of buttons, entered the shop, and, after 
 introducing himself, .... drew from his tail-pocket a copy of Mr. 
 Ralph Cudworth's sermon preached before the House of Commons 
 on March 31, 1847, and mentioned in chapter vi. of Esmond. Our 
 visitor, so he told us, had unearthed the sermon in Trinity College 
 Library, and had called the novelist's attention to it. The venture 
 was a failure, scarcely any copies of the reprint being sold. . . . 
 The book was printed by Bradbury & Evans for J. Talboys Wheeler, 
 Bookseller, over against Trinity College gateway, Cambridge, and 
 has a dedication to Thackeray signed by James Broden." Some 
 Reminiscences of Books and Men, Publishers Circular, June 12, 1897.
 
 290 William jflDafeepeace Ubacfeeras 
 
 noble character," said a writer in Putnam's Monthly 
 Magazine for June, 1853. "Certainly we are justified 
 in saying that his presence among us quite corrected this 
 idea. We welcomed a friendly, genial man ; not at all 
 convinced that speech is heaven's first law, but willing 
 to be silent when there was nothing to say who decid- 
 edly refused to be lionised, not by sulking, but by step- 
 ping off the pedestal and challenging the common 
 sympathies of all he met. . . . We conceive . . . 
 the chief merit of Thackeray's visit to be that he con- 
 vinced us of his intellectual integrity, he showed us how 
 impossible it is for him to see the world and describe it 
 other than he does. He does not profess cynicism, nor 
 satirise society with malice. There is no man more 
 humble, none more simple, and his interests are human 
 and concrete, not abstract." 
 
 If the Americans were delighted with Thackeray, he 
 in his turn was agreeably astonished at what he saw in 
 the New World, and his letters are full of expressions of 
 pleasure. "I didn't expect to like the people as I do, 
 but am agreeably disappointed, and find many most 
 pleasant companions, natural and good ; natural and 
 well-read : and well-bred too." "Now I have seen three 
 great cities, Boston, New York and Philadelphia, I 
 think I like them all mighty well." "At Boston there 
 is a very good literary company indeed." "Now what 
 most impresses me here is that I find homes as pure as 
 ours, firesides like ours, domestic virtues as gentle; the 
 English language, though the accent be a little different, 
 with its home-like melody; and the Common Prayer 
 Book in your families. I am more struck by pleasant 
 resemblances than by anything else," etc., etc. 
 
 "The passage is nothing now it is over," Thackeray
 
 ^Lectures in England anO Hmerica 291 
 
 declared on his arrival, when he was met by Mr. Fields. 
 He remained in New York for a week. Here one even- 
 ing he heard Bancroft, the historian, lecture before the 
 New York Historical Society, and on another was initi- 
 ated into the mysteries of spirit-rapping and table-turn- 
 ing. He met Horace Greeley, the proprietor of the 
 New York Daily Tribune, and in the columns of that 
 paper was welcomed to the States by Henry James, the 
 father of the distinguished novelist, who, among his 
 English-speaking contemporaries, ranks only after George 
 Meredith and the author of Lorna Doone. Everywhere 
 and by every one he was f$ted and made much of; and 
 lunches, dinners, and suppers in his honour were so 
 numerous that he afterwards laughingly spoke of his visit 
 as "one unbroken round of indigestion." All the busi- 
 ness arrangements for his lecturing had been made as far 
 as possible without troubling him with any of the 
 details. He went to Boston, where the campaign was 
 to be opened. "He arrived on a frosty November even- 
 ing," Mr. Fields has recorded, "and I remember . . . 
 the enthusiasm with which he hailed the announcement 
 that dinner would soon be ready ... In London 
 he had been very curious in his inquiries about American 
 oysters, as marvellous stories, which he did not believe, 
 had been told him of their great size. We apologised 
 although we had taken care that the largest specimen to 
 be procured should startle his unwonted vision when he 
 came up to the table for what we called the extreme 
 smallness of the oysters, promising that we would do 
 better next time. Six bloated Falstaffian bivalves lay 
 before him in their shells. I noticed he gazed at them 
 anxiously with fork upraised ; then he whispered to me, 
 with a look of anguish, 'How shall I do it?' I described
 
 292 William /iDafeepeace 
 
 to him the simple process by which the free-born citizens 
 of America were accustomed to accomplish such a task. 
 He seemed satisfied that the thing was feasible, select- 
 ed the smallest one in the half-dozen (rejecting a large 
 one, 'because,' he said, 'it resembled the High Priest's 
 servant's ear that Peter cut off'), and then bowed his 
 head as if he were saying grace. All eyes were upon 
 him to watch the effect of a new sensation in the person 
 of a great British Author. Opening his mouth very 
 wide, he struggled for a minute, and then all was over. 
 I shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast 
 upon the other five over-occupied shells. I broke the 
 perfect stillness by asking him how he felt. ' Profoundly 
 grateful,' he gasped, 'and as if I had swallowed a little 
 baby.' " 
 
 The first lecture took place at eight o'clock in the 
 evening of November 19, before an audience of twelve 
 hundred people, amongst whom was George Ticknor, 
 the historian of Spanish literature; the others following 
 on November 22, 26, 29, and December 3, 6. These 
 were so well attended indeed, all the tickets were sold 
 before his arrival that another course was delivered on 
 December I, 7, 10, 13, 15, and 17, which also met with 
 great success. One of his Boston auditors gave a good 
 pen-and-ink sketch of the lecturer. "He is a stout, 
 healthful, broad-shouldered specimen of a man, with 
 cropped greyish hair and bluish-grey eyes, peering very 
 strongly through a pair of spectacles that have a very 
 satiric focus. He seems to stand strongly on his own 
 feet, as if he would not be very easily blown about or 
 upset either by praise or pugilists a man who scents all 
 shams or rumours, straightening them between his 
 thumb and finger as he would a pinch of snuff."
 
 Xectures in Enalat^ anfc Hmerica 293 
 
 From Boston he returned to New York on the cars 
 "a rosy-cheeked little peripatetic book-merchant," igno- 
 rant of his customer's identity, sold him a copy of A 
 Shabby Genteel Story where Mr. Millard Felt, repre- 
 senting The Mercantile Library Association, took him 
 over the Rev. Mr. Chapin's Unitarian Chapel, from 
 which the Rev. Henry Bellows had just retired. He 
 was to read from the pulpit, and expressed some anxiety 
 until he was assured that the organ would not play him 
 in. 
 
 "The building was crowded to its utmost capacity 
 with the celebrities of literature and fashion in this 
 metropolis, all of whom, we believe, left perfectly united 
 in the opinion that they never remembered to have 
 spent an hour more delightfully in their lives, and that 
 the room in which they had been receiving so much 
 enjoyment was very badly lighted. We fear, also, that 
 it is the impression of the many who were disappointed 
 in getting tickets, that the room was not spacious 
 enough for the purpose to which it has been appropri- 
 ated. Every one who saw Mr. Thackeray last evening 
 for the first time seemed to have their impressions of his 
 appearance and manner of speech corrected. Few 
 expected to see so large a man : he is gigantic, six feet 
 four at least ; few expected to see so old a person : his 
 hair appears to have kept silvery record over fifty years; 
 and then there was a notion in the minds of many that 
 there must be something dashing and 'fast' in his appear- 
 ance; whereas his costume was perfectly plain; the 
 expression of his face grave and earnest; his address 
 perfectly unaffected, and such as we might expect to 
 meet with in a well-bred man somewhat advanced in 
 years. ... In other words, he inspired his audi-
 
 294 TKHUliam /IDafeepeace Ubacfeerag 
 
 ence with a respect for him as a man proportioned to 
 the admiration which his books have inspired for him as 
 an author. 
 
 "Of the lecture itself as a work of art, it would be 
 difficult to speak too strongly. Though written with 
 the utmost simplicity and apparent inattention to effects, 
 it overflowed with every characteristic of the author's 
 happiest vein." So ran a report of the "Swift" Lecture 
 in the New York Evening Post, which paper Thackeray 
 himself sent to friends in England. 
 
 He was tasting the fruits of his great popularity, and 
 he thoroughly enjoyed himself. "I remember," Mr. 
 Fields has recorded of the first reading at Boston, "his 
 uproarious shouting and dancing when he was told that 
 the tickets to his first course of lectures were all sold ; 
 and when we rode together from his hotel to the lecture- 
 hall, he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out of 
 the carriage window, in deference, as he said, to his 
 magnanimous ticket-holders." 
 
 "By Jove, how kind you all were to me," he said to 
 Mr. Reed. "I suppose I am none the worse pleased," 
 he wrote from New York, "because everybody has read 
 all my books and praises my lectures. . . . There 
 are two thousand people nearly who come, and the lec- 
 tures are so well liked that it is probable I shall do them 
 over again. So really there is a chance of making a 
 pretty sum of money for old age, imbecility, and those 
 young ladies afterwards."* 
 
 He repeated the lectures in New York, and read them 
 
 *By the New York lectures he made no less than a thousand 
 pounds, which Barings invested for the young ladies. Of the profits 
 of the whole visit I cannot speak with any certainty. He himself in 
 one of his letters suggested that his possible gains might amount to 
 .2,500, but I think this is a very low estimate.
 
 OLectures in England ant) Bmerica 295 
 
 in Brooklyn. There he saw a Beatrix Esmond, to 
 whom he lost his heart, he declared, and met the great 
 Barnum, who wanted him to write something in the 
 first number of an illustrated paper in imitation of the 
 London News, which was just about to make its appear- 
 ance under his wing. It must have been a curious 
 interview, that one between the Prince of Anti-Hum- 
 bugs, and the Prince of Humbugs. 
 
 From Brooklyn he went to Washington for three 
 weeks, where he stayed with Mr. (afterwards, Sir Philip) 
 Crampton at the British Embassy, and there he met 
 Senator G. T. Davis, whose son, Secretary of the Amer- 
 ican Minister in London, was an old friend. Longfellow 
 on Christmas Eve heard the "Congreve" lecture, and 
 four days later supped with the lecturer at Lowell's 
 house. "The time here has been very pleasant," 
 Thackeray wrote to his mother. "I dined with the 
 President [Mr. Fillmore] on Thursday, and yesterday 
 he and the President Elect [General Pierce] came arm- 
 in-arm to my lecture!" "Two Kings of Brentford 
 smiling at one rose," Washington Irving (popularly 
 known as "Old Knick" from an early work, The History 
 of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker) murmured to 
 Thackeray as they appeared ; and surely lecturing before 
 two Presidents is only one degree less pleasing in its 
 intensity than to be seen walking arm-in-arm with a 
 couple of Dukes down Pall Mall. 
 
 From Philadelphia he addressed a characteristic letter 
 to Mrs. Brookfield. ' ' The lectures are enormously suive'es, 
 and I read at the rate of a pound a minute nearly," 
 he wrote. "The curious thing is that I think I improve 
 in my reading; at certain passages a sort of emotion 
 springs up, and I begin to understand how actors feel
 
 29 6 William flDafcepeace 
 
 affected over and over again at the same passages of the 
 play; they are affected off the stage too: I hope I 
 shan't be. . . . There's something simple about the 
 way the kind folks regard a man ; they read our books 
 as if we were Fielding, and so forth. The other night 
 some men were talking of Dickens and Bulwer, and I 
 was pleased to find myself pleased at hearing them 
 praised." 
 
 In this same letter we get a glimpse at his plans for 
 the future. The second course of lectures and the ambi- 
 tion in public life were realised respectively in the Four 
 Georges and the Oxford election, and the man, weary 
 and "played out" as he was, yet managed to produce, 
 besides other things, The Newcomes, Philip, the fragment 
 of Denis Duval, and above all The Roundabout Papers. 
 
 "At present," runs this part of the letter, "I incline 
 to come to England in June or July, and get ready a 
 new set of lectures and bring them back with me. That 
 second course will enable me to provide for the children 
 and their mother finally and satisfactorily, and my mind 
 will be easier after that, and I can sing Nunc Dimittis 
 without faltering. There is money-making to try at, to 
 be sure, and ambition, I mean in public life; perhaps 
 that might interest a man, but not novels, nor lectures, 
 nor fun any more. I don't seem to care about these 
 any more, or for praise, or for abuse, or for reputation 
 of that kind. That literary play is played out and the 
 puppets going to be locked up for good and all. Does 
 this melancholy come from the circumstance that I have 
 been out to dinner and supper every night this week? 
 Oh ! I am tired of shaking hands with people, and acting 
 the lion business night after night. Every one is intro- 
 duced and shakes hands. I know thousands of colonels,
 
 Xectures In Enolanfc anfc Bmerica 297 
 
 professors, editors, and what not, and walk the streets 
 guiltily, knowing that I don't know 'em, and trembling 
 lest the man opposite is one of my friends of the day 
 before. I believe I am popular, except at Boston among 
 the newspaper men who fired into me, but a great 
 favourite with the monde here and elsewhere." 
 
 From Philadelphia he returned to New York, where, 
 to oblige some friends interested in a "Ladies' Society 
 for the Employment and Relief of the Poor," he espe- 
 cially composed, and delivered on January 31, at the 
 Church of the Messiah, in Broadway, before an audience 
 of about twelve hundred persons paying one dollar each, 
 the Charity and Humour discourse. This serves as a 
 supplement to the Humourist series, for in it he compared 
 the eighteenth-century literature with the writings of his 
 contemporaries, taking advantage of the opportunity to 
 bestow his usual praise upon Dickens. 
 
 At this time all New York was talking of the article 
 in the January number of Fraser's Magazine, entitled 
 Mr. Thackeray and the United States (by John Small}, a 
 playful and amusing satire on the American newspapers 
 and their habits of personal journalism, in which was 
 given a long extract from an imaginary paper, The 
 Sachem and Broadway Delineator, caricaturing the per- 
 sonal paragraphs that were being circulated about the 
 lecturer. Although the article was not published over 
 his signature, it was immediately recognised as his work. 
 It was found as amusing in America as at home ; and if, 
 while reading it, some hyper-sensitive persons felt a 
 touch of annoyance, it must have been removed when 
 the last page of the article was reached, for Thackeray 
 had written there the tribute conceded to America at 
 the last lecture of the first series on December 7.
 
 298 Militant /iDafeepeace 
 
 "In England it was my custom, after the delivery of 
 these lectures," he had said, "to point such a moral as 
 seemed to befit the country I lived in and to protest 
 against an outcry, which some brother authors of mine 
 had most imprudently and unjustly raised, when they 
 say that our profession is neglected, and its professors 
 held in light esteem. Speaking in this country, I would 
 say that not only could such a complaint not be advanced, 
 but could not even be understood here, where your men 
 of letters take a manly share in public life; whence 
 Everett goes as Minister to Washington, and Irving and 
 Bancroft to represent the republic in the Old Country. 
 And if to English authors, the English public is, as I 
 believe, kind and just in the main, will any of us say, 
 will any who visit your country not proudly and grate- 
 fully own, with what a cordial and generous greeting 
 you receive us? I look round on this great company, 
 I think of my gallant young patrons of the Mercantile 
 Literary Association, as whose servant I appear before 
 you, and of the kind hands stretched out to welcome me 
 by men famous in letters, and honoured in our country 
 as in their own, and I thank you and them for a most 
 kindly greeting and a most generous hospitality. At 
 home, and amongst his own people, it scarce becomes an 
 English writer to speak of himself; his public estimation 
 must depend upon his works, his private esteem upon 
 his character and his life. But here, among friends 
 newly found, I ask leave to say that I am thankful ; and 
 I think with a grateful heart of those I leave behind me 
 at home, who will be proud of the welcome you hold out 
 to me, and will benefit, please God, when my days of 
 work are over, by the kindness you have shown to their 
 father."
 
 OLectures in EnQlanfc an& Hmerfca 299 
 
 And not content with the above manifestation of 
 feeling, he had also seized the opportunity to declare 
 his gratitude by declaring in the preface to Appleton's 
 edition of his minor works that "he was glad to think 
 his books had found favour with the American public, 
 as he was proud to own the great and cordial welcome 
 with which they received him."* 
 
 After Boston, New York, and Washington, he also 
 visited, among other places, Baltimore and Richmond, 
 Virginia; Petersburg, where very few seats were occu- 
 pied ; Charleston, where he arrived early in March, and 
 read in the Hiberian Hall to large audiences, the most 
 notable person being Professor Agassiz, whose acquaint- 
 ance he made ; and Savannah, in Georgia, where he was 
 the guest of Mr. Low, the English Consul. Then he 
 returned to the Clarendon Hotel in New York, where he 
 heard of the failing health of some of the elder members 
 of his family in Europe. 
 
 Long before the tour was over he was heartily sick 
 of it, and nothing but the thoughts of his children 
 would have strengthened him sufficiently to enable him 
 to continue it. ' ' Even when I am reading my lectures, " 
 he one day exclaimed to Mr. Bayard Taylor, "I often 
 think to myself, 'What a humbug you are, and I wonder 
 people don't find you out';" and writing home on Feb- 
 ruary 7 he said, "In another hour that dreary business of 
 'In speaking of the English Humourists of the last,' etc., 
 will begin and the wonder to me is that the speaker once 
 in the desk (to-day it is to be a right-down pulpit in a 
 Universalist Church and no mistake), gets interested in 
 the work, makes the points, throbs with emotion, and 
 indignation, at the right place, and has a little sensation 
 
 *See Appendix.
 
 300 Hdilliam flDaftepeace 
 
 while the work is coming on; but I can't go on much 
 longer, my conscience revolts at the quackery." "I 
 am getting so sick and ashamed of the confounded old 
 lectures that I wonder I have the courage to go on 
 delivering them," he wrote from Richmond a month 
 later. "I shan't read a single review of them when they 
 are published; anything savage said about them will 
 serve them right. ... I should like to give myself 
 a week's holiday without my dem'd lecture-box." 
 
 In an interesting and characteristic letter, dated Clar- 
 endon Hotel, New York, April 5, 1853, Thackeray 
 summed up his impressions of America in his character- 
 istically straightforward fashion. He noted that My 
 Novel and Villette had rapidly transplanted Esmond in 
 popular favour; and added that though he had not mad 
 a fortune in four months, he had "a snug little sum of 
 money." He was not horrified with the slavery of the 
 South, but thought the negroes "in the good families 
 the comfortablest race of menials." Of American scen- 
 ery he was far from enamoured. "It is a dreary, 
 unpicturesque country for the most part. I have not 
 seen a dozen picturesque views in all my wanderings, nor 
 even cared to use my pencil except to sketch a negro or 
 two." 
 
 He longed to shut up his reading desk and get back 
 to the Old Country, though he gratefully acknowledged 
 the kindness of the Americans, and spoke of the many 
 true friends he had made. The luxury of New York and 
 the gorgeous dresses of the ladies seem to have some- 
 what appalled him. "Solomon in all his glory, or the 
 Queen of Sheba when she came to visit him in state, was 
 not arrayed so magnificently as these New York damsels. " 
 
 When Mr. Crowe entered Thackeray's room, very
 
 Xectures in En0lant> an& Hmerfca s 01 
 
 early in the morning of April 20, 1853, tne latter, who 
 had been consulting a newspaper, jumped up, and, in 
 spite of his earlier intention to visit several cities in the 
 middle and western states, said: "I see there's a 
 Cunarder going this morning. I'll go down to Wall 
 Street to see whether I can secure berths in her." His 
 quest was successful. He scribbled on a card: "Good- 
 bye, Fields; good-bye, Mrs. Fields; God bless every- 
 body, says W. M. T." there was no time for personal 
 farewells hurried down Broadway, got into a boat on 
 the East River, reached the Europa to be greeted with 
 the cry, "Hurry up she's starting!" and landed with 
 Mr. Crowe at Liverpool almost exactly six months after 
 their departure. 
 
 The story of his arrival at his house has been charm- 
 ingly told by his eldest daughter in the following words : 
 "When the long summer and winter were over, and the 
 still longer spring, suddenly one day we heard he was 
 coming back much sooner than he had expected. I 
 believe he saw a steamer starting for home and could 
 stand it no longer, and then and there came off. . I can 
 still remember sitting with my grandparents, expecting 
 his return. My sister and I sat on the red sofa in the 
 little study, and shortly before the time we had calculated 
 he might arrive came a little ring at the front door-bell. 
 My grandmother broke down ; my sister and I rushed to 
 the front door, only we were so afraid that it might not 
 be he that we did not dare to open it, and there we 
 stood until a second and much louder ring brought us 
 to our senses. 'Why didn't you open the door?' said 
 my father, stepping in, looking well, broad, and upright, 
 laughing. In a moment he had never been away at all."* 
 
 * Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs.
 
 END OF VOLUME ONE
 
 PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
 AND SONS COMPANY AT THE 
 LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.