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ANECDOTE BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 THACKERAY AND DICKENS 
 
BRIC-A-BRAC SERIES. 
 
 INITIAL VOLUME. 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 
 
 BY 
 
 CHORLEY, PLANCHE, AND YOUNG. 
 
 i vol. square i2m0, $1.50. 
 Sent post-paid on receipt of price by the Publishers. 
 
ANECDOTE BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 OF 
 
 THACKERAY AND DICKENS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY 
 1874 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINT HI) BY 
 H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 HAUD IMMEMOK. THACKERAY IN AMERICA 
 THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER . . . 
 SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY . . . , 
 A FRIEND OF MY CHILDHOOD 
 A CHILD S GLIMPSE OF THACKERAY 
 HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY . 
 THE " SNOB " . . 
 
 THACKERAY IN PARIS . . . 
 THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE . . 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THACK F.KAY . . 
 THACKERAY YATES DICKENS 
 ROBERT BELL S WATCH . . . . >. 
 
 THACKERAY S LAST ILLNESS 
 
 SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY . * . 
 
 JAMES ?!ANNAY ON THACKERAY 
 
 IN MEMORIAM ...... 
 
 OBITUARY POKMS . . 
 
 PAGH 
 
 I 
 
 21 
 
 93 
 
 102 
 1 06 
 109 
 I 3 2 
 
 139 
 
 144 
 
 150 
 
 54 
 
 160 
 162 
 164 
 174 
 187 
 IQI 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 DICKENS S EARLIEST WRITINGS 
 POPULARITY OF " PICKWICK " 
 "PICKWICK" DRAMATIZED 
 THE FIRST HINT OF "PICKWICK 
 
 ^035 
 
 197 
 203 
 
 207 
 208 
 
Viii CONTENTS. 
 
 DICKENS A DRAMATIST 209 
 
 "OLIVER TWIST" . . 211 
 
 POETICAL EPISTLE FROM FATHER PROUT . ; . 212 
 
 DICKENS AND IRVING . . . . . . 213 
 
 DICKENS AS AN ACTOR ....... 218 
 
 DICKENS AS A JOURNALIST . . . . . . 219 
 
 DICKENS AND THACKERAY . . . . . . 222 
 
 JULIAN YOUNG ON DICKENS AND THACKERAY . . 223 
 
 " NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM " . . . . . 22/ 
 
 DICKENS AND LEIGH HUNT ...... 230 
 
 GAD S HILL PLACE . . . . . . . 233 
 
 BIRDS OF A FEATHER . . ; , ; ; : < . 235 
 
 DICKENS AS A SMASHER . . . . . -k . 236 
 
 DICKENS AND THE QUEEN . . .... 237 
 
 DICKENS S BENEVOLENCE 238 
 
 MANNER OF LITERARY COMPOSITION . . . . 240 
 
 BLANCHARD JERROLD o\ DICKENS . . : . . . 241 
 
 SIR ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS . . . . 258 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS ... . 266 
 
 OBITUARY POEMS 291 
 
jjF we could analyze carefully the various elements 
 contained in a good biography, and decide which 
 interested us most in the reading, and which we 
 remembered longest after the reading, I think we would 
 discover that it was the element of Anecdote. The chief 
 facts in a biography the general drift of the life of its 
 subject may impress themselves upon the memory for a 
 time, but that which remains permanently, and which re 
 fuses to be forgotten, is something different from these, 
 some incident or incidents in the life in question a 
 smart saying, a humorous jest, a rapier thrust of wit, it 
 may be anything that is salient. We remember somewhat, 
 perhaps, of the life of Lamb, for example : how he went 
 to Christ s Hospital with Coleridge \ how he was a clerk 
 in the India House ; how he wrote " Elia," and so on ; what 
 we certainly remember, if we have any feeling, is his going 
 across the fields with his sister Mary to the mad-house, in 
 which it was necessary that she should be confined, and 
 weeping with her, as he went ; what we can never forget, 
 if we have any sense of humor, are his humorous sayings. 
 Apart from their works, we remember different authors 
 for different reasons, but generally for what their biog 
 raphers would consider trifles ; but which are not trifles 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 in that they make us forget the biographers. As a rule 
 we have too much of the biographer in the biography. 
 What we want is the man whose life he purports to nar 
 rate, not as he sees him, but as he was, dressed in his 
 habit as he lived, in his dressing-gown and slippers, if 
 need be. The average biographer objects to this, as he 
 generally objects to telling the whole truth when it would 
 injure the character of his hero. As if all men, the greatest 
 and best, were not compounded of the same poor clay as 
 the rest of us ! The wine they drink is made of grapes ; 
 their headaches are as veritable, and perhaps a trifle more 
 frequent, than ours. 
 
 Most biographers start with preconceived ideas regarding 
 the characters they are to depict, and with the mistaken no 
 tion that these characters, when depicted, should be rounded 
 and harmonious. They also mistake the nature of their 
 office, which is not that of a special pleader, either for good 
 or evil. They should take their men, as they were, not as 
 they would have them : should state what they did, not 
 what they might have done : 
 
 " Nothing extenuate, 
 Nor set aught down in malice : " 
 
 and, their work being finished, they should leave it, as 
 Bacon left his tarnished fame and memory, " to men s 
 charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages." 
 They may throw dust in the eyes of their contemporaries, 
 but the vision of Posterity will be clear. Posterity will 
 judge their work, and, likely enough, will judge it by ap 
 parent trifles, trifles which are omitted, but which Pos 
 terity will recover, and upon which it will set an inestima 
 ble value. Such priceless trifles may take the form of 
 anecdotes, which frequently reveal what the biographers 
 have concealed, and which are surer indications of charac- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 ter than the most labored biographies. Fuller s descrip 
 tion of the " wit combats " between Shakespeare and Ben 
 Jonson is the liveliest and most graphic presentation ex 
 tant of the two men. 
 
 The two great men to whom this little volume is de 
 voted will pass, we may be sure, under the sharp scru 
 tiny of Posterity. They divided in their life-time the suf 
 frages of all who speak and read the English tongue ; but 
 they cannot be said to have divided it equally, for one 
 sprang intopopularity, a popularity which he retained to 
 the day of his death, while the other labored long before 
 he was recognized ; his reputation was wrung from the 
 world. They had their adherents, as Jonson and Shakes 
 peare had theirs, and battles were fought about them, they 
 remaining the while, let us hope, indifferent, but amused, 
 spectators of the fight. The biography of one has been 
 written ; the biography of the other has not. There will 
 be no biography of Thackeray, if his wishes and the wishes 
 of his daughters are respected. 
 
 This being the case, it seems to me that a collection of 
 the best papers that have been written concerning him, 
 the best, I mean, in an anecdotal sense, will be accep 
 table to his admirers. I have accordingly made the 
 collection which follows, and which contains, I believe, 
 everything that is worthy of preservation in the shape of 
 personal reminiscence of this great writer and great and 
 good man. It contains at least everything that has come 
 within my own observation, with the exception of a lively 
 sketch in Mr. James T. Fields s " Yesterdays with Au 
 thors," which I cannot accept as a faithful portrait of 
 Thackeray, although it may, perhaps, reflect one side of 
 his nature with tolerable accuracy. The writer obtrudes 
 himself too much, and his tone, if I am not mistaken, is 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 one of condescension towards the robust-minded gentle 
 man who honored him with his friendship. 
 
 A few words in regard to the Thackerayana here, may 
 not be without interest. The opening paper " Haud 
 Immemor. Thackeray in America," was written by Mr. 
 William B. Reed, of this city, formerly of Philadelphia, 
 and at one time, United States Minister in China. Mr. 
 Reed printed a private edition of this charming Mono 
 graph, which was written in May, 1864, a copy of which 
 found its way across the ocean, and was reprinted in 
 6t Blackwood " for June, 1872. It is reprinted here by his 
 permission. The brother of Mr. Reed to whom reference 
 is made on page 7, Mr. Henry Reed, was one of the most 
 thoughtful scholars of English Literature that America has 
 yet produced. Born in Philadelphia in 1808 he entered 
 the Sophomore Class at the University of Pennsylvania 
 in 1822, and was graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1825. 
 He began the study of law, and four years later was admit 
 ted to the bar. In 1831 he relinquished his practice and 
 was elected Assistant Professor of English Literature in 
 the University. In 1835, n ^ s twenty-seventh year, he was 
 elected Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature. In 
 1854 he visited England, where he was warmly received by 
 a host of friends, beginning with Wordsworth, with whom 
 he had long corresponded, and whose reputation he had 
 enhanced in America, and ending with Thackeray, a 
 bead-roll of illustrious names, including the Southeys, 
 Coleridges, and Arnolds, Lord Mahon, Aubrey cle Vere, 
 and Mr. now Sir, Henry Taylor. It was while re 
 turning from this visit, on the 27th of September, 1854, 
 almost in sight of his native land, that the Arctic, the ship 
 upon which he had taken passage, sank, with nearly every 
 soul on board. His literary remains were edited by Mr. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 William B. Reed. They are " Lectures on English Lit 
 erature, from Chaucer to Tennyson" (Phila. 1855); and 
 " Lectures on the British Poets " (Phila. 1857). The loss 
 of Mr. Henry Reed was a loss to American scholarship. 
 
 To continue with our Thackerayana : "Thackeray s 
 Literary Career " is reprinted by permission of Messrs. J. 
 R. Osgood & Co. from the second series of ie Spare Hours," 
 by Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, who remarks in a note 
 that the larger and better part of this paper is by his young 
 and accomplished friend, Henry H. Lancaster, Advocate. 
 " Some Recollections of Thackeray," "A Friend of my 
 Childhood," and " A Child s Glimpse of Thackeray," are 
 reprinted, by permission, from the pages of " Lippincott s 
 Magazine." " Hodder s Recollections of Thackeray " are 
 taken from a volume of u Memories," the exact title of 
 which escapes me. The eight short papers that follow, 
 anecdotes, let us say, are taken, with one exception, 
 from " Thackeray, the Humorist, and the Man of Letters," 
 by Theodore Taylor, Membre de la Sotiete des Gens de Let- 
 tres (London, 1864), a collection of Thackerayana, made 
 shortly after Thackeray s death. The exception, " Per 
 sonal Appearance of Thackeray," is extracted from Mr. 
 Blanchard Jerrold s " Best of all Good Company." Mr. 
 Shirley Brooks s paper appeared in the " London Illus 
 trated News ; " Mr. James Hannay s in the " Edinburgh 
 Courant," of which he was the editor ; and Mr. Dickens s 
 " In Memoriam " in the " Cornhill Magazine." The 
 " Obituary Poems " are from several sources. The first 
 appeared in " Punch ; " the second in " Fun ; " and the 
 third, which was written by Lord Houghton, in the " Corn- 
 hill." The fourth was written by Dr. Thomas W. Parsons, 
 of Boston ; the last was written by myself. 
 
 A number of Thackeray anecdotes have fallen in 
 
Xiv PREFACE. 
 
 my way while this volume has been passing through the 
 press. Here is one which was related by the late Charles 
 Sumner : " When Thackeray was in this city (Washington), 
 we visited, among the earlier places, the capitol rotunda. 
 Thackeray was an artist by birthright, and his judgment 
 was beyond chance or question. He took a quiet turn 
 around the rotunda, and in a few words gave each picture 
 its perfectly correct rank and art valuation. Trumbull is 
 your painter ; he said, never neglect Trumbull. Other 
 places of interest were then seen, after which we started 
 homeward. He had not yet been at my house, and my 
 chief anxiety was to coach him safely past that Jackson 
 statue. The conversation hung persistently upon art mat 
 ters, which made it certain that I was to have trouble 
 when we should come in view of that particular excrescence. 
 We turned the dreaded corner at last, when, to my aston 
 ishment, Mr. Thackeray held straight past the hideous 
 figure, moving his head neither to the right nor left, and 
 chatting as airily as though we were strolling through an 
 English park. Now I know that the instant we came in 
 sight of poor Jackson s caricature he saw it, realized its 
 accumulated terrors at a glance, and in the charity of his 
 great heart took all pains to avoid having a word said 
 about it. Ah, but he was a man of rare consideration." 
 
 Here is a cluster of little anecdotes : " Thackeray was 
 not a humorist, in the sense that Dickens was, nor a wit, 
 in the sense that Jerrold was, but he now and then said a 
 good thing in a quiet way. He was pestered on one occa 
 sion, while in this country, by a young gentleman of an in 
 quiring turn of mind, as to what was thought of this person 
 and that person in England. Mr. Thackeray, he asked, 
 what do they think of Tupper ? i They don t think of 
 Tupper, was the reply. Another man of letters was men- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 tioned, and it transpired that he was addicted to beer 
 drinking. l Yes/ said Thackeray, i take him for half and 
 half he was a man. His connection with Fraser s Maga 
 zine was the subject of conversation, and the right of an 
 editor to change the copy of his contributors was dis 
 cussed. Thackeray maintained that no such right existed, 
 except as regarded errors of grammar, and declared that 
 the only person who could make alterations for the better 
 was the author himself ; as a rule, editorial changes were 
 blunders. I told an editor so once and he did not like 
 it. " I have no objection to your putting your hoofs on 
 my paragraphs," I remarked, " but I decidedly object to 
 your sticking your ears through them." l He never for 
 gave you, of course. * I never thought to ask. Thack 
 eray and Jerrold used to sit near each other at the Punch 
 dinners, and Jerrold was inclined to wrangle, if everthing 
 was not to his liking ; but Thackeray would keep the 
 peace. There s no use in our quarreling, he said, l for 
 we must meet again next week/ " 
 
 The last poem that we shall probably have from the pen 
 of Thackeray was lately found among his papers. It sees 
 the light in the June number of the " Cornhill." 
 
 KING FRITZ. 
 
 King Fritz at his palace of Berlin 
 
 I saw at a royal carouse, 
 In a periwig powdered and curling 
 
 He sat with his hat on his brows. 
 The handsome young princes were present, 
 
 Uncovered they stood in the hall ; 
 And oh ! it was wholesome and pleasant 
 
 To see how he treated them all ! 
 
 Reclined on the softest of cushions 
 His Majesty sits to his meats, 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 The princes, like loyal young Prussians. 
 
 Have never a back to their seats. 
 Off salmon and venison and pheasants 
 
 He dines like a monarch august : 
 His sons, if they eat in his presence, 
 
 Put up with a bone or a crust. 
 
 He quaffs his bold bumpers of Rhenish, 
 
 It can t be too good or too dear, 
 His princes are made to replenish 
 
 Their cups with the smallest of beer. 
 If ever, by words or grimaces, 
 
 Their highnesses dare to complain, 
 The King flings a dish in their faces, 
 
 Or batters their bones with his cane. 
 
 Tis thus that the chief of our nation 
 
 .The minds of his children improves, 
 And teaches polite education 
 
 By boxing the ears that he loves. 
 I warrant they vex him but seldom, 
 
 And so if we dealt with our sons, 
 If we up with our cudgels and felled em, 
 
 We d teach em good manners at once. 
 
 Thackeray was sensitive, satirist though he was, and 
 cannot be acquitted of techyness, in regard to what was 
 written concerning himself, and his private affairs. When 
 it came to large things, to his work and his life, 
 he was supremely indifferent. He left his Work to the 
 world, as Shakespeare did : his Life was of no importance. 
 He left no record of it, and he would not have it related. 
 It was otherwise with Dickens, as we cannot but feel after 
 reading Mr. Forster s Life of him. He was from the be 
 ginning conscious that he was a man of genius, and con 
 scious that the world would one day want to know all 
 
PREFACE. XVli 
 
 about him. He never forgot himself in his work, though 
 he loved his work because it was a part of himself. There 
 was an intellectual selfishness in him from which the 
 larger and stronger nature of Thackeray was free. It is 
 not my intention, however, to draw comparisons between 
 the two men ; and, if it were, this is not the place to do it. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the Life of Thackeray has not 
 been written. It is also to be regretted that the Life of 
 Dickens has been written, at least by Mr. Forster. Mr. 
 Forster has long been credited with qualities which go to the 
 making of a good biographer. His Life of Goldsmith was 
 a good one, of its kind. His Life of Landor, whatever 
 its kind, was not good. It was not so much a Life of Lan 
 dor, as a series of long and rather dull criticisms upon his 
 writings ; altogether it was a tedious book. His Life 
 of Dickens is not tedious it could not well be that 
 but it is constructed, I venture to think, upon an erroneous 
 plan, and it is narrow, in that it presents Dickens only as 
 he was seen by Mr. Forster. A voluminous letter-writer 
 all his life, Dickens must have written letters to other per 
 sons than Mr. Forster, letters that are as worthy of 
 preservation as those that he has preserved, and are as 
 worthy of a place in his Memoir as those that were written 
 to. him. He had, he could have, no exclusive right to 
 knowledge of Dickens, despite his life-long intimacy with 
 him and his friendship for him. Dickens was known to 
 many besides Mr. Forster, and known differently to them 
 than to .him. He does not appear to think so, and the 
 result is his narrow and unsatisfactory Life of Dickens. 
 It is an interesting, an instructive, and a painful book. 
 
 It has been completed so recently, and has been so 
 widely read, that any extracts from it would be out of 
 place here. I have indicated what seems to me some of 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 its defects : I have not named one which is prominent 
 the absence of anecdotes. Mr. Forster s ideal of Biography 
 is graver than suits most readers. He does not unbend, 
 nor let his hero unbend enough. The gossip concerning 
 Dickens which was called forth by his death, the recol 
 lections of those who were acquainted with him at the be 
 ginning of his literary career, these are naught to Mr. 
 Foster. They possess they could not but possess inter 
 est, springing as they did spontaneously from the memo 
 ries of their writers, to whom the sudden taking off Dick 
 ens was like the loss of a personal friend. They possess, 
 at any rate, a freshness which is not imparted by Mr. 
 Forster to any of the facts, or incidents, to which they 
 refer, or which they embody. 
 
 The greater portion of the anecdotes about Dickens in 
 this volume are derived from " Charles Dickens, the Story 
 of his Life." It was published in London not long after 
 his death, and is the work of Mr. Theodore Taylor, whom 
 I have already mentioned, and who was a diligent col 
 lector of Dickens ana. I have not a very high idea of the 
 class of writers to which he belongs, but they are not with 
 out their uses, as Mr. John Timbs, the head of the class, 
 has shown. They preserve many things which would perish 
 but for them ; occasionally a jewel may be found among 
 their paste. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold s paper is taken from 
 his " Best of all Good Company ;" the paper by Sir Arthur 
 Helps from " Macmillan s Magazine," and " Reminiscences 
 of Dickens " from the ; Englishwoman s Magazine." The 
 first of the obituary poems, " Charles Dickens," appeared 
 in "Punch." "Dickens at Gad s Hill" was written by 
 Mr. Charles Kent, and published, I believe, in the <fc Ath 
 enaeum." " Dickens in Camp " was written by Mr. Bret 
 Harte ; " At Gad s Hill " was written by myself. 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 The anecdote in relation to " Oliver Twist," on page 
 211, has been the subject of a controversy, which was be 
 gun with bitterness by Mr. Foster, and continued with 
 pertinacity by Mr. Cruikshank. Mr. Forster reprints it in 
 his " Life of Dickens " (vol i. page 155), and stigmatizes 
 it as "a wonderful story originally promulgated in America 
 with a minute conscientiousness and particularity of de 
 tail that might have raised the reputation of Sir Benjamin 
 Backbite himself. Whether all Sir Benjamin s laurels, 
 however, should fall to the original teller of the tale, or 
 whether any part of them is the property of the alleged 
 authority from which he says that he received it, is un 
 fortunately not quite clear. There would hardly have 
 been a doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other 
 side of the Atlantic ; but it has been reproduced and 
 widely circulated on this side also ; and the distinguished 
 artist whom it calumniates by fathering its invention upon 
 him, either not conscious of it or not caring to defend 
 himself, has been left undefended from the slander." That 
 the distinguished artist did care to defend himself, and 
 could do so, Mr. Forster discovered when he read the 
 following letter in the column, of the u London Times." 
 
 " To the Editor of The Times. 
 
 "SiR, As my name is mentioned in the second notice of 
 Mr. John Forster s Life of Charles Dickens, in your paper 
 of the 26th inst, in connection with a statement made by an 
 American gentleman (Dr. Sheldon Mackenzie) respecting the 
 origin of Oliver Twist, I shall be obliged if you will allow 
 me to give some explanation upon this subject. For some 
 time past I have been preparing a work for publication, in 
 which I intend to give an account of the origin of * Oliver 
 Twist, and I now not only deeply regret the sudden and un 
 expected decease of Mr. Charles Dickens, but regret also that 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 my proposed work was not published during his life-time. I 
 should not now have brought this matter forward, but as Dr. 
 Mackenzie states that he got the information from me, and as 
 Mr. Forster declares his statement to be a falsehood, to which, 
 in fact, he could apply a word of three letters, I feel called 
 upon, not only to defend the doctor, but myself also from such 
 a gross imputation. Dr. Mackenzie has confused some cir 
 cumstances with respect to Mr. Dickens looking over some 
 drawings and sketches in my studio, but there is no doubt 
 whatever that I did tell this gentleman that I was the origi 
 nator of the story of Oliver Twist, as I have told very many 
 others who may have spoken to me on the subject, and which 
 facts I now beg permission to repeat in the columns of The 
 Times for the information of Mr. Forster and the public 
 generally. 
 
 " When Bentley s Miscellany was first started, it was ar 
 ranged that Mr. Charles Dickens should write a serial in it. 
 and which was to be illustrated by me ; and in a conversation 
 with him as to what the subject should be for the first serial, I 
 suggested to Mr. Dickens that he should write the life of a 
 London boy, and strongly advised him to do this, assuring him 
 that I would furnish him with the subject and supply him with 
 all the characters, which my large experience of London life 
 would enable me to do. My idea was to raise a boy from a 
 most humble position up to a high and respectable one in 
 fact, to illustrate one of those cases of common occurrence, 
 where men of humble origin by natural ability, industry, hon 
 est and honorable conduct, raise themselves to first-class posi 
 tions in society. And as I wished particularly to bring the 
 habits and manners of the thieves of London before the pub 
 lic (and this for a most important purpose, which I shall ex 
 plain one of these days), I suggested that the poor boy should 
 fall among thieves, but that his honesty and natural good dis 
 position should enable him to pass through this ordeal without 
 contamination, and after I had fully described the full-grown 
 thieves (the l Bill Sykes ) and their female companions, also 
 the young thieves (the Artful Dodgers ) and the receivers of 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 \ 
 
 stolen goods, Mr. Dickens agreed to act upon my suggestion, 
 and the work was commenced, but we differed as to what sort 
 of boy the hero should be. Mr. Dickens wanted rather a 
 queer kind of chap, and although this was contrary to my 
 original idea, I complied with his request, feeling that it would 
 not be right to dictate too much to the writer of the story, and 
 then appeared Oliver asking for more ; but it so happened, 
 just about this time, that an inquiry was being made in the 
 parish of St. James, Westminster, as to the cause of the 
 death of some of the work-house children who had been 
 farmed out, and in which inquiry my late friend Joseph Petti- 
 grew (surgeon to the Dukes of Kent and Sussex) came for 
 ward on the part of the poor children, and by his interference 
 was mainly the cause of saving the lives of many of these 
 poor little creatures. I called the attention of Mr. Dickens 
 to this inquiry, and said if he took up this matter his doing so 
 might help to save many a poor child from injury and death, 
 and I earnestly begged of him to let me make Oliver a nice 
 pretty little boy, and if we so represented him, the public 
 and particularly the ladies would be sure to take a greater in 
 terest in him, and the work would then be a certain success. 
 Mr. Dickens agreed to that request, and I need not add here 
 that my prophecy was fulfilled ; and if any one will take the 
 trouble to look at my representations of Oliver they will see 
 that the appearance of the boy is altered after the two first il 
 lustrations, and by a reference to the records of St. James s 
 parish, and to the date of the publication of the Miscellany, 
 they will see that both the dates tally, and therefore support 
 my statement. I had a long time previously to this directed Mr. 
 Dickens s attention to Field Lane, Holborn Hill, wherein re 
 sided many thieves and receivers of stolen goods, and it was 
 suggested that one of these receivers, a Jew, should be intro 
 duced into the story ; and upon one occasion Mr. Dickens and 
 Mr. Harrison Ainsworth called upon me at my house in Myd- 
 dleton Terrace, Pentonville, and in course of conversation I 
 then and there described and performed the character of one 
 of these Jew receivers, who I had long had my eye upon ; and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 this was the origin of Fagan. Some time after this Mr. 
 Ainsworth said to me one day, I was so much struck with 
 your description of that Jew to Mr. Dickens, that I think you 
 and I could do something together, which notion of Mr. Ains- 
 worth s, as most people are aware, was afterwards carried out 
 in various works. Long before Oliver Twist was ever 
 thought of, I had, by permission of the city authorities, made 
 a sketch of one of the condemned cells in Newgate prison ; 
 and as I had a great object in letting the public see what sort 
 of places these cells were, and how they were furnished, and 
 also to show a wretched condemned criminal therein, I 
 thought it desirable to introduce such a subject into this 
 work ; but I had the greatest difficulty to get Mr. Dickens to 
 allow me to carry out my wishes in this respect, but I said I 
 must have either what is called a Christian, or what is called a 
 Jew in a condemned cell, and therefore it must be Bill Sykes 
 or Fagan ; at length he allowed me to exhibit the latter. 
 
 " Without going further into particulars, I think it will be 
 allowed from what I have stated that I am the originator of 
 1 Oliver Twist, and that all the principal characters are mine ; 
 but I was much disappointed by Mr. Dickens not fully carry 
 ing out my first suggestion. 
 
 " I must here mention that nearly all the designs were 
 made from conversation and mutual suggestion upon each sub 
 ject, and that I never saw any manuscript of Mr. Dickens 
 until the work was nearly finished, and the letter of Mr. Dick 
 ens, which Mr. Forster mentions, only refers to the last etch 
 ing done in great haste no proper time being allowed, and 
 of a subject without any interest ; in fact, there was not anything 
 in the latter part of the manuscript that would suggest an illus 
 tration ; but to oblige Mr. Dickens I did my best to produce 
 another etching, working hard day and night, but when done, 
 what is it ? Why, merely a lady and a boy standing inside of a 
 church looking at a stone wall ! 
 
 " Mr. Dickens named all the characters in this work him 
 self, but before he had commenced writing the story he told 
 me that he had heard an omnibus conductor mention some one 
 
PREFACE. Xxiii 
 
 as Oliver Twist, which name, he said, he would give the boy. 
 as he thought it would answer his purpose. I wanted the boy 
 to have a very different name, such as Frank Foundling or 
 Frank Steadfast ; but I think the word Twist proves to a cer 
 tain extent that the boy he was going to employ for his pur 
 pose was a very different sort of boy from the one introduced 
 and recommended to him by, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 
 "HAMPSTEAD ROAD, Dec. 29, 1871." 
 
 Mr. Forster refers to this letter in the corrections to the 
 first volume of his " Life of Dickens/ and says in regard 
 to " the foregoing fable " that " Mr. Cruikshank is to be 
 congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respect 
 ing it so long as Mr. Dickens lived." As Mr. Forster had 
 seen, while he was writing his first volume, the "Life of 
 Dickens " by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, in which it is 
 stated that Mr. Cruikshank laid claim to " Oliver Twist 
 as far back as 1847, twenty-three years before the death of 
 Dickens, Mr. Forster is to be congratulated for what ? 
 
 But Mr. Cruikshank made other claims than the one 
 in regard to "Oliver Twist," for in a published letter writ 
 ten, over a year earlier than the letter to the " Times," 
 he wrote, " I was the first artist to illustrate any of Mr. 
 Dickens s writings, and the earliest of them was the first 
 volume of 4 Sketches by Boz (January, 1836), and the 
 next was the second volume under this title, the greater 
 part of which was written from my hints and suggestions." 
 He continues, in the same letter, " I am preparing to pub 
 lish an explanation of the reason why I did not illustrate 
 the whole of Mr. Dickens s writings, and this explanation 
 will not at all redound to his credit/ That Mr. Cruikshank 
 believed then, and believes now, that Dickens was largely 
 indebted to him, is evident from a speech delivered by him 
 on the 2oth of April of the present year. The following 
 
XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 paragraph in relation to it appeared in the " London Globe " 
 of April 2ist: " Mr. George Cruikshank delivered an 
 address yesterday on intemperance, at Manchester. In 
 supporting a vote of thanks to the veteran artist the Mayor 
 referred to Mr. Cruikshank s illustration of Charles Dick- 
 ens?s works. Mr. Cruikshank, in responding, said the 
 only work of Dickens which he had illustrated was The 
 Sketches by Boz. Then came the question why he had 
 not illustrated the others. The Mayor : You forget Ol 
 iver Twist. Mr. Cruikshank: That came out of my 
 own brain. I wanted Dickens to write me a work, but he 
 did not do it in the way I wanted. I assure you I went 
 and made a sketch of the condemned cell many years be 
 fore that work was published. I wanted a scene a few 
 hours before the strangulation, and Dickens said he did 
 not like it, and I said he must have a Jew or a Christian in 
 the cell. Dickens said, i Do as you like, and I put Fagan, 
 the Jew, into the cell. Dickens behaved in an extraordi 
 nary way to me, and I believe it had a little effect on his 
 mind. He was a most powerful opponent to teetotalism, 
 and he described us as old hogs. 
 
 That something has had a little effect upon the mind of 
 Mr. Cruikshank is evident from his language, which must 
 be characterized as rather intemperate in the mouth of a 
 veteran teetotaler. It is not in this rote, however, nor as 
 the originator of " Oliver Twist," that he will be known to 
 posterity, but as an artist of peculiar and great power, who 
 in the latter part of his long and active life created mate 
 rials for a chapter which has yet to be written in the 
 " Curiosities of Literature," and which should be chris 
 tened " The Delusions of an Artist." 
 
 R. H. S. 
 
IVEESITT) 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEP 
 
 THACKERAY. 
 
 HAUD IMMEMOR. THACKERAY IN AMERICA. 
 
 j]R. THACKERAY (who that has heard him with 
 sweetness of voice unequaled, speak of Mr. Joseph 
 Addison, and Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Fielding, and 
 Mr. Atterbury ; who that has read "Henry Esmond," 
 or " The Virginians," will find fault with me for so describ 
 ing him ?) came to Philadelphia on his first visit to America 
 in the month of January, 1853. ,My impression is that he 
 brought very few letters of personal introduction, and was 
 rather careless of what may be called " social success," 
 though anxious about the work he had in hand, his course 
 of lectures on the English Humorists, and, as he used to 
 say, " the dollars he wished to make, not for himself, but for 
 his little girls at home." With or without letters, he soon 
 made friends, on the hearts of whom the news of his death 
 has struck a sharp pang. As one of them, I venture to jot 
 down a few memories of him who is gone. 
 
 The lectures were very successful. There are two classes 
 of people in every American microcosm those who run 
 after celebrities, and those, resolute not to be pleased, who 
 run as it were against them. All were won or conquered by 
 his simple naturalness ; and, as I have said, the lectures were 
 a great success. 
 
 My personal relations to him happened to become very in- 
 
2? WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 timate. He seemed to take a fancy to me and mine, and I 
 naturally loved him dearly. He used to come to my house, 
 not the abode of wealth or luxury, almost every day, and often 
 more than once a day. He talked with my little children, and 
 told them odd fairy tales ; and I now see him (this was on 
 his second visit) one day in Walnut Street walking slowly 
 along with my little girl by the hand the tall, gray-haired, 
 spectacled man with an effort accommodating himself to the 
 toddling child by his side ; and then he would bring her 
 home : and one day when we were to have a great dinner 
 at the club given to him, and my wife was ill, and my house 
 hold disarranged, and the bell rang, and I said to him, " I 
 must go and carve the boiled mutton for the children, and 
 take for granted you do not care to come ; " and he got up, 
 and with a cheery voice, said, " I love boiled mutton, and 
 children too, and I will dine with them," and we did ; and he 
 was happy, and the children were happy, and our appetite 
 for the club dinner was damaged. Such was Thackeray in 
 my home. 
 
 I met him once at the house of a friend, and there happened 
 to be an odd collocation at the table. There was a guest, a 
 man of brilliant talent, of mature age, and high education, 
 measured at least by our American standard, who was marked 
 by two peculiarities his remarkable physical resemblance to 
 Thackeray, and the fact that, although upwards of fifty years 
 of age, born and bred in Kentucky, he had never before 
 crossed the Alleghanies, and never until that very day seen z 
 ship, or any square-rigged vessel. They the bright back 
 woodsman, who had never looked upon the ocean, and the 
 veteran Londoner, who had made a voyage from India before 
 the days of steam, and had seen a fat man in white clothes 
 and a big straw hat at St. Helena called "Buonaparte" 
 were a charming contrast. The year 1863 carried both to 
 their graves one in Kensal Green, and the other on the 
 banks of the Ohio. 
 
 It was a bright moonlight night on which we (Thackeray 
 and I) walked home from that dinner : and I remember well 
 
THACKERAY IN AMERICA. 3 
 
 the walk and the place, for I seem to localize all my associa 
 tions with him, and I asked him what, perhaps, he might 
 have thought the absurd question, " What do you honestly 
 think of my country ? or rather, what has most struck you in 
 America ? Tell me candidly, for I shall not be at all angry or 
 hurt if it be unfavorable, or much elated if it be not." And 
 then his answer, as he stopped (we were walking along Penn 
 Square), and, turning round to me, said : " You know what a 
 virtue-proud people we English are. We think we have got it 
 all to ourselves. Now that which 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." And so I sincerely 
 believe he was. 
 
 There was a great deal of dining out while " the great sa 
 tirist," as we used to address him, was here ; but although 
 always genial, I do not think, according to my recollection, he 
 was a brilliant conversationist. Those who expected much 
 were often disappointed. It was in close private intercourse 
 he was delightful. Once it was in New York he gave a 
 dinner, at which I was a guest, to what are called " literary 
 men," authors and lawyers, and actors (two very accom 
 plished ones, and most estimable gentlemen one still living), 
 and editors and magazine men. Then he made what seemed 
 to be an effort. He talked for the table. He sang some odd 
 post-prandial songs ; one in a strange sort of a " recitative " 
 about Doctor Martin Luther. But, as I have said, it was an 
 effort, and I liked him better at home and alone. It was on 
 this occasion, or rather on our return journey to Philadelphia, 
 that, on board the steamboat (here again am I localizing), he 
 spoke to me of domestic sorrows and anxieties too sacred to 
 be recorded here. 1 And yet it was this man whom vulgar- 
 
 1 He referred to a friend whose wife had been deranged for many years, hopelessly 
 so ; and never shall I forget the look, the manner, the voice with which he said to 
 me : " It is an awful thing for her to continue so to live. It is an awful thing for her 
 
4 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 minded people called heartless ! As he thus talked to me, I 
 thought of lines of tenderness, often quoted, which no one but 
 he could have written : 
 
 " Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting I 
 
 I mind me of a time that s gone, 
 When here I d sit, as now I m sitting, 
 
 In this same place, but not alone- 
 A fair young form 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." 
 
 It is no part of this little Memorial to refer to what may be 
 called his public relations, and his success as a lecturer. I 
 merely record my recollection of the peculiar voice and ca 
 dence ; the exquisite manner of reading poetry ; the elocution, 
 matchless in its simplicity; his tranquil attitude the only 
 movement of his hands being when he wiped his glasses as 
 he began and turned over the leaves of his manuscript ; his 
 gentle intonations. There was sweet music in his way of re 
 peating the most hackneyed lines, which freshened them 
 anew. I seem still to hear him say, 
 
 And nightly to the listening earth 
 Repeats the story of her birth." 
 
 Or, in his lecture on Pope, 
 
 * Lo ! thy dread empire, chaos, is restored ; 
 Light dies before thy uncreating word. 
 Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, 
 And universal darkness buries all !" 
 
 But to resume my personal recollections. He was too sincere 
 a man to talk for effect, or to pay compliments ; and on his 
 first visit to America, he seemed so happy, and so much 
 pleased with all he met, that I fancied he might be tempted to 
 come, and for a time live amongst us. The British Consulate 
 in Philadelphia became vacant, the incumbent, Mr. William 
 Peter, dying suddenly ; and it seems from the following note, 
 
 so to die. But has it never occurred to you, how awful the recovery of lost reason 
 must be, without the consciousness of the loss of time? She finds the lover of her 
 youth a gray-haired old man, and her infants young men and women. Is it not 
 sad to think of this?" 
 
THACKERAY IN AMERICA. 
 
 s 
 
 written at Washington, that I urged him to take the place ii 
 he could get it. I give the note exactly as it was written, 
 venturing even to retain the names of those whom he kindly 
 remembered ; and Philadelphians of the old school will smile 
 at the misspelling of the name of the founder of the Wistar 
 parties of our ancient days. 
 
 "MR. ANDERSON S Music STORE, PENNS AVENUE (1853), 
 Friday. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, (I withdraw the Mr. as wasteful and 
 ridiculous excess, and gilding of refined gold), and thank you 
 for the famous autograph and the kind letter inclosing it, and 
 the good wishes you form for me. There are half a dozen 
 houses I already know in Philadelphia where I could find very 
 pleasant friends and company ; and that good old library would 
 give me plenty of acquaintances more. But, home among my 
 parents there, and some few friends I have made in the last 
 twenty-five years, and a tolerably fair prospect of an honest 
 livelihood on the familiar London flagstones, and the library at 
 the Athenasum, and the ride in the Park, and the pleasant so 
 ciety afterwards ; and a trip to Paris now and again, and to 
 Switzerland and Italy in the summer these are little tempta 
 tions which make me not discontented with my lot, about which 
 I grumble only for pastime, and because it is an Englishman s 
 privilege. Own now that all these recreations here enumerated 
 have a pleasant sound. I hope I shall live to enjoy them yet 
 a little while before I go to nox et domus exilis PlutoniaJ 
 whither poor, kind old Peter has vanished. So that Saturday 
 I was to have dined with him, and Mrs. Peter wrote, saying he 
 was ill with influenza: he was in bed with his last illness, 
 and there were to be no more Whister parties for him. Will 
 Whister himself, hospitable, pigtailed shade, welcome him to 
 Hades ? And will they sit down no, stand up to a ghostly 
 supper, devouring the KpOinovs tj/uxas of oysters and all sorts of 
 birds ? T never feel pity for a man dying, only for survivors, 
 if there be such passionately deploring him. You see the 
 pleasures the undersigned proposes to himself here in future 
 
t WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 years a sight of the Alps, a holiday on the Rhine, a ride in 
 the Park, a colloquy with pleasant friends of an evening. If 
 it is death to part with these delights (and pleasures they are 
 and no mistake) sure the mind can conceive others afterwards ; 
 and I know one small philosopher who is quite ready to give 
 up these pleasures ; quite content (after a pang or two of sep 
 aration from dear friends here) to put his hand into that of the 
 summoning angel, and say, Lead on, O messenger of God our 
 Father to the next place whither the divine goodness calls 
 us ! We must be blindfolded before we can pass, I know ; 
 but I have no fear about what is to come, any more than my 
 children need fear that the love of their father should fail 
 them. I thought myself a dead man once, and protest the 
 notion gave me no disquiet about myself at least, the phi 
 losophy is more comfortable than that which is tinctured with 
 brimstone. 
 
 " The Baltimoreans flock to the stale old lectures as numer 
 ously as you of Philadelphia. Here the audiences are more 
 polite than numerous, but the people who do come are very 
 well pleased with their entertainment. I have had many din 
 ners. Mr. Everett, Mr. Fish our minister, ever so often 
 the most hospital of envoys. I have seen no one at all in Bal 
 timore, for it is impossible to do the two towns together ; and 
 from this I go to Richmond and Charlestown, not to New Or 
 leans, which is too far ; and I hope you will make out your 
 visit to Washington, and that we shall make out a meeting 
 more satisfactory than that dinner at New York, which did not 
 come off. The combination failed whicli \ wanted to bring 
 about. Have you heard Miss Furness of Philadelphia sing ? 
 She is the best ballad-singer I ever heard. And will you 
 please remember me to Mrs. Reed and your brother, and 
 Wharton, and Lewis and his pretty young daughter ; and be 
 lieve me ever faithfully yours, dear Reed, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 The " famous autograph " was, if my memory does not mis 
 lead me, a letter of Washington, for which he had expressed a 
 
THACKERAY IN AMERICA. J 
 
 wish, and which I gladly gave him ; and the plan of coming to 
 America, as will be seen, though at first rejected, seems to 
 have taken root in his mind. 
 
 Thackeray left us in the winter of 1853, and in the summer 
 of the year was on the Continent with his daughters. In the 
 last chapter of " The Newcomes," published in 1855, he says : 
 " Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant 
 fields near to Berne, in Switzerland, I strayed from them into 
 a little wood ; and coming out of it presently told them how 
 the story had been revealed to me somehow, which for three- 
 and-twenty months the reader has been pleased to follow." 
 It was on this Swiss tour that he wrote me the following char 
 acteristic letter, filled with kindly recollections of convivial 
 hours in Philadelphia, of headaches which he had contributed 
 to administer, and of friends whose society he cherished. On 
 the back of this note is a pen-and-ink caricature of which he 
 was not conscious when he began to write. It is what he al 
 ludes to as " the rubbishing picture which I did n t see." The 
 sketch is very spirited, and, as a friend to whom I have shown 
 it reminds me, evidently is the original of one of the illustra 
 tions of his grotesque fairy tale of " The Rose and the Ring," 
 written, so he told a member of my family years afterwards, 
 while he was watching and nursing his children, who were ill 
 during this vacation ramble. 
 
 NEUFCHATEL, SWITZERLAND, July 21, 1853. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, Though I am rather slow in paying 
 the tailor, I always pay him : and as with tailors, so with men ; 
 I pay my debts to my friends, only at rather a long day. 
 Thank you for writing to me so kindly, you who have so much 
 to do. I have only begun to work ten days since, and now in 
 consequence have a little leisure. Before, since my return 
 from the West, it was flying from London to Paris, and vice 
 versa, dinners right and left, parties every night. If I had 
 been in Philadelphia, I could scarcely have been more feasted. 
 Oh, you unhappy Reed ! I see you (after that little supper 
 with McMichael) on Sunday, at your own table, when we had 
 
8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 that good Sherry-Madeira, turning aside from the wine-cup 
 with your pale face ! That- cup has gone down this well so 
 often (meaning my own private cavity), that I wonder the cup 
 is n t broken, and the well as well as it is. 
 
 " Three weeks of London were more than enough for me, 
 and I feel as if I had had enough of it and pleasure. Then I 
 remained a month with my parents ; then I brought my girls 
 on a little pleasuring tour, and it has really been a pleasuring 
 tour. We spent ten days at Baden, when I set intrepidly to 
 work again ; and have been five days in Switzerland now ; 
 not bent on going up mountains, but on taking things easily. 
 How beautiful it is ! How pleasant ! How great and affable, 
 too, the landscape is ! It s delightful to be in the midst of 
 such scenes the ideas get generous reflections from them. 
 I don t mean to say my thoughts grow mountainous and enor 
 mous like the Alpine chain yonder ; but, in fine, it is good to 
 be in the presence of this noble nature. It is keeping good 
 company : keeping away mean thoughts. I see in the papers 
 now and again accounts of fine parties in London. Bon 
 Dieu ! is it possible any one ever wanted to go to fine Lon 
 don parties, and are there now people sweating in Mayfarr 
 routs ? The European continent swarms with your people. 
 They are not all as polished as Chesterfield. I wish some of 
 them spoke French a little better. I saw five of them at sup 
 per at Basle the other night with their knives down their 
 throats. It was awful ! My daughter saw it, and I was 
 obliged to say, My dear, your great-great-grandmother, one 
 of the finest ladies of the old school I ever saw, always ap 
 plied cold steel to her wittles. It s no crime to eat with a 
 knife, which is all very well : but I wish five of em at a time 
 would n t. 
 
 " Will you please beg McMichael, when Mrs. Glyn, the 
 English tragic actress, comes to read Shakespeare in your 
 city, to call on her, do the act of kindness to her, and help her 
 with his valuable editorial aid? I wish we were to have 
 another night soon, and that I was going this very evening to 
 set you up with a headache to-morrow morning. By Jove ! 
 
THACKERAY IN AMERICA. 9 
 
 how kind you all were to me ! How I like people, and want 
 to see em again ! You are more tender-hearted, romantic, 
 sentimental than we are. I keep on telling this to our fine 
 people here, and have so belabored your [Here the paper was 
 turned and revealed the sketch. At the top is written : Par 
 don this rubbishing picture ; but I did n t see and can t afford 
 to write page 3 over again. ] country with praise in private 
 that I sometimes think I go too far. I keep back some of 
 the truth, but the great point to try and ding into the ears of 
 the great stupid virtue-proud English public is, that there are 
 folks as good as they in America. That s where Mrs. Stowe s 
 book has done harm, by inflaming us with an idea of our own 
 superior virtue in freeing our blacks, whereas you keep 
 yours. Comparisons are always odorous, Mrs. Malaprop says. 
 " I am about a new story, but don t know as yet if it will be 
 any good. It seems to me I am too old for story-telling ; but 
 I want money, and shall get 20,000 dollars for this, of which 
 (D. V.) I 11 keep fifteen. I wish this rubbish (the sketch) 
 were away ; I might put written rubbish in its stead. Not 
 that I have anything to say, but that I always remember you 
 and yours, and honest Mac, and Wharton, and Lewis, and 
 kind fellows who have been kind to me. and I hope will be 
 kind to me again. Good-by, my dear Reed, and believe me 
 ever sincerely yours, W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 The next year, 1854, was a year of sorrow to me and mine. 
 But for the sympathy which, in that overpowering grief, I had 
 from my friend, I should not allude to it. My only surviving 
 brother, Mr. Henry Reed, in company with his wife s sister, 
 visited Europe, saw, and were kindly treated by, Mr. Thack 
 eray ; and on their return voyage, on the 24th September, per 
 ished in the shipwreck of the Arctic. Thackeray had known 
 my brother in this country, and duly estimated what I may be 
 pardoned for describing as his gentle virtues and refined and 
 scholar-like tastes. He measured, too, the anguish which, 
 even at this lapse of time now nearly ten years freshens 
 when I think of it, and which then bowed a whole family to 
 
IO WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 the earth. It was in reply to my letter announcing that all 
 hope of rescue or escape was over, and that " a vast and wan 
 dering grave was theirs," that in November he wrote to me 
 the following. It is an interesting letter, too, in this, that it 
 mentions what may not be known on the other side of the 
 Atlantic that he had had some transient diplomatic visions. 
 
 "ONSLOW SQUARE BROMPTON, November 8. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, I received your melancholy letter this 
 morning. It gives me an opportunity of writing about a sub 
 ject on which, of course, I felt very strongly for you and for 
 your poor brother s family. I have kept back writing, know 
 ing the powerlessness of consolation, and having I don t know 
 what vague hopes that your brother and Miss Bronson might 
 have been spared. That ghastly struggle over, who would 
 pity any man that departs ? It is the survivors one commiser 
 ates of such a good, pious, tender-hearted man as he seemed 
 whom God Almighty has just called back to Himself. He 
 seemed to me to have all the sweet domestic virtues which 
 make the pang of parting only the more cruel to those who 
 are left behind. But that loss, what a gain to him ! A just 
 man summoned by God, for what purpose can he go but to 
 meet the divine love and goodness ? I never think about de 
 ploring such ; and as you and I send for our children, mean 
 ing them only love and kindness, how much more Pater Nos- 
 ter ? So we say, and weep the beloved ones whom we lose all 
 the same with the natural selfish sorrow ; as you, I dare say, will 
 have a heavy heart when your daughter marries and leaves 
 you. You will lose her, though her new home is ever so happy. 
 I remember quite well my visit to your brother the pictures 
 in his room, which made me see which way his thoughts lay ; 
 his sweet, gentle, melancholy, pious manner. That day I saw 
 him here in Dover Street, I don t know whether I told them, 
 but I felt at the time that to hear their very accents affected 
 me somehow. They were just enough American to be na 
 tional ; and where shall I ever hear voices in the world that 
 have spoken more kindly to me ? It was like being in your 
 
TH ACKER A Y IN AMERICA. 1 1 
 
 grave, calm, kind old Philadelphia over again ; and behold : 
 now they are to be heard no more. I only saw your brother 
 once in London. When he first called I was abroad ill, and 
 went to see him immediately I got your letter, which he 
 brought and kept back, I think. We talked about the tour 
 which he had been making, and about churches in this country 
 which I knew interested him and Canterbury especially, 
 where he had been at the opening of a missionary college. 
 He was going to Scotland, I think, and to leave London in 
 stantly, for he and Miss B. refused hospitality, etc. ; and we 
 talked about the memoir of Hester Reed which I had found, I 
 did n t know how, on my study-table, and about the people 
 whom he had met at Lord Mahon s and I believe I said I 
 should like to be going with him in the Arctic. And we 
 parted with a great deal of kindness, please God, and friendly 
 talk of a future meeting. May it happen one day ! for I feel 
 sure he was a just man. I wanted to get a copy of Esmond 
 to send by him (the first edition, which is the good one) ; but 
 I did not know where to light on one, having none myself, and 
 a month since bought a couple of copies at a circulating library 
 for js. 6d. apiece. 
 
 " I am to-day just out of bed after another, about the 
 dozenth, severe fit of spasms which I have this year. My 
 book would have been written but for them, and the lectures 
 begun, with which I hope to make a few thousand more dol 
 lars for those young ladies. But who knows whether I shall 
 be well enough to deliver them, or what is in store for next 
 year ? The secretaryship of our Legation at Washington was 
 vacant the other day, and I instantly asked for it ; but in the 
 very kindest letter Lord Clarendon showed how the petition 
 was impossible. First, the place was given away: next, it 
 would not be fair to appoint out of the service. But the first 
 was an excellent reason, not a doubt of it. So if ever I come, 
 as I hope and trust to do this time next year, it must be in my 
 own coat, and not the Queen s. Good-by, my dear Reed, 
 and believe that I have the utmost sympathy in your misfort 
 une, and am most sincerely yours, 
 
 " W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
12 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 The copy of " Esmond " was for my wife, who had ex 
 pressed her liking for it beyond all his works. It came the 
 next year thus inscribed : 
 
 " With the grateful regards of 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 LONDON, October 1855." 
 
 And is now among the most cherished volumes in our library. 
 
 In the winter of 1855, Mr. Thackeray made his second and 
 last visit to this country, and gave us the first-fruits of his new 
 lecture experiment, " The Georges." I met him in New York 
 and heard his " George IV." to my mind the least agreeable 
 of the course delivered before a literary society in Brook 
 lyn. He thence came to Philadelphia, and renewed his old 
 intimacies and associations. His friends were glad to see 
 him, and he them. The impression we all had was that two 
 years had oldened him more than they should have done ; but 
 there was no change in other respects. " The Georges " 
 were, if possible, a greater success than " The Humorists ; " 
 though I confess I had, and have, a lurking preference for the 
 genial communion with Steele and Fielding (his great favor 
 ites), and Swift and Sterne (his aversions), to the dissection of 
 the tainted remains of the Hanoverian kings. But there was 
 in one of these lectures a passage familiar to every listener 
 and every hearer which I reproduce here, not merely from an 
 association presently to be referred to, but because it seems to 
 me in transcribing it that I have the dead again before me, and 
 hear a sweet voice in the very printed words : 
 
 " What preacher need moralize on this story ; what words 
 save the simplest are requisite to tell it ? It is too terrible for 
 tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in sub 
 mission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch su 
 preme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Disposer 
 of life, death, happiness, victory. O brothers ! speaking the 
 same dear mother tongue. O comrades ! enemies no more, 
 let us take a mournful hand together, as we stand by this royal 
 corpse and call a truce to battle ! Low he lies to whom the 
 proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the 
 
TH ACKER A Y IN AMERICA. 1 3 
 
 poorest : dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off 
 his throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with his children in re 
 volt ; the darling of his old age killed before him untimely ; 
 our Lear hangs over her breathless lips and cries, Cordelia, 
 Cordelia, stay a little ! 
 
 * Vex not his ghost ! Oh let him pass 
 
 He hates him 
 
 That would upon the rack of this rough world 
 Stretch him out longer ! 
 
 Hush ! strife and quarrel, over the solemn grave ! Sound, 
 trumpets, a mournful march ! Fall, dark curtain, upon his 
 pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy ! " 
 
 Was it this, or was it the other passage about the Princess 
 Amelia and the old King praying for returning reason, which 
 Thackeray referred to in the following note, written to me 
 from Baltimore, in answer to one sending an adverse criticism 
 in a small newspaper of Philadelphia ? 
 
 " BALTIMORE, January 16, 1856. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, Your letter of the 9th, with one from 
 Boston of the 8th, was given to me last night when I came 
 home. In what possible snow-drift have they been lying tor 
 pid ? One hundred thanks for your goodness in the lecture, 
 and all other matters ; and if I can find the face to read those 
 printed lectures over again, I ll remember your good advice. 
 That splendid crowd on the last lecture night I knew would 
 make our critical friend angry. I have not seen the last ar 
 ticle, of course, and don t intend to look for it. And as I was 
 reading the George III. lecture here on Monday night, could 
 not help asking myself, What can the man mean by saying 
 that I am uncharitable, unkindly that I sneer at virtue? 
 and so. forth. My own conscience being pretty clear, I can 
 receive the Bulletin s displeasure with calmness remem 
 bering how I used to lay about me in my own youthful days, 
 and how I generally took a good tall mark to hit at. 
 
 " Wicked weather, and an opera company which performed 
 on the two first lecture nights here, made the audiences rather 
 
14 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 thin ; but they fetched up at the third lecture, and to-night is 
 the last ; after which I go to Richmond, then to go further 
 south, from Charleston to Havannah and New Orleans ; per 
 haps to turn back and try westward, where I know there is a 
 great crop of dollars to be reaped. But to be snow-bound in 
 my infirm condition ! I might never get out of the snow alive. 
 
 " I go to Washington to-morrow for a night. I was there 
 and dined with Crampton on Saturday. He was in good force 
 and spirits, and I saw no signs of packing-up or portmanteaus 
 in the hall. 
 
 " I send my best regards to Mrs. Reed and your sister-in- 
 law, and Lewis and his kind folks, and to Mac s whisky-punch, 
 which gave me no headache ; I m very sorry it treated you 
 so unkindly. Always yours, dear Reed. 
 
 " W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 The allusion in this letter to the printed lectures recalls a 
 little incident which was very illustrative of his generous 
 temper, and is not unlike "the pill-box with the guineas," 
 which I have seen lately in some literary notices. It was this : 
 On his return to Philadelphia, in the spring of 1856, from the 
 south and west, a number of his friends I as much as any one 
 
 urged him, unwisely as it turned out, to repeat his lectures 
 on " The Humorists." He was very loath to do it, but finally 
 yielded, being, I doubt not, somewhat influenced by the pecu 
 niary inducements accidentally held out to him. A young 
 bookseller of this city offered him a round sum not very 
 large, but, under the circumstances, quite liberal for the course 
 
 which he accepted. The experiment was a failure. It was 
 late in the season with long days and shortening nights, and 
 the course was a stale one, and the lectures had been printed, 
 and the audiences were thin, and the bargain was disastrous, 
 not to him, but to the young gentleman who had ventured it. 
 We were all disappointed and mortified ; but Thackeray took 
 it good-humoredly ; the only thing that seemed to disturb him 
 being his sympathy with the man of business. " I don t 
 mind the empty benches, but I cannot bear to see that sad, 
 
THA CKERA Y IN AMERICA . 1 5 
 
 pale-faced young man as I come out, who is losing money on 
 my account." This he used to say at my house when he came 
 home to a frugal and not very cheerful supper after the lect 
 ure. Still the bargain had been fairly made, and was honor 
 ably complied with ; and the money was paid and remitted, 
 through my agency, to him at New York. I received no ac 
 knowledgment of the remittance, and recollect well that I felt 
 not a little annoyed at this ; the more so, when, on picking up 
 a newspaper, I learned that Thackeray had sailed for home. 
 The day after he had gone, when there could be no refusal, I 
 received a certificate of deposit on his New York bankers for 
 an amount quite sufficient to meet any loss incurred, as he 
 thought, on his behalf. I give the accompanying note, merely 
 suppressing the name of the gentleman in question. There 
 are some little things in this note its blanks and dates to 
 which a fac-simile alone would do justice : 
 
 " April 24. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, When you get this, .... remum- 
 mum-ember me to kick-kick-kind ffu-fffu-ffriends .... a sud 
 den resolution to mummum-morrow .... in the Bu-bu- 
 baltic. 
 
 " Good-by, my dear kind friend, and all kind friends in 
 Philadelphia. I did n t think of going away when I left home 
 this morning ; but it s the best way. 
 
 " I think it is best to send back 25 per cent, to poor . 
 
 Will you kindly give him the inclosed ; and depend on it I 
 shall go and see Mrs. Booth when I go to London, and tell 
 her all about you. My heart is uncommonly heavy ; and I am 
 yours gratefully and affectionately. " W. M. T." 
 
 And thus, with an act and words of kindness, he left 
 America, never to return ! 
 
 It was during this visit to the United States that, as he told 
 me, the idea of his American novel " The Virginians," was 
 conceived ; and I have reason to think that some of the de 
 tails in the story were due as well to Mr. Prescott s " Crossed 
 Swords " as to conversations with me at a time when my mind 
 
1 6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 was full of historical associations and suggestions, and when 
 to think of my country s story was matter of pride and pleas 
 ure. In the letter of November 1854, on my brother s death, 
 Mr. Thackeray speaks of " The Memoirs of Hester Reed," 
 which he had found on his study-table. This was a little 
 volume, privately printed a few years before, containing the 
 biography of my paternal grandmother, Esther de Berdt, a 
 young English girl, who had made the acquaintance of her 
 American lover when, in colony times, he was a student in the 
 Temple. They married came to this country : he became 
 a soldier of the Revolution, and she, sharing her husband s 
 feelings and opinions and trials, died, still a young woman, in 
 the middle of the war. As I have said, Esther Reed was my 
 father s mother. Mr. Thackeray seemed pleased with the 
 genuineness of the little book, and talked often of it. The 
 names " Hetty " and " Theodosia " (the latter, I believe, in 
 his family also), which appear in " The Virginians," are to be 
 found in my homely narrative of Revolutionary times. One 
 other suggestion I trace in " The Virginians." I recollect in 
 one of our rambles telling him of a book which he did not 
 seem to know ; and I can hardly say that it is to my credit 
 that I did " The Memoirs of the Duke de Lauzun." We 
 spoke of the dispute as to its genuineness (its authenticity as 
 a record of the intrigues of a courtier of Louis XV. there was 
 no reason to doubt), and I called his attention to the fact, very 
 creditable to my countrywomen of ancient days, that while 
 Lauzun s life, not only in France, where it was natural enough, 
 but in England, was a continuity of atrocious licentiousness, 
 with his victims names revealed as only a Frenchman of that 
 day was capable of doing, the moment he lands in America, 
 accompanying Rochambeau s army to Rhode Island, the 
 wicked spirit seems rebuked by the purity and simplicity of 
 American women ; and though he mentions the names of 
 several ladies whom he met, there is not a word of indecorum 
 or whispered thought of impurity. This idea the reader will 
 find stated in " The Virginians " thus : 
 
 " There lived during the last century a certain French duke 
 
THACKERA Y IN AMERICA. \ 7 
 
 and marquis who distinguished himself in Europe, and Amer 
 ica likewise, and has obliged posterity by leaving behind him 
 a choice volume of memoirs, which the gentle reader is spe 
 cially warned not to consult. Having performed the part of 
 Don Juan in his own country, in ours, and in other parts of 
 Europe, he has kindly noted down the names of many court 
 beauties who fell victims to his powers of fascination ; and 
 very pleasing, no doubt, it must be for the grandsons and de 
 scendants of the fashionable persons among whom our bril 
 liant nobleman moved, to find the names of their ancestresses 
 adorning M. le Due s sprightly pages, and their frailties re 
 corded by the candid writer who caused them. In the course 
 of the peregrinations of this nobleman he visited North 
 America, and, as had been his custom in Europe, proceeded 
 straightway to fall in love. And curious it is to contrast the 
 elegant refinements of European society where, according to 
 Monseigneur, he had but to lay siege to a woman in order to 
 vanquish her with the simple lives and habits of the colo 
 nial folks, amongst whom the European enslaver of hearts did 
 not, it appears, make a single conquest. Had he done so, he 
 would as certainly have narrated his victories in Pennsylvania 
 and New England as he described his successes in this and 
 his own country. Travellers in America have cried quite 
 loudly enough against the rudeness and barbarism of Trans 
 atlantic manners ; let the present writer give the humble tes 
 timony of his experience, that the conversation of American 
 gentlemen is generally modest, and, to the best of his belief, 
 the lives of the women pure." 
 
 "The Virginians" appeared in monthly numbeis while I 
 was absent on my mission to China in 1858, and there I read 
 it. In the tone of, I hope pardonable, egotism in which I 
 have thus far written, I transcribe an entry in the little diary 
 I kept in the East for the amusement of my wife and family 
 at home : 
 
 "Friday, July 23, Shanghae. Read to-day No. VII. of 
 4 The Virginians. I still like it, though I fear my friend Lord 
 Chesterfield will fare badly. I don t care what is said about 
 
 2 
 
1 8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 old Q., or any of the Selwyn party. In one of his letters (this 
 I have lost or mislaid, or some felonious autograph-hunter has 
 purloined it) to me long ago, Thackeray, when he was project 
 ing The Virginians, told me he should use * Esther de 
 Berdt ; and now I see his heroines are Hetty and * Theodo- 
 shi, and from the same rank of life almost the only pure 
 one then to which my Hetty belonged. But what beauti 
 ful heart-stirring tilings one meets in his books ! I can t help 
 copying one : * Canst thou, O friendly reader, count upon the 
 fidelity of an artless or tender heart or two, and reckon among 
 the blessings which Heaven hath bestowed on thee the love of 
 faithful women ? Purify thy own heart, and try to make it 
 worthy theirs. On thy knees on thy knees, give thanks for 
 the blessings awarded thee ! All the blessings of life are 
 nothing compared with that one all the rewards of ambition, 
 pleasure, wealth, only vanity and disappointment grasped at 
 greedily, and fought for fiercely, and over and over again 
 found worthless by the weary winners. But love seems to 
 survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with 
 us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have 
 left us ? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we 
 shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms when we also 
 are gone ? You will think I have very little to do or record 
 to have time to make so long extracts ; but I could not help it, 
 for the magic words touched me." 
 
 On my appointment to China, Thackeray was among the 
 first to congratulate me, at the same time begging me as he 
 seemed to take for granted that my route to the East would 
 be what, by an odd misnomer, is called the " overland " to 
 stop with him in London. I went, however, by the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and it was not till my return in the spring of 1859 
 that we met again. From Malta, or some point on the Con 
 tinent, I wrote to ask him, having due regard to economy, my 
 party being numerous, and to the odor of official station which 
 still hung round me, to get me suitable lodgings in Lon 
 don, and the following perfectly characteristic note was the 
 answer : 
 
THACKERAY IN .!.}// A /CA. 19 
 
 MAURIGY S HOTEL, i REGENT STREF.T, WATERLOO Ti, < K, 
 April 2, 1859. 
 
 " MY DEAR REED, This is the best place for you, I think. 
 Two bishops already in the house. Country-gentlefolks and 
 American envoys especially affect it. Mr. Maurigy says you 
 may come for a day at the rate of some ten guineas a-week, 
 with rooms very clean and nice, which I have just gone over, 
 and go away at the clay s end if you disapprove. 
 
 " This letter [referring to one inclosed} is about the Athe 
 naeum, where you may like to look in. I wrote to Lord Stan 
 hope, who is on the committee, to put you up. 
 
 " I won t bore you by asking you to dinner till we see how 
 matters are, as of course you will consort with bigger wigs 
 than yours always, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 No " bigger wigs " came between us. During my fortnight 
 in London for I was hastening home after two years ab 
 sence we saw him nearly every day. He came regularly to 
 our quarters, went with me to the Athenaeum that spot of 
 brilliant association where he pointed out the eminent men 
 of whom I had heard and read ; and then he would go to his 
 working-table in the Club Library, and write for the Corn- 
 hill. He would carry my son, a young man just of age, off 
 with him to see the London world in odd " haunts." I dined 
 with him twice : once at his modest house in Onslow Square, 
 where \ve had the great pleasure of seeing his daughters ; and 
 once at Greenwich, at a bachelor s dinner, where I made the 
 acquaintance, since ripened into intimacy, of another friend, 
 who I am sure will excuse this distant allusion to him. We 
 looked out on the Park, and the river where the Great East 
 ern was lying before her first voyage, and talked of America 
 and American associations, and of the chance of his coming 
 again. 1 And our last dinner was over. I left London on the 
 30th April, 1859. Mr. and Miss Thackeray were at the Euston 
 Square station to say farewell. He took my son aside, and to 
 his infinite confusion handed him a little cadeau, which I hope 
 
 1 " When the magazine slavery was at an end." 
 
2O WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 he will always cherish with pride for the sake of the giver. 
 We parted with a great deal of kindness, please God, and 
 friendly talk of a future meeting. May it happen one day ; 
 for I feel sure he is a just man. 
 
 My pious duty is nearly done. On my return to America 
 our correspondence naturally enough languished : each was 
 much occupied ; he with drudgery which was exhausting and 
 engrossing. I often received kind messages and sometimes 
 apologies. After the Civil War began, no letter passed be 
 tween us. I had not the heart to write, and I don t believe he 
 had ; for I reject with emphasis the idea that his gentle nature 
 could feel aught but horror at this war of brethren " broth 
 ers speaking the same dear mother tongue." 1 His American 
 novel and his pictures of life in ancient days at Castlewood 
 on the Potomac, show this abundantly. 2 He had been in the 
 South and met Southern ladies and gentlemen, the highest 
 types of American civilization. This I may say now in 
 their hour of suffering and possible disaster. He had visited 
 Southern homes, and shared Southern hospitality. 
 
 As recently as February, 1862, in one of his fugitive essays, 
 he referred to an incident of our days of sorrow, and thus 
 embalmed his affectionate regard for a distant friend on whom 
 the hand of arbitrary power was, or was supposed to be, laid. 
 I have reason to believe the reference was to a gentleman 
 long a resident of Savannah. 
 
 " I went to the play one night, and protest I hardly knew 
 what was the entertainment which passed before my eyes. 
 In the next stall was an American gentleman who knew me. 
 .... And the Christmas piece which the actors were play 
 ing proceeded like a piece in a dream. To make the grand 
 comic performance doubly comic, my neighbor presently in 
 formed me how one of the best friends I had in America 
 the most hospitable, kindly, amiable of men, from whom I had 
 twice received the warmest welcome, and the most delightful 
 
 1 More than any Englishman of letters I have ever known, he was free from that 
 sentimental disease " abolitionism ! " 
 
 2 His estimate of Mrs. Stowe s evil-omened future in one of the letters that 1 
 have given, shows it. 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 21 
 
 hospitality was a prisoner in Fort Warren on charges by 
 which his life might be risked. I think it was the most dis 
 mal Christmas piece these eyes ever looked on." 
 
 One other memorandum I did receive from my friend. In 
 the summer of 1863 an Anglo-Indian officer brought me the 
 following note written on one of the little book-slips used in 
 the Reading-Room of the British Museum. 
 
 " At sight pay any kindness you can to the bearer, Major 
 F. Goldsmith, an.d debit the same to your old friend, 
 
 " W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 My little memorial is finished. I have written it in a frame 
 of mind distracted by all that in these last few days has been 
 going on around me, with two objects : one, to embalm, I 
 trust not unpleasantly to any one, the memories I happen to 
 have of a friend who was dear to me ; the other, to try by a 
 desperate intellectual effort to throw aside, if but for a mo 
 ment (and the date will show why I feel so), the burden of 
 consciousness that bloody deeds are now doing which will 
 bring new sorrow into many a home. 
 
 THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 
 
 That Mr. Thackeray was born in India in 1811 ; that he 
 was educated at Charter House and Cambridge ; that he left 
 the University after a few terms residence without a degree ; 
 that he devoted himself at first to art ; that in pursuit thereof 
 he lived much abroad " for study, for sport, for society ; " that 
 about the age of twenty-five, married, without fortune, without 
 a profession, he began the career which has made him an 
 English classic ; that he pursued that career steadily till his 
 death, all this has, within the last few weeks, been told 
 again and again. 
 
 It is a common saying that the lives of men of letters are 
 uneventful. In an obvious sense this is true. They are sel 
 dom called on to take part in events which move the world, 
 in politics, in the conflicts of nations ; while the exciting inci 
 dents of sensation-novels are as rare in their lives as in the 
 
22 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 lives of other men. But men of letters are in no way exempt 
 from the changes and chances of fortune ; and the story of 
 these, and of the effects which came from them, must possess 
 an interest for all. Prosperity succeeded by cruel reverses ; 
 happiness, and the long prospect of it, suddenly clouded ; a 
 hard fight, with aims as yet uncertain, and powers unknown ; 
 success bravely won ; the austerer victory of failure manfully 
 borne, these things make a life truly eventful, and make the 
 story of that life full of interest and instruction. They will all 
 fall to be narrated when Mr. Thackeray s life shall be written ; 
 we have only now to do with them so far as they illustrate his 
 literary career, of which we propose to lay before our readers 
 an account as complete as is in our power, and as impartial as 
 our warm admiration for the great writer we have lost will 
 allow. 
 
 Many readers know Mr. Thackeray only as the Thackeray 
 of " Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," " The Newcomes," and 
 " The Virginians," the quadrilateral of his fame, as they were 
 called by the writer of an able and kindly notice in the " Il 
 lustrated News." The four volumes of " Miscellanies " 
 published in 1857, though his reputation had been then 
 established, are less known than they should be. But Mr. 
 Thackeray wrote much which does not appear even in the 
 " Miscellanies " ; and some account of his early labors may 
 not be unacceptable to our readers. 
 
 His first attempt was ambitious. He became connected as 
 editor, and also, we suspect, in some measure, as proprietor, 
 with a weekly literary journal, the fortunes of which were not 
 prosperous. We believe the journal to have been one which 
 bore the imposing title of " The National Standard and Jour 
 nal of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine 
 Arts." Thackeray s editorial reign began about the I9th 
 Number, after which he seems to have done a good deal of 
 work, reviews, letters, criticisms, and verses. As the " Na 
 tional Standard " is now hardly to be met with out of the 
 British Museum, we give a few specimens of these first efforts. 
 There is a mock sonnet by W. Wordsworth, illustrative of 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 2$ 
 
 a drawing of Brabam in stage nautical costume, standing by a 
 theatrical sea-shore ; in the background an Israelite, with the 
 clothes-bag and triple hat of his ancient race ; and in the sky, 
 constellation-wise, appears a Jew s harp, with a chaplet of 
 bays round it. The sonnet runs : 
 
 " Say not that Judah s harp hath lost its tone, 
 Or that no bard hath found it where it hung 
 Broken and lonely, voiceless and unstrung, 
 Beside the sluggish streams of Babylon : 
 Slowman l repeats the strain his fathers sung, 
 And Judah s burning lyre is Braham s own ! 
 Behold him here ! Here view the wondrous man, 
 Majestical and lonely, as when first, 
 In music on a wondering world he burst, 
 And charmed the ravished ears of Sov reign Anne. 2 
 Mark well the form, O reader ! nor deride 
 The sacred symbol Jew s harp glorified 
 Which, circled with a blooming wreath, is seen 
 Of verdant bays ; and thus are typified 
 The pleasant music, and the baize of green, 
 Whence issues out at eve Braham with front serene." 
 
 We have here the germ of a style in which Thackeray be 
 came famous, though the humor of attributing this nonsense 
 to Wordsworth, and of making Braham coeval with Queen 
 Anne, is not now very plain. There is a yet more character 
 istic touch in a review of Montgomery s "Woman the Angel 
 of Life," winding up with a quotation of some dozen lines, the 
 order of which he says has been reversed by the printer, but 
 as they read quite as well the one way as the other, he does 
 not think it worth while to correct the mistake ! A comical 
 tale, called the " Devil s Wager," afterwards reprinted in the 
 " Paris Sketch-Book," also appeared in the " National Stand 
 ard," with a capital wood-cut, representing the Devil as sailing 
 through the air, dragging after him the fat Sir Roger de Rollo 
 
 1 " It is needless to speak of the eminent vocalist and improvisatore. He nightly 
 delights a numerous and respectable audience at the Cider Cellar ; and while on this 
 subject, I cannot refrain from mentioning the kindness of Mr. Evans, the worthy 
 proprietor of that establishment. N. B. A table d^hbte every Friday. W. 
 WORDSWORTH." 
 
 2 u Mr. Braham made his first appearance in England in the reign of Queen 
 Anne. -W. W." 
 
24 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 by means of his tail, which is wound round Sir Roger s neck. 
 The idea of this tale is characteristic. The venerable knight, 
 already in the other world, has made a foolish bet with the 
 Devil involving very seriously his future prospects there, 
 which he can only win by persuading some of his relatives on 
 earth to say an Ave for him. He fails to obtain this slight 
 boon from a kinsman successor for obvious reasons ; and 
 from a beloved niece, owing to a musical lover whose serenad 
 ing quite puts a stop to her devotional exercises ; and suc 
 ceeds at last, only when, giving up all hope from compassion 
 or generosity, he appeals by a pious fraud to the selfishness of 
 a brother and a monk. The story ends with a very Thacke- 
 rean touch : " The moral of this story will be given in several 
 successive numbers ; " the last three words are in the Sketch- 
 Book changed into " the second edition." 
 
 Perhaps best of all is a portrait of Louis Philippe, present 
 ing the Citizen King under the Robert Macaire aspect, the 
 adoption and popularity of which Thackeray so carefully ex 
 plains and illustrates in his Essay on " Caricatures and Lith 
 ography in Paris." Below the portrait are these lines, not 
 themselves very remarkable, but in which, especially in the 
 allusion to Snobs by the destined enemy of the race, we catch 
 glimpses of the future : 
 
 " Like the king in the parlor he s fumbling his money, 
 Like the queen in the kitchen his speech is all honey, 
 Except when he talks it, like Emperor Nap, 
 Of his wonderful feats at Fleurus and Jemappe ; 
 But alas ! all his zeal for the multitude s gone, 
 And of no numbers thinking except Number One ! 
 No huzzas greet his coming, no patriot club licks 
 The hand of the best of created republics : 
 He stands in Paris, as you see him before ye, 
 Little more than a snob. That s an end of the story." 
 
 The journal seems to have been an attempt to substitute 
 vigorous and honest criticism of books and of art for the par 
 tiality and slipslop general then, and now not perhaps quite 
 unknown. It failed, however, partly, it may be, from the in 
 experience of its managers, but doubtless still more from the 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 2$ 
 
 want of the capital necessary to establish anything of the sort 
 in the face of similar journals of old standing. People get 
 into a habit of taking certain periodicals unconsciously, as 
 they take snuff. The " National Standard," etc., etc., came 
 into existence on the 5th January, 1833, and ceased to be on 
 the ist February, 1834. 
 
 His subsequent writings contain several allusions to this 
 misadventure ; from some of which we would infer that the 
 breakdown of the journal was attended with circumstances 
 more unpleasant than mere literary failure. Mr. Adolphus 
 Simcoe a (" Punch," Vol. III.), when in a bad way from a love 
 of literature and drink, completed his ruin by purchasing and 
 conducting for six months that celebrated miscellany called 
 the " Lady s Lute," after which time " its chords were rudely 
 snapped asunder, and he who had swept them aside with 
 such joy went forth a wretched and heart-broken man." And 
 in " Lovel the Widower," Mr. Batchelor narrates similar ex 
 periences : 
 
 " I dare say I gave myself airs as editor of that confounded 
 " Museum," and proposed to educate the public taste, to dif 
 fuse morality and sound literature throughout the nation, and 
 to pocket a liberal salary in return for my services. I dare 
 say I printed my own sonnets, my own tragedy, my own 
 verses (to a being who shall be nameless, but whose conduct 
 has caused a faithful heart to bleed not a little). I dare say I 
 wrote satirical articles, in which I piqued myself on the fine 
 ness of my wit and criticisms, got up for the nonce, out of en 
 cyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries ; so that I would be 
 actually astonished at my own knowledge. I dare say I made 
 a gaby of myself to the world ; pray, my good friend, hast 
 
 1 The portrait of Mr. Adolphus, stretched out, " careless diffused, seedy, hun 
 gry, and diabolical, in his fashionable cheap hat, his dirty white duck trousers 
 strapped tightly down, as being the mode and possibly to conceal his bare legs ; a 
 half-smoked, probably unsmokably bad cigar, in his hand, which is lying over the 
 arm of" a tavern bench, from whence he is casting a greedy and ruffian eye upon some 
 unseen fellows, supping plenteously and with cheer, is, for power and drawing, not 
 unworthy of Hogarth. 
 
26 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 thou never done likewise ? If thou hast never been a fool, 
 be sure thou wilt never be a wise man." 
 
 Silence for a while seems to have followed upon this failure ; 
 but in 1836 his first attempt at independent authorship ap 
 peared simultaneously at London and Paris. This publication, 
 at a time when he still hoped to make his bread by art, is, like 
 indeed everything he either said or did, so characteristic, and 
 has been so utterly forgotten, that an account of it may not be 
 out of place, perhaps more minute than its absolute merits de 
 serve. 
 
 It is a small folio, with six lithographs, slightly tinted, en 
 titled " Flore et Zephyr, Ballet Mythologique dedie a par 
 Theophile Wagstaffe." Between "a" and "par" on the 
 cover is the exquisite Flore herself, all alone in some rosy and 
 bedizened bower. She has the old Jaded smirk, and, with 
 eyebrows up and eyelids dropt, she is looking down oppressed 
 with modesty and glory. Her nose, which is long, and has a 
 ripe droop, gives to the semicircular smirk of the large mouth, 
 down upon the centre of which it comes in the funniest way, 
 an indescribably sentimental absurdity. Her thin, sinewy 
 arms and large hands are crossed on her breast, and her petti 
 coat stands out like an inverted white tulip of muslin out 
 of which come her professional legs, in the only position which 
 human nature never puts its legs into ; it is her special pose. 
 Of course, also, you are aware, by that smirk, that look of being 
 looked at, that though alone in maiden meditation in this her 
 bower, and sighing for her Zephyr, she is in front of some 
 thousand pairs of eyes, and under the fire of many double-bar 
 relled lorgnettes, of which she is the focus. 
 
 In the first plate, " La Danse fait ses offrandes sur 1 autel 
 de 1 harmonie," in the shapes of Flore and Zephyr coming 
 trippingly to the footlights, and paying no manner of regard to 
 the altar of harmony, represented by a fiddle with an old and 
 dreary face, and a laurel-wreath on its head, and very great 
 regard to the unseen but perfectly understood " house." 
 Next is " Triste et abattu, les seductions des Nymphes le 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 2J 
 
 (Zephyr) tentent en vain," Zephyr looking theatrically sad. 
 Then " Flore " (with one lower extremity at more than a right 
 angle to the other) " de plore 1 absence de Zephyr." The man 
 in the orchestra endeavoring to combine business with pleasure, 
 so as to play the flageolet and read his score, and at the same 
 time miss nothing of the deploring, is intensely comic. Next 
 Zephyr has his turn, and " dans un pas seul exprime sa su 
 preme de sespoir," the extremity of despair being expressed 
 by doubling one leg so as to touch the knee of the other, and 
 then whirling round so as to suggest the regulator of a steam- 
 engine run off. Next is the rapturous reconciliation, when 
 the faithful creature bounds into his arms, and is held up to 
 the house by the waist in the wonted fashion. Then there is 
 " La Retraite de Flore," where we find her with her mother 
 and two admirers, Zephyr, of course, not one. This is in 
 Thackeray s strong, unflinching line. One lover is a young 
 dandy without forehead or chin, sitting idiotically astride his 
 chair. To him the old lady, who has her slight rouge, too, 
 and is in a homely shawl and muff, having walked, is making 
 faded love. In the centre is the fair darling herself still on 
 tiptoe, and wrapped up, but not too much, for her fiacre. With 
 his back to the comfortable fire, and staring wickedly at her, 
 is the other lover, a big, burly, elderly man, probably well to 
 do on the Bourse, and with a wife and family at home in their 
 beds. The last exhibits " Les delassements de Zephyr." That 
 hard-working and homely personage is resting his arm on the 
 chimney-piece, taking a huge pinch of snuff from the box of a 
 friend, with a refreshing expression of satisfaction, the only 
 bit of nature as yet. A dear little innocent pot-boy, such as 
 only Thackeray knew how to draw, is gazing and waiting upon 
 the two, holding up a tray from the nearest tavern, on which 
 is a great pewter-pot of foaming porter for Zephyr, and a 
 rummer of steaming brandy and water for his friend, who has 
 come in from the cold air. These drawings are lithographed 
 by Edward Morton, son of " Speed the Plough," and are done 
 with that delicate strength and truth for which this excellent 
 but little known artist is always to be praised. In each corner 
 
28 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 is the monogram ^R r , which appears so often afterwards 
 
 with the M added, and is itself superseded by the well-known 
 pair of spectacles. Thackeray must have been barely five-and- 
 twenty when this was published by Mitchell in Bond Street. 
 It can hardly be said to have sold. 
 
 Now it is worth noticing how in this, as always, he ridiculed 
 the ugly and the absurd in truth and pureness. There is, as 
 we may well know, much that is wicked (though not so much 
 as the judging community are apt to think) and miserable in 
 such a life. There is much that a young man and artist might 
 have felt and drawn in depicting it, of which in after years he 
 would be ashamed ; but " Theophile Wagstaffe " has done 
 nothing of this. The effect of looking over these juvenilia 
 
 these first shafts from that mighty bow, now, alas ! unbent 
 
 is good, is moral ; you are sorry for the hard-wrought 
 slaves ; perhaps a little contemptuous towards the idle people 
 who go to see them ; and you feel, moreover, that the " Bal 
 let," as thus done, is ugly as well as bad, is stupid as well as 
 destructive of decency. 
 
 His dream of editorship being ended, Mr. Thackeray thence 
 forward contented himself with the more lowly, but less re 
 sponsible, position of a contributor, especially to " Eraser s 
 Magazine." The youth of " Fraser " was full of vigor and 
 genius. We know no better reading than its early volumes, 
 unsparing indeed, but brilliant with scholarship and originality 
 and fire. In these days, the staff of that periodical included 
 such men as Maginn, " Barry Cornwall," Coleridge, Carlyle, 
 Hogg, Gait, Theodore Hook, Delta, Gleig, Edward Irving, 
 and, now among the greatest of them all, Thackeray. The 
 first of the " Yellowplush Correspondence " appeared in No 
 vember, 1837. The world should be grateful to Mr. John 
 Henry Skelton, who in that year wrote a book called " My 
 Book, or the Anatomy of Conduct," for to him is owing the 
 existence of Mr. Charles Yellowplush as a critic, and as a 
 narrator of " fashnable fax and polite annygoats." Mr. Yel 
 lowplush on reading Mr. Skelton s book, saw at once that only 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 29 
 
 a gentleman of his distinguished profession could competently 
 criticise the same ; and this was soon succeeded by the wider 
 conviction that the great subject of fashionable life should not 
 be left to any " common writin creatures," but that an au 
 thentic picture thereof must he supplied by " ONE OF us." In 
 the words of a note to the first paper, with the initials O. Y., but 
 which it is easy to recognize as the work of Mr. Charles him 
 self without the plush : " 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 impossible that Mr. Yellowplush may con 
 tinue his communications, 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." The idea 
 was not carried out very fully. The only pictures sketched 
 by Mr. Yellowplush were the farce of " Miss Shum s Hus 
 band " and the terrible tragedy of " Deuceace," neither of 
 them exactly " pictures of fashionable life." We rather fancy 
 that, in the story of Mr. Deuceace, Mr. Yellowplush was car 
 ried away from his original plan, a return to which he found im 
 possible after that wonderful medley of rascality, grim humor, 
 and unrelieved bedevilry of all kinds. But in 1838 he reverted 
 to his original critical tendencies, and demolished all that 
 " The Quarterly " had left of a book which made some noise 
 in its day, called " A Diary Illustrative of the Times of George 
 the Fourth ; " and wrote from his pantry one of the " Epistles 
 to the Literati," expressing his views of Sir Edward Lytton s 
 " Sea Captain," than which we know of no more good-nat 
 ured, trenchant, and conclusive piece of criticism. All the 
 Yellowplush papers except the first are republished in the 
 Miscellanies. 
 
 In 1839 appeared the story of " Catherine," by Ikey Sol 
 omon. This story is little known, and it throws us back upon 
 one still less known. In 1832, when Mr. Thackeray was not 
 
30 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 more than twenty-one, " Elisabeth Brownrigge : a Tale," was 
 narrated in the August and September numbers of " Fraser." 
 This tale is dedicated to the author of " Eugene Aram," and 
 the author describes himself as a young man who has for a 
 length of time applied himself to literature, but entirely failed 
 in deriving any emoluments from his exertions. Depressed 
 by failure he sends for the popular novel of " Eugene Aram " 
 to gain instruction therefrom. He soon discovers his mis 
 take : - 
 
 " From the frequent perusal of older works of imagination 
 I had learnt so to weave the incidents of my story as to inter 
 est the feelings of the reader in favor 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 at all distinguishable from the other In tak 
 ing my subject from that walk of life to which you had di 
 rected 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 Canning. Besides, it is extraordinary that, as 
 you had commenced a tragedy under the title of l Eugene 
 Aram, I had already sketched a burletta with the title of 
 
 * Elisabeth Brownrigge. I had, indeed, in my dramatic piece, 
 been guilty of an egregious and unpardonable error : I had 
 attempted to excite the sympathies of the audience in favor of 
 the murdered apprentices, but your novel has disabused me of 
 so vulgar a prejudice, and, in my present version of her case, 
 all the interest of the reader and all the pathetic powers of 
 the author will be engaged on the side of the murderess." 
 
 According to this conception the tale proceeds, with in 
 cidents and even names taken directly from the " Newgate 
 Calendar," but rivaling " Eugene Aram " itself in magnificence 
 of diction, absurdity of sentiment, and pomp of Greek quota- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 31 
 
 tion. The trial scene and the speech for the defense are 
 especially well hit off. If " Elisabeth Brownrigge " was written 
 by Thackeray, and the internal evidence seems to us strong, 
 the following is surprising criticism from a youth of twenty- 
 one, the very Byron and Bulwer age : 
 
 " I am inclined to regard you (the author of " Eugene 
 Aram " ) as an original discoverer in the world of literary 
 enterprise, and to reverence you as the father of a new lusus 
 natures school. There is no other title by which your man 
 ner could be so aptly 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 criminal is not met with once 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 Calendar," 
 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 with 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 dis 
 tinguishing features of a bankrupt attorney, or a lame duck 
 from the Stock Exchange. Having to paint a cat, you endow 
 her with the idiosyncrasies of a dog." 
 
 At the end, the author intimates that he is ready to treat 
 with any liberal publisher for a series of works in the same 
 style, to be called " Tales of the Old Bailey, or Romances of 
 Tyburn Tree." The proposed series is represented only by 
 " Catherine," a longer and more elaborate effort in the same 
 direction. It is the narrative of the misdeeds of Mrs. Cath 
 erine Hayes, an allusion to whose criminality in after days 
 brought down upon the author of " Pendennis " an amusing out 
 pouring of fury from Irish patriotism, forgetting in its excite- 
 
32 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 ment that the name was borne by a heroine of the Newgate 
 Calendar, as well as by the accomplished singer whom we all 
 regret. The purpose of " Catherine " is the same as that of 
 "Elisabeth Brownrigge," to explode the lusus nature? 
 school ; but the plan adopted is slightly different. Things 
 had got worse than they were in 1832. The public had called 
 for coarse stimulants and had got them. "Jack Sheppard" 
 had been acquiring great popularity in Bentley s " Miscel 
 lany ; " and the true feeling and pathos of many parts of 
 " Oliver Twist " had been marred by the unnatural sentimen- 
 talism of Nancy. Mr. Ikey Solomon objected utterly to these 
 monstrosities of literature, and thought the only cure was a 
 touch of realism ; an attempt to represent blackguards in 
 some measure as they actually are : 
 
 " In this," he says, "we have consulted nature and history 
 rather than the prevailing taste and the general manner of 
 authors. The amusing novel of Ernest Maltravers, for in 
 stance, opens with a seduction ; but then it is performed by 
 people of the strictest virtue on both sides ; and there is so 
 much religion and philosophy in the heart of the seducer, so 
 much tender innocence in the soul of the seduced, that bless 
 the little dears ! their very peccadilloes make one interested 
 in them ; and their naughtiness becomes quite sacred, so 
 deliciously is it described. Now, if we are to be interested by 
 rascally actions, let us have them with plain faces, and let 
 them be performed, not by virtuous philosophers, but by 
 rascals. Another clever class of novelists adopt the contrary 
 system, and create interest by making their rascals perform 
 virtuous actions. Against these popular plans we here sol 
 emnly appeal. We say, let your rogues in novels act like 
 rogues, and your honest men like honest men ; don t let us 
 have any juggling and thimblerigging with virtue and vice, so 
 that, at the end of three volumes, the bewildered reader shall 
 not know which is which ; don t let us find ourselves kindling 
 at the generous qualities of thieves and sympathizing with the 
 rascalities of noble hearts. For our own part, we know what 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 33 
 
 the public likes, and have chosen rogues for our characters, and 
 have taken a story from the " Newgate Calendar," which we 
 hope to follow out to edification. Among the rogues at least, 
 we will have nothing that shall be mistaken for virtue. And 
 if the British public (after calling for three or four editions) 
 shall give up, not only our rascals, but the rascals of all other 
 authors, we shall be content. We shall apply to govern 
 ment for a pension, and think -that our duty is done." 
 
 Again, further on in the same story : 
 
 " The public will hear of nothing but rogues ; and the only 
 way in which poor authors, who must live, can act honestly by 
 the public and themselves, is to paint such thieves as they 
 are ; not dandy, poetical, rose-water thieves, but real downright 
 scoundrels, leading scoundrelly lives, drunken, profligate, dis 
 solute, low, as scoundrels will be. They don t quote Plato like 
 Eugene Aram, or live like gentlemen, and sing the pleasantest 
 ballads in the world, like jolly Dick Turpin ; or prate eternally 
 about rb Ka\6v, like that precious canting Maltravers, whom 
 we all of us have read about and pitied ; or die whitewashed 
 saints, like poor Biss Dadsy, in " Oliver Twist." No, my dear 
 madam, you and your daughters have no right to admire and 
 sympathize with any such persons, fictitious or real ; you 
 ought to be made cordially to detest, scorn, loathe, abhor, and 
 abominate all people of this kidney. Men of genius, like those 
 whose works we have above alluded to, have no business to 
 make these characters interesting or agreeable, to be feeding 
 your morbid fancies, or indulging their own with such mon 
 strous food. For our parts, young ladies, we beg you to bottle 
 up your tears, and not waste a single drop of them on any one 
 of the heroes or heroines in this history ; they are all rascals, 
 every soul of them, and behave as sich. Keep your sym 
 pathy for those who deserve it ; don t carry it, for preference, 
 to the Old Bailey, and grow maudlin over the company as 
 sembled there." 
 
 Neither of these tales, though it is very curious to look back 
 3 
 
34 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE TPIACKERAY. 
 
 at them now, can be considered quite successful. And the 
 reason of this is not hard to find. It was impossible that they 
 could be attractive as stories ; while, on the other hand, the 
 humor was not broad enough to command attention for itself. 
 They were neither sufficiently interesting nor sufficiently 
 amusing. They are caricatures without the element of carica 
 ture. In " Elisabeth," we have little but the story of a crime 
 committed by a criminal actuated by motives and overflowing 
 with sentiments of the Eugene Aram type. " Catherine " is 
 more ambitious. In it an attempt is made to construct a story, 
 to delineate character. The rival loves of Mr. Bullock and 
 Mr. Hayes, and the adventures of the latter on his marriage- 
 day, show, to some extent, the future novelist ; while in the 
 pictures of the manners of the times, slight though they are, in 
 the characters of Corporal Brock and Cornet Galgenstein, and 
 M. PAbbe* O Flaherty, we can trace, or at least we now fancy 
 we can trace, the author of " Barry Lyndon " and " Henry Es 
 mond." Catherine herself, in her gradual progress from the 
 village jilt to a murderess, is the most striking thing in the 
 story, and is a sketch of remarkable power. But nothing 
 could make a story interesting which consists of little more 
 than the seduction of a girl, the intrigues of a mistress, the 
 discontent of a wife growing into hatred and ending in murder. 
 At the close, indeed, the writer resorts to the true way of 
 making such a jeu d^ esprit attractive, burlesque. He con 
 cludes, though too late altogether to save the piece, in a blaze 
 of theatrical blue-fire ; and it was this idea of burlesque or 
 extravagant caricature which led to the perfected successes of 
 George de Barnwell and Codlingsby. In a literary point of 
 view, it is well worth while to go back upon those early efforts ; 
 and we have dwelt upon them the more willingly that their 
 purpose and the literary doctrine they contend for would be 
 well remembered at this very time. We have given up writing 
 about discovered criminals, only to write more about criminals 
 not yet found out ; the lusus nature? school has given place to 
 the sensational ; the literature of the " Newgate Calendar " has 
 been supplanted by the literature of the detective officer, a 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 35 
 
 style rather the worse and decidedly the more stupid of the 
 two. The republication of " Catherine " might be a useful, and 
 would be a not unpleasing specific in the present diseased 
 state of literary taste. We have said that the hand of the 
 master is traceable in the characters of this tale. We have 
 also a good example of what was always a marked peculiarity, 
 both in his narrative writing and in his representations of 
 composite natures, what some one has called his " sudden 
 pathos," an effect of natural and unexpected contrast always 
 deeply poetical in feeling, such as the love of Barry Lyndon 
 for his son, the association of a murderess eying her victim, 
 with images of beauty and happiness and peace. We quote 
 the passage, although, as is always the case with the best 
 things of the best writers, it surfers greatly by separation from 
 the context, the force of the contrast being almost entirely 
 lost : 
 
 " Mrs. Hayes sat up in the bed sternly regarding her hus 
 band. There is, to be sure, a strong magnetic influence in 
 wakeful eyes so examining a sleeping person ; do not you, as 
 a boy, remember waking of bright summer mornings and find 
 ing your mother looking over you ? had not the gaze of her 
 tender eyes stolen into your senses long before you woke, and 
 cast over your slumbering spirit a sweet spell of peace, and 
 love, and fresh-springing joy ? " 
 
 In 1840 the " Shabby Genteel Story " appeared in " Fraser," 
 which broke off sorrowfully enough, as we are told, " at a sad 
 period of the writer s own life," to be afterwards taken up in 
 " The Adventures of Philip." The story is not a pleasant 
 one, nor can we read it without pain, although we know that 
 the after fortunes of the Little Sister are not altogether un 
 happy. But it shows clear indications of growing power and 
 range ; Brandon, Tufthunt, the Gann family, and Lord Cinq- 
 bars, can fairly claim the dignity of ancestors. The " Great 
 Hoggarty Diamond" came in 1841. This tale was always, we 
 are informed in the preface to a separate edition in 1849, a 
 great favorite with the author, a judgment, however, in 
 
36 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 which at first he stood almost alone. It was refused by one 
 magazine before it found a place in " Fraser ; " and when it 
 did appear it was little esteemed, or, indeed, noticed in any 
 way. The late Mr. John Sterling took a different view, and 
 wrote Mr. Thackeray a letter which " at that time gave me 
 great comfort and pleasure." Few will now venture to ex 
 press doubts of Mr. Sterling s discernment. But in reality we 
 suspect that this story is not very popular. It is said to want 
 humor and power ; but, on the other hand, in its beauty of 
 pathos and tenderness of feeling, quite indescribable, it 
 reaches a higher point of art than any of the minor tales ; 
 and these qualities have gained for it admirers very enthusi 
 astic if not numerous. " Fraser " for June of the same year 
 has a most enjoyable paper called " Memorials of Gormandiz 
 ing," in which occurs the well-known adaptation of the " Per- 
 sicos Odi," " Dear Lucy, you know what my wish is ; " a 
 paper better than anything in the " Original," better because 
 simpler than Hayward s " Art of Dining," and which should 
 certainly be restored to a dinner-eating world. To say nothing 
 of its quiet humor and comical earnestness, it has a real practi 
 cal value. It would be invaluable to all the hungry Britons in 
 Paris who lower our national character, and, what is a far 
 greater calamity, demoralize even French cooks, by their well- 
 meant but ignorant endeavors to dine. There is a description 
 of a dinner at the Cafe Foy altogether inimitable ; so graphic 
 that the reader almost fancies himself in the actual enjoyment 
 of the felicity depicted. Several of the Fitz-Boodle papers, 
 which appeared in 1842-43, are omitted in the Miscellanies. 
 But in spite of the judgment of the author himself we venture 
 to think that Mr. Fitz-Boodle s love experiences as recorded 
 in " Miss Lowe " (October, 1842), " Dorothea " (January, 1843), 
 and " Ottilia " (February, 1843), are not unworthy of a place 
 beside the " Ravenswing," and should be preserved as a warn 
 ing to all fervent young men. And during these hard-working 
 years we have also a paper on " Dickens in France," contain 
 ing an amazing description of Nicholas Nickleby, as translated 
 and adapted (bless thee, Bottom, thou art translated indeed !) 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 37 
 
 to the Parisian stage, followed by a hearty defense of Boz 
 against the criticism of Jules Janin ; and " Bluebeard s Ghost," 
 in its idea that of carrying on a well-known story beyond 
 its proper end the forerunner of Rebecca and Rowena. 
 " Little Travels " is the title of two papers, in May and Octo 
 ber, 1844, sketches from Belgium, closely resembling, cer 
 tainly not inferior, to the roundabout paper called a " Week s 
 Holiday ; " and our enumeration of his contributions to 
 "Fraser" closes with the incomparable "Barry Lyndon." 
 " The Hoggarty Diamond " is better and purer, and must 
 therefore rank higher ; but " Barry Lyndon " in its own line 
 stands, we think, unrivaled ; immeasurably superior, if we 
 must have comparative criticism, to " Count Fathom " ; su 
 perior even to the history of "Jonathan Wild." It seems to 
 us to equal the sarcasm and remorseless irony of Fielding s 
 masterpiece, with a wider range and a more lively interest. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray s connection with " Punch " began very 
 early in the history of that periodical, and he continued a con 
 stant contributor at least up to 1850. The acquisition was an 
 invaluable one to " Mr. Punch." Without undue disparage 
 ment of that august dignitary, it may now be said that at first 
 he was too exclusively metropolitan in his tone, too much de 
 voted to " natural histories " of medical students and London 
 idlers, in fact, somewhat Cockney. Mr. Thackeray at once 
 stamped it with a different tone ; made its satire universal, 
 adapted its fun to the appreciation of cultivated men. On the 
 other hand, the connection with " Punch " must have been of 
 the utmost value to Mr. Thackeray. He had the widest range, 
 could write without restraint, and without the finish and com 
 pleteness necessary in more formal publications. The unre 
 strained practice in " Punch," besides the improvement in 
 style and in modes of thought which practice always gives, 
 probably had no small share in teaching him wherein his real 
 strength lay. For it is worthy of notice in Mr. Thackeray s 
 literary career that this knowledge did not come easily or 
 soon, but only after hard work and much experience. His 
 early writings both in " Fraser " and " Punch " were as if 
 
38 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 groping. In these periodicals his happier efforts come last, 
 and after many preludes, some of them broken off abruptly. 
 " Catherine " is lost in " George de Barnwell " ; " Yellow- 
 plush " and " Fitz-Boodle " are the preambles to " Barry Lyn 
 don " and " The Hoggarty Diamond " ; Punch s " Conti 
 nental Tour" and the "Wanderings of the Fat Contributor" 
 close untimely, and are succeeded by the " Snob Papers " and 
 the kindly wisdom of the elder Brown. Fame, indeed, was 
 not now far off ; but ere it could be reached there remained 
 yet repeated effort and frequent disappointment. With pecul 
 iar pleasure we now recall the fact that these weary days of 
 struggle and obscurity were cheered in no inconsiderable de 
 gree by the citizens of Edinburgh. 
 
 There happened to be placed in the window of an Edin 
 burgh jeweler a silver statuette of " Mr. Punch," with his 
 dress en rigueur, his comfortable and tidy paunch, with all 
 its buttons ; his hunch ; his knee-breeches, with their ties ; 
 his compact little legs, one foot a little forward ; and the in 
 trepid and honest, kindly little fellow firmly set on his pins, 
 with his customary look of up to and good for anything. In 
 his hand was his weapon, a pen ; his skull was an inkhorn, 
 and his cap its lid. A passer-by who had long been grate 
 ful to our author, as to a dear unknown and enriching friend, 
 for his writings in " Fraser " and in " Punch," and had longed 
 for some way of reaching him, and telling him how his work 
 was relished and valued bethought himself of sending this 
 inkstand to Mr. Thackeray. He went in, and asked its price. 
 " Ten guineas, sir." He said to himself, " There are many 
 who feel as I do ; why should n t we send him up to him ? 
 I 11 get eighty several half-crowns, and that will do it " (he 
 had ascertained that there would be discount for ready money). 
 With the help of a friend, who says he awoke to Thackeray, 
 and divined his great future, when he came, one evening, in 
 " Fraser" for May, 1844, on the word kinopium^ the half- 
 
 1 Here is the passage. It is from Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, Why 
 are they not republished? We must have his Of>era Omnia. He is on the top of 
 the Richmond omnibus. " If I were a great prince, and rode outside of coaches (as 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 39 
 
 crowns were soon forthcoming, and it is pleasant to remember, 
 that in the " octogint " are the names of Lord Jeffrey and Sir 
 William Hamilton, who gave their half-crowns with the heart 
 iest good will. A short note was written telling the story. 
 The little man in silver was duly packed, and sent with the 
 following inscription round the base : 
 
 GULIELMO MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 ARMA VIRUMQUE 
 GRATI NECNON GRAT^ EDINENSES 
 
 LXXX. 
 D. D. D. 
 
 To this the following reply was made : 
 
 " 13 YOUNG STREET, KENSINGTON SQUARJE, May u, 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 & sympathy are very precious 
 to a writer like myself, who have 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 
 
 I should if I were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a case of 
 the best Havannas in my pocket, not for my own smoking, but to give them to the 
 snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest cheroots. They poison the air with the 
 odor of their filthy weeds. A man at all easy in circumstances would spare himself 
 much annoyance by taking the above simple precaution. 
 
 " A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back, and asked for a light. 
 He was a footman or rather valet. He had no livery, but the three friends who ac 
 companied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt undress jackets, with a duke s cor 
 onet on their buttons. 
 
 " After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot, the gentle 
 man produced another wind instrument, which he called a kinopium, a sort of 
 trumpet, on which he showed a great inclination to play. He began puffing out of the 
 kinopium an abominable air, which he said was the Duke s March. It was played 
 by the particular request of the pepper-and-salt gentry. 
 
 " The noise was so abominable, that even the coachman objected and said it was 
 not allowed to play on his bus. Very well, said the valet, ive^re only of the Duke 
 of B j establishment, THAT S ALL. " 
 
40 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 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 octogint by the hand gratos & gratas, and 
 thank them for their friendliness and regard. I think I had 
 best say no more on the subject, lest I should be tempted into 
 some enthusiastic writing of w h 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 
 almost awful sense of the responsibility w 11 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 things 
 w h men reverence ? I hope I may be able to tell the truth 
 always, & to see it aright, according to the eyes w h 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 thankful for this support. 
 Indeed I can t reply lightly upon this subject or feel otherwise 
 than very grave when people begin to praise me as you do. 
 Wishing you and my Edinburgh friends all health and happi 
 ness believe me my dear Sir most faithfully yours 
 
 " W. M, THACKERAY." 
 
 How like the man is this gentle and serious letter, written 
 these long years ago ! He tells us frankly his " calling : " he 
 is a preacher to mankind. He "laughs," he does not sneer. 
 He asks home questions at himself as well as the world : 
 "Who is this ? " Then his feeling "not otherwise than very 
 grave " when people begin to praise, is true conscientiousness. 
 This servant of his Master hoped to be able " to tell the truth 
 always, and to see it aright, according to the eyes which God 
 Almighty gives me." His picture by himself will be received 
 as correct now, " a sentimental gentleman, meaning not un 
 kindly to any mortal person," sentimental in its good old 
 sense, and a gentleman in heart and speech. And that little 
 touch about enthusiastic writing, proving all the more that the 
 enthusiasm itself was there. 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 41 
 
 Of his work in " Punch/ the " Ballads of Pleaceman X," the 
 "Snob Papers," " Jeames Diary," the " Travels and Sketches 
 in London," a " Little Dinner at Timmins ," are now familiar 
 to most readers. But besides these he wrote much which has 
 found no place in the Miscellanies. M. de la Pluche dis 
 coursed touching many matters other than his own rise and 
 fall. " Our Fat Contributor " wandered over the face of the 
 earth gaining and imparting much wisdom and experience, if 
 little information ; Dr. Solomon Pacifico "prosed " on various 
 things besides the " pleasures of being a Fogy ; " and even 
 two of the " Novels by Eminent Hands," " Crinoline " and 
 " Stars and Stripes," have been left to forgetfulness. " Mrs. 
 Tickletoby s Lectures on the History of England," in Vol. III., 
 are especially good reading. Had they been completed, they 
 would have formed a valuable contribution to the philosophy of 
 history. His contributions to " Punch " became less frequent 
 about 1850, but the connection was not entirely broken, off till 
 much later ; we remember, in 1854, the " Letters from the 
 Seat of War, by our own Bashi-Bazouk," who was, in fact, 
 Major Gahagan again, always foremost in his country s cause. 
 To the last, as Mr. Punch has himself informed us, he con 
 tinued to be an adviser and warm friend, and was a constant 
 guest at the weekly symposia. 
 
 In addition to all this work for periodicals, Mr. Thackeray 
 had ventured on various independent publications. We have 
 already alluded to " Flore et Zephyr," his first attempt. In 
 1840, he again tried fortune with " The Paris Sketch-Book," 
 which is at least remarkable for a dedication possessing the 
 quite peculiar merit of expressing real feeling. It is addressed 
 to M. Aretz, Tailor, 27 Rue Richelieu, Paris ; and we quote it 
 the more readily that, owing to the failure of these volumes to 
 attract public attention, the rare virtues of that gentleman 
 have been less widely celebrated than they deserve : 
 
 " SIR, It becomes every man in his station to acknowledge 
 and praise virtue wheresoever he may find it, and to point it 
 out for the admiration and example of his fellow-men. 
 
42 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 " Some months since, when you presented to the writer of 
 these pages a small account for coats and pantaloons manu 
 factured by you, and when you were met by a statement from 
 your debtor that an immediate settlement of your bill would 
 be extremely inconvenient to him, your reply was, Mon dieu, 
 sir, let not that annoy you ; if you want money, as a gentle 
 man often does in a strange country, I have a thousand-franc 
 note at my house, which is quite at your service. History or 
 experience, sir, makes us acquainted with so few actions that 
 can be compared to yours, an offer like this from a stranger 
 and a tailor seems to me so astonishing, that you must par 
 don me for making your virtue public, and acquainting the 
 English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, 
 sir, that you live on the first floor, that your cloths and fit are 
 excellent, and your charges moderate and just ; and, as a 
 humble tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay these vol 
 umes at your feet. Your obliged faithful servant, 
 
 " M. A. TlTMARSH." 
 
 Some of the papers in these two volumes were reprints, as 
 " Little Poinsinet " and " Cartouche," from " Fraser " for 1839 ; 
 "MaryAncel," from "The New Monthly "for 1839; others 
 appeared then for the first time. They are, it must be con 
 fessed, of unequal merit. "A Caution to Travellers" is a 
 swindling business, afterwards narrated in " Pendennis," by 
 Amory or Altamont as among his own respectable adventures ; 
 " Mary Ancel " and " The Painter s Bargain " are amusing 
 stories ; while a " Gambler s Death " is a tale quite awful in 
 the every-day reality of its horror. There is much forcible 
 criticism on the French school of painting and of novel writ 
 ing, and two papers especially good, called " Caricatures and 
 Lithography in Paris," and " Meditations at Versailles," the 
 former of which gives a picture of Parisian manners and feel 
 ing in the Orleans times in no way calculated to make us 
 desire those days back again ; the latter an expression of the 
 thoughts called up by the splendor of Versailles and the 
 beauty of the Petit Trianon, in its truth, sarcasm, and half- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER.. 43 
 
 melancholy, worthy of his best days. All these the public, 
 we think, would gladly welcome in a more accessible form. 
 Of the rest of the " Sketch-Book " the same can hardly be 
 said, and yet we should ourselves much regret never to have 
 seen, for example, the four graceful imitations of Beranger. 
 
 The appreciative and acquisitive tendencies of our Yankee 
 friends forced, we are told, independent authorship on Lord 
 Macaulay and Sir James Stephen. We owe to the same cause 
 the publication of the " Comic Tales and Sketches " in 1841 ; 
 Mr. Yellowplush s memoirs having been more than once re 
 printed in America before that date. The memoirs were 
 accompanied with " The Fatal Boots " (from the " Comic 
 Almanack ") ; the " Bedford Row Conspiracy," and the Rem 
 iniscences of that astonishing Major Gahagan (both from the 
 " New Monthly Magazine," 1838-1840, a periodical then in 
 great glory, with Hood, Marryatt, Jerrold, and Laman Blan- 
 chard among its contributors) ; all now so known and so ap 
 preciated that the failure of this third effort seems altogether 
 unaccountable. In 1843, however, the " Irish Sketch-Book " 
 was, we believe, tolerably successful ; and in 1846 the " Jour 
 ney from Cornhill to Grand Cairo " was still more so ; in 
 which year also " Vanity Fair " began the career which has 
 given him his place and name in English literature. 
 
 We have gone into these details concerning Mr. Thack 
 eray s early literary life, not only because they seem to us 
 interesting and instructive in themselves ; not only because we 
 think his severe judgment rejecting so many of his former ef 
 forts should in several instances be reversed ; but because 
 they give us much aid in arriving at a true estimate of his 
 genius. He began literature as a profession early in life, 
 about the age of twenty-five, but even then he was, as he 
 says of Addison, " full and ripe." Yet it was long before he 
 attained the measure of his strength, or discovered the true 
 bent of his powers. His was no sudden leap into fame. On 
 the contrary, it was by slow degrees, and after many and vain 
 endeavors that he attained to anything like success. Were it 
 only to show how hard these endeavors were, the above retro- 
 
44 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 spect would be well worth while ; not that the retrospect is 
 anything like exhaustive. In addition to all we have men 
 tioned, he wrote for the " Westminster," for the " Examiner," 
 and the " Times " ; was connected with the " Constitutional," 
 and also, it is said, with the " Torch " and the " Parthenon," 
 these last three being papers which enjoyed a brief existence, 
 No man ever more decidedly refuted the silly notion which dis 
 associates genius from labor. His industry must have been 
 unremitting, for he worked slowly, rarely retouching, writing 
 always with great thought and habitual correctness of expres 
 sion. His writing would of itself show this ; always neat and 
 plain ; capable of great beauty and minuteness. He used to say 
 that if all trades failed, he would earn sixpences by writing the 
 Lord s Prayer and the Creed (not the Athanasian) in the size 
 of one. He considered and practiced caligraphy as one of 
 the fine arts, as did Person and Dr. Thomas Young. He was 
 continually catching new ideas from passing things, and seems 
 frequently to have carried his work in his pocket, and when a 
 thought, or a turn, or a word struck him, it was at once re 
 corded. In the fullness of his experience, he was well pleased 
 when he wrote six pages of " Esmond " in a day ; and he 
 always worked in the day, not at night. He never threw away 
 his ideas ; if at any time they passed unheeded, or were care 
 lessly expressed, he repeats them, or works them up more 
 tellingly. In these earlier writings we often stumble upon the 
 germ of an idea, or a story, or a character with which his 
 greater works have made us already familiar ; thus the swin 
 dling scenes during the sad days of Becky s decline and fall, 
 and the Baden sketches in the " Newcomes," the Deuceaces, 
 and Punters, and Loders, are all in the " Yellowplush Papers " 
 and the " Paris Sketch-Book ; " the University pictures of 
 " Pendennis " are sketched, though slightly, in the " Shabby- 
 Genteel Story " ; the anecdote of the child whose admirer 
 of seven will learn that she has left town " from the news 
 papers," is transferred from the " Book of Snobs " to Ethel 
 Newcome ; another child, in a different rank of life, whose 
 acquisition of a penny gains for her half a dozen sudden fol- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 45 
 
 lowers and friends, appears, we think, three times ; " Canute," 
 neglected in " Punch," is incorporated in " Rebecca and 
 Rowena." And his names, on which he bestowed no ordinary 
 care, and which have a felicity almost deserving an article to 
 themselves, are repeated again and again. He had been ten 
 years engaged in literary work before the conception of 
 " Vanity Fair " grew up. Fortunately for him it was declined 
 by at least one magazine, and, as we can well believe, not 
 without much anxiety and many misgivings he sent it out to 
 the world alone. Its progress was at first slow ; but we can 
 not think its success was ever doubtful. A friendly notice in 
 the " Edinburgh," when eleven numbers had appeared, did 
 something, the book itself did the rest ; and before " Vanity 
 Fair " was completed, the reputation of its author was estab 
 lished. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray s later literary life is familiar to all. It cer- 
 tanliy was not a life of idleness. " Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," 
 " Esmond," " The Newcomes," " The Virginians," " Philip " ; 
 the Lectures on the " Humorists " and the " Georges " ; and 
 that wonderful series of Christmas stories, " Mrs. Perkins s 
 Ball," " Our Street," " Dr. Birch," " Rebecca and Rowena," 
 and " The Rose and the Ring," represent no small labor on 
 the part of the writer, no small pleasure and improvement 
 on the part of multitudes of readers. For the sake of the 
 " Cornhill Magazine " he reverted to the editorial avocations 
 of his former days, happily with a very different result both 
 on the fortunes of the periodical and his own, but, we should 
 think, with nearly as much discomfort to himself. The public, 
 however, were the gainers, if only they owe to this editorship 
 the possession of " Lovel the Widower." We believe that 
 " Lovel " was written for the stage, and was refused by the 
 management of the Olympic about the year 1854. Doubtless 
 the decision was wise, and " Lovel " might have failed as a 
 comedy. But as a tale it is quite unique, full of humor, 
 and curious experience of life, and insight ; with a condensed 
 vigor, and grotesque effects and situations which betray its 
 dramatic origin. The tone of many parts of the book, par- 
 
46 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 ticularly the description of the emotions of a disappointed 
 lover, shows the full maturity of the author s powers ; but 
 there is a daring and freshness about other parts of it which 
 would lead us to refer the dramatic sketch even to an earlier 
 date than 1854. This imperfect sketch of his literary labors 
 may be closed, not inappropriately, with the description which 
 his " faithful old Gold Pen " gives us of the various tasks he 
 set it to : 
 
 " Since he my faithful service did engage 
 To follow him through his queer pilgrimage, 
 I ve drawn and written many a line and page. 
 
 " Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes, 
 And dinner-cards, and picture pantomimes, 
 And merry little children s books at times. 
 
 " I ve writ the foolish fancy of his brain ; 
 The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain ; 
 The idle word that he d wish back again. 
 
 " I ve helped him to pen many a line for bread ; 
 To joke, with sorrow aching in his head ; 
 And make your laughter when his own heart bled. 
 
 Feasts that were ate a thousand days ago, 
 Biddings to wine that long hath ceased to flow, 
 Gay meetings with good fellows long laid low ; 
 
 Summons to bridal, banquet, burial, ball, 
 Tradesman s polite reminders of his small 
 Account due Christmas last, I ve answered all. 
 
 " Poor Diddler s tenth petition for a half- 
 Guinea ; Miss Bunyan s for an authograph ; 
 So I refuse, accept, lament, or laugh. 
 
 " Condole, congratulate, invite, praise, scoff, 
 Day after day still dipping in my trough, 
 And scribbling pages after pages off. 
 
 " Nor pass the words as idle phrases by ; 
 Stranger ! I never writ a flattery, 
 Nor signed the page that registered a lie.** 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 47 
 
 " En realit," says the writer of an interesting notice in 
 " Le Temps," " 1 auteur de Vanity Fair (la Foire aux van- 
 itis) est un satiriste, tin moraliste, un humoriste, auquel il a 
 manque, pour etre tout-a-fait grand, d etre un artiste. Je dis 
 tout-a-fait grand ; car s il est douteux que, comme humoriste, 
 on le puisse comparer soit a Lamb, soit a Sterne, il est bien 
 certain, du moins, que comme satiriste, il ne connait pas de 
 superieurs, pas meme Dryden, pas meme Swift, pas meme 
 Pope. Et ce qui le distingue d eux, ce qui 1 e leve au dessus 
 d eux, ce qui fait de lui un gdnie essentiellement original, 
 c est que sa colere, pour qui est capable d en penetrer le 
 secret, n est au fond que la reaction d une nature tendre, 
 furieuse d avoir ete desappointee." Beyond doubt the French 
 critic is right in holding Thackeray s special powers to have 
 been those of a satirist or humorist. We shall form but a 
 very inadequate conception of his genius if we look at him 
 exclusively, or even chiefly, as a novelist. His gifts were not 
 those of a teller of stories. He made up a story in which his 
 characters played their various parts, because the requirement 
 of interest is at the present day imperative, and because 
 stories are well paid for, and also because to do this was to a 
 certain extent an amusement to himself ; but it was often, we 
 suspect, a great worry and puzzle to him, and never resulted 
 in any marked success. It is not so much that he is a bad \ N 
 constructor of a plot, as that his stories have no plot at all. I 
 We say nothing of such masterpieces of constructive art as / j 
 Tom Jones ; he is far frord reaching even the careless power/ 
 of the stories of Scott. " N one of his novels end with the 
 orthodox marriage of hero and heroine, except " Pendennis," 
 which might just as well have ended without it. The stereo 
 typed matrimonial wind-up in novels can of course very easily 
 be made game of ; but it has a rational meaning. When a 
 man gets a wife and a certain number of hundreds a year, he 
 grows stout, and his adventures are over. Hence novelists 
 naturally take this as the crisis in a man s life to which all 
 that has gone before leads up. But for Mr. Thackeray s pur 
 poses a man or woman is as good after marriage as before it, 
 
48 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 indeed, rather better. To some extent this is intentional ; a 
 character, as he says somewhere, is too valuable a property to 
 be easily parted with. Besides, he is not quite persuaded that 
 marriage concludes all that is interesting in the life of a man : 
 " As the hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the 
 novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over 
 then, the doubts and struggles of life ended ; as if, once landed 
 in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there, 
 and wife and husband had nothing but to link each other s 
 arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age 
 in happy and perfect fruition." But he demurs to this view ; 
 and as he did not look on a man s early life as merely an in 
 troduction to matrimony, so neither did he regard that event 
 as a final conclusion. Rejecting, then, this natural and ordi 
 nary catastrophe, he makes no effort to provide another. His 
 stories stop, but they don t come to an end. There seems no 
 reason why they should pot go on further, or why they should 
 not have ceased beforeTy^Nor does this want of finish result 
 from weariness on the part of the writer, or from that fear 
 of weariness on the part of readers which Mr. Jedediah 
 Cleishbotham expresses to Miss Martha Buskbody : " Really, 
 Madam, you must be aware that every volume of a narrative 
 turns less and less interesting as the author draws to a con 
 clusion ; just like your tea, which, though excellent hyson, is 
 necessarily weaker and more insipid in the last cup. Now, as I 
 think the one is by no means improved by the luscious lump 
 of half-dissolved sugar usually found at the bottom of it, so I 
 am of opinion that a history, growing already vapid, is but 
 dully crutched up by a detail of circumstances which every 
 reader must have anticipated, even though the author exhaust 
 on them every flowery epithet in the language." It arises 
 from the want of a plot, from the want often of any hero or 
 heroine round whom a plot can centre. Most novelists know 
 how to let the life out towards the end, so that the story dies 
 quite naturally, having been wound up for so long. But his 
 airy nothings, if once life is breathed into them, and they are 
 made to speak and act, and love and hate, will not die ; on the 
 
THACKERAY^S LITERARY CAREER. 49 
 
 contrary, they grow in force and vitality under our very eye ; 
 the curtain comes sheer down upon them when they are at 
 their best. Hence his trick of re-introducing his characters 
 in subsequent works, as fresh and life-like as ever. He does 
 not indeed carry this so far as Dumas, whose characters are 
 traced with edifying minuteness of detail from boyhood to the 
 grave ; Balzac or our own Trollope afford, perhaps, a closer 
 comparison, although neither of these writers certainly not 
 Mr. Trollope rivals Thackeray in the skill with which such 
 reappearances are managed. In the way of delineation of 
 character we know of few things more striking in its consist 
 ency and truth than Beatrix Esmond grown into the Baroness 
 Bernstein : the attempt was hazardous, the success complete. 
 Yet this deficiency in constructive art was not inconsistent 
 with dramatic power of the highest order. Curiously enough, 
 if his stories for the most part end abruptly, they also for the 
 most part open well. Of some of them, as " Pendennis " and 
 the " Newcomes," the beginnings are peculiarly felicitous. But 
 his dramatic power is mainly displayed in his invention and 
 representation of character. In invention his range is perhaps 
 limited, though less so than is commonly said. He has not, 
 of course, the sweep of Scott, and, even where a comparison 
 is fairly open, he does not show Scott s creative faculty ; thus, 
 good as his high life below stairs may be, he has given us no 
 Jenny Dennison. He does not attempt artisan life like George 
 Eliot, nor, like other writers of the day, affect rural simplicity, 
 or delineate provincial peculiarities (the Mulligan and Costi- 
 gan are national), or represent special views or opinions. But 
 he does none of these things, not so much because his 
 range is limited as because his art is universal. There are 
 many phases of human life on which he has not touched ; few 
 developments of human nature. He has caught those traits 
 which are common to all mankind, peer and artisan alike, and 
 he may safely omit minor points of distinction. It is a higher 
 art to draw men, than to draw noblemen or workingmen. If 
 the specimen of our nature be brought before us, it matters 
 little whether it be dressed in a lace coat or a fustian jacket. 
 4 
 
50 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Among novelists he stands, in this particular, hardly second 
 to Scott. His pages are filled with those touches of nature 
 which make the whole world kin. Almost every passion and 
 emotion of the heart of man finds a place in his pictures. 
 These pictures are taken mainly from the upper and middle 
 classes of society, with an occasional excursion into Bohemia, 
 sometimes even into depths beyond that pleasant land of 
 lawlessness. In variety, truth, and consistency, they are 
 unrivaled. They are not caricatures, they are not men of 
 humors ; they are the men and women whom we daily meet ; 
 they are, in the fullest sense of the word, representative ; and 
 yet they are drawn so sharply and finely that we never could 
 mistake or confound them. Pendennis, Clive Newcome, 
 Philip, are all placed in circumstances very much alike, and 
 yet they are discriminated throughout by delicate and certain 
 touches, which we hardly perceive even while we feel their 
 effect. Only one English writer of fiction can be compared to 
 Mr. Thackeray in this power of distinguishing ordinary char 
 acters, the authoress of " Pride and Prejudice." But with 
 this power he combines, in a very singular manner, the 
 power of seizing humors, or peculiarities, when it so pleases 
 him. Jos. Sedley, Charles Honeyman, Fred Bayham, Major 
 Pendennis, are so marked as to be fairly classed as men of 
 humors ; and in what a masterly way the nature in each is 
 caught and held firm throughout! In national peculiarities he 
 is especially happy. The Irish he knows well : the French, 
 perhaps^ still better. How wonderfully clever is the sketch of 
 u Mary, Queen of Scots " and the blustering Gascon, and the 
 rest of her disreputable court at Baden ! And what can those 
 who object to Thackeray s women say of that gentle lady 
 Madame de Florae, a sketch of ideal beauty, with her early, 
 never-forgotten sorrow, her pure, holy resignation ? To her 
 inimitable son no words can do justice. The French-English 
 of his speech would make the fortune of any ordinary novel. 
 It is as unique, and of a more delicate humor, than the 
 orthography of Jeames. Perhaps more remarkable than even 
 his invention is the fidelity with which the conception of his 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 51 
 
 characters is preserved. This never fails. They seem to act, 
 as it were, of themselves. The author having once projected 
 them, appears to have nothing more to do with them. They 
 act somehow according to their own natures, unprompted by 
 him, and beyond his control. He tells us this himself in one of 
 those delightful and most characteristic Roundabout Papers, 
 which are far too much and too generally undervalued : " I 
 have been surprised at the observations made by some of my 
 characters. It seems as if an occult power was moving the 
 pen. The personage does or says something, and I ask, How 
 the dickens did he come to think of that ? . . . . We spake 
 anon of the inflated style of some writers. What also if there 
 is an afflated style ; when a writer is like a Pythoness, or her 
 oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which he cannot help, 
 come blowing, and bellowing, and whistling, and moaning 
 through the speaking pipes of his bodily organ ? " Take one 
 of his most subtle sketches, though it is but a sketch, 
 Elizabeth, in " Lovel the Widower." The woman has a char 
 acter, and a strong one ; she shows it, and acts up to it ; but 
 it is as great a puzzle to us as the character of Hamlet ; the 
 author himself does not understand it. This is, of course, 
 art ; and it is the highest perfection of art ; it is the art of 
 Shakespeare ; and hence it is that Thackeray s novels are 
 interesting irrespective of the plot, or story, or whatever we 
 choose to call it. His characters come often without much 
 purpose : they go often without much reason ; but they are 
 always welcome, and for the most part we wish them well. 
 Dumas makes up for the want of a plot by wild incident and 
 spasmodic writing ; Thackeray makes us forget a like defi 
 ciency by the far higher means of true conceptions, and con 
 sistent delineations of human nature. " Esmond," alone of all 
 his more important fictions is artistically constructed. The 
 marriage indeed of Esmond and Lady Castlewood marks no 
 crisis in their lives ; on the contrary, it might have happened 
 at any time, and makes little change in their relations ; but 
 the work derives completeness from the skill with which the 
 events of the time are connected with the fortunes of the chief 
 
52 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 actors in the story, the historical plot leading up to the 
 catastrophe of Beatrix, the failure of the conspiracy, and the 
 exile of the conspirators. In " Esmond," too, Thackeray s 
 truth to nature is especially conspicuous. In all his books t 
 dialogue is surprising in its naturalness, in its direct bearing 
 on the subject in hand. Never before, we think, in fiction did 
 characters so uniformly speak exactly like the men and women 
 of real life. In " Esmond" owing to the distance of the 
 scene this rare excellence was not easy of attainment, yet it 
 has been attained. Every one not only acts, but speaks in ac 
 cordance certainly with the ways of the time, but always like a 
 rational human being ; there is no trace of that unnaturalness 
 which offends us even in Scott s historical novels, and which 
 substitutes for intelligible converse long harangues in pom 
 pous diction, garnished with strange oaths, a style of com 
 municating their ideas never adopted, we may be very sure, 
 by any mortals upon this earth. Add to these artistic excel 
 lences a tenderness of feeling and a beauty of style which 
 even Thackeray has not elsewhere equaled, and we come to 
 understand why the best critics look on " Esmond " as his 
 master-piece. 
 
 Nor, in speaking of Thackeray as a novelist, should we for 
 get to mention though but in a word his command of the 
 element of tragedy. The parting of George Osborne with 
 Amelia, the stern grief of old Osborne for the loss of his son, 
 the later life of Beatrix Esmond, the death of Colonel New- 
 come, are in their various styles perfect, and remarkable for 
 nothing more than for the good taste which controls and sub 
 dues them all. 
 
 But, as we said before, to criticise Mr. Thackeray as a nov 
 elist is to criticise what was in him only an accident. He 
 wrote stories, because to do so was the mode : his stories are 
 natural and naturally sustained, because he could do nothing 
 otherwise than naturally ; but to be a teller of stories was not 
 his vocation. His great object in writing was to express him 
 self, his notions of life, all the complications and variations 
 which can be played by a master on this one everlasting theme. 
 
THACKERAY^ S LITERARY CAREER. 53 
 
 Composite human nature as it is, that sins and suffers, enjoys 
 and does virtuously, that was " the main haunt and region of 
 his song." To estimate him fairly, we must look at him as 
 taking this wider range ; must consider him as a humorist, 
 using the word as he used it himself. " The humorous writer 
 professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kind 
 ness ; your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture ; your 
 tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. 
 To the best of his means and ability, he comments on all the 
 ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon 
 himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. Accord 
 ingly, as he finds and speaks and feels the truth best, we re 
 gard him, esteem him, sometimes love him." Adopting this 
 point of view, and applying this standard, it seems to us that 
 no one of the great humorists of whom he has spoken is de 
 serving equally with himself of our respect, esteem, and love ; 
 respect for intellectual power, placing him on a level even 
 with Swift and Pope ; esteem for manliness as thorough as 
 the manliness of Fielding, and rectitude as unsullied as the 
 rectitude of Addison ; love for a nature as kindly as that of 
 Steele. Few will deny the keen insight, the passion for truth of 
 the week-day preacher we have lost ; few will now deny the 
 kindliness of his disposition, but many will contend that the 
 kindliness was too much restrained ; that the passion for truth 
 was allowed to degenerate into a love of detecting hidden 
 faults. The sermons on women have been objected to with 
 especial vehemence and especial want of reason. No one 
 who has read Mr. Brown s letters to his nephew, next to the 
 Snob Papers and Sydney Smith s Lectures, the best modern 
 work on moral philosophy, will deny that Mr. Thackeray 
 can at least appreciate good women, and describe them : 
 
 " Sir, I do not mean to tell you that there are no women in 
 the world, vulgar and ill-humored, rancorous and narrow- 
 minded, mean schemers, son-in-law hunters, slaves of fashion, 
 hypocrites ; but I do respect, admire, and almost worship good 
 women ; and I think there is a very fair number of such to be 
 
54 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 found in -this world, and I have no doubt, in every educated 
 Englishman s circle of society, whether he finds that circle in 
 palaces in Belgravia and May Fair, in snug little suburban 
 villas, in ancient comfortable old Bloomsbury, or in back par 
 lors behind the shop. It has been my fortune to meet with 
 excellent English ladies in every one of these places, wives 
 graceful and affectionate, matrons tender and good, daughters 
 happy and pure-minded, and I urge the society of such to you, 
 because I defy you to think evil in their company. Walk into 
 the drawing-room of Lady Z., that great lady ; look at her 
 charming face, and hear her voice. You know that she can t 
 but be good, with such a face and such a voice. She is one 
 of those fortunate beings on whom it has pleased Heaven to 
 bestow all sorts of its most precious gifts and richest worldly 
 favors. With what grace she receives you ; with what a frank 
 kindness and natural sweetness and dignity ! Her looks, her 
 motions, her words, her thoughts, all seem to be beautiful and 
 harmonious quite. See her with her children, what woman 
 can be more simple and loving ? After you have talked to her 
 for a while, you very likely find that she is ten times as well 
 read as you are : she has a hundred accomplishments which 
 she is not in the least anxious to show off, and makes no more 
 account of them than of her diamonds, or of the splendor 
 round about her, to all of which she is born, and has a 
 happy, admirable claim of nature and possession, admirable 
 and happy for her and for us too ; for is it not a happiness for 
 us to admire her ? Does anybody grudge her excellence to 
 that paragon ? Sir, we may be thankful to be admitted to 
 contemplate such consummate goodness and beauty : and as, 
 in looking at a fine landscape or a fine work of art every gen 
 erous heart must be delighted and improved, and ought to feel 
 grateful afterwards, so one may feel charmed and thankful for 
 having the opportunity of knowing an almost perfect woman. 
 Madam, if the gout and the custom of the world permitted, I 
 would kneel down and kiss the hem of your ladyship s robe. 
 To see your gracious face is a comfort to see you walk to 
 your carriage is a holiday. Drive her faithfully, O thou silver- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 55 
 
 wigged coachman ! drive to all sorts of splendors and honors 
 and royal festivals. And for us, let us be glad that we should 
 have the privilege to admire her. 
 
 " Now, transport yourself in spirit, my good Bob, into an 
 other drawing-room. There sits an old lady of more than 
 fourscore years, serene and kind, and as beautiful in her age 
 now, as in her youth, when History toasted her. What has 
 she not seen, and is she not ready to tell ? All the fame and 
 wit, all the rank and beauty, of more than half a century, have 
 passed through those rooms where you have the honor of mak 
 ing your best bow. She is as simple now as if she had never 
 had any flattery to dazzle her : she is never tired of being 
 pleased and being kind. Can that have been anything but a 
 good life which after more than eighty years of it are spent, is 
 so calm ? Could she look to the end of it so cheerfully, if its 
 long course had not been pure ? Respect her, I say, for be 
 ing so happy, now that she is old. We do not know what 
 goodness and charity, what affections, what trials, may have 
 gone to make that charming sweetness of temper and complete 
 that perfect manner. But if we do not admire and reverence 
 such an old age as that, and get good from contemplating it, 
 what are we to respect and admire. 
 
 " Or shall we walk through the shop (while N. is recom 
 mending a tall copy to an amateur, or folding up a twopenny- 
 worth of letter-paper, and bowing to a poor customer in a 
 jacket and apron with just as much respectful gravity as he 
 would show while waiting upon a duke), and see Mrs. N. play 
 ing with the child in the back parlor until N. shall come in to 
 tea ? They drink tea at five o clock ; and are actually as well- 
 bred as those gentlefolks who dine three hours later. Or will 
 you please to step into Mrs J. s lodgings, who is waiting, and 
 at work, until her husband comes home from Chambers ? She 
 blushes and puts the work away on hearing the knock, but 
 when she sees who the visitor is, she takes it with a smile 
 from behind the sofa cushion, and behold, it is one of J. s 
 waist-coats on which she is sewing buttons. She might have 
 been a countess blazing in diamonds, had Fate so willed it, 
 
56 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 and the higher her station the more she would have adorned 
 it. But she looks as charming while plying her needle as the 
 great lady in the palace whose equal she is in beauty, in 
 goodness, in high-bred grace and simplicity ; at least, I can t 
 fancy her better, or any peeress being more than her peer." 
 
 But then he is accused of not having represented this. " It 
 is said," to quote a friendly critic in the " Edinburgh Review " 
 for 1848, "that having with great skill put together a creature 
 of which the principal elements are indiscriminating affection, 
 ill-requited devotion, ignorant partiality, a weak will and a 
 narrow intellect, he calls on us to worship his poor idol as the 
 type of female excellence. This is true." Feminine critics- 
 enforce similar charges yet more vehemently. Thus, Miss 
 Bronte says : " As usual, he is unjust to women, quite un 
 just. There is hardly any punishment he does not deserve 
 for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at 
 a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid." Mrs. 
 Jameson criticises him more elaborately : " No woman resents 
 his Rebecca, inimitable Becky! No woman but feels and 
 acknowledges with a shiver the completeness of that wonder 
 ful and finished artistic creation ; but every woman resents 
 
 the selfish, inane Amelia Laura in Pendennis is a 
 
 yet more fatal mistake. She is drawn with every generous 
 feeling, every good gift. We do not complain that she loves 
 that poor creature Pendennis, for she loved him in her child 
 hood. She grew up with that love in her heart ; it came be 
 tween her and the perception of his faults ; it is a necessity 
 indivisible from her nature. Hallowed, through its constancy, 
 therein alone would lie its best excuse, its beauty and its 
 truth. But Laura, faithless to that first affection ; Laura 
 waked up to the appreciation of a far more manly and noble 
 nature, in love with Warrington, and then going back to Pen 
 dennis, and marrying him ! Such infirmity might be true of 
 some women, but not of such a woman as Laura ; we resent 
 the inconsistency, the indelicacy of the portrait. And then 
 Lady Castlewood, so evidently a favorite of the author, 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 57 
 
 what shall we say of her ? The virtuous woman par excel 
 lence, who never sins and never forgives ; who never re 
 sents, nor relents, nor repents ; the mother who is the rival of 
 her daughter ; the mother, who for years is the confidante of 
 a man s delirious passion for her own child, and then consoles 
 him by marrying him herself ! O Mr. Thackeray ! this will 
 never do ! Such women may exist, but to hold them up as 
 examples of excellence, and fit objects of our best sympathies, 
 is a fault, and proves a low standard in ethics and in art." 
 
 But all these criticisms, even if sound, go to this only, that 
 Mr. Thackeray s representations of women are unjust : they 
 are confined solely to his novels. Now, if the view we have 
 taken of Mr. Thackeray s genius be the true one, such a limi 
 tation is unfair. He is not to be judged only by his novels as 
 a representer of character, he must be judged also by all his 
 writings together as a describer and analyzer of character. In 
 the next place, the said criticisms are based upon wonderfully 
 hasty generalizations. Miss Bronte knew that she would not 
 have listened at a keyhole, and she jumps at once to the con 
 clusion that neither would Lady Castlewood. But surely the 
 character of that lady is throughout represented as marred by 
 many feminine weaknesses falling little short of unamiability. 
 Is the existence of a woman greedy of affection, jealous, and 
 unforgiving, an impossibility ? Her early love for Esmond 
 we cannot quite approve ; her later marriage with him we 
 heartily disapprove ; but neither of these things is the fault 
 of the writer. With such a woman as Lady Castlewood, de 
 prived of her husband s affection, the growth of an attachment 
 towards her dependent into a warmer feeling, was a matter of 
 extreme probability ; and her subsequent marriage to Esmond, 
 affectionate, somewhat weak, and above all, disappointed else 
 where, was, in their respective relations, a mere certainty. 
 Not to have married them would have been a mistake in art. 
 Thus, when a friend remonstrated with him for having made 
 Esmond " marry his mother-in-law," he replied, " / did n t 
 make him do it ; they did it themselves." But as to Lady 
 Castlewood s being a favorite with the author, which is the 
 
58 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 gravamen of the charge, that is a pure assumption on the part 
 of Mrs. Jameson. We confess to having always received, in 
 reading the book, a clear impression to the contrary. Laura, 
 again, we do not admire vehemently ; but we cannot regard 
 her returning to her first love, after a transient attachment to 
 another, as utterly unnatural. Indeed, we think it the very 
 thing a girl of her somewhat commonplace stamp of character 
 would certainly have done. She never is much in love with 
 Pendennis either first or last, but she marries him neverthe 
 less. She might have loved Warrington had the Fates per 
 mitted it, very differently ; and as his wife, would never have 
 displayed those airs of self-satisfaction and moral superiority 
 which make her so tediously disagreeable. But all this fault 
 finding runs up into the grand objection, that Thackeray s 
 good women are denied brains ; that he preserves an essential 
 alliance between moral worth and stupidity ; and it is curious 
 to see how women themselves dislike this, how, in their 
 admiration of intellect, they admit the truth of Becky will 
 ingly enough, but indignantly deny that of Amelia. On this 
 question Mr. Brown thus expresses himself : 
 
 " A set has been made against clever women from all times. 
 Take all Shakespeare s heroines : they all seem to me pretty 
 much the same, affectionate, motherly, tender, that sort of 
 thing. Take Scott s ladies, and other writers, each man seems 
 to draw from one model : an exquisite slave is what we want 
 for the most part, a humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, 
 tea-making, pianoforte-playing being, who laughs at our jokes 
 however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in our hu 
 mors, and fondly lies to us through life." 
 
 In the face of Rosalind, Beatrice, and Portia, it is impos 
 sible to concur with Mr. Brown in his notions about Shakes 
 peare s women ; but otherwise he is right. Yet it is but a 
 poor defense for the deficiences of a man of genius, that 
 others have shown the like short-comings. And on Mr. 
 Thackeray s behalf a much better defense may be pleaded ; 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 59 
 
 though it may be one less agreeable to the sex which he is 
 said to have maligned. That defense is a simple plea of not 
 guilty ; a denial that his women as a class, want intellect 
 ual power to a greater extent than is consistent with truth. 
 They vary between the extremes of pure goodness and pure 
 intellect Becky and Amelia just as women do in real life. 
 The moral element is certainly too prominent in Amelia ; but 
 not more so than in Colonel Newcome, and we can t see any 
 thing much amiss in Helen Pendennis. Laura, as Miss Bell, 
 is clever enough for any man ; and, though she afterwards 
 becomes exceedingly tiresome and a prig, she does not be 
 come a fool. And what man would be bold enough to dis 
 parage the intellectual powers of Ethel Newcome ? Her 
 moral nature is at first incomplete owing to a faulty educa 
 tion ; but when this has been perfected through sorrow, 
 wherein is the character deficient ? Besides, we must bear in 
 mind that virtue in actipn is undoubtedly " slow." Goodness 
 is not irTitself entertaining, while ability is ; and the novelist, 
 therefore, whose aim is to entertain, naturally -labors most 
 with the characters possessing the latter, in which characters 
 the reader too is most interested. Hence they acquire greater 
 prominence both as a matter of fact in the story and also in 
 our minds. Becky, Blanche Amory, Trix are undeniably 
 more interesting, and in their points of contrast and resem 
 blance afford far richer materials for study than Amelia, 
 Helen Pendennis, and Laura. But this is in the nature of 
 things ; and the writer must not be blamed for it any more 
 than the readers. Taking, however, the Thackerean gallery 
 as a whole, we cannot admit that either in qualities of heart 
 or head his women are inferior to the women we generally 
 meet. Perhaps he has never not even in Ethel com 
 bined these qualities in their fullest perfection ; but then how 
 often do we find them so combined ? It seems to us that 
 Thackeray has drawn women more carefully and more truly 
 than any novelist in the language, except Miss Austen ; and 
 it is small reproach to any writer, that he has drawn no female 
 character so evenly good as Anne Elliot or Elizabeth Bennet. 
 
60 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 If this is true of his women, we need not labor in defense 
 of his men. For surely it cannot be questioned that his repre 
 sentations of the ruder sex are true, nay, are on the whole an 
 improvement on reality ? The ordinary actors who crowd his 
 scene are not worse than the people we meet with every day ; 
 his heroes, to use a stereotyped expression, are rather better 
 than the average ; while one such character as George War- 
 rington is worth a wilderness of commonplace excellence 
 called into unnatural life. But then it is said his general tone 
 is bitter ; he settles at once on the weak points of humanity, 
 and to lay them bare is his congenial occupation. To a certain 
 extent this was his business* " Dearly beloved," he says, 
 " neither in nor out of this pulpit do I profess to be bigger, or 
 cleverer, or wiser, or better than any of you." Nevertheless 
 he was a preacher, though an unassuming one ; and therefore 
 it lay upon him to point out faults, to correct rather than to 
 flatter. Yet it must be confessed that his earlier writings are 
 sometimes too bitter in their tone, and too painful in their 
 theme. This may be ascribed partly to the infectious vehe 
 mence of " Fraser " in those days, partly to the influence of 
 such experiences as are drawn upon in some parts of the 
 " Paris Sketch-Book ; " but, however accounted for, it must 
 be condemned as an error in art. As a disposition to doubt 
 and despond in youth betrays a narrow intellect, or a perverted 
 education ; so in the beginning of a literary career, a tendency 
 towards gloom and curious research after hidden evil reveals 
 artistic error, or an unfortunate experience. Both in morals 
 and art these weaknesses are generally the result of years and 
 sorrow ; and thus the common transition is from the joyous- 
 ness of youth to sadness, it may be to moroseness, in old age. 
 But theirs is the higher and truer development, who reverse 
 this process, who, beginning with false tastes or distorted 
 views, shake these off as they advance into a clearer air, in 
 whom knowledge but strengthens the nobler powers of the 
 soul, and whose kindliness and generosity, based on a firmer 
 foundation than the buoyancy of mere animal life, are purer 
 and more enduring. Such, as it appears to us, was the history 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 6 1 
 
 of Thackeray s genius. Whatever may have been the severity 
 of his earlier writings, it was latterly laid aside. In the " New- 
 comes " he follows the critical dogma which he lays down, that 
 " fiction has no business to exist unless it be more beautiful 
 than reality ; " and truthful kindliness marks all his other 
 writings of a later date, from the letters of Mr. Brown and 
 Mr. Spec in " Punch," down to the pleasant egotism of the 
 " Roundabout Papers." He became disinclined for severe 
 writing even where deserved : " I have militated in former 
 times, and not without glory, but I grow peaceable as I grow 
 old." The only things towards which he never grew peaceable 
 were pretentiousness and falsehood. But he preferred to 
 busy himself with what was innocent and brave, to attacking 
 even these ; he forgot the satirist, and loved rather honestly 
 to praise or defend. The " Roundabout Papers " show this 
 on every page, especially, perhaps, those on Tunbridge Toys, 
 on Ribbons, on a Joke I heard from the late Thomas Hood, 
 and that entitled " Nil nisi bonum." The very last paper of 
 all was an angry defense of Lord Clyde against miserable club 
 gossip, unnecessary perhaps, but a thing one likes now to 
 think that Thackeray felt stirred to do. " To be tremblingly 
 alive to gentle impressions," says Foster, " and yet be able to 
 preserve, when occasion requires it, an immovable heart, even 
 amidst the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is 
 perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the 
 utmost and rarest condition of humanity." These words do 
 not describe the nature of a man who would pay out of his 
 own pocket for contributions he could not insert in the " Corn- 
 hill ; " but if for heart we substitute intellect, they will perfectly 
 describe his literary genius. He was always tremblingly alive 
 to gentle impressions, but his intellect amidst any emotions 
 remained clear and immovable ; so that good taste was never 
 absent, and false sentiment never came near him. He makes 
 the sorrows of Werther the favorite reading of the executioner 
 at Strasbourg. 1 
 
 1 Among his ballads we have the following somewhat literal analysis of this 
 work : 
 
 " Werther had a love for Charlotte 
 Such as words could never utter ; 
 
62 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Few men have written so much that appeals directly to our 
 emotions, and yet kept so entirely aloof from anything tawdry, 
 from all falsetto. " If my tap," says he, " is not genuine, it is 
 naught, and no man should give himself the trouble to drink 
 it." It was at all times thoroughly genuine, and is therefore 
 everything to us. Truthfulness, in fact, eager and uncom 
 promising, was his main characteristic ; truthfulness not only 
 in speech, but, what is a far more uncommon and precious 
 virtue, truth in thought. His entire mental machinery acted 
 under this law of truth. He strove always to find and show 
 things as they really are, true nobleness apart from trap 
 pings, unaffected simplicity, generosity without ostentation ; 
 confident that so he would best convince every one that what 
 is truly good pleases most, and lasts longest, and that what is 
 otherwise soon becomes tiresome, and, worst of all, ridiculous. 
 A man to whom it has been given consistently to devote to 
 such a purpose the highest powers of sarcasm, ridicule, sin 
 cere pathos, and, though sparingly used, of exhortation, must 
 be held to have fulfilled a career singularly honorable and 
 useful. To these noble ends he was never unfaithful. True, 
 he made no boast of this. Disliking cant of all kinds, he made 
 no exception in favor of the cant of his own profession. 
 "What the deuce," he writes to a friend, " our twopenny 
 
 Would you know how first he met her? 
 She was cutting bread and butter. 
 
 " Charlotte was a married lady, 
 
 And a moral man was Werther, 
 And, for all the wealth of Indies, 
 Would do nothing for to hurt her. 
 
 " So he sighed and pined and ogled, 
 
 And his passion boiled and bubbled, 
 Till he blew his silly brains out, 
 And no more was by it troubled. 
 
 " Charlotte, having seen his body 
 Borne before her on a shutter, 
 Like a well-conducted person, 
 Went on cutting bread and butter." 
 
THACKERAY^ S LITERARY CAREER. 63 
 
 reputations get us at least twopence-halfpenny ; and then 
 comes nox fabulceque manes, and the immortals perish." The 
 straightforward Mr. Yellowplush stoutly maintains, in a similar 
 strain, that people who write books are no whit better, or 
 actuated by more exalted motives, than their neighbors : 
 " Away with this canting about great motifs ! Let us not be 
 too prowd, and fansy ourselves marters of the truth, marters 
 or apostels. We are but tradesmen, working for bread, and 
 not for righteousness sake. Let s try and work honestly ; 
 but don t let us be prayting pompisly about our sacred call 
 ing. " And George Warrington, in " Pendennis," is never 
 weary of preaching the same wholesome doctrine. Thackeray 
 had no sympathy with swagger of any kind. His soul revolted 
 from it ; he always talked under what he felt. At the same 
 time, indifference had no part in this want of pretense. So 
 far from being indifferent, he was peculiarly sensitive to the 
 opinions of others ; too much so for his own happiness. He 
 hated to be called a cynical satirist ; the letter we have quoted 
 to his Edinburgh friends shows how he valued any truer 
 appreciation. Mere slander he could despise like a man ; he 
 winced under the false estimates and injurious imputations too 
 frequent from people who should have known better. But he 
 saw his profession as it really was, and spoke of it with his 
 innate simplicity and dislike of humbug. And in this matter, 
 as in the ordinary affairs of life, those who profess little, 
 retaining a decent reserve as to their feelings and motives, are 
 far more to be relied on than those who protest loudly. 
 Whether authors are moved by love of fame, or a necessity 
 for daily bread, does not greatly signify. The world is not 
 concerned with this in the least ; it can only require that, as 
 Mr. Yellowplush puts it, they should " try to work honestly ; " 
 and herein he never failed. He never wrote but in accordance 
 with his convictions ; he spared no pains that his convictions 
 should be in accordance with truth. For one quality we can 
 not give him too great praise ; that is the sense of the distinc 
 tion of right and of wrong. He never puts bitter for sweet, or 
 sweet for bitter ; never calls evil things good, or good things 
 
64 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 evil ; there is no haziness or muddle ; no " topsyturvifica- 
 tions," like Madame Sand s, in his moralities : with an im 
 mense and acute compassion for all suffering, with a power of 
 going out of himself, and into almost every human feeling, he 
 vindicates at all times the supremacy of conscience, the 
 sacredness and clearness of the law written in our hearts. 
 
 His keenness of observation and his entire truthfulness 
 found expression in a style worthy of them in its sharpness 
 and distinctness. The specimens we have quoted of his 
 earlier writings show that these qualities marked his style 
 from the first. He labored to improve those natural gifts. 
 He steadily observed Mr. Yellowplush s recommendation 
 touching poetical composition : " Take my advise, honrabble 
 sir listen to a humble footmin : it s genrally best in poatry 
 to understand puffickly what you mean yourself, and to ing- 
 spress your meaning clearly afterwoods in the simpler 
 words the better, praps." He always expressed his meaning 
 clearly and in simple words. But as, with increasing expe 
 rience, his meanings deepened and widened, his expression 
 became richer. The language continued to the last simple 
 and direct, but it became more copious, more appropriate, 
 more susceptible of rythmical combinations : in other words, 
 it rose to be the worthy vehicle of more varied and more poet 
 ical ideas. This strange peculiarity of soberness in youth, of 
 fancy coming into being at the command and for the service 
 of the mature judgment, has marked some of the greatest 
 writers. The words in which Lord Macaulay has described it 
 with regard to Bacon may be applied, with little reservation, 
 to Thackeray : " He observed as vigilantly, meditated as 
 deeply, and judged as temperately, when he gave his first work 
 to the world, as at the close of his long career. But in elo 
 quence, in sweetness and variety of expression, and in rich 
 ness of illustration, his later writings are far superior to those 
 of his youth." Confessedly at the last he was the greatest 
 master of pure English in our day. His style is never ornate, 
 on the contrary is always marked by a certain reserve which 
 surely betokens thought and real feeling ; is never forced 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 65 
 
 or loaded, only entirely appropriate and entirely beautiful ; 
 like crystal, at once clear and splendid. We quote two pas 
 sages, both from books written in his prime, not merely as 
 justifying these remarks, but because they illustrate qualities 
 of his mind second only to his truthfulness, his sense of 
 beauty and his sense of pathos. And yet neither passage has 
 any trace of what he calls the " sin of grandiloquence, or tall- 
 talking." The first is the end of the " Kickleburys on the 
 Rhine " : - 
 
 " The next morning we had passed by the rocks and towers, 
 the old familiar landscapes, the gleaming towers by the river 
 side, and the green vineyards combed along the hills ; and 
 when I woke up, it was at a great hotel at Cologne, and it 
 was not sunrise yet. Deutz lay opposite, and over Deutz the 
 dusky sky was reddened. The hills were veiled in the mist 
 and the gray. The gray river flowed underneath us, the 
 steamers were roosting along the quays, a light keeping watch 
 in the cabins here and there, and its reflection quivering in 
 the water. As I look, the sky-line towards the east grows 
 redder and redder. A long troop of gray horsemen winds 
 down the river road, and passes over the bridge of boats. 
 You might take them for ghosts, those gray horsemen, so 
 shadowy do they look ; but you hear the trample of their 
 hoofs as they pass over the planks. Every minute the dawn 
 twinkles up into the twilight ; and over Deutz the heaven 
 blushes brighter. The quays begin to fill with men ; the 
 carts begin to creak and rattle ; and wake the sleeping echoes. 
 Ding, ding, ding, the steamers bells begin to ring ; the people 
 on board to stir and wake ; the lights may be extinguished, 
 and take their turn of sleep ; the active boats shake them 
 selves, and push out into the river ; the great bridge opens, 
 and gives them passage ; the church-bells of the city begin to 
 clink ; the cavalry trumpets blow from the opposite bank ; the 
 sailor is at the wheel, the porter at his burden, the soldier at 
 
 his musket, and the priest at his prayers And lo ! in a 
 
 flash of crimson splendor, with blazing scarlet clouds running 
 
66 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 before his chariot, and heralding his majestic approach, God s 
 sun rises upon the world, and all nature wakens and brightens. 
 O glorious spectacle of light and life ! O beatific symbol of 
 Power, Love, Joy, Beauty ! Let us look at thee with humble 
 wonder, and thankfully acknowledge and adore. What gra 
 cious forethought is it, what generous and loving provision, 
 that deigns to prepare for our eyes and to soothe our hearts 
 with such a splendid morning festival ! For these magnificent 
 bounties of Heaven to us, let us be thankful, even that we 
 can feel thankful (for thanks surely is the noblest effort, as it 
 is the greatest delight, of the gentle soul) ; and so, a grace for 
 
 this feast, let all say who partake of it See ! the mist 
 
 clears off Drachenfels, and it looks out from the distance, and 
 bids us a friendly farewell." 
 
 Our second quotation describes Esmond at his mother s 
 grave, one of the most deeply affecting pieces of writing in 
 the language : 
 
 " Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring, 
 and saw, amidst a thousand black crosses, casting their shad 
 ows across the grassy mounds, that particular one which 
 marked his mother s resting-place. Many more of those poor 
 creatures that lay there had adopted that same name with 
 which sorrow had rebaptized her, and which fondly seemed to 
 hint their individual story of love and grief. He fancied her, 
 in tears and darkness, kneeling at the foot of her cross, under 
 which her cares were buried. Surely he knelt down, and said 
 his own prayer there, not in sorrow so much as in awe (for 
 even his memory had no recollection of her), and in pity for 
 the pangs which the gentle soul in life had been made to 
 suffer. To this cross she brought them ; for this heavenly 
 bridegroom she exchanged the husband who had wooed her, 
 the traitor who had left her. A thousand such hillocks lay 
 round about, the gentle daisies springing out of the grass over 
 them, and each bearing its cross and requicscat. A nun, 
 veiled in black, was kneeling hard by, at a sleeping sister s 
 
THACKERAY^S LITERARY CAREER. 6/ 
 
 bedside (so fresh made, that the spring had scarce had time to 
 spin a coverlid for it) ; beyond the cemetery walls you had 
 glimpses of life and the world, and the spires and gables of 
 the city. A bird came down from a roof opposite, and lit first 
 on a cross, and then on the grass below it, whence it flew 
 away presently with a leaf in its mouth : then came a sound 
 of chanting, from the chapel of the sisters hard by : others 
 had long since filled the place which poor Mary Magdalene 
 once had there, were kneeling at the same stall and hearing 
 the same hymns and prayers in which her stricken heart had 
 found consolation. Might she sleep in peace, might she 
 sleep in peace ; and we, too, when our struggles and pains 
 are over ! But the earth is the Lord s as the heaven is ; we 
 are alike his creatures here and yonder. I took a little flower 
 off the hillock and kissed it, and went my way like the bird 
 that had just lighted on the cross by me, back into the world 
 again. Silent receptacle of death ! tranquil depth of calm, 
 out of reach of tempest and trouble. I felt as one who had 
 been walking below the sea, and treading amidst the bones of 
 shipwrecks." 
 
 Looking at Mr. Thackeray s writings as a whole, he would 1 
 be more truthfully described as a sentimentalist than as a 
 cynic. Even when the necessities of his story compel him to 
 draw bad characters, he gives them as much good as he can. 
 We don t remember in his novels any utterly unredeemed 
 scoundrel except Sir Francis Clavering. Even Lord Steyne 
 has something like genuine sympathy with Major Pendennis s 
 grief at the illness of his nephew. And if reproof is the main 
 burden of his discourse, we must remember that to reprove, 
 not to praise, is the business of the preacher. Still further, if 
 his reproof appears sometimes unduly severe, we must remem 
 ber that such severity may spring from a belief that better 
 things are possible. Here lies the secret of Thackeray s seem- y 
 ing bitterness. His nature was, in the words of the critic in 
 " Le Temps," " furieuse d avoir ete desappointee." He con 
 demns sternly men as they often are, because he had a high 
 
68 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 ideal of what they might be. The feeling of this contrast 
 runs through all his writings. " He could not have painted 
 Vanity Fair as he has, unless Eden had been shining brightly 
 before his eyes." * And this contrast could never have been 
 left, the glories of Eden could never have been seen, by the 
 mere satirist or by the misanthrope. It has been often urged 
 against him that he does not make us think better of our 
 fellow-men. No, truly. But he does what is far greater than 
 this, he makes us think worse of ourselves. There is no 
 great necessity that we should think well of other people ; 
 there is the utmost necessity that we should know ourselves 
 in our every fault and weakness ; and such knowledge his 
 writings will supply. 
 
 In Mr. Hannay s Memoir, 2 which we have read with admi 
 ration and pleasure, a letter from Thackeray is quoted, very 
 illustrative of this view of his character : " I hate Juvenal ; I 
 mean, I think him a trucculent brute, and I love Horace better 
 than you do, and rate Churchill much lower ; and as for Swift, 
 you have n t made me alter my opinion. I admire, or rather 
 admit, his power as much as you do ; but I don t admire that 
 kind of power so much as I did fifteen years ago, or twenty 
 shall we say. Love is a higher intellectual exercise than 
 hatred" We think the terrible Dean had love as well as hate 
 strong within him, and none the worse in that it was more 
 special than general ; " I like Tom, Dick, and Harry," he 
 used to say ; " I hate the race ; " but nothing can be more 
 characteristic of Thackeray than this judgment. Love was 
 the central necessity of his understanding as well as of his 
 affections ; .it was his fulfilling of the law ; and unlike the 
 Dean, he could love Tom, and also like and pity as w r ell as re 
 buke the race. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray has not written any history formally so called. 
 But it is known that he purposed doing so, and in " Esmond " 
 
 1 Essays by George Brimley. Second edition. Cambridge, 1860. A collection of 
 singularly good critical papers. 
 
 * A Brief Memoir of the late Mr. Thackeray. By James Hannay, Edinburgh, 
 1864- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 69 
 
 and the " Lectures " he has given us much of the real essence 
 of history. The " Saturday Review," however, in a recent 
 article, has announced that this was a mistake ; that history 
 was not his line. Such a decision is rather startling. In one 
 or two instances of historical representation, Mr. Thackeray 
 may have failed. Johnson and Richardson do not appear in 
 the " Virginians " with much effect. But surely in the great 
 majority of instances, he has been eminently successful. 
 Horace Walpole s letter in the " Virginians," the fictitious 
 " Spectator " in " Esmond," are very felicitous literary imita 
 tions. Good-natured trooper Steele comforting the boy in the 
 lonely country-house ; Addison, serene and dignified, " with 
 ever so slight a touch of merum in his voice " occasionally ; 
 Bolingbroke, with a good deal of merum in his voice talking 
 reckless Jacobitism at the dinner at General Webbe s, are won 
 derful portraits. And, though the estimate of Marlborough s 
 character may be disputed, the power with which that charac 
 ter is represented cannot be questioned. But the historical 
 genius displayed in " Esmond " goes beyond this. We know 
 of no history in which the intrigues and confusion of parties at 
 the death of Queen Anne are sketched so firmly as in the 
 third volume of that work ; in fact, a more thorough historical 
 novel was never written. It is not loaded with historical 
 learning ; and yet it is most truly, though or rather because 
 unpretendingly, a complete representation of the time. It 
 reads like a veritable memoir. And it will hardly be disputed, 
 that a good historical novel cannot be written save by one 
 possessed of great historical powers. What are the qualities 
 necessary to a historian ? Knowledge, love of truth, insight 
 into human nature, imagination to make alive before him the 
 times of which he writes. All these Mr. Thackeray had. His\ 
 knowledge was accurate and minute, indeed, he could not 
 have written save of what he knew well ; a love of truth was 
 his main characteristic ; for insight into human nature he ranks 
 second to Shakespeare alone ; and, while he wanted that high 
 est creative imagination which makes the poet, he had pre 
 cisely that secondary imagination which serves the historian, 
 
70 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 which can realize the past and make the distant near. Had he 
 been allowed to carry out his cherished design of recording 
 the reign of Queen Anne, a great gap in the history of our 
 country would have been filled up by one of the most remark 
 able books in the language. We might have had less than is 
 usual of the " dignity of history," of battles and statutes and 
 treaties ; but we should have had more of human nature, 
 the actors in the drama would have been brought before us 
 living and moving, their passions and hidden motives made 
 clear ; the life of England would have been sketched by a 
 subtle artist ; the literature of England, during a period which 
 this generation often talks about, but of which it knows, we 
 suspect, very little, would have been presented to us lighted 
 up by appreciative and competent criticism. The Saturday 
 Reviewer gives a reason for Mr. Thackeray s failure as a his 
 torian, which will seem strange to those who have been ac 
 customed to regard him as a cynic. He was so carried away 
 by worth, says this ingenious critic bent on fault-finding, and 
 so impatient of all moral obliquity, that he could not value 
 fairly the services which had been rendered by bad men. 
 And the instance given is that a sense of what we owe to the 
 Hanoverian succession was not allowed to temper the severity 
 of the estimate given of the first two Georges ; an unfortu 
 nate instance, as the critic would have discovered had he read 
 the following passage in the lecture on George the Sec 
 ond : 
 
 " But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pre 
 tender back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we 
 should have had wars which the nation was not strong enough 
 nor united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels 
 and good-humored resistance, we might have had German 
 despots attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us ; we should 
 have had revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in 
 place of a quarter of a century of peace, freedom, and material 
 prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that cor- 
 rupter of parliaments, that dissolute, tipsy cynic, that cour- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. /I 
 
 ageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen, patriot, 
 and statesman governed it." 
 
 The truth is, that Mr. Thackeray, while fully appreciating 
 the blessings of the Hanoverian succession, knew well that 
 the country did not in the least degree owe the stability of 
 that succession to the Hanoverian kings, but, on the contrary, 
 to that great minister, whose character is sketched, in a 
 powerful passage, of which the above quotation is a part. In 
 fact, Mr. Thackeray judged no man harshly. No attentive 
 student of his works can fail to see that he understood the 
 duty of " making allowance," not less with regard to historical 
 characters, than with regard to characters of his own creation. 
 He does full justice, for example, to the courage and conduct 
 of Marlborough, as to whose moral character the opinion of 
 Colonel Esmond is in curious accordance with the historical 
 judgment given later to the public by Lord Macaulay. 
 
 These " Lectures on the Georges " were made the ground 
 of a charge against Mr. Thackeray of disloyalty. This charge 
 was urged with peculiar offensiveness by certain journals, 
 which insinuated that the failings of English kings had been 
 selected as a theme grateful to the American audiences who 
 first heard the lectures delivered. Mr. Thackeray felt this 
 charge deeply, and repelled it in language which we think 
 worthy to be remembered. At a dinner given to him in Edin 
 burgh, in 1857, he said : 
 
 " I had thought that in these lectures I had spoken in terms, 
 not of disrespect or unkindness, and in feelings and in lan 
 guage not un-English, of her Majesty the Queen ; and wher 
 ever I have had to mention her name, whether it was upon the 
 banks of the Clyde or upon those of the Mississippi, whether 
 it was in New England or in Old England, whether it was in 
 some great hall in London to the artisans of the suburbs of 
 the metropolis, or to the politer audiences of the western end, 
 wherever I had to mention her name, it was received with 
 shouts of applause, and with the most hearty cheers. And 
 
72 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 why was this ? It was not on account of the speaker ; it was 
 on account of the truth ; it was because the English and the 
 Americans the people of New Orleans a year ago, the 
 people of Aberdeen a week ago all received and acknowl 
 edged with due allegiance the great claims to honor which that 
 lady has who worthily holds that great and awful situation 
 which our Queen occupies. It is my loyalty that is called in 
 question, and it is my loyalty that I am trying to plead to you. 
 Suppose, for example, in America, in Philadelphia or in 
 New York, that I had spoken about George IV. in terms of 
 praise and affected reverence, do you believe they would have 
 hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with anything 
 * like respect ? They would have laughed in my face if I had 
 so spoken of him. They know what I know and you know, 
 and what numbers of squeamish loyalists who affect to cry 
 out against my lectures know, that that man s life was not a 
 good life, that that king was not such a king as we ought to 
 love, or regard, or honor. And I believe, for my part, that, in 
 speaking the truth, as we hold it, of a bad sovereign, we are 
 paying no disrespect at all to a good one. Far from it. On 
 the contrary, we degrade our own honor and the Sovereign s 
 by unduly and unjustly praising him ; and the mere slaverer 
 and flatterer is one who comes forward, as it were, with flash 
 notes, and pays with false coin his tribute to Caesar. I don t 
 disguise that I feel somehow on my trial here for loyalty, for 
 honest English feeling." 
 
 The judgment pronounced by the accomplished Scotch judge 
 who presided at this dinner-trial, a man far removed, both by 
 tastes and position, from any sympathy with vulgar popularity- 
 hunting, will be accepted by every candid person as just : 
 
 " I don t," said Lord Neaves, " for my part, regret if there 
 are some painful truths told in these lectures to those who had 
 before reposed in the pleasing delusion that everything royal 
 was immaculate. I am not sorry that some of the false trap 
 pings of royalty or of a court life should be stripped off. We 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 73 
 
 live under a Sovereign whose conduct, both public and private, 
 is so unexceptionable, that we can afford to look all the facts 
 connected with it in the face ; and woe be to the country or to 
 the crown when the voice of truth shall be stifled as to any 
 such matters, or when the only tongue that is allowed to be 
 heard is that of flattery." 
 
 It was said of Fontenelle that he had as good a heart as 
 could be made out of brains. Adapting the observation, we 
 may say of Thackeray that he was as good a poet as could be 
 made out of brains. The highest gifts of the poet of course 
 he wanted. His imagination, to take Ruskin s distinction, 
 was more penetrative than associative or contemplative. His 
 mind was too much occupied with realities for persistent ideal 
 work. But manliness and common sense, combined with a 
 perfect mastery of language, go a long way at least to the 
 making of very excellent verses. More than this, he had the 
 sensibility, the feeling of time and of numbers essential to 
 versifying ; and his mind fulfilled the condition required by 
 our greatest living poet : 
 
 " Clear and bright it should be ever, 
 Flowing like a crystal river." 
 
 His verse-making was a sort of pleasaunce, a flower-garden 
 in the midst of spacious policies. It was the ornamentation 
 of his intellect. His ballads do not perhaps show poetic feel 
 ing more profound than is possessed by many men ; they de 
 rive, for the most part, their charm from the same high quali 
 ties as mark his prose, with the attraction of music and rhyme 
 superadded. Writing them seems to have given him real 
 pleasure. The law of self-imposed restraint, of making the 
 thought often wait upon the sound, necessary in rhythmical 
 composition, rather than, as in prose, the sound upon the 
 sense, this measuring of feeling and of expression had 
 plainly a great charm for his rich and docile genius. His 
 verses give one the idea of having been a great delight to 
 himself, like humming a favorite air ; there is no trace of ef- 
 
74 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 fort, and yet the trick of the verse is perfect. His rhymes 
 are often as good as Swift s and Hood s. This feeling of en 
 joyment, as also the abounding fertility in strange rhymes, is 
 very marked in the White Squall ; and hardly less in the ease 
 and gayety of Peg of Limavaddy. Take, for instance, the de 
 scription of the roadside inn where Peg dispenses liquor : 
 
 " Limavaddy inn s 
 
 But a humble baithouse, 
 Where you may procure 
 
 Whiskey and potatoes ; 
 Landlord at the door 
 
 Gives a smiling welcome 
 To the shivering wights 
 
 Who to his hotel come. 
 Landlady within 
 
 Sits and knits a stocking, 
 With a wary foot 
 
 Baby s cradle rocking. 
 To the chimney nook, 
 
 Having found admittance, 
 There I watch a pup 
 
 Playing with two kittens ; 
 (Playing round the fire, 
 
 Which of blazing turf is, 
 Roaring to the pot 
 
 Which bubbles with the murphies) 
 And the cradled babe 
 
 Fond the mother nursed it, 
 Singing it a song 
 
 As she twists the worsted! " 
 
 Peg herself and her laugh, 
 
 " Such a silver peal ! 
 
 In the meadows listening, 
 You who ve heard the bells 
 
 Ringing to a christening ; 
 You who ever heard 
 
 Caradori pretty, 
 Smiling like an angel, 
 
 Singing Giovinetti ; 
 Fancy Peggy s laugh, 
 
 Sweet, and clear, and cheerful, 
 At my pantaloons 
 
 With half a pint of beer full ! 
 See her as she moves ! 
 
 Scarce the ground she touches, 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 75 
 
 Airy as a fay, 
 
 Graceful as a duchess ; 
 Bare her rounded arm, 
 
 Bare her little leg is, 
 Vestris never showed 
 
 Ankles like to Peggy s ; 
 Braided is her hair, 
 
 Soft her look and modest, 
 Slim her little waist 
 
 Comfortably boddiced." 
 
 . In a similar light and graceful style are the " Cane-Bottomed 
 Chair," " Piscator and Piscatrix," the " Carmen Lilliense," etc. ; 
 and all the Lyra Hibernica, especially the rollicking " Battle of 
 Limerick," are rich in Irish absurdity. That compact little epic, 
 the " Chronicle of the Drum," the well-known " Bouillabaisse," 
 and " At the Church Gate," the first literary effort of Mr. 
 Arthur Penclennis, seem to us in their various styles to rise 
 into the region of real poetry. The " Chronicle of the Drum " 
 is a grand martial composition, and a picture of the feelings of 
 the French soldiery which strikes on us at once as certainly 
 true. The ballads of Pleaceman X. are unique in literature, 
 as startlingly original as " Tarn O Shanter." " Jacob Hom- 
 nium s Hoss " is perhaps the most amusing, the " Foundling of 
 Shoreditch " the most serious ; but through them all there runs 
 a current of good sense, good feeling, and quaint fun which 
 makes them most pleasant reading. They remind one some 
 how of John Gilpin, indeed there is often the same playful 
 fancy and delicate pensiveness in Thackeray as in Cowper. 
 We should like to quote many of these ; but we give in pref 
 erence Miss Tickletoby s ballad on King Canute, long though 
 it be, because it is not included in the collected ballads, and 
 has not, we fear, obtained great popularity by being incor 
 porated into " Rebecca and Rowena," a rendering of poetical 
 justice less generally read than it should be : 
 
 KING CANUTE 
 
 King Canute was weary-hearted ; he had reigned for years a score ; 
 Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more, 
 And he thought upon his actipns, walking by the wild sea-shore. 
 
7 6 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Twixt the chancellor and bishop walked the king with steps sedate, 
 Chamberlains and grooms came after, silver sticks and gold sticks great, 
 Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages, all the officers of state. 
 
 Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause ; 
 
 If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws ; 
 
 If to laugh the king was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws. 
 
 But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young, 
 Thrice his grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleeman sung, 
 Once the queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue. 
 
 " Something ails my gracious master," cried the keeper of the seal ; 
 "Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served at dinner, or the veal ! " 
 " Psha! " exclaimed the angry monarch, " keeper, t is not that I feel. 
 
 " T is the heart and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair ; 
 Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care ? 
 Oh, I m sick, and tired, and weary." Some one cried, "The king s arm-chair! " 
 
 Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my lord the keeper nodded, 
 Straight the king s great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied, 
 Languidly he sank into it : it was comfortably wadded. 
 
 "Leading on my fierce companions," cried he, " over storm and brine, 
 I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine ! " 
 Loudly all the courtiers echoed, " Where is glory like to thine ? " 
 
 " What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now, arid old, 
 Those fair sons I have begotten long to see me dead and cold ; 
 Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould ! 
 
 " O remorse, the writhing serpent ! at my bosom tears and bites : 
 Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights ; 
 Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed of nights. 
 
 " Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires ; 
 
 Mothers weeping, virgins screaming, vainly for their slaughtered sires" 
 " Such a tender conscience," cries the bishop, " every one admires." 
 
 " But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to search, 
 They re forgotten and forgiven by our holy Mother Church ; 
 Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch. 
 
 " Look! the land is crowned with ministers, which your Grace s bounty raised ; 
 Abbeys filled with holy men, where yon and heaven are daily praised ; 
 you, my lord, to think of dying ? on my conscience, I m amazed ! " 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 77 
 
 11 Nay, I feel," replied King Canute, " that my end is drawing near ;" 
 " Don t say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear), 
 " Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year." 
 
 " Live these fifty years! " the bishop roared, with actions made to suit, 
 
 Are you mad, my good lord keeper, thus to speak of King Canute ! 
 
 Men have lived a thousand years, and sureJiis Majesty will do t. 
 
 "Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Canan, Mahaleel, Methusela, 
 
 Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn t the king as well as they?" 
 " Fervently," exclaimed the keeper, " fervently, I trust he may. 
 
 11 He to die," resumed the bishop. " He a mortal like to us? 
 Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus ; 
 Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus. 
 
 " With his wondrous skill in healing ne er a doctor can compete, 
 Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet; 
 Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet. 
 
 Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill, 
 
 And the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still ? 
 So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will." 
 
 " Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop? " Canute cried ; 
 "Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride? 
 If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide. 
 
 " Will the advancing waves obey me, bishop, if I make the sign ?" 
 Said the bishop, bowing lowly, " Land and sea, my lord, are thine." 
 Canute turned towards the ocean, " Back ! " he said, " thou foaming brine 
 
 " From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat ; 
 Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master s seat ; 
 Ocean, be thou still ! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet ! " 
 
 But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar, 
 
 And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore ; 
 
 Back the keeper and the bishop, back the king and courtiers bore. 
 
 And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay, 
 But alone to praise and worship that which earth and seas obey ; 
 And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day. 
 King Canute is dead and gone : parasites exist alway. 
 
 We must say a few words on his merits as an artist and a 
 critic of art. We can hardly agree with those who hold that 
 he failed as an artist, and then took to his pen. There is no 
 
78 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 proof of failure ; his art accomplishes all he sets it to. Had 
 he, instead of being a gentleman s son, brought up at the 
 Charter-house and Cambridge, been born in the parish of St. 
 Bartholomew the Great, and apprenticed, let us say, when 
 thirteen years old, to Raimbach the engraver, we might have 
 had another, and in some ways a subtler Hogarth. He draws 
 well ; his mouths and noses, his feet, his children s heads, all 
 his ugly and queer " mugs," are wonderful for expression and 
 good drawing. With beauty of man or woman he is not so 
 happy ; but his fun is, we think, even more abounding and 
 funnier in his cuts than in his words. The love of fun in him 
 was something quite peculiar. Some writers have been more 
 witty ; a few have had a more delicate humor ; but none, we 
 think, have had more of that genial quality which is described 
 by the homely \vord/##. It lay partly in imitation, as in the 
 " Novels by Eminent Hands." There were few things more 
 singular in his intellectual organization than the coincidence of 
 absolute originality of thought and style with exquisite mim 
 etic power. But it oftener showed itself in a pure love of non 
 sense, only nonsense of the highest order. He was very 
 fond of abandoning himself to this temper ; witness the 
 " Story a la Mode " in the " Cornhill," some of the reality- 
 giving touches in which would have done credit to Gulliver. 
 Major Gahagan is far funnier than Baron Munchausen ; and 
 where is there more exquisite nonsense than " The Rose and 
 the Ring," with the " little beggar baby that laughed and sang 
 as droll as may be ? " There is much of this spirit in his 
 ballads, l especially, as we have already said, the series by 
 
 1 We subjoin an astonishing piece of nonsense, a species of song, or ditty, which 
 he chanted, we believe, extempore^ [in singing, each line to be repeated twice] : 
 
 LITTLE BILLEE. 
 
 There were 3 sailors in Bristol city, 
 Who took a boat and went to sea. 
 
 But first with beef and captain s biscuit, 
 And pickled pork they loaded she. 
 
 There was guzzling Jack and gorging Jimmy, 
 And the youngest he was little Billee. 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 79 
 
 Pleaceman X. ; but we are inclined to think that it finds most 
 scope in his drawings. We well remember our surprise on 
 coming upon some of his earlier works for " Punch." Best of 
 
 Now very soon, they were so greedy, 
 They didn t leave not one split pea. 
 
 Says guzzling Jack to gorging Jimmy 
 " I am extremely hungaree." 
 
 Says gorging Jim to guzzling Jacky, 
 " We have no provisions, so we must eat we." 
 
 Says guzzling Jack to gorging Jimmy, 
 " O gorging Jim, what a fool you be ! 
 
 " There s little Bill is young and tender, 
 We re old and tough, so let s eat he." 
 
 " O Bill, we re going to kill and eat you, 
 So undo the collar of your chemie." 
 
 When Bill received this infumation 
 He used his pocket-handkerchie. 
 
 " O let me say my catechism, 
 As my poor mammy taught to me." 
 
 " Make haste, make haste,, says guzzling Jacky, 
 While Jim pulled out his snickersnee. 
 
 So Bill went up the maintop-gallant mast, 
 Where down he fell on his bended knee. 
 
 He scarce had come to the Twelfth Commandmen, 
 When up he jumps, "There s land, I see. 
 
 " There s Jerusalem and Madagascar, 
 And North and South Amerikee. 
 
 " There s the British fleet a riding at anchor, 
 With Admiral Nelson, K. C. B." 
 
 " So when they came to the admiral s vessel, 
 He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jinimee. 
 
 But as for little Bill, he made him 
 The captain of a seventy- three. 
 
8O WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 all was an impressive series illustrative of the following pas 
 sage in the " Times " of December 7, 1843 : "The agents of 
 the tract societies have lately had recourse to a new method of 
 introducing their tracts into Cadiz. The tracts were put into 
 glass bottles securely corked ; and, taking advantage of the 
 tide flowing into the harbor, they were committed to the 
 waves, on whose surface they floated towards the town, where 
 the inhabitants eagerly took them up on their arriving at the 
 shore. The bottles were then uncorked, and the tracts they 
 contain are supposed to have been read with much interest." 
 The purpose of the series is to hold up to public odium the 
 Dissenting tract-smuggler, Tractistero dissentero contraban- 
 distero. The first cut represents a sailor, " thirsty as the sea 
 man naturally is," rushing through the surf to seize the bottle 
 which has been bobbing towards him. " Sherry, perhaps," he 
 exclaims to himself and his friend. Second cut : the thirsty 
 expectant has the bottle in position, and is drawing the cork, 
 another mariner, and a little wondering boy, capitally drawn, 
 looking on. " Rum, I hope," is the thought of each. Lastly 
 we have the awful result : our friend holds up on the cork 
 screw to his companion and the universe " a Spanish transla 
 tion of the Cow-boy of Kensington Common," with an indig 
 nant " Tracts, by jingo ! " Then there is John Balliol, in 
 "Miss Tickletoby s Lectures," "cutting " into England on a 
 ragged sheltie, which is trotting like a maniac over a series of 
 boulders, sorely discomposing the rider, whose kilt is of the 
 shortest. Even better is the cut illustrative of the ballad of 
 " King Canute," the king and his courtiers on the shore, with 
 bathing-machines and the Union-Jack in the distance ; and a 
 most preposterous representation of the non Angli sed Angeli 
 story. We wish Mr. Thackeray s excellent friends, the pro 
 prietors of " Punch," would reprint all his odds and ends, with 
 their wood-cuts. They will get the laughter and gratitude of 
 mankind if they do. 
 
 He is, as far as we recollect, the only great author who 
 illustrated his own works. This gives a singular completeness 
 to the result. When his pen has said its say, then comes his 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 8 1 
 
 pencil and adds its own felicity. Take the original edition 
 of the Book of Snobs, all those delicious Christmas little 
 quartos, especially " Mrs. Perkins s Ball " and the " Rose and 
 the Ring " (one of the most perfectly realized ideas we know 
 of), and see how complete is the duet between the eye and the 
 mind, between word and figure. There is an etching in the 
 " Paris Sketch-Book " which better deserves to be called 
 "high art " than most of the class so called. It is Majesty in 
 the person of " Le Grand Monarque " in and stripped of its 
 externals, which are there also by themselves. The lean and 
 slippered old pantaloon is tottering peevishly on his staff, his 
 other hand in his waistcoat pocket ; his head absolutely bald ; 
 his whole aspect pitiable and forlorn, querulous and absurd. 
 To his left is his royal self, in all his glory of high-heeled 
 boots, three-storied flowing wig, his orders, and sword, and all 
 his "dread magnificence," as we know him in his pictures ; on 
 his right we behold, and somehow feel as if the old creature, 
 too, is in awe of them, his clothes, per se, the " proper 
 ties " of the great European actor, set .ingeniously up, and 
 looking as grand and much steadier than with him inside. 
 The idea and the execution are full of genius. The frontis 
 piece of the same book contains a study of Heads, than which 
 Hogarth certainly never did anything better. These explan 
 atory lines are below the picture : 
 
 " Number i s an ancient Carlist ; number 3 a Paris artist ; 
 Gloomily there stands between them number 2, a Bonapartist ; 
 In the middle is King Louis Philip standing at his ease, 
 Guarded by a loyal grocer, and a serjeant of police ; 
 
 4 s the people in a passion ; 6 a priest of pious mien ; 
 
 5 a gentleman of fashion copied from a magazine/ 
 
 No words can do justice to the truth and power of this group 
 of characters : it gives a history of France during the Orleans 
 dynasty. 
 
 It would not be easy to imagine better criticisms of art than 
 
 those from Mr. Thackeray s hand in " Fraser," in " Punch," 
 
 in a kindly and beautiful paper on our inimitable John Leech 
 
 in the " Quarterly," in a Roundabout on Rubens, and through- 
 
 6 
 
$2 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 out his stories, especially the " Newcomes," wherever 
 art comes in. He touches the matter to the quick, and 
 touches nothing else ; and, while sensitive to all true and 
 great art, he detects and detests all that is false or mean,. He 
 is not so imaginative, not so impassioned and glorious, not so 
 amazing in illustration, and in painting better than pictures, as 
 Mr. Ruskin, who has done more for art and its true interests 
 than all other writers. But he is more to be trusted because 
 he is more objective, more cool, more critical in the true sense. 
 He sees everything by the lumen siccum, though it by no 
 means follows that he does not feel as well as see ; but here, 
 as in everything else, his art " has its seat in reason, and is 
 judicious." Here is his description of Turner s Old Te- 
 meraire, from a paper on the Royal Academy in " Fraser." 
 We can give it no higher praise than that it keeps its own 
 with Ruskin s : 
 
 " I must request you to turn your attention to a noble river 
 piece, by J. W. M. Turner, Esq., R. A., < The Fighting Te- 
 meraire, as grand a painting as ever figured on the walls of 
 any academy, or came from the easel of any painter. The old 
 Temeraire is dragged to her last home by a little, spiteful, 
 diabolical steamer. A mighty red sun, amidst a host of flaring 
 clouds, sinks to rest on one side of the picture, and illumines 
 a river that seems interminable, and a countless navy that 
 fades away into such a wonderful distance as never was 
 painted before. The little demon of a steamer is belching out 
 a volume (why do I say a volume ? not a hundred volumes 
 could express it) of foul, lurid, red-hot, malignant smoke, pad 
 dling furiously, and lashing up the water round about it ; while 
 behind it (a cold, gray moon looking down on it), slow, sad, and 
 majestic, follows the brave old ship, with death, as it were, 
 
 written on her It is absurd, you will say (and with a 
 
 great deal of reason), for Titmarsh or any other Briton to grow 
 so politically enthusiastic about a four-foot canvas, represent 
 ing a ship, a steamer, a river, and a sunset. But herein surely 
 lies the power of the great artist. He makes you see and 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 83 
 
 think of a great deal more than the objects before you ; he 
 knows how to soothe or to intoxicate, to fire or to depress, by 
 a few notes, or forms, or colors, of which we cannot trace the 
 effect to the source, but only acknowledge the power. I recol 
 lect some years ago, at the theatre at Weimar, hearing Bee 
 thoven s Battle of Vittoria, in which, amidst a storm of glori 
 ous music, the air of God save the King was introduced. " The 
 very instant it begun, every Englishman in the house was bolt 
 upright, and so stood reverently until the air was played out. 
 Why so ? From some such thrill of excitement as makes us 
 glow and rejoice over Mr. Turner and his i Fighting Teme- 
 raire, which I am sure, when the art of translating colors into 
 poetry or music shall be discovered, will be found to be a 
 magnificent national ode or piece of music." 
 
 When speaking of " The Slave Ship " by the same amazing 
 artist, he says, with delightful naivete : " I don t know whether 
 it is sublime or ridiculous," a characteristic instance of his 
 outspoken truthfulness ; and he lays it down that the " first 
 quality of an artist is to have a large heart," believing that all 
 art, all imaginative work of the highest order, must originate 
 in and be addressed to the best powers of the soul, must 
 " submit the shows of things to the desires of the mind." 
 
 Mr. Trollope says, in the " Cornhill " for this February, 
 " That which the world will most want to know of Thackeray 
 is the effect which his writings have produced." In one sense 
 of the word, the world is not likely ever to find this out ; it is 
 a matter which each man must determine for himself. But 
 the world can perhaps ascertain what special services Mr. 
 Thackeray has rendered ; and it is this probably which Mr.. 
 Trollope means. His great service has been in his exposure 
 of the prevailing faults of his time. Among the foremost are 
 the faults of affectation and pretense, but there is one yet 
 more grievous than these, the skeptical spirit of the age. 
 This he has depicted in the gentlest and saddest of all his 
 books, " Pendennis " : 
 
84 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 " And it will be seen that the lamentable stage to which his 
 logic at present has brought him " (Arthur Pendennis) " is one 
 of general skepticism and sneering acquiescence in the 
 world as it is ; or if you like so to call it, a belief qualified 
 
 with scorn in all things extant And to what does this 
 
 easy and skeptical life lead a man ? Friend Arthur was a 
 Sadducee, and the Baptist might be in the wilderness shouting 
 to the poor, who were listening with all their might and faith 
 to the preacher s awful accents and denunciations of wrath or 
 woe or salvation ; and our friend the Sadducee would turn his 
 sleek mule with a shrug and a smile from the crowd, and go 
 home to the shade of his terrace, and muse over preacher and 
 audience, and turn to his roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek 
 song-book babbling of honey and Hybla, and nymphs and 
 fountains .and love. To what, we say, does this skepticism 
 lead ? It leads a man to a shameful loneliness and selfish 
 ness, so to speak, the more shameful, because it is so good- 
 humored and conscienceless and serene. Conscience ! What 
 is conscience ? Why accept remorse ? What is public or 
 private faith ? Mythuses alike enveloped in enormous tradi 
 tion." 
 
 The delineation is not a pleasant one, but it is true. The 
 feeling hardly deserves to be called skepticism ; it is rather a 
 calm inclifferentism, a putting aside of all things sacred. And 
 as the Sadducees of Judea were, on the whole, better men 
 than the Pharisees, so this modern Sadducean feeling prevails 
 not only among the cultivated classes, but among those con 
 spicuously honorable and upright, These men, in fact, want 
 spiritual guides and teachers. The clergy do not supply this 
 want ; most of them refuse to acknowledge its existence ; 
 Mr. Thackeray, with his fearless truthfulness, sees it and tells 
 it. To cure it is not within his province. As a lay-preacher, 
 only the secondary principles of morality are at his command. 
 "Be each, pray God, a gentleman," is his highest sanction. 
 But though he cannot tell the afflicted whither to turn, it is no 
 slight thing to have laid bare the disorder from which so many 
 
THACKERAY^S LITERARY CAREER. 85 
 
 suffer, and which all, with culpable cowardice, study to con 
 ceal. And he does more than lay bare the disorder ; he con 
 vinces us how serious it is. He does this by showing us its 
 evil effect on a good and kindly nature. No teaching can be 
 more impressive than the contrast between Pendennis under 
 the influence of this skeptical spirit, and Warrington, over 
 whom, crushed as he is by hopeless misfortune, it has no 
 power. 
 
 The minor vices of affectation and pretension he assails 
 /directly. To do this was his especial mission from the first. 
 What success may have attended his efforts we cannot cer 
 tainly tell. It is to be feared, however, that, despite his teach 
 ing, snobs, like poverty, will never cease out of the land. 
 But all who feel guilty, and every one of us is guilty more 
 or less, and who desire to amend, should use the means : 
 the " Book of Snobs " should be read carefully at least once a 
 year. His was not the hortatory method. He had no notion 
 that much could be done by telling people to be good. He 
 found it more telling to show that by being otherwise they 
 were in danger of becoming unhappy, ridiculous, and con 
 temptible. Yet he did not altogether neglect positive teach 
 ing. Many passages might be taken from his works even 
 from the remorseless " Book of Snobs " itself which incul 
 cate the beauty of goodness ; and the whole tendency of his 
 writings, from the first to the last line he penned during a long 
 and active literary life, has invariably been to inspire reverence 
 for manliness and purity and truth. And to summon up all, 
 in representing after his measure the characteristics of the 
 age, Mr. Thackeray has discharged one of the highest func 
 tions of a writer. His keen insight into modern life has en 
 abled him to show his readers that life fully ; his honesty and 
 high tone of mind has enabled him to do this truly. Hence 
 he is the healthiest of writers. In his pages we find no false 
 stimulus, no pernicious ideals, no vulgar aims. We are led to 
 look at things as they really are, and to rest satisfied with our 
 place among them. Each man learns that he can do much if 
 he preserves moderation ; that if he goes beyond his proper 
 
86 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 sphere he is good for nothing. He teaches us to find a fitting 
 field for action in our peculiar studies or business, to reap 
 lasting happiness in the affections which are common to 
 all. Our vague longings are quieted ; our foolish ambitions 
 checked ; we are soothed into contentment with obscurity, 
 encouraged in an honest determination to do our duty. 
 
 A " Roundabout Paper " on the theme Nil nisi bonum con 
 cludes thus : 
 
 " Here are two literary men gone to their account ; and, 
 laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair, and open, and clean. 
 Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explana 
 tions of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoid 
 able, etc. Here are two examples of men most differently 
 gifted : each pursuing his calling ; each speaking his truth as 
 God bade him ; each honest in his life ; just and irreproach 
 able in his dealings ; dear to his friends ; honored by his 
 country ; -beloved at his fireside. It has been the fortunate 
 lot of both to give incalculable happiness and delight to the 
 world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindli 
 ness, respect, affection. It may not be our chance, brother- 
 scribe, to be endowed with such merit or rewarded with such 
 fame. But the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our 
 service. We may not win the baton or epaulettes ; but God 
 give us strength to guard the honor of the flag ! " 
 
 The prayer was granted : he had strength given him always 
 to guard the honor of the flag ; and now his name is worthy 
 to be placed beside the names of Washington Irving and Lord 
 Macaulay, as of one no whit less deserving the praise of these 
 noble words. 
 
 We have seen no satisfactory portrait of Mr. Thackeray. 
 We like the photographs better than the prints ; and we have 
 an old daguerreotype of him without his spectacles which is 
 good ; but no photograph can give more of a man than is in 
 any one ordinary often very ordinary look of him ; it is 
 only Sir Joshua and his brethren who can paint a man liker 
 than himself. Laurence s first drawing has much of his thor- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 8/ 
 
 oughbred look, but the head is too much tossed up and vif. 
 The photograph from the later drawing by the same hand we 
 like better : he is alone, and reading with his book close up 
 to his eyes. This gives the prodigious size and solidity of his 
 head, and the sweet mouth. We have not seen that by Mr. 
 Watts, but, if it is as full of power and delicacy as his Tenny 
 son, it will be a comfort. 
 
 Though in no sense a selfish man, he had a wonderful in 
 terest in himself as an object of study, and nothing could be 
 more delightful and unlike anything else than to listen to him 
 on himself. He often draws his own likeness in his books. 
 In the " Fraserians," by Maclise, in " Eraser," is a slight 
 sketch of him in his unknown youth ; and there is an exces 
 sively funny and not unlike extravaganza of him by Doyle or 
 Leech, in the " Month," a little short-lived periodical, edited 
 by Albert Smith. He is represented lecturing, when certainly 
 he looked his best. 
 
 The foregoing estimate of his genius must stand instead of 
 any special portraiture of the man. Yet we would mention 
 two leading traits of character traceable, to a large extent, in 
 his works, though finding no appropriate place in a literary 
 criticism of them. One was the deep steady melancholy of 
 his nature. He was fond of telling how on one occasion, at 
 Paris, he found himself in a great crowded salon; and looking 
 from the one end across the sea of heads, being in Swift s 
 place of calm in a crowd, 1 he saw at the other end a strange 
 visage, staring at him with an expression of comical woebe- 
 goneness. After a little he found that this rueful being was 
 himself in the mirror. He was not, indeed, morose. He was 
 alive to and thankful for every-day blessings, great and small ; 
 for the happiness of home, for friendship, for wit and music, 
 for beauty of all kinds, for the pleasures of the " faithful old 
 gold pen " ; now running into some felicitous expression, now 
 playing itself into some droll initial letter ; nay, even for the 
 creature comforts. But his persistent state, especially for the 
 
 1 " An inch or two above it." 
 
88 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 later half of his life, was profoundly morne, there is no 
 other word for it. This arose in part from temperament, from 
 a quick sense of the littleness and wretchedness of mankind. 
 His keen perception of the meanness and vulgarity of the re 
 alities around him contrasted with the ideal present to his 
 mind could produce no other effect. This feeling, embittered 
 by disappointment, acting on a harsh and savage nature, ended 
 in the sceva indignatio of Swift ; acting on the kindly and too 
 sensitive nature of Mr. Thackeray, it led only to compassion 
 ate sadness. In part, too, this melancholy was the result of 
 private calamities. He alludes to these often in his writings, 
 and a knowledge that his sorrows were great is necessary to 
 the perfect appreciation of much of his deepest pathos. We 
 allude to them here, painful as the subject is, mainly because 
 they have given rise to stories, some quite untrue, some 
 even cruelly injurious. The loss of his second child in infancy 
 was always an abiding sorrow, described in the " Hoggarty 
 Diamond," in a passage of surpassing tenderness, too sacred 
 to be severed from its context. A yet keener and more con 
 stantly present affliction was the illness of his wife. He mar 
 ried her in Paris when he was " mewing his mighty youth," 
 preparing for the great career which awaited him. One likes 
 to think on these early .days of happiness, when he could draw 
 and write with that loved companion by his side : he has him 
 self sketched the picture : " The humblest painter, be he ever 
 so poor, may have a friend watching at his easel, or a gentle 
 wife sitting by with her work in her lap, and with fond smiles 
 or talk or silence, cheering his labors." After some years of 
 marriage, Mrs. Thackeray caught a fever, brought on by im 
 prudent exposure at a time when the effects of such ailments 
 are more than usually lasting both on the system and the 
 nerves. She never afterwards recovered so as to be able to 
 be with her husband and children. But she has been from the 
 first intrusted to the good offices of a kind family, tenderly 
 cared for, surrounded with every comfort by his unwearied 
 affection. The beautiful lines in the ballad of the " Bouilla 
 baisse " are well known : --- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 89 
 
 " Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting 3 
 
 I mind me of a time that s gone, 
 When here I d sit as now I m sitting, 
 
 In this same place, but not alone. 
 A fair young form 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." 
 
 In one of the latest " Roundabouts " we have this touching 
 confession : " I own for my part that, in reading pages which 
 this hand penned formerly, I often lose sight of the text under 
 my eyes. It is not the words I see ; but that past day ; that 
 by-gone page of life s history ; that tragedy, comedy it may 
 be, which our little home-company was enacting ; that merry 
 making which we shared ; that funeral which we followed ; 
 that bitter, bitter grief which we buried." But all who knew 
 him know well, and love to recall, how these sorrows were 
 soothed and his home made a place of happiness by his two 
 daughters and his mother, who were his perpetual compan 
 ions, delights, and blessings, and whose feeling of inestimable 
 loss now will be best borne and comforted by remembering 
 how they were everything to him, as he was to them. 
 
 His sense of a higher Power, his reverence and godly fear, 
 is felt more than expressed as indeed it mainly should al 
 ways be in everything he wrote. It comes out at times 
 quite suddenly, and stops at once, in its full strength. We 
 could readily give many instances of this. One we give, as it 
 occurs very early, when he was probably little more than six- 
 and- twenty ; it is from the paper, " Madam Sand and the 
 New Apocalypse." Referring to Henri Heine s frightful 
 words, " Dieu qui se meurt," " Dieu est mort," and to the wild 
 godlessness of " Spiridion," he thus bursts out : " O awful, 
 awful name of God ! Light unbearable ! mystery unfathom 
 able ! vastness immeasurable ! Who are these who come 
 forward to explain the mystery, and gaze unblinking into the 
 depths of the light, and measure the immeasurable vastness to 
 a hair ? O name that God s people of old did fear to utter ! 
 O light that God s prophet would have perished had he seen ! 
 
go WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 who are these now so familiar with it ? " In ordinary inter 
 course the same sudden " Te Deum " would occur, always brief 
 and intense, like lightning from a cloudless heaven ; he seemed 
 almost ashamed, not of it, but of his giving it expression. 
 
 We cannot resist here recalling one Sunday evening in 
 December, when he was walking with two friends along the 
 Dean road to the west of Edinburgh, one of the noblest 
 outlets to any city. It was a lovely evening, such a sunset 
 as one never forgets : a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over 
 the sun, going down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed 
 in amethystine bloom ; between this cloud and the hills there 
 was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color, 
 lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clear 
 ness ; every object standing out as if etched upon the sky. 
 The northwest end of Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and 
 rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance, and there a 
 wooden crane, used in the quarry below, was so placed as to 
 assume the figure of a cross ; there it was, unmistakable, 
 lifted up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at it 
 silently. As they gazed, he gave utterance in a tremulous, 
 gentle, and rapid voice, to what all were feeling, in the word 
 " CALVARY ! " The friends walked on in silence, and then 
 turned to other things. All that evening he was very gentle 
 and serious, speaking, as he seldom did, of divine things, 
 of death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation ; expressing his 
 simple faith in God and in his Saviour. 
 
 There is a passage at the close of the " Roundabout Paper," 
 No. XXIII., " De Finibus," in which* a sense of the ebb of life 
 is very marked : the whole paper is like a soliloquy. It opens 
 with a drawing of Mr. Punch, with unusually mild eye, retiring 
 for the night ; he is putting out his high-heeled shoes, and be 
 fore disappearing gives a wistful look into the passage, as if 
 bidding it and all else good-night. He will be in bed, his 
 candle out, and in darkness, in five minutes, and his shoes 
 found next morning at his door, the little potentate all the 
 while in his final sleep. The whole paper is worth the most 
 careful study ; it reveals not a little of his real nature, and un- 
 
THACKERAY S LITERARY CAREER. 91 
 
 folds very curiously the secret of his work, the vitality, and 
 abiding power of his own creations ; how he " invented a cer 
 tain Costigan, out of scraps, heel-taps, odds and ends of 
 characters," and met the original the other day, without sur 
 prise, in a tavern parlor. The following is beautiful : " Years 
 ago I had a quarrel with a certain well-known person (I be 
 lieved a statement regarding him which his friends imparted 
 to me, and which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his 
 dying day that quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his 
 brother, Why is your brother s soul still dark against me ? 
 // is I who ought to be angry and unforgiving, for I was in 
 the wrong? " Odisse quern Iceseris was never better contra 
 vened. But what we chiefly refer to now is the profound pen- 
 siveness of the following strain, as if written with a presenti 
 ment of what was not then very far off : " Another Finis 
 written ; another milestone on this journey from birth to the 
 next world. Sure it is a subject for solemn cogitation. Shall 
 we continue this story-telling business, and be voluble to the 
 end of our age ? " " Will it not be presently time, O prattler, 
 to hold your tongue ? " And thus he ends : 
 
 " Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages ; oh, the cares, 
 the ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conversa 
 tions over and over again ! But now and again a kind thought 
 is recalled, and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few 
 chapters more, and then the last ; after which, behold Finis 
 itself comes to an end, and the Infinite begins." 
 
 He sent the proof of this paper to his " dear neighbors," in 
 Onslow Square, to whom he owed so much almost daily 
 pleasure, with his corrections, the whole of the last paragraph 
 in manuscript, and above a first sketch of it also in MS., 
 which is fuller and more impassioned. His fear of " enthu 
 siastic writing" had led him, we think, to sacrifice something 
 of the sacred power of his first words, which we give with 
 its interlineations : 
 
 " Another Finis, another slice of life which Tempus edax 
 has devoured ! And I may have to write the word once or 
 
92 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 twice perhaps, and then an end of Ends. Finite is over, and 
 Infinite beginning. Oh the troubles, the cares, the ennui, the 
 
 disputes, 
 
 complications, the repetitions, the old conversations over and 
 over again, and here and there and oh the delightful passages, 
 the dea^j.the brief, the forever remembered ! And then A few 
 chapters more, and then the last, and then behold Finis itself 
 coming to an end and the Infinite beginning ! " 
 
 How like music this, like one trying the same air in dif 
 ferent ways ; as it were, searching out and sounding all its 
 depths. " The dear, the brief, the forever remembered ; " 
 these are like a bar out of Beethoven, deep and melancholy as 
 the sea ! He had been suffering on Sunday from an old and 
 cruel enemy. He fixed with his friend and surgeon to come 
 again on Tuesday ; but with that dread of anticipated pain, 
 which is a common condition of sensibility and genius, he put 
 him off with a note from " yours unfaithfully, W. M. T." He 
 went out on Wednesday for a little, and .came home at ten. 
 He went to his room suffering much, but declining his man s 
 offer to sit with him. He hated to make others suffer. He 
 was heard moving, as if in pain, about twelve, on the eve of 
 
 "The happy morn, 
 
 Wherein the Son of Heaven s eternal King, 
 
 Of wedded maid, and virgin-mother born, 
 
 Our great redemption from above did bring." 
 
 Then all was quiet, and then he must have died in a mo 
 ment. Next morning his man went in, and opening the win 
 dows found his master dead, his arms behind his head, as if 
 he had tried to take one more breath. We think of him as of 
 our Chalmers ; found dead in like manner ; the same child 
 like, unspoiled open face ; the same gentle mouth ; the same 
 spaciousness and softness of nature ; the same look of power. 
 What a thing to think of, his lying there alone in the dark, 
 in the midst of his own mighty London ; his mother and his 
 daughters asleep, and, it may be, dreaming of his goodness. 
 God help them, and us all ! What would become of us, stum- 
 
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 93 
 
 bling along this our path of life, if we could not, at our utmost 
 need, stay ourselves on Him ? 
 
 Long years of sorrow, labor, and pain had killed him before 
 his time. It was found after death how little life he had to 
 live. He looked always fresh with that abounding silvery 
 hair, and his young, almost infantine face, but he was worn to 
 a shadow, and his hands wasted as if by eighty years. With 
 him it is the end of Ends ; finite is over, and infinite begun. 
 What we all felt and feel can never be so well expressed as 
 in his own words of sorrow for the early death of Charles 
 Buller : - 
 
 " Who knows the inscrutable design? 
 
 Blessed be He who took and gave ! 
 Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, 
 
 Be weeping at her darling s grave ? 
 We bow to Heaven that willed it so, 
 
 That darkly rules the fate of all, 
 That sends the respite or the blow, 
 
 That s free to give, or to recall. 7 
 
 SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 
 
 " You have asked me to give you my recollections of 
 Thackeray, but not, I trust, with the expectation that they 
 would consist of a string of piquant anecdotes and witticisms, 
 or contain any new and striking revelations in regard to his 
 life or character. For the former object a better memory and 
 more pointed pen perhaps I might rather say, a more active 
 imagination than mine would be required, and for the latter 
 a more extended and intimate knowledge of the man. 
 
 " I saw him for the first time a day or two after his arrival 
 in America on his first visit, and I saw him for the last time a 
 few weeks before his death. 
 
 " Like the rest of the world, I had exclaimed, on reading the 
 opening chapters of Vanity Fair, i Fielding redivivus ! and 
 it was therefore with a feeling of curiosity and elation, the 
 capacity for which has been seriously impaired by time, that I 
 accepted the invitation of a friend, himself a man of eminence 
 in the world of letters, to meet the author who had given me 
 so much delight, and whose fame had ]ust reached its zenith. 
 
94 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 " It is rarely that the appearance of a distinguished man 
 corresponds with our expectations ; but the fault is in our 
 selves, or rather in the nature of things. People are often 
 disappointed in their first view of the Alps : they expect to be 
 enraptured or stunned before their eyes or their minds have 
 grasped the features which constitute the beauty and sublimity 
 of the scene ; whereas this effect can only follow a process in 
 which the first step is to get rid of one s false impressions, 
 and there Is nothing more jarring to the mind than a rectifica 
 tion of its misconceptions. Let us afterward compare the 
 reality, full of force and character, with the vague and color 
 less image we had formed for ourselves, and we shall know 
 what we have gained. 
 
 " Good portraits of Thackeray are so common, and so many 
 of your readers saw him in the lecture-room, that I need not 
 describe his person. The misshaped nose, so broad at the 
 bridge, and stubby at the end, was the effect of an early 
 accident. His near-sightedness, unless hereditary, must have 
 had, I think, a similar origin, for no man had less the appear 
 ance of a student who had weakened his sight by application 
 to books. In his gestures especially in the act of bowing to 
 a lady there was a certain awkwardness, made more con 
 spicuous by his tall, well-proportioned, and really commanding 
 figure. His hair, at forty, was already gray, but abundant and 
 massy ; the cheeks had a ruddy tinge and there was no sallow- 
 ness in the complexion ; the eyes, keen and kindly even when 
 they wore a sarcastic expression, twinkled sometimes through 
 and sometimes over the spectacles. What I should call the 
 predominant expression of the countenance was courage a 
 readiness to face the world on its own terms, without either 
 bawling or whining, asking no favors, yielding, if at all, from 
 magnanimity. I have seen but two faces in which this ex 
 pression, coupled with that of high intellectual power, was 
 equally striking those of Daniel Webster and Thomas Car- 
 lyle. But the former had a saturnine gloom even in its anima 
 tion, and the latter a variety and intensity of expression, which 
 were absent from Thackeray s. 
 
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 95 
 
 " On the evening of which I speak I sat beside him some 
 time in the library an apartment of which he has made 
 mention in the opening sentence of The Virginians. A 
 variety of topics, chiefly literary, were discussed. His own 
 manner soon made it impossible, even for one who in every 
 sense looked up to him, to be otherwise than familiar in tone. 
 No one was more thoroughly high-bred, but no one more 
 averse to formality, and there was consequently no fencing 
 required before one could feel at ease with him. His expres 
 sions at times were tolerably blunt. Speaking of Carlyle, he 
 
 said, Why don t he hang up his d d old fiddle ? adding, 
 
 however, in reference to the " Life of Sterling," then recently 
 published, Yes, a wonderful writer ! What could you or /(!) 
 have made of such a subject ? He went on to praise Car- 
 lyle s dignity of character : He would not go round making a 
 show of himself, as I am doing. i But he has lectured. He 
 did it once, and was done with it. 
 
 " When I was going away, and had reached the farther end 
 of a vacant drawing-room, a voice, which had already grown 
 familiar to my ear, called after me from the half-opened glass 
 door of the library, 1 1 say ! come and dine with me to-morrow 
 at two-thirty. While I was gladly accepting the invitation 
 the host came out and took us both back to smoke, the ladies 
 and other guests having in the mean time left. We sat till a 
 late, or rather early, hour. Thackeray was at that time a 
 furious smoker, choosing the strongest cigars and dispatching 
 them in rapid succession. Part of the talk ran on Dickens, of 
 whom he spoke in a somewhat different strain from what he 
 used in public. Our host had introduced the subject by 
 saying, after some censure of that popular novelist s extrav 
 agancies, But I like Dickens personally : he is so genial and 
 frank. Genial, yes, was the reply; but frank and a 
 twinkle came from over the spectacles well, frank as an 
 oyster. Dickens, he said afterwards, apropos of some 
 remarks on literary genius, is making ten thousand pounds a 
 year. He is very angry at me for saying so, but I will say it, 
 for it is true. He does n t like me : he knows that my books 
 
96 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 are a protest against his that if the one set are true, the 
 other must be false. But Pickwick is an exception : it is a 
 capital book. It is like a glass of good English ale. I wish I 
 had it to read before going to bed to-night. And he made a 
 slight inaudible motion with his lips, as if tasting the beverage 
 he had mentioned. 
 
 " During his stay in Boston at that time, as well as on a 
 second visit, I saw a good deal of him, both in company and 
 tete-a-tete. In his general manner he gave one the impres 
 sion of having a very large amount of vitality, without that 
 excess which makes some people restless and others bois 
 terous. I never heard him laugh heartily or talk vehemently, 
 nor do I believe that breeding or a deep experience of life had 
 so much to do with this as natural temperament. But neither 
 was there any appearance of ennui^ though a lassitude the 
 effect of ill-health, from which, though you would never have 
 suspected it, he was seldom free came over him at times, 
 especially in the small hours. In society he was almost 
 always animated, and he had the power of diffusing animation 
 over a somewhat frigid circle. 
 
 " One evening, when he was expected at a large dinner 
 party, where the other guests were already assembled, a gen 
 eral conversation sprung up we were sitting in a semicircle 
 before a bright coal fire in reference to his lectures. Two 
 or three extremely well-read men, of a rather formal turn of 
 mind, did most of the talk, and indulged in a good deal of 
 carping criticism. It was not his depreciation of Swift and 
 Sterne, or his exaggerated laudation of Addison, of which 
 they complained, but of his calling Sir William Temple a prig 
 whereas Temple was in truth the very model of a gentle 
 man, who had written in a style which was charming, though 
 a little incorrect his talking of a place in the Pipe Office 
 in evident and deplorable ignorance of what the Pipe Office 
 was or had been, and similar matters. At the height, or 
 rather depth, of the discussion the subject of it entered, and 
 going round the circle shook hands with those he knew, and 
 finding they were by far the greater number, turned back to 
 
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKEKAY. 97 
 
 exchange the same greeting with those to whom he had 
 merely bowed when introduced. In a moment it seemed as if 
 a new spirit had taken possession of the company. It was 
 not that the theme was changed : on the contrary, though 
 dropped for a moment, most of the mooted points were again 
 taken up. But there was a life in the conversation which it 
 had wanted before. It was no longer a dry debate. On some 
 of the questions Thackeray owned himself wrong. He ad 
 mitted with a quizzical look his lack of information in regard 
 to the Pipe Office. But he stuck to the assertion that Stella 
 was a natural daughter of Temple, went over the facts from 
 which the inference was drawn, and in answer, not to a 
 counter-statement, but a demand for more sufficient proof, 
 said, I cannot prove it : it is apparent, like the broken nose 
 in my face. 
 
 " The French draw a distinction between Vhoiwne de genie 
 and Vhomme d"* esprit, meaning by the latter term not so much 
 the witty man, or the man of talent or even of intellect, but 
 rather the man whose powers, without being great or pro 
 found, are always at his service, who is never embarrassed or 
 at a loss in his particular line, which line, in a land where the 
 salon is an institution, always includes sparkling conversation. 
 Thackeray was a man of genius, but he possessed as much of 
 esprit as is compatible with genius. If seldom brilliant, he 
 was always self-possessed and ready. It is doubtful whether 
 those who knew him best and longest could make out a list of 
 his bon-mots which would bear repeating ; but he could 
 always say a thing sufficiently good for the occasion, and in a 
 manner which set it off to advantage. Being challenged by a 
 lady for a rhyme to liniment, he replied immediately, with a 
 reference to the customary physician s fee in England, 
 
 When the doctor writes for liniment, 
 There is nothing but a guinea meant. 
 
 Another fair one going into raptures, on shipboard, over the 
 appearance of the foam-crested waves, and demanding a simile 
 in default of imagination on her own part, he said, They look 
 like white ponies racing over green fields. With a sly look he 
 7 
 
98 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 would take quick advantage of any slip of the tongue com 
 mitted by another. He told a story on one occasion of the 
 head-master of Eton having flogged over a hundred boys in 
 continuous succession for some joint offense. One would 
 have thought such a performance would have raised a re 
 bellion, said a listener. What were the boys meaning 
 the rest of the school * about ? Didn t they know what was 
 going on ? No, not till the next morning, when they woke 
 up and found they had been flogged. 
 
 " Such things, I well know, are not at all worth citing for 
 themselves, but, like his bright look and springing gait, they 
 were, in their abundance, indications of a quality which is 
 obvious enough in Thackeray s writings at least in the ear 
 lier ones but which was more conspicuous in his conversa 
 tion a quality which, for lack of a better term, I must call 
 animal spirits, though this carries with it a notion of effusive 
 ness and loud gayety that would not at all suit the description. 
 When a subject was seriously discussed he could talk gravely, 
 though with diminished fire, and was apt, when pressed, to 
 have recourse to banter. I doubt whether any one ever 
 induced him to say much about matters of religious belief or 
 feeling. What is called his cynicism showed itself occasion 
 ally. He defined the difference between Shakespeare and an 
 ordinary mind as a difference in the length of two maggots. 
 But much of his light talk was intended, not so much to con 
 ceal as to keep down a sensibility amounting almost to 
 womanliness which belonged to his nature, and which con 
 trasted, one might almost say, struggled, with the manliness 
 which was equally its characteristic. He could not read any 
 thing pathetic without actual discomfort, and was unable, for 
 example, to go through with the " Bride of Lammermoor." 1 
 I have heard him allude to some early sorrows, especially the 
 loss of a child, in a way which showed how sharp and painful 
 
 1 Yet Hawthorne expresses his surprise that Thackeray should have been able to 
 read some of his own pathos the final number of " The Newcomes " aloud, and 
 compares this coolness with his own emotion when he had read the last scene 01 
 "The Scarlet Letter" to his wife. 
 
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 99 
 
 was the recollection after the lapse of many years. That he 
 could sympathize warmly with others I infer from much that I 
 have heard. His well-known sensitiveness sprung perhaps 
 from the same root as his sensibility. I like Thackeray, an 
 English critic once said in my hearing, but I cannot respect 
 him he is so sensitive. But his sensitiveness made harsh 
 things distasteful to him even when he was not himself the 
 object of them. You fiend ! he said to a friend who was 
 laughing over a sharp attack on an acquaintance of both, and 
 refused to hear or read a word of it. 
 
 " Hawthorne says in his English Note-Books that he 
 had heard Thackeray could not endure to have servants about 
 him, feeling uneasy in their presence, and he goes on, a la 
 Hawthorne, to analyze the feeling. On his second visit to 
 America he brought with him an attendant who looked like a 
 good specimen of the best English domestics. I don t call 
 him my servant, he told me : * I call him my companion. I 
 found he didn t like the company down-stairs (this was at a 
 hotel), so I make him sit beside me at the table d hote? Yet 
 Thackeray was a man of aristocratic feelings, and the last 
 person in the w r orld to be hail fellow well met with every one 
 who chose to accost him. A touch on the shoulder from a 
 railway conductor after the manner of those gentlemanly 
 officials made the blood tingle in his finger-ends, and left a 
 feeling of indignation which burned anew as he recounted the 
 occurrence. He demanded civil treatment, but hauteur or 
 condescension was not in his disposition. Standing in no awe 
 of the highest, he had no wish to inspire awe in the lowest. 
 One day, after we had lunched together at Parker s, he handed 
 a gold-piece to the waiter, saying, My friend, will you do me 
 the favor to accept a sovereign ? < I am very much obliged 
 to you, Mr. Thackeray] was the man s reply : he had not 
 read " Vanity Fair " or " Esmond " I imagine, but he had 
 probably tasted their author s bounty on former occasions. 
 Yet Thackeray would sometimes be whimsically economical 
 for others. Don t leave this bit of paper, he would say to a 
 visitor who was laying down a card on the table ; it has cost 
 you two cents, and will be just as good for your next call. 
 
100 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 " It was on a bright day, though the month was November 
 and the place London, in 1863, that I called upon Thackeray 
 at his red-brick house the only one of the kind (so he 
 thought) in the metropolis looking out on the old oaks of 
 Kensington Gardens. There had been no correspondence be 
 tween us since I had seen him last, but two or three kindly 
 messages had reached me, and I had read a passage in a 
 letter to a friend at whose house we had met, in which he 
 wrote, How often I think I should like to be sitting with you 
 
 and Z. at the table in street, with that old butler putting 
 
 on another bottle of the 35 ! It was a little past noon, and I 
 was shown up to his bedroom, a large and cheerful apartment, 
 with little furniture besides the bed the bed in which so 
 shortly after he was to be found lying calm in death. There 
 was a dressing-room behind, to which he went at times while 
 making his toilette, keeping up the conversation through the 
 open door. His appearance showed a change for which I was 
 not prepared. It is hard to understand how his medical men 
 should have allowed him to continue writing with signs of im 
 pending apoplexy so apparent to the unprofessional eye. In 
 answer to my inquires about his health, he said he felt in 
 fernally old. What was missing in his manner was a sort of 
 light glee with which in former days he had been wont to tell 
 an anecdote or say a good thing. The twinkle, too, was less 
 bright, the lassitude more decided, and the sadness which lay 
 deep in his nature, and against which, I think, he always fought, 
 seemed to be gaining the upper hand. However, the sarcastic 
 power was not extinct, and he expended several flings on the 
 editor of a well-known literary paper a person of infinite 
 conceit and of never-failing ignorance. The war in America 
 formed, of course, one of the topics of talk. Thackeray ex 
 pressed no decided opinion, but his leanings were evidently on 
 the side of the South. Speaking of letter-writing, ( I had left 
 off, he said, corresponding with everybody but Sally Fairfax, 
 and you have killed her sweet creature ! He asked whether 
 I thought the North would ultimately beat, and on my assur 
 ance that its superior resources, combined with its persistent 
 
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 1OI 
 
 spirit, admitted of little doubt on that point, answered, with a 
 half sigh, I suppose so : you will tire them out at last. He 
 took a volume from a book-case to show me the autograph of 
 Washington on the fly-leaf. You have forgotten all about 
 him] he said: you care nothing now for his warnings. I 
 laughed, reminding him that I had always protested against 
 his idolatry for Washington. After chatting for an hour or 
 more, he changed his dressing-gown for a coat, and asked me 
 to go down to his library or rather to the room he had built 
 for this object, but which was not well suited to it, making 
 him consequently discontented with the house. An old lady 
 in black entered : My mother, he said, and presented me to 
 her. There was no strong resemblance that I noticed ; but 
 her face had a look of placid resoluteness inherent, I fancy, 
 in the stock, and she gave a vigorous description of a combat 
 she had carried on in the night with the agile insects that dis 
 turb slumber. She was the widow of a second husband, and 
 bore the name of Smith. She looked likely to survive her 
 son, and did in fact, though only by a few months. After a 
 while she went out, and Thackeray produced a box of Manil 
 las, but did not smoke himself. I envy you, he said and 
 I cannot help thinking, if the doctors had taken away his pen 
 instead of his cigar, they would have done at least equally 
 well. It was on this occasion that he mentioned the child who 
 had died so many years before. Even now, he said, I can 
 not bear to think of it. When he shook hands with me on 
 the door-step, he pointed to the oaks and said, You have no 
 such trees in America ; but they are dying. The appearance 
 of the top branches indicated as much ; and he too, from in 
 dications not less apparent he in whose character and intel 
 lect the strength of the oak was united with the beauty and 
 the sweetness of the lily he too was dying. 
 
 " It was with a shock, but not of surprise, that going into 
 Galignani s on Christmas morning I received the announce 
 ment that Thackeray was dead. Returning through the Rue 
 Rivoli, I passed a tailor s shop, which I had sometimes en 
 tered without recollecting till then that the name of the pro- 
 
102 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 prietor, M. Arendt, stands at the head of a characteristic 
 dedication in one of the great novelist s books. * 
 
 A FRIEND OF MY CHILDHOOD. 
 
 I suppose I must have pulled the bell very hard that day, 
 for otherwise I don t think she would have kept me waiting 
 twenty minutes, as she did. She was only my mother s ser 
 vant-woman, whose duty was to wait upon the dinner-table 
 and the door, the latter function being the more onerous one. 
 Looking back at my conduct over the lapse of eighteen years, 
 I am disposed to acknowledge that she was right in the ab 
 stract in punishing the inconsiderate impatience which made 
 me keep the door-bell upon a continuous ring till I was let in. 
 But how wrong did the event prove her ! Scarcely was I 
 warmed up to my work, when, turning my head, I saw a tall 
 gentleman with broad shoulders and a round face, whose look, 
 at first one of inquiry, and perhaps bewilderment as he tried 
 to distinguish the house he was in search of from among a 
 dozen, all chaiacterized by that unity of design which in Phil 
 adelphia strikes forcibly the intelligent foreigner, suddenly 
 changed to one of amusement, not, I thought then, unmixed 
 with approval, as he caught sight of me at my reprehensible 
 employment. And as I rang with a persistency which nothing 
 can now call from me, he stood on the bottom step (for it was 
 my mother whom he had come to see) with that expression in 
 which I found so little discouragement, still looking forth 
 from those great eyes of his, which had pierced deeply and 
 sternly so many of the false and hollow things of this world, 
 and which now, not, I am sure, for the first time, were bent 
 kindly down upon a rude boy and his ruder pranks. How 
 little did the latter know about the tall gentleman, and how 
 little too would he have cared even if he had known all there 
 was to know about him : known that then the age was beginning 
 to recognize its philosopher, whose lessons, sharp and bitter 
 enough at first, were to make it better and truer and purer, if 
 such a thing were possible of accomplishment. 
 
 But that he was tall I did know, and my standard of emi- 
 
A FRIEND OF MY CHILDHOOD. 103 
 
 nence was a purely physical one. Five feet eight I did not de 
 spise, but six feet alone commanded absolute and genuine re 
 spect ; and he, I believe, stood six feet one. The presump 
 tion which could keep such a height of perfection waiting at 
 the front door shocked me beyond expression. No, not be 
 yond expression, for the triumphant yell with which the hap 
 less servant-girl was greeted when at last she admitted me, 
 and I burst in exclaiming, " You have kept the tall gentleman 
 waiting half an hour ! " must have given, I think, some ade 
 quate idea of my feelings. To that incident may I not justly 
 look back with satisfaction ? Am I not right in taking pride 
 to myself for having amused for so long a time one whose 
 momentary attention the witty and the wise have thought it 
 no slight thing to have gained ? And who knows ? 
 perhaps he himself did not altogether forget it, and with the 
 two sturdy Bttben on the Rhine-boat, and those little men he 
 used to meet at Eton or on the play-ground of the Charter 
 house, may not the American boy also have found a place in 
 his kindly memory ? But I wish it clearly understood that I 
 did not force myself upon his acquaintance : no lion-hunting 
 can be laid to my charge. On the contrary, after giving him a 
 glance of approbation for proving such an effectual weapon to 
 me in subduing my enemy in the gate or rather the enemy 
 whose offense was that she was anywhere but in the gate I 
 did not, I can truly say, bestow another thought upon him till 
 I was sent for to afford him, at his own special request, the 
 honor of knowing me. Were there no servants in the kitchen 
 to be tormented ? No cats in the back yard to be chased with 
 wild halloo ? No rowdy boys in the alley with whom to frater 
 nize over pies of communistic mud ? No little sister up-stairs 
 much nicer than any tall gentleman, even though he might 
 have come from across the ocean and be thought a great deal 
 of by the grown-up people, that I should go out of my way to 
 see him, and abandon my cherished pursuits to listen to him 
 talking of what I did not understand, and did not believe was 
 worth understanding ? No : my position was a high one, and 
 I kept to it, for, though I gave up my occupations a little 
 
104 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 while and went down to the parlor, it was simply because po 
 liteness and filial obedience were the ruling motives of my 
 conduct. Of the first formal introduction to my friend I have 
 but a shadowy recollection. He said, I think, that he wanted 
 to know the impetuous little boy he had met outside ; but 
 nothing more which I can recall. My own share in the con 
 versation has entirely faded from my memory : it is probable 
 indeed that I had no share in it at all, being less at my ease 
 in the conventional sphere of a drawing-room than in the more 
 unconstrained atmosphere of a back alley. Yet in hours of 
 depression, when, in spite of the most sincere desire to think 
 favorably of mankind, I cannot fail to notice that I am not ap 
 preciated as I should be by the undiscerning world, and my 
 soul seeks consolation and forgetfulness from higher sources, 
 I half believe that when he went back to his own country, and 
 spoke there, as I have heard he did very often, of the pleasant 
 people he had met here, of the American friends he valued so 
 much, it was perhaps not without an arriere-pensee of his 
 noisy acquaintance of the doorstep in Locust Street. 
 
 The intercourse so tempestuously begun was threatened 
 with an early extinction, for my newly acquired friend re 
 turned soon after this to his home, where were the two little 
 girls whom he was fond of describing while saying that he 
 would not dare to bring them to this country, lest they should 
 come to despise the simple muslin gowns with which they 
 were then quite content ; home to the toil of the hard-worked 
 brain, the steady labor of the untiring pen, which was to give 
 us before it rested forever nothing indeed like his earlier 
 works, but much which we shall not willingly let die ; home 
 to England, in truth, but only that, having written the story of 
 certain of its kings, as he had before written the worthier his 
 tory of some of its unsceptred monarchs, whose sovereign 
 sway is over our spirits still, he might come again across the 
 ocean to greet all who should wish to hear him tell of the 
 Britain of a century past, when our own history had as yet 
 scarcely seen the conclusion of its opening chapter ; giving as 
 he did, so minute, life-like details relating to the great men of 
 
A FRIEND OF MY CHILCHOOD. 105 
 
 that time, whose familiar names were to most of his hearers 
 not much more than names, but which, thanks in great part to 
 him, are now as household words. And so we met, and being 
 two years older, I was accorded the honor of becoming one of 
 his auditors, going with my mother to hear each of his lect 
 ures. We sat in a box on one side of the stage in Concert 
 Hall, and at this moment I recall the tall, dignified figure 
 standing before the desk on which were placed his notes, and 
 the crowded room full of indistinguishable attentive faces. I 
 sometimes fancy too that I cannot have forgotten what are 
 now favorite passages from those lectures passages read 
 and re-read, and then read again, till they are known almost 
 by heart. I cannot acknowledge to myself that I do not re 
 member his voice and look, and the tribute of listening silence 
 which waited upon him while he spoke. 
 
 One at least of these evenings is well remembered. Its 
 distinguishing feature was my being tipped. My mother 
 and I had gone on this occasion quite early to our places 
 half an hour or three quarters before the time when the lect 
 ure should begin and we found the lecturer already at his 
 post. He, with head thrown back, had been walking with 
 long strides up and down the little waiting-room, and talking 
 in bright spirits to my mother, when a sudden thought seemed 
 to strike him, and diving into one of his pockets he brought 
 out a sovereign perhaps it was a five-dollar gold piece 
 and insisted upon giving it to me ; but the proposal produced 
 at once a most severe parental resistance, while I disinterest 
 edly looked on a resistance apparently quite unlooked for 
 by " my illustrious friend," who had much trouble in explain 
 ing that this species of beneficence was a thing of course in 
 England. But American pride was silenced at last, though 
 not convinced, as will be seen, for it planned on the spot a 
 compromise which should reconcile the differences of national 
 feeling, though /was induced to suppose that the sovereign 
 was as far out of my reach as ever ; and being then, as I said 
 before, above or below such things, I turned all my atten 
 tion to the lecture, which began soon afterward, and whose 
 
106 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 subject, the royal bugbear of patriotic school-boys of that time, 
 I imagined I knew all about. It was therefore with as 
 tonished awe that I heard the peroration, when the speaker 
 said, appealing directly to us all : " O brothers ! speaking the 
 same dear mother tongue ! O comrades ! enemies no more, 
 let us take a mournful hand together, as we stand by this royal 
 corpse and call a truce to battle ! Low he lies to whom the 
 proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the 
 poorest : dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off 
 his throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with his children in re 
 volt ; the darling of his old age killed before him untimely; 
 our Lear hangs over her breathless lips and cries, Cordelia ! 
 Cordelia ! stay a little ! 
 
 Vex not his ghost : oh, let him pass ! He hates him 
 That would upon the rack of this rough world 
 Stretch him out longer." 
 
 Hush ! strife and quarrel, over the solemn grave ! Sound, 
 trumpets, a mournful march ! Fall, dark curtain, upon his 
 pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy." This view of 
 the subject was altogether new. 
 
 The compromise just spoken of and I must bring to an 
 end my story, already too long consisted in the expenditure 
 of the five-dollar piece in two of the books written by the be- 
 stower of that inflammatory coin. I open the volumes of 
 " Pendennis " and " Vanity Fair " which have been lying at 
 my elbow, and across the title-page of each I see written, in 
 
 curiously small and delicate hand, " , with W. M. 
 
 Thackeray s kind regards. April, 1856." These were the 
 books. 
 
 A CHILD S GLIMPSE OF THACKERAY. 
 
 So many years ago that I do not care to count them I was 
 taken by my guardian to an evening party at the house of a 
 distinguished physician in Philadelphia. Though too much of 
 a boy at the time to appreciate or understand thoroughly what 
 was going on, there were certain little occurrences which 
 made an impression on me then, and which have dwelt in my 
 memory ever since. 
 
A CHILD S GLIMPSE OF THACKERAY. IO/ 
 
 The agreeable occupation of munching sponge-cake in which 
 I spent the first part of the evening did not prevent my notic 
 ing a personage, tall, large, spectacled, slightly gray, leaning 
 against one of the folding doors, and engaged in conversation 
 with a number of gentlemen, among whom I recognized Mr. 
 Peter, then British consul. What it was that attracted me I 
 cannot exactly tell, but there certainly must have been some 
 thing to beguile me out from a " coign of vantage " well 
 adapted both for seeing and eating a snug ambuscado be 
 hind the piano. 
 
 " Who is that man ? " said I to my guardian, with indicating 
 forefinger. 
 
 " That gentleman is Mr. Thackeray," was the smiling reply 
 as the forefinger yielded to gentle pressure and fell by my 
 side ; " and when your mouth is empty I wish to take you up 
 and present you to him. I will come back for you in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 Forthwith I retreated again to my fastness to finish the cake 
 and prepare for the ordeal, curiously eyeing the Transatlantic 
 author all the time. 
 
 It seems strange, but even now and I have visited many 
 scenes and mixed with many people since that night I can 
 perfectly remember the tenor of my boyish cogitations. They 
 were about as follows : So, that was Mr. Thackeray ? What 
 had I heard about him ? 
 
 I knew that he had written a book called "Vanity Fair," 
 because a charming lady (that is, she seemed charming to me 
 in those halcyon days) had talked about it in my hearing, and 
 said it was very clever. That was all I knew. How the 
 people pressed round him and looked at him, while those 
 across the room pointed and whispered ! Was it, then, so 
 very hard to write a book ? How those girls on the sofa were 
 pointing, and my guardian had just told me it was very rude to 
 point ! 
 
 I wonder if the manner in which fame first breaks upon him 
 who achieves it is the same in which the reputation of another 
 first looms upon the mind of a thinking boy ? I had not yet 
 
108 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 learned that those talents which win power and position for 
 their possessor compel alike admiration from equals and ob 
 sequiousness from inferiors. Before many years had passed 
 over me I had learned that lesson by heart ; but it is pleasant 
 to recall those independent hours when my little mind indulged 
 in such unbiased speculations, as heedless of the future as the 
 sponge-cake I had just devoured. 
 
 My guardian came back, and after due inspection of hands, 
 mouth, and clothes, took me up to the chatting group between 
 the folding doors. The group separated, and I stood face to 
 waistcoat with the great novelist, he looking kindly down on 
 me through his glasses ; I, after gazing up in his face for a 
 moment, dropping my eyes and beginning a minute inspection 
 of the watch-chain with which his left hand was playing, his 
 right meanwhile holding my little pair tight in its mighty 
 grasp. What he said to me I forget. It was probably more 
 his manner than his words that induced me to stay at his side 
 and listen to what others were talking about. 
 
 It struck me, from his languid position, that, without wish 
 ing to appear so, he was fatigued, and sometimes a little an 
 noyed by the trivial questions so often put to him. At last he 
 took me with him across the room, where he sat down on a 
 sofa, and soon made me feel quite at home beneath his genial 
 sway. Some young ladies were sitting near, with whom he 
 entered into some little talk about music, and flowers, and 
 such things as women love. Anon, a dashing young secretary 
 of legation made his appearance keen, pert, semi-witty, just 
 from abroad, perfectly satisfied with himself, ready to show 
 the latest fashions to all true believers. He lounged on the 
 other end of the sofa, picked up the thread of conversation 
 immediately, and was soon in the middle of a fluent speech, 
 oratorically instructing everybody. Mr. Thackeray waited 
 patiently till he was through, rather glad, I think, to be re 
 lieved from talking himself, and then, in reply to some new 
 and extraordinary doctrine the young diplomat had broached, 
 laughed and said, " Bravo, jeune homme ! a la bonne heure ! 
 Vraiment, on fait des progres dans ce pays ci ! " 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF l^HACKERAY. IOQ 
 
 Then, somehow there coming a little lull in the noisy talk, 
 he turned to me and asked how old I was, where I lived, and 
 what I wanted to do in the great world some day whether I 
 had ever been in England, and where I had learned to speak 
 French ; all which I answered, much to his apparent amuse 
 ment and to the best of my small ability. 
 
 Then came supper, when I lost him in the crowd. If I felt 
 any sorrow at losing him, it must have been a boyish sorrow, 
 easily assuaged by the sight of divers comfits and good things 
 on a well-spread table. I suppose there must have been a 
 sense of gratified pride at being noticed by a distinguished 
 man so publicly. Perhaps the sorrow has come with maturer 
 years. At all events, I only saw him again just as he was tak 
 ing his departure, when he turned and said a few kind words 
 to me, and then was gone. 
 
 HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 
 
 In approaching the name of William Makepeace Thackeray 
 I feel a degree of delicacy, and even timidity, which his ab 
 sence from the scene of his world-wide renown does not tend 
 to diminish ; for Thackeray was a man of such large mental 
 proportions, and such far-seeing power in his mode of anat 
 omizing and criticising human character, that one seems to 
 be treading on volcanic ground in venturing to deal with him 
 at all. But of what is biography composed ? Assuredly not 
 of the knowledge and experience of one privileged person, 
 but of the aggregate contributions of many, who are willing, 
 when occasion offers, to state what they know for the infor 
 mation and benefit of posterity. A hundred admirers of 
 Thackeray might undertake to write a memoir of him, and yet 
 the task of doing full justice to his character and career must 
 necessarily be left to a chosen future historian, who shall zeal 
 ously gather together all the bits and fragments to be found 
 scattered among books and men, and blend them into a sub 
 stantial and permanent shape. But it must be admitted that 
 there is an exceptional difficulty in regard to Thackeray, inas 
 much as there were few whom he allowed to know him, in the 
 
1 10 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 true sense of the phrase that is to say, there was a constitu 
 tional reserve in his manner, accompanied, at times, by a cold 
 austerity, which led to some misgivings as to the possibility of 
 his being the pleasant social companion his intimates often 
 described him to be. And yet it is well known to those who 
 saw much of Thackeray in his familiar moments that he could 
 be essentially " jolly " (a favorite term of his) when the humor 
 suited him, and that he would, on such occasions, open his 
 heart as freely as if the word " reticence " formed no part of 
 his vocabulary ; whereas, at other times, he would keep him 
 self entirely within himself, and answer a question by a mono 
 syllable, or peradventure by a significant movement of the 
 head. At one moment he would look you full in the face and 
 greet you jauntily ; at another he would turn from you with a 
 peculiar waving of the hand, which of course indicated that he 
 had no desire to talk. Men who were members of the same 
 club with him have been heard to say that sometimes he would 
 pass them in the lobbies unnoticed, and at others he would 
 cheerfully initiate a conversation, and leave behind him an 
 impression that sullenness or hauteur was wholly foreign to 
 his nature. It should be stated, however, that his health for 
 many years had never been entirely unimpaired, and that his 
 acute sensibility often rendered it irksome to him to come in 
 contact with his fellow-men. In short, he was essentially of a 
 nervous temperament, and altogether deficient in that vigorous 
 self-possession which enables a man to shine in public assem 
 blies ; for it was absolute pain to him to be called upon to 
 make a speech, and even in ordinary conversation he showed 
 no particular desire to hold a prominent place. But, the 
 above considerations apart, it would be easier to know many 
 men in a few days than it would be thoroughly to understand 
 Thackeray in the same number of years. Douglas Jerrold, 
 dating his acquaintance with Thackeray from the time that the 
 latter, by some curious hazard, illustrated his book of " Men of 
 Character," was often heard to say, " I have known Thackeray 
 eighteen years, and I don t know him yet." But that the great 
 novelist and satirist had a generous and sympathetic heart can 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF TH ACKER A Y. Ill 
 
 hardly, I think, be disputed ; and even the few brief letters 
 which I received from him are sufficient to prove that, how 
 ever austere he sometimes appeared to be externally, he was 
 very rarely wanting in readiness to perform a kind office. 
 
 At one period of my intercourse with Mr. Thackeray I had 
 been reading his "Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," 
 and, having always been an enthusiastic admirer of his writ 
 ings, long before I knew that the " Michael Angelo Titmarsh " 
 of " Eraser s Magazine " was identical with W. M. Thackeray, 
 I could not refrain from expressing to him by letter the delight 
 I had drawn from his Egyptian pages. Among other things, 
 I remember being deeply impressed by the graphic power dis 
 played in the poem of " The White Squall," and by the charm 
 ing burst of parental feeling with which it concludes. 1 
 
 Mr. Thackeray s answer was as follows : 
 
 " DEAR HODDER, I thank you very much for your note, 
 and am very glad that my little book has given you pleasure. 
 I hope that the future works of the same author will please 
 you, and, indeed, am quite anxious to have as many people as 
 may be of your opinion. It is not my intention to return to 
 Constantinople at present, and when there I hope I shall be 
 more moral than in former days, and have no desire to fling 
 the handkerchief to any members whatsoever of his Highness s 
 seraglio. Yours truly, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 I cannot at this distant date precisely call to mind the 
 circumstances under which I continued, at intervals, to meet 
 Mr. Thackeray, but the various letters I received from him 
 contain the most gratifying proof that he was always well 
 affected toward writers who could not possibly aspire to his 
 
 1 " 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." 
 
1 1 2 WILLIAM MAKEPEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 own rank in the literary army ; and the following extract is 
 one of the best evidences of this fact I can adduce, because, 
 at the time he wrote it, my knowledge of him did not extend 
 beyond that which was derived from a few brief conversations 
 with him at the chambers of a friend, upon matters in no way 
 relating to business, such as afterward brought me more 
 closely in contact with him. 
 
 The letter refers to a loss which had just befallen me, in 
 consequence of some changes which had taken place in a 
 newspaper establishment with which I was then connected. 
 It is dated May 19, 1855, and says : 
 
 " I am sincerely sorry to hear of your position, and send the 
 little contribution which came so opportunely from another 
 friend whom I was enabled once to help. When you are well- 
 to-do again I know you will pay it back, and I dare say some 
 body else will want the money, which is meanwhile most 
 heartily at your service." 
 
 It was afterward explained to me that Mr. Thackeray made 
 a practice of acting upon the principle embodied in the above 
 note. Like many other generous men, he had always a few 
 pounds floating about among friends and acquaintances whom 
 he had been able to oblige in their necessity, and whenever he 
 received back money which he had lent, he did not put it into 
 his pocket with a glow of satisfaction at having added so much 
 to his exchequer ; but congratulated himself that he could 
 transfer the same sum to another person who he knew was in 
 need of it. 
 
 To my great satisfaction I received one evening a note from 
 Mr. Thackeray, which I had been expecting for several days, 
 as he had promised to write to me on the subject ; but, as the 
 delay seemed ominous, I began to think he had changed his 
 determination, and would not require my services as now 
 suggested. In this note, which is dated Onslow Square, Sep 
 tember 6, 1855, he says, after referring to other matters : 
 
 " I want a little work done in the way of arranging papers 
 copying at the B. M., etc. if you are free, and will come here 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 113 
 
 on Tuesday morning next, I can employ your services, and 
 put some money in your way." 
 
 To Onslow Square I accordingly went on the morning fixed 
 upon, and found Mr. Thackeray in his study to receive me ; 
 but, instead of entering upon business in that part of the 
 house, he took me up-stairs to his bedroom, where every 
 arrangement had been made for the convenience of writing. I 
 then learned that he was busily occupied in preparing his 
 lectures on the " Four Georges," and that he had need of an 
 amanuensis to fill the place of one who was now otherwise 
 occupied. In that capacity, it was my task to write to his 
 dictation, and to make extracts from books, according to his 
 instructions, either at his own house or at the British Museum. 
 This duty called me to his bedchamber every morning, and, as 
 a general rule, I found him up and ready to begin work, though 
 he was sometimes in doubt and difficulty as to whether he 
 should commence operations sitting, or standing, or walking 
 about, or lying down. Often he would light a cigar, and, after 
 pacing the room for a few minutes, would put the unsmoked 
 remnant on the mantle-piece, and resume his work with in 
 creased cheerfulness, as if he had gathered fresh inspiration 
 from the " gentle odors " of the " sublime tobacco." 
 
 It was not a little amusing to observe the frequency with 
 which Mr. Thackeray, in the moments of dictation, would 
 change his position, and I could not but think that he seemed 
 most at his ease when one would suppose he was most uncom 
 fortable. He was easy to "follow," as his enunciation was 
 always clear and distinct, and he generally " weighed his 
 words before he gave them breath," so that his amanuensis 
 seldom received a check during the progress of his pen. He 
 never became energetic, but spoke with that calm deliberation 
 which distinguished his public readings ; and there was one 
 peculiarity which, among others, I especially remarked, viz., 
 that when he made a humorous point, which inevitably caused 
 me to laugh, his own countenance was unmoved, like that of 
 the comedian Listen, who, as is well known, looked as if he 
 
114 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 wondered what had occurred to excite the risibility of his 
 audience. 
 
 Many authors have often declared that they could not write 
 to dictation. Thackeray was one who could, and liked to do 
 so ; and no better proof need be afforded of his power in that 
 respect than is to be found in his " Four Georges," which con 
 tain some of the most thoughtful and vigorous passages that 
 ever emanated from his brain. 
 
 While I was thus daily engaged with Mr. Thackeray he 
 sometimes required my assistance on a Sunday afternoon ; 
 and I call to mind one Sunday in particular I think it was 
 the last before he started for America when I found him in 
 exceptionally high spirits, and much more inclined to talk than 
 to write. He spoke of the journey he was about to commence, 
 and of the money he should probably make by his readings in 
 America. He wanted a few thousands more, he said, for he 
 had not yet made enough. True, he added, that he possessed 
 a small share of the world s goods, and he was happy to think 
 that he had paid off one moiety of the cost of his house (which 
 he then occupied), and that he should be able before he left 
 the country to discharge the remainder of the liability. He 
 then went on to relate some of his literary experiences, and 
 the circumstances under which his fortunes had improved 
 during the last few years, observing that lecturing was cer 
 tainly more profitable than magazine writing. He next alluded 
 to his friends, the contributors to " Punch," and passed in re 
 view many of their virtues and idiosyncrasies ; and was at 
 some pains to show that he held the humorous brotherhood in 
 high esteem. 
 
 In speaking of periodical literature, he said he contem 
 plated producing a magazine or journal in his own name after 
 his return from America ; and upon my venturing to observe 
 that I hoped he did not intend to encourage the anonymous 
 system in regard to his contributors, as the conductors of 
 other publications of the day seemed resolved to do, he re 
 plied, " No. I think that s hard lines." * Our conversation 
 
 1 On his return to England, the Cornhill Magazine was started under the editor 
 ship of Mr. Thackeray. 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF TH ACKER A Y. 115 
 
 next turned upon his mission to the United States ; and when 
 he hinted at the probability of his taking a secretary with him, 
 as he had done on his former visit to that country, I suggested 
 that I should be delighted to fill that office, if he had not al 
 ready selected some one. He promised to consider my sug 
 gestion, and let me know what determination he had arrived 
 at ; but, in the mean time, he feared he should require a valet 
 more than a secretary. On the following morning he said he 
 had turned the matter over in his mind, and had come to the 
 conclusion that, in consequence of the state of his health, he 
 should be obliged to take a servant with him instead of a 
 secretary ; adding, dryly, " I can ask a servant to hold a basin 
 to me ; but I doubt if I could so treat a secretary at least, 
 he might object." He smiled as he made this droll observa 
 tion, but I too well knew that it was a true word spoken in 
 jest ; for he was subject to periodical illnesses which rendered 
 the services of a valet most essential to him ; and the young 
 man who filled that situation at the time was fortunately one 
 in whom he placed implicit confidence ; and he was thankful 
 for the gentle way in which his servant tended him. 
 
 It was but natural to suppose that, considering Mr. Thack 
 eray s popularity among his friends, and the interest which 
 attached to the object of his visit to America, a desire would 
 be shown to invite him to a farewell dinner. The project 
 being initiated, Mr. Peter Cunningham undertook the duties 
 of secretary ; and all the preliminary arrangements were of 
 the most satisfactory kind, care being taken that the party 
 should be entirely private, and that it should consist exclu 
 sively of Mr. Thackeray s intimates. 
 
 On the morning of the banquet he was in a state of great 
 nervous anxiety, saying that it was very kind of his friends to 
 give him a dinner, but that he wished it was over, for such 
 things always set him trembling. " Besides," he exclaimed, 
 " I have to make a speech, and what am I to say ? Here, 
 take a pen in your hand and sit down ; and I 11 see if I can 
 hammer out something. It s hammering now; I m afraid it 
 will be stammering by and by." I did as he requested, and 
 
Il6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 he dictated with much ease and fluency a speech or rather 
 the heads of a speech which he proposed delivering in 
 response to the inevitable toast of his own health. 
 
 This was on a morning in the first week of October, 1855, 
 and the dinner took place at the London Tavern in the even 
 ing of the same day, the duties of chairman being delegated to. 
 Mr. Charles Dickens, who from the very beginning of his 
 public career had always manifested a remarkable aptitude for 
 that responsible office. 
 
 The following account of the affair was afterward published 
 by a gentleman who was present on the occasion : 
 
 " The Thackeray dinner was a triumph. Covers, we are 
 assured, were laid for sixty ; and sixty and no more sat down 
 precisely at the minute named to do honor to the great novel 
 ist. Sixty very hearty shakes of the hand did Thackeray re 
 ceive from sixty friends on that occasion ; and hearty cheers 
 from sixty vociferous and friendly tongues followed the chair 
 man s Mr. Charles Dickens proposal of his health, and 
 of wishes for his speedy and successful return among us. 
 Dickens the best after-dinner speaker now alive was 
 never happier. He spoke as if he was fully conscious that it 
 was a great occasion, and that the absence of even one re 
 porter was a matter of congratulation, affording ample room to 
 unbend. The table was in the shape of a horseshoe, having 
 two vice-chairmen, and this circumstance was wrought up and 
 played with by Dickens in the true Sam Weller and Charles 
 Dickens manner. Thackeray, who is far from what is called 
 a good speaker, outdid himself. There was his usual hesita 
 tion ; but this hesitation becomes his manner of speaking and 
 his matter, and is never unpleasant to his hearers, though it is, 
 we are assured, most irksome to himself. This speech was full 
 of pathos and humor and oddity, with bits of prepared parts 
 imperfectly recollected, but most happily made good by the 
 felicities of the passing moment. Like the Last Minstrel, , 
 
 Each blank in faithless memory s void 
 The poet s glowing thought supplied. 
 
HODDENS RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 1 1/ 
 
 It was a speech to remember for its earnestness of purpose 
 and its undoubted originality. Then the chairman quitted, 
 and many near and at a distance quitted with him. Thackeray 
 was on the move with the chairman, when, inspired by the 
 moment, Jerrold took the chair, and Thackeray remained. 
 Who is to chronicle what now passed ? what passages of 
 wit what neat and pleasant sarcastic speeches in proposing 
 healths what varied and pleasant, aye, and at times, sarcastic 
 acknowledgments ? Up to the time when Dickens left, a good 
 reporter might have given all, and with ease, to future ages ; 
 but there could be no reporting what followed. There were 
 words too nimble and too full of flame for a dozen Gurneys, 
 all ears, to catch and preserve. Few will forget that night. 
 There was an l air of wit about the room for three days after. 
 Enough to make the two companies, though downright fools, 
 right witty." 
 
 I am now fortunately enabled to give the original draft of 
 the speech thus pictured, and which as I have just stated, was 
 written by me to Mr. Thackeray s dictation on the morning of 
 the dinner. It will be seen, from the occasional vacant spaces, 
 that the writer of the above was correct in assuming that the 
 speaker had intentionally left blanks with the view of supply 
 ing them at the moment. Some few sentences will be found 
 to be quite incomplete ; but it is not very difficult to conjecture 
 how Mr. Thackeray would fill them up ; though I believe I am 
 right in saying that the speech as delivered fell far short of 
 the speech as written. The latter has never been out of my 
 possession since it came from Mr. Thackeray s lips ; for, hav 
 ing once tested his power, and brought to light the thoughts 
 which animated him, he did not care for the MS., and did not 
 even read it. I subjoin it, ipsissima verba : 
 
 " I know great numbers of us here present have been in 
 vited to a neighboring palace where turtle, champagne, and all 
 good things are as plentiful almost as here, and where there 
 reigns a civic monarch with a splendid court of officers, etc. 
 The sort of greeting that I had myself to-day this splendor, 
 
Il8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 etc. the bevy in the ante-room have filled my bosom with 
 an elation with which no doubt Sir Francis Graham Moon s 
 throbs. 1 I am surrounded by respectful friends, etc. and I 
 feel myself like a Lord Mayor. To his lordship s delight and 
 magnificence there is a drawback. In the fountain of his pleas 
 ure there surges a bitter. He is thinking about the 9th of No 
 vember, and I about the I3th of October. 2 
 
 " Some years since, when I was younger and used to fre 
 quent jolly assemblies, I wrote a Bacchanalian song, to be 
 chanted after dinner, etc. I wish some one would sing that 
 son g now to the tune of the Dead March in Saul, etc. not 
 for me I am miserable enough ; but for you, who seem in a 
 great deal too good spirits. I tell you I am not all the drink 
 in Mr. Bathe s 3 cellar won t make me. There may be sherry 
 there 500 years old Columbus may have taken it out from 
 Cadiz with him when he went to discover America, and it 
 won t make me jolly, etc. and yet, entirely unsatisfactory as 
 this feast is to me, I should like some more. Why can t you 
 give me some more ? I don t care about them costing two 
 guineas a head. It is not the turtle I value. Let us go to 
 Simpson s fish ordinary or to Bertolini s or John o Groat s, 
 etc. I don t want to go away I cling round the mahogany- 
 tree. 
 
 "In the course of my profound and extensive reading I have 
 found it is the habit of the English nation to give dinners to 
 the unfortunate. I have been living lately with some worthy 
 singular fellows 150 or 160 years old. I find that upon certain 
 occasions the greatest attention was always paid them. They 
 might call for anything they liked for dinner. My friend 
 Simon Frazer, Lord Lovat, about 109 years since, I think, 
 partook very cheerfully of minced veal and sack before he 
 was going on his journey 4 Lord Ferrers (Rice) 5 I could 
 
 1 Sir F. G. Moon, Bart., was at that time Lord Mayor of London. 
 
 2 The day on which he was to start for America. 
 
 3 The then proprietor of the London Tavern. 
 
 4 He was beheaded in the year 1745 for fighting in the cause of the Pretender, in 
 the Scottish rebellion of 1745. 
 
 6 Executed at Tyburn in the year 1760 for the murder of one Johnson, the re- 
 
HO ODER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 119 
 
 tell you a dozen jolly stories about feasts of this sort. I re 
 member a particular jolly one at which I was present, and 
 which took place at least 900 years ago. My friend Mr. Mac- 
 ready gave it at Fores Castle, North Britain, Covent Garden. 
 That was a magnificent affair indeed. The tables were piled 
 with most splendid fruits gorgeous dish-covers glittered in 
 endless perspective Macbeth Macready, I mean taking 
 up a huge gold beaker, shining with enormous gems that must 
 have been worth many hundred millions of money, filled it out 
 of a gold six-gallon jug, and drank courteously to the general 
 health of the whole table. Why did he put it down ? What 
 made him, in the midst of that jolly party, appear so haggard 
 and melancholy ? It was because he saw before him the 
 ghost of John Cooper, with chalked face and an immense 
 streak of vermilion painted across his throat ! No wonder 
 he was disturbed. In like manner I have before me at this 
 minute the horrid figure of a steward, with a basin perhaps, or 
 a glass of brandy and water, which he will press me to drink, 
 and which I shall try and swallow, and which won t make me 
 any better I know it won t. 
 
 u Then there s the dinner, which we all of us must remem 
 ber in our school-boy days, and which took place twice or 
 thrice a year at home, on the day before Dr. Birch expected 
 his young friends to reassemble at his academy, Rodwell 
 Regis. Don t you remember how the morning was . spent ? 
 How you went about taking leave of the garden, and the old 
 mare and foal, and the paddock, and the pointers in the ken 
 nel ; and how your little sister wistfully kept at your side all 
 day ; and how you went and looked at that confounded trunk 
 which old Martha was packing with the new shirts, and at 
 that heavy cake packed up in the play-box ; and how kind 
 6 the governor was all day ; and how at dinner he said, Jack 
 or Tom pass the bottle in a very cheery voice ; and 
 
 ceiver of his estates. His lordship was allowed to ride from the Tower to the scaf 
 fold in his own landau, and appeared gayly dressed in a light-colored suit of clothes, 
 embroidered with silver. It was doubtless to this circumstance that Mr. Thackeray 
 intended to allude in filling up the vacuum. 
 
I2O WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 how your mother had got the dishes she knew you liked best ; 
 and how you had the wing instead of the leg, which used to 
 be your ordinary share ; and how that dear, delightful, hot 
 raspberry rolly-polly pudding, good as it was, and fondly be 
 loved by you, yet somehow had the effect of the notorious 
 school stick-jaw, and choked you and stuck in your throat ; 
 and how the gig came ; and then, how you heard the whirl of 
 the mail-coach wheels, and the tooting of the guard s horn, as 
 with an odious punctuality the mail and the four horses came 
 galloping over the hill. Shake hands, good-by ! God bless 
 everybody ! Don t cry, sister. Away we go ! and to 
 morrow we begin with Dr. Birch, and six months at Rodwell 
 Regis ! 
 
 " But after six months came the holidays again ! l etc.. etc., 
 etc." 
 
 There is small chance of it being denied that the above is 
 as fully characteristic of Mr. Thackeray s peculiar style as 
 any passage to be found in his works. Not a doubt or ques 
 tion could possibly be raised in regard to its authorship ; for 
 there spoke Thackeray in his own original way heart, lips, 
 tone, and language. 
 
 That Mr. Thackeray was sometimes given to the " melting 
 mood " may be shown by a little incident, in the relation of 
 which I trust I shall violate no confidence, or throw myself 
 open to the charge of ascribing to the great author a larger 
 share of the milk of human kindness than often falls to the lot 
 of ordinary mortals. 
 
 One morning I was making my way to 36 Onslow Square, 
 at an earlier hour than usual, when, to my great surprise, I 
 met Mr. Thackeray pacing up and down the footway in a state 
 of great mental uneasiness. It was so entirely contrary to his 
 custom at least as far as my experience told me to leave 
 his house at so early an hour, and I was so much concerned 
 at seeing him in such depression, that I was naturally induced 
 to say that I hoped nothing very serious had happened to his 
 
 1 Mr. Thackeray was to be absent from England for that space of time. 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 121 
 
 household. He answered, " Poor Marochetti s child is dying." 
 Having said this, tears came to his relief, and he speedily re 
 turned home. He was on terms of close friendship with the 
 Baron Marochetti (his next-door neighbor), and he sympa 
 thized with that well-known sculptor in the deep love he bore 
 for his dying child. He was in a cheerless mood for the re 
 mainder of the day, and in the course of his work reverted 
 many times to the calamity which he so much deplored. 1 
 
 Again, on the morning of his departure for America. He 
 was to start by an early train, and when I arrived (for it had 
 been previously arranged that I should see him before he left) 
 I found him in his study, and his two daughters in the dining- 
 room all in a very tearful condition ; and I do not think I 
 am far wrong in saying that if ever man s strength was over 
 powered by woman s weakness it was so upon this occasion ; 
 for Mr. Thackeray could not look at his daughters without 
 betraying a moisture in his eyes, which he in vain strove to 
 conceal. Nevertheless he was enabled to attend to several 
 money transactions which it was necessary he should arrange 
 before leaving ; and to give me certain instructions about the 
 four volumes of his " Miscellanies " then in course of publica 
 tion, and which he begged me to watch in their passage 
 through the press, with a view to a few foot-notes that might 
 be thought desirable. Then came the hour for parting ! A 
 cab was at the door, the luggage had all been properly dis 
 posed of, and the servants stood in the hall, to notify, by their 
 looks, how much they regretted their master s departure. 
 " This is the moment I have dreaded ! " said Thackeray, as 
 he entered the dining-room to embrace his daughters ; and 
 when he hastily descended the steps of the door he knew that 
 they would be at the window to 
 
 " Cast one longing, lingering look behind." 
 
 " Good-by," he murmured, in a suppressed voice, as I fol 
 lowed him to the cab ; " keep close behind me, and let me try 
 to jump in unseen." 
 
 1 It will be recollected that the tablet to Thackeray s memory in Westminster Ab 
 bey was the design and workmanship of the late Baron Marochetti. 
 
122 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 The instant the door of the vehicle was closed behind him 
 he threw himself back into a corner and buried his face in his 
 hands. That was the last I saw of Mr. Thackeray before he 
 left London on his second visit to the United States ; and I 
 think I have given sufficient proof that, great as was his power 
 of poising the shafts of ridicule at the follies and vices of the 
 day, and coldly reserved as he sometimes was in his de 
 meanor, he was full of that gentleness of heart to which his 
 writings constantly bear testimony ; and it was his instinct to 
 be actuated by the kindliest impulses which do honor to our 
 common nature. 
 
 On Mr. Thackeray s return from a successful tour in the 
 United States, he sought to make arrangements for the read 
 ing of his lectures on " The Four Georges " in London and 
 the provinces. He had fulfilled his purpose of delivering 
 them in America in the first instance, and he had now no 
 reason to think that they would not be listened to with satis 
 faction in his own country. To undertake the responsibility 
 of organizing any plan of proceeding, of appointing agents, of 
 superintending the publication of advertisements, and settling 
 the various other preliminary matters incidental to what is 
 technically called a " lecturing tour," was, of course, more 
 than could possibly be expected from a man of Mr. Thack 
 eray s intellectual calibre. It soon, therefore, became known 
 that he was " in the market," as it were, ready to accept en 
 gagements for the reading of his lectures ; and Mr. Frederick 
 Beale, belonging to a musical firm of some note, expressed 
 his desire to Mr. Thackeray, through me, to make the specu 
 lation his own, and to " farm " the lecturer at a given sum for 
 each reading. Mr. Thackeray appeared pleased at the propo 
 sition, and a morning was appointed for Mr. Beale to accom 
 pany me to his house, with a view of my introducing him to 
 the celebrated writer, and witnessing the arrangement of the 
 terms. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray was in his dressing-gown and slippers, and 
 received us in his bedroom, where, as I have already stated, 
 he generally passed his mornings and wrote his books. His 
 
HOD DEWS RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 123 
 
 study being a small back-room behind the dining-room, on the 
 ground floor, and being exposed to the noises from the street, 
 he had caused his writing-table and appliances to be carried 
 up-stairs to the second floor, where two rooms had been 
 thrown into one the back to be used as a sleeping-chamber, 
 and the front, which was considerably larger than the other, 
 as a sitting-room. The dimensions of this apartment being 
 capacious, Mr. Thackeray was enabled to move about in the 
 intervals of writing, and to extend his limbs on a couch ; and, 
 in fine, to change his attitude as often as his convenience de 
 manded, for the operation of dictating necessarily spared him 
 the pain of confining himself to a sitting posture. On the 
 morning in question some domestic annoyance had ruffled the 
 serenity of his mind ; and it was evident, from the abruptness 
 of his manner, that he had no idea of being other than thor 
 oughly " business-like " in the negotiations we were about to 
 commence. After a little preparatory interchange of civilities 
 (which it was pretty evident Mr. Thackeray would have de 
 scribed as a " bore " had it been possible to ascertain his 
 candid opinion at the moment), Mr. Beale, in his usual cour 
 teous manner, suggested the terms himself ; and Mr. Thack 
 eray, like a true diplomatist as he was, never allowed it to be 
 supposed that he thought them more than reasonably remu 
 nerative. 
 
 The payment proposed was fifty guineas for each reading, 
 and Mr. Thackeray was to appear a certain number of times 
 in London at the Surrey Music Hall, for instance and to 
 undertake a tour of three weeks in the provinces. That he 
 was well satisfied with his arrangement with Mr. Beale is best 
 proved by the fact that, when he saw me on the following day, 
 he exclaimed, " What terms ! fifty guineas a night ! Why, I 
 should n t have received one half that sum for an article in 
 Fraser a few years ago." 
 
 As I was travelling entirely in an official character, and was 
 not responsible to Mr. Thackeray, I studiously avoided forcing 
 myself on his company, but always took especial care to select 
 a carriage he did not occupy, and to plant myself in an hotel 
 
124 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 he did not patronize. Hence if I may speak paradoxically 
 we pulled remarkably well together ; and although the ar 
 rangements for a public reading every evening at eight o clock 
 left little opportunity for social enjoyment that is to say, at 
 a time when it would be most in accordance with his usual 
 habit Mr. Thackeray occasionally invited me to dine with 
 him. "This is a nice room," he would say, if the apartment 
 allotted to him chanced to have a rural aspect, with trees and 
 flowers bobbing in at the window ; " I could write here ! " And 
 where was it, ft may be asked, that he could not write ? for the 
 twenty-two handsome volumes of his works lately issued bear 
 sufficient presumptive evidence that his labor was done in 
 various places and climes. May it not be fairly supposed that 
 Titmarsh s " Carmen Lilliense," date Lille, September 2, 1843, 
 and published in " Eraser s Magazine," was written on the 
 identical spot where he was visited by the sad pecuniary mis 
 fortune which he so humorously deplores in the refrain of the 
 ballad ? 
 
 " 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." 
 
 At the time of the publication of " Vanity Fair," Thack 
 eray s great contemporary, Charles Dickens (for in spite of all 
 remonstrance it has always been the fashion to place the two 
 writers in the same category, and often to sacrifice one at the 
 shrine of the other, according to the particular taste of the 
 person addressing himself to the subject), was producing, in 
 the accustomed monthly form the green cover in the one 
 instance, against the yellow cover in the other his story of 
 " Doinbey and Son ; " and it was Thackeray s delight to read 
 each number with eagerness as it issued from the press. He 
 had often been heard to speak of the work in terms of the 
 highest praise. When it had reached its fifth number, wherein 
 Mr. Charles Dickens described the end of little Paul with a 
 depth of pathos which produced a vibratory emotion in the 
 hearts of all who read it, Mr. Thackeray seemed electrified 
 
HODDERS RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 12$ 
 
 at the thought that there was one man living who could exer 
 cise so complete a control over him. Putting No. 5 of " Dom- 
 bey and Son " in his pocket, he hastened down to Mr. Punch s 
 printing-office, and entering the editor s room, where I chanced 
 to be the only person present except Mr. Mark Lemon him 
 self, he dashed it on the table with startling vehemence, and 
 exclaimed, " There s no writing against such power as this 
 one has no chance ! Read that chapter describing young 
 Paul s death : it is unsurpassed it is stupendous ! " 
 
 Long after this, and during the period that I acted as his 
 amanuensis, I went into his chamber one morning, as usual, 
 and found him in bed (for, lest it should be supposed that Mr. 
 Thackeray was what is commonly called a late riser, I should 
 state at once that my visits to him were somewhat early, that 
 is to say, before nine o clock), a little pot of tea and some dry 
 toast on a table by his side. I therefore remained at a dis 
 tance from him, but Mr. Thackeray called me forward, and I 
 discovered that he had passed a very restless night. " I am 
 sorry," said I, " that you do not seem very well this morning." 
 " Well!" he murmured " no, I am not well. I have got to 
 make that confounded speech to-night." I immediately recol 
 lected that he was to preside at the annual dinner of the Gen 
 eral Theatrical Fund an undertaking which I well knew was 
 entirely repugnant to his taste and wishes. " Don t let that 
 trouble you, Mr. Thackeray," said I ; " you will be sure to be 
 all right when the time comes." " Nonsense ! " he replied, 
 " it won t come all right I can t make a speech. Confound 
 it ! That fellow Jackson let me in for this ! Why don t they 
 get Dickens to take the chair ? He can make a speech, and a 
 good one. / ;;/ of no use." I told him that I thoroughly ap 
 preciated his remark in regard to Mr. Dickens, but that at the 
 same time he was giving little credit to those whose discern 
 ment had selected him as the chairman of the evening ; and 
 they could not very well ask Mr. Dickens, as he had only a 
 year or two since occupied that position at an anniversary din 
 ner of the same institution. " They little think how nervous I 
 am," said Thackeray ; " and Dickens does n t know the mean 
 ing of the word." 
 
1 26 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERA Y. 
 
 In confirmation of this remark I observed that I once asked 
 Mr. Dickens if he ever felt nervous on public occasions when 
 called upon to speak ; and his instant reply was, " Not in the 
 least. The first time I took the chair at a public dinner I felt 
 just as much confidence as if I had done the same thing a 
 hundred times before." 1 
 
 The result of Mr. Thackeray s chairmanship on the even 
 ing in question may here be recorded, with all respect to his 
 memory, and with that desire to be strictly correct which he 
 himself would have been the first to encourage. True to his 
 engagement he took the post assigned to him, and com 
 menced his duties as if he had resolved to set difficulties at 
 defiance, and to show that the task was not quite impossible 
 with him ; but, unhappily for his nervous and sensitive tem 
 perament, Mr. Charles Dickens, as the president of the insti 
 tution, sat at his right hand, and when he came to the all-ab 
 sorbing toast of the evening, the terrifying fact rushed across 
 his mind that his great contemporary would witness all his 
 short-comings and his sad inferiority. He had prepared his 
 speech, and he commenced with some learned allusions to the 
 car of Thespis and the early history of the drama, when he 
 suddenly collapsed, and brought his address to a close in a 
 few commonplace observations which could scarcely be called 
 coherent. He too painfully felt the weakness of his position ; 
 and notwithstanding a particularly kind and complimentary 
 speech in which Mr. Dickens proposed his health as chair 
 man, he could not recover the prestige he believed he had lost, 
 and he left the room in company with an old friend at as early 
 a moment as he could consistently with the respect he owed 
 to the company. 
 
 One other instance I may mention of the many which came 
 
 1 Charles Dickens is as happy at intimate social gatherings as on great public oc 
 casions. A dinner was given to his eldest son on the occasion of his departure for 
 China on a commercial mission. Blanchard Jerrold was in the chair, with Mr. 
 Dickens on his left, and the guest of the evening on his right. The young gentleman 
 became warmed with the wine ; whereupon Dickens, in returning thanks for his own 
 health, took the opportunity of observing that after such a generous dinrer " a little 
 transaction in tea" would do his son a world of good. 
 
HODDEFS RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 12 J 
 
 within my own knowledge of Mr. Thackeray s distrust of his 
 own powers and his desire to exalt others at the expense of 
 himself. I found him one morning in an unusually loquacious 
 mood, and I had not been with him many minutes before he 
 said he was not disposed to trouble himself with any work 
 that day. He was more inclined to talk. Adverting by a nat 
 ural transition from the subject he had first touched upon to 
 the respective merits of various writers who were then daily 
 before the world, he spoke of the great success of " House 
 hold Words," and of the ability displayed in its pages by some 
 of its contributors. " There s one man," for instance, he em 
 phatically exclaimed, " who is a very clever fellow, and that is 
 Sala. That paper of his, * The Key of the Street, is one of 
 the best things I ever read. I could n t have written it. I 
 wish I could." 
 
 It was a common practice in the towns we visited for quid 
 nuncs, ambitious dowagers, and aspiring damsels pertaining 
 to the order of blue-stockings, to pester Mr. Thackeray at the 
 close of his lecture to insert his autograph in an album a 
 request with which he was not often willing to comply. On 
 one occasion an album was placed before him by a young fel 
 low, who thought to tempt him by calling attention to the fact 
 that the signatures of several distinguished musicians, includ 
 ing that of one of our most celebrated tenors, were in the 
 same book, and that therefore he would be in very good com 
 pany. " What ! among all these fiddlers ! " exclaimed Thack 
 eray, with pretended raillery. Having uttered the somewhat 
 brusque phrase, he could not well do otherwise than satisfy 
 the desire expressed ; but he would not be prevailed upon to 
 write more than the simple signature "W. M. Thackeray." 
 On another occasion the possessor of an album was much 
 more fortunate. It belonged to a young lady of my acquaint 
 ance, and I had pleaded her cause so warmly that Mr. Thack 
 eray opened the book, and I pointed out to him the names of 
 certain contributors with whom I thought he might not object 
 to be thus associated. He assented, and took the book home 
 
128 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 to his hotel, in order that he might have time to scan its con 
 tents. Among these he soon discovered the subjoined lines : 
 
 " Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains 
 
 They crown d him long ago ; 
 But who they got to put it on 
 Nobody seems to know. 
 
 " ALBERT SMITH. - 
 
 Under these lines Mr. Thackeray speedily wrote the follow 
 ing : 
 
 U A HUMBLE SUGGESTION. 
 
 " I know that Albert wrote in hurry : 
 
 To criticise I scarce presume ; 
 But yet methinks that Lindley Murray, 
 Instead of who, had written whom. 
 
 11 W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 I need scarcely say that the young lady felt she had brought 
 her album to a "very good market," and she could never 
 afterward believe that Mr. Thackeray was other than the most 
 amiable of authors and the most considerate of men. 
 
 If I remember rightly, Mr. Thackeray s engagement at 
 Norwich required him to give four readings that is to say, 
 he was to introduce all " The Four Georges " one each 
 night to the people of that city. He was received with 
 much cordiality in that bustling capital, and his lectures were 
 attended with a success justly proportioned to their merit ; 
 but it was evident that his health was much impaired, and 
 that he was about to endure one of those sad periodical at 
 tacks to which he had long been liable. On the concluding 
 night of the series he had some difficulty in getting to the 
 Hall by the usual time, and when arrived there he was in 
 great nervous trepidation, and expressed his fear that he 
 should be quite unable to get through his work. I said what 
 I could to make him more hopeful and cheerful, and when he 
 made his appearance on the platform he was greeted with 
 such a storm of applause, that he proceeded in his task with 
 scarcely less vigor than he generally displayed ; but as he ap 
 proached the end of his discourse his voice faltered, and it 
 was a severe struggle to him to reach the final sentence. 
 
ff ODDER 1 S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 12$ 
 
 On the following morning, at an early hour, I received a 
 message from him requesting that I would go and see him at 
 his hotel, as he was laid up with one of his violent attacks. I 
 lost no time in obeying his wish, and on entering his chamber 
 I was much shocked to see him lying closely covered up in 
 bed. He was suffering great pain, and begged that I would 
 not look at him, as he knew he was a hideous object. I en 
 treated that he would place my services entirely at his com 
 mand, and he replied, with a waving of his hand, that all he. 
 wanted was some money out of the exchequer in my posses 
 sion, as he should unfortunately be detained there by his ill 
 ness. The desire was of course immediately satisfied, and he 
 would not listen to me when I asked him to allow me to re 
 main with him. It was beyond question under such a seizure 
 as he was then afflicted with that he retired to his bed on that 
 mournful night in December, 1863, when he endured his suf 
 ferings for the last time. 
 
 Some short period after I had left Mr. Thackeray at Nor 
 wich in the condition described, I saw him at his house in 
 London, and on his making allusion to those dreadful illnesses 
 which he said were the very bane of his life, I asked if he had 
 ever received the best medical advice. Certainly he had, was 
 his reply : " but what is the use of advice, if you don t follow 
 it ? " he continued. " They tell me not to drink, and I do 
 drink. They tell me not to smoke, and I do smoke. They 
 tell me not to eat, and I do eat. In short, I do everything 
 that I am desired not to do, and, therefore, what am I to ex 
 pect ? " 
 
 As I was brought little in contact with Mr. Thackeray from 
 this -time forth, except in the lobby of the Reform Club 
 (where, on occasions when I was waiting for a friend who was 
 a member, I enjoyed the sight of forbidden luxuries), or on 
 the steps of the Garrick, or sauntering along Pall Mall in that 
 insouciant manner which was becoming as familiar at the 
 West of London as Johnson s " rolling walk " was in Fleet 
 Street, I shall not weary the reader with any details as to 
 what might, could, would, or should have happened in connec- 
 9 
 
130 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 tion with his every-day life. My sole object has been to 
 place him before the reader precisely as I saw him, and to jot 
 down such things as appeared to have some ittle historical 
 interest. The most memorable event I can now call to mind, 
 in relation to Mr. Thackeray, is at the same time the most 
 melancholy one, for it brings me to the morning of Christmas- 
 day, 1863, when I chanced to pay a visit to Horace Mayhew, 
 in Old Bond Street. I entered the room cheerfully, 
 
 "As fits the merry Christmas-time," 
 
 and proffered the usual good wishes to Mayhew and another 
 friend who was present ; but I was surprised to find that my 
 animal spirits met with no response, and that my compan 
 ions were as depressed as I was inclined to be the reverse. 
 " Have n t you heard ? " said Mayhew, looking ominously blank 
 and chop-fallen. "Heard!" I exclaimed; "heard what?" 
 " Why, about poor Thackeray ? " " No ; what about him ? " 
 " He s dead ! " " What ! " I cried, almost petrified ; " our 
 Thackeray, the great Thackeray?" "Yes," he said, "too 
 true. William Makepeace Thackeray : he died yesterday 
 morning, or on the previous night." This was indeed a 
 piece of news as saddening as it was unexpected, and when 
 it was revealed to me I was dumb with an emotion which 
 it would have been affectation in me to endeavor to disguise. 
 As to Horace Mayhew, he had formed an affection for Thack 
 eray which on that occasion expressed itself in accents of the 
 most bitter grief. 
 
 It was soon explained that the lamented writer was found 
 dead in his bed on Christmas-eve, and that the immediate 
 cause of his disease was an effusion of blood on the brain, 
 brought on by one of those violent stomach afflictions to which 
 I have already referred. I could not but remark what a deep 
 gloom the event would cast over many an otherwise happy fire 
 side at that festive period ; and I was afterward led to the re 
 flection that the line above quoted would now too painfully 
 bear the second reading given to it by the author 
 
 "As fits the solemn Christmas-tide." 
 
HODDER S RECOLLECTIONS OF THACKERAY. 131 
 
 The line occurs in the last stanza of a little poem called " The 
 End of the Play," with which Mr. Thackeray s Christmas 
 book, " Dr. Birch and his Young Friends," closes ; and as its 
 plaintive tone of farewell would seem to be especially in har 
 mony with the author s removal from the scene, I will quote 
 the entire verse : 
 
 " My song, save this, is little worth ; 
 
 I lay the weary pen aside, 
 And wish for health and love and mirth, 
 
 As fits the solemn Christmas-tide. 
 As fits the holy Christmas birth 
 
 Be this, good friends, our carol still 
 Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, 
 
 To men of gentle will." 
 
 He laid the weary pen aside ! If these simple but impressive 
 words maybe taken as a foreshadowing of what his feelings 
 might be when called upon to lay it aside for the last time, we 
 may well believe that at that sad moment his thoughts were 
 full of prayer for the earthly peace of all. 
 
 The duty of describing in detail the funeral of Mr. Thack 
 eray must be left to his biographer a character which will, 
 doubtless, ere long be assumed by one who can speak of 
 " greatness greatly ; " but as I was present on that mournful 
 occasion I am constrained to allude to it, as affording the last 
 link in the chain of my reminiscences of this conspicuous ex 
 ample of representative men. 
 
 It was on the morning of the 3oth December that Thacke 
 ray was carried to his resting-place in Kensal Green Cemetery. 
 The atmosphere was warm, crisp, and clear ; the ground was 
 unusually elastic, and there was a genial glow over the face of 
 nature which almost forbade the idea that the hundreds who 
 were hastening to the burial-place were absorbed by other than 
 cheering thoughts. 
 
 " The sun shone bright o erhead ; 
 
 Nothing in Nature s aspect intimated 
 
 That a great man was dead." 
 
 The number of persons present was estimated at about 2,000, 
 and among them were many of the chosen lights of literature 
 and art. Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Robert Browning, Mr. 
 
T32 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Anthony Trollope, Mr. Mark Lemon, Mr. G. H. Lewes, the his 
 torian and critic ; Mr. Theodore Martin, poet and satirist ; Dr. 
 Russell, of the " Times ; " Mr. Frederick Lawrence, the au 
 thor of " The Life of Fielding : " Mr. Higgins (Jacob Omnium), 
 Mr. Robert Bell, Mr. Millais, R. A., Mr. George Cruikshank, 
 Mr. John Leech, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Horace Mayhew, 
 Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. Creswick, R. A., 
 M. Louis Blanc, Mr. John Tenniel, Mr. Edmund Yates these 
 are a few taken almost at random from the numerous gather 
 ing of friends assembled at the cemetery ; but the most note 
 worthy circumstance struck me as being the deep sympathy 
 shown in the event by a very large majority who could have 
 known nothing of Thackeray except from his works. 
 
 It was, in truth, a ceremony so full of universal interest that 
 it will be remembered as a tribute of respect to one of the 
 few whose genius could alone command it ; and, if I might be 
 allowed for one moment to associate the living Thackeray 
 with the scene, I should remark how forcibly it brought to the 
 recollection of many, who saw the hearse enter the grounds, 
 the funeral of Douglas Jerrold, when the noble gray head 
 now laid low was observed towering among the pall-bearers. 
 Indeed the mournful proceeding brought these two great 
 names closely together in my mind ; and I am free to confess 
 that, remembering what I had seen of the inherent kindness 
 of each, and recognizing so many faces at Kensal Green, 
 which, six years before, I had marked at the ceremony at Nor 
 wood, I could not but regard the coincidence as fraught with 
 both pleasure and pain. So striking, I thought, was the simi 
 larity between the circumstances attending the two burials, that 
 it was difficult to dispel the illusion that, although the two men 
 were not bound together in life by the strongest ties of friend 
 ship, the same spirit of literary brotherhood which had guided 
 their fortunes on earth seemed to hover at last over their 
 graves. 
 
 THE SNOB. 
 
 The earliest of Thackeray s literary efforts are associated 
 with Cambridge. It was in the year 1829 that he commenced, 
 
THE SNOB. 
 
 33 
 
 in conjunction with a friend and fellow student, to edit a series 
 of humorous papers, published in that city, which bore the title 
 of " The Snob : a Literary and Scientific Journal." The first 
 number appeared on the 9th of April in that year, and the 
 publication was continued weekly. Though affecting to be a 
 periodical, it was not originally intended to publish more than 
 one number ; but the project was carried on for eleven weeks, 
 in which period Mr. Lettsom had resigned the entire manage 
 ment to his friend. The contents of each number which 
 consisted only of four pages of about the size of those of the 
 present volume were scanty and slight, and consisted en 
 tirely of squibs and humorous sketches in verse and prose, 
 many of which, however, show some germs of that spirit of 
 wild fun which afterwards distinguished the " Yellowplush " 
 papers in " Fraser." When completed, the papers bore the 
 following title : 
 
 ~ THE SNOB: 
 
 A LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL. 
 NOT 
 
 CONDUCTED BY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY." 
 
 Tityre, tu patulce recubans sub tegmine fagi 
 Sylvestrem. VIRGIL. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY W. H. SMITH, 
 ROSE CRESCENT. 
 
 1829. 
 
 A few specimens of the contents of this curious publication 
 cannot but be interesting to the reader. The first specimen 
 
1 3 4 WILLIAM MAKE PEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 we shall select is a clever skit upon the Cambridge Prize 
 Poem, as follows : 
 
 TIMBUCTOO. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SNOB." 
 
 SIR, Though your name be " Snob," I trust you will not 
 refuse this tiny " Poem of a Gownsman," which was unluckily 
 not finished on the day appointed for delivery of the several 
 copies of verses on Timbuctoo. I thought, Sir, it would be a 
 pity that such a poem should be lost to the world ; and con 
 ceiving " The Snob " to be the most widely-circulated periodi 
 cal in Europe, I have taken the liberty of submitting it for 
 insertion or approbation. 
 
 I am, Sir, yours, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 TIMBUCTOO. PART I. 
 
 The situation. 
 
 In Africa (a quarter of the world), 
 Men s skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl d, 
 And somewhere there, unknown to public view, 
 A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo. 
 The natural history. 
 
 There stalks the tiger, there the lion roars, 5 
 
 Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors ; 
 All that he leaves of them the monster throws 
 To jackals, vultures, dogs, cats, kites, and crows ; 
 His hunger thus the forest monarch gluts, 
 And then lies down neath trees called cocoa-nuts. 10 
 
 Lines i and 2. See Guthrie s Geography. 
 
 The site of Timbuctoo is doubtful ; the Author has neatly expressed this in the 
 poem, at the same time giving us some slight hints relative to its situation. 
 Line 5. So Horace : " leonum arida nutrix^ 
 Line 8. Thus Apollo : 
 
 eAcopia rev^e Kwecrcriv 
 OUOVOICTL re Tracn. 
 
 Lines 5-10. How skillfully introduced are the animal and vegetable productions 
 of Africa ! It is worthy to remark the various garments in which the Poet hath 
 clothed the lion. He is called, ist, the " Lion" ; 2d, the "Monster" (for he is 
 very large) ; and 3d, the " Forest Monarch, ? which undoubtedly he is 
 
THE SNOB. 135 
 
 The lion hunt. 
 
 Quick issue out, with musket, torch, and brand, 
 The sturdy blackamoors, a dusky band ! 
 The beast is found pop goes the musketoons 
 The lion falls covered with horrid wounds. 
 
 Their lives at home. 
 
 At home their lives in pleasure always flow, 15 
 
 But many have a different lot to know ! 
 
 Abroad. 
 They re often caught, and sold as slaves, alas ! 
 
 Reflections on the foregoing. 
 Thus men from highest joys to sorrow pass. 
 Yet though thy monarchs and thy nobles boil 
 Rack and molasses in Jamaica s isle ; 20 
 
 Desolate Afric ! thou art lovely yet ! 
 
 Lines 11-14. The author confesses himself under peculiar obligations to Den- 
 ham s and Clapperton s Travels, as they suggested to him the spirited description 
 contained in these lines. 
 
 Line 13. " Pop goes the musketoons." A learned friend suggested " Bang " as 
 a stronger expression, but as African gunpowder is notoriously bad, the Author 
 thought Pop " the better word. 
 
 Lines 15-18. A concise but affecting description is here given of the domestic 
 habits of the people. The infamous manner in which they are entrapped and sold as 
 slaves is described, and the whole ends with an appropriate moral sentiment. The 
 Poem might here finish, but the spirit of the bard penetrates the veil of futurity, and 
 from it cuts off a bright piece for the hitherto unfortunate Africans, as the following 
 beautiful lines amply exemplify. 
 
 It may perhaps be remarked that the Author has here " changed his hand." He 
 answers that it was his intention to do so. Before it was his endeavor to be elegant 
 and concise, it is now his wish to be enthusiastic and magnificent. He trusts the 
 Reader will perceive the aptness with which he has changed his style ; when he nar 
 rated facts he was calm, when he enters on prophecy he is fervid. 
 
 The enthusiasm which he feels is beautifully expressed in lines 25 and 26. He 
 thinks he has very successfully imitated in the last six lines the best manner of Mr. 
 Pope ; and in lines 12-26, the pathetic elegance of the author of " Australasia and 
 Athens." 
 
 The Author cannot conclude without declaring that his aim in writing this Poem 
 will be fully accomplished, if he can infuse into the breasts of Englishmen a sense of 
 the danger in which they lie. Yes Africa ! If he can awaken one particle of 
 sympathy for thy sorrows, of love for thy land, of admiration for thy virtue, he shall 
 sink into the grave with the proud consciousness that he has raised esteem, where 
 before there was contempt, and has kindled the flame of hope on the mouldering 
 ashes of despair ! 
 
136 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 One heart yet beats which ne er thee shall forget. 
 
 What though thy maidens are a blackish brown, 
 
 Does virtue dwell in whiter breasts alone ? 
 
 Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no ! 25 
 
 It shall not, must not, cannot, e er be so. 
 
 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 ; 30 
 
 While round her throne the prostrate nations come, 
 
 Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum ! 32 
 
 This concludes with a little vignette in the " Titmarsh " 
 manner, representing an Indian smoking a pipe of the type 
 once commonly seen in the shape of a small carved image at 
 the doors of tobacconists shops. In another paper we find 
 the following pretended 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 This day is published, price 3^. 6</., "An Essay on the 
 Great Toe," together with the nature and properties of Toes 
 in general, with many sagacious inquiries why the Great Toes 
 are bigger than the Little, and why the Little are less than the 
 Great. Proving also that Gout is not the Dropsy, and that a 
 Gentleman may have a swelled Face without a pain in his 
 Back. Also a Postscript to establish that a Chilblain is very 
 unlike a Lock-jaw. Translated from the original Chaldee. 
 
 N. B. A few light summer lectures on Phrenology to be dis 
 posed of ; inquire of Mr. Smith. 
 
 A little further we come upon an exercise in Malapropisms, 1 
 under the form of a letter from Mrs. 
 
 RAMSBOTTOM IN CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Radish Ground Buildings. DEAR SIR, I was surprised 
 to see my name in Mr. Bull s paper, for I give you my word I 
 have not written a syllabub to him since I came to reside here, 
 
 1 Signed " Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom," after Theodore Hook s Paris Corre 
 spondent. 
 
THE SNOB. 137 
 
 that I might enjoy the satiety of the literary and learned 
 world. 
 
 I have the honor of knowing many extinguished persons. I 
 am on terms of the greatest contumacy with the Court of 
 Alderman, who first recommended your weekly dromedary to 
 my notice, knowing that I myself was a great literati. When 
 I am at home, I make Lavy read it to me, as I consider you 
 the censure of the anniversary, and a great upholder of moral 
 destruction. 
 
 When I came here, I began reading Mechanics (written by 
 that gentleman whose name you whistle). I thought it would 
 be something like the " Mechanics Magazine," which my poor 
 dear Ram used to make me read to him, but I found them very 
 foolish. What do I want to know about weights and measures 
 and bull s eyes, when I have left off trading. I have, there 
 fore, begun a course of ugly physics, which are very odd, and 
 written by the Marquis of Spinningtoes. 
 
 I think the Library of Trinity College is one of the most 
 admiral objects here. I saw the busks of several gentlemen 
 whose statutes I had seen at Room, and who all received their 
 edification at that College. There was Aristocracy who wrote 
 farces for the Olympic Theatre, and Democracy who was a 
 laughing philosophy. 
 
 I forgot to mention that my son George Frederick is entered 
 at St. John s, because I heard that they take most care of their 
 morals at that College. I called on the tutor, who received 
 myself and son very politely, and said he had no doubt my son 
 would be a tripod, and he hoped perspired higher than polly, 
 which I did not like. I am going to give a tea at my house, 
 when I shall be delighted to see yourself and children. 
 Believe me, dear Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient and affectionate, 
 
 DOROTHEA JULIA RAMSBOTTOM. 
 
 Further still, we have an example of droll errors in orthog 
 raphy similar to those in which Thackeray afterwards learned 
 to revel in the characters of " Yellowplush," and " Jeames of 
 Buckley Square." This is entitled : 
 
[38 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 A STATEMENT ON FAX RELATIVE TO THE 
 LATE MURDER. 
 
 By D. J. RAMSBOTTOM. 
 
 Come I to speak in Cassar s funeral. 
 
 Milton. Julius Ccesar, ACT HI. 
 
 On Wednesday, the 3rd of June as I was sitting in my back 
 parlor taking tea, young Frederick Tudge entered the room ; 
 I reserved from his disevelled hair and vegetated appearance, 
 that something was praying on his vittles. When I heard 
 from him the cause of his vegetation, I was putrified ! I stood 
 transfigured ! His father, the editor of " The Snob," had 
 been macerated in the most sanguine manner. The drops of 
 compassion refused my eyes, for I thought of him whom I had 
 lately seen high in health and happiness ; that ingenuous in- 
 divisable, who often and often when seated alone with me has 
 " made the Table roar," as the poet has it, and whose constant 
 aim in his weakly dromedary, was to delight as well as to re 
 prove. His son Frederick, too young to be acquainted with 
 the art of literal imposition, has commissioned me to excom 
 municate the circumstances of his death, and call down the 
 anger of the Proctors and Court of Aldermen on the phlogi- 
 tious perforators of the deed. 
 
 It appears he was taking his customary rendezvous by the 
 side of Trumpington Ditch, he was stopped by some men in 
 uncler-gravy dresses, who put a pitch-plaister on him, which 
 completely developed his nose and eyes, or, as Shakspeare 
 says, " his visible ray." He was then dragged into a field, 
 and the horrid deed was replete ! Such are the circumstances 
 of his death ; but Mr. Tudge died like Wriggle-us, game to 
 the last ; or like Caesar in that beautiful faction of the poet, 
 with which I have headed my remarks, I mean him who 
 wanted to be Poop of Room, but was killed by two Brutes, 
 and the fascinating hands of a perspiring Senate. 
 
THA CKERA Y IN PAA1S. \ 39 
 
 With the most sanguinary hopes that the Anniversary and 
 Town will persecute an inquiry into this dreadful action, I will 
 conclude my repeal to the pathetic reader ; and if by such a 
 misrepresentation of fax, I have been enabled to awaken an 
 apathy for the children of the late Mr. Tudge, who are left in 
 the most desultory state, I shall feel the satisfaction of having 
 exorcised my pen in the cause of Malevolence, and soothed 
 the inflictions of indignant Misery. 
 
 D. J. RAMSBOTTOM. 
 
 P. S. The Publisher requests me to state that the present 
 Number is published from the MS. found in Mr. Tudge s 
 pocket, and one more number will be soon forthcoming, con 
 taining his inhuman papers. 
 
 THACKERAY IN PARIS. 
 
 A recent writer has given some amusing particulars of his 
 Paris life, and his subsequent interest in the city, where he 
 had many friends and was known to a wide circle of readers. 
 " He lived," says this writer, " in Paris over the water, and 
 it is not long since, in strolling about the Latin Quarter with 
 the best of companions, that we visited his lodgings, Thack 
 eray inquiring after those who were already forgotten un 
 known. Those who may wish to learn his early Parisian life 
 and associations should turn to the story of Philip on his 
 Way through the World. Many incidents in that narrative 
 are reminiscences of his own youthful literary struggles whilst 
 living modestly in this city. Latterly, fortune and fame 
 enabled the author of Vanity Fair to visit imperial Paris in 
 imperial style, and Mr. Thackeray put up generally at the 
 Hotel de Bristol, in the Place Vendome. Never was increase 
 of fortune more gracefully worn or more generously employed. 
 The struggling artist and small man of letters whom he was 
 sure to find at home or abroad, was pretty safe to be assisted 
 if he learned their wants. I know of many a kind act. One 
 morning, on entering Mr. Thackeray s bedroom in Paris, I 
 found him placing some napoleons in a pill-box, on the lid of 
 
140 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 which was written, One to be taken occasionally. What 
 are you doing? said I. Well, he replied, there is an old 
 person here who says she is very ill and in distress, and I 
 strongly suspect that this is the sort of medicine she wants. 
 Dr. Thackeray intends to leave it with her himself. Let us 
 walk out together. Thackeray used to say that he came to 
 Paris for a holiday, and to revive his recollections of French 
 cooking. But he generally worked here, especially when 
 editing the Cornhill Magazine. " 
 
 Thackeray s affection for Paris, however, appears to have 
 been founded upon no relish for the gayeties of the French 
 metropolis, and certainly not upon any liking for French in 
 stitutions. His papers on this subject are generally criticisms 
 upon political, social, and literary failings of the French, writ 
 ten in a severe spirit which savors more of the confident 
 judgment of youth than of the calm spirit of the citizen of the 
 world. The reactionary rule of Louis Philippe, the Govern 
 ment of July, and the boasted Charter of 1830, were the 
 objects of his especial dislike ; nor was he less unsparing in 
 his views of French morals as exemplified in their law courts, 
 and in the novels of such writers as Madame Dudevant. The 
 truth is, that at this period Paris was, in the eyes of the art- 
 student, simply the Paradise of young painters. Possessed of 
 a good fortune said to have amounted on his coming of age 
 in 1832 to ^20,000 the young Englishman passed his days 
 in the Louvre, his evenings with his French artist acquaint 
 ances, of whom his preface to Louis Marvy s sketches gives so 
 pleasant a glimpse ; or sometimes in his quiet lodgings in the 
 Quartier Latin, in dashing off for some English or foreign 
 paper his enthusiastic notices of the Paris Exhibition, or a 
 criticism on French writers, or a story of French artist life, or 
 an account of some great cause celebre then stirring the 
 Parisian world. This was doubtless the happiest period of 
 his life. In one of these papers he describes minutely the 
 life of the art-student in Paris, and records his impressions of 
 it at the time. 
 
 " To account (he says) for the superiority over England 
 
THA CKERA Y IN PARIS. 1 4 1 
 
 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 prac 
 ticed 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 instruction, models, etc. ; and has 
 further, and for nothing, numberless incitements to study his 
 profession which are not to be found in England ; the streets 
 are filled with picture shops, the people themselves are pict 
 ures walking about ; the churches, theatres, eating-houses, 
 concert-rooms, are covered with pictures ; Nature itself 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 handsomely ; 
 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 hosts and hostesses in places where titles are 
 laughed at, and a baron is thought of no more account than a 
 banker s clerk. 
 
 " The life of the young artist here is the easiest, merriest, 
 dirtiest existence possible. 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 Lor- 
 ette (which is quite peopled with painters) : he arrives at his 
 atelier at a tolerably early hour, and labors among a score of 
 companions as merry and poor as himself. Each gentleman 
 has his favorite 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." 
 
142 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 In another paper he discourses enthusiastically of the French 
 school of painting as exemplified in a picture in the Exhibi 
 tion by Carel Dujardin, as follows : 
 
 " A horseman is riding up a hill, and giving money to a 
 blowsy beggar-wench. O matutini rores auraeque salubres ! 
 in what a wonderful way has the artist managed to create you 
 out of a few bladders of paint and pots of varnish. You can 
 see the matutinal dews twinkling in the grass, and feel the 
 fresh, salubrious airs ( the breath of Nature blowing free, as 
 the Corn-law man sings) blowing free over the heath. Silvery 
 vapors are rising up from the blue lowlands. You can tell 
 the hour of the morning and the time of the year ; you can do 
 anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the 
 Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bear 
 ing away a certain pleasing, dreaming feeling of awe and 
 musing ; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly 
 with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. 
 Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter ; he 
 does not address you with one fixed particular subject or ex 
 pression, but with a thousand never contemplated by himself, 
 and which only arise out of occasion. You may always be 
 looking at a natural landscape as at a fine pictorial imitation 
 of one ; it seems eternally producing new thoughts in your 
 bosom, as it does fresh beauties from its own." 
 
 Mr. Thackeray was in Paris in March, 1836, at the time of 
 th execution of Fieschi and Lacdnaire, upon which subject 
 he wrote some remarks in one of his anonymous papers which 
 it is interesting to compare with the more advanced views in 
 favor of the abolition of the punishment of death which are 
 familiar to the readers of his subsequent article, " On Going 
 to see a Man Hanged." He did not witness the execution 
 either of Fieschi or Lacenaire, though he made unsuccessful 
 attempts to be present at both events. 
 
 The day for Fieschi s death was purposely kept secret ; and 
 he was executed at a remote quarter of the town. But the 
 scene on the morning when his execution did not take place 
 was never forgotten by the young English artist. 
 
THACKERAY IN PARIS. 143 
 
 It was carnival time, and the rumor had pretty generally 
 been carried abroad, that the culprit was to die on that day. 
 A friend who accompanied Thackeray came many miles 
 through the mud and dark, in order to be " in at the death." 
 They set out before light, floundering through the muddy 
 Champs Elysees, where were many others upon the same er 
 rand. They passed by the Concert of Musard, then held in 
 the Rue St. Honore ; and round this, in the wet, a number of 
 coaches were collected : the ball was just up ; and a crowd of 
 people, in hideous masquerade, drunk, tired, dirty, dressed in 
 horrible old frippery and daubed^with filthy rouge, were troop 
 ing out of the place ; tipsy women and men, shrieking, jab 
 bering, gesticulating, as French will do ; parties swaggering, 
 staggering forward, arm in arm, reeling to and fro across the 
 street, and yelling songs in chorus. Hundreds of these were 
 bound for the show, and the two friends thought themselves 
 lucky in finding a vehicle to the execution place, at the Barri- 
 ere d Enfer. As they crossed the river, and entered the Rue 
 d Enfer, crowds of students, black workmen, and more drunken 
 devils, from more carnival balls, were filling it ; and on the 
 grand place there were thousands of these assembled, looking 
 out for Fieschi and his cortege. They waited, but no throat- 
 cutting that morning ; no august spectacle of satisfied justice ; 
 and the eager spectators were obliged to return, disappointed 
 of the expected breakfast of blood. " It would " (says Mr. 
 Thackeray) " have been a fine scene, that execution, could it 
 but have taken place in the midst of the mad mountebanks 
 and tipsy strumpets who had flocked so far to witness it, wish 
 ing to wind up the delights of their carnival by a bonne-bouche 
 of a murder." 
 
 The other attempt was equally unfortunate. The same 
 friend accompanied him, but they arrived too late on the 
 ground to be present at the execution of Lacenaire and his co- 
 mate in murder, Avril. But as they came to the spot (a gloomy 
 round space, within the barrier three roads led to it and, 
 outside, they saw the wine-shops and restaurateurs of the bar 
 rier looking gay and inviting), they only found in the midst of 
 
144 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 it, a little pool of ice, just partially tinged with red. Two or 
 three idle street boys were dancing and stamping about this 
 pool ; and when the Englishmen asked one of them whether 
 the execution had taken place, he began dancing more madly 
 than ever, and shrieked out with a loud fantastical theatrical 
 voice, " Venez tous Messieurs et Dames, voyez ici le sang du 
 monstre Lace naire, et de son campagnon, le traitre Avril ; Jr 
 and straightway all the other gamins screamed out the words 
 in chorus, and took hands and danced round the little puddle. 
 " Oh, august justice ! " exclaimed the young art-student, " your 
 meal was followed by an appropriate grace ! Was any man 
 who saw the show deterred, or frightened, or moralized in any 
 way ? He had gratified his appetite for blood, and this was all. 
 Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution ; 
 how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This 
 merry, pleasant mood, is brought on by the blood-tonic." 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE. 
 
 It was during the publication of " Pendennis " that a criti 
 cism in the ki Morning Chronicle " and in the " Examiner " 
 newspapers drew from Thackeray the following remarkable 
 letter on the " Dignity of Literature," addressed to the Editor 
 of the former journal : 
 
 " REFORM CLUB, Jan. StA, 1850. 
 
 " To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle? 
 
 " SIR, In a leading article of your journal of Thursday 
 the 3d instant you commented upon literary pensions and the 
 status of literary men in this country, and illustrated your 
 argument by extracts from the story of Pendennis, at present 
 in course of publication. You have received my writings with 
 so much kindness that, if you have occasion to disapprove of 
 them or the author, I can t question your right to blame me, 
 or doubt for a moment the friendliness and honesty of my 
 critic ; and however I might dispute the justice of your verdict 
 in my case, I had proposed to submit to it in silence, being 
 indeed very quiet in my conscience with regard to the charge 
 
THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE. 145 
 
 made against me. But another newspaper of high character 
 and repute takes occasion to question the principles advocated 
 in your article of Thursday ; arguing in favor of pensions for 
 literary persons, as you argued against them ; and the only 
 point upon which the Examiner and the Chronicle ap 
 pear to agree unluckily regards myself, who am offered up 
 to general reprehension in two leading articles by the two 
 writers : by the latter, for i fostering a baneful prejudice 
 against literary men ; by the former, for stooping to flatter 
 this prejudice in the public mind, and condescending to cari 
 cature (as is too often my habit) my literary fellow-laborers, 
 in order to pay court to the non-literary class. The charges 
 of the Examiner against a man who has never, to his 
 knowledge, been ashamed of his profession, or (except for its 
 dullness) of any single line from his pen grave as they are, 
 are, I hope, not proven. To stoop to flatter any class is a 
 novel accusation brought against my writings ; and as for my 
 scheme to pay court to the non-literary class by disparaging 
 my literary fellow-laborers, it is a design which would exhibit 
 a degree not only of baseness but of folly upon my part, of 
 which I trust I am not capable. The editor of the Examiner 
 may, perhaps, occasionally write, like other authors, in a hurry, 
 and not be aware of the conclusions to which some of his 
 sentences may lead. If I stoop to flatter anybody s prejudice 
 for some interested motives of my own, I am no more nor less 
 than a rogue and a cheat : which deductions from the Exam 
 iner s premises I will not stoop to contradict, because the 
 premises themselves are simply absurd. I deny that the con 
 siderable body of our countrymen described by the Exam 
 iner as the non-literary class has the least gratification in 
 witnessing the degradation or disparagement of literary men. 
 Why accuse the non-literary class of being so ungrateful ? 
 If the writings of an author give a reader pleasure or profit, 
 surely the latter will have a favorable opinion of the person 
 who so benefits him. What intelligent man, of what political 
 views, would not receive with respect and welcome that writei 
 of the Examiner of whom your paper once said, that he 
 
146 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 made all England laugh and think ? Who would deny to 
 that brilliant wit, that polished satirist, his just tribute of 
 respect and admiration ? Does any man who has written a 
 book worth reading any poet, historian, novelist, man of 
 science lose reputation by his character for genius or for 
 learning ? Does he not, on the contrary, get friends, sym 
 pathy, applause money, perhaps ? all good and pleasant 
 things in themselves, and not ungenerously awarded as they 
 are honestly won. That generous faith in men of letters, that 
 kindly regard in which the whole reading nation holds*, them, 
 appear to me to be so clearly shown in our country every day, 
 that to question them would be as absurd as, permit me to say 
 for my part, it would be ungrateful. What is it that fills 
 mechanics institutes in the great provincial towns when lit 
 erary men are invited to attend their festivals ? Has not 
 every literary man of mark his friends and his circle, his 
 hundreds or his tens of thousands of readers ? And has not 
 every one had from these constant and affecting testimonials 
 of the esteem in which they hold him ? It is of course one 
 writer s lot, from the nature of his subject or of his genius, to 
 command the sympathies or awaken the curiosity of many 
 more readers than shall choose to listen to another author ; 
 but surely all get their hearing. The literary profession is not 
 held in disrepute ; nobody wants to disparage it ; no man 
 loses his social rank, whatever it may be, by practicing it. On 
 the contrary, the pen gives a place in the world to men who 
 had none before a fair place fairly achieved by their genius ; 
 as any other degree of eminence is by any other kind of merit. 
 Literary men need not, as it seems to me, be in the least 
 querulous about their position any more, or want the pity of 
 anybody. The money-prizes which the chief among them get 
 are not so high as those which fall to men of other callings 
 to bishops, or to judges, or to opera-singers and actors ; nor 
 have they received stars and garters as yet, or peerages and 
 governorships of islands, such as fall to the lot of military 
 officers. The rewards of the profession are not to be meas 
 ured by the money standard : for one man spends a life of 
 
THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE. 147 
 
 learning and labor on a book which does not pay the printer s 
 bill, and another gets a little fortune by a few light volumes. 
 But, putting the money out of the question, I believe that the 
 social estimation of the man of letters is as good as it deserves 
 to be, and as good as that of any other professional man. 
 With respect to the question in debate between you and the 
 Examiner as to the propriety of public rewards and honors 
 for literary men, I don t see why men of letters should not 
 very cheerfully coincide with Mr. Examiner in accepting all 
 the honors, places, and prizes which they can get. The 
 amount of such as will be awarded to them will not, we may 
 be pretty sure, impoverish the country much ; and if it is the 
 custom of the State to reward by money, or titles of honor, or 
 stars and garters of any sort, individuals who do the country 
 service, and if individuals are gratified at having Sir or My 
 lord appended to their names, or stars and ribbons hooked 
 on their coats and waistcoats, as men most* undoubtedly are, 
 and as their wives, families, and relations are, there can be no 
 reason why men of letters should not have the chance, as well 
 as men of the robe or the sword ; or why, if honor and money 
 are good for one profession, they should not be good for 
 another. No man in other callings thinks himself degraded 
 by receiving a reward from his Government ; nor, surely, need 
 the literary man be more squeamish about pensions, and 
 ribbons, and titles, than the ambassador, or general, or judge. 
 Every European state but ours rewards its men of letters ; the 
 American Government gives them their full share of its small 
 patronage, and if Americans, why not Englishmen ? If Pitt 
 Crawley is disappointed at not getting a ribbon on retiring 
 from his diplomatic post at Pumpernickel, if General O Dowd 
 is pleased to be called Sir Hector O Dowd, K. C. B., and his 
 wife at being denominated my Lady O Dowd, are literary men 
 to be the only persons exempt from vanity, and is it to be a 
 sin in them to covet honor ? And now, with regard to the 
 charge against myself of fostering baneful prejudices against 
 our calling to which I no more plead guilty than I should 
 think Fielding would have done if he had been accused of a 
 design to bring the Church into contempt by describing 
 
148 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Parson Trulliber permit me to say, that before you deliver 
 sentence it would be as well if you had waited to hear the 
 whole of the argument. Who knows what is coming in the 
 future numbers of the work which has incurred your dis 
 pleasure and the Examiner s, and whether you, in accusing 
 me of prejudice, and the Examiner (alas !) of swindling and 
 flattering the public, have not been premature ? Time and the 
 hour may solve this mystery, for which the candid reader is 
 referred to our next. That I have a prejudice against run 
 ning into debt, and drunkenness, and disorderly life, and 
 against quackery and falsehood in my profession I own, and 
 that I like to have a laugh at those pretenders in it who write 
 confidential news about fashion and politics for provincial 
 gobemouches ; but I am not aware of feeling any malice in 
 describing this weakness, or of doing anything wrong in ex 
 posing the former vices. Have they never existed amongst 
 literary men ? Have their talents never been urged as a plea 
 for improvidence, and their very faults adduced as a conse 
 quence of their genius ? The only moral that I, as a writer, 
 wished to hint in the descriptions against which you protest, 
 was, that it was the duty of a literary man, as well as any 
 other, to practice regularity and sobriety, to love his family, 
 and to pay his tradesmen. Nor is the picture I have drawn 
 1 a caricature which I condescend to, any more than it is a 
 willful and insidious design on my part to flatter the non- 
 literary class. If it be a caricature, it is the result of a nat 
 ural perversity of vision, not of an artful desire to mislead : 
 but my attempt was to tell the truth, and I meant to tell it not 
 unkindly. I have seen the bookseller whom Bludyer robbed 
 of his books : I have carried money, and from a noble brother 
 man-of-letters, to some one not unlike Shandon in prison, and 
 have watched the beautiful devotion of his wife in that dreary 
 place. Why are these things not to be described, if they 
 illustrate, as they appear to me to do, that strange and awfui 
 struggle of good and wrong which takes place in our hearts 
 and in the world ? It may be that I worked out my moral ill, 
 or it may be possible that the critic of the * Examiner fails in 
 apprehension. My efforts as an artist come perfectly within 
 
THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE. 149 
 
 his province as a censor ; but when Mr. Examiner says of a 
 gentleman that he is * stooping to flatter a public prejudice, 
 which public prejudice does not exist, I submit that he makes 
 a charge which is as absurd as it is unjust, and am thankful 
 that it repels itself. And, instead of accusing the public of 
 persecuting and disparaging us as a class, it seems to me that 
 men of letters had best silently assume that they are as good 
 as any other gentlemen, nor raise piteous controversies upon 
 a question which all people of sense must take to be settled. 
 If I sit at your table, I suppose that I am my neighbor s equal 
 as that he is mine. If I begin straightway with a protest of 
 1 Sir, I am a literary man, but I would have you to know I am 
 as good as you, which of us is it that questions the dignity of 
 the literary profession my neighbor who would like to eat 
 his soup in quiet, or the man of letters who commences the 
 argument? And I hope that a comic writer, because he 
 describes one author as improvident and another as a parasite, 
 may not only be guiltless of a desire to vilify his profession, 
 but may really have its honor at heart. If there are no spend 
 thrifts or parasites amongst us, the satire becomes unjust ; 
 but if such exist, or have existed, they are as good subjects 
 for comedy as men of other callings. I never heard that the 
 Bar felt itself aggrieved because Punch chose to describe 
 Mr. Dunup s notorious state of insolvency, or that the picture 
 of Stiggins in * Pickwick was intended as an insult to all 
 Dissenters, or that all the attorneys in the empire were indig 
 nant at the famous history of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, 
 and Snap. Are we to be passed over because we are fault 
 less, or because we cannot afford to be laughed at ? And if 
 every character in a story is to represent a class, not an 
 individual if every bad figure is to have its obliged contrast 
 of a good one, and a balance of vice and virtue is to be struck 
 novels, I think, would become impossible, as they would be 
 intolerably stupid and unnatural, and there would be a lamen 
 table end of writers and readers of such compositions. 
 " Believe me, Sir, to be your very faithful servant, 
 
 "W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
1 5 O WILLIAM MA KEPEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THACKERAY. 
 Who that has seen will ever forget the commanding figure 
 and the stately head ? Sauntering usually a solitary man 
 through the hall of the Reform Club, or in the quietudes of 
 the Athenaeum, making up his mind to find a corner to work 
 for an hour or so on the small sheets of paper in his pocket, 
 in a hand as neat as Peter Cunningham s, or Leigh Hunt s ; : 
 gazing dreamily, and often with a sad and weary look, out of 
 window ; moving slowly westward home to dinner on a sum 
 mer s evening ; or making a strange presence, as obviously not 
 belonging to the place, in Fleet Street, on his way to White- 
 friars or Cornhill ; who that knew him does not remember 
 dear Old Thackeray, as his familiars lovingly called him, in 
 some or all of these moods and places ? In Thackeray as in 
 Dickens, there was a strong and impressive individuality. No 
 two men could be less alike, in person or mind, than these two 
 writers who shared the world s favor together ; and yet there 
 was an equality and identity in their impressiveness. Dickens s 
 strength was quick, alert, and with the glow of health in it ; 
 it seemed to proceed like that of a mighty engine from an in 
 ward fire. Thackeray s was calm, majestic by its ease and ex 
 tent, as the force of a splendid stream. Hawthorne s figure 
 and air has been described as " modestly grand : " and the ob 
 servation, it occurs to me, applies exactly to Thackeray. In 
 deed I have often been struck with the idea that the two men 
 must have affected society much in the same way, and by 
 the same mental and physical qualities. Like Hawthorne, 
 Thackeray 
 
 " Wandered lonely as a cloud, 
 
 a cloud, it should be noted and remembered, with a silver 
 lining. In their solitude, when suddenly observed, both had 
 a sad, a grave aspect : and each was " marvelously moved 
 
 1 Shortly before his death he spent a morning in the reading-room of the British 
 Museum, and there by accident left upon a table a page of the MS. of the story 
 he had in hand. The paper being found, the clearness and roundness of the writ 
 ing at once suggested the owner to the attendant, and the precious, missing leaf was 
 forwarded to Kensington. 
 
PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THACKERAY. 151 
 
 to fun" on occasions. In both the boy appeared easily; and 
 this was a quality of Dickens s genius, as it was of my fa 
 ther s. I should like to see pictures of Thackeray holding a 
 skein of silk for a child upon his broad hands ; of Dickens 
 playing at leap-frog or rounders : of Hawthorne lying in the 
 grass listening to the birds, and ducking lest the passers by 
 should interrupt him ; and of Douglas Jerrold taking part in 
 basting the bear in his Kentish orchard. Mr. Fields s descrip 
 tion of Hawthorne s fun at sea, and of his grand solitary fig 
 ure under the stars at night, might stand for portraiture of 
 Thackeray. 
 
 If Thackeray cast upon the outer world an austere almost 
 contemptuous look and walked the streets and paced the 
 clubs self-contained, solitary, it was because he was an ob 
 server of human nature, indeed of all nature. You stand 
 away to examine a picture. He who goes to observe the 
 Downs on a Derby day does not take three sticks at Aunt 
 Sally. When Thackeray observed a child at play, he was 
 touched by the natural flow of its movements and the natural 
 philosophy underlying its prattle. Dickens put himself under 
 the glossy plumes of the raven in the happy family, and dwelt 
 unctuously on the juiciness of the youngster s exposed calves. 
 The difference, I have thought, having often come upon both 
 at busy points of observation, was shown in their attitude to 
 wards the world when in the thick of it. Thackeray sailed ma 
 jestically along, one hand thrust in his pocket, a cultivated, 
 fastidious, high-bred man, deep-hearted withal. Dickens had 
 a swifter headway, a more combative and a compacter air, and 
 bore down with his bright eye that had (to use Dore s phrase 
 to me applied to his own retentive vision) plenty of collodion 
 in it, upon every human countenance, every beggar s limp, or 
 groundling s daub of dirt. Brave and loyal workers both, who 
 have laid the world under immeasurable debts of gratitude to 
 them ; they held along opposite sides of the way, and at each 
 passing man and woman gazed, albeit they knew them not, 
 feeling that- there were no ordinary men abroad that day. 
 
 It was with Thackeray as with Hawthorne. The grand, sad 
 
152 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 mask could pucker in a moment, and break into hearty fun and 
 laughter. A friend went laughing into the Reform Club one 
 afternoon ; he had just met Thackeray at the door of the Athe 
 naeum Club. He had had a dispute with his cabman about the 
 fare, which he had just proposed to settle by a toss. If Thack 
 eray won, the cabman was to receive two shillings, and if the 
 toss went against the author of " Vanity Fair " the cabman 
 was to receive one shilling. Fortune was with the novelist ; 
 and he dwelt delightfully afterwards on the gentlemanly man 
 ner in which the driver took his defeat. Yet there were times, 
 and many, when Thackeray could not break through his out 
 ward austerity, even when passing an intimate friend in the 
 street. I and a mutual friend met him one afternoon in Fleet 
 Street, ambling to Whitefriars on his cob, and a very extraor 
 dinary figure he made. He caught sight of us, and my com 
 panion 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 upon the pavement and cried, " Who would 
 think that we were up till four o clock this morning together, 
 and that he sang his Reverend Dr. Luther, and was the live 
 liest of us." 
 
 But Thackeray was a sick man, as well as a hard-worked 
 one. He was threatened by several disorders of long continu 
 ance ; 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. Indeed by the outer world by those with whom 
 he came in contact for the first time he was not loved, and 
 not often liked. His address was as polished as a steel mir 
 ror, and as cold. In the " Hoggarty Diamond," in that exquisite 
 chapter given to Mr. Titmarsh s drive with Lady Drum, Mr. 
 Samuel observes : " For though I am but a poor fellow, and 
 hear people cry out how vulgar it is to eat peas with a knife, 
 or ask three times for cheese, and such like points of cere 
 mony, there s something, I think, much more vulgar than all 
 this, and that is insolence to one s inferiors. I hate the chap 
 
PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THACKERAY. 153 
 
 that uses it, as I scorn him of humble rank that affects to be 
 of the fashion ; and so I determined to let Mr. Preston know 
 a piece of my mind," And Mr. Preston knew it accordingly. 
 In this passage there is the key-note of the wordly side of 
 Thackeray s character. He was beloved by his inferiors, and 
 reserved his hottest scorn for those pretenders who, buffeted 
 and cold-shouldered by those in whose society they aspire to 
 mix, take their revenge upon their dependents. 
 
 Testimonies of love, of friendship, of admiration, in records 
 of kindly acts, in anecdotes of tender heart, in passages from 
 his works illustrating passages of his life, filled the papers at 
 that mournful Christmas-time when he died. The instances of 
 his kindly and unostentatious help to many of his young liter 
 ary friends might be given by the score. I can remember 
 many that came under my own observation. I was one morn 
 ing at Horace Mayhew s chambers in Regent Street when 
 Thackeray knocked at the door, and cried from without 
 " It s no use, Porry Mayhew : open the door." 
 
 " It s dear old Thackeray," said Mayhew, instinctively put 
 ting chairs and table in order to do honor to the friend of 
 whom he never spoke without pride, and without adding, "I 
 know dear good Thackeray is very fond of me." 
 
 Thackeray came in, saying cheerily " Well, young gentle 
 men, you 11 admit an old fogy." 
 
 He always spoke of himself as an old man. Between him 
 and Mayhew there were not many years. He took up the pa 
 pers lying about, talked the gossip of the day, and then sud 
 denly said with his hat in his hand "I was going away 
 without doing part of the business of my visit. You spoke 
 the other day at the dinner (the " Punch " weekly-meeting) of 
 poor George. Somebody most unaccountably has re 
 turned me a five pound note I lent him a long time ago. I 
 did n t expect it : so just hand it to George : and tell him, 
 when his pocket will bear it, to pass it on to some poor fellow 
 of his acquaintance. By-bye." A nod and he was gone. 
 
 This was, we all agreed, very like "dear old Thackeray. 
 
154 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 THACKERAY YATES DICKENS. 
 
 The year 1858 was marked by an unfortunate episode the 
 facts of which cannot be omitted from this narrative, because 
 though trifling in their origin, they finally led to a temporary 
 estrangement between Mr. Thackeray and his great brother 
 novelist Mr. Dickens, with whom he had hitherto had only 
 relations of the most friendly character. On the I2th of June 
 in that year an article had appeared in a periodical called 
 " Town Talk," which professed to give an account of Mr. 
 Thackeray his appearance, his career, and his success. 
 The article was coarse and offensive in tone, but it was noto 
 rious that the periodical was edited by a clever writer of the 
 day, well known to Mr. Thackeray as a brother member of a 
 club to which he belonged. As such, the subject of the at 
 tack felt himself compelled to take notice of it. In order to 
 understand the resentment displayed by the latter at this un 
 provoked attack, it is necessary to quote the following pas 
 sage from the article : 
 
 His APPEARANCE. 
 
 " Mr. Thackeray is forty-six years old, though from the sil 
 very whiteness of his hair he appears somewhat older. He 
 is very tall, standing upwards of six feet two inches ; and as 
 he walks erect, his height makes him conspicuous in every as 
 sembly. His face is bloodless, and not particularly expres 
 sive, but remarkable for the fracture of the bridge of the nose, 
 the result of an accident in youth. He wears a small gray 
 whisker, but otherwise is clean shaven. No one meeting him 
 could fail to recognize in him a gentleman : his bearing is 
 cold and uninviting, his style of conversation either openly 
 cynical, or affectedly good-natured and benevolent ; his bon- 
 hommie is forced, his wit biting, his pride easily touched 
 but his appearance is invariably that of the cool, suave, well- 
 bred gentleman, who, whatever may be rankling within, suf 
 fers no surface display of his emotion. 
 
THA CKERA Y YA TES DICKENS. \ 5 5 
 
 His SUCCESS, 
 
 " Commencing * with Vanity Fair, culminated with his 
 4 Lectures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Cent 
 ury, which were attended by all the court and fashion of 
 London. The prices were extravagant, the lecturer s adula 
 tion of birth and position was extravagant, the success was 
 extravagant. No one succeeds better than Mr. Thackeray in 
 cutting his coat according to his cloth : here he flattered the 
 aristocracy, but when he crossed the Atlantic, George Wash 
 ington became the idol of his worship, the i Four Georges the 
 objects of his bitterest attacks. These last-named lectures 
 have been dead failures in England, though as literary compo 
 sitions they are most excellent. Our own opinion is, that his 
 success is on the wane ; his writings never were understood or 
 appreciated even by the middle classes ; the aristocracy have 
 been alienated by his American onslaught on their body, and 
 the educated and refined are not sufficiently numerous to con 
 stitute an audience ; moreover, there is a want of heart in all 
 he writes, which is not to be balanced by the most brilliant 
 sarcasm, and the most perfect knowledge of the workings of 
 the human heart." 
 
 Two days later Mr. Thackeray addressed the assumed 
 writer of this article, in the following letter : 
 
 " 36 ONSLOW SQUARE, S- W., June 14. 
 
 " SIR, I have received two numbers of a little paper 
 called Town Talk, containing notices respecting myself, of 
 which, as I learn from the best authority, you are the writer. 
 
 " In the first article of i Literary Talk you think fit to pub 
 lish an incorrect account of my private dealings with my pub 
 lishers. 
 
 " In this week s number appears a so-called i Sketch con 
 taining a description of my manners, person, and conversa 
 tion, and an account of my literary works, which of course you 
 are at liberty to praise or condemn as a literary critic. 
 
 " But you state, with regard to my conversation, that it is 
 
156 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 either frankly cynical or affectedly benevolent and good- 
 natured ; and of my works (Lectures), that in some I showed 
 an extravagant adulation of rank and position, which in 
 other lectures ( as I know how to cut my coat according to 
 my cloth ) became the object of my bitterest attack. 
 
 " As I understand your phrases, you impute insincerity to 
 me when I speak good-naturedly in private ; assign dishonor 
 able motives to me for sentiments which I have delivered in 
 public, and charge me with advancing statements which I 
 have never delivered at all. 
 
 " Had your remarks been written by a person unknown to 
 me, I should have noticed them no more than other calum 
 nies ; but as we have shaken hands more than once, and met 
 hitherto on friendly terms (you may ask one of your employ 
 ers, Mr. , of , whether I did not speak of you very 
 
 lately in the most friendly manner), I am obliged to take 
 notice of articles which I consider to be not offensive and un 
 friendly merely, but slanderous and untrue. 
 
 " We meet at a club, where, before you were born, I be 
 lieve, I and other gentleman have been in the habit of talking 
 without any idea that our conversation would supply para 
 graphs for professional vendors of Literary Talk ; and I 
 don t remember that out of that club I have ever exchanged 
 six words with you. Allow me to inform you that the talk 
 which you have heard there is not intended for newspaper re 
 mark ; and to beg as I have a right to do that you will 
 refrain from printing comments upon my private conversa 
 tions ; that you will forego discussions, however blundering, 
 upon my private affairs ; and that you will henceforth please 
 to consider any question of my personal truth and sincerity as 
 quite out of the province of your criticism. I am, etc., 
 
 " W. M. THACKERAY." 
 
 Subsequently Mr. Thackeray " rather (he said) than have 
 any further correspondence with the writer of the character," 
 determined to submit the letters which had passed between 
 them to the committee of the club, for that body to decide 
 
THA CKERA Y } A TES DICKENS. 1 5 / 
 
 whether the practice of publishing such articles would not be 
 " fatal to the comfort of the club," and " intolerable in a 
 society of gentlemen." The committee accordingly met, and 
 decided that the writer of the attack complained of was bound 
 to make an ample apology, or to retire from the club. The 
 latter contested the right of the committee to interfere. Suits 
 at law and proceedings in chancery against the committee 
 were threatened, when Mr. Dickens, who was also a member 
 of the club, interfered with the following letter : 
 
 " TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W. C. 
 " Wednesday, 2^tk November ^ 1858. 
 
 " MY DEAR THACKERAY, Without a word of prelude, I 
 wish this note to revert to a subject on which I said six words 
 to you at the Athenaeum when I last saw you. 
 
 " Coming home from my country work, I find Mr. Edwin 
 James s opinion taken on this painful question of the Garrick 
 and Mr. Edmund Yates. I find it strong on the illegality of 
 the Garrick proceeding. Not to complicate this note or give 
 it a formal appearance, I forbear from copying the opinion ; 
 but I have asked to see it, and I have it, and I want to make 
 no secret from you of a word of it. 
 
 " I find Mr. Edwin James retained on the one side ; I hear 
 and read of the Attorney-general being retained on the other. 
 Let me, in this state of things, ask you a plain question. 
 
 " Can any conference be held between me, as representing 
 Mr. Yates, and an appointed friend of yours, as representing 
 you, with the hope and purpose of some quiet accommodation 
 of this deplorable matter, which will satisfy the feelings of all 
 concerned ? 
 
 " It is right that, in putting this to you, I should tell you 
 that Mr. Yates, when you first wrote to him, brought your 
 letter to me. He had recently done me a manly service I can 
 never forget, in some private distress of mine (generally within 
 your knowledge), and he naturally thought of me as his friend 
 in an emergency. * I told him that his article was not to be 
 defended ; but I confirmed him in his opinion that it was not 
 reasonably possible for him to set right what was amiss, on 
 
T 5 8 WILLIAM MAKE PEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 the receipt of a letter couched in the very strong terms you 
 had employed. When you appealed to the Garrick committee 
 and they called their General Meeting, I said at that meeting 
 that you and I had been on good terms for many years, and 
 that I was very sorry to find myself opposed to you ; but that 
 I was clear that the committee had nothing on earth to do 
 with it, and that in the strength of my conviction I should go 
 against them. 
 
 " If this mediation that I have suggested can take place, I 
 shall be heartily glad to do my best in it and God knows in 
 no hostile spirit towards any one, least of all to you. If it 
 cannot take place, the thing is at least no worse than it was ; 
 and you will burn this letter, and I will burn your answer. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " W. M. Thackeray, Esq." 
 
 To this Mr. Thackeray replied : 
 
 " 36 ONFLOW SQUARE, 26th November, 1858 
 
 " DEAR DICKENS, I grieve to gather from your letter that 
 you were Mr. Yates s adviser in the dispute between me and 
 him. His letter was the cause of my appeal to the Garrick 
 Club for protection from insults against which I had no other 
 remedy. 
 
 " I placed my grievance before the committee of the club 
 as the only place where I have been accustomed to meet Mr. 
 Yates. They gave their opinion of his conduct and of the 
 reparation which lay in his power. Not satisfied with their 
 sentence, Mr. Yates called for a General Meeting ; and, the 
 meeting which he had called having declared against him, he 
 declines the jurisdiction which he had asked for, and says he 
 will have recourse to lawyers. 
 
 li You say that Mr. Edwin James is strongly of opinion that 
 the conduct of the club is illegal. On this point I can give 
 no sort of judgment : nor can I conceive that the club will be 
 frightened, by the opinion of any lawyer, out of their own 
 sense of the justice and honor which ought to obtain among 
 gentlemen 
 
THACKERA Y YA TES DICKENS. I 59 
 
 Ever since I submitted my case to the club, I have had, 
 and can have, no part in the dispute. It is for them to judge 
 if any reconcilement is possible with your friend. I subjoin 
 the copy of a letter which I wrote to the committee, and refer 
 you to them for the issue. 
 
 " Yours, etc., W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 " C. Dickens, Esq." 
 
 The inclosure referred to was as follows : 
 
 " ONSI.OW SQUARE, Nov. 28, 1858 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, I have this day received a communication 
 from Mr. Charles Dickens, relative to the dispute which has 
 been so long pending, in which he says : 
 
 " i Can any conference be held between me as representing 
 Mr. Yates, and any appointed friend of yours, as representing 
 you, in the hope and purpose of some quiet accommodation of 
 this deplorable matter, which will satisfy the feelings of all 
 parties ? 
 
 " I have written to Mr. Dickens to say, that since the com 
 mencement of this business, I have placed myself entirely in 
 the hands of the committee of the Garrick, and am still as 
 ever prepared to abide by any decision at which they may 
 arrive on the subject. I conceive I cannot, if I would, make 
 the dispute once more personal, or remove it out of the court 
 to which I submitted it for arbitration. 
 
 " If you can devise any peaceful means for ending it, no one 
 will be better pleased than 
 
 " Your obliged faithful servant, 
 
 " W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 " The Committee of the Garrick Club." 
 
 It would be in vain to attempt to conceal that this painful 
 affair left a coolness between Mr. Thackeray and his brother 
 novelist. Mr. Thackeray, smarting under the elaborate and 
 unjust attack, portions of which were copied and widely cir 
 culated in other journals, could not but regard the friend and 
 adviser of his critic as in some degree associated with it ; and 
 Mr. Dickens, on the other hand, naturally hurt at finding his 
 
1 60 WILLIAM MAKEPEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 offer of arbitration rejected, gave the letters to the original 
 author of the trouble for publication, with the remark : " As 
 the receiver of my letter did not respect the confidence in 
 which it addressed him, there can be none left for you to 
 violate. I send you what I wrote to Mr. Thackeray, and what 
 he wrote to me, and you are at perfect liberty to print the 
 two." Thus, for a while, ended this painful affair. Readers 
 of Disraeli s " Quarrels of Authors " will miss in it those 
 sterner features of the dissensions between literary men as 
 they were conducted in the old times ; but none can contem 
 plate this difference between the two great masters of fiction 
 of our day with other than feelings of regret for the causes 
 which led to it. 
 
 It is pleasing, however, to learn that the differences be 
 tween them were ended before Mr. Thackeray s death. 
 Singularly enough, this happy circumstance occurred only a 
 few days before the time when it would have been too late. 
 The two great authors met by accident in the lobby of a club. 
 They suddenly turned and saw each other, and the unre 
 strained impulse of both was to hold out the hand of forgive 
 ness and fellowship. With that hearty grasp the difference 
 which estranged them ceased forever. 
 
 ROBERT BELL S WATCH. 
 
 Louis Blanc, the historian of the French Revolution, has 
 recently related in a French newspaper the following story : 
 A few years ago the London papers announced that a 
 Frenchman, whose name I need not give you [M. Louis Blanc 
 himself], was going to deliver in English what is here called a 
 lecture. Foremost among those who were moved by a feeling 
 of delicate kindness and hospitable curiosity to encourage the 
 lecturer with their presence, was Thackeray. When the lect 
 ure was over, the manager of the literary institution where it 
 was delivered, for some reason or other, recommended the 
 company to take care of their pockets in the crowd at the 
 doors a hint which was not particularly to the taste of a 
 highly respectable and even distinguished audience. Some 
 
THACKERAY^S LITERARY CAREER. l6l 
 
 oven protested, and none more warmly than an unknown per 
 son, very well dressed, sitting next to Mr. Robert Bell. Not 
 content with speaking, this unknown person gesticulated in a 
 singularly animated manner. * Is n t such a suggestion in 
 decent, sir insulting ? said he to Mr. Bell. What does he 
 take us for ? etc., etc. After giving vent to his indignation in 
 this way for some moments, the susceptible stranger disap 
 peared, and when Mr. Robert Bell, who wanted to know how 
 long the lecture had lasted, put his hand to his watch-pocket, 
 behold ! his watch had disappeared likewise. Thackeray, to 
 whom his excellent friend mentioned the mishap, invited 
 Robert Bell to dinner a day or two after. When the day came, 
 Robert Bell took his seat at his friend s table, round which a 
 joyous company of wits were gathered, and soon found him 
 self encircled by a rattling fire of banter about an article of 
 his which had just appeared in the i Cornhill Magazine, then 
 conducted by Thackeray ; an article remarkable in all re 
 spects, and which had attracted universal notice, as a faithful, 
 serious, and philosophical account of some effects of Spiritual 
 ism which the author had witnessed at a seance given by Mr. 
 Home. Mr. Robert Bell is an admirable causeur ; his talk is 
 a happy mixture of an Englishman s good sense and an Irish 
 man s verve. So his questioners found their match in brilliant 
 fence. Next day a mysterious messenger arrived at Mr. 
 Robert Bell s, and handed to him, without saying who had 
 sent it, a box containing a note, worded, as nearly as I recol 
 lect, as follows : The Spirits present their compliments to 
 Mr. Robert Bell, and as a mark of their gratitude to him, they 
 have the honor to return him the watch that was stolen from 
 him. And a watch it really was that the box contained, 
 but a watch far finer and richer than the one which had disap 
 peared. Mr. Robert Bell at once thought of Thackeray, and 
 wrote to him without further explanation : I don t know if it 
 is to you, but it is very like you. Thackeray in reply sent a 
 caricature portrait of himself, drawn by his own hand, and 
 representing a winged spirit in a flowing robe, and spectacles 
 on nose. Thackeray had in early life taken to painting, and 
 
1 62 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 perhaps if he had pursued his first vocation, he might have 
 come in time to handle the brush as well as he afterwards 
 handled the pen. At any rate the drawing in question as I 
 can bear witness, was one to bring tears into your eyes for 
 laughing. It was accompanied by a note as follows : i The 
 Spirit Gabriel presents his compliments to Mr. Robert Bell, 
 and takes the liberty to communicate to him the portrait of 
 the person who stole the watch. Now, is not this bit of a 
 story charming ? What grace ! what delicacy ! what humor in 
 this inspiration of a friend who, to punish his friend for hav 
 ing done the Spirits the honor to speak of them, sends him 
 with a smile a magnificent present. Honorable to Thackeray, 
 this anecdote is equally so to Robert Bell, who could inspire 
 such feelings in such a man. And this is why I feel a double 
 pleasure in relating it." 
 
 THACKERAY S LAST ILLNESS. 
 
 His hand had been missed in the last two numbers of the 
 " Cornhill Magazine," but only because he had been engaged 
 in laying the foundation of another of those continuous works 
 of fiction which his readers so eagerly expected. In the then 
 current number of the " Cornhill Magazine," the customary 
 orange-colored fly-leaf had announced that " a new serial 
 story " by him would be commenced early in the new year ; 
 but the promise had scarcely gone abroad when we learnt that 
 the hand which had penned its opening chapters, in the full 
 prospect of a happy ending, could never again add line or 
 word to that long range of writings which must always remain 
 one of the best evidences of the strength and beauty of our 
 English speech. 
 
 On the Tuesday preceding he had followed to the grave his 
 relative, Lady Rodd, widow of Vice-admiral Sir John Tre- 
 mayne Rodd, K. C. B., who was the daughter of Major James 
 Rennell, F. R. S., Surveyor-general of Bengal, by the daughter 
 of the Rev. Dr. Thackeray, Head Master of Harrow School. 
 Only the day before this, according to a newspaper account, 
 he had been congratulating himself on having finished four 
 
THACKERAY S LAST ILLNESS. 163 
 
 numbers of a new novel ; he had the manuscript in his pocket, 
 and with a boyish frankness showed the last pages to a friend, 
 asking him to read them and see what he could make of them. 
 When he had completed four numbers more he said he would 
 subject himself to the skill of a very clever surgeon, and be 
 no more an invalid. Only two days before he had been seen 
 at his club in high spirits ; but with all his high spirits, he did 
 not seem well ; he complained of illness ; but he was often ill, 
 and he laughed off his present attack. He said that he was 
 about to undergo some treatment which would work a perfect 
 cure in his system, and so he made light of his malady. He 
 was suffering from two distinct complaints, one of which had 
 now wrought his death. More than a dozen years before, 
 while he was writing " Pendennis," the publication of that 
 work was stopped by his serious illness. He was brought to 
 death s door, and he was saved from death by Dr. Elliotson, 
 to whom, in gratitude, he dedicated the novel when he lived to 
 finish it. But ever since that ailment he had been subject 
 every month or six weeks to attacks of sickness, attended with 
 violent retching. He was congratulating himself, just before 
 his death, on the failure of his old enemy to return, and then 
 he checked himself, as if he ought not to be too sure of a re 
 lease from his plague. On the morning of Wednesday, the 
 23d of December, the complaint returned, and he was in 
 great suffering all day. He was no better in the evening, and 
 his valet, Charles Sargent, left him at eleven o clock on 
 Wednesday night, Mr. Thackeray wishing him " Good-night " 
 as he went out of the room. At nine o clock on the following 
 morning the valet entering his master s chamber as usual, 
 found him lying on his back quite still, with his arms spread 
 over the coverlet, but he took no notice, as he was accustomed 
 to see his master thus after one of his stomach attacks. He 
 brought some coffee and set it down beside the bed, and it 
 was only when he returned after an interval and found that 
 the cup had not been tasted, that a sudden alarm seized him, 
 and he discovered that his master was dead. About midnight 
 Mr. Thackeray s mother, who slept overhead, had heard him 
 
164 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 get up and walk about his room ; but she was not alarmed, as 
 this was a habit of her son when unwell. It is supposed that 
 he had, in fact, been seized at this time, and that the violence 
 of the attack had brought on the effusion on the brain 
 which, as the post-mortem examination showed, was the im 
 mediate cause of death. His medical attendants attributed his 
 death to effusion on the brain, and added that he had a very 
 large brain, weighing no less than 58^ oz. He thus died of 
 the complaint which seemed to trouble him least. 
 
 SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. 
 
 Born a gentleman, educated at a university, and very soon 
 induced to devote himself to authorship, an occupation which, 
 after a determined but not disagreeable struggle, gave him 
 fame and prosperity Mr. Thackeray underwent few of the 
 adventures which he has described so well, or others of a 
 rougher order. Nor did his well-regulated mind permit him 
 to indulge in the passions, follies, or tentative efforts which 
 have made the lives of so many men hard living but agreeable 
 reading. Sir Walter Scott s history as an author is varied by 
 the story of a mystery more wonderfully kept than that in any 
 of the sensation tales of our day, and by the story of a grand 
 speculation which brought about a ruin more nobly repaired 
 than ever was similar imprudence atoned for. Byron s life 
 was full of real romance, vulgarized into mock romance by the 
 vanity and mystifying tendencies of the man, and by the ma 
 levolent propensities of those who refused to see the diamond 
 because it was in brass and backed with tinsel. In the story 
 of Burns we have a constant and painful struggle of genius 
 with frailty, and are everywhere reminded, as in the noble 
 lines of Marlowe, 
 
 " How angels, in their crystal armor, fight 
 A doubtful battle with our tempted thoughts.* 
 
 And we doubt not that when the lives of many men of the 
 present day, who have attained much literary eminence, though 
 far less than Thackeray, come to the press, it will be seen 
 that living authors, like their betters, "have had buffets." 
 
SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. 165 
 
 But in Thackeray s career, so far as the world can ever know 
 it, there is little of which a biographer can make points. The 
 story of his inner life and troubles would doubtless have been 
 one of deep interest. The loss of fortune, and a still severer 
 trial to his loving nature a trial to which this is our first and 
 last reference must have given him hours and hours of care 
 and sorrow ; and, had he chosen to place these on record, 
 and (after the fashion of sundry French and English egotist 
 ical psychologists) to lay bare his own soul to the world, we 
 might have had an autobiography inferior to none in that 
 special interest which self-depiction, performed by a master s 
 hand, must ever offer. But he has not done this, and none 
 can presume to supply what he has chosen to withhold. It 
 was not that he shunned the world s eye we all feel at this 
 moment how endeared he was to us by his delightful habit of 
 treating us all as his friends, and of confiding to us his " little 
 miseries," telling us how discourteous were some of the small 
 enemies who attacked him, and how unreasonable were the 
 small friends who besieged him. He was of much too healthy 
 a mind to fear to walk about in his habit as he lived in private, 
 and he never shrouded himself in mysteries, nor broke upon 
 us, at stated seasons, in a blaze of glory. Simple, natural, and 
 a gentleman, he was ever as frank as those who live in good 
 society are usually found. But his great griefs he kept to 
 himself, and would have instantly recoiled from the idea of 
 making money or fame by a revelation of the pulsations of a 
 troubled heart. Hence, his outside life having been without 
 adventure, and his inner life a secret between- his Maker and 
 himself, his biographer has little to tell save what all know. 
 
 The "grand county" may add his name to the roll of great, 
 and brave, and good men who have come from Yorkshire. 
 His father was in the civil service of the East India Company; 
 and his mother, who has lived to behold a people in sorrow 
 for the son who was so devoted to her, is understood to claim 
 a descent of equally sturdy English character from the real 
 old English who inhabit the principality. So he is England s 
 by every right of pedigree. His grandfather was a clergyman 
 
1 66 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 of the Established Church. William Makepeace Thackeray 
 was born in Calcutta in the year 1811, and soon came to this 
 country. He was a Charterhouse boy and a Cambridge man. 
 His last public appearance was at the Charterhouse dinner, 
 and he gave the time-honored Latin toast (which prays for 
 prosperity to the great foundation) with a heartiness which 
 was sadly remembered by some who heard him, and who stood 
 by his open grave a few days later. He has not made much 
 formal use of his college experiences, but they crop up, ever 
 and anon, in his writings ; and in that delightful " Shabby 
 Genteel Story," the foundation upon which, years after, he 
 based the history of " Philip," we find some early sketches of 
 disreputable collegians. But he knew good men and true 
 while at Cambridge, and preserved their friendship till the 
 hour when friendship is ended. 
 
 Thackeray s own inclination was for the life of an artist. 
 To his last day he was an earnest and devoted lover of art 
 and of its professors ; and it is remarkable that, large as was 
 the number of distinguished men of his own calling who came 
 round his grave, the assemblage of first-rate artists was almost 
 as large. There stood Millais and Marochetti, and Redgrave ; 
 Creswick, O Neil, and Cruikshank ; Leech, and Teniel, and 
 Doyle ; Munro, Du Maurier, Walker, and Phillips, and others 
 whose faces we saw as faces are seen at such a moment, 
 whose presence we recognize when names do not always arise 
 to the mind. He had ever the largest praise for the artist who 
 had made a reputation, the kindest word for him who was strug 
 gling on an upward course, and the most open hand for the 
 artist who was neither successful nor advancing. Intending 
 to educate himself for painting, he travelled much, and, as 
 happens to many men, he was really educating himself in the 
 finest and wisest manner for another art than that which he 
 thought he was studying. And upon this path he soon 
 entered, and trod it to the last. He was fortunate, we think, 
 in not beginning authorship too young. He had not, as 
 Douglas Jerrold said, " to take down the shutters before there 
 was anything in the shop windows." He had been well edu- 
 
SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. l6/ 
 
 cated, had moved in refined society, had seen much of the 
 world, and had his mind ennobled and enriched by the study 
 of art, where she shows proudest, before he took pen in hand. 
 Hence, an observer of style will see that even in his earliest 
 writings there is an absence of strain and flutter, and a com 
 posed and reticent tone. He knew that he had plenty to say, 
 and hence he did not find it necessary to beat out his gold 
 into the thinnest leaf ; he knew that what he said was worth 
 hearing, hence he had no recourse to devices or affectations to 
 attract attention ; and he knew that he was able to tell his 
 story well, and hence he told it in his own manner, and calmly 
 waited its acceptance by the hearers. We do not imply any 
 censure upon those who have not possessed his advantages, 
 and who have had to learn to rid themselves, one by one, of 
 the blemishes from which Thackeray was so singularly free. 
 It is greatly to a writer s praise that he has taught himself 
 what Thackeray knew at starting. We merely dwell with 
 pleasant memory upon the finish and composure of his early 
 style. It strengthened with his strength, and, long before the 
 end, had been universally recognized as the purest and best 
 English of the day 
 
 " Strong, without rage: without o erflowing, full." 
 
 Henceforth the story of his life is little more than a recital 
 of the dates of his works. Before he became famous he wrote 
 for many of the journals ; and a tribute, as graceful as unex 
 pected, from the editor of the " Examiner," has revealed the 
 fact that the brilliant pen of Thackeray pointed many of the 
 epigrammatic articles for which that journal obtained a reputa 
 tion which it has now regained. In " Eraser s Magazine," 
 however, he found the amplest range for his powers of sar 
 casm and of humor ; and under the name of Michael Angelo 
 Titmarsh (a characteristic blending of grand and little for 
 satiric purpose) he published some of the very best of his 
 minor works minor only in the sense that they are of 
 smaller extent than his grand novels, as an exquisite cameo is 
 minor beside a finished statue, not beside a stone mason s 
 giant. " The Great Hoggarty Diamond " is one of the most 
 
1 68 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 remarkable of these tales, and through all its humor comes 
 the lesson he ever taught, that of manliness and hopefulness. 
 The " Shabby Genteel Story" was also in " Fraser ; " and 
 who will ever forget that dinner at Margate, and the duel with 
 the painter, and the fat lady getting up in a hurry to rescue 
 her red-bearded, valiant cockney ? A powerful paper, in 
 which he described the execution of Courvoisier, and de 
 nounced the system of public executions, was another of his 
 contributions ; and we have, unfortunately, no space to go 
 through the list, very pleasant as it would be to note, in the 
 spirit in which talks to a friend of the good deeds of a lost 
 friend, the delightful papers which used to make " Fraser " a 
 work to be eagerly scrambled for in public places by those 
 who had imperative claims on their half-crowns, and therefore 
 read no magazines in luxurious privacy. 
 
 In a good day for himself, the journal, and the world, 
 Thackeray joined " Punch." Here he had more ample play 
 for all his faculties than had been ever offered him. An 
 epigram in two lines, a sketch in two pages, a head-piece, 
 a tail-piece, a caricature, a pregnant initial, a jovial song (are 
 we thinking of the " Mahogany Tree " ?), an Irish chant of ri 
 diculous treason (say the " Limerick Tragedy "), a versified 
 fable for the instruction of Lords and Princes (" Silly Little 
 Finches "), a tale in many chapters (" Jeames s History "), or 
 a series of essays (" The Snob Papers "), all were welcome 
 and welcomed. And as companions at the hospitable board of 
 council, where such things were conceived, suggested, re 
 viewed, and admired, he sat with two who have preceded him 
 to the world of shadows, and with some who live to mourn 
 him. Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert A Becket were his neigh 
 bors at those feasts, and none appreciated more keenly than 
 Thackeray the magical quickness and sparkle of the wit s 
 repartees, or the ever-ready, shrewd, and kindly talk of the 
 humorist. Others who were of the happy party, and who read 
 these lines, will silently testify to their truth, and add that for 
 each and for all who sat with Thackeray at that board there 
 was always the quaint greeting that dignified the friend with 
 
SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. 169 
 
 some American military title, the instant and intensely com 
 pact gratulation upon any public success or private good for 
 tune, the eagerness to give information ; the electric readiness 
 to catch the knavish speech that sleeps in the foolish ear 
 but never had a wink in Thackeray s ; the kindly retort that 
 seemed meant but to show you that you had spoken well ; and 
 then, better than all word-pleasantry, there were the ever- 
 beaming kindness, the lofty moral, the lowly charity, and the 
 noble heart that was so true to the noble brain. This is a 
 sketch and a very inadequate one from private life ; and 
 yet we do not think that any one who reads it will blame the 
 writer. As Thackeray is here described, he was, as a hun 
 dred friends will testify, whenever he felt himself "at home," 
 and it is because some wretched talk of his supposed " cyni 
 cism " has got abroad, and because such talk has come from 
 those who have known scarcely at all, that it is well for once 
 and for all to say that William Thackeray was one of the 
 cheerfullest and cheeriest of men who ever gladdened the 
 heart of a friend. 
 
 He went back to the East, but not very far, and recorded 
 his travels in the " Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Cairo." 
 They are full of humor and wisdom, and the kind heart is 
 always speaking out. The pretty verses on the dawn at sea, 
 suggest thoughts which it would now be sacrilege to print ; 
 but we may remember the indignant protest against the ac 
 ceptance by Christian England of an ally who had actually 
 ordered the murder of a baby, and the semi-serious strain in 
 which Oriental brutality is exposed in the story of the Pacha 
 who, while talking with the Oxford tutor, exported to teach 
 the little infidels, was bothered by a fellah, and then and there, 
 taking out a pistol, " shot that fellah dead, so that he never 
 bothered any more." The varnish which sentimentalists lay 
 over foulness never had a chance with Thackeray. Then 
 there are the tremendous adventures of that Irish Indian 
 Major, which make the tale the most ludicrous book since 
 Munchausen, with the addition of being intensely interesting, 
 in spite of the elephantine exaggeration. " Our Street " is a 
 
I7O WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 gallery of social portraits, drawn with a master s facility ; and 
 the " Rose and the Ring " has made the author the children s 
 friend, as, indeed, he deserved to be held, for the love of 
 children runs like a silver thread through every story he ever 
 wrote. We believe that he never thoroughly hated Becky 
 Sharp except when she kept her boy in the kitchen, kissed 
 him before company, and slapped his face outside the door. 
 Thackeray never sends the children to the nursery, never 
 seems to find them in the way ; and is always completing 
 people s happiness by giving them a baby, or a " toddler," to 
 bring sunshine into the house. The little girl in Gray s 
 chambers, when the wonderful dinner is given by the poor 
 young barrister and his pretty wife, to the great, rich Gold- 
 more, is the most prominent feature in the picture. What does 
 the author of the " Curate s Walk " say about children, and do 
 for them in that most delightful sketch, than which Steele 
 never wrote anything better ? He was always rejoicing with the 
 young, this cynic, both in the pen and in the flesh. Many 
 sentimentalists do neither the one thing nor the other, and 
 yet talk of cynicism as a thing apart from their beautiful 
 natures. 
 
 "Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," "Esmond," "The Virgin 
 ians." There is the Thackeray Quadrilateral, which will de 
 fend his name and fame against all comers. It may be that 
 one fortress mounts more guns than another that is matter 
 of opinion- When one gives way we shall be ready to con 
 sider whether the engineer neglected any part of his work, 
 but not till then. There, guarded to all time worth speaking 
 of, is the reputation of William Thackeray. Of these strong 
 holds we need say no more. He was erecting a fifth when 
 called away. It was not needed for the safety of his fame, 
 but would that it had arisen. 
 
 There is another point of view from which we must regard 
 him ; and few who have actually looked at him, in the body, 
 from that point, but will feel a melancholy satisfaction that 
 they have had such opportunity. Mr. Thackeray s powers as 
 a lecturer was simply proved by results. He lectured in Eng- 
 
SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. 17 r 
 
 land and America, and was rewarded with a fortune. But 
 those who think that it was easily earned knew little of the 
 limce labor which he bestowed upon the carefully-phrased and 
 eloquent lectures ; and, we may add, knew little of his own 
 unaffected distaste for public speaking. But he had resolved 
 that his lectures should make a provision for those who were 
 dearer to him than life ; and it was not in his nature to give 
 way either to indolence or to timidity. He elaborated his dis 
 courses, and they became rich by his workmanship ; he de 
 livered them, and he became rich by the popularity they 
 acquired. Those on the " Humorists of the Eighteenth Cent 
 ury," will probably be more acceptable than " The Four 
 Georges " ; but the lecturer had acquired far more power of 
 utterance and of effective delivery when he addressed himself 
 to the latter than he originally possessed ; and few who heard 
 the chapter of kings will forget the telling, clean-cut precision 
 with which the innumerable points and epigrams were brought 
 out, or the artistic easiness with which you were led, half care 
 lessly, up to a rocket that the next moment soared away with 
 a train of sparkles that set you staring in pleasant surprise. 
 
 " Everybody should try to get into Parliament," said a 
 clever man who kept out of it. Mr. Thackeray thought, in 
 1857, that he would try. We suppose that somebody at the 
 Reform Club had told him that the legitimate expenses would 
 not be much, and he certainly never meant to pay any others. 
 Oxford the city had a vacancy, and Mr. Thackeray offered 
 himself on liberal principles. It is to the honor of Oxford city 
 that so many men were found to vote for a gentleman who 
 had no claim but his literary genius, who did not bribe, who 
 had no influence to procure places for the sons of voters, who 
 was not a successful orator, and who had no past political 
 services to appeal to, except that with the very sharpest pen 
 in England he had been for nearly a quarter of a century stab 
 bing at all inhumanities, follies, and barbarisms. Although 
 an able and well-known man, Mr. Cardwell, who had claims 
 on the electors and had official position, was started against 
 him, Mr. Thackeray was beaten by a small majority only 
 
1 72 WILLIAM MAKEPEA CE THA CKERA Y. 
 
 1085 to IOI 8. He took his defeat as he took all the chances 
 of life, gallantly, and like a gentleman, told the electors that 
 they had chosen the best man, and when he lectured next 
 night brought out a shout by beginning, gravely, " I happened 
 yesterday to be in an ancient city, called Oxford, of which 
 some of you may have heard." We could not regret the fail 
 ure, except in so far as he was disappointed ; for he would have 
 obtained some capital political sketches in Parliament, at the 
 expense of his health, comfort, and leisure. The nation, we 
 thought, had clubfuls of men who can sit up all night, vote for 
 " the ballot and liberal measures generally," and deliver extra 
 Parliamentary utterances of more or less dullness ; but she 
 had nobody to draw another Becky Sharp or the Marquis of 
 Steyne. Mentioning which thought to the person most con 
 cerned, we were answered with a merry " Qui fit, Maecenas, 
 ut nemo yes, sir" the last word given with American ac 
 cent, often adopted by him in no unkind memory of the States. 
 Let us add that Mr. Cardwell, addressing the electors of Ox 
 ford, since the melancholy Christmas Eve, has spoken of the 
 departed as became Mr. Cardwell, and as if he felt it an honor 
 to have had such a man as antagonist. 
 
 Mr. Thackeray as editor of the " Cornhill Magazine," must 
 have been dreadfully bored, and did not tell us in those 
 " Roundabout Papers " one tenth of his troubles. He ought 
 never to have given time, trouble, or anything but his name to 
 a periodical work ; and we may believe that the proprietors 
 did all in their power to prevent his being worried and dis 
 turbed in his lawful labors. But it is not permitted in Eng 
 land to deal in England with volunteer contributors to any 
 thing as the Pacha dealt with the fellah ; and unless they are 
 shot they will write to you, send parcels to you, send angry 
 friends to you, call on you when you are at dinner, abuse you 
 through the press, waylay you in the street, and leave word in 
 their wills that their executors are to avenge them upon you. 
 Thackeray had to undergo a great deal of this, and he had not 
 the sternness which might have saved him some, at least, of 
 the worry. He would read applicants notes; he would even 
 
SHIRLEY BROOKS ON THACKERAY. 173 
 
 correspond with hopeless and helpless creatures who had no 
 right to touch pen and ink ; he would even it was utterly 
 subversive of all editorial authority send a chanty bank 
 note to a very poor scribbler who pleaded starvation, and who, 
 two months afterwards, wrote him an abusive letter for not 
 inserting the contribution " on which he had paid half the price 
 on account." We got some agreeable papers out of his troubles 
 in this way, but they were too dearly purchased ; and we our 
 selves were very glad to hear that he was relieved from editor 
 ship, though, in effect, that made little difference to the volun 
 teer contributors, who wrote that if he used his great influence, 
 they were sure their papers would be printed, and so on. 
 
 And this last record seems to bring us to the very last and 
 saddest of all. This memoir, if it deserve the name, has been 
 but a jotting down of details within the knowledge of all, of a 
 few personal recollections common to a host of friends, and of 
 a few pleasant memories of books which have afforded pleas 
 ant memories to millions. The writer of these lines has made 
 no attempt to forestall a more elaborate or more worthy record, 
 which will probably be heard of ere long. It only remains for 
 him to add that the last time he saw William Thackeray was 
 on Wednesday the i6th of December. They were next neigh 
 bors at a dinner where all were intimate friends. Thackeray 
 was in his usual spirits, which were never boisterous but 
 always cheerful, and he had pleasant words for all present. 
 Especially was he pretending to incite one very old friend to 
 give a party of an excessively gay description in order, as he 
 said, that we might fancy ourselves all young again. He had 
 something to say of the " circumstances " touching which the 
 National Shakspeare Committee had passed a vote of " re 
 gret," and which Mr. Lucas has indignantly declared will 
 cause posterity to "point with scorn" at that passage in the 
 committee s history. They did not ruffle Thackeray, however 
 they may have incensed his friends ; and it is not needful, at 
 least at present, to reproduce his smiling judgment on those 
 whom it concerned. On that evening he enjoyed himself 
 much in his own quiet way, and contributed generally to the 
 
174 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 enjoyment of those who were something less quiet ; and a 
 question arising about a subscription in aid of a disabled artist, 
 he instantly offered to increase, if necessary, a sum he had 
 previously promised. The writer s very last recollection of 
 the cynic, therefore, is in connection with an unasked act of 
 Christian kindness. On the following Monday he attended 
 the funeral of a lady, who was interred in Kensal Green Cem 
 etery. On the Tuesday he came to his favorite club, the 
 Garrick, and asked a seat at the table of two friends, who, of 
 course, welcomed him as all welcomed Thackeray. It will 
 not be deemed too minute a record by any of the hundreds 
 who personally loved him to note where he sat for the last 
 time in that club. There is in the dining-room on the first 
 floor a nook near the reading-room. The principal picture 
 hanging in that nook, and fronting you as you approach it, 
 is the celebrated one from " The Clandestine Marriage," with 
 Lord Ogleby, Canton, and Brush. Opposite to that Thack 
 eray took his seat and dined with his friends. He was after 
 wards in the smoke-room, a place in which he delighted. The 
 Garrick Club will remove in a few months, and all these de 
 tails will be nothing to its new members, but much to ma-ny 
 of its old ones. His place there will know him and them no 
 more. On Wednesday he was out several times, and was 
 seen in Palace-gardens " reading a book." Before the dawn 
 of Thursday he was where there is no night \ May we meet 
 him there ! 
 
 JAMES HANNAY ON THACKERAY. 
 
 By birth Mr. Thackeray belonged to the upper middle class, 
 a section of our curiously divided society which contains 
 many cadets of old families, and forms a link between the 
 aristocracy and the general bulk of the liberal professions. 
 He used sometimes to say that " it takes three generations to 
 make a gentleman ; " and though this was not a maxim which 
 he would have applied strictly in the case of another man, he 
 was far from insensible to the advantage in himself. He was 
 descended from an old Saxon stock long settled in Yorkshire. 
 His great-grandfather was Dr. Thackeray, of Harrow, who 
 
9 JAMES H ANN AY ON THACKERAY. 175 
 
 went to Cambridge in 1710, an excellent scholar and clever 
 man, who partly educated Sir William Jones, and whose 
 epitaph was written by his pupil Dr. Parr. The son of the 
 Doctor married a Miss Webb, of the old English family to 
 which the Brigadier Webb, of Marlborough s wars, belonged, 
 whose portrait is drawn with something of the geniality of 
 kinsmanship in " Esmond." This Thackeray, we believe, was 
 the first of the race to settle in India ; where his son also 
 sought his fortunes ; and where his grandson the novelist was 
 born at Calcutta in 1811. There are numerous descend 
 ants of the scholarly old Headmaster of Harrow scattered 
 over the English Church and in the Indian Service, and traces 
 of the influence of family connections are found all through the 
 books of the man who has made his name famous. The feudal 
 feeling of Scott which in any case is Scotch rather than 
 English Thackeray did not share. Heraldry to him had 
 only the quaint interest and prettiness of old china. But it is 
 impossible to appreciate either his philosophy, his style, or 
 his literary position, without remembering that he was a well 
 born, well-bred, and well-educated gentleman. 
 
 Like other English children born in India, young Thackeray 
 was sent home early, and the voyage during which he had an 
 eager and wondering peep at the great Napoleon in his island 
 prison, was among his earliest recollections. He received 
 his education at Charterhouse the well-known Greyfriars of 
 his stories, an ancient and famous public school. He some 
 where talks of the " monkish seclusion " of his school-days, 
 and in his critical and questioning moods he has sufficiently 
 proved that he knew the weak points of the old educational 
 system. But he never lost an opportunity of showing his re 
 spect for Charterhouse, and he was perfectly aware how much 
 he owed to it. In after-life, he let most of his Greek slip 
 away ; but his acquaintance with the Latin language, and 
 especially the Latin poets, Avas eminently respectable, and ex 
 ercised a profound influence over his genius and his diction. 
 The " Odes of Horace " he knew intimately well, and there are 
 subtle indications of the knowledge the smell of Italian vio- 
 
i;6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 lets hidden in the green of his prose only to be truly en 
 joyed by Horatians. A quotation from Horace was one of 
 the favorite forms in which he used to embody his jokes. If 
 you bored him with genealogy, he would begin 
 
 " Quantum distet ab Inacho," 
 
 which was quite a sufficient hint ; and when a low fellow in 
 London hanged himself, he observed that it was a " dignus 
 vindice NODUS." Latin writers, French writers, and English 
 eighteenth century men were the three sources at which his 
 genius fed, and on which it was nourished. 
 
 From Charterhouse he went to Cambridge, which he left 
 without taking a degree ; and he entered on life with health, 
 strength, a noble figure, an excellent genius, and twenty thou 
 sand pounds, the last of which blessings was the first 
 (owing, it is said, to unfortunate speculations) to leave him. 
 But this loss was not complete, till he had had the full benefit 
 of a good culture and a good experience. He travelled over 
 Europe, and resided in its capitals, while his mind was young 
 and fresh, and laid in those stores of observation to which we 
 owe sketches with which everybody is familiar. He had an 
 interview with Goethe at Weimar, his description of which 
 may be seen in the " Life of Goethe " by Mr. Lewes ; and he 
 studied art at Rome. If he had had his choice, he would 
 rather have been famous as an artist than as a writer ; but it 
 was destined that he should paint in colors which will never 
 crack and never need restoration. All his artist experience 
 did him just as much good in literature as it could have in any 
 other way ; and, in travelling through Europe to see pictures, 
 he learned not them only, but men, manners, and languages. 
 He read German ; he knew French well and spoke it ele 
 gantly ; and in market-places, salons, hotels, museums, stu 
 dios, the sketch-book of his mind was always filling itself. 
 Paris was one of his most important head-quarters in every 
 way, and to his stay there the world owes perhaps the best of 
 his poems the " Chronicle of the Drum." His poetic vein 
 was curiously original. He was not essentially poetical, as 
 
JAMES H ANN AY ON THACKERAY. 1 77 
 
 Tennyson, for instance, is. Poetry was not the predominant 
 mood of his mind, or the intellectual law by which the 
 objects of his thought and observation were arranged and 
 classified. But inside his fine sagacious common-sense un 
 derstanding, there was, so to speak, a pool of poetry, like 
 the impluvium in the hall of a Roman house, which gave 
 an air of coolness and freshness and nature to the solid 
 marble columns and tessellated floor. The highest prod 
 ucts of this part of his mind were the " Chronicle " above 
 mentioned, the " Bouillebaisse," the lines on Charles Buller s 
 death at the end of one of his " Christmas Books," and the 
 " Ho, pretty page with dimpled chin " of another of them. 
 A song or two in his novels, and some passages in which 
 rural scenery is quietly and casually described, might also be 
 specified. But all this is chiefly valuable as showing that 
 his nature was complete, and that there wanted not in his 
 genius that softer and more sensitive side natural to one 
 whose observation was so subtle and his heart so kind. He 
 was essentially rather moralist and humorist, thinker and 
 wit, than poet ; and he was too manly to overwork his 
 poetic vein as a man may legitimately work his mere under 
 standing. This honorable self-restraint, this decent reticence, 
 so natural to English gentlemen, was by some writers of the 
 Gushing School mistaken for hardness. The Gusher is al 
 ways for plenty of sentimentalism ; for showing his heart on 
 his sleeve, after having previously inflated the vessels of that 
 organ with wind to make it look bigger ; and he sheds " blind 
 ing tears," as the lower animals perform all the properly 
 secret operations of nature, in public. This kind of thing 
 was not in Thackeray s way, and wide as his sympathies were, 
 he despised it. " I shall not try to describe her grief," he 
 makes Sam Titmarsh say in the " Hoggarty Diamond, " for 
 such things are sacred and secret ; and a man has no business 
 to place them on record for all the world to read." Few of his 
 sentences are more characteristic. 
 
 Thackeray was still young and opulent when he began to 
 make the acquaintance of London men of letters. Certain it 
 
1/8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 is, that he lent or in plainer English, gave five hundred 
 pounds to poor old Maginn, when he was beaten in the battle 
 of life, and like other beaten soldiers made a prisoner in 
 the Fleet. With the generation going out, that of Lamb 
 and Coleridge, he had, we believe, no personal acquaint 
 ance. Sydney Smith he met at a later time ; and he remem 
 bered with satisfaction that something which he wrote about 
 Hood gave pleasure to that delicate humorist and poet in his 
 last days. But his first friends were the Fraserians, of whom 
 Father Prout, always his intimate, and Carlyle, always 
 one of his most appreciating friends, survive. From rem 
 iniscences of the wilder lights in the " Fraser " constellation 
 were drawn the pictures of the queer fellows connected with 
 literature in " Pendennis," Captain Shandon, the fero 
 cious Bludyer, stout old Tom Serjeant, and so forth. 
 Magazines in those days were more brilliant than they are 
 now, when they are haunted by the fear of shocking the Fogy 
 element in their circulation ; and the effect of their greater 
 freedom is seen in the buoyant, riant, and unrestrained com 
 edy of Thackeray s own earlier " Fraser " articles. " I sup 
 pose we all begin by being too savage," is the phrase of a 
 letter which he wrote in 1849; " I know one who did" He 
 was alluding here to the " Yellowplush Papers " in particular, 
 where living men were very freely handled. This old, wild 
 satiric spirit it was which made him interrupt even the early 
 chapters of " Vanity Fair," by introducing a parody, which he 
 could not resist, of some contemporary novelists. In the last 
 fifteen years of his life he wrote under greater restraint, and 
 with a sense of his graver responsibilities as one of the lead 
 ing men of letters of the country. But his satire was never at 
 any time malignant ; and the fine freedom of his early writing 
 developed his genius as the scenes cf the arena developed 
 the athlete. He was writing for twelve or thirteen years, as a 
 professional author, before " Vanity Fair " made him really 
 known to the world at large. The best works of that epoch 
 will be found in the " Miscellanies," published by Bradbury & 
 Evans in 1857. But there is much of his writing buried in 
 
JAMES H ANN AY ON THACKERAY. 179 
 
 periodicals, some of which have been long dead. He was 
 connected with at least one failure, the " Parthenon," an 
 ill-omened name borne after a long interval by another jour 
 nal quite recently defunct. He certainly contributed some 
 things to the " Times," during Barnes s editorship, : an article 
 on Fielding amongst them ; though not, we should think, lead 
 ing articles, a kind of work for which he had no relish, and 
 for which he believed himself to have no turn. "Eraser" was 
 the organ with which he was most successfully connected till 
 the days of his " Punch " engagement. It was indeed as a 
 magazinist that he educated himself for a novelist. With a 
 playful reference to his early and never-forgotten ambition to 
 be an artist, he called himself Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and 
 published under that name, not only articles but books. The 
 " Paris Sketchbook," the " Second Funeral of Napoleon " 
 (comprising the " Chronicle of a Drum "), the " Fatal Boots," 
 the " Hoggarty Diamond," the " Irish Sketchbook," the 
 "Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," sufficiently attest 
 his activity during the years which preceded the great epoch 
 of " Vanity Fair." These books are full of sense, and wit, 
 and humor, and it seems extraordinary that their author 
 should have been within a year or two of forty before he was 
 really famous. Their very truthfulness, however, the easy 
 quiet of their best philosophy, the slyness of their choicest 
 irony, the gentlemanly taste of their heartiest abandon, 
 all this was caviare to the vulgar, including the vulgar of the 
 critical press. The offer of " Vanity Fair " was declined by 
 one publisher ; and good judges said that a necessary im 
 pulse was given to its appreciation, by an article during its 
 progress, in the " Edinburgh Review." It was still the fashion, 
 as far as it was fashionable to speak of Thackeray at all, to 
 treat him as a satirist. An admirable satirist he had, indeed, 
 just proved himself in the "Snob Papers" a series that 
 stands high above anything ever given to the world in 
 "Punch," excepting Hood s "Song of the Shirt." Nor 
 was Thackeray ever ashamed of the title of satirist, know 
 ing by what great men it had been borne before him, and 
 
ISO WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 how much honest work there was in the world for satire to 
 do. But that he was a satirist only, he had proved, long be 
 fore the " Snob Papers," to be absurd. Anybody who can 
 read, for instance, the story of Sam Titmarsh s sufferings and 
 the loss of his child, after the Diddlesex catastrophe, in the 
 " Hoggarty Diamond," without seeing that the writer s tender 
 ness and power of representing tenderness were exquisitely 
 deep and exquisitely real, may conclude himself disqualified 
 by nature for having an opinion on literary matters. There 
 are few whose judgment on such things is much worth, but 
 his is certainly worth nothing. 
 
 When Thackeray wrote " Vanity Fair," in 1846, 7, 8, he 
 was living in Young Street, Kensington, a street on your 
 left hand, before you come to the church ; and here, in 1848, 
 the author of this sketch had first the pleasure of seeing him, 
 of being received at his table, and of knowing how essentially 
 a kind, humane, and perfectly honest man he was. "Vanity 
 Fair " was then unfinished, but its success was made, and he 
 spoke frankly and genially of his work, and his career. " Van 
 ity Fair " always, we think, ranked in his own mind as best in 
 story of his greater books ; and he once pointed out to us the 
 very house in Russell Square where his imaginary Sedleys 
 lived, a curious proof of the reality his creations had for 
 his mind. The man and the books were equally real and true ; 
 and it was natural that he should speak without hesitation of 
 his books, if you wished it ; though as a man of the world 
 and a polished gentleman who knew the world thoroughly, lit 
 erature to him only toolkits turn among other topics. From 
 this point of view, his relation to it was a good deal like that of 
 Scott. According to Lockhart, people were wrong in saying 
 that Sir Walter declined at all markedly to talk about Litera 
 ture, and yet his main interest was in active life. Just so, 
 Thackeray was not bookish, and yet turned readily to the sub 
 ject of books if invited. His reading was undoubtedly large 
 in Memoirs, Modern History, Biography, Poetry, Essays, and 
 Fiction and, taken in conjunction with his scholarship, 
 probably placed him, as a man of letters, above any other 
 
JAMES HANNA Y ON THA CKERA Y. 1 8 1 
 
 novelist except Sir Bulwer Lytton. Here is a characteristic 
 fragment from one of his letters, written in August 1854, and 
 now before us : "I hate Juvenal," he says ; " I mean I think 
 him a truculent brute, and I love Horace better than you do, 
 and rate Churchill much lower ; and as for Swift, you haven t 
 made me alter my opinion. I admire, or rather admit, his 
 power as much as you do ; but I don t admire that kind of 
 power so much as I did fifteen years ago, or twenty shall we 
 say. Love is a higher intellectual exercise than Hatred : and 
 when you get one or two more of those young ones you write so 
 pleasantly about, you 11 come over to the side of the kind wags, 
 I think, rather than the cruel ones." Passages like this, 
 which men who knew him will not need to have quoted to 
 them, have a double value for the world at large. They not 
 only show a familiar command of writers whom it is by no 
 means easy to know well, but they show what the real phi 
 losophy was of a man whom the envious represented to the 
 ignorant as a cynic and a scoffer. Why, his favorite authors 
 were just those whose influence he thought had been bene 
 ficial to the cause of virtue and charity. " I take off my hat to 
 Joseph Addison," he would say, after an energetic testimony 
 to his good effect on English life. He was, in fact, even 
 greater as a moralist than as a mere describer of manners ; 
 and his very hatred of quackery and meanness was proved to 
 be real by his simplicity, humanity, and kindliness of charac 
 ter. In private, this great satirist, whose aspect in a crowd 
 was often one of austere politeness and reserve, unbent into a 
 familiar naivete which somehow one seldom finds in the dem 
 onstratively genial. And this was the more charming and 
 precious that it rested on a basis of severe and profound re 
 flection, before the glance of which all that was dark and seri 
 ous in man s life and prospects lay open. The gravity of that 
 white head, with its noble brow, and thoughtful face full of 
 feeling and meaning, enhanced the piquancy of his playful 
 ness, and of the little personal revelations which came with 
 such a grace from the depths of his kindly nature. When we 
 congratulated him, many years ago, on the touch in " Vanity 
 
1 82 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Fair " in which Becky " admires " her husband when he is 
 giving Lord Steyne the chastisement which ruins her for life, 
 " Well," he said, " when I wrote the sentence, I slapped my 
 fist on the table, and said that is a touch of genius ! ; The 
 incident is a trifle, but it will reveal, we suspect, an element of 
 fervor, as well as a heartiness of frankness in recording the fer 
 vor, both equally at variance with the vulgar conception of 
 him. This frankness and bonhommie made him delightful in 
 a tete-a-tete, and gave a pleasant human flavor to talk full of 
 sense, and wisdom, and experience, and lighted up by the 
 gayety of the true London man of the world. Though he said 
 witty things, now and then, he was not a wit in the sense in 
 which Jerrold was, and he complained, sometimes, that his 
 best things occurred to him after the occasion had gone by ! 
 He shone most, as in his books, in little subtle remarks 
 on life, and little descriptive sketches suggested by the talk. 
 We remember in particular, one evening, after a dinner party 
 at his house, a fancy picture he drew of Shakespeare during his 
 last years at Stratford, sitting out in the summer afternoon 
 watching the people, which all who heard it, brief as it .was, 
 thought equal to the best things in his Lectures. But it was 
 not for this sort of talent, rarely exerted by him, that 
 people admired his conversation. They admired, above all, 
 the broad sagacity, sharp insight, large and tolerant liberality, 
 which marked him as one who was a sage as well as a story 
 teller, and whose stories were valuable because he was a sage. 
 Another point of likeness to him in Scott was that he never 
 overvalued story-telling, or forgot that there were nobler 
 things in Literature than the purest creations of which the ob 
 ject was amusement. " I would give half my fame," wrote 
 Scott, " if by so doing I could place the other half on a solid 
 basis of science and learning." " Now is the time," wrote 
 Thackeray, to a young friend in 1849, " to lay in stock. I 
 wish I had had five years reading before I took to our trade." 
 How heartily we have heard him praise Sir Bulwer Lytton for 
 the good example he set by being " thoroughly literate ! " We 
 are not going to trench here on any such ground as Thacke- 
 
JAMES HANNAY ON THACKERAY. 183 
 
 ray s judgments about his contemporaries. But we may notice 
 an excellent point bearing on these. If he heard a young fel 
 low expressing great admiration for one of them he encouraged 
 him in it. When somebody was mentioned as worshipping an 
 eminent man just dead, "I am glad," said Thackeray, " that 
 he worships anybody." 
 
 After " Vanity Fair," Thackeray s fame steadily increased. 
 ; Pendennis " appeared during 1849 an( ^ I ^5? anc ^ though it 
 was generally considered inferior in mere plot to its prede 
 cessor, no inferiority was perceived in the essential qualities 
 of character, thought, humor, and style. The announcement 
 in the summer of 1851 that he was about to lecture on the 
 English Humorists gave a thrill of pleasure to intellectual 
 London ; and when he rose in Willis s Rooms to commence 
 the course with Swift, all that was most brilliant in the Capital 
 was assembled to hear him. Amidst a throng of nobles, and 
 beauties, and men of fashion, were Carlyle, and Macaulay, 
 Hallam with his venerable head, and Charlotte Bronte, 
 whose own fame was just at its height, and who saw in the 
 lecturer her ideal of an elevated and high-minded master of 
 literary art. The lectures were thoroughly appreciated. Every 
 body was delighted to see the great masters of English of a 
 past age brought to life again in their habits as they lived, and 
 endowed with the warm human reality of the lecturer s Dob 
 bins, and Warringtons, and Pendennises. It was this power, 
 and not the literary criticism, which constituted the value of 
 Thackeray s lectures, and will secure their place in the bio 
 graphical literature of the country. 
 
 Towards the close of 1852, "Esmond" appeared, and 
 Thackeray sailed for America. 1 "Esmond" constituted a 
 new epoch in his career. By this time his celebrity, and the 
 impression made by his distinct and peculiar genius, so 
 different from that of the common sentimental schools, had 
 provoked a certain amount of reaction. Cads who disliked 
 him as a gentleman, Mechanics Institute men who dis- 
 
 1 He recalled the present writer from a tour in Scotland in October, and placed 
 the MS. of the Humorists in his hands to edit and annotate during his absence. 
 
1 84 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 liked him as a scholar, Radicals who knew that he asso 
 ciated with the aristocracy, and the numerous weaklings to 
 whom his severe truth and perfect honesty of art seemed 
 horrible after the riotous animal spirits, jolly caricature, and 
 lachrymose softness of the style which he was putting out of 
 fashion, this crew, we say, was by no means satisfied with 
 the undoubted fact that Thackeray was becoming the favorite 
 writer of the cultivated classes. They accordingly began to 
 call his honesty cynicism, and his accuracy reporting. They 
 forgot that tears are pure in proportion to the depth from 
 which they come, and not to the quantity in which they flow, 
 and that the tenderness of a writer is to be estimated by the 
 quality of his pathos. They also forgot that as what they 
 called hardness was mere fidelity to truth, so what they called 
 stenographic detail was mere finish of art. The richer imag 
 inativeness of " Esmond," and the freer play of feeling in 
 which the author allowed himself to indulge when dealing with 
 a past age, came in good time to rebuke cavillers, and prove 
 that Thackeray s mind w TS rich as well as wide. " Esmond," 
 we take it, is the favorite novel of his choicest admirers. He 
 takes certain liberties with history in it. For instance, the 
 Duke of Hamilton, whom he represents as about to marry 
 Beatrix when he is cut off in a duel, left a widow, spoken of 
 by Swift in the "Journal to Stella." But as Scott makes 
 Leicester quote the " Midsummer Night s Dream " in " Kenil- 
 worth," when Shakespeare was about twelve or thirteen years 
 of age, this may be excused. 
 
 It is a pity that Thackeray did not write expressly on 
 America, for we think that he would have written the most 
 impartial English book to which that country has yet given 
 rise. When he returned from this first visit, he was a good 
 deal away from town. " Since my return from America," he 
 writes in August 1854, " I have hardly been in London at all, 
 and when here, in such a skurry of business and pleasure as 
 never to call a day my own scarcely." The passage is sig 
 nificant. Few lives were more engrossed than his, discharg 
 ing, as he did, at once the duties of a man of letters and a 
 
JAMES H ANN AY ON THACKERAY. 185 
 
 man of fashion. He dined out a great deal during the season. 
 He went to the theatres. He belonged to three clubs the 
 Athenaeum, Reform, and Garrick to say nothing of minor 
 associations for the promotion of good fellowship. With less 
 of this wear and tear, we should have had more work from 
 him, should have had, perhaps, the History which long 
 dwelt in his imagination as one of the creations of the future. 
 As it is, he achieved a great deal during the last eight or ten 
 years of his life. Two such elaborate novels as the " New- 
 comes " and " Virginians," a second trip to America, and a 
 ramble over Great Britain, with a new set of Lectures on the 
 " Four Georges," not to mention a contested election, and 
 what he did for the " Cornhill," established on the strength of 
 his name, and for a time directly conducted by him, these 
 were great doings for a man who, though naturally robust, was 
 plagued and menaced by more than one vexatious disorder of 
 long continuance. And he did them greatly, going into the 
 world gayly and busily to the last, and always rinding time for 
 such holy little offices of personal kindness and charity as 
 gave him we believe and know more real pleasure than 
 all his large share of the world s applause. He was much 
 gratified by the success of the " Four Georges " (a series 
 which superseded an earlier scheme for as many discourses 
 on " Men of the World ") in Scotland. " I have had three per 
 cent, of the whole population here," he wrote from Edinburgh, 
 in November, 1856. " If I could but get three per cent, of 
 London ! " He thoroughly appreciated the attention and 
 hospitality which he met with during these lecturing tours. 
 And if, as would sometimes happen, a local notability s adora 
 tion became obtrusive, or such a person thrust his obsequious 
 veneration upon him beyond the limits of the becoming, his 
 forbearance was all the more respectable on account of his 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 Latterly he had built himself a handsome house in Kensing 
 ton, to which he moved from Onslow Square, Brompton, his 
 residence after leaving the Young Street in which he wrote 
 " Vanity Fair." It was a dwelling worthy of one who really 
 
1 86 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 represented literature in the great world, and who, planting 
 himself on his books, yet sustained the character of his profes 
 sion with all the dignity of a gentleman. A friend who called 
 on him there from Edinburgh, in the summer of 1862, knowing 
 of old his love of the Venusian, playfully reminded him what 
 Horace says of those who, regardless of their sepulchre, em 
 ploy themselves in building houses : 
 
 " Sepulchri 
 Immemor, struis domos." 
 
 " Nay," said he, " I am memor sepulchri, for this house will 
 always let for so many hundreds (mentioning the sum) a year." 
 How distant, then, seemed the event which has just happened, 
 and with which the mind obstinately refuses to familiarize 
 itself, though it stares at one from a thousand broadsheets ! 
 Well, indeed, might his passing-bell make itself heard through 
 all the myriad joy-bells of the English Christmas ! It is long 
 since England has lost such a son ; it will be long before she 
 has such another to lose. He was indeed emphatically 
 English, English as distinct from Scotch, no less than 
 English as distinct from Continental, a different type of 
 great man from Scott, and a different type of great man from 
 Balzac. The highest purely English novelist since Fielding, 
 he combined Acldison s love of virtue with Johnson s hatred of 
 cant, Horace Walpole s lynx-like eye for the mean and the 
 ridiculous, with the gentleness and wide charity for mankind 
 as a whole, of Goldsmith. Non omnis mortuus est. He will 
 be remembered in his due succession with these men for ages 
 to come, as long as the hymn of praise rises in the old Abbey 
 of Westminster, 1 and wherever the English tongue is native 
 to men, from the banks of the Ganges to those of the Missis 
 sippi. 2 This humble tribute to his illustrious and beloved 
 memory comes from one whom he loaded with benefits, and 
 to whom it will always throw something of sadness over the 
 great city where he first knew him, that it contains his too 
 early grave. 
 
 1 " Dum Capitolium 
 Scandet cum tacita virgine Pontifex." 
 2 " Dicar qua violens obstrepit Aufidus," &c. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. l8/ 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 IT has been desired by some of the personal friends of the 
 great writer who established the " Cornhill Magazine," that its 
 brief record of his having been stricken from among men 
 should be written by the old comrade and brother in arms 
 who pens these lines, and of whom he often wrote himself, 
 and always with the warmest generosity. 
 
 I saw him first, nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he pro 
 posed to become the illustrator of my earliest book. I saw 
 him last, shortly before Christmas, at the Athenaeum Club, 
 when he told me that he had been in bed three days that, 
 after these attacks, he was troubled with cold shiverings, 
 " which quite took the power of work out of him " and that 
 he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he laughingly 
 described. He was very cheerful, and looked very bright. In 
 the night of that day week he died. 
 
 The long interval between those two periods is marked in 
 my remembrance of him by many occasions when he was su 
 premely humorous, when he was irresistibly extravagant, when 
 he was softened and serious, when he was charming with 
 children. But by none do I recall him more tenderly than by 
 two or three that start out of the crowd, when he unexpectedly 
 presented himself in my room, announcing how that some 
 passage in a certain book had made him cry yesterday, and 
 how that he had come to dinner, " because he could n t help 
 it," and must talk such passage over. No one can ever have 
 seen him more genial, natural, cordial, fresh, and honestly 
 impulsive, than I have seen him at those times. No one can 
 be surer than I, of the greatness and goodness of the heart 
 that then disclosed itself. 
 
 We had our differences of opinion. I thought that he too 
 much feigned a want of earnestness, and that he made a pre 
 tense of undervaluing his art, which was not good for the art 
 that he held in trust. But when we fell upon these topics, it 
 was never very gravely, and I have a lively image of him in 
 my mind, twisting both his hands in his hair, and stamping 
 about, laughing, to make an end of the discussion. 
 
 When we were associated in remembrance of the late Mr. 
 
1 88 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 Douglas Jerrold, he delivered a public lecture in London, in 
 the course of which he read his very best contribution to 
 " Punch," describing the grown-up cares of a poor family of 
 young children. No one hearing him could have doubted his 
 natural gentleness, or his thoroughly unaffected manly sym 
 pathy with the weak and lowly. He read the paper most 
 pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness that certainly 
 moved one of his audience to tears. This was presently 
 after his standing for Oxford, from which place he had dis 
 patched his agent to me, with a droll note (to which he after 
 ward added a verbal postscript), urging me to " come down 
 and make a speech, and tell them who he was, for he doubted 
 whether more than two of the electors had ever heard of him, 
 and he thought there might be as many as six or eight who 
 had heard of me." He introduced the lecture just mentioned, 
 with a reference to his late electioneering failure, which was 
 full of good sense, good spirits, and good humor. 
 
 He had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way 
 with them. I remember his once asking me with fantastic 
 gravity, when he had been to Eton where my eldest son then 
 was, whether I felt as he did in regard of never seeing a boy 
 without wanting instantly to give him a sovereign ? I thought 
 of this when I looked down into his grave, after he was laid 
 there, for I looked down into it over the shoulder of a boy to 
 whom he had been kind. 
 
 These are slight remembrances ; but it is to little familiar 
 things suggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never 
 more to be encountered on this earth, that the mind first turns 
 in a bereavement. And greater things that are known of him, 
 in the way of his warm affections, his quiet endurance, his 
 unselfish thoughtfulness for others, and his munificent hand, 
 may not be told. 
 
 If, in the reckless vivacity of his youth, his satirical pen had 
 ever gone astray or done amiss, he had caused it to prefer its 
 own petition for forgiveness, long before : 
 
 I ve writ the foolish fancy of his brain ; 
 
 The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pair* , 
 
 The idle word that he d wish back again. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. \ 89 
 
 In no pages should I take it upon myself at this time to dis 
 course of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, 
 of his subtle acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nat 
 ure, of his delightful playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint 
 and touching ballads, of his mastery over the English language. 
 Least of all, in these pages, enriched by his brilliant qualities 
 from the first of the series, and beforehand accepted by the 
 Public through the strength of his great name. 
 
 But, on the table before me, there lies all that he had writ 
 ten of his latest and last story. That it would be very sad to 
 any one that it is inexpressibly so to a writer in its evi 
 dences of matured designs never to be accomplished, of in 
 tentions begun to be executed and destined never to be com 
 pleted, of careful preparation for long roads of thought that he 
 was never to traverse, and for shining goals that he was never 
 to reach, will be readily believed. The pain, however, that I 
 have felt in perusing it, has not been deeper than the convic 
 tion that he was in the healthiest vigor of his powers when he 
 wrought on this last labor. In respect of earnest feeling, far- 
 seeing purpose, character, incident, and a certain loving pict- 
 uresqueness blending the whole, I believe it to be much the 
 best of all his works. That he fully meant it to be so, that he 
 had become strongly attached to it, and that he bestowed 
 great pains upon it, I trace in almost every page. It contains 
 one picture which must have cost him extreme distress, and 
 which is a master-piece. There are two children in it, touched 
 with a hand as loving and tender as ever a father caressed his 
 little child with. There is some young love, as pure and in 
 nocent and pretty as the truth. And it is very remarkable 
 that, by reason of the singular construction of the story, more 
 than one main incident usually belonging to the end of such a 
 fiction is anticipated in the beginning, and thus there is an 
 approach to completeness in the fragment, as to the satisfac 
 tion of the reader s mind concerning the most interesting per 
 sons, which could hardly have been better attained if the 
 writer s breaking-off had been foreseen. 
 
 The last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 among these papers through which I have so sorrowfully 
 made my way. The condition of the little pages of manuscript 
 where Death stopped his hand, shows that he had carried 
 them about, and often taken them out of his pocket here and 
 there, for patient revision and interlineation. The last words 
 he corrected in print, were, " And my heart throbbed with an 
 exquisite bliss." God grant that on that Christmas Eve when 
 he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up his arms as 
 he had been wont to do when very weary, some consciousness 
 of duty done and Christian hope throughout life humbly cher 
 ished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when he 
 passed away to his Redeemer s rest ! 
 
 He was found peacefully lying as above described, com 
 posed, undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the 
 twenty-fourth of December, 1863. He was only in his fifty- 
 third year ; so young a man, that the mother who blessed him 
 in his first sleep blessed him in his last. Twenty years before, 
 he had written, after being in a white squall, 
 
 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 
 
 Those little girls had grown to be women when the mournful 
 day broke that saw their father lying dead. In those twenty 
 years of companionship with him, they had learned much from 
 him ; and one of them has a literary course before her worthy 
 of her famous name. 
 
 On the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, 
 he was laid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle the 
 dust to which the mortal part of him had returned, with that 
 of a third child, lost in her infancy, years ago. The heads of 
 a great concourse of his fellow-workers in the Arts were 
 bowed around his tomb. 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 19 1 
 
 OBITUARY POEMS. 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 He was a cynic : by his life all wrought 
 
 Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways ; 
 
 His heart wide open to all kindly thought, 
 
 His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise. 
 
 He was a cynic : you might read it writ 
 
 In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair : 
 
 In those blue eyes, with childlike candor lit, 
 In that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear. 
 
 He was a cynic : by the love that clung 
 
 About him from his children, friends, and kin : 
 
 By the sharp pain, light pen and gossip tongue 
 Wrought in him, chafing the soft heart within. 
 
 He was a cynic : let his books confess 
 His Dobbin s silent love ; or yet more rare 
 
 His Newcomers chivalry and simpleness ; 
 His Little Sister s life of loving care. 
 
 And if his acts, affections, works, and ways 
 Stamp not upon the man the cynic s sneer, 
 
 From life to death, O Public, turn your gaze, 
 The last scene of a cynical career ! 
 
 Tnese uninvited crowds, this hush that lies, 
 Unbroken, till the solemn hush of prayer 
 
 From many hundred reverent voices rise, 
 Into the sunny stillness of the air. 
 
 These tears, in eyes but little used to tears, 
 
 These sobs, from manly lips, hard set and grim, 
 
 Of friends, to whom his life lay bare for years, 
 Of strangers, who but knew his books, not him. 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 A cynic ? Yes, if t is the cynic s part 
 To track the serpent s trail, with saddened eye, 
 
 To mark how good and ill divide the heart, 
 How lives in checkered shade and sunshine lie 
 
 How e en the best unto the worst is knit 
 By brotherhood of weakness, sin, and care ; 
 
 How, even in the worst, sparks may be lit 
 To show all is not utter darkness there. 
 
 Through Vanity s bright flaunting fair he walked, 
 Making the puppets dance, the jugglers play ; 
 
 Saw Virtue tripping, honest effort balked, 
 And sharpened wit on roguery s downward way ; 
 
 And told us what he saw ; and if he smiled 
 His smile had more of sadness than of mirth 
 
 But more of love than either. Undefined, 
 Gentle, alike by accident of birth, 
 
 And gift of courtesy and grace of love, 
 
 When shall his friends find such another friend ? 
 
 For them, and for his children, God above 
 
 Has comfort. Let us bow : God knows the end. 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 A heart beneath a cynic s cloak, 
 
 Tender as true, and good as strong ; 
 A voice that like a sabre s stroke, 
 
 Smote down the gilded shield of wrong ; 
 A stanch right hand, and full of might. 
 
 That never dealt the unfair blow 
 That even in the thickest fight 
 
 Could pause, and spare a fallen foe. 
 A giant genius, wit unblamed, 
 
 A scholar s intellect refined, 
 A kindly spirit, half ashamed 
 
 To own how well it loved mankind. 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 193 
 
 This was our general. Many a year, 
 
 Unsullied, free from rents or flaws, 
 Our standard did he o er us rear, 
 
 And gathered glory for our cause. 
 He never showed the wounds he bore 
 
 None knew how deep within his breast, 
 And now the long, fierce battle o er, 
 
 His gallant spirit is at rest. 
 O brother soldiers of the pen ! 
 
 Whose words are faint, whose eyes are dim, 
 Vow by his grave to be true men, 
 
 And in life s warfare copy him. 
 
 HISTORICAL CONTRAST. 
 
 MAY 1701, DECEMBER 1863. 
 
 When one whose nervous English verse 
 
 Public and party hate defied, 
 Who bore and bandied many a curse 
 
 Of angry times when Dryden died, 
 
 Our royal Abbey s Bishop-Dean 
 
 Waited for no suggestive prayer, 
 But, ere one day closed o er the scene, 
 
 Craved, as a boon, to lay him there. 
 
 The wayward faith, the faulty life, 
 
 Vanished before a Nation s pain ; 
 u Panther " and " Hind " forgot their strife, 
 And rival statesmen thronged the fane. 
 
 O gentle Censor of our age ! 
 
 Prime master of our ampler tongue ! 
 Whose word of wit and generous page 
 
 Were never wrath, except with Wrong. 
 
 Fielding without the manners dross, 
 Scott with a spirit s larger room, 
 13 
 
194 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 What Prelate deems thy grave his loss ? 
 What Halifax erects thy tomb ? 
 
 But, maybe, He who so could draw 
 The hidden Great the humble Wise, 
 
 Yielding- with them to God s good law 
 Makes the Pantheon where he lies. 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 Now that his noble form is clay, 
 
 One word for good old Thackeray, 
 
 One word for gentle Thackeray, 
 
 Spite of his disbelieving eye, 
 
 True Thackeray a man who would not lie. 
 
 Among his fellows he was peer 
 
 For any gentleman that ever was ; 
 
 And if the lordling stood in fear 
 
 Of the rebuke of that satiric pen, 
 
 Or if the good man sometimes gave a tear, 
 
 They both were moved by equal cause, 
 
 They loved and hated him with honest cause ; 
 
 T was Nature s truth that touched the men. 
 
 O nights of Addison and Steele, 
 
 And Swift, and all those men, return ! 
 
 Oh, for some writer now to make me feel ! 
 
 Oh, for some talker that can bid me burn, 
 
 Like him, with his majestic power 
 
 Of pathos, mixed with terrible attack, 
 
 And probing into records of the past, 
 
 Through some enchanted hour, 
 
 To show the white and black, 
 
 And what did not and what deserved to last I 
 
 Poet and Scholar, tis in vain 
 
 We summon thee from those dim halls 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 195 
 
 Where only death is absolute and holds unquestioned reign. 
 
 Even Shakespeare must go downward in his dust 
 
 And lie with all the rest of us in rust 
 
 And mould and gloom and mildewed tomb 
 
 (Mildewed or May-dewed evermore a tomb), 
 
 Yet hoping still above the skies 
 
 To have his humble place among the just. 
 
 And so " Hie Jacet," that is all 
 
 That can be said, or writ, or sung 
 
 Of him who held in such a thrall 
 
 With his melodious gift of pen and tongue, 
 
 Both nations old and young. 
 
 Honor s a hasty word to speak, 
 
 But now I say it solemnly and slow, 
 
 To the One Englishman most like the Greek 
 
 Who wrote " The Clouds " two thousand years ago. 
 
 ADSUM. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Angel came by night, 
 
 (Such angels still come down !) 
 And like a winter cloud 
 
 Passed over London town, 
 Along its lonesome streets 
 
 Where Want had ceased to weep, 
 Until it reached a house 
 
 Where a great man lay asleep ; 
 The man of all his time 
 
 Who knew the most of men, 
 The soundest head and heart, 
 
 The sharpest, kindest pen. 
 It paused beside his bed, 
 
 And whispered in his ear. 
 He never turned his head, 
 
 But answered, " I am here." 
 
196 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 II. 
 
 Into the night they went. 
 
 At morning, side by side, 
 They gained the sacred Place 
 
 Where the greatest Dead abide : 
 Where grand old Homer sits 
 
 In godlike state benign : 
 Where broods in endless thought 
 
 The awful Florentine. 
 Where sweet Cervantes walks, 
 
 A smile on his grave face : 
 Where gossips quaint Montaigne, 
 
 The wisest of his race : 
 Where Goethe looks through all 
 
 With that calm eye of his : 
 Where little seen but Light 
 
 The only Shakespeare is ! 
 When the new Spirit came, 
 
 They asked him, drawing near, 
 " Art thou become like us ? " 
 
 He answered, " I am here." 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 DICKENS S EARLIEST WRITINGS. 
 
 CONCERNING Dickens s earliest printed writings, 
 Mr. James Grant, the well-known journalist and 
 author, has supplied us with an account which dif 
 fers much from what has been elsewhere said upon 
 this part of our author s career. " It is everywhere stated," 
 says Mr. Grant, "that the earliest productions from his pen 
 made their appearance in the columns of the Morning Chron 
 icle, and that Mr. John Black, then editor of that journal, was 
 the first to discover and duly to appreciate the genius of Mr. 
 Dickens. The fact was not so. It is true that he wrote 
 6 Sketches afterwards in the * Morning Chronicle, 7 but he did - 
 not begin them in that journal. Mr. Dickens first became 
 connected with the Morning Chronicle, as a reporter in the 
 gallery of the House of Commons. This was in 1835-36; but 
 Mr. Dickens had been previously engaged, while in his nine 
 teenth year, as a reporter for a publication entitled the Mirror 
 of Parliament, in which capacity he occupied the very highest 
 rank among the eighty or ninety reporters for the press then 
 in Parliament. While in the gallery of the House of Com 
 mons, he was exceedingly reserved in his manners. Though 
 interchanging the usual courtesies of life with all with whom 
 he came into contact in the discharge of his professional 
 duties, the only gentleman at that time in the gallery of the 
 House of Commons with whom he formed a close personal 
 intimacy was Mr. Thomas Beard, then a reporter for the 
 
1 98 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Morning Herald, and now connected with the newspaper 
 press generally, as furnishing the court intelligence in the 
 morning journals. The friendship thus formed between Mr. 
 Dickens and Mr. Beard so far back as the year 1832 was, I 
 believe, continued till the death of Mr. Dickens. 
 
 " It was about the year 1833-34, before Mr. Dickens s con 
 nection with the Morning Chronicle, and before Mr. Black, 
 then editor of that journal, had ever met with him, that he 
 commenced his literary career as an amateur writer. He made 
 his debut in the latter end of 1834 or beginning of 1835, in the 
 Old Monthly Magazine, then conducted by Captain Holland, 
 an intimate friend of mine. The Old Monthly Magazine 
 had been started more than a quarter of a century before by 
 Sir Richard Philips, and was for many years a periodical of 
 large circulation and high literary reputation a fact which 
 might be inferred from another fact, namely, that the New 
 Monthly Magazine, started by Mr. Colburn, under the edito 
 rial auspices of Mr. Thomas Campbell, author of i The Pleas 
 ures of Hope, appropriated the larger portion of its title. 
 The i Old Monthly Magazine was published at half a crown, 
 being the same price as Blackwood, Fraser, and Bent- 
 ley s magazines are at the present day. 
 
 " It was, as I have said, in this monthly periodical not in 
 the columns of the Morning Chronicle that Mr. Dickens 
 first appeared in the realms of literature. He sent, in the first 
 instance, his contributions to that periodical anonymously. 
 These consisted of sketches, chiefly of a humorous character, 
 and were simply signed Boz. For a long time they did not 
 attract any special attention, but were generally spoken of in 
 newspaper notices of the magazine as clever, graphic, and 
 so forth. 
 
 " Early in 1836 the editorship of the Monthly Magazine 
 the adjective Old having been by this time dropped came 
 into my hands ; and in making the necessary arrangements for 
 its transfer from Captain Holland then, I should have men 
 tioned, proprietor as well as editor I expressed my great 
 admiration of the series of i Sketches by Boz, which had ap- 
 
DICKENS S EARLIEST WRITINGS. 199 
 
 peared in the Monthly, and said I should like to make an 
 arrangement with the writer for a continuance of them under 
 my editorship. With that view I asked him the name of the 
 author. It will sound strange in most ears when I state, that 
 a name which has for so many years filled the whole civilized 
 world with its fame was not remembered by Captain Holland. 
 But he added, after expressing his regret that he could not at 
 the moment recollect the real name of i Boz, that he had re 
 ceived a letter from him a few days previously, and that if I 
 would meet him at the same time and place next day, he would 
 bring me that letter, because it related to the i Sketches of 
 the writer in the i Monthly Magazine. As Captain Holland 
 knew I was at the time a parliamentary reporter on the Morn 
 ing Chronicle, then a journal of high literary reputation, and 
 of great political influence, he supplemented his remark by 
 saying that t Boz was a parliamentary reporter ; on which I 
 observed that I must, in that case, know him, at least by sight, 
 as I was acquainted, in that respect, more or less, with all the 
 reporters in the gallery of the House of Commons. 
 
 " Captain Holland and I met, according to appointment, on 
 the following day, when he brought me the letter to which he 
 had referred. I then found that the name of the author of 
 Sketches by Boz was Charles Dickens. The letter was 
 written in the most moderate terms. It was simply to the 
 effect that as he (Mr. Dickens) had hitherto given all his con 
 tributions those signed Boz gratuitously, he would be 
 glad if Captain Holland thought his i Sketches to be worthy 
 of any small remuneration, as otherwise he would be obliged 
 to discontinue them, because he was going very soon to get 
 married, and therefore would.be subjected to more expenses 
 than he was while living alone, which he was during the time, 
 in Furnival s Inn. 
 
 " It was not quite clear from Mr. Dickens s letter to Cap 
 tain Holland, whether he meant he would be glad to receive 
 any small consideration for the series of * Sketches, about a 
 dozen in number, which he had furnished to the Monthly 
 Magazine without making any charge, or whether he only 
 
200 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 expected to be paid for those he might afterwards send. 
 Neither do I know whether Captain Holland furnished him 
 with any pecuniary expression of his admiration of the 
 i Sketches by Boz which had appeared in the i Monthly. But 
 immediately on receiving Mr. Dickens s letter, I wrote to him, 
 saying that the editorship of the Monthly Magazine 7 had 
 come into my hands, and that, greatly admiring his Sketches 
 under the signature of Boz, I should be glad if we could 
 come to any arrangement for a continuance of them. I con 
 cluded my note by expressing a hope that he would, at his 
 earliest convenience, let me know on what terms per sheet he 
 would be willing to furnish me with similar sketches every 
 month for an indefinite period. 
 
 " By return of post I received a letter from Mr. Dickens, to 
 the effect that he had just entered into an arrangement with 
 Messrs. Chapman & Hall to write a monthly serial. He did 
 not name the work, but I found in a few weeks it was none 
 other than the Pickwick Papers. He added, that as this 
 serial would occupy much of his spare time from his duties as 
 a reporter, he could not undertake to furnish me with the pro 
 posed sketches for less than eight guineas per sheet, which 
 was at the rate of half a guinea per page. 
 
 " I wrote to him in reply that the price was not too much, 
 but that I could not get the proprietor to give the amount, 
 because when the i Monthly Magazine came into his hands it 
 was not in the same flourishing state as it once had been. I 
 was myself, at this time, getting ten guineas a sheet from 
 Captain Marryat for writing for his l Metropolitan Magazine/ 
 which was started by Thomas Campbell and Tom Moore, in 
 opposition to the New Monthly Magazine, and at the rate 
 of twenty guineas per sheet for my contributions to the 
 * Penny Cyclopaedia. 
 
 " Only imagine, concludes Mr. Grant, with pardonable 
 fervor, " Mr. Dickens offering to furnish me with a continua 
 tion, for any length of time which I might have named, of his 
 4 Sketches by Boz for eight guineas a sheet, whereas in little 
 more than six months from that date he could so great in 
 
DIC KENS S EARLIEST WRITINGS. 2OI 
 
 the interval had his popularity become have got loo guineas 
 per sheet of sixteen pages from any of the leading periodicals 
 of the day ! " 
 
 Dr. Charles Mackay writes : " John Black, of the < Morning 
 Chronicle, was always keen to discover young genius, and to 
 help it onward in the struggle of life. He very early discov 
 ered the talents of Dickens not only as a reporter, but as a 
 writer." Dr. Mackay was sub-editor of the < Morning Chron 
 icle when Dickens was a reporter. He continues : " I have 
 often heard Black speak of him, and predict his future fame. 
 When Dickens had become famous, Black exerted all his 
 influence with Sir John Easthope, principal proprietor of the 
 4 Chronicle, to have Dickens engaged as a writer of leading 
 articles. He (Black) had his wish, and Dickens wrote sev 
 eral articles ; but he did not seem to take kindly to such work, 
 and did not long continue at it." 
 
 And Mr. Gruneisen writes : " I believe I must add my 
 name to the remaining list of editorial workers who became 
 acquainted with Charles Dickens when he was in the Gallery. 
 I hope my memory is not deceiving me when I claim for Vin 
 cent Dowling, once a reporter, and for years the respected 
 editor of Bell s Life in London, the credit of having been 
 the first to discover the genius for sketching characters of 
 Dickens. J. G. may remember that the proprietary of the 
 Morning Chronicle, the l Observer, and Bell s Life was in 
 the hands, if I remember rightly, exclusively of Mr. Perry, 
 and the publication of the several papers was at the Strand 
 office. I have a distinct recollection that Dr. Black s notice 
 of Dickens was based on writings which had been in print 
 prior to his joining the reporting staff of the Morning Chron 
 icle. Dr. Black was always very emphatic in his prognostica 
 tions of the brilliant future of Charles Dickens. In 1835 tne 
 famed novelist was spoken of among his colleagues as a man 
 of mark. The Boz sketches, if not the rage of the general 
 public, had attracted the attention of the literary circles of the 
 day. 
 
 u Respecting the marvelous facility of Dickens as a re- 
 
2O2 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 porter, many versions of his note-taking of a speech of the late 
 Lord Derby (when Lord Stanley) have been current, and I 
 had a correspondence with Dickens on the subject only some 
 months since, he promising to give me the accurate record of 
 his stenographic feat when he met me. This promise he ful 
 filled the last time, alas ! I ever saw him alive, at the anniver 
 sary dinner of the Newsvenders Benevolent Institution, 
 when he took the chair in Freemasons Hall the last 
 banquet at which he presided. It was in consequence of a 
 reporter having broken down for the Mirror of Parliament 
 that the late Lord Derby, after complimenting Dickens for his 
 report in the Chronicle, dictated to him his speech the 
 Mirror, as you are aware, giving in those days verbatim 
 reports." 
 
 When Charles Dickens first become acquainted with Mr. 
 Vincent Dowling, editor of " Bell s Life " or " Sleepless 
 Life," as he facetiously termed it, from its Latin heading, 
 " Nunquam Dormio " ("wide awake") he would generally 
 stop at Old Tom Goodwin s oyster and refreshment rooms, 
 opposite the office, in the Strand. On one occasion, Mr. 
 Dowling, not knowing who had called, desired that the gentle 
 man would leave his name, to be sent over to the office, 
 whereupon young Dickens wrote : 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 Resurrectionist^ 
 
 In search of a Subject. 
 
 Some recent cases of body-snatching had then made the 
 matter a general topic for public discussion, and Goodwin 
 pasted up the strange address-card for the amusement of the 
 medical students who patronized his oysters. It was still 
 upon his wall when " Pickwick " had made Dickens famous, 
 and the old man was never tired of pointing it out to those 
 whom he was pleased to call his " bivalve demolishers ! " 
 
POPULARITY OF "PICKWICK." 203 
 
 We may just mention that it was Dowling who rushed down 
 from the reporters gallery and seized Bellingham, after his 
 assassination of Spencer Perceval. 
 
 POPULARITY OF " PICKWICK." 
 
 Mr. James Grant has favored us with some personal recol 
 lections of the fortune which attended the first publication of 
 " Pickwick " : 
 
 " In connection with the rapidity of Mr. Dickens s rise, and 
 the heights to which he soared in the regions of literature, I 
 may mention a few facts which have not before found their 
 way into print. The terms on which he concluded an ar 
 rangement with Messrs. Chapman & Hall for the publication 
 of the ( Pickwick Papers were fifteen guineas for each num 
 ber, the number consisting of two sheets, or thirty-two pages. 
 That was a rather smaller sum than that at which he offered, 
 just at the same time, to contribute to the Monthly Maga 
 zine, then under my editorship. 
 
 " For the first five months of its existence Mr. Dickens s 
 first serial, the Pickwick Papers, was a signal failure, and 
 notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Charles Tilt, at that time a 
 publisher of considerable eminence, made extraordinary ex 
 ertions, out of friendship for Messrs. Chapman & Hall, to 
 insure its success. He sent out, on what is called sale or re 
 turn, to all parts of the provinces, no fewer than fifteen hun 
 dred copies of each of the first five numbers. This gave the 
 i Pickwick Papers a very extensive publicity, yet Mr. Tilt s 
 only result was an average sale of about fifty copies of each 
 of the five parts. A certain number of copies sold, of course, 
 through other channels, but commercially the publication was 
 a decided failure. Two months before this Mr. Seymour, the 
 artist, died suddenly, but left sketches for two parts more, 
 and the question was then debated by the publishers whether 
 they ought not to discontinue the publication of the serial. 
 But just while the matter was under their consideration, Sam 
 Weller, who had been introduced in the previous number, 
 
204 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 began to attract great attention, and to call forth much ad 
 miration. The press was all but unanimous in praising 
 Samivel as an entirely original character, whom none but a 
 great genius could have created ; and all of a sudden, in con 
 sequence of Samivel s popularity, the Pickwick Papers 
 rose to an unheard-of popularity. The back numbers of the 
 work were ordered to a large extent, and of course all idea of 
 discontinuing it was abandoned. 
 
 " No one can read these interesting incidents without being 
 struck with the fact that the future literary career of Mr. 
 Dickens should have been for a brief season placed in circum 
 stances of so much risk of proving a failure ; for there can be 
 no doubt that, had the publication of his serial been discon 
 tinued at this particular period, there was little or no proba 
 bility that other publishers would have undertaken the risk of 
 any other literary venture of his. And he might consequently 
 have lived and died, great as his gifts and genius were, with 
 out being known in the world of literature. How true it is 
 that there is a tide in the affairs of men ! 
 
 " By the time the l Pickwick Papers had reached their 
 twelfth number, that being half of the numbers of which it 
 was originally intended the work should consist, Messrs. 
 Chapman & Hall were so gratified with the signal success to 
 which it had now attained, that they sent Mr. Dickens a 
 check for ,500, as a practical expression of their satisfaction 
 with the sale. The work continued steadily to increase in 
 circulation until its completion, when the sale had all but 
 reached 40,000 copies. In the interval between the twelfth 
 and concluding number, Messrs. Chapman & Hall sent Mr. 
 Dickens several checks, amounting in all to ,3,000, in ad 
 dition to the fifteen guineas per number which they had en 
 gaged at the beginning to give him. It was understood at the 
 time that Messrs. Chapman & Hall made a clear profit of 
 nearly ^20,000 by the sale of the Pickwick Papers, after 
 paying Mr. Dickens in round numbers ,3,500. 
 
 " Probably," concludes Mr. Grant, " there are few instances 
 on record in the annals of literature in which an author rose 
 
POPULARITY OF "PICKWICK." 205 
 
 so rapidly to popularity and attained so great a height in it as 
 Mr. Dickens. His popularity was all the more remarkable 
 because it was reached while yet a mere youth. He was in 
 comparably the most popular author of his day before he had 
 attained his twenty-sixth year ; and what is even more ex 
 traordinary still, he retained the distinction of being the most 
 brilliant author of the age until the very hour of his death 
 a period of no less than thirty-five years." 
 
 Since the illustrious author s decease even the book-binders 
 who had the charge of "Pickwick" have been claiming the 
 honor of stitching the sheets together, and giving their recol 
 lections to the newspapers. It having been stated in the 
 " Daily Telegraph " newspaper that " it was a question be 
 tween Messrs. Chapman & Hall and their binder, Mr. Bone," 
 " whether a greater or less number than seven hundred copies 
 should be stitched in wrappers ; instead of hundreds, it soon 
 became necessary to provide for the sale of thousands ; and 
 the green covers of Pickwick were seen all over the coun 
 try," a Mr. Joseph Aked, of Green Street, Leicester Square, 
 on the following day sent this correction to the same journal : 
 
 " SIR, In your sketch of the Life and Death of Mr. 
 Charles Dickens, in yesterday s Telegraph, you state that 
 the first order given to the binder for Part I. of the i Pick 
 wick was seven hundred copies, and it was a question be 
 tween Messrs. Chapman & Hall, and Mr. Bone, the binder, 
 whether a greater or less number than seven hundred should 
 be stitched in wrapper. 
 
 " The first order for Part I. of the Pickwick was for four 
 hundred copies only, and the order was given to myself to ex 
 ecute (not to Mr. Bone) by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, the pub 
 lishers, who in those days did not consult the binder about 
 the number of copies they would require. Also the first num 
 ber, stitched and put in the green cover, was done by myself ^ 
 my work-people having left off work for the day. 
 
 " Before the completion of the work the sale amounted to 
 nearly 40,000, the orders being given to myself and to Mr. 
 Bone." 
 
206 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Readers of " Pickwick " found the style so fresh and novel, 
 so totally unlike the forced fun and unreal laughter of the 
 other light reading of their time, that the smallest scrap from 
 any portion of the work was deemed worthy of frequent quota 
 tion a gem in itself. We have seen a little book now 
 very rare, and not to be found in the British Museum of 
 which thousands and thousands of copies must have been sold 
 by Mr. Park, of Long Lane, and Mr. Catnach, of Seven Dials, 
 bearing the title of " Beauties of Pickwick." 
 
 The famed Pickwick cigar the " Penny Pickwick " of our 
 childhood is too well known to need any comment. It 
 was a " brand " originally made by a manufacturer in Leman 
 Street, Minories, and sold in boxes and papers decorated with 
 Mr. Pickwick, hat off, bowing to you in the politest manner, 
 and offering for your notice a long scroll, setting forth the ex 
 cellence of the cigar a small cheroot, and containing about 
 one half of the tobacco used in a cigar of this kind sold at zd. 
 At the present day " Pickwicks " are patronized almost entirely 
 by cab-drivers. 
 
 Then there were " Pickwick " hats, with narrow brims 
 curved up at the sides, as in the figure of the immortal pos 
 sessor of that name ; " Pickwick " canes, with tassels ; and 
 " Pickwick " coats, with brass and horn buttons, and the cloth 
 invariably dark green or dark plum. The name " Pickwick " 
 is said to have been taken from the hamlet or cluster of houses 
 which formed the last resting-stage for coaches going to Bath, 
 which town, it will be remembered, was the scene of Sam 
 Weller s chaffing of " Blazes," the red-breeched footman. 
 
 A writer, whose name we have forgotten, remarked that 
 " Pickwick " was made up of " two pounds of Smollett, three 
 ounces of Sterne, a handful of Hook, a dash of the grammati 
 cal Pierce Egan incidents at pleasure, served with an orig 
 inal sauce piqiiante" And Lady Chatterton, in one of her 
 works, remarked : " Mr. Davy, who accompanied Colonel 
 Chesney up the Euphrates, has recently been in the service of 
 Mohammed Ali Pacha. Pickwick happening to reach Davy 
 while he was at Damascus, he read a part of it to the Pacha, 
 
"PICKWICK" DRAMATIZED. 
 
 who was so delighted with it, that Davy was on one occasion 
 summoned to him in the middle of the night, to finish the 
 reading of some part in which they had been interrupted. Mr. 
 Davy read in Egypt upon another occasion, some passages 
 from these unrivaled papers to a blind Englishman, who was 
 in such ecstasy with what he had heard, that he exclaimed he 
 was almost thankful he could not see he was in a foreign 
 country, for that, while he listened, he felt completely as 
 though he were again in England." 
 
 " PICKWICK " DRAMATIZED. 
 
 Moncrieff, the famous author of " Tom and Jerry," and a 
 hundred farces and light comedies, dramatized " Pickwick " 
 long before it was finished, for the Strand Theatre, where it 
 was performed under the title of " Sam Weller ; or the Pick- 
 wickians ; " Mr. W. J. Hammond sustaining the character of 
 Sam Weller. The termination of the drama was very differ 
 ent to that given in the book itself, as will be readily seen. 
 The adapter caused Mrs. Bardell to be tried and found guilty 
 of attempted bigamy, her husband being Alfred Jingle. 
 Messrs. Dodson Fogg, the Freeman Court sharks, were 
 sent to Newgate for conspiracy, and only released upon pay 
 ment of the sum of ^300 or thereabouts, which Mr. Pickwick, 
 on receiving, very generously handed to Jingle to start afresh 
 in the world the curtain falling with a herald entering and 
 announcing the accession of Queen Victoria, which occurred 
 about this time ! 
 
 Another version was acted with indifferent success, at the 
 Adelphi, Yates representing Mr. Pickwick, and John Reeve 
 Sam Weller. In February, 1838, Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds 
 started a monthly " Pickwick Abroad ; or, A Tour in France," 
 illustrated by Alfred Crowquill. As a curiosity, it deserves to 
 be read, if only to see the immense difference existing be 
 tween the two books. 
 
2O8 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 THE FIRST HINT OF " PICKWICK." 
 
 A great deal has been said as to the origin of " Pickwick," 
 and in the chapter devoted to a consideration of this favorite 
 work the present writer has stated from whence the name, at 
 least, was taken. He did not, however, for the moment re 
 member a conversation upon the subject which he had with a 
 friend not long since, which conversation was shortly followed 
 by a letter from him upon this same topic. The letter runs 
 thus : 
 
 " When I stated to you that Dickens took his ideal of novel- 
 writing from the works of Mr. Pierce Egan, I had nothing but 
 internal evidence to go upon. When he began to write, the 
 most popular fictions were the descriptions of Life in London 
 connected with the names of Tom and Jerry. The grand 
 object of Dickens, as a novelist, has been to depict not so 
 much human life as human life in London, and this he has 
 done after a fashion which he learned from the Life in Lon 
 don of Mr. Pierce Egan. If you remember that once famous 
 book, you will call to mind how he takes his heroes the 
 everlasting Tom and Jerry now to a fencing-saloon, now to 
 a dancing-house, now to a chop-house, now to a spunging- 
 house. The object is not to evolve the characters of Tom 
 and Jerry, but to introduce them in new scene after new scene. 
 And so you will find with Dickens. He invents new charac 
 ters, but he never invents them without at the same time in 
 venting new situations and surroundings of London life. Other 
 novelists would not object to invent new characters appearing 
 in the same position of life as the characters in some preced 
 ing novel, and trusting for novelty to the newness of the sur 
 roundings and the situation. Dickens insists upon putting 
 the new characters into a new and unexpected trade doll- 
 making, perhaps, or news-vending and he has always in 
 view some new phase of London life which he is far more 
 anxious to exhibit than the characters without which it is im 
 possible to bring the phase into prominence. If you look to 
 his writings, or if you talk to him, you will find that his first 
 
DICKENS A DRAMATIST. 209 
 
 1 thought is to find out something new about London life 
 some new custom or trade or mode of living and his second 
 thought is to imagine the people engaged in that custom or 
 trade or mode of living. Now this is Pierce Egan s style 
 and Dickens, with rare genius, and with large sympathies, has 
 followed in grooves which the once celebrated Pierce laid 
 down. Pierce Egan had no wit, and his conversations are 
 not worth mentioning. Dickens riots in wit, and what Pierce 
 would have shown in a description, Dickens makes out in a 
 conversation. But the objects of the two men to magnify 
 London life, and to show it in all its phases, were the same." 
 
 Upon examining Pierce Egan s " Finish " a sequel to his 
 " Life in London " we certainly find the characters are 
 somewhat similar to those in " Pickwick." In other matters, 
 too, a parallel may be drawn thus, the Bench instead of the 
 Fleet, and the archery match instead of the shooting party. 
 But the most curious coincidence is that the " Fat Knight " 
 the counterpart of Mr. Pickwick is first met by Corin 
 thian Tom at the village of Pickwick ! 
 
 DICKENS A DRAMATIST. 
 
 During the publication of " The Pickwick Papers " St. 
 James s Theatre was opened, September 29, 1836, with a 
 burletta entitled " The Strange Gentleman," written by 
 " Boz ; " Pritt Harley acted the Strange Gentleman; and 
 " Boz," himself, on one occasion took a part. The piece ran 
 until December, when it was withdrawn for an operatic bur 
 letta, " The Village Coquettes," by the same author, the music 
 by John Hullah. The parts were sustained by Messrs. Harley 
 (as Martin Stokes), Braham (as Squire Norton), Bennett (as 
 George Edmunds), and John Parry ; Mesdames Smith, Rains- 
 forth (as Lucy Benson), and others. It met with a marked 
 reception ; and Braham, for a long time after, at different con 
 certs, sang " The Child and the Old Man sat alone," inva 
 riably getting encored most enthusiastically. Three other 
 songs in the burletta were great favorites, namely, " Love is 
 14 
 
2IO CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 not a Feeling to pass away," " Autumn Leaves," and " There s 
 a Charm in Spring." The book of the words was published 
 by Mr. Bentley, and dedicated to J. Pritt Harley in the fol 
 lowing terms : 
 
 " My dramatic bantlings are no sooner born than you father 
 them. You have made my Strange Gentleman exclusively 
 your own ; you have adopted Martin Stokes with equal readi 
 ness." 
 
 The author, " Boz," excuses himself for appearing before 
 the public as the composer of an operatic burletta in the fol 
 lowing words : 
 
 " Either the Honorable Gentleman is in the right, or he is 
 not, is a phrase in very common use within the walls of Par 
 liament. This drama may have a plot, or it may not ; and 
 the songs may be poetry, or they may not ; and the whole 
 affair from beginning to end, may be great nonsense, or it may 
 not ; just as the honorable gentleman or lady who reads it 
 may happen to think. So, retaining his own private and par 
 ticular opinion upon the subject (an opinion which he formed 
 upwards of a year ago, when he wrote the piece), the author 
 leaves every gentleman or lady to form his or hers, as he or 
 she may think proper, without saying one word to influence or 
 conciliate them. 
 
 " All he wishes to say is this that he hopes Mr. Braham, 
 and all the performers who assisted in the representation of 
 this Opera, will accept his warmest thanks for the interest 
 they evinced in it from its very first rehearsal, and for their 
 zealous efforts in his behalf efforts which have crowned it 
 with a degree of success far exceeding his most sanguine an 
 ticipations, and of which no form of words could speak his 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 "It is needless to add, that the libretto of an Opera must 
 be to a certain extent, a mere vehicle for the music ; and that 
 it is scarcely fair or reasonable to judge it by those strict rules 
 of criticism which would be justly applicable to a five-act 
 tragedy or a finished comedy." 
 
"OLIVER TWIST." 211 
 
 
 
 "OLIVER TWIST." 
 
 Mr. Sheldon M Kenzie, in the American " Round Table," 
 relates this anecdote of " Oliver Twist : " 
 
 " In London I was intimate with the brothers Cruikshank, 
 Robert and George, but more particularly with the latter. 
 Having called upon him one day at his house (it then was in 
 Mydleton Terrace, Pentonville), I had to wait while he was 
 finishing an etching, for which a printer s boy was waiting. 
 To while away the time, I gladly complied with his suggestion 
 that I should look over a portfolio crowded with etchings, 
 proofs, and drawings, which lay upon the sofa. Among these, 
 carelessly tied together in a wrap of brown paper, was a series 
 of some twenty-five or thirty drawings, very carefully finished, 
 through most of which were carried the well known portraits 
 of Fagin, Bill Sykes and his dog, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, 
 and Master Charles Bates all well known to the readers of 
 6 Oliver Twist. There was no mistake about it ; and when 
 Cruikshank turned round, his work finished, I said as much. 
 He told me that it had long been in his mind to show the life 
 of a London thief by a series of drawings engraved by him 
 self, in which, without a single line of letter-press, the story 
 would be strikingly and clearly told. Dickens, he continued, 
 dropped in here one day, just as you have done, and, while 
 waiting until I could speak with him, took up that identical 
 portfolio, and ferreted out that bundle of drawings. When he 
 came to that one which represents Fagin in the condemned 
 cell, he studied it for half an hour, and told me that he was 
 tempted to change the whole plot of his story ; not to carry 
 Oliver Twist through adventures in the country, but to take 
 him up into the thieves den in London, show what their life 
 was, and bring Oliver through it without sin or shame. I con 
 sented to let him write up to as many of the designs as he 
 thought would suit his purpose ; and that was the way in 
 which Fagin, Sykes, and Nancy were created. My drawings 
 suggested them, rather than individuality suggesting my draw 
 ings. " 
 
212 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 POETICAL EPISTLE FROM FATHER PROUT. 
 
 Just before the last installment of " Oliver Twist " was pub 
 lished, there appeared in " Bentley s Miscellany " this 
 
 "POETICAL EPISTLE FROM FATHER PROUT TO BOZ. 
 
 " A Rhyme ! a rhyme ! from a distant clime from the gulf of the Genoese ; 
 O er the rugged scalps of the Julian Alps, dear Boz ! I send you these, 
 To light the Wick your candlestick holds up, or, should you list, 
 To usher in the yarn you spin concerning Oliver Twist. 
 
 Immense applause you ve gained, O Boz! through Continental Europe ; 
 You 11 make Pickwick oecumenick ; * of fame you have a sure hope ; 
 For here your books are found, gadzooks ! in greater luxe than any 
 That have issued yet, ho press d or wet, from the types of GALIGNANI. 
 
 But neither, when you sport your pen, O potent mirth-compeller ! 
 Winning our hearts in monthly parts, can Pickwick or Sam Weller 
 Cause us to weep with pathos deep, or shake with laugh spasmodical, 
 As when you drain your copious vein for Bentley s periodical. 
 
 " Folks all enjoy your Parish Boy so truly you depict him : 
 But I, alack! while thus you track your stinted Poor-law s victim, 
 Must think of some poor nearer home poor who, unheeded, perish, 
 By squires despoiled, by patriots gulled I mean the starving Irish. 
 
 Yet there s no dearth of Irish mirth, which, to a mind of feeling, 
 Seemeth to be the Helot s glee before the Spartan reeling : 
 Such gloomy thought o ercometh not the glow of England s humor, 
 Thrice happy isle ! long may the smile of genuine joy illume her ! 
 
 Write on, young sage ! still o er the page pour forth the flood of fancy ; 
 Wax still more droll, wave o er the soul Wit s wand of necromancy. 
 Behold ! e en now around your brow th immortal laurel thickens ; 
 Yea, SWIFT or STERNE might gladly learn a thing or two from DICKENS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A rhyme ! a rhyme ! from a distant clime a song from the sunny South 1 
 A goodly theme, so Boz but deem the measure not uncouth. 
 1 Ei&oA.ov rr)s yij? oi 
 
DICKENS AND IRVING. 213 
 
 Would, for thy sake, that PROUT could make his bow in fashion finer, 
 Partanf* (from thee) pour la Syrie, for Greece and Asia Minor. 
 " GENOA, 14^ December, 1837." 
 
 DICKENS AND IRVING. 
 
 Professor Felton, alluding to the death of Washington Irv 
 ing, in a speech, in the latter part of the year 1859, gave this 
 interesting reminiscence of the friendship existing between 
 Dickens and Irving : 
 
 " The time when I saw the most of Mr. Irving was in the 
 winter of 1842, during the visit of Mr. Charles Dickens in 
 New York. I had known this already distinguished writer in 
 Boston and Cambridge, and, while passing some weeks with 
 my dear and lamented friend, Albert Sumner, I renewed my 
 acquaintance with Mr. Dickens, often meeting him in the brill 
 iant literary society which then made New York a most agree 
 able resort. Halleck, Bryant, Washington Irving, Davis, and 
 others scarce less attractive by their genius, wit, and social 
 graces, constituted a circle not to be surpassed anywhere in 
 the world. I passed much of the time with Mr. Irving and 
 Mr. Dickens, and it was delightful to witness the cordial in 
 tercourse of the young man, in the flush and glory of his 
 youthful genius, and his elder compeer, then in the assured 
 possession of immortal renown. Dickens said, in his frank, 
 hearty manner, that from his childhood he had known the 
 works of Irving ; and that, before he thought of coming to 
 this country, he had received a letter from him, expressing the 
 delight he felt in reading the story of Little Nell ; and from 
 that day they had shaken hands autographically across the 
 Atlantic." 
 
 After Professor Felton s reminiscences, it may not be un 
 interesting to quote the following extract from a letter written 
 by Washington Irving to his niece (Mrs. Storrow), under date 
 May 25, 1841, in which he mentions a letter he had just re 
 ceived from Dickens, in reply to one from himself : 
 
 " And now comes the third letter from that glorious fellow, 
 
214 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Dickens (Boz), in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my 
 heartfelt delight with his writings, and my yearnings towards 
 himself. See how completely we sympathize in feeling : 
 
 " i There is no man in the world, replies Dickens, i who 
 could have given me the heartfelt pleasure you have by your 
 kind note of the I3th of last month. There is no living writer, 
 and there are very few among the dead, whose approbation I 
 should feel so proud to earn ; and, with everything you have 
 written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart 
 of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you could know 
 how earnestly I write this, you would be glad to read it as I 
 hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand I 
 autographically hold out to you over the broad Atlantic. 
 
 " I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint of 
 an intention to visit England. I can t. I have held it at arm s 
 length, and taken a bird s-eye view of it, after reading it a great 
 many times ; but there is no greater encouragement in it, this 
 way, than on a microscopic inspection. I should love to go with 
 you as I have gone, God knows how often into Little 
 Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green Arbor Court, and West 
 minster Abbey. I should like to travel with you, outside the 
 last of the coaches, down to Bracebridge Hall. It would make 
 my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby 
 gentleman in the oil-cloth hat and red nose, who sat in the 
 nine-cornered back parlor of the Mason s Arms ; and about 
 Robert Preston, and the tallow-chandler s widow, whose sit 
 ting-room is second nature to me ; and about all those delight 
 ful places and people that I used to talk about and dream of 
 in the daytime, when a very small and not-over-particularly- 
 taken-care-of boy. I have a good deal to say, too, about that 
 dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you can t help being fonder of 
 than you ought to be ; and much to hear concerning Moorish 
 legend, and poor unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich Knickerbocker 
 I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should show you 
 his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression. 
 
 " I have been so accustomed to associate you with my 
 pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, 
 
DICKENS AND IRVING. 215 
 
 that I rush at once into full confidence with you, and tall, as it 
 were naturally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your open 
 arms. Questions come thronging to my pen as to the lips of 
 people who meet after long hoping to do so. I don t know 
 what to say first, or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly 
 disposed to break off and tell you again how glad I am this 
 moment has arrived. 
 
 u * My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough 
 for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and 
 lasting gratification it has given me. I hope to have many 
 letters from you, and to exchange a frequent correspondence. 
 I send this to say so. After the first two or three, I shall 
 settle down into a connected style, and become gradually 
 rational. 
 
 " You know what the feeling is, after having written a 
 letter, sealed it, and sent it off. I shall picture you reading 
 this, and answering it, before it has lain one night in the post- 
 office. Ten to one that before the fastest packet could reach 
 New York I shall be writing again. 
 
 " Do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive 
 letters ? I have my doubts. They get into a dreadful habit 
 of indifference. A postman, I imagine, is quite callous. Con 
 ceive his delivering one to himself, without being startled by 
 a preliminary double knock ! " 
 
 Irving, writing again to Mrs. Storrow, 2Qth of October fol 
 lowing, says : 
 
 " What do you think ? Dickens is actually coming to Amer 
 ica. He has engaged passage for himself and his wife in 
 the steam-packet for Boston, for the 4th of January next. He 
 says : I look forward to shaking hands with you, with an 
 interest I cannot (and I would not if I could) describe. You 
 can imagine, I dare say, something of the feelings with which 
 I look forward to being in America. I can hardly believe I 
 am coming." 
 
 But to return to Professor Felton and his recollections of 
 Irving and Dickens. He continues : 
 
216 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " Great and varied as was the genius of Mr. Irving, there 
 was one thing he shrank with a comical terror from attempt 
 ing, and that was a dinner speech. A great dinner, however, 
 was to be given to Mr. Dickens in New York, as one had 
 already been given in Boston ; and it was evident to all that no 
 man like Washington Irving could be thought of to preside. 
 With all his dread of making a speech, he was obliged to 
 obey the universal call, and to accept the painful preeminence. 
 I saw him daily during the interval of preparation, either at 
 the lodgings of Dickens, or at dinner, or at evening parties. I 
 hope I showed no want of sympathy with his forebodings, but 
 I could not help being amused with his tragi-comical distress 
 which the thought of that approaching dinner had caused him. 
 His pleasant humor mingled with the real dread, and played 
 with the whimsical horrors of his own position with an irre 
 sistible drollery. Whenever it was alluded to, his invariable 
 answer was, I shall certainly break down ! uttered in a 
 half-melancholy tone, the ludicrous effect of which it is im 
 possible to describe. He was haunted, as if by a nightmare ; 
 and I could only compare his dismay to that of Mr. Pickwick, 
 who was so alarmed at the prospect of leading about that 
 1 dreadful horse all day. At length the long-expected even 
 ing arrived. A company of the most eminent persons, from 
 all the professions and every walk of life, were assembled, 
 and Mr. Irving took the chair. I had gladly accepted an in 
 vitation, making it, however, a condition that I should not be 
 called upon to speak a thing I then dreaded quite as much 
 as Mr. Irving himself. The direful compulsions of life have 
 since helped me to overcome, in some measure, the post 
 prandial fright. Under the circumstances an invited guest, 
 with no impending speech I sat calmly and watched with 
 interest the imposing scene. I had the honor to be placed 
 next but one to Mr. Irving, and the great pleasure of sharing 
 in his conversation. He had brought the manuscript of his 
 speech, and laid it under his plate. I shall certainly break 
 down, he repeated over and over again. At last the moment 
 arrived. Mr. Irving rose, and was received with deafening 
 
DICKENS AND IRVING. 2 1/ 
 
 and long-continued applause, which by no means lessened his 
 apprehension. He began in his pleasant voice ; got through 
 two or three sentences pretty easily, but in the next hesitated ; 
 and, after one or two attempts to go on, gave it up, with a 
 graceful allusion to the tournament, and the troop of knights 
 all armed and eager for the fray ; and ended with the toast, 
 Charles Dickens, the guest of the nation. There ! said 
 he, as he resumed his seat under a repetition of the applause 
 which had saluted his rising there ! I told you I should 
 break down, and I ve done it. 
 
 " There certainly never was a shorter after-dinner speech ; 
 and I doubt if there ever was a more successful one. The 
 manuscript seemed to be a dozen or twenty pages long, but 
 the printed speech was not as many lines. 
 
 " Mr. Irving often spoke with a good-humored envy of the 
 felicity with which Dickens always acquitted himself on such 
 occasions. * 
 
 Immediately after dinner, Irving and Dickens started off 
 together to Washington, to spend a few days, and there took 
 leave of one another. Irving at this time having just received 
 his appointment as Minister to Spain, Dickens wrote to him : 
 " We passed through literally passed through this place 
 again to-day. I did not come to see you, for I really had not 
 the heart to say good-by again, and I felt more than I can 
 tell you when we shook hands last Wednesday. You will not 
 be at Baltimore, I fear ? I thought at the time, that you only 
 said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer. 
 
 " Wherever you go, God bless you ! What pleasure I have 
 had in seeing and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. I 
 shall never forget it as long as I live. What would I give if we 
 could have a quiet walk together ! Spain is a lazy place, and 
 its climate an indolent one. But if you have ever leisure 
 under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you, and 
 holds communion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any 
 other person alive leisure from listlessness, I mean and 
 will write to me in London, you will give me an inexpressible 
 amount of pleasure." 
 
2l8 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 DICKENS AS AN ACTOR 
 
 Dickens s extreme fondness for theatricals had tempted him, 
 as far back as the year 1836, when "Pickwick" was publish 
 ing, to take a part in "The Strange Gentleman," at St. James s 
 Theatre. The amateur actor was not successful on this occa 
 sion, and we believe no further attempt except drawing- 
 room performances was made until the autumn of 1845, 
 when he made another appearance on the stage at the St. 
 James s Theatre, on the I9th of September, the play selected 
 being Ben Jonson s " Every Man in his Humor ; " the va 
 rious parts of the amateur performance being taken by literary 
 and artistic celebrities. The triumph achieved was immense. 
 They were induced to repeat the performance for a Chanty, at 
 the same theatre, on the I5th of November following, the only 
 alteration being the substitution of a Mr. Eaton for Mr. 
 A Beckett as William. The play-bill itself is a curiosity : 
 A Strictly Private Amateur Performance. 
 
 AT THE ST. JAMES S THEATRE 
 
 (By favor of Mr. Mitchell). Will be performed Ben. Jonson s Comedy of 
 EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR. 
 
 Knowell HENRY MAYHEW. 
 
 Edward Knowell FREDERICK DICKENS. 
 
 Brainworm MARK LEMON. 
 
 George Downright DUDLEY COSTELLO. 
 
 Wellbred . . GEORGE CATTEKMOLE 
 
 Kitely JOHN FORSTER. 
 
 Captain Bobadil CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Master Stephen DOUGLAS JERROLD. 
 
 Master Mathew JOHN LEECH 
 
 Thomas Cash . . . AUGUSTUS DICKENS. 
 
 Oliver Cob PERCIVAL LEIGH. 
 
 Justice Clement FRANK STONE. 
 
 Roger Formal MR. EVANS. 
 
 William W. EATON. 
 
 James W. B. JERROLD. 
 
 Dame Kitely Miss FORTESQUB. 
 
 Mistress Bridget Miss HINTON. 
 
 Tib Miss BEW. 
 
DICKENS AS A JOURNALIST. 2IQ 
 
 To conclude with a Farce, in One Act called 
 TWO O CLOCK IN THE MORNING. 
 
 CHARACTERS : 
 
 Mr. Snobbington MK. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 TJte Stranger MR. MARK LEMON. 
 
 Previous to the Play the Overture to " William Tell." Previous to the Farce, the 
 Overture to " La Gazza Ladra." 
 
 His Royal Highness Prince Albert has been pleased to express his intention to 
 honor the performance with his presence. 
 
 Ben Jonson as an acting dramatist, has almost disappeared 
 from the stage he so long adorned, and probably, no per 
 formance of his best comedy was ever more successful than 
 the above. Dickens made such an admirable Captain Boba- 
 dil, that Leslie, the Royal Academician, took a most character 
 istic portrait of him in that character. The moment selected 
 is when the Captain shouts out 
 
 A gentleman ! odds so, I am not within." 
 
 Act i., Scene 3. 
 
 DICKENS AS A JOURNALIST. 
 
 The idea was well taken up. Money was freely spent by 
 the various shareholders, and many advertisements told the 
 public that a newspaper, which should supply everything in 
 the first style of newspaper talent, would be published at the 
 price of twopence-halfpenny. The name chosen was the 
 " Daily News," and Mr. Dickens was widely advertised as 
 "the head of the literary department." Expectation was 
 raised to a high pitch by this announcement ; and in 1846, on 
 the 2 ist of January, the first number appeared. The new 
 journal, however, did not prove so successful as was expected. 
 The staffs of other papers had been long organized, their ex 
 penses of course immense were well and judiciously con 
 trolled, and the arrangements complete. All these things 
 were new to the " Daily News," and the expenses entered into 
 did not render it possible, with the circulation it had then 
 reached, to sell the paper at the original price ; and it was 
 shortly after raised to threepence, and finally to the same price 
 as the " Times." 
 
220 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Very recently, and only a few days after the death of the 
 great novelist, the paper here alluded to gave this account of 
 his connection with the journal : 
 
 " Some of our readers may not be aware that the Pictures 
 from Italy, which are now included in all editions of Charles 
 Dickens s works, were originally contributed to this newspa 
 per, and that its early numbers were brought out under his 
 editorship. In the first number of this journal, in the Daily 
 News of January 21, 1846, appeared No. I of Travelling Let 
 ters, written on the Road, by Charles Dickens. In the * Daily 
 News of February 14 of the same year, Mr. Dickens wrote 
 the following verses which will be new to many elicited 
 by a speech at one of the night meetings of the wives of the 
 agricultural laborers in Wiltshire, held to petition for free- 
 trade : 
 
 THE HYMN OF THE WILTSHIRE LABORERS. 
 
 " Don t you all think that we have a great need to cry to our God to put it in the 
 hearts of our greaseous Queen and her members of Parlerment to grant us free 
 bread ! " LUCY SIMPKINS, at Brim Hill. 
 
 O God, who by Thy Prophet s hand 
 
 Didst smite the rocky brake, 
 Whence water came at Thy command, 
 
 Thy people s thirst to slake : 
 Strike, now, upon this granite wall, 
 
 Stern, obdurate, and high ; 
 And let some drops of pity fall 
 
 For us who starve and die ! 
 
 The God, who took a little child 
 
 And set him in the midst, 
 And promised him his mercy mild, 
 
 As, by Thy Son, Thou didst : 
 Look down upon our children dear, 
 
 So gaunt, so cold, so spare, 
 And let their images appear 
 
 Where Lords and Gentry are 
 
 O God, teach them to feel how we, 
 
 When our poor infants droop, 
 Are weakened in our trust in Thee, 
 
 And how our spirits stoop : 
 
DICKENS AS A JOUR A T A LIST. 221 
 
 For, in Thy rest, so bright and fair, 
 
 All tears and sorrows sleep ; 
 And their young looks, so full of care, 
 
 Would make Thine angels weep ! 
 
 The God, who with His finger drew 
 
 The Judgment coming on, 
 Write for these men, what must ensue, 
 
 Ere many years be gone ! 
 O God, whose bow is in the sky, 
 
 Let them not brave and dare, 
 Until they look (too late) on high 
 
 And see an Arrow there ! 
 
 O God, remind them, in the bread 
 
 They break upon the knee, 
 These sacred words may yet be read, 
 
 " In memory of Me! " 
 O God, remind them of His sweet 
 
 Compassion for the poor, 
 And how He gave them Bread to eat, 
 
 And went from door to door. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " There is the true ring in these lines. They have the note 
 which Dickens sounded consistently through life of right 
 against might ; the note which found expression in the Anti- 
 Corn Law agitation, in the protests against workhouse enormi 
 ties, in the raid against those eccentricities in legislation 
 which are anomalies to the rich and bitter hardships to the 
 poor. Let the reader remark how consistently the weekly 
 periodicals which Mr. Dickens has guided have taken this 
 side, and how the many pens employed on them have taken 
 this side whenever political or social subjects have been dis 
 cussed, and he will understand that the author was not a mere 
 jester and story-teller, but a true philanthropist and re 
 former." 
 
 Dickens s friends very soon saw that he had taken a false 
 step. The duties of a daily political paper were not suitable 
 to him, and before many months he relinquished the editor 
 ship, and retired from participation in the " Daily News " 
 but not, it is understood, without a considerable loss in money. 
 His place was then filled by Mr. John Forster, the able editor 
 
22 2 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 of the " Examiner," and friend and at that time the cham 
 pion of Mr. Macready. 
 
 DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 
 
 On the 1st of February, 1847, Mr. Thackeray had issued the 
 first monthly portion of " Vanity Fair," in the yellow wrapper 
 which served to distinguish it from Mr. Dickens s stories, and, 
 after some twelve months had passed, critics began to speak 
 of the work in terms of approbation. The " Edinburgh Re 
 view," criticising it in January, 1848, says : " The great charm 
 of this work is its entire freedom from mannerism and affecta 
 tion both in style and sentiment His pathos (though 
 
 not so deep as Mr. Dickens s) is exquisite ; the more so, per 
 haps, because he seems to struggle against it, and to be half 
 ashamed of being caught in the melting mood ; but the attempt 
 to be caustic, satirical, ironical, or philosophical on such 
 occasions is uniformly vain ; and again and again have we 
 found reason to admire how an originally fine and kind nature 
 remains essentially free from worldliness, and, in the highest 
 pride of intellect, pays homage to the heart." 
 
 From this time forward a friendly rivalry ensued between 
 the two representatives of the two schools of English fiction. 
 We say "rivalry," but it never could have existed from 
 Dickens s side ; for, when " Vanity Fair " was at its best, 
 finding six thousand purchasers a month, Dickens was taking 
 the shillings from thirty to forty thousand readers ; but the 
 gossips of society have always asserted that there was a 
 rivalry, and made comparisons so very frequently between the 
 two great men, that we incidentally allude to it here. More 
 than once has Thackeray said to the present writer (or words 
 very similar) : " Ah ! they talk to me of popularity, with a sale 
 of little more than one half of 10,000 ! Why, look at that 
 lucky fellow Dickens, with Heaven knows how many readers, 
 and certainly not less than 30,000 buyers ! " But the fact is 
 easily explained only cultivated readers enjoy Thackeray, 
 whereas both cultivated and uncultivated read Dickens with 
 delight. 
 
y. YOUNG ON DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 22$ 
 
 JULIAN YOUNG ON DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 
 
 Last night I happened casually to mention to Miss Coutts 
 and Mrs. Brown that I had never seen Charles Dickens. 
 Although Miss Coutts had a large party to entertain, with that 
 amiable consideration for her friends which belongs to her, 
 she stole into an adjoining room and dispatched a messenger 
 to him with a note inviting him to lunch next day. Before we 
 had retired to bed an answer had been received to say he 
 would gladly come. 
 
 I am delighted to have eaten, drunk, and chatted with " Boz." 
 I have so often found the Brobdignagians of my fancy dwindle 
 into Lilliputians when I have been admitted to familiar inter 
 course with them, that, considering my unqualified admiration 
 of " Boz s " writings, and the magnitude of my expectations, it 
 is something to say that I am not in the least disappointed 
 with him. I longed to tell him of the lifelong obligations he 
 has laid me under ; for there was a period in my life when 
 sickness and sorrow, and their attendant handmaid anxiety, 
 were constant inmates in my home, and in those sad days we 
 used to look out for the post-bag which was to bring us the 
 last number of " Nickleby," or " Chuzzlewit," or " Dombey," 
 with all the eagerness with which an invalid listens for the 
 doctor s footstep on the stair. No drug, no stimulant, ever 
 wrought the wondrous effects that the sight of the green 
 covers of each number did on our poor patient. At their 
 advent, grief and pain would flee away ; and, in their stead, 
 pleasant tears, and " laughter, holding both his sides," would 
 take their place. How we used to dread coming to the close 
 of a number. What devices we had recourse to for spinning 
 it out. How, like greedy children smacking their lips with the 
 keen sense of enjoyment over some dainty, would we linger 
 over every racy morsel of humor, roll it over our tongues, and 
 repeat it to each other for the sake of protracting our intel 
 lectual feast as long as possible. 
 
 I hate to hear invidious comparisons made between the 
 merits of Dickens and of Thackeray. Each has his excel- 
 
224 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 lencies, and neither trenches on the domain of the other. For 
 though they are both students of human nature, they approach 
 her from different sides. Thackeray writes in pure and 
 idiomatic English ; and he has a deep insight into the foibles 
 of his kind. But, though personally he has made many 
 staunch friends, and all who know him love him well, yet he 
 certainly does not take as genial or as generous a view of men 
 and women as Dickens. He sees men and manners with the 
 jaundiced eye of a pessimist ; whereas his great competitor 
 sees " good in everything," and has a heart boiling over with 
 good-will to all mankind. None so poor but he can do him 
 reverence ; none so depraved in whom he cannot detect some 
 redeeming quality. Thackeray has an intimate knowledge of 
 the hollowness, artificiality, and waywardness of fashionable 
 life ; and, from out the depths of his own experience, con 
 structs imaginary lay figures, which he considers as typical 
 representatives of a class. But Dickens s portraits, however 
 antic they may seem, are yet drawn from real flesh and blood. 
 Thackeray s picture gallery is composed of recollections of 
 men and women he has met with in promiscuous society. 
 Dickens s portraits are studies from the life of those whom he 
 has not met with in Rotten Row, or rubbed against in the 
 drawing-room, but whom he has fallen in with in the by-ways 
 of the world, and who have attracted his observation by their 
 individuality. The characters in Dickens s writings which 
 have been most severely criticised as exaggerated or distorted, 
 are actual transcripts of bond Jide originals. Why, who that 
 knew her, could fail to recognize the original of Mrs. Leo 
 Hunter ? In younger days I was at one or two of her parties 
 in Portland Place. Who, that is familiar with Manchester, 
 does not know the Cheeryble brothers ? Who, that is old 
 enough to remember a certain inn in Holborn in coaching 
 days, can forget the original of Sam Weller ? The original of 
 Mrs. Gamp is not so generally known, but I know well the 
 ladies who first introduced her to Dickens s notice. 
 
 Dickens, of course, writes for his livelihood ; but it is not 
 exclusively for profit, or even for fame : he generally has a 
 
y. YOUNG ON DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 22$ 
 
 moral purpose in view. He never panders to popular preju 
 dices, but boldly rebukes vice in whatever rank of life he finds 
 it ; and takes a profound, and yet a practical, interest in the 
 cause of the ignorant, the oppressed, and the debased. 
 
 While I write, I am reminded of an anecdote which shows 
 in a very strong light the extraordinary sway he exercises over 
 the hearts even of those " unused to the melting mood." Mrs. 
 Henry Siddons, a neighbor and intimate friend of the late 
 Lord Jeffery, who had free license to enter his house at all 
 hours unannounced, and come and go as she listed, opened his 
 library door one day very gently to look if he was there, and 
 saw enough at a glance to convince her that her visit was ill- 
 timed. The hard critic of " The Edinburgh " was sitting in 
 his chair, with his head on the table, in deep grief. As Mrs. 
 Siddons was delicately retiring, in the hope that her entrance 
 had been unnoticed, Jeffery raised his head, and kindly beck 
 oned her back. Perceiving that his cheek was flushed and 
 his eyes suffused with tears, she apologized for her intrusion, 
 and begged permission to withdraw. When he found that she 
 was seriously intending to leave him, he rose from his chair, 
 took her by both hands, and led her to a seat. 
 
 Lord Jeffery (log.). " Don t go, my dear friend. I shall be 
 right again in another minute." 
 
 Mrs. H. Siddons. " I had no idea that you had had any bad 
 news or cause for grief, or I would not have come. Is any 
 one dead ? " 
 
 Lord Jeffery. " Yes, indeed. I m a great goose to have 
 given way so ; but I could not help it. You 11 be sorry to hear 
 that little Nelly, Boz s little Nelly, is dead." 
 
 The fact was, Jeffery had just received the last number then 
 out of " The Old Curiosity Shop," and had been thoroughly 
 overcome by its pathos. 
 
 Dickens began his career when a youth of nineteen, under 
 his uncle, John Henry Barrow, who started " The Mirror of 
 Parliament," in opposition to " Hansard." Hansard always 
 compiled his reports from the morning newspapers, whereas 
 Barrow engaged a special staff of able reporters, sending each 
 
226 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 important oration in proof to its speaker for correction. 
 When Stanley fulminated his Philippic against O Connell, it 
 fell to young Dickens s turn to report the last third of it. 
 The proof of the whole speech was forwarded to Mr. Stanley. 
 He returned it to Barrow, with the remark, that the first two 
 thirds were so badly reported as to be unintelligible ; but that, 
 if the gentleman who had so admirably reported the last third 
 of his speech could be sent to him, he would speak the rest of 
 it to him alone. Accordingly, at an hour appointed, young 
 Dickens made his appearance at Mr. Stanley s, note-book in 
 hand. It was with evident hesitation that the servant ushered 
 him into the library, the tables of which were covered with 
 newspapers. Presently the master of the house appeared, eyed 
 the youth suspiciously, and said, " I beg pardon, but I had 
 hoped to see the gentleman who had reported part of my 
 speech," etc. " / am that gentleman," retorted Dickens, 
 turning red in the face, and feeling his dignity somewhat 
 offended. " Oh, indeed," replied Mr. Stanley, pushing about 
 the papers, and turning his back to conceal an involuntary 
 smile. It was not long before Sir James Graham stepped in, 
 and then Stanley began his speech. At first he stood still, 
 addressing one of the wiadow curtains as " Mr. Speaker." 
 Then he walked up and down the room, gesticulating and de 
 claiming with all the fire and force he had shown in the House 
 of Commons. Graham, with the newspaper before him fol 
 lowed, and occasionally checked him, when he had forgotten 
 some trifling point, or had transposed one proposition in the 
 place of another. 
 
 When the entire speech had been fully reported, Stanley 
 returned the revise with Dickens s corrected edition of the 
 parts of the speech which had been bungled, with a note to 
 Barrow highly complimentary to the stripling reporter, and 
 with a shadowy prediction of a great career for him in the 
 future. 
 
 Dickens had totally forgotten this incident, until, many 
 years after, he was invited to dine with Lord Derby for the 
 first time. Having been shown with the other guests before 
 
"NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM." 22/ 
 
 dinner into the library, he felt a strange consciousness of 
 having been in it before, which he could not account for. He 
 was in a state of bewilderment about it all dinner-time ; for he 
 could not recall the circumstance which brought the reporting 
 adventure to his mind. But, at all events, something did, and 
 he reminded his host of it. Lord Derby was delighted to 
 recognize in his new friend his boy-reporter, and told the story 
 to a select few, who, with Dickens, had stayed after the rest 
 of the company had departed. 
 
 "Nor so BAD AS WE SEEM." 
 
 In June, 1851, a project which, it is said, Mr. Dickens 
 had long had in contemplation was brought forward by Sir 
 Edward Bulwer Lytton, namely, the founding of a Guild of 
 Literature and Art ; in reality, a provident fund and benefit 
 society for unfortunate literary men and artists. From it the 
 proper persons would receive continual or occasional relief, as 
 the case might be ; but the leading feature was the " Provi 
 dent Fund," to be composed of moneys deposited by the au 
 thors themselves, when they were in a position to be able to 
 lay by something. Dickens and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton 
 (since a peer) were the most active promoters. The precise 
 plan of the " Guild " was discussed at Lord Lytton s seat, at 
 Knebworth, the November previously. There had been three 
 amateur performances, by Dickens and others, of " Every 
 Man in his Humor," for the gratification of his lordship and 
 his neighboring friends, when it was arranged that his lord 
 ship should write a comedy, and Dickens and Mark Lemon a 
 farce. The comedy was entitled " Not so Bad as we Seem," 
 and the farce bore the name of " Mrs. Nightingale s Diary." 
 The first performance took place at Devonshire House, before 
 the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the court circles ; and 
 afterwards at the Hanover Square Rooms, and at many of the 
 large provincial towns (Bath, Bristol, etc.). At Devonshire 
 House, not the least incident occurred to shade what a late 
 Drury Lane manager might, in his own TtofV fii , JPY have 
 called " the blaze of triumph." From the first moment that 
 
 T B TI 
 
228 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 the scheme was made known to her Majesty and Prince Al 
 bert, both the Queen and the Prince manifested the liveliest 
 interest in its success. The Duke of Devonshire, with a mu 
 nificence that made the name of his Grace a proverb for liber 
 ality, dedicated his mansion to the cause of Literature and 
 Art, and his house w\s for many days in possession of the 
 amateurs. 
 
 The play began at half-past nine, Her Majesty, Prince Al 
 bert, and the royal family occupying a box erected for the oc 
 casion. The seats were filled by the most illustrious for rank 
 and genius. There was the Duchess of Sutherland ; there 
 was the " Iron Duke," in his best temper ; there was Ma- 
 caulay, Chevalier Bunsen, Van der Weyer themselves au 
 thors ; in fact, all the highest representatives of the rank, 
 beauty, and genius of England, and her foreign ambassadors. 
 
 The list of the performers, and the parts taken by them, is 
 a curiosity in its way : 
 
 to the] 
 
 The Duke of Middlesex, ! son of James II., I Mr. FRANK STONE. 
 
 lled the f 
 
 MEN. 
 
 I Peers attached 
 
 _., , ! son of James a., i 
 
 The Earl of Loftus, [ commonly called the f Mr. DUDLEY COSTELLO. 
 
 J First Pretender, . J 
 Lord Wilmot, a young man at the head of the ) 
 
 mode more than a century ago, son to Lord > Mr. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Loftus, ) 
 
 Mr. Shadoiuly Softhead, a young gentleman from ) M T^_ IT _. AC T-^OT 
 
 the city, friend and double to Lord Wilmot, . f 
 
 Mr. Hardman, a rising member of Parliament, ) M T Fr^c-r 
 and adherent to Sir Robert Walpole, . . . f 
 
 gentleman of good J Mr MARK LEMQN 
 
 Mr. Goodenough Easy, in business, highly re- I Mr F W TOPHAM 
 
 spectable, and a friend to Sir Geoffrey, . . . f 
 
 Lord le Trimmer, ) & r wm r^^f ) Mr. PETER CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Sir Thomas Timid,\ Fl S"S Mr WESTLAND MARSTON. 
 
 use 
 
 
 
 Colonel Flint, ) use> ) Mr. R. H. HORNR. 
 
 Mr. Jacob Tonson, a bookseller, ....... Mr. CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 Smart, valet to Lord Wilmot, ........ Mr. WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 Hodge, servant to Sir Geoffrey Thornside, .... Mr. JOHN TENNIEL. 
 
 Paddy O" 1 Sullivan, Mr. Fallen s landlord, .... Mr. ROBERT BELL. 
 
 ^pnlfteerf F ? len \ ^ Street, author and^pam- j Mr< AuGUSTUS EGG> A<R . A . 
 
 Lord Strongbow, Sir John Bruin, Coffee-House Loungers, Drawers, 
 Newsmen, Watchmen, etc., etc. 
 
" NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM." 22Q 
 
 WOMEN. 
 
 Lucy, daughter to Sir Geoffrey Thornside, . . . . Mrs. COMPTON. 
 
 Barbara, daughter to Mr. Easy, Miss ELLEN CHAPLIN. 
 
 The Silent Lady of De adman* s Lane, 
 
 The royal party paid the deepest attention to the progress 
 of the play, Her Majesty frequently leading the applause. 
 And when the curtain fell upon the three hours triumph, Her 
 Majesty rose in her box, and, by the most cordial demonstra 
 tion of approval, " commanded " (for such may be the word) 
 the reappearance of all the actors, again to receive the royal 
 approval of their efforts. Nor did the Queen and Prince 
 merely bestow applause. Her Majesty took seventeen places 
 for herself, visitors, and suite ; and, further, as a joint contri 
 bution of herself and the Prince, headed the list of subscrip 
 tions with ^150, making the sum total of ^225. It is said 
 that the receipts of the night exceeded ,1,000. Another rep 
 resentation at Devonshire House took place on the following 
 Tuesday, the admission being 2. The farce written for the 
 occasion, called " Mrs. Nightingale s Diary," was performed, 
 and Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon sustained the principal 
 characters. A critic at the time remarked : " Both these 
 gentlemen are admirable actors. It is by no means amateur 
 playing with them. Dickens seizes the strong points of a 
 character, bringing them out as effectively upon the stage as 
 his pen undyingly marks them upon paper. Lemon has all 
 the ease of a finished performer, with a capital relish for com 
 edy and broad farce." 
 
 For the representations in the provinces a portable theatre 
 was constructed, Messrs. Clarkson Stanfield, David Roberts, 
 Grieve, and others, painting the scenes, etc., which are said to 
 have been very beautiful. The funds raised were unfortu 
 nately, by a flaw in the act of Parliament, unintentionally tied 
 up for a number of years ; but on Saturday, July 29, 1865, 
 the surviving members of the Fund proceeded to the neigh 
 borhood of Stevenage, near the magnificent seat of the Presi 
 dent, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built in the Gothic 
 
23O CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 style on the ground given by him for that purpose. An en 
 terprising publican in the vicinity had just previously opened 
 his establishment, which bore the very appropriate sign of 
 " Our Mutual Friend " Mr. Dickens s then latest work 
 and caused considerable merriment. 
 
 DICKENS AND LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 One of the characters in " Bleak House," Harold Skimpole, 
 an incarnation of a canting and hypocritical scoundrel, whom 
 one longs to kick, was fastened upon as the impersonation of 
 that kind and genial writer, the late Leigh Hunt. Those who 
 had the good fortune to know him personally indignantly 
 refuted the calumny, and, like other unfounded rumors, the 
 matter died out, until, after his death, the idea was again 
 bruited forth. 
 
 Mr. Thornton Hunt (his eldest son), in preparing a new edi- 
 tion of his father s famous " Autobiography," prefixed an in 
 troductory chapter, in which the following passages occur : 
 
 " His animation, his sympathy with what was gay and 
 pleasurable, his avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness, 
 were manifest on the surface, and could be appreciated by 
 those who knew him in society, most probably even exagger 
 ated as salient traits, on which he himself insisted with a sort 
 of gay and ostentatious willfulness. 
 
 " The anxiety to recognize the right of others, the tendency 
 to refine, which was noted by an early school companion, 
 and the propensity to elaborate every thought, made him, 
 along with the direct argument by which he sustained his own 
 conviction, recognize and almost admit all that might be said 
 on the opposite side. 
 
 "It is most desirable that his qualities should be known 
 as they were ; for such deficiencies as he had are the honest 
 explanation of his mistakes ; while, as the reader may see 
 from his writing and his conduct, they are not, as the faults of 
 which he was accused would be, incompatible with the noblest 
 faculties both of head and heart. To know Leigh Hunt as he 
 was, was to hold him in reverence and love." 
 
DICKENS AND LEIGH HUNT. 23! 
 
 Dickens immediately, in a number of " All the Year 
 Round," under the head of " Leigh Hunt a Remonstrance," 
 made this statement : 
 
 u Four or five years ago, the writer of these lines was much 
 pained by accidentally encountering a printed statement, that 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt was the original of Harold Skimpole in " Bleak 
 House. 7 The writer of these lines is the author of that 
 book. The statement came from America. It is no disre 
 spect to that country, in which the writer has, perhaps, as 
 many friends and as true an interest as any man that lives, 
 good-humoredly to state the fact that he has now and then 
 been the subject of paragraphs in transatlantic newspapers 
 more surprisingly destitute of all foundation in truth than the 
 wildest delusions of the wildest lunatics. For reasons born of 
 this experience, he let the thing go by. 
 
 " But since Mr. Leigh Hunt s death the statement has been 
 revived in England. The delicacy and generosity evinced in 
 its revival are for the rather late consideration of its revivers. 
 The fact is this : Exactly those graces and charms of manner 
 which are remembered in the words we have quoted were re 
 membered by the author of the work of fiction in question 
 when he drew the character in question. Above all other 
 things, that sort of gay and ostentatious willfulness in the 
 humoring of a subject, which had many times delighted him, 
 and impressed him as being unspeakably whimsical and at 
 tractive, was the airy quality he wanted for the man he in 
 vented. Partly for this reason, and partly (he has since often 
 grieved to think) for the pleasure it afforded him to find that 
 delightful manner reproducing itself under his hand, he 
 yielded to the temptation of too often making the character 
 speak like his old friend. He no more thought, God forgive 
 him ! that the admired original would ever be charged with 
 the imaginary vices of the fictitious creature than he has him 
 self ever thought of charging the blood of Desdemona and 
 Othello on the innocent Academy model who sat for lago s 
 leg in the picture. Even as to the mere occasional manner, 
 
232 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 he meant to be so cautious and conscientious that he privately 
 referred the proof-sheets of the first number of that book to 
 two intimate literary friends of Leigh Hunt (both still living), 
 and altered the whole of that part of the text on their discov 
 ering too strong a resemblance to his way. 
 
 " He cannot see the son lay this wreath on the father s 
 tomb, and leave him to the possibility of ever thinking that the 
 present words might have righted the father s memory and 
 were left unwritten. He cannot know that his own son may 
 have to explain his father when folly or malice can wound his 
 heart no more, and leave this task undone." 
 
 Mr. Thornton Hunt, alluding to his father s incapacity to 
 understand figures, frankly admitted, "His so-called improvi 
 dence resulted partly from actual disappointment in profes 
 sional undertakings, partly from a real incapacity to under 
 stand any objects when they were reduced to figures, and 
 partly from a readiness of self-sacrifice, which was the less to 
 be guessed by any one who knew him, since he seldom alluded 
 to it, and never, except in the vaguest and most unintelligible 
 terms, hinted at its real nature or extent." 
 
 Very recently, and since the decease of the great novelist, a 
 similar statement about Skimpole and Leigh Hunt, made in 
 the columns of a daily journal, was thus replied to by Mr. 
 Edmund Oilier, an old friend of the deceased essayist : " Dick 
 ens himself corrected the misapprehension in a paper in All 
 the Year Round, towards the close of 1859, after Hunt s 
 death ; and during Hunt s life, and after the publication of 
 * Bleak House, he wrote a most genial paper about him in 
 Household Words. It is also within my knowledge that he 
 expressed to Leigh Hunt personally his regret at the Skim- 
 pole mistake." 
 
 Leigh Hunt himself, in confessing his inability at school to 
 master the multiplication-table, naively adds, " Nor do I know 
 it to this day ! " And again : " I equally disliked Dr. Frank 
 lin, author of i Poor Richard s Almanac, a heap, as it ap- 
 
GAD S HILL PLACE. 233 
 
 peared to me, of * scoundrel maxims. * I think I now appre 
 ciate Dr. Franklin as I ought ; but, although I can see the 
 utility of such publications as his almanac for a rising com 
 mercial state, and hold it useful as a memorandum to uncalcu- 
 lating persons like myself, who happen to live in an old one, I 
 think there is no necessity for it in commercial nations long 
 established, and that it has no business in others who do not 
 found their happiness in that sort of power. Franklin, with all 
 his abilities, is but at the head of those who think that man 
 lives by bread alone. " 
 
 And again, in his " Journal," a few years ago, that gentle 
 man, after narrating several agreeable hardships inflicted upon 
 him, says : " A little before this, a friend in a manufacturing 
 town was informed that I was a terrible speculator in the 
 money markets ! I who was never in a market of any kind 
 but to buy an apple or a flower, and who could not dabble in 
 money business if I would, from sheer ignorance of their lan 
 guage ! " 
 
 GAD S HILL PLACE. 
 
 Though not born at Rochester, Mr. Dickens spent some 
 portion of his boyhood there ; and was wont to tell how his 
 father the late Mr. John Dickens, in the course of a country 
 ramble, pointed out to him as a child the house at Gad s Hill 
 Place, saying, " There, my boy ; if you work and mind your 
 book, you will, perhaps, one day live in a house like that." 
 This speech sunk deep, and in after years, and in the course 
 of his many long pedestrian rambles through the lanes and 
 roads of the pleasant Kentish country, Mr. Dickens came to 
 regard this Gad s Hill House lovingly, and to wish himself its 
 possessor. This seemed an impossibility. The property was 
 so held that there was no likelihood of its ever coming into the 
 market ; and so Gad s Hill came to be alluded to jocularly, as 
 
 1 Thomson s phrase in his Castle of Indolence, speaking of a miserly money- 
 getter : 
 
 " A penny saved is a penny got ; 
 
 Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth he, 
 Nor of its rigor will he bate a jot, 
 Till he hath quench d his fire and banished his pot." 
 
234 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 representing a fancy which was pleasant enough in dream-land, 
 but would never be realized. 
 
 Meanwhile the years rolled on, and Gad s Hill became 
 almost forgotten. Then a further lapse of time, and Mr. 
 Dickens felt a strong wish to settle in the country, and de 
 termined to let Tavistock House. About this time, and by 
 the strangest coincidences, his intimate friend and close ally, 
 Mr. W. H. Wills, chanced to sit next to a lady at a London 
 dinner-party, who remarked, in the course of conversation, 
 that a house and grounds had come into her possession of 
 which she wanted to dispose. The reader will guess the rest. 
 The house was in Kent, was not far from Rochester, had this 
 and that distinguishing feature which made it like Gad s Hill 
 and like no other place ; and the upshot of Mr. Wills s dinner- 
 table chitchat with a lady whom he had never met before was, 
 that Charles Dickens realized the dream of his youth, and be 
 came the possessor of Gad s Hill. The purchase was made in 
 the spring of 1856. 
 
 In the " Uncommercial Traveller," under the head of 
 "Travelling Abroad," No. VII., Dickens makes this mention 
 of it : - 
 
 " So smooth was the old high-road, and so fresh were the 
 horses, and so fast went I, that it was midway between 
 Gravesend and Rochester, and the widening river was bearing 
 the ships, white-sailed, or black-smoked, out to sea, when I 
 noticed by the way-side a very queer small boy. 
 
 " Hallo ! said I to the very queer small boy, where do 
 you live ? 
 
 " At Chatham, says he. 
 
 " What do you do there ? says I. 
 
 " * I go to school, says he. 
 
 " I took him up in a moment, and we went on. 
 
 " Presently the very queer small boy says, This is Gad s 
 Hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those 
 travellers and ran away. 
 
 " You know something about Falstaff, eh ? said I. 
 
 " All about him, said the very queer small boy. 
 
BIRDS OF A FEATHER. 235 
 
 " 1 am old (I am nine) and I read all sorts of books. But 
 do let us stop at the top of the hill and look at the house there, 
 if you please ! 
 
 " You admire that house ? said I. 
 
 " Bless you, sir ! said the very queer small boy, i when I 
 was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for 
 me to be brought to look at it. And now I am nine, I come 
 by myself to look at it. And ever since I can recollect, my 
 father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, " If you 
 were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might 
 some day come to live in it." Though that s impossible ! 
 said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now 
 staring at the house out of window with all his might. 
 
 " I was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer 
 small boy, for that house happens to be my house, and I have 
 reason to believe that what he said was true." 
 
 BIRDS OF A FEATHER. 
 
 Mr. Crabb Robinson has preserved in his diary some play 
 ful lines by Southey ; but his editor has omitted to add a cir 
 cumstance which would have increased their interest. They 
 were written in the album of Mrs. S. C. Hall, and the opposite 
 page contained the autographs of Joseph Bonaparte and 
 Daniel O Connell, a circumstance which suggested what the 
 Laureate wrote : 
 
 " Birds of a feather flock together, 
 
 But vide the opposite page ; 
 And thence you may gather I m not of a feather 
 With some of the birds in this cage." 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY, zzd October, 1836. 
 
 Some years afterwards, Charles Dickens, good-humoredly 
 referring to Southey s change of opinion, wrote in the album, 
 immediately under Southey s lines, the following : 
 
 " Now, if I don t make 
 
 The completest mistake 
 That ever put man in a rage, 
 
 This bird of two weathers 
 
 Has moulted his feathers, 
 And left them in some other cige. r Boz. 
 
236 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 When these last lines first appeared in the " Art Journal," a 
 friend of Southey s, resenting Boz s remark, retaliated by 
 " good-humoredly referring " to the change of style between 
 " Pickwick " and " Our Mutual Friend," and wrote in the 
 margin of the periodical : 
 
 " Put his first work and last work together, 
 
 And learn from the groans of all men, 
 That if he s not alter d his feather, 
 He s certainly alter d his pen." 
 
 DICKENS AS A SMASHER. 
 
 A story is told that on one pedestrian occasion he was 
 taken for a " smasher." He had retired to rest at Gad s Hill, 
 but found he could not sleep, when he determined to turn out, 
 dress, and walk up to London some thirty miles. He 
 reached the suburbs in the gray morning, and applied at an 
 " early " coffee-house for some refreshment tendering for the 
 same a sovereign, the smallest coin he happened to have 
 about him. 
 
 " It s a bad un," said the man, biting at it, and trying to 
 twist it in all directions, " and I shall give you in charge." 
 Sure enough the coin did have a suspicious look. Mr. Dick 
 ens had carried some substance in his pocket which had 
 oxydized it. Seeing that matters looked awkward, he at once 
 said, " But I am Charles Dickens ! " 
 
 " Come, that won t do ; any man could say he was Charles 
 Dickens. How do I know ? " The man had been victimized 
 only the week previously,^ and at length, at Mr. Dickens s 
 suggestion, it was arranged that they should go to a chemist, 
 to have the coin tested with aquafortis. In due course, when 
 the shops opened, a chemist was found, who immediately 
 recognized the great novelist notwithstanding his dusty ap 
 pearance and the coffee-house keeper was satisfactorily con 
 vinced that he had not been entertaining a " smasher." 
 
DICKENS AND THE QUEEN. 237 
 
 DICKENS AND THE QUEEN. 
 
 Only since the death of Mr. Dickens is it that the high 
 respect in which Her Majesty has always held the great novel 
 ist and his writings has become generally known, but for 
 many years past our Queen has taken the liveliest interest in 
 his literary labors, and has frequently expressed a desire for 
 an interview with him. And here it may not be uninteresting 
 to mention a circumstance in illustration of Her Majesty s re 
 gard for her late distinguished subject which came under the 
 writer s personal notice. Six years ago, just before the library 
 of Mr. Thackeray was sold off at Palace Green, Kensington, 
 a catalogue of the books was sent to Her Majesty in all 
 probability by her request. She desired some memorial of 
 the great man, and preferred to make her own selection by 
 purchase rather than ask the family for any memento by way 
 of gift. There were books with odd drawings from Thack 
 eray s pen and pencil; there were others crammed with MS. 
 notes, but there was one lot thus described in the catalogue : 
 
 DICKENS (C.) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, in prose, 1843: 
 Presentation Copy. 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 " W. M. Thackeray, from Charles Dickens (whom he made very 
 happy once a long way from home)" 
 
 Her Majesty expressed the strongest desire to possess this, 
 and sent an unlimited commission to buy it. The original 
 published price of the book was $s. It became Her Majesty s 
 property for ^25 ioj., and was at once taken to the palace. 
 
 The personal interview Her Majesty had long expressed a 
 desire to have with Mr. Dickens took place on the 9th April, 
 1870, when he received her commands to attend her at Buck 
 ingham Palace, and accordingly did so, being introduced by 
 his friend, Mr. Arthur Helps, the clerk of the Privy Council. 
 
 The interview was a lengthened one, and most satisfactory 
 to both. In the course of it Her Majesty expressed to him 
 her warm interest in, and admiration of his works ; and, on 
 parting, presented him with a copy of her own book, " Our 
 
238 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Life in the Highlands," with an autograph inscription, " Vic 
 toria R. to Charles Dickens," on the fly-leaf ; at the same time 
 making a charmingly modest and graceful remark as to the 
 relative positions occupied in the world of letters by the donor 
 and the recipient of the book. 
 
 Soon after his return home, he sent to Her Majesty an edi 
 tion of his collected works ; and when the clerk of the Council 
 recently went to Balmoral, the Queen, knowing the friendship 
 that existed between Mr. Dickens and Mr. Helps, showed the 
 latter where she had placed the gift of the great novelist. 
 This was in her own private library, in order that she might 
 always see the books ; and Her Majesty expressed her desire 
 that Mr. Helps should inform the great novelist of this ar 
 rangement. 
 
 Since our author s decease the journal with which he was 
 formerly connected has said : 
 
 " We were not at liberty at that time to make known that 
 the Queen was then personally occupied with the considera 
 tion of some means by which she might, in her public capacity, 
 express her sense of the value of Mr. Dickens s services to his 
 country and to literature. It may now be stated that the 
 Queen was ready to confer any distinction which Mr. Dick 
 ens s known views and tastes would permit him to accept, and 
 that after more than one title of honor had been declined, 
 Her Majesty desired that he would, at least, accept a place in 
 her Privy Council." 
 
 Three days before this he had attended the levee and been 
 presented to her son H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, intro 
 duced by the Earl De Grey and Ripon. 
 
 His daughter, Miss Dickens, was presented at court to Her 
 Majesty on the loth of the following month, introduced by the 
 Countess Russell. 
 
 DICKENS S BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 The late Sheridan Knowles, in a letter to a friend, gave an 
 instance of his generosity : " Poor Haydn, the author of the 
 
METHODICAL HABITS. 239 
 
 < Dictionary of Dates and the Book of Dignities (I believe 
 I am right in the titles), was working, to my knowledge, under 
 the pressure of extreme destitution, aggravated by wretchedly 
 bad health, and a heart slowly breaking through efforts inde 
 fatigable, but vain, to support in comfort a wife and a young 
 family. I could not afford him at the moment any material 
 relief, and I wrote to Charles Dickens, stating his miserable 
 case. My letter was no sooner received than it was answered 
 and how. By a visit to his suffering brother, and not of 
 condolence only, but of assistance rescue ! Charles Dick 
 ens offered his purse to poor Haydn, and subsequently brought 
 the case before the Literary Society, and so appealingly as to 
 produce an immediate supply of 60. I need not say another 
 word. I need not remark that such benevolence is not likely 
 to occur solitarily. The fact I communicate I learned from 
 poor Haydn himself. Dickens never breathed a word to me 
 about it." 
 
 METHODICAL HABITS. 
 
 He did not work by fits and starts, but had regular hours 
 for labor, commencing about ten and ending about two. It is 
 an old saying that easy writing is very difficult reading ; Mr. 
 Dickens s works, so easily read, were by no means easily 
 written. He labored at them prodigiously, both in their con 
 ception and execution. During the whole time that he had a 
 book in hand, he was much more thoughtful and preoccupied 
 than in his leisure moments. 
 
 His hours and days were spent by rule. He rose at a cer 
 tain time, he retired at another, and though no precisian, it 
 was not often that his arrangements varied. His hours for 
 writing were between breakfast and luncheon, and when there 
 was any work to be done no temptation was sufficiently strong 
 to cause it to be neglected. This order and regularity fol 
 lowed him through the day. His mind was essentially method 
 ical ; and in his long walks, in his recreations, in his labor, he 
 was governed by rules laid down for himself by himself, rules 
 well studied beforehand, and rarely departed from. The so- 
 called men of business, -the people whose own exclusive de- 
 
240 CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 votion to the science of profit and loss makes them regard 
 doubtfully all to whom that same science is not the main ob 
 ject in life, .would have been delighted and amazed at this side 
 of Dickens s character. 
 
 No writer set before himself more laboriously the task of 
 giving the public the very best. A great artist who once 
 painted his portrait while he was in the act of writing one of 
 the most popular of his stories, relates that he was astonished 
 at the trouble Dickens seemed to take over his work, at the 
 number of forms in which he would write down a thought be 
 fore he hit out the one which seemed to his fastidious fancy 
 the best, and at the comparative smallness of manuscript each 
 day s sitting seemed to have produced. Those, too, who have 
 seen the original MSS. of his works, many of which he had 
 bound and kept at his residence at Gad s Hill, describe them 
 as full of interlineations and alterations. 
 
 MANNER OF LITERARY COMPOSITION. 
 
 A writer in a weekly journal says : " I remember well one 
 evening, spent with him by appointment, not wasted by intru 
 sion, when I found him, according to his own phrase, picking 
 up the threads of Martin Chuzzlewit from the printed sheets 
 of the half volume that lay before him. This accounts for the 
 seeming incompleteness of some of his plots ; in others the 
 design was too strong and sure to be influenced by any outer 
 consideration. He was only confirmed and invigorated by the 
 growing applause, and marched on, like a successful general, 
 with each victory made easier by the preceding one. It 
 seemed hardly to come within his nature to compose in soli 
 tary fashion, and wait the event of a whole work. No doubt 
 this resulted in part from his character as a journalist ; and so 
 did his utter disdain of the shams which it is the express 
 province of journalism to detect and expose. 
 
 " His composition, easy as it seems in the reading indeed, 
 so natural that it would be difficult to substitute any truer word 
 in any place was, we are told, elaborate and slow. But in 
 his happier days the process was by no means wearisome. It 
 
BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 24! 
 
 was the love of the idea, that could not let it go till he had 
 nursed it to its utmost growth. In this he resembled many of 
 the greatest humorists, whose enjoyment of their own fancies is 
 evidenced by the impossibility of passing them into print while 
 a single mirth-stirring thought or word could be added to 
 make the picture perfect. The result was invaluable. With 
 the exception only of Shakespeare, among English writers of 
 drama and fiction, no other author than Dickens yields so 
 many sentences on each page of sterling value in themselves ; 
 no other author can be read and re-read with such certainty of 
 finding fresh pleasure on every perusal. Nowhere, with the 
 one exception, does so much thought go to finish the produc 
 tion. It is jeweler s work, inlaying and enriching every 
 part." 
 
 BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 
 
 I was passing in review masses of correspondence, betimes, 
 on June 10, 1870, clearing the weeds from the flowers, and 
 tying up the precious papers of a life passed in the thick of 
 the literary activities of my time, when I received a letter : 
 " I should have written to you earlier to-day but from the 
 smart blow of this sudden illness of our dear Charles Dickens, 
 who had engaged to meet me this very afternoon (June 9) at 3 
 o clock, little dreaming of what was to put aside the appoint 
 ment." I rang for the morning papers. 
 
 Charles Dickens had passed away from us ! Lay before me 
 his letter in which he told me how, on a certain June day, 
 travelling from Gad s Hill to London, a bluff city man had 
 piped over the edge of his morning paper, " Do you see 
 this ? Douglas Jerrold is dead ! " Dickens was inexpressibly 
 shocked, for he had seen into the heart of his friend ; and they 
 had parted only a few days before, with the intention of spend 
 ing some happy hours in the house by Rochester. " Few of 
 his friends," I have the words before me in a blurred writing 
 not often written by that firm and willing hand, "I think, 
 can have had more favorable opportunities of knowing him, in 
 his gentlest and most affectionate aspect, than I have had. 
 He was one of the gentlest and most affectionate of men." 
 16 
 
242 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 So of Dickens. Who knew him best and closest, saw how 
 little he would ever produce to the outer world, of the bright, 
 chivalrous, engaging, and deep and tender heart that beat 
 within his bosom. The well of kindness was open to man 
 kind, and from it generations will drink ; but it was never 
 fathomed. Charles Dickens, as all writers about him have 
 testified, was so graciously as well as lavishly endowed by 
 Nature that every utterance was sunny, every sentiment pure, 
 every emotional opinion instinctively right, like a woman s. 
 The head that governed the richly-stored heart was wise, 
 prompt, and alert at the same time. He communicated to all 
 he did the delightful sense of ease with power. Prodigal as 
 he was, he seemed ever to reserve more love and tenderness 
 than he gave. His vigor was sustained, as well as brilliant 
 and daring. His mind, so marked in its self-respect and 
 equal poise, was never weak on great occasions, as the ju 
 dicial mind so often is. There was something feminine in 
 the quality that led him to the right verdict, the appropriate 
 word, the core of the heart of the question in hand. The air 
 about him vibrated with his activity, and his surprising vitality. 
 In a difficulty men felt safe, merely because he was present. 
 Most easily, among all thinkers it has been my fortune to 
 know, was he master of every situation in which he placed 
 himself. Not only because of the latent, conscious power 
 that was in him, and the knightly cheerfulness which became 
 the pure-minded servant of humanity who had used himself to 
 victory ; but because he adopted always the old plain advice, 
 and deliberated well before he acted with the vigor which was 
 inseparable from any activity of his. 
 
 The art with which Charles Dickens managed men and 
 women was nearly all emotional. As in his books, he drew at 
 will upon the tears of his readers ; in his life he helped men 
 with a spontaneous grace and sweetness which are indescrib 
 able. The deep, rich, cheery voice ; the brave and noble 
 countenance ; the hand that had the fire of friendship in its 
 grip, all played their part in comforting in a moment the 
 creature who had come to Charles Dickens for advice, for 
 
BLAATHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 243 
 
 help, for sympathy. When he took a cause in hand, or a 
 friend under his wing, people who knew him breathed in a 
 placid sense of security. He had not only the cordial will to 
 be of use wherever his services could be advantageously en 
 listed, but he could see at a glance the exact thing he might 
 do ; and beyond the range of his conviction as to his own 
 power, or the limit of proper asking or advancing, no power on 
 earth could move him the breadth of a hair. 
 
 Slow to adopt a cause, Charles Dickens was the first in the 
 battle for it when he had espoused it. He had the qualities of 
 the perfect trooper, as well as the far-seeing captain. I have 
 a letter of his, about Italy, dated 1844, in which, amid hearty 
 gossip, he turns to a cause that was dear to him at the time. 
 " Come and see me in Italy," he says to my father. " Let us 
 smoke a pipe among the vines. I have taken a little house 
 surrounded by them, and no man in the world should be more 
 welcome to it than you ; " and from the midst of the vines he 
 turns to the Sanatorium in the New Road, nearly opposite the 
 Devonshire Place in which so many wisely-happy evenings 
 have been passed. " Is your modesty really a confirmed 
 habit, or could you prevail upon yourself, if you are moderately 
 well, to let me call you up for a word or two at the Sanatorium 
 dinner ? There are some men excellent men connected 
 with that institution who would take the very strongest in 
 terest in your doing so, and do advise me one of these days, 
 that if I can do it well and unaffectedly, I may." Dickens had 
 steadfastness, endurance, thoroughness, in all he undertook. 
 If he invited a friend to his house, and it was at a distance, 
 he would write the most minute directions, a way-bill, 
 and enliven every mile-stone with a point of humor or a happy 
 suggestion of pleasure to come out of the excursion. " Think 
 it over." (This from Switzerland to a dear friend in London.) 
 " I could send you the minutest particulars of the journey. 
 It s nearly all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the 
 world." I have another letter of invitation to Paris, written 
 some three-and-twenty years ago. Amid exquisite touches of 
 humor, and in the glow of his friendship, lie details of the pre- 
 
244 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 cisest kind, beginning, " The fifteenth of March is on a 
 Monday. Now you can t cross to Boulogne on a Sunday, un 
 less in summer time The railroad from Abbeville 
 
 hither, finished some time, is announced to open on the 1st of 
 March." There are directions, in the event of the railroad 
 being open, and in the event of its remaining closed, and an 
 offer to secure the proper seat in the malle poste at Boulogne. 
 The coming, the visit, the return, the hour of arrival in Lon 
 don, are all mapped out, winding up with " in London on 
 Saturday night the 27th. Voila tout as we say." 
 
 In more serious matters, he was a man of order and of 
 righteous doing indeed. Cant is so well aired about the world, 
 and people have come to take a spice of it so much for granted 
 in every public man who holds the cause of his brethren to 
 heart, that they can hardly conceive of the noblest servant that 
 he had not the most infinitessimal particle of it. Writing 
 from the South, when he was about to travel to London with 
 the MS. of " The Christmas Carol," more than a quarter of a 
 century ago, to read it to a few friends in Mr. John Forster s 
 chambers in Lincoln s Inn Fields, he observed of the book, 
 "I have tried to strike a blow upon that part of the brass 
 countenance of wicked Cant, where such compliment is sorely 
 needed at this time ; and I trust that the result of my train 
 ing is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a 
 staggerer. If you should think at the end of the four rounds 
 (there are no more) that the said Cant, in the language of 
 Bell s Life, comes up piping, I shall be very much the 
 better for it." Dickens abhorred a sham with his whole soul. 
 When he published his " Child s History of England," the 
 mass took it for granted that the chapters which were appear 
 ing in the columns of " Household Words " were so much 
 copy, and that the writing of it for his own children was only a 
 common, and, to the world, warrantable artistic fiction. Such 
 fiction was not possible to the greatest fiction-writer of our 
 century. I have his words before me on this history, and the 
 ink is yellowing fast : 
 
BLANC HARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 24$ 
 
 " I am writing a little history of England for my boy, which 
 I will send you when it is printed for him, though your boys 
 are too old to profit by it. It is curious that I have tried to 
 impress upon him (writing, I dare say, at the same moment 
 with you) the exact spirit of your paper, 1 for I don t know what 
 I should do if he were to get hold of any Conservative or 
 High Church notions ; and the best way of guarding against 
 such horrible result is, I take it, to wring the parrot s neck in 
 his very cradle. O heaven ! if you could have been with me 
 at the hospital dinner last Monday. There were men there, 
 your city^ aristocracy, who made such speeches, and ex 
 pressed such sentiments, as any moderately intelligent dust 
 man would have blushed through his cindery bloom to have 
 thought of. Sleek, slobbering, bow-paunched, over-fed, apo 
 plectic, snorting cattle and the auditory leaping up in their 
 delight ! I never saw such an illustration of the power of 
 purse, or felt so degraded and debased by its contemplation, 
 since I have had eyes and ears. The absurdity of the thing 
 was too horrible to laugh at. It was perfectly overwhelming. 
 But if I could have partaken it with anybody who w r ould have 
 felt it as you would have done, it would have had quite another 
 aspect, or would at least, like a ; classical mask, have had one 
 funny side to relieve its dismal features. 
 
 " Supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of 
 North America, yours, mine, and forty-eight others, picked 
 for their concurrence of opinion on all important subjects, and 
 for their resolution to found a colony of common sense, how 
 soon would that devil, Cantj present itself among them in one 
 shape or other ? The day they landed, do you say, or the day 
 after ? 
 
 " That is a great mistake, almost the only one I know, in 
 the * Arabian Nights, where the Princess restores people to 
 their original beauty by sprinkling them with the Golden 
 Water. It is quite clear that she must have made monsters 
 of them by such a christening as that." 
 
 There is a manuscript the world knows nothing about this 
 
 1 The Preacher Parrot. 
 
246 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 day, and yet which has been for many years in existence, and 
 in circulation among those who were native to the author s 
 hearth. " The Life of our Saviour," was written by Charles 
 Dickens to guide the hearts of his children ; and if ever a 
 labor of love was done by that most affectionate nature, this 
 was preeminently it. " I wish it were in my power," writes 
 his dear friend, Mr. James T. Fields, " to bring to the knowl 
 edge of all who doubt the Christian character of Charles 
 Dickens certain other memorable words of his, written years 
 ago, with reference to Christmas. They are not as familiar as 
 many beautiful things from the same pen on the same subject, 
 for the paper which enshrines them has not as yet been col 
 lected among his authorized works. Listen to these loving 
 words, in which the Christian writer has embodied the life of 
 his Saviour : * Hark ! the waits are playing, and they break 
 my childish sleep. What images do I associate with the 
 Christmas music, as I see them set forth on the Christmas 
 tree ! known before all others, keeping far apart from all the 
 others, they gather round my little bed. An angel speaking 
 to a group of shepherds in a field ; some travellers, with eyes 
 uplifted, following a star ; a baby in a manger ; a child in a 
 spacious temple, talking with grave men ; a solemn figure, 
 with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand ; 
 again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his 
 bier, to life ; a crowd of people looking through the opened 
 roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick 
 person on a bed, with ropes ; the same in a tempest, walking 
 on the water to a ship ; again, on a seashore, teaching a great 
 multitude ; again, with a child upon his knee, and other chil 
 dren round ; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the 
 dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the 
 lame, knowledge to the ignorant ; again, dying upon a cross, 
 watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the 
 earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, " Forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do." " By the eloquent 
 pages that now will shortly be put within reach of every Eng 
 lish and American household, the children of Charles Dickens 
 
BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 247 
 
 were taught their first lessons of Christian love and Christian 
 chivalry. With what patience and thoroughness he wrought 
 out his creed in his home can be known only to the happy few 
 who were privileged to live his life, and to study the splendid 
 and unbroken harmonies which dwelt in the life within, as well 
 as in the life without. How far the ripples of his home-spirit 
 rounded into the outer world, will I hope, for the sake of the 
 world, be drawn by the hand to which the solemn duties of 
 biographer shall be presently confided. The circles broadened 
 into far-off places from that vehement central vibration of 
 love, and strangers stretched out their arms to Dickens, and 
 weary men unknown, sought his cheery and valiant tempera 
 ment as balm and comfort. 
 
 When Ada, Lady Lovelace, was dying, and suffering the 
 tortures of a slow, internal disease, she expressed a craving to 
 see Charles Dickens, and talk with him. He went to her, and 
 found a mourning house. The lady was stretched upon a 
 couch, heroically enduring her agony. The appearance of 
 Dickens s earnest, sympathetic face was immediate relief. 
 She asked him whether the attendant had left a basin of ice, 
 and a spoon. She had. " Then give me some now and then, 
 and don t notice me when I crush it between my teeth : it 
 soothes my pain, and we can talk." 
 
 The womanly tenderness, the wholeness, with which Dick 
 ens would enter into the delicacies of such a situation, will 
 rise instantly to the mind of all who knew him. That he was 
 at the same moment the most careful of nurses, and the most 
 sympathetic and sustaining of comforters, who can doubt ? 
 
 " Do you ever pray ? " the poor lady asked. 
 
 " Every morning and every evening," was Dickens s answer, 
 in that rich, sonorous voice which crowds happily can remem 
 ber ; but of which they can best understand all the eloquence, 
 who knew how simple and devout he was when he spoke of 
 sacred things, of suffering, of wrong, or of misfortune. 
 " He taught the world," said his friend Dean Stanley, over his 
 new-made grave in Westminster Abbey, " great lessons of the 
 eternal value of generosity, of purity, of kindness, and of 
 
248 CHARLES DICKEA T S. 
 
 unselfishness ; and by his fruits shall he be known of all men." 
 His engaging manner when he came suddenly in contact with 
 a sick friend, defies description ; but from his own narrative of 
 his walk with my father, which he told me made his heart 
 heavy, and was a gloomy task, it is easy for friends to under 
 stand the patience, solicitude, and kindly counsel, and de 
 signed humor with which he went through with it. My father 
 was very ill ; but under Dickens s thoughtful care, he had 
 rallied before they reached the Temple. "We strolled through 
 the Temple," Dickens wrote me, " on our way to a boat, and I 
 have a lively recollection of him stamping about Elm Tree 
 Court, with his hat in one hand, and the other pushing his hair 
 back, laughing in his heartiest manner at a ridiculous remem 
 brance we had in common, which I had presented in some 
 exaggerated light to divert him." Then again, of the same 
 day, " The dinner-party was a large one, and I did not sit 
 near him at table. But he and I arranged, before we went in 
 to dinner, that he was only to eat some simple dish that we 
 agreed upon, and was only to drink sherry-and-water." Then, 
 " We exchanged, God bless you ! and shook hands." 
 
 And they never met again. 
 
 But how full of wise consideration is all this day spent with 
 the invalid friend, in the midst of merriment, even to the 
 ridiculous remembrance " presented in some exaggerated 
 light, to divert him." Mr. Charles Kent has told me how he 
 met Dickens a few weeks before his death, and was observed, 
 at a glance, by that most masterly and piercing observer, to be 
 in low spirits and feeble. 1 Whereupon Dickens, who had ample 
 
 1 Mr. Arthur Helps recently said that, during a walk with Charles Dickens, the 
 great novelist observed nine objects for every one that he, Mr. Helps, observed. 
 The same might be said by most men who have ever walked frequently in company 
 with Mr. Dickens. Besides this, I can vouch for another yet more important and 
 striking fact, viz., that Mr. Dickens scarcely ever looked direct at anything. He 
 walked along without turning his head or staring in front (as some of those horrid, 
 colored, glaring photographs represent him), as one should say " Here I am 
 looking right through you! " He saw everything at a glance, or with half an eye. ? 
 It was only on very particular occasions that he looked hard at anything. He had 
 no need. His was one of those gifted visions upon which objects photographed 
 themselves on the retina in rapid succession. The Poet Laureate possesses a vision 
 
BI.ANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 249 
 
 momentous business of his own on hand, put it aside, sketched 
 a pleasant day together: a tete-a-tete dinner and a walk. In 
 short, to watch the many sides of his unselfishness, and the 
 fund of resources for the good of other people he had at his 
 command, was to be astonished at his extraordinary vitality. 
 How good he was to all who had the slightest claim on him, 
 who shall tell ? But that which Hepworth Dixon said over 
 my father s dust may be assuredly repeated by the narrow bed 
 near Macaulay, Sheridan, and Handel. If every one who has 
 received a favor at the hands of Dickens should cast a flower 
 upon his grave, a mountain of roses would lie upon the great 
 man s breast. And, in truth, his grave was filled with flowers. 
 To plaster a few of the ills which obtrude themselves un 
 pleasantly upon the attention, with checks handed to resound 
 ing cheers, is a kind of chanty that is strongly spiced with 
 selfishness. The sham of charity-dinner speakers and donors 
 Dickens abhorred, as I have shown. And in like manner, and 
 with like vehemence, he detested slip-shod assistance, or 
 careless, unreflecting giving. The last time I sat with him on 
 a business occasion was at a council meeting of the Guild of 
 Literature and Art. There had been an application from the 
 wife of a literary brother. The wrecked man of letters was 
 suffering from that which would never relax its hold upon him. 
 But it could not be said that his misconduct had not brought 
 on the blow. The firmness and delicacy with which Dickens 
 sketched the case to the council, passing wholly over the 
 cause, to get at once to the imploring fact upon which our 
 hearts could not be closed, left in my mind a delightful sense 
 of his abounding goodness. He spoke of the wife, and her 
 heroic self-abandonment to her husband, through years which 
 would have tried beyond endurance very many wives. He 
 begged that the utmost might be done ; and at the same time 
 he remained firmly just. What were the objects of the fund, 
 
 of a similar kind, though no doubt more intense, if not so universal. He has no need 
 to fix his eyes upon anything ; and, indeed, has been found sometimes to have seen 
 the whole of an exquisite landscape when apparently looking inwardly, as in a waking 
 dream, and lost to all around him. 
 
250 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 as laid down in the rules ? Did the case come strictly within 
 the limits of our mission ? Friendship, sympathy, apart, was 
 it a proper and deserving case ? The points were argued with 
 the greatest care ; and all the time an acute anxiety was upon 
 the countenance of the chairman. When at length we saw 
 our way to afford the help desired, Dickens s face brightened 
 as he became busy with his minutes and his books, and his 
 secretary, who was at hand ; and he remarked cheerily how 
 glad he was we had seen our way to do something. 
 
 Another occasion thrusts itself through a crowd of recol 
 lections. A very dear friend of mine, and of many others to 
 whom literature is a staff, had died. To say that his family 
 had claims on Charles Dickens is to say that they were 
 promptly acknowledged, and satisfied with the grace and 
 heartiness which double the gift, sweeten the bread, and warm 
 the wine. I asked a connection of our dead friend whether he 
 had seen the poor wife and children. 
 
 " Seen them ! " he answered. " I was there to-day. They 
 are removed into a charming cottage. They have everything 
 about them ; and, just think of this, when I burst into one of 
 the parlors, in my eager survey of the new home, I saw a man 
 in his shirt-sleeves, up some steps, hammering away lustily. 
 He turned. It was Charles Dickens ; and he was hanging the 
 pictures for the widow." 
 
 Dickens was the soul of truth and manliness, as well as 
 kindness ; so that such a service as this came as naturally to 
 him as help from his purse. His friend, Paul Feval, has said 
 over his grave, " Nothing in him was false, not even his mod 
 esty." 
 
 There was that boy-element in Charles Dickens which has 
 been so often remarked in men of genius as to appear almost 
 inseparable from the highest gifts of nature. "Why, we 
 played a game of knock em down only a week or two ago," a 
 friend remarked to me last June, with brimming eyes. " And 
 he showed all the old, astonishing energy and delight in taking 
 aim at Aunt Sally." 
 
 My own earliest recollections of Charles Dickens are of his 
 
BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 2^1 
 
 gayest moods : when the boy in him was exuberant, and leap 
 frog or rounders were not sports too young for the player who 
 had written " Pickwick," twenty years before. To watch him 
 through an afternoon, by turns light and grave ; gracious and 
 loving and familiar to the young, apt and vigorous in council 
 with the old ; ready for a frolic upon the lawn leap-frog, 
 rounders ; as ready for a committee-meeting in the library ; 
 and then to catch his cheery good-night, and feel the hand 
 that spoke so truly from the heart, was to see Charles Dick 
 ens the man, the friend, the companion, and the counselor, 
 all at once, and to get at something like a just estimate of 
 that which was beautiful in the brilliant and noble Englishman 
 we have lost. The sweet and holy lessons which he presented 
 to humanity out of the humble places in the world could not 
 have been evolved out of a nature less true and sympathetic 
 than his was. It wanted such a man as Dickens was in his 
 Life to be such a writer as he was for the world. He drew 
 beauties out of material that to the common eye was vulgar, 
 unpromising stuff. Shallow readers have said of him that he 
 could not draw a gentleman or a lady ; and this charge has 
 provoked some remarks from " The Times," which are bold 
 and to the point : 
 
 "We have heard it objected also by gentlemen, that Charles 
 Dickens could never describe a lady, and by ladies that he 
 could never sketch the character of a gentleman ; but we 
 have always observed, that when put to the proof, these male 
 and female critics failed lamentably to establish their case. 
 We are not sure that Charles Dickens s gentlemen were all as 
 well dressed as those who resort to Poole s Temple of Fashion, 
 or that his ladies were always attired after the very last fancy 
 of Worth. Dress is no doubt what may be called, in the cate 
 chism of gentility, the outward and visible sign of a gentle 
 man, just as the outward fashion of a lady is shown by her 
 dress. But even these are nothing if that inward and spir 
 itual grace which is characteristic of the true gentleman and 
 real lady be wanting ; and in that grace, however negligent 
 
252 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 they maybe in their attire, the ladies and gentlemen in Charles 
 Dickens s works are never deficient. We are not denying 
 that the true type of gentle life is to be found in the upper 
 classes. Far from it. We only insist, when we are told that 
 Charles Dickens could not describe either a lady or a gentle 
 man, that there are ladies and gentlemen in all ranks and 
 classes of life, and that the inward delicacy and gentle feeling 
 which we acknowledge as the only true criterion of the class, 
 may be found under the smock-frock of the ploughboy as well 
 as beneath the mantle of an earl." 
 
 The " fierce light " which beats not only about a throne, but 
 about all stations in life in these days, has discovered the 
 absolute truth of the creed which animated Dickens, when, 
 working upon his own observation, he drew a gentleman in 
 the rough form of Joe Gargery, and planted a little chivalry in 
 the breast of the convict who was grateful to Pip. In the 
 long gallery of Dickens s portraits of the men and women of 
 his time, to which I beseech the attention of the young 
 reader, there are gentlemen and ladies of all degrees. He 
 made no fuss about " Nature s noblemen ; " but he painted 
 what he saw, and delighted to find strong elements of that 
 goodness which he loved so passionately, and worshipped so 
 devoutly, in all his rambles and prospectings in the unlikeliest 
 places. That he drew with an impartial hand, is witnessed 
 not only by the hold his creations at once got upon the public 
 mind, but by the whole tenor of his life and work, away from 
 his desk. The conventional gentleman and lady had no 
 picturesque side to attract him ; and they could seldom be got 
 into the frame of his subject. He was an artist, and he conse 
 quently preferred a green lane and a gypsy camp any and 
 every day to the Ladies Mile and a lounge in his club. If 
 you want to make your most conventional gentleman look 
 noble in marble to all posterity, you strip the figure Poole 
 has dressed in his inspired moment, and shake out a toga, and 
 think about sandals. The poor and lowly come to the artist s 
 hand ready-made pictures. Besides, the observer s sense of 
 
BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 253 
 
 justice is gratified when he finds himself enabled, out of the 
 fund of his own discoveries among the neglected of his fellow- 
 creatures, to rehabilitate the humble and despised. While the 
 tendency of modern party warfare has been grievously to 
 quicken and heat class animosities, the writings of Charles 
 Dickens, which have been spread over every level of society, 
 have been powerful counter-agents, teaching all classes the 
 truth that is the best bond and the safest, viz., that, in the 
 words of " The Times," the gentlemen is to be found " under 
 the smock-frock of the ploughboy as well as beneath the 
 mantle of an earl." 
 
 Only Charles Dickens wrought this out many years ago, by 
 patient travels in the midst of the smock-frocks, and by ob 
 taining proof positive that there was occasionally a gentle 
 heart under the corduroy of a costermonger. Dickens s triumph 
 lay in this, that he convinced mankind of the truth and com 
 pleteness of his diagnosis. None of the genteel classes are 
 on intimate terms of daily intercourse with hostlers ; and yet 
 who has not accepted Sam Weller as a part of the breathing 
 population of the empire ? Dickens s men and women ought 
 to be included in the census. 1 
 
 1 The British Medical Journal declares : " How true to Nature, even in the 
 most trivial details, almost every character and every incident in the works of the 
 great novelist whose dust has just been laid to rest really were is best known to those 
 whose tastes or whose duties led them to frequent the paths of life from which Dick 
 ens delighted to draw. But none, except medical men, can judge of the rare fidelity 
 with which he followed the great Mother through the devious paths of disease and 
 death. In reading Oliver Twist, and Dombey and Son or The Chimes, or 
 even No Thoroughfare, the physician often felt tempted to say, What a gain it 
 would have been to physic if one so keen to observe and so facile to describe had de 
 voted his powers to the medical art ! It must not be forgotten that his description of 
 hectic (in Oliver Twist) has found its way into more than one standard work 
 both in medicine and surgery." The Law Journal bears testimony to his truth 
 and force as a painter of lawyers : " He has left us a whole gallery of legal carica 
 tures. We have the wonderful trial of Bardell v. Pickwick, introducing the fussy 
 Buzfuz, and that rare phenomenon, a modest junior. In the same book we have the 
 smart Dodson and Fogg, the excellent Mr. Perker, and the solicitor to the Wellers. 
 In Bleak House we have the great chancery suit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce with 
 graphic descriptions of the court, of the lawyers engaged in the suit, of the shrewd 
 solicitor of the Dedlock family, and of the poor law-writer. In the Old Curiosity 
 Shop, we have Sampson Brass, the masculine Sally Brass, and the mirth-provoking 
 
254 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 By this admirable standpoint for his observation of humanity 
 which he had adopted, Dickens had come to regard all men 
 and women so thoroughly and exclusively on account of their 
 moral, intellectual, and spiritual worth, that he was at home 
 with all kinds of society, in the highest and the humblest 
 walks. So that it is easy to picture him standing in a drawing- 
 room at Windsor Castle, one arm just resting upon the sofa, 
 and talking in his quiet earnest manner to the first lady in the 
 land. There would not be the least shadow of nervous 
 ness in him ; so great was the command which his trained 
 brain and heart had given him, in the presence of humanity of 
 every degree, under every conceivable circumstance, by 
 the throne, or facing thousands of his countrymen, who loved 
 him, one and all, so well. 
 
 " The best of men 
 
 That e er wore earth about him was a sufferer ; 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, 
 The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 
 
 The " soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit," how often 
 has Dickens painted ! the Christian gentleman, if not 
 Poole s ; the modest, high-souled gentlewoman, a lady, if not 
 Worth s ! He inclined to the Biblia Pauperum, and was de 
 lighted to catch heavy thumbs turning over the holy pictures. 
 But he turned no sour face upon the well-to-do. Of the foi 
 bles and pretenses of these, he was an unsparing critic ; but 
 he was as unsparing when he had the vices of the ignorant 
 and the poor to deal with. He was pre-Raphaelite in his al 
 legiance and constancy to nature ; but his eye loved the beau 
 tiful, and his spirit leaned to all that was valiant, noble, and 
 holy in the human heart. If he took his heroes amid the 
 lower or middle ranks of life, it was because here the pictur 
 esque in these won the artist s eye ; and if he drew the good 
 that was in the scenes he analyzed, rather than the bad, it was 
 because he delighted in finding.it under the most unpromising 
 circumstances, and in showing, to quote a line from my father, 
 
 Dick Swiveller. In Great Expectations we have that wonderful character, Wem- 
 mick, and his well-conceived employer, the Old Bailey attorney. We need not add 
 to the list." 
 
BLANCH ARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 2$$ 
 
 " there is goodness, like wild honey, hived in strange nooks 
 and corners of the world." 
 
 But I am not presuming to elaborate a literary estimate of 
 Charles Dickens. The time is not now, if indeed it can ever 
 be, necessary ; for the popularity of his prodigious and glori 
 ous work has been, is, and will be universal. People tell you 
 that Mrs. Gamp will not do, in French, as Madame Gamp, 
 and that his fiction will not bear transplanting : but the trans 
 planting steadily goes on nevertheless, and every day shows 
 us how far the range of human sympathy stretches, when the 
 name of Dickens wakes it. Papers in any tongue that has a 
 printing-press have echoed the lamentations of our own over 
 him whom Mr. Chorley has called " one of the greatest and 
 most beneficent men of genius England has produced since 
 the days of Shakspeare." 
 
 After writing the page on which Dickens as a painter of 
 gentlefolk was handled, I saw the tearful, eloquent record 
 which Mr. Chorley, who knew his subject so well, printed in 
 " The Athenaeum." I was delighted to find my view supported 
 by so sound an authority and so intimate a friend. Mr. Chor 
 ley says : " It has been said that he could not draw gen 
 tlemen and ladies (as footmen understand the designation). 
 This is false. The characters of Sir Leicester Dedlock in 
 Bleak House, that of Mrs. Steerforth in David Copper- 
 field, and fifty indications more, may be cited in disproof. 
 That he found greater pleasure in selecting and marking out 
 figures where the traits were less smoothed, or effaced by the 
 varnish of polite society, than in picturing those of a world 
 where the expression of individual characters becomes less 
 marked, is true. To each man his own field. An essay could 
 be recalled, written to prove that Scott was a miserable creat 
 ure, because his imagination delighted in the legends and 
 traditions of feudal times, with their Lords and their retainers. 
 And yet Scott gave us the fisher-folk in The Antiquary, and 
 Jeannie Deans. But though, as a man of the people, Dick 
 ens loved to draw the people in all their varieties and humor 
 and incomplete ambitions ; and though he was by nature and 
 
256 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 experience a shrewd redresser of abuses, tracing them back 
 to their primal causes, he was in no respect the destroyer 
 it was for a while the whim of fools of quality and the faded 
 people who hang on their skirts, to consider him. One 
 who redresses grievances is not, therefore, an overthrower of 
 thrones. The life and work of Dickens expressed a living 
 protest against Disorder, no matter what the Order." 
 
 And in another place Mr. Chorley bears witness to that love 
 of completeness, as well as of order, I have touched upon : 
 " Those who were permitted to know Charles Dickens in the 
 intimacy of his own home cannot, without such emotion as 
 almost incapacitates the heart and hand, recall the charm of 
 his bounteous and genial hospitality. Nothing can be con 
 ceived more perfect in tact, more freely equal, whatever the 
 rank of his guests, than was his warm welcome. The frank 
 grasp of his hand, the bright smile on his manly face, the 
 cheery greeting, are things not to be forgotten while life and 
 reason last, by those who were privileged to share them. 
 Thus, his exquisite knowledge arid punctuality gave him time, 
 even when most busily at work for himself and others, to care 
 for and to consider the pleasure of all whom he harbored be 
 neath his roof." 
 
 Signs of the end, and that he knew the end was at hand, 
 were revealed day by day, immediately after his death ; and 
 they are so many marks of the love of order that was a ruling 
 passion in Dickens throughout his life. Death could not 
 catch Charles Dickens unprepared, in any sense. That he 
 had misgivings, warnings, we cannot doubt ; and these led 
 him to prepare for the change. Only a few days before his 
 death, he transferred the property of " All the Year Round " 
 to his eldest son, and formally resigned its editorship. On the 
 very day on which he died he was to have met his stanch and 
 affectionate friend and fellow-worker, W. H. Wills, to make a 
 final settlement of accounts. He wrote to his " ever-affec- 
 tionately " Charles Kent : " To-morrow is a very bad day for 
 me to make a call, as, in addition to my usual office business, I 
 have a mass of accounts to settle ; but I hope to be with you 
 
BLANCHARD JERROLD ON DICKENS. 257 
 
 at three o clock. If I can t be, why then I shan t be." (The 
 letter was written an hour or two before he lay insensible, his 
 light forever quenched, in the dining-room of Gad s Hill 
 Place.) " You must really get rid of those opal enjoyments. 
 They are too overpowering. 
 
 k These violent delights have violent ends. 
 
 I think it was a father of your church who made this wise re 
 mark to a young gentleman who got up early (or strayed out 
 late) at Verona ? " 
 
 The " opal enjoyments " refer to the early sky, and the 
 whole is pleasant banter on the vehement devotion of his 
 friend (the distinguished poet) to his work as editor of " The 
 Sun." 
 
 I had met Dickens about the middle of May, at Charing 
 Cross, and had remarked that he had aged very much in ap 
 pearance. The thought-lines of his face had deepened, and 
 the hair had whitened. Indeed, as he approached me, I 
 thought for a moment I was mistaken, and that it could not be 
 Dickens ; for that was not the vigorous, rapid walk, with the 
 stick lightly held in the alert hand, which had always belonged 
 to him. It was he, however ; but with a certain solemnity of 
 expression in the face, and a deeper earnestness in the dark 
 eyes. However, when he saw me and shook my hand, the de 
 lightful brightness and sunshine swept over the gloom and 
 sadness, and he spoke buoyantly, in the old kind way, not in 
 the least about himself, but about my doings, about Dord, 
 about London as a subject (which I and my friend had just 
 resolved to write upon together), about all that could in 
 terest me, and which occurred to him at the moment. And he 
 wrung my hand again as we parted ; and the cast of serious 
 thought settled again upon the handsome face, when he turned, 
 wearily, I thought for him, toward the Abbey. 
 
 That within a month he would be resting there forever, 
 buried under flowers cast by loving hands, and that the whole 
 civilized world would be lamenting the loss of the great and 
 good Englishman, I never for one moment dreamed. But I 
 thought sadly of him, I remember, after we had parted. Noi 
 17 
 
258 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 was I alone in this. He was walking with a dear friend of his 
 a few weeks ago, when this one said, speaking of " Edwin 
 Drood, " 
 
 " Well, you, or we, are approaching the mystery " 
 
 Dickens, who had been and was at the moment, all vivacity, 
 extinguished his gayety, and fell into a long and silent reverie, 
 from which he never broke during the remainder of the walk. 
 Was he pondering another and a deeper mystery than any his 
 brain could unravel, facile as its mastery was over the hearts 
 and brains of his brethren ? 
 
 We can never know. 
 
 It is certain, however, that the railway accident on the 9th 
 of June, 1865, in which Dickens so nearly lost his life, made 
 an ineradicable impression on him ; and that, when he re 
 ferred to it, he would get up and describe it with extraordinary 
 energy. He closed his last completed work with a reference 
 to it : "I remember with devout thankfulness that I can 
 never be much nearer parting company with my readers for 
 ever than I was then, until there shall be written against my 
 life the two words with which I have this day closed this 
 book, THE END." 
 
 Too soon, for the country that loved him and was so proud 
 of him, were those two words written ; and they were written 
 on the 9th of June 1870 ! 
 
 SIR ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS. 
 
 When a great man departs from us, what we desire to know 
 about him is not so much what he did, as what he was. 
 
 Volumes of criticism might be written upon the characters 
 which Mr. Dickens has drawn for us, for they are persons 
 with whom we have lived, and, as regards the reality of whose 
 existence, even the most incredulous and unimaginative peo 
 ple refuse to entertain any historic doubts. But though these 
 creatures of his brain tell us much about a man, they do not 
 tell us all that we want to know, or even that which we crave 
 to know most about him. 
 
 It is the same with great generals and great statesmen as 
 
SIX ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS. 259 
 
 with great authors. Their skill in statesmanship or war has 
 had its effect, and is duly chronicled ; but, after a time, we 
 are more anxious to know what the general or statesman was 
 like ; what manner of man he was ; than to read about his 
 military glories or his cruel triumphs. 
 
 There will be few households that will not desire some por 
 trait of Mr. Dickens ; but, alas, how little can any portrait tell 
 of such a man ! His was one of those faces which require to 
 be seen with the light of life. What portrait can do justness 
 to the frankness, kindness, and power of his eyes ? They 
 seemed to look through you, and yet only to take notice of 
 what was best in you and most worthy of notice. And then 
 his smile, which was most charming ! And then his laughter 
 not poor, thin, and ambiguous laughter, that is ashamed of 
 itself, that moves one feature only of the face, but the 
 largest and heartiest kind, irradiating his whole countenance, 
 and compelling you to participate in his immense enjoyment 
 of it. 
 
 He was both witty and humorous, a combination rarely met 
 with; and both in making and appreciating fun which we 
 may perhaps define as a happy product of humor and geni 
 ality, upborne by animal spirits I never met his equal. 
 
 It need hardly be said that his powers of observation were 
 almost unrivaled ; and therein, though it is a strange obser 
 vation to make, he used to remind me of those modern magi 
 cians whose wondrous skill has been attained by their bein 
 taught from their infancy to see more things in less time than 
 any other men. Indeed, I have said to myself, when I have 
 been with him, he sees and observes nine facts for any two 
 that I see and observe. 
 
 As is generally the case with imaginative men, I believe 
 that he lived a great deal with the creatures of his imagina 
 tion, and that they surrounded him at all times. Such men 
 live in two worlds, the actual and imaginative, and he lived 
 intensely in both. 
 
 I am confirmed in this opinion by a reply he once made to 
 me. I jestingly remarked to him that I was very superior to 
 
26O CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 him, as I had read my " Pickwick " and my " David Copper- 
 field," whereas he only wrote them. To which he replied, 
 that I did not know the pleasure he had received from what 
 he had written ; and added words which I do not recollect, 
 but which impressed me at the time with the conviction that 
 he lived a good deal with the people of his brain, and found 
 them very amusing society. 
 
 He was of a commanding and organizing nature ; a good 
 man of business, frank, clear, decisive, imperative : a man 
 to confide in and look up to as a leader, in the midst of any 
 great peril. 
 
 This brings me to another part of his character which was 
 very remarkable. He was one of the most precise and ac 
 curate men in the world ; and he grudged no labor in his work. 
 Those who have seen his MSS. well recollect what elaborate 
 notes, and comments, and plans (some adopted, many re 
 jected) went to form the basis of his works. To see those 
 manuscripts would cure anybody of the idle and presumptuous 
 notion that men of genius require no forethought or prepara 
 tion for their greatest efforts, but that these are dashed by 
 the aid of a mysterious something which is comprehended in 
 the mysterious word " genius." It was one of Mr. Dickens s 
 theories, and I believe a, true one, that men differ in hardly 
 anything so much as in their power of attention, and he cer 
 tainly, whatever he did, attended to it with all his might. 
 
 Mr. Dickens was a very good listener, paying the greatest 
 attention to the person who was speaking (that is, if he was 
 saying anything worth attending to), and never interrupting, 
 except perhaps by uttering, as if he approved of what was 
 being said, the words, " surely, surely," which was a favorite 
 expression of his. 
 
 He was very refined in his conversation, at least what I call 
 " refined," for he was one of those persons in whose society 
 one is comfortable from the certainty that they will never say 
 anything which can shock other people, or hurt their feelings, 
 be they ever so fastidious or sensitive. 
 
 I have hardly spoken enough of his punctilious accuracy. 
 
SIR ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS. 261 
 
 As a curious instance of this, I may mention that where most 
 men use figures, he would use words : for example, in his 
 letters, writing the day of the month always in full. He had a 
 horror of being misunderstood, and grudged no labor to be 
 " understanded of the people." 
 
 His love of order and neatness was almost painful. Un- 
 punctuality made him unhappy. I am afraid, though, some 
 people would hardly have called him punctual, for he was so 
 anxious to be in time that he was invariably before the time. 
 The present writer has this same fault if fault it be, which was 
 once the cause of a droll circumstance that occasioned some 
 amusement to our friends. We were going to a railway sta 
 tion together. I planned to be a quarter of an hour before 
 the time, and he, who had the final ordering of the carriage, 
 and who had not a proper belief in my punctuality, added 
 another quarter of an hour of his own ; so that our conjoint 
 punctualities brought us to the station a good half hour before 
 the time. That time, however, that we spent together on that 
 occasion, was well spent by me in listening to him as he dis 
 coursed upon the beautiful forms of clouds. 
 
 At home, and as a host, he was delightful. I think I have 
 observed that he looked at all things and people dramatically. 
 He assigned to all of us characters ; and in his company we 
 could not help playing our parts. 
 
 He had the largest toleration. I had not intended to say 
 anything about his works ; but I must do so now, as I see 
 that they afford a singular instance of this toleration. Think 
 of this precise, orderly, methodical man depicting so lovingly 
 such a disorderly, fearless, reckless, unmethodical character 
 as that of Dick Swiveller, and growing more enamored of it 
 as he went on depicting ! I rather think that in this he was 
 superior to Walter Scott, for in almost all Scott s characters 
 there appears one or the other, or both combined, of Scott s 
 principal characteristics, namely, nobility of nature and 
 shrewdness. Andrew Fairservice is comparatively ignoble ; 
 but he is always shrewd. And, in fact, I think it may be 
 maintained that one or other of these characteristics is visible 
 in every one of Scott s characters. 
 
262 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Mr. Dickens s own kindness of nature is visible in most of 
 his characters. He could not well get rid of that, as a general 
 rule, by any force of fiction Still there are a few characters, 
 such as that of Jonas Chuzzlewit, in which he has succeeded 
 in denuding the character of any trait belonging to himself. 
 
 We doubt whether there has ever been a writer of fiction 
 who took such a real and loving interest in the actual world 
 about him. Its many sorrows, its terrible injustice, its suffer 
 ings, its calamities, went to his heart. Care for the living 
 people about him for his "neighbor," if I may so express it 
 sometimes even diminished his power as an artist ; a dim 
 inution of power for which, considering the cause, we ought to 
 love his memory all the more. 
 
 I have sometimes regretted, perhaps unwisely, that he did 
 not take a larger part or shall I say a more prominent 
 part ? in public affairs. Not for our own sakes, but for his. 
 Like all men who see social evils very strongly and clearly, 
 and also their way to remedies (to be, as they think, swiftly 
 applied), he did not give enough weight, I think, to the inevi 
 table difficulties which "must exist in a free State to prevent 
 the rapid and complete adoption of these remedies. " Cir 
 cumlocution" is everywhere in the Senate, at the bar, in 
 the field, in ordinary business as well as in official life ; and 
 men of Mr. Dickens s temperament, full of ardor for the pub 
 lic good and somewhat despotic in their habits of thought, 
 find it difficult to put up with the tiresome aberrations of a 
 freedom which will not behave itself at once in a proper way, 
 and set to work to provide immediate remedies for that which 
 ought to be remedied. When you come close to any great 
 man, you generally find that he has somewhat of a despotic 
 nature in this respect. 
 
 There is a certain characteristic of the highest and best 
 minds ; and perhaps it tends, more than almost any other, to 
 produce greatness of character. It is the habit of telling the 
 truth to one s self. The world would be a much more happy 
 place to live in, if its inhabitants would only adopt the habit 
 of telling the truth occasionally to themselves. Now, this 
 
SIR ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS. 263 
 
 habit will not make what is called a consistent character ; but 
 it will make, what is far more important, a truthful character. 
 Everybody knows that Mr. Dickens was simple in his ways of 
 living, in his tastes, in his ambition. Probably, in the inevi 
 table imitation of a great man, there will, for some time, be a 
 run upon simplicity of this kind. But there are many persons 
 whom such simplicity does not suit, or become. Now, if Mr. 
 Dickens had professed a love for what is not simple, if he had 
 been devoted to what is grand, and gorgeous, and resounding, 
 we should have known it, because he would have known it, 
 and would have been the first person to have told himself of it, 
 and would, to use an official phrase, have " governed himself 
 accordingly." That exquisite sincerity of nature which pro 
 duces such a result was most manifest in him. He was very 
 dramatic in his imagination, and brought all that he saw and 
 felt into a magic circle of dramatic creation. But he never 
 dramatized himself to himself. Of course, Shakespeare per 
 ceived the full meaning aad depth of this great quality which 
 I have endeavored to portray as belonging preeminently to 
 Mr. Dickens. We feel that Shakespeare must have done so, 
 when he says 
 
 "To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 Mr. Dickens loved the poor. He understood them. He 
 was wise enough to see how very needful recreation is for 
 them ; and I shall never forget the delight with which he de 
 scribed to me, giving it with all those details that were with 
 him pure touches of art, an entertainment that he had pro 
 vided for the neighboring poor in his own fields ; and how he 
 rejoiced in their orderliness and good behavior. 
 
 He ardently desired, and confidently looked forward to, a 
 time when there would be more intimate union between the 
 different classes in the State a union embracing alike the 
 highest and the lowest. 
 
 It always seemed to me that he had a power of narration which 
 was beyond anything even which his books drew forth. How 
 
264 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 he would narrate to you, sitting on a gate or on a fallen tree, 
 some rustic story of the people he had known in his neighbor 
 hood ! It was the very perfection of narrative. Not a word 
 was thrown away, not an adjective misused ; and I think all 
 those who have had the good fortune to hear him recount one 
 of these stories will agree with me, that it was a triumph, 
 an unconscious triumph of art. 
 
 He was one of those men who almost invariably speak well 
 of others behind their backs ; one of the truest friends, and 
 very little given to reveal any injury that concerned himself 
 alone. In that respect he often reminded me of Lord Palmer- 
 ston, though he was not equal to that statesman in supreme 
 serenity of temper. There was, however, a considerable re 
 semblance between these two remarkable men in several 
 points. They had both a certain hearty bluffness of manner. 
 There was a sea-going way about them, as of a captain on his 
 quarter-deck. They were both tremendous walkers, and took 
 interest in every form of labor, rustic, urban, or commercial. 
 Then, too, they made the most and best of everything that 
 came before them : stood up sturdily for their own way of 
 thinking, and valued greatly their own peculiar experiences. 
 
 Mr. Dickens delighted to praise ; and there were few per 
 sons who appreciated more fully than he did the works of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 His criticisms on the literary works of others were given in 
 that frank, friendly, helpful way which makes criticism most 
 effective. I knew a brother author of his who received such 
 criticisms from him very lately, and profited by it. Mr. Dick 
 ens, seeing that the said author was much perplexed in finding 
 a good title for a work which he was preparing, took the 
 greatest interest in aiding his friend ; and during the last few 
 weeks of his life, amidst all his own labors, would write some 
 times more than one letter a day to make fresh suggestions 
 about this troublesome, but most important thing, this title of 
 a work. These are small traits to mention ; but they are very 
 significant. 
 
 Everybody has heard of Mr. Dickens s preeminence as an 
 
SIR ARTHUR HELPS ON DICKENS. 26$ 
 
 actor, but perhaps it is not generally known what an admirable 
 speaker he was. The last speech, I believe, that he ever 
 made was at the Academy dinner ; and I think it would be ad 
 mitted by every one, including those who also made excellent 
 speeches on that occasion, that Mr. Dickens s was the speech 
 of the evening. He was herein greatly aided by nature, hav 
 ing that presence conveying the idea of courage and honesty, 
 which gives much effect to public speaking, and also pos 
 sessing a sweet, deep-toned, audible voice, that had exceeding 
 pathos in it. Moreover, he had most expressive hands not 
 beautiful, according to the ordinary notions of beauty, but 
 nervous and powerful hands. He did not indulge in gesticula 
 tion ; but the slight movement of these expressive hands 
 helped wonderfully in giving additional force and meaning to 
 what he said, as all those who have been present at his read 
 ings will testify. Indeed, when he read, or when he spoke, 
 the whole man read or spoke. 
 
 It was Mirabeau, who had the happy thought of combining 
 the names of well-known persons in history or fiction, in order 
 to describe some great contemporary ; and who, most graphi 
 cally, gave the compound name of Cromwell-Grandison to 
 Lafayette. Now, if we were to try to make a similar com 
 pound name for Charles Dickens, whose names should we 
 chose ? That hackneyed quotation may it remain hackneyed 
 to the end of time ! 
 
 " A man s a man for a that," 
 
 gives the key-note of Burns s character : and, as all that the 
 quotation signifies, there is a profound resemblance between 
 Robert Burns and Charles Dickens. Then, there is Le Sage. 
 There is much likeness, without the faintest imitation on the 
 part of the later author, between " Gil Bias " and some of Mr. 
 Dickens s works. Then there is Cervantes. At first there 
 may be thought to be very little similarity between these two 
 great masters of tears and laughter. But in one material 
 point there is the closest resemblance. They were such ten 
 der-hearted men that they could not be satisfied with making 
 
266 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 the characters they drew, remarkable for what is merely ludi 
 crous or ridiculous. And, infallibly, as they went on writing, 
 they wove in worth and goodness with all that is most comic. 
 Unfortunately, the names that I have suggested will not com 
 bine prettily, but this endeavor to find such a compound name 
 may serve to convey some of Mr. Dickens s principal char 
 acteristics, as shown in his writings. 
 
 I have done my best to describe Mr. Dickens such as he 
 appeared to me, and certainly I have not uttered one word of 
 flattery. But who can describe a great man or indeed any 
 man ? We map down his separate qualities ; but the subtle 
 combination of them made by Nature eludes our description ; 
 and, after all, we fail, as I have failed now, in bringing before 
 the reader the full sweetness, lovingness, and tenderness, wit 
 and worth and sagacity, of such a man as Charles Dickens, 
 whose death is not merely a private grief unspeakably ir 
 reparable to his family and his many friends, but a public 
 sorrow which all nations unite in deploring. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 
 
 Even the trivialities connected with a great man are inter 
 esting, and the mildest anecdotes of a hero s private life are 
 full of flavor to those who know him only on the pedestal of 
 his public career. It is not my intention to enter into any of 
 the vexed questions regarding his domestic unhappiness, but 
 to merely give a true detail of my impressions of him during 
 the period of the few months in which I was in daily inter 
 course with Charles Dickens and his family. These reminis 
 cences of him, though disinterred from the memories of nearly 
 twenty-nine years ago, may still afford amusement to others, 
 as they do to me in recalling them. So vivid is my first im 
 pression of our great author that I can see him now " in my 
 mind s eye " as clearly depicted as if days, and not years, had 
 intervened since I was presented to him at the house of a 
 relative of mine. I was first introduced to his wife in the 
 sanctuary of the bedroom, where I was arranging my hair be 
 fore the glass. I thought her a pretty little woman, with the 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 267 
 
 heavy-lidded large blue eyes so much admired by men. The 
 nose was a little retrousse, the forehead good, mouth small, 
 round, and red-lipped, with a pleasant smiling expression, 
 notwithstanding the sleepy look of the slow-moving eyes. 
 The weakest part of the face was the chin, which melted too 
 suddenly into the throat. She took kindly notice of me, and 
 I went down with a fluttering heart to be introduced to 
 " Boz." 
 
 The first ideas that flashed through me were, " What a fine 
 characteristic face ! What marvelous eyes ! And what hor 
 rid taste in dress ! " 
 
 He wore his hair long, in " admired disorder," and it suited 
 the picturesque style of his head ; but he had on a surtout 
 with a very wide collar, very much thrown back, showing a 
 vast expanse of waistcoat, drab trousers, and drab boots with 
 patent leather toes, and the whole effect (apart from his fine 
 head) gave evidence of a loud taste in costume, and was not 
 proper for evening dress. 
 
 Of course, I listened eagerly during dinner to. catch the 
 pearls and other precious things that fell from his lips, and 
 watched, in reverent admiration, every flash of his clear gray 
 eyes, for I was enthusiastic, and in my teens. He did not 
 speak much, and his utterance was low-toned and rapid, with 
 a certain thickness, as if the tongue were too large for the 
 mouth. I found afterwards that this was a family character 
 istic ; and he had a habit of sucking his tongue when thinking, 
 and at the same time running his fingers through his hair till 
 it stood out in most leonine fashion. When writing, if his 
 ideas got entangled, he would work away with his left hand, 
 dragging viciously at certain locks until the subject became 
 satisfactorily "evolved out of his inner consciousness." 
 
 Before uttering an amusing speech I noticed a most humor 
 ous scintillation gleaming in his eyes, accompanied by a comic 
 elevation of one eyebrow ; but he did not strike me as pos 
 sessing the sarcastic, searching expression that I expected. I 
 discovered afterwards, that without appearing to notice what 
 was going on around, nothing escaped him ; and at the times 
 
268 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 when his eyes had a far-off look, wide-opened and almost 
 stony in their fixity, he was in reality making mental notes of 
 his surroundings. 
 
 How many times have I been betrayed into committing my 
 self in thoughtless discourse, duped by his abstracted air ! 
 How often have I indulged in sundry foolish acts, and given 
 utterance to much silly persiflage and ill-digested reasoning 
 among our circle, in the full confidence of his being in the 
 seventh heaven of rapt reverie, to find him suddenly rising up, 
 shaking his mane like a lion from his slumbers, and, with a 
 face radiant with mischief and fun, recapitulating all my girlish 
 " slip-slop," twisting and turning it into the most unexpectedly 
 distorted shapes, and tacking on to it a running commentary 
 of witty criticisms. 
 
 He never thought himself too great a genius to enter into 
 our games, but he somehow always contrived to transfuse such 
 a tone of cleverness and depth into them that they became 
 " keen encounters of our wits," and we were all put on our 
 mettle to play up to the subtle spirit with which the master 
 mind impregnated the most sterile matter. How proud I used 
 to feel whenever I had said a better thing than usual to get an 
 approving smile or word from our maestro ! The first time he 
 thus noticed me is marked with a white stone in my memory. 
 A number of us were playing the simple game of " How, 
 when, and where do you like it ? " The word given was 
 " scull," and the object is to puzzle the querist by the several 
 meanings given to the word. Frederick Dickens was the 
 questioner, and I gave, in reply to " How I liked it ? " " With 
 the accompaniment of a fine organ." 2d. " When ? " " When 
 youth is at the helm and pleasure at the prow." 3d. 
 " Where ? " " Where wanders the hoary Thames along his 
 silver winding way." 
 
 Dickens rose and came over to me, saying laughingly, " Of 
 course, little goose, your answers betrayed the word to the 
 most simple comprehension, but they were good answers and 
 apt quotations nevertheless, and I think it would add to the 
 interest of the game if we all sharpened our wits, and tried to 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 269 
 
 give a poetical tone to it by good quotations as answers." 
 After this time we had to read up to keep pace with the fund 
 of quaint sayings he introduced into this pastime. 
 
 Another game was nothing but a series of leading questions, 
 which we called "Animal, mineral, or vegetable." The first 
 time we played it, Mr. Dickens was obliged to give up, after 
 exhausting himself in questioning. He had arrived at the 
 facts that the article in question was vegetable, mentioned in 
 mythological history, and belonging to a queen, and that the 
 destiny was pathetic. After a display of his classic lore in 
 attaining this much he gave it up, and was good-naturedly in 
 dignant at finding the subject over which he had wasted so 
 much time and erudition was one of the tarts mentioned in the 
 rhymes 
 
 "The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts, 
 
 Upon a summer s day ; 
 The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts, 
 And took them quite away." 
 
 We promised in future to abstain from such unworthy sub 
 jects ; but on another occasion he pulled my hair in pretended 
 wrath, because I puzzled him with " The wax with which 
 Ulysses stuffed the ears of his crew to prevent them hearing 
 the songs of the sirens." 
 
 Sometimes we played vingt-et-un, and he was as playfully 
 eager, as full of noisy glee, as the veriest schoolboy. One 
 evening his friend Mr. M made his appearance in a pre 
 posterously long stock which he evidently thought was per 
 fectly chic. Dickens eyed it for some time with a perplexed 
 and thoughtful demeanor. 
 
 " Hollo, Charley ! " said Mr. M., " what are you staring at 
 my stock for ? " 
 
 Dickens threw into his countenance an exaggerated expres 
 sion of relief from a harassing doubt, and cried 
 
 " Stock ? Oh, I m glad to know it is meant for a stock ; it 
 was so painful to think you might have intended it for a waist 
 coat." 
 
 A great deal of amusement was excited by Mrs. Charles 
 
2/0 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Dickens perpetrating the most absurd puns, which she did 
 with a charming expression of innocence and deprecation of 
 her husband s wrath ; while he tore his hair and writhed as if 
 convulsed with agony. He used to pretend to be utterly dis 
 gusted, although he could neither resist laughter at the puns 
 nor at the pretty comic moue she made (with eyes turned up 
 till little of the whites were visible) after launching forth one 
 of these absurdities. 
 
 Every autumn it was Mr. Dickens s custom to take his 
 family to Broadstairs, and shortly after I became acquainted 
 with him the usual flitting took place. He begged my friends 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. S to take a house there also, and offered to 
 
 look for one for them. This they agreed to, and a few days 
 after he wrote the following note to Mr. M : 
 
 DEVONSHIRE TERRACK, Thursday, \^th Aiigust. 
 
 " MY DEAR M , The only intelligence we can get 
 
 about the houses on the Terrace at Broadstairs is, that there 
 are two to let or nearly to let, one (certainly empty at this 
 moment) a little to the left of our old house, supposing you 
 were looking out of the window upon the blue, the fresh, and 
 ever free ; the other a little more to the left still, and com 
 monly called or known by the name of Barfield s Cottage. 
 
 " This Barfield s Cottage will be vacant (we are told) upon 
 the twenty-first. But the devil- of it is that at this season of 
 the year they won t keep the houses even a week for you, and 
 consequently Barfield s Cottage is meat for our masters. The 
 
 other house must be either the one which S looked at, or 
 
 one close to and exactly like it. 
 
 " If he wants to get up a picture of this last-named tenement 
 in his mind, ask him if he don t remember going with Kate 
 and me and the man from the library to look at a house, and 
 stealing in at the kitchen-door past the water-butt and coal- 
 cellar. That house was next the library on the side nearest 
 London the library being between it and ours. I am not 
 sure that this particular house is the same, but it must be 
 either the next door to it, or the next door but one. The 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 2/1 
 
 terms I don t know, but they are certainly not more than five 
 guineas per week, I should say. 
 
 " In short, nothing can be done without going down in per 
 son, for the place is very full indeed, and the people wildly 
 rapacious and rearing up on their hind legs for money. The 
 clay to go down upon is a Monday, for there is a chance of 
 some family having gone out on that morning, it being a great 
 departure day. If you put all this into your partner s pipe, tell 
 him that I wish, for his sake and my own too, I could fill it 
 with more substantial matter." 
 
 Shortly after this my friends took the house, and I accom 
 panied them as a visitor, to my intense delight, for I hoped to 
 be privileged to daily enjoyment of the presence of this man 
 of genius. And now began a time which I look back to as 
 almost the brightest in my life, as far as enjoyment went. 
 Every day was spent by our family and the Dickens s together, 
 either doing the usual seaside recreations, or at each other s 
 houses. In the familiarity which such friendly association 
 engenders we got up ridiculous relations to each other. He 
 pretended to be engaged in a semi-sentimental, semi-jocular, 
 and wholly nonsensical flirtation with me as well as with Milly 
 
 T , one of my friends, a charming woman of a certain age, 
 
 and we on our side acted mutual jealousy towards each other , 
 and Mrs. Charles Dickens entered into the fun with great 
 gusto and good-humor. My friend Milly he called his 
 u charmer," " the beloved of his soul," and I was his " fair 
 enslaver " and his " queen." We generally addressed each 
 other in the old English style of euphuism, and he would ask 
 us to dance in such bombastic nonsense as 
 
 " Wilt tread a measure with me, sweet lady ? Fain would I 
 thread the mazes of this saraband with thee." 
 
 " Aye, fair sir, that I will right gladly ; in good sooth I 11 
 never say thee nay." 
 
 I need not say that the stately and courtly gravity with 
 which we " trod our measure " was truly edifying, and the 
 
2/2 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 spectators were convulsed at the wonderful " Turvey-drop " 
 deportment of Mr. Dickens, and the Malvolio-like conceit he 
 contrived to call into his countenance. 
 
 " I think I could act a pompous ass to perfection ! " he 
 exclaimed, after one of these dances. " Let us get up some 
 charades, and test our histrionic powers." 
 
 After some discussion we fixed on the word " Pompadour," 
 and he took the part of Louis XIV. Milly was a Comtesse 
 de Soubise, and I as Madame Pompadour was supposed to be 
 jealous of her with good cause. The first syllable represented 
 the stiff etiquette and tiresome observances of the court of the 
 Grand Monarque, and was acted entirely in pantomimic 
 action. The second syllable (converted into adore) was a love 
 scene, in which Louis did a deal of inflated bombast in the 
 ancient French style of love-making to the rival comtesse. 
 The whole was completed by the wily mistress obtaining by 
 stratagem a lettre de cachet from the king, and consigning the 
 rival to the Bastile, while the triumph of Pompadour was com 
 plete. This was all acted on the spur of the moment, without 
 any costume but such drapery and finery as could be obtained 
 readily and twisted into use. Mr. Dickens was very grandiose, 
 although he figured in a lady s broad-brimmed hat, pinned up 
 on one side, and a rather draggled feather stuck nearly on 
 end, which which would keep turning round the wrong way. 
 
 We rarely heard Dickens attempt punning, for which he 
 professed profound contempt, but on one occasion he was ac 
 cused of irreverence in making one. A game of whist was 
 going on, and one of the ladies who was not playing (I think 
 it was his mother, but am not positive) fell into a slight nap in 
 the background. At the last trick of the game, one of the 
 party banged down the King of Trumps in such loud glee as 
 to awaken this lady, who started up with a scared look of 
 bewilderment. Dickens turned round laughingly, and said, 
 " Don t be alarmed, but you look awfully like one of the de 
 funct on the day of judgment ! " " Why ? " Because you 
 were awakened by the sound of the last trump" 
 
 One night a gentleman visitor insisted on singing " By the 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 2/3 
 
 sad sea waves," which he did vilely, and he wound up his per 
 formance by a most unexpected and misplaced embellishment, 
 called in music " a turn." Dickens was perfectly excruciated 
 during this trying ordeal, but managed to preserve a decorous 
 attention and solemnity of visage till this sound met his ears, 
 when he turned upon .me a look of utter astonishment. 
 " Whatever did he mean by that extraneous effort of melody ? " 
 I whispered. " Oh, that s quite in rule according to the 
 proverb When things are at their worst they always take 
 a turn? " answered he with imperturbable gravity. I unfor 
 tunately exploded into a giggle, and greatly offended the 
 singer. 
 
 About this time there was a rumor flying about that Dickens 
 had gone insane, at which he was much annoyed. We were 
 all walking on the beach one day accompanied by a gentleman, 
 
 a Mr. F , a sculptor, who had only come down on a visit to 
 
 Mr. Dickens the day before. This gentleman was, to use the 
 mildest term, very eccentric, and did the most unaccountable 
 things in moments of impulse. He was several yards in front 
 of us, and was behaving in a very flighty manner. Some 
 strangers passed him, and as they neared us stood to look 
 after him. " Ah," said one, with a lugubrious look and a Lord- 
 Burleigh shake of the head, " you see it s quite true ! Poor 
 Boz ! What a pity to see such a wreck ! " Dickens scowled 
 
 at them, and then called out, "Hollo, F , I wish you d 
 
 moderate your insane gambolings ! There are fools among 
 the British public who might mistake you for me." 
 
 These representatives of the British public slunk away, fol 
 lowed by the glowing anger of Dickens s eyes, which seemed 
 to shrivel them into nothingness. Dickens walked on with in 
 flated nostrils and compressed lips for a few moments, and 
 then burst out laughing. " I am afraid I was rather down on 
 those poor beggars," said he, " but I don t like that ambling 
 ass to be taken for me." 
 
 Next day he was sitting with us, when Mr. M ran in 
 
 with consternation in every feature, calling out, " Charley ! for 
 
 God s sake come and put a stop to this ! There s F has 
 
 18 
 
2/4 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 walked out of the sea, without a rag on him, right among the 
 people on the beach. You never saw such a scatter in your 
 life ! " 
 
 Dickens jammed his hat on his head with a muttered 
 
 " D d fool ! " and tore down-stairs with M ; he came 
 
 back in about half an hour, and Mr. S asked him jokingly 
 
 how he had disposed of the naked truth ? 
 
 " I never dreamt in childhood s hour," said Dickens, com 
 mencing poetically and then sinking suddenly into prose, 
 " that I should ever turn myself into a preambulating screen ; 
 but the magnanimous way in which I have sacrificed my self- 
 esteem in bobbing and sidling about with my coat-tails spread 
 out to shield this rampant Achilles from the chaste eyes of 
 the fair sect and the innocent babbies, deserves the thanks of 
 the nation ! I told him that was not the place for poses- 
 plastiques ; but he was so enthusiastically intent on doing 
 the antique that I could only frantically, and I may say he 
 roically, interpose my devoted body between him and the 
 spectators." This was all nonsense, as he told us afterwards 
 
 that he found F had returned into the water as fast as he 
 
 got out, and he had no occasion to be a screen. 
 
 Why is it that by the sea one loses an immense deal of 
 decency ? Is it that the contemplation of the " vasty deep " 
 enlarges and expands the ideas so much that they roam out 
 into space, and become lost in its immensity? Nobody 
 seemed profoundly shocked at this affair, which was treated 
 quite jocularly. 
 
 A few days after this Milly accompanied me to bathe, 
 though she did not enter the water herself. After I had got 
 out and was dressing, we heard a splash from the next ma 
 chine, succeeded by spluttering and panting, interspersed with 
 
 expletives and one or two " D ns " at the coldness of the 
 
 water. We emerged from our car, and, on crossing the plank 
 which united a long row of machines, the first object that met 
 our eyes was Dickens disporting in the waves within six 
 yards of us, but with only his head and shoulders visible. 
 
 " What ! my charmers ? " he called out, with chattering 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICAENS. 2?$ 
 
 teeth. " Behold a man who has taken a fatal plunge in the 
 briny, and wishes himself well out of it. A crab is attempting 
 to seize my great toe, so I m off. Ta ta till we meet again at 
 Philippi," and off he went swimmingly. 
 
 Like all poetical natures he delighted in gazing at the sea. 
 He would remain for hours as if entranced ; with a rapt, im 
 movable, sphinx-like calm on his face, and that far-off look in 
 his magnificent eyes, totally forgetful of everything, and ab 
 stracted from us all. We always respected his isolation, and 
 carefully kept aloof. 
 
 I drew a sketch of him during one of these meditative 
 
 moods, and showed it to a Miss F who was staying with 
 
 them. This young lady had testified a good deal of petty 
 jealousy at the notice which Dickens took of me, and I have 
 no doubt wished to make a little mischief between us, as she 
 told him privately that evening that I had been caricaturing 
 him. I was surprised to find him looking stony and stand-off 
 when I met him again, and, greatly hurt, I went to Mrs. 
 Charles Dickens (who was always kind and good-natured), 
 and asked her what I had done to offend him. 
 
 " Well," she answered gently, " Charles is annoyed at your 
 
 having drawn a caricature of him. Miss F told him she 
 
 had seen a horrid caricature you had made of him." 
 
 I hastily took the sketch from between the leaves of the 
 book I was carrying, and handed it to her without a word. 
 
 " Why, this is very like him," she cried in pleased surprise. 
 " This is not a caricature, but a very nice sketch. Will you 
 give it to me ? I should like Charles to see it, and he will 
 
 soon be convinced that Miss F was mistaken. Thank 
 
 you, dear," and she kissed me kindly. " Don t let the tears 
 come into your eyes about such nonsense ; it will be all right, 
 I promise you." 
 
 She went off with it ; and the same evening I saw him 
 again, with no cloud on his brow and as pleasant as ever. 
 
 " Mr. Dickens," I said, with tears in my voice (as the 
 French say), " how could you think I would presume to carica 
 ture you ? That odious girl put that into your head because 
 
276 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 she can t bear you to be amiable to any one but herself. 
 Horrid, red-haired thing ! I can t think why you like her ! " 
 
 " My enslaver," he replied, with the odd twinkle of the eye, 
 " I always loved gingerbread, even after childhood s hours had 
 vanished into the dim past, and her tresses awaken fond 
 memories of my lollipop days ; but I don t like her ginger as I 
 do your gold," and he pulled my long yellow curls playfully as 
 he passed on. 
 
 The next night we were all assembled on the little pier or 
 jetty which ran out into the sea, with an upright spar fixed at 
 the extreme end. At the beginning was a railed-off space with 
 seats, which he called the family pew. Mr. Dickens was in 
 high spirits, and enjoyed the darkness of the evening, because 
 he escaped the curious eyes of the Broadstairs population. 
 We had a quadrille all to ourselves, the music being Frederick 
 Dickens s whistling, and Mr. Dickens s accompaniment on his 
 pocket-comb. We then strolled farther down to watch by the 
 fading light the tide come rippling in. The night grew darker, 
 starless, and moonless ; the only light being a lingering, lurid 
 gleam, which touched the crest of the waves with a phosphor 
 escent glimmer. Dickens seemed suddenly to be possessed 
 with the demon of mischief ; he threw his arm around me and 
 ran me down the inclined plane to the end of the jetty till we 
 reached the tall post. He put his other arm round this, and 
 exclaimed in theatrical tones that he intended to hold me there 
 till " the sad sea waves " should submerge us. 
 
 " Think of the sensation we shall create ! Think of the 
 road to celebrity which you are about to tread ! No, not 
 exactly to tread, but to flounder into ! " 
 
 Here I implored him to let me go, and struggled hard to 
 release myself. 
 
 " Let your mind dwell on the column in the " Times " 
 wherein will be vividly described the pathetic fate of the lovely 
 E. P., drowned by Dickens in a fit of dementia ! Don t 
 struggle, poor little bird ; you are powerless in the claws of 
 such a kite as this child ! " 
 
 By this time the gleam of light had faded out, and the water 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 
 
 close to us looked uncomfortably black. The tide was coming 
 up rapidly and surged over my feet. I gave a loud shriek and 
 tried to bring him back to common sense by reminding him 
 that " My dress, my best dress, my only silk dress, would be 
 ruined." Even this climax did not soften him ; he still went 
 on with his serio-comic nonsense, shaking with laughter all 
 the time, and panting with his struggles to hold me. 
 
 " Mrs. Dickens ! " a frantic shriek this time, for now the 
 waves rushed up to my knees ; " help me ! make Mr. Dickens 
 let me go the waves are up to my knees ! " 
 
 " Charles ! " cried Mrs. Dickens, echoing my wild scream, 
 " how can you be so silly ? You will both be carried off by 
 the tide " (tragically, but immediately sinking from pathos to 
 bathos), "and you 11 spoil the poor girl s silk dress ! " 
 
 " Dress ! " cried Dickens, with withering scorn. " Talk not 
 to me of dress ! When the pall of night is enshrouding us in 
 Cimmerian darkness, when we already stand on the brink of 
 the great mystery, shall our thoughts be of fleshly vanities ? 
 Am I not immolating a brand-new pair of patent leathers still 
 unpaid for ? Perish such low-born thoughts ! In this hour 
 of abandonment to the voice of destiny shall we be held back 
 by the puerilities of silken raiment ? Shall leather or prunella 
 (whatever that may be) stop the bolt of Fate ? " with a sudden 
 parenthetical sinking from bombast to familiar accents, and 
 back again. 
 
 At this point I succeeded in wresting myself free, and 
 scampered to my friends, almost crying with vexation, my only 
 silk dress clinging clammily round me, and streaming with salt 
 
 water. My chaperone, Mrs. S , received me with unjust 
 
 severity, evidently thinking I could have got away if I had 
 chosen. 
 
 " Run home at once," she said majestically, " and take off 
 your wet things. I am surprised at you ! " 
 
 During this wrestling match between us, I cannot describe 
 the ridiculous effect produced by his " mouthing " in the 
 Ercles vein, with now and then a quick descent into comicality 
 the contrast between the stiltified language, and the gasping 
 
2/8 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 struggles caused by my efforts to get free, his suppressed 
 chuckles at my dismay, my wild appeals, and the expostula 
 tions of his wife and the rest, who stood by, like the chorus 
 in a Greek play, powerless to help. 
 
 I went off, escorted by Frederick Dickens, after hearing 
 Mrs. Charles say 
 
 " It was too bad of you, Charles ; remember poor E. cannot 
 afford to have her dress destroyed. Of course you 11 give her 
 another ? " 
 
 " Never ! " was the reply. " I have sacrificed her finery 
 and my boots to the infernal gods. Kismet ! It is finished ! 
 Eureka ! etc., etc. ; and now I go to tug myself black in the 
 face getting off my pedal covers." 
 
 Dickens was rather reckless in his fun sometimes, and my 
 wardrobe suffered woefully in consequence. There was a sort 
 of promontory stretching out into the sea, where, in rough 
 weather, the waves used to rush up several feet, and come 
 splashing down like a shower-bath. On two occasions, when 
 I had thoughtlessly ventured near this spot, he seized me and 
 ran me, nolens volens, right under the cataract, to the irretriev 
 able ruin of two bonnets of frail fabric, and my slender purse 
 was taxed to the utmost to replace them. 
 
 It was arranged that we should make an excursion to Peg- 
 well Bay, and lunch at the small hotel on prawns and bottled 
 porter ; and on a lovely morning two open carriages stood at 
 our door ready to receive us. Mrs. Dickens and two of her 
 lady visitors had walked to our house, and we were only wait 
 ing for Mr. Dickens and some gentlemen friends. Presently 
 he came in in high glee, flourishing a yard of ballads, which he 
 had just bought from a beggar in the street. 
 
 " Look here ! fair dames and damosels," he cried exultingly. 
 " All for one penny ! invested by yours truly for the delecta 
 tion of the company. One song alone is worth a Jew s eye 
 quite new and original the subject being the interesting an 
 nouncement about our Gracious Queen. It is in the vulgar 
 tongue, but you are all so familar with i Nix my Dolly, and 
 other songs of that kind, that I dare say you will not be 
 shocked." 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 2/9 
 
 He commenced to give us a specimen, but after hearing one 
 verse there arose a cry of universal execration. The song 
 was founded on the official notice that a prince or princess 
 might shortly be expected, and was sung to the tune of " The 
 King of the Cannibal Islands." He pretended to be vexed at 
 us " shutting him up," said there " was nothing wrong in it ; 
 he had written a great deal worse himself," and when we were 
 going to enter the carriages he said 
 
 " Now, look here, I give due notice to all and sundry, that I 
 mean to sing that song and a good many of the others during 
 the ride, so those ladies who think them vulgar can go in the 
 other carriage. I am not going to invest my hard-earned 
 penny for nothing." 
 
 I was quite certain that Charles Dickens was the last man 
 in the world to shock the modesty of any female, and too much 
 of a gentleman to do anything that was annoying to us, but I 
 thought it was as well to go in the other carriage, and so he 
 
 had no ladies with him but his wife and Mrs. S . I was 
 
 not sorry on the whole to be where I was, as I heard for the 
 next half hour small portions of those songs wafted on the 
 breeze to us whenever our vehicle approached near them, and 
 the bursts of laughter from ladies and gentlemen, and the 
 mischievous twinkle in Dickens s eye, proved that he was in 
 such a madcap mood that it was as well there were none but 
 married people with him, the subject being what it was, of a 
 " Gampish " nature. 
 
 He was not always full of spirits or even-tempered : indeed, 
 I was somewhat puzzled by the variability of his moods. 
 After indulging in the greatest fun and familiarity over-night, 
 we would sometimes meet him walking alone, when he would 
 look at us with lack-lustre eye, and pass on with a hurried 
 " How d ye do ? " 
 
 One day he strolled by our window where Milly and I were 
 standing on the balcony. He turned back, " struck " an atti 
 tude (in actor s phrase) ; with one hand on his heart, and the 
 other upraised, he began mouthing 
 
 " T is my lady, t is my love. Oh would I were a glove upon 
 that hand, that I might kiss that cheek. " 
 
28O CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " Which of us do you intend to be the Juliet to your 
 Romeo ? " asked Milly. 
 
 " Whichever you choose, my little dears," he said non 
 chalantly, and, touching his hat, sauntered on. 
 
 The next morning he came by again, and found us as be 
 fore, but he only returned a sulky " How do ? " and walked by. 
 Of course we knew he was in the midst of some brain-spin 
 ning, and wanted to be alone. I got to understand his face so 
 well that when I saw the preoccupied look I used to pretend 
 not to see him at all, so as to spare him even the trouble of 
 recognizing me, and I found he was all the better pleased. 
 
 One night we all went to the Tivoli Gardens, a place in the 
 style of Vauxhall on a small scale. There was a covered 
 portion set apart for dancing, and we saw some very respect 
 able people footing it with great enjoyment. We had a con 
 sultation whether it would be very infra dig. if the young 
 ones of our party had a private quadrille among themselves, 
 and, as no one knew us, we decided to enjoy ourselves too. 
 ^Mr. Dickens, meanwhile, walked about, not venturing into the 
 glare of the lights, as his face was too well known for him to 
 preserve his incognito. There was a girl dancing near us, 
 who had long plaited tails of hair down her back, sandaled 
 shoes, and frilled drawers, to whom, by universal acclamation, 
 we affixed the name of Morleena Kenwigs. Dickens was 
 amused at the resemblance, and was making a laughing re 
 mark on her, when a man came close to him and stared know 
 ingly and rather offensively in his face. Dickens moved away, 
 but this bore followed him, glowering with all his eyes, and 
 with ears on full cock to catch every stray word. At last 
 Dickens lost patience, and turning suddenly, confronted him 
 with 
 
 " Pray, sir, are you a native of this place ? " 
 
 " N no, sir," stammered the individual. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon ! " returned Dickens, with elabo 
 rate politeness. " I fancied I could detect broad-stares on 
 your very face." 
 
 I need not say that the unhappy wight vanished into the 
 shades of evening. 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 28 1 
 
 One morning at his own house Dickens was talking on art 
 to a gentleman present, and they discussed the statue of 
 Venus, which Byron raves about in his " Pilgrimage." Dick 
 ens objected to the expressions used by Byron, " Dazzled and 
 drunk with beauty," " The heart reels with its fullness," etc., 
 as being an unpoetical metaphor, and said it must have been 
 written tipsily, under the influence of that beverage (gin-and- 
 water) which sometimes inspired this great poet. I defended 
 the verse, and Dickens rose up, pushed his hands through his 
 flowing locks so as to give them their most weird look, 
 turned down his shirt-collar, slapped his brow, and exclaimed, 
 in the Bombastes Furioso style 
 
 " Stand back ! I am suddenly seized with the divine afflatus. 
 Don t disturb me till I have given birth to my grand concep 
 tions." 
 
 He took out his pencil, and finding there was no paper in 
 the room, he stalked with grotesquely melo-dramatic air to the 
 window, and wrote on the white shutter. Frederick Dickens 
 copied the writing afterwards for me, and it was as fol 
 lows : 
 
 LINES, AFTER BYRON, TO E. P . 
 
 "O, maiden, of the amber-dropping hair, 
 May I, Byronically, thy praises utter? 
 Drunk with thy beauty, tell me, may I dare 
 To sing thy paeans borne upon a shutter ?" 
 
 We were strolling one day on the sands, and stood to watch 
 the gambols of his children at play with the little Macreadys. 
 They had built a mimic fort, and young Macready was defend 
 ing it against a storming party headed by Charley Dickens. 
 The besieged Castellan threw himself into an attitude of 
 defiance, with head erect, and his sand-spade held as a trench 
 ant blade. Mr. Dickens burst into one of his hearty laughs, 
 and pointing to the boy, exclaimed " f Lay on, Macduff ! and 
 dashed be he who first cries, Hold, enough ! 9 Did you ever 
 see such a miniature of his pater in Macbeth ? It s a wise 
 child that knows his own father, but there s no mistake about 
 the parentage here." 
 
282 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " I suppose he naturally imitates his father after seeing him 
 act." 
 
 " No, that can t be, because Macready carefully prevents 
 his children knowing that he is an actor. I don t think they 
 have ever entered a theatre." 
 
 " Is he ashamed of his profession ?" 
 
 " No. But he wisely thinks that they may misunderstand his 
 position. It is because he takes such an elevated view of his 
 art that he fears it being misrepresented to them. He thinks, 
 and rightly too, that there is no small merit in being able to 
 interpret properly the conceptions of a great mind ; and he 
 who gives breathing and moving life, who embodies with 
 reality, and stamps with individuality, the poet s aerial crea 
 tions, must be himself endowed with some of this majestic 
 light by reflection. He fears that servants, or such-like, may 
 speak of acting to his children in such a way as to impress on 
 their small minds a low idea of a profession which he believes 
 to be so full of dignity and moving power when nobly 4 acted 
 up to. I hope the time is past when actors were ranked as 
 vagabonds and authors as Grub-street hacks, cringing in 
 servile submission to truculent publishers, or dangling in 
 search of a dinner in the ante-room of some addle-headed 
 nobleman. If books enlighten the understanding, so likewise 
 the stage has its purpose, next to the pulpit, to elevate and 
 refine by placing more palpably and forcibly before us the 
 grandeur of human passions." 
 
 " I know one instance among many in which the stage pro 
 duced an effect which no homily or sermon ever had been 
 capable of doing to the individual I speak of. He accom 
 panied me to see Charles Kean in the drama of Faust, in 
 which he acted Mephistopheles so artistically. There was 
 one scene where a riotous mob of graceless German students 
 (under the influence of lager-beer, I presume) are heard in the 
 distance roaring their songs of wassail. Mephisto. listened 
 with a sardonic grin of approval on his demoniac phiz, and 
 said gloatingly words something like these : Go on, my fine 
 fellows, sing and shout, and drink, in your delightful exuber- 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 283 
 
 ance of animal spirits. It refreshes me to hear you. Go on, 
 for you are all fast coming my way ! My friend, who wa-s a 
 young sawbones, told me a thrill of horror ran through him, 
 and he was struck by a conviction of the consequences of 
 sinful indulgence such as he had never felt before. He was 
 quite sober and thoughtful for some little time after." 
 
 Dickens listened with his usual attention and searching 
 fixity of eye, and then said, smilingly 
 
 " I m afraid that youth was open to conviction only through 
 his skin. Nothing but fire and brimstone (minus the treacle) 
 would keep him in order. Where the spiritual nature is low 
 one is obliged to threaten the rod-in-pickle." 
 
 My father was a Scottish author of considerable reputation, 
 and had died suddenly at the age of forty-two of apoplexy, 
 when I was only twelve years old. I lent Mrs. Dickens some 
 volumes of his writings about this time, and she expressed to 
 me how delighted she was in their perusal. In my presence 
 she asked Mr. Dickens to read them. He looked his distaste 
 at the idea, and when she pressed him " just to read one tale, 
 such a beautifully written one, and very short," he turned and 
 walked off abruptly, muttering " I hate Scotch stories, and 
 everything else Scotch." I thought this was very unkind to 
 his wife as well as to me, as she was Scotch too. She colored 
 up, but laughed it off. 
 
 There were times when we gave Mr. Dickens " a wide 
 berth," and Milly and I have often run round corners to get 
 out of his way, when we thought he was in one of these moods, 
 which we could tell by one glance at his face. His eyes were 
 always like " danger lamps," and warned people to clear the 
 line for fear of collision. We felt we had to do with 
 a genius, and in the throes and agonies of bringing forth 
 his conceptions, we did not expect him to submit to be 
 interrupted by triflers like ourselves : at these times I confess 
 I was horribly afraid of him. I told him so, to his great 
 amusement. 
 
 " Why, there s nothing formidable about me ! " 
 
 " Is n t there ? " I answered. " You look like a forest lion 
 
284 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 with a shaggy mane at these seasons ; and I always think of 
 the words 
 
 He roared so loud, and looked so wondrous grim, 
 His very shadow dared not follow him. " 
 
 He laughed aloud, and said, " What ! do you play shadow 
 to my lion ? Nay, then, as Bottom the weaver says, I must, 
 aggravate my voice, I will roar you as gently as any suckling 
 dove. " After this I did not feel quite so frightened of him, 
 though I got out of his way all the same. 
 
 On another day Milly and I were on the shore in time to 
 see him clambering down some rocks with his brother Fred. 
 They came towards us laughing, and Dickens, pointing to the 
 knees of his trousers said, " Look at this fresh sacrifice I have 
 laid on your altar ! These good pants nearly destroyed by 
 climbing up that precipitous cliff to carve your name in 
 gigantic letters upon a spot where the tide never reaches, so 
 that you may go down to posterity with your name built upon 
 a rock ! " 
 
 " Did you likewise carve * C harles Dickens_/^^V ? " asked I. 
 
 " No, I did not." 
 
 " Then you might as well have scratched my name on the 
 shifting sands, for all the fame I shall ever attain." 
 
 They both walked on laughingly, but I never arrived at the 
 truth whether it was Mr. Dickens or his brother Fred who did 
 the carving. Certainly, there was my name in letters a foot 
 long on the very face of the rock. Fred and I went to look at 
 it a year afterwards, and found it still existing. 
 
 At last came the sad day when we must leave them, to re 
 turn to our "local habitations " in smoky London, and I 
 parted with Mr. and Mrs. Dickens with tears of regret. 
 " Never mind, dear," she said in her sweet caressing way, 
 " we shall all meet again in London." 
 
 Alas ! we never met again in the same kindly way. Every 
 thing was changed. 
 
 When the Dickenses came home we went to luncheon there, 
 and I remarked how preoccupied he looked, how changed in 
 manner. Mrs. S , who knew him better than I did, was 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 285 
 
 quite prepared to find him different in London from what he 
 was in Broadstairs, but I was very disappointed. I seldom 
 saw him after this, as he was always full of engagements, but 
 Mrs. Dickens I often met at my friend s house. I went one 
 evening intending to spend it with them, and found Mrs. 
 
 S and Milly dressing to go to a small charade party at the 
 
 Dickenses. Milly immediately proposed to take me with 
 
 them, but Mrs. S said, looking puzzled and uncertain, 
 
 that she feared Mr. Dickens might think it a liberty ! " If it 
 was anybody else but Charles Dickens I should not hesitate 
 an instant, but he is so odd ! One never knows how he might 
 take such a thing. Although I am his daughter s godmother, 
 and we are such friends, I cannot do it." 
 
 Mrs. S mentioned to Mrs. Dickens how greatly it would 
 
 be to my advantage (being a young artist struggling into 
 notice, and helping to support my mother and sister) if Mr. 
 Dickens would sit to me for his likeness. With that ready 
 good-heartedness which I always found in her, she immedi 
 ately offered to sit first herself as an inducement to him, 
 which she kindly did. She wished it kept secret from Mr. 
 Dickens, as she proposed to give it to him as a birthday gift, I 
 believe. The portrait was nearly completed, and all who saw 
 it thought it an excellent likeness ; it was arranged that I 
 should bring it myself in case he might suggest any alteration. 
 Accordingly I went to Devonshire Terrace in a cab with my 
 picture, but found Mr. and Mrs. Dickens were out, but were 
 momentarily expected. I was shown into the dining-room, 
 and requested by the domestic to wait, as Mrs. Dickens ex 
 pected me. The cloth was laid, either for dinner or luncheon. 
 I waited for an hour, and at last I heard the carriage draw up 
 to the door. Mrs. Dickens came to me with her usual kiss, 
 and " so sorry for keeping you waiting." It was raining fast, 
 and her thin boots were wet with only walking from the car 
 riage, so she took them off there and then, and fancying I was 
 in a state of suspense, she would not wait for her slippers, but 
 went straight into the library to Mr. Dickens with the por 
 trait in her hand. Notwithstanding the closed door, and that 
 
286 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 I sat far from it at the fire, I could hear the tones of their 
 voices. Mrs. Dickens s expostulatory, Mr. Dickens s im 
 peratively ; at last she returned, looking flurried, but trying to 
 put the best face on the matter. She made apologies for him, 
 " That he was not very well, and tired. She hoped I would 
 excuse him not being able to see me." 
 
 I faltered out, " Does he not like the portrait ? " 
 
 " He has net had time to look at it properly. Of course he 
 will think it like. You must n t mind, dear, but to tell the 
 truth he is a little grumpy just now, but it will be all right 
 presently. You know a man is always cross when he has been 
 kept without his dinner. Won t you stay ? " she added, 
 hesitatingly, and in such a tone that I knew she was afraid I 
 might. 
 
 I don t know what I answered. I was thoroughly cut up, 
 and wanted to have a " good cry." I broke from her even 
 while she was kissing me, and telling me she would write and 
 let me know how he liked it ; she slid into my hand a folded 
 piece of green paper, which I knew was a check, and which 
 I purposely dropped as I passed into the hall. She came 
 after me looking very vexed, and put it in my reticule, saying, 
 " For my sake ! " Glad to get out of the house I did not stay 
 to discuss the point, but almost ran into the rain. Round the 
 corner I found an empty cab, and in it I cried to my heart s 
 content all the way home. I never crossed his threshold 
 again. 
 
 Whether it was really that Mr. Dickens was hungry and 
 cross, or whether he was annoyed with Mrs. Dickens for 
 having her portrait done without his knowledge ; or whether 
 it was because he did not like the picture, I never could 
 discover. " He was so odd," was the only explanation I 
 ever received from the several " mutual " friends to whom 
 I mentioned the affair. Old Mrs. Dickens liked the picture 
 so much that she begged to have it (I was told), and so it 
 ended. It was some salve to my amour propre that I had, 
 in the same spring, a portrait of the Speaker Shaw Lefevre s 
 daughter in the Academy, hung " on the line," and favorably 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 287 
 
 noticed by several of the papers ; and that it was considered 
 a "speaking " likeness. 
 
 It is not just or satisfactory to depict only one side of any 
 man s character, and Dickens was no faultless monster. A 
 portrait is incomplete if painted (as Queen Elizabeth, of 
 glorious and despotic memory, insisted on being done) without 
 its proper proportion of shadows. To describe Dickens as 
 always amiable, always just, and always in the right, would be 
 simply false and untrue to nature. It is right to soften as 
 much as possible all the hard edges (as artists do their work 
 with a brush called a " sweetener " ), and to throw a shade 
 over the shortcomings of a truly great man, touching his 
 weaknesses with a tender and delicate hand, but speaking 
 of his acts as impartially as possible ; more especially when 
 he is gone from us into that unknown region where we may be 
 sure all is truth or nothing. After great inward discussion, 
 I feel that I ought to shake off all moral cowardice, and speak 
 of Mr. Dickens as he was to me, " nothing extenuate, nor 
 aught set down in malice ; " it is only justice to the living 
 to be truthful to the dead. I must entreat my readers to 
 absolve me of any wish to obtrude my small identity in the 
 slightest degree. It is no egotism which makes the pro 
 noun " I " so often repeated in these pages, but the impos 
 sibility to detail Dickens s words or acts without also telling 
 what led to them. 
 
 The next occasion on which I met Mr. Dickens was at a 
 large ball, of nearly 200 persons, given by a gentleman con 
 nected with me by marriage. He came accompanied by Mrs. 
 Dickens, his two brothers, Frederick and Alfred, and Mr. 
 Maclise, the great painter, since dead. Mr. Dickens looked 
 very handsome, and seemed to enjoy himself immensely ; but 
 he never danced once with me, and was only coldly polite, 
 which did not increase my enjoyment. He proposed the 
 health of cur host at supper, in a short speech, but with such 
 rapid utterance and in so low a tone that I scarcely caught the 
 whole sense of his words. 
 
 The only time I ever felt cross with Mrs. Dickens was on 
 
288 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 this evening, I was engaged to dance with Mr. Maclise, and 
 he was coming forward to claim me when she interposed and 
 asked him to dance with her. He told her he was engaged to 
 me, but she would take no refusal, and they whirled off to 
 gether. Frederick said, " What a shame ! " and asked me to try 
 and put up with him instead. Both he and his brother Alfred 
 were very attentive to me, and I danced with each repeatedly. 
 Fred told me he thought Charles was acting " very capri 
 ciously," and seemed sorry for me, as I took it to heart ; but he 
 was " odd sometimes" The evening concluded with " Sir 
 Roger de Coverley," danced in two ]ong double rows. It was 
 a sight to see Maclise at one end and Dickens at the other 
 rushing forward alternately, both with long locks flying free. 
 At one part I had to meet and perform the figure with Mr. 
 Dickens, and he unbent a little, giving me something of the 
 old smile, and whirling me round with something of the old 
 familiar style ; but, alas ! it was only like a ghost of the happy 
 past, and I could have burst out crying. I had been so proud 
 of the notice of so great a man, I had so sunned myself in his 
 smiles, that it was like an untimely frost, come to " nip my 
 buds from blowing." 
 
 Next year I was married, after a long engagement, and 
 shortly afterwards went to Broadstairs with my husband. I 
 had not expected to see the Dickenses there, as it was late in 
 the season, and I was sure they would have returned. Fred, 
 who was a great friend of my husband, soon found us out, and 
 we were constantly together ; but I kept aloof from his 
 brother, and only spoke to him on one occasion during our 
 stay, which was when we went, accompanied by Fred, to the 
 Tivoli Gardens, and Mr. Dickens and his party were there. 
 If I remember rightly, Miss Hogarth danced with my husband 
 and I with Fred, in a few quadrilles made up with their set. 
 Mrs. Dickens was as kind as ever, and " Boz " danced with 
 her and her sister alternately, with as much enjoyment of the 
 fun as any of us. 
 
 After this I never saw him but twice again ; onct. at a con 
 cert where the lady who afterwards became Fred s wife per- 
 
REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS, 289 
 
 formed on the piano. He was with his wife and Maclise, and 
 favored me with his usual " How d ye do ? " en passant. The 
 last time I ever saw him was a few years ago, when he gave a 
 reading of the " Christmas Carol," and he was indeed mar- 
 velously changed. Lined in face, and with grizzled beard, 
 but with even more power than ever in expression, the nostril 
 still, like that of the war-horse, dilated and sensitive. I was 
 astonished at the wonderful difference in his voice and utter 
 ance, which was now sonorous and emphatic. His long career 
 of reading and acting had completely cured the thickness 
 which I before remarked, and his declamation was no longer 
 hurried. 
 
 A great deal has been said about his hearty willingness to 
 help young struggling people, and his kindly feeling for gov 
 ernesses. All I can say is he never helped me, though he had 
 it in his power to do so to a great extent. There was an 
 
 excellent lady, a friend of Mrs. S , whom he often met at 
 
 her house, who supported her step-mother by her salary as a 
 governess, and whom he knew to be a marvel of self-denial, 
 but he never took any notice of her more than politeness 
 required, though she was enthusiastically enraptured with him, 
 and a little extra kindness would have been the sweetest drop 
 in the tasteless cup of her daily avocations. In 1846, when I 
 had been married about four years, a young lady, only seven 
 teen years of age, of very uncommon ability as an artist, 
 implored me to get Mr. Dickens to look at some very clever 
 outline illustrations she had made of his " Chimes " and the 
 " Cricket on the Hearth," hoping to excite his interest in her. 
 I yielded to her solicitations, but knowing how " odd " Mr. 
 Dickens was, I wrote a letter to Mrs. Dickens requesting her 
 to use her influence with him, and I gave such an account of 
 this young lady s praiseworthy endeavors to earn a livelihood 
 as would, I think, have interested most people. I received 
 this reply from Mrs. Dickens : 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. C, Many thanks for your obliging note, 
 and interesting account of your young friend. 
 19 
 
2gO CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 " Mr. Dickens is so very much occupied just now that he 
 has not as yet been able to look over the drawings, but I have 
 no doubt he will do so very shortly. I trust that yourself and 
 baby are quite well, and that you have good accounts from 
 your husband. 
 
 " I saw our mutual friends, Mrs. S and Miss J , 
 
 yesterday. 
 
 " Excuse this hasty scrawl, and believe me, 
 
 " My dear Mrs. C , 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " CATHERINE DICKENS. 
 
 " i DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, y>th April, 1846." 
 
 My poor little artist was dreadfully disappointed by merely 
 receiving a polite note, thanking her for the sight of her very 
 talented outlines, and that was all. I introduced her shortly 
 after this to my good friend J. Sidney Cooper, R. A., the 
 eminent cattle-painter, and he invited her to his house to meet 
 people of note and influence, and treated her with such true 
 kindness that she never ceased to thank me. To prove that 
 he must have infinitely benefited her, I have a letter from her 
 sister, written long after, in which she says they had had no 
 chance of getting on till I " used my fairy wand and conjured 
 up that bright circle at Mr. Cooper s for her ; so that, you see, 
 treat the matter as you will, it comes back to you at last ; 
 Minnie owes her highest encouragement, and both of us some 
 of our best friends, to your active kindness." 
 
 The other members of Mr. Dickens s family whom I knew 
 continued always on the same terms, and a few years ago 
 Fred came, accompanied by his father-in-law, and stayed some 
 days with us. After that he came with Mrs. S , and re 
 mained with us a week, and he would never admit that his 
 brother felt unkindly towards me, though he could not explain 
 his strange conduct. 
 
 The last I ever had to do with Mr. Dickens was when I 
 wrote to ask the favor of a few lines from him in support of an 
 appeal I was about to make to a statesman high in office on 
 behalf of the aged and necessitous widow of an author of 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 2QI 
 
 repute formerly ; but he declined in a few curt sentences, on 
 the grounds that I had been " absurdly misinformed " as to 
 his having any influence in such quarter. 
 
 OBITUARY POEMS. 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 BORN FEBRUARY 7, 1812; DIED JUNE 9, 1870. 
 
 While his life s lamp seemed clearest, most intense, 
 A light of wit and love to great and small, 
 
 By the dark angel he is summoned hence, 
 To solve the mightiest mystery of all. 
 
 Hearing that he has passed beyond the veil, 
 Before the Judge who metes to men their dues, 
 
 Men s cheeks, through English-speaking lands, turn pale. 
 Far as the speaking wires can bear the news 
 
 Blanched at this sudden snapping of a life 
 That seemed of all our lives to hold a share : 
 
 So were our memories with his fancies rife, 
 
 So much of his thought our thoughts seemed to share. 
 
 Charles Dickens dead ! It is as if a light 
 
 In every English home were quenched to-day ; 
 
 As if a face all knew had passed from sight, 
 A hand all loved to press had turned to clay. 
 
 Question who will his power, its range, its height, 
 His wisdom, insight, this at least we know, 
 
 All in his love s warmth and his humor s light 
 
 Rejoiced and reveled, old, young, high or low, 
 
 Learned, unlearned, from the boy at school 
 To the judge on the bench, none read but owned 
 
 The large heart o er which the large brain held rule, 
 The fancy by whose side clear sense sat throned, 
 
2Q2 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 The observation that made all its own, 
 
 The shaping faculty that breathed life s breath 
 
 In types, all felt they knew and still had known, 
 Like-life, except that they are safe from death. 
 
 Since Shakespeare s, where the pen that so hath lent 
 Substance to airy nothings of the brain, 
 
 His fancies seem with men s experience blent, 
 Till to take each for other we are fain ? 
 
 And who that ever wielded such a power 
 Used it so purely, to such Christian end, 
 
 Used it to quicken the millennial hour, 
 
 When rich to poor shall be as man to friend ? 
 
 Who can say how much of that love s pure leaven 
 That leavens now the lump of this our world, 
 
 With influence as of a present Heaven, 
 
 Like light athwart chaotic darkness hurled, 
 
 May be traced up to springs by him unsealed, 
 To clods by him stirred round affection s roots, 
 
 To hearts erst hard, but by his fires annealed 
 To softness whereof Love s works are the fruit ? 
 
 Mourn, England, for another great one gone 
 To join the great ones who have gone before 
 
 And put a universal mourning on. 
 
 Where er sea breaks on English-speaking shore. 
 
 His works survive him, and his works work too 
 Of love and kindness and good-will to men, 
 
 Hate of the wrong, and reverence of the true, 
 And war on all that shuns truth s eagle-ken. 
 
 Earth s two chief nations mourners at his tomb : 
 Their memories for his monument : their love 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 293 
 
 For his reward. Such is his gloriors doom 
 Whom mortal praise or blame no more shall move ! 
 
 DICKENS AT GAD S HILL. 
 
 One summer day ah, saddest eighth of June ! 
 
 My brooding heart, my very soul descries 
 Around a chalet, in a grove at noon, 
 
 Dream-children from the flowering earth arise. 
 
 So hushed (like death ! ) the calm, sequestered scene, 
 One notes with eye, not ear, the fitful breeze, 
 
 Through sunlight branches, flickering gold and green, 
 About yon Swiss roof nestling mid the trees. 
 
 Like fitful wanderers seen returning home, 
 Like magnets trembling truthful to the north, 
 
 To this one spot of all the world they roam, 
 
 Again they throng round him who called them forth. 
 
 No shadowy semblance theirs of human life, 
 
 Ideal shapes of visionary birth : 
 They breathe, they move with vital force more rife 
 
 Than fleeting, fleshly forms that people earth. 
 
 The Angel- Child, the Guardian Guide of age, 
 
 With soul as pure as all the tears we shed 
 When swimming eyes first read on blotted page, 
 " Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead." 
 
 The fading boy, the blossom nipped in bud, 
 Whose infant grace had oft the quaintest air, 
 
 Who questioned voices in the ocean flood, 
 
 Whose looks of love were sad as tones of prayer, 
 
 Till passed, like sigh in sleep, his parting breath, 
 And o er the couch where lay the gentle Paul, 
 
 Naught stirred above the " old, old fashion, Death," 
 Naught save " the golden ripple on the wall." 
 
294 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 The sweet Child-wife, the darling of a heart 
 
 Whose tenderest chords that solemn eve were riven, 
 When Dora s doom was told with speechless art 
 " That mute appeal, that finger raised to heaven ! " 
 
 The little cripple with the active crutch, 
 
 At thought of whom the mother s eyes grew dim, 
 
 Sighing, as fell the black work from her touch, 
 It was " the color Ah, poor Tiny Tim ! " 
 
 The stripling frail, who, dying with a kiss, 
 A child at heart, a man but to the sight ! 
 
 Poor Rick ! began the world again, not this, 
 Ah no, " not this the world that sets this right." 
 
 And orphan Johnny, his lost home afar, 
 
 An infant waif on awful billows hurled, 
 No mother clinging to it, floats, frail spar, 
 " O er that dark sea that rolls round all the world." 
 
 Around the sunlight chalet, where, within, 
 
 Dreams the great Dreamer neath the shadowing trees, 
 
 From flowering earth, fresh dews of love to win, 
 Dream-children rise in lovely forms like these. 
 
 No spectral shades for glimpses of the moon, 
 But radiant shapes in calm of summer-day, 
 
 They come unbidden to his haunts at noon, 
 
 Down the bright path they went to point the way. 
 
 These haunts the aptest symbols of a life 
 
 That loved the pleasaunce winter ne er bereaves 
 
 Of verdure, in those grand old cedars rife 
 
 Crowned with a lasting glory of Green Leaves. 
 
 And yonder, basking in the golden air, 
 
 Luring his thoughts where er his thoughts may roam, 
 
OBITUARY POEMS, 295 
 
 Cinctured by blossoms in a garden fair, 
 The dear familiar roof-beams of his home. 
 
 Between that home and this secluded haunt 
 Flows the broad highway, symbol here again 
 
 That alien to his hearth no tread of want 
 Or toil was held, or ever passed in vain. 
 
 O Friend ! O Brother ! dearer to my heart 
 
 Than even thy loving friendship could discern, 
 
 Thy thoughts, thy dreams were of our lives a part, 
 Thy genius love, not merely fame, could earn. 
 
 Affection, admiration, honor, praise, 
 
 Innocent laughter and ennobling tears, 
 Are thine by right, not through mere length of days, 
 
 A loftier life, in never-ending years. 
 
 DICKENS IN CAMP. 
 
 Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, 
 
 The river sang below ; 
 The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting 
 
 Their minarets of snow. 
 
 The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted 
 
 The ruddy tints of health 
 On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted 
 
 In the fierce race for wealth ; 
 
 Till one arose, and from his pack s scant treasure 
 
 A hoarded volume drew, 
 And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure 
 
 To hear the tale anew. 
 
 And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, 
 
 And as the firelight fell, 
 He read aloud the book wherein the Master 
 
 Had writ of " Little Nell." 
 
296 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Perhaps twas boyish fancy, for the reader 
 
 Was youngest of them all, 
 But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar 
 
 A silence seemed to fall :. 
 
 The pine-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, 
 
 Listened in every spray, 
 While the whole camp, with " Nell " on English meadows, 
 
 Wandered and lost their way. 
 
 And so in mountain solitudes ; o ertaken 
 
 As by some spell divine 
 Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken 
 
 From out the sturdy pine. 
 
 Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire : 
 
 And he who wrought the spell ? 
 Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire, 
 
 Ye have one tale to tell ! 
 
 Lost is that camp ! But let its fragrant story 
 
 Blend with the heart that thrills 
 With hop-vines incense all the pensive glory 
 
 That fills the Kentish hills. 
 
 And on that grave where English oak and holly 
 
 And laurel wreaths entwine, 
 Deem it not all a too presumptous folly, 
 
 This spray of Western pine \ 
 
 AT GAD S HILL. 
 
 Gadshill is famous. What of old 
 To the world s poet made it dear, 
 
 Whether what country gossips told, 
 Or stolen hours of cheer 
 
 Spent there with men of kindred mind ; 
 
 Less, yet the largest of mankind, 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 297 
 
 We know not, and we need not care : 
 
 Enough that Shakespeare loved the place : 
 
 And settled in possession there 
 The merriest of his race, 
 
 Falstaff, whose thirsty spirit still 
 
 Haunts all the taverns at Gad s Hill ! 
 
 Could Shakespeare, with prophetic eyes, 
 
 Who were to follow him have seen, 
 And be, if not so great and wise, 
 
 As what man since hath been ? 
 Yet wise and great in smaller ways 
 The lords of life of coming days, 
 
 He would have chosen out of all 
 
 Dickens, as knowing, loving men, 
 And let on him the mantle fall 
 
 That was to vanish then ! 
 Long lost, late found, now lost once more 
 Ah, who that mantle shall restore ? 
 
 Sacred to all but Shakespeare s shade, 
 
 And to his ghosts of crownless kings 
 Abandoned, wretched queens betrayed, 
 
 And high, heroic things, 
 Is Stratford : let no mortal dare 
 Disturb its hushed and reverent air ! 
 
 But Gad s Hill, whither Falstaff went 
 From Eastcheap (glad to hasten back), 
 
 Though plundered, still on plunder bent, 
 Puffed out with lies and sack, 
 
 What spot of English earth so fit 
 
 For one with more than Falstaff s wit ? 
 
298 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Nay, Shakespeare s self was not his peer 
 In that humane and happy art 
 
 To wake at once the smile and tear, 
 And captive hold the heart ! 
 
 Make room, then Shakespeare, this is he 
 
 Hath taken the throne of mirth from thee. 
 
 The world of kings and queens is thine, 
 Thou hast the soldier s, scholar s ear : 
 
 England and Rome, Greece, " Troy divine," - 
 Hamlet, Othello, Lear : 
 
 Small elves that dance on yellow sands, 
 
 And all the spells of fairy lands ! 
 
 This common, work-day world of ours ; 
 
 Our little lives of joy and care ; 
 Green lanes, where children gather flowers ; 
 
 And London s murky air ; 
 Thieves, paupers, women of the town, 
 And the black Thames in which they drown ; - 
 
 These were the things that Dickens knew : 
 Before his sight like dreams they passed. 
 
 If saddened, he was gladdened, too, 
 For sorrow should not last : 
 
 Happy must be his heart and mind 
 
 Whose task it is to help his kind ! 
 
 Healthy his nature was, above 
 All shallow griefs and sympathies : 
 
 What others hated he could love, 
 And what they loved despise. 
 
 His mirth was harder to be borne 
 
 Than Thackeray s sadness, Byron s scorn. 
 
OBITUARY POEMS. 299 
 
 He taught the virtues, first and last ; 
 
 He taught us manhood more and more ; 
 The simple courage that stands fast, 
 
 The patience of the poor : 
 Love for all creatures, great and small, 
 And trust in Something over all ! 
 
 This gave him more than royal sway, 
 
 The benefactor of his race, 
 He would have wiped with smiles away 
 
 The tears from every face ! 
 They drop to-day from many an eye : 
 He draws them, but he cannot dry. 
 
 The hand is still that held his pen, 
 
 His eyes are shut, but not in sleep ; 
 Weeping around his bed are men 
 
 Who do not often weep ! 
 Laughter no more the house shall fill, 
 For Death is master at Gad s Hill ! 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Arctic, Loss of Mr. Henry Reed in, 9. 
 Aretz, M. Dedication of " The Paris 
 Sketch-Book " to, 41. 
 
 Barrow, John Henry. He starts " The 
 Mirror of Parliament," 225. 
 
 Blanc, Louis. His story about Robert 
 Bell s watch, 160. 
 
 Brimley, George. His opinion of "Van 
 ity Fair," 68. 
 
 Bronte, Miss. Her opinion of Lady Cas- 
 tlewood, 56. 
 
 Brooks, Shirley. His paper on Thack 
 eray, 164. 
 
 Brown, Dr. John. His paper on Thack 
 eray s literary career, 21. 
 
 " Brownrigge, Elisabeth." In Erasers, 30. 
 
 " Catherine." The story of, by Ikey Sol 
 omon, 29. 
 
 "Chronicle, The Morning." Thackeray s 
 letter to its editor, 144. 
 
 Cruikshank, George. He chims the idea 
 of " Oliver Twist," 211. 
 
 Cunningham, Peter. He undertakes the 
 duties of secretary for a public dinner 
 to Thackeray, 115. 
 
 DICKENS, CHARLES. Thackeray s opinion 
 of, 95. Thackeray s delight in reading 
 " Dombey and Son," 124. His confi 
 dence as a public speaker, 126. He 
 writes to Thackeray in behalf of Mr. 
 Edmund Yates, 157. Thackeray s re 
 ply to him, 158. Coolness between them, 
 159. They are reconciled again. 160. 
 His Thackeray " In Memoriam," 187. 
 His earliest writings, 197. His con 
 nection with the " Morning Chronicle, 
 197. He reports for the " Mirror of 
 Parliament," 197. He makes his debut 
 in the "Old Monthly Magazine, 198." 
 Sketches by " Boz," 198. They are 
 
 admired by Mr. Grant, who wishes him 
 to continue them, 200. His terms. 200. 
 He arranges to write the " Pickwick 
 Papers," 200. Dr. Black predicts his 
 future fame, 201. His genius discovered 
 by Vincent Dowling, 201. Lord Derby 
 dictates his speech to him, 202. As a 
 resurrectionist, 202. His terms for writ 
 ing the " Pickwick Papers," 203. Suc 
 cess of the " Pickwick Papers" dubious, 
 203. He introduces Sam Weller, 203. 
 Great success of the " Pickwick Pa 
 pers," 204. The profit of the publish 
 ers, 204. His profit, 204. " Beauties 
 of Pickwick," 206. Popularity of the 
 name, 206. Whence derived, 206. The 
 
 , 
 
 " Pickwick Papers " dramatized, 207. 
 "Pickwick ; transported by G. W. M. 
 Reynolds, 207. Superficial simi 
 
 larity between the "Pickwick Pa 
 pers" and "Life in London," 209. 
 He writes the "Strange Gentleman," 
 209. Its success, 209. He writes 
 " The Village Coquettes," 209. Pop 
 ularity of some of its songs, 209. His 
 preface to it, 210. Who originated 
 u Oliver Twist?" 211. Poetical epistle 
 to him from Father Prout, 212. His 
 friendship with Irving, 213. He plays 
 in "The Strange Gentleman," 218. He 
 appears in "Every Man in his Hu 
 mor," 218. Assumes the literary de 
 partment of the "Daily News," 219. 
 Publishes his "Pictures from Italy" 
 in it, 220. Writes the " Hymn of 
 the Wiltshire Laborers," 220. He 
 retires from the " Daily News," 221. 
 Friendly rivalry with Thackeray, 222. 
 Lord Jeffery s grief at the death of 
 Little Nell, 225. Anecdote of his 
 skill as a reporter, 226. He writes 
 "Mrs. Nightingale s Diary," with 
 Mark Lemon, 227. Plays in " Not 
 
302 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 so Bad as we Seem," 227. He 
 explains Harold Skimpole, 231. He 
 purchases Gad s Hill, 234. The very 
 queer small boy, 234. His epigram on 
 Southey, 235. He is taken for a 
 " smasher," 236. The Queen desires 
 an interview with him. 237. She pre 
 sents him with " Our Life in the High 
 lands," 237. Offers to confer any dis 
 tinction upon him, 238. He assists Mr. 
 Haydn, 239. His methodical habits, 
 239. His manner of composition, 240. 
 His activity and vitality, 242. He in 
 vites Douglas Jerrold to come to Italy, 
 243. His hatred of Cant, 244. He 
 writes a " Life of our Saviour" for his 
 children, 246. Ada, Lady Lovelace, ex 
 presses a desire to talk with him, 247. 
 Did he ever pray? 247. His last stroll 
 through the Temple with Douglas Jer 
 rold, 248. In council with the Guild of 
 Literature and Art, 249. Hanging pict 
 ures for a widow, 250. Taking aim at 
 Aunt Sally, 250. Could he draw a gen 
 tleman or lady? 251. Some of his gen 
 tle folks, 252. His knowledge of disease 
 and death, 253. His self-possession, 254. 
 Chorley s defense of him in the " Athe 
 naeum," 255. His genial hospitality, 
 256. He transfers "All the Year 
 Round " to his eldest son, 256. The 
 shadow of the end, 257. "Approaching 
 the mystery," 258. His laughter, 259. 
 His powers of observation, 259. His 
 precision and accuracy, 260. A good 
 listener, 260. His extreme punctuality, 
 261. His toleration, 261. His loving 
 interest in the actual world, 262. A truth 
 ful character, 263. His love of the poor, 
 263. His power of narration, 264. 
 Compared with Lord Palmerston, 264. 
 A friendly critic, 264. His hand ex 
 pressive, 265. His taste in dress, 267. 
 Fond of games, 268. Stock or waist 
 coat ? 269. Flirtation nonsense, 271. 
 His one good pun, 272. Rumor that 
 he is insane, 273. He does not like to 
 be caricatured, 275. Love of mischief, 
 
 276. He spoils a young lady s dress, 
 
 277. As a ballad-singer, 278. He puts 
 down the starer, 280. Watches 
 Macready s children at play, 281. 
 Prejudiced against the Scotch, 283. 
 Who carved the name ? 284. " He 
 
 is so odd," 285. Dancing " Sir Roger 
 de Coverley, 288. Punch s obituary 
 poem, 291. Charles Kent s memorial 
 verse, 293. Bret Harte s "Dickens 
 in Camp." 295. "At Gad s Hill," by 
 R. H. Stodd ird, 296. 
 Dinner, The. Thackeray s description of, 
 116. 
 
 Egan Pierce. His " Life in Lordon," 
 208. Compared with Dickens, 208. 
 
 Esmond, Henry. At his mother s grave, 
 66. 
 
 Felton, C. C. His reminisce nces of Dick 
 ens and Irving, 213. 
 
 Fontenelle, M. What his heart was 
 made of, 73. 
 
 Fraser s. Thackeray s connection with, 
 28. Its staff, 28. Thackeray writes 
 his " Yellowplush Correspondence" 
 for it, 28. His story of " Catherine " 
 written for it, 29. " A Shabby Genteel 
 Story" written for it, 35. Its sudden 
 ending, 35. The " Great Hoggarty 
 Diamond," written for it, 35. Thack 
 eray s miscellaneous papers in, 36. 
 " Barry Lyndon," written for it, 37. 
 
 " Fun." Memorial poem on Thackeray, 
 192. 
 
 Furness, Miss. Thackeray s opinion of 
 her singing, 6. 
 
 Grant, James. He traces Dickens s ear 
 liest writings, 197. He assumes the ed 
 itorship of the " Monthly Magazine," 
 198. He wishes to continue " Sketches" 
 by " Boz," 199. He learns the name 
 of the writer, 199. Dickens offers to 
 continue the Sketches as he wishes, 
 200. 
 
 Georges, The. Success of, 12. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William. Subscribes for a 
 silver statuette of Punch " to be given 
 to Thackeray, 39. 
 
 Hannay, James. His memoir of Thack 
 eray, 174. 
 
 Harte, Bret. "Dickens in Camp," 295. 
 
 Helps, Sir Arthur. His recollections 
 of Dickens, 258. 
 
 Hodder, James. His recollections of 
 Thackeray, 109. 
 
 Houghton, Lord. His memorial poem 
 on Thackeray, 193. 
 
 " Humorists, The. Failure of in Amer 
 ica on repetition, 14. 
 
 Irving, Washington. His friendship with 
 Dickens, 213. Dickens s appreciation 
 of his writings, 214. He is called upon 
 to preside at the Dickens dinner, 216. 
 His nervousness, 216. He breaks 
 down in his speech, 217. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs. Criticises Thackeray s 
 
 female characters, 56. 
 Jeffrey, Lord. Subscribes for a silver 
 
 statuette of "Punch" to be given to 
 
 Thackeray, 39. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 303 
 
 Jerrold, Bhnchard. His description of 
 
 Thackeray, 150. 
 Jerrold, Douglas. His remark about 
 
 Thackeray, no. His recollections of 
 
 Dickens, 241. 
 
 Kent, Charles. " Dickens at Gad s 
 Hill," 293. 
 
 " Kickleburys on the Rhine, The." Con 
 clusion of, 65. 
 
 Knowles, Sheridan. Relates an anecdote 
 of Dickens s benevolence, 238. 
 
 Lauzun, Duke de- Memoirs of, 16. 
 
 "Little Billee." Thackeray s ballad of, 
 78. 
 
 Lemon, Mark. Writes " Mrs. Night 
 ingale s Diary" with Dickens, 227! 
 
 Lovat, Lord, Simon Frazer. Allusion 
 to his last meal in a speech of Thack 
 eray s, 1 1 8. 
 
 Mackay, Charles. 
 Dickens, 201. 
 
 His recollections of 
 
 Mackenzie, R. Shelton. What George 
 Cruikshank told him about " Oliver 
 Twist," 211. 
 
 Macready, William Charles. Dickens s 
 opinion of, 282 
 
 " Mirror of Parliament, The." Dickens 
 reports for it, 197. 
 
 Moncrieff, T. W. Dramatizes * Pick 
 wick," 207. 
 
 Montgomery, Robert. His^3 Woman 
 the Angel of Lifej! reviewed by 
 Thackeray, 23. ^ 
 
 W. Obituary poem on 
 
 eath of, 4. 
 
 " rines on , by Thack- 
 
 His poetic epistle to 
 
 Parsons, T. 
 
 Thackeray, 194. 
 Peter, Williai 
 Philippe, Louis, 
 
 eray, 24. 
 Prout, Father. 
 
 " Boz, ^ 2J2. 
 
 " Punch." Thackeray s connection with, 
 3V~>His value to it, 37. Its value 
 to hiffy, 37. , His noms de plume in, 38. 
 Silver statue of the little man in Edin 
 burgh, 38. It is purchased and sent to 
 Thackeray, 559. Memorial poem on 
 Thackeray, 191. Memorial poem on 
 Dickens, 291. 
 
 Ramsbottom, Dorothea Julia, in Cam 
 bridge, 136. " Statement on Fax rela 
 tive to the late Murder," 138. 
 
 Reed, William B. His memorial of Thack 
 eray, i. Personal relations with Thack 
 eray, 2. Letters to from Thackeray, 
 5, 7, 10-13, !S J 9. Gives Thackeray 
 an autograph of Washington, 7. Loss 
 of his brother on the A rctic, 9. Thack 
 eray condoles with him, 10. Sends a 
 
 copy of "Esmond" to his wife, 12. 
 His "Memoirs of Hester Reed," 16 
 Introduces the Duke de Lauzun to, 16. 
 Thackeray congratulates him on his 
 appointment as American Minister to 
 China, 19 Finds a hotel for him in 
 London, 18. Dines and wines him, 19. 
 
 Reed, Henry. Lost in the Arctic, 9. 
 
 Reed, Hester. Memoirs of, 16. 
 
 Reynolds, G. W. M. Writes "Pickwick 
 Abroad," 207. 
 
 Sala, George Augustus. Thackeray s 
 opinion of his cleverness, 127. 
 
 Sargent, Charles. He discovers that 
 Thackeray is dead, 163. 
 
 Simcoe, Adolphus. A heart-broken man, 
 
 2 5- 
 
 Skeltpn, John Henry. His " My Book," 
 reviewed by Mr. Yellowplush, 28. 
 
 Smith, Albert. Thackeray s verse on his 
 bad grammar, 128. 
 
 " Snob, The." Thackeray s earliest lit 
 erary effort, 133. 
 
 Solomon, Ikey. A noni de plume of 
 Thackeray, 29. 
 
 " Standard, The National." Thackeray 
 edits, 22. 
 
 Stella, Swift s. Thackeray s assertion 
 regarding her parentage, 97. 
 
 Sterling, John. Gives Thackeray com 
 fort and pleasure, 36. 
 
 Stoddard, R. H. "Adsum," 195. "At 
 Gad s Hill," 296. 
 
 " Story, A Shabby Genteel." Its sudden 
 ending in Fraser, 35. 
 
 "Timbuctoo." A burlesque poem by 
 Thackeray, 134. 
 
 THACKERAY. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE. 
 His first visit to America, i. Success 
 of his Lectures, i. Walking with Win. 
 B. Reed s little daughter, 2. Loves 
 boiled mutton and children, 2. A con 
 trast to a big Kentuckian, 2. His im 
 pressions of America, 3. He gives a 
 dinner in New York, 3. His manner 
 of reading poetry, 4. His reflections 
 on the recovery of lost reason, 4. 
 Letter to Mr. Reed, 5. He is not dis 
 contented with his lot, 5. His philosophy 
 with regard to death, 6. Success of his 
 lectures in Baltimore, 6. His plans in 
 America, 6. His opinion of Miss Fur- 
 ness, 6. He returns to England, 7. 
 Letter to Mr. Reed, with a caricature, 
 7. " As with tailors, so with men," 7. 
 Dinners right and left," 7. Taking 
 it easy with his girls in Switzerland, 8. 
 He wishes the Americans spoke French 
 better, 8. Remark to his daughter 
 about the habit of eating with knives, 
 
304 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 3. Bespeaks a good word for Mrs. 
 Glyn the actress, 8. His opinion of 
 Mrs. Stowe ? s book, 9. Writing a new ; 
 story, 9. What he is to get for it, 9. 
 Visits Mr. Reed s brother Henry in 
 London, 9. Letter to about the 
 loss of his brother, 10. Why his book 
 has not been written, n. He applies 
 for the Secretaryship of the British 
 Legation at Washington, u. Why he 
 did not obtain it, n. Makes his second 
 visit to America, 12. Success of " The 
 Georges, 12. Remarks upon an ad 
 verse criticism, 13. Repeats " The 
 Humorists " in Philadelphia unsuccess 
 fully, 14. His generosity to his losing 
 man of business, 15. He conceives the 
 idea of " The Virginians," 15. He talks 
 with Mr. Reed about "The Memoirs 
 of Hester Reed," 16. The names 
 "Hetty" and "Theodosia," probably 
 derived from that volume, 16. Refer 
 ence to the Duke de Lauzun in " The 
 Virginians," 17. Congratulates Mr. 
 Reed on his appointment as American 
 Minister to China, 18. Writing in the 
 Athenaeum Library, 19. His horror of 
 the American Civil War, 20. Brief 
 summary of his career, 21. Edits "The 
 National Standard," 22. Writes a 
 mock sonnet to Wordsworth, 23. 
 Lines on Louis Philippe, 24. Publishes 
 " Flore et Zephvr," 26. His early 
 monogram, 28. Becomes a Fraserian, 
 28. Begins the " Yellpwplush Cor 
 respondence," 28. Reviews Lytton s 
 I" Sea Captain " in his " Epistles to the 
 Literati," 29. Writes his story of 
 "Catherine," 29. Proposes to write 
 "Tales of the Old Bailey, 31. He 
 criticises highwayman novels in the per 
 son of Mr. I key Solomon, 32. Char 
 acters in " Catherine," 34. Writes the 
 " Shabby Genteel Story," 35. Writes 
 the " Great Hoggarty Diamond," 35. 
 Sterling s opinion of it, 36. Different pa 
 pers in Fraser, 1842-43, 36. His connec 
 tion with " Punch." 37. His contribu 
 tions to it, 38. " Mr. Punch " in Edin 
 burgh, 38. He is purchased and sent to 
 him, 39. His note in reply, 39. He 
 feels the gravity of his calling, 40. His 
 different noms de plume and writings in 
 " Punch," 41. Dedicates " The Paris 
 Sketch-Book," to his tailor, 41. Pub 
 lishes "Comic Tales and Sketches," 
 43. " Full and ripe," like Addison, 43. 
 His writings in different periodicals and 
 journals, 44. Smallness of his hand 
 writing, 44. His method of writing, 44. 
 Reappearance of his characters, 44. 
 Works of his later literary life, 45. A 
 
 French critic on "yanity , 
 
 His stories stop, buTUtr not erT97"*"48. 
 His beginnings frequently felicitous, 
 
 49. His characters finely discriminated, 
 
 50. His remark about Esmond and 
 Lady Castlewood, 57. His last paper, 
 61. "If my tap is not genuine, it is 
 naught," 62. He draws but one utterly 
 unredeemed scoundrel, 67. His opinion 
 of satire and satirists, 68. Excellence 
 of his historic portraits, 69. He is 
 charged with disloyalty, 71. Defends 
 himself at a dinner in Edinburgh, 71. 
 Character of his verse, 75. Character 
 of his drawings, 78. Excellence of his 
 art criticisms, 81. No good portrait of 
 him, 86. A glimpse of his personal 
 history, 88. His strong religious feel 
 ing, 89. "The Infinite beginning," 
 92. His personal appearance, 94. A 
 blunt remark about Carlyle, 95. His 
 opinion of Dickens, 95. His general 
 manner, 96. His assertion with regard 
 to Swift s Stella, 97. His story about 
 the Eton boys, 98 He defines the 
 difference between Shakespeare and an 
 ordinary mind, 98. His sensitiveness, 99. 
 His feeling towards servants, 99. An 
 instance of his generosity to them, 99. 
 Personal appearance in his last days, 
 100. A remark about Washington, 101. 
 His regret for his lost child, 101. 
 "The tall gentleman," 103. He is not 
 permitted to "tip" an American boy, 
 105. A compromise effected, 106. 
 " Who is that man! " 107. His moodi- 
 ness, no. A remark of Douglas Jerrold 
 concerning him, no. A note to Mr. 
 H odder, ni. His manner of loaning 
 money to his poorer brethren, 112. En 
 gages Hodder as his amanuensis, 113. 
 His manner while dictating, 113. His 
 intention to start a magazine, 14. His 
 observation concerning a secretary, 115. 
 A farewell banquet proposed, 115. His 
 nervousness about it, 115. He dictates 
 the heads of a speech, 116. The Thack 
 eray dinner, 116. Draft of his speech, 
 1 1 7. Anecdote of his tender-heartedness, 
 120. The parting hour, 121. He ar 
 ranges with Mr. Beale for readings of 
 "The Four Georges," 123. Hisdelight 
 in reading " Dombey and Son," 124. 
 " There s no writing against such power 
 as this," 125. Nervous about another 
 speech, 125. He feels that he has lost 
 prestige, 126. His literary generosity, 
 127. His dislike of writing autographs, 
 127. "A humble suggestion " with re 
 gard to Albert Smith s grammar, 128. 
 He is taken ill while lecturing, 129. 
 What he was advised to do. and what 
 
INDEX. 
 
 305 
 
 he did, 129. His saunter along Pall 
 Mall, " He s dead! " 130. In Kensal 
 Green Cemetery, 131- His earliest lit 
 erary efforts, 132. "The Snob," 133. 
 Mr. Thackeray puts up at the Hotel de 
 Bristol, 139. His medicine for a sick 
 old patient, 139. What he did in Paris 
 when he was young, 140. He endeavors 
 to witness an execution, 142. His letter 
 to the editor of the " Morning Chroni 
 cle," 144. Compared with Dickens and 
 Hawthorne, 150. Tossing up with a 
 cabman, 152. The silent rider on his 
 cab, 152. In Horace Mayhew s cham 
 bers, 153. He has a five-pound note 
 to lend, 153. Mr. Edmund Yates de 
 scribes him in " Town Talk," 154. His 
 letter to Mr. Yates, 155. He receives 
 a letter from Dickens in regard to Mr. 
 Yates, 157. His reply, 158. His letter 
 to the Committee of the Garrick Club, 
 159. Coolness between him and Dick 
 ens. They are finally reconciled, 160. 
 Mr. Bell thinks it is like him, 161. 
 He caricatures himself as a winged 
 spirit, 161. His new serial story an 
 nounced, 162. He complains of illness, 
 163. Wishes his valet "good-night," 
 163. What his mother heard in the 
 night, 163. Weight of his brain, 164. 
 His ancestry, 165. His love of ant and 
 artists, 166. His early style, 167. His 
 companions at the " Punch " dinners, 
 168. His love of children, 170. The 
 Thackeray Quadrilateral, 170. He 
 offers himself as M. P. for Oxford, 171. 
 He is defeated, 172. His troubles as 
 editor of "The Cornhill," 172. He 
 offers to increase a charitable subscrip 
 tion, 174. His last dinner at the 
 Garrick Club, 174. His fondness for 
 quoting Horace, 176. His poetry, 177. 
 His first friends, 178. His opinion of 
 
 his early satiric writing, 178. Where 
 he wrote " Vanity Fair," 180. The 
 reality of his creations to him, 180. 
 His opinion of Juvenal, 181. He takes 
 off his hat to Addison, 181. What he 
 thought of one touch in " Vanity Fair," 
 182. His conversation, 182. His 
 house, 185. He proposed to illustrate 
 Dickens s first book, 187. He came to 
 dinner, "because he could not help 
 it," 187. Stamping about, laughing, 
 187. He asks Dickens to tell the Ox 
 ford voters who he was, 188. His 
 feeling with regard to boys, 188. His 
 latest "and last story, 189. His last cor 
 rected words in print, 190. Memo 
 rial poem in " Punch," 191. Memorial 
 poem in Fun," 191. Memorial poem 
 by Lord Houghton, 193. Memorial by 
 T. W. Parsons, 194. " Adsum " by R. 
 H. Stoddard, 195. Thackeray s idea of 
 popularity, 222. The Queen purchases 
 a book from his library, 237. 
 
 Turner, J. W. M. Thackeray s criticism 
 of his " Fighting Temeraire," 82. 
 
 " Wagers, The Devil s," 23. 
 
 Wagstaffe, Theophile. A nom de plume 
 
 of Thackeray, 26. 
 Wordsworth, William. Mock sonnet on 
 
 by Thackeray, 23. 
 
 Yates, Edmund. He describes Thackeray 
 in " Town Talk," 154- Thackeray s 
 letter to him, 155. Dickens writes 
 to Thackeray concerning him, 157. 
 
 g 
 
 Thackeray replies in re Yates, 158. 
 Young, Julian. His delight at dinin 
 with " Boz," 223. He deprecates com 
 parisons between Dickens and Thack 
 eray, 223. 
 
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