SOME-ASPECTS- OF li TH ACK FRAY m MELVILLE - SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From an unpublished water-color drawing by W. Drummond, 1850 By permission of Major WiUlam H. Lambert Frontispiece SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY AtTTHOH OF "THE LIFE OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY ' "THE THACKERAY COUNTRY," ETC. Illustrated BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1911 Copyright, 1911, BY LEWIS MELVILLE. All rights reserved Published, September, 1911 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. TO FREDERICK S. DICKSON THE papers entitled "Thackeray and the Dignity of Literature," "Thack- eray and the Newgate School of Fiction," and "Some First Editions of Thackeray" are now printed for the first time. The other articles, which have appeared in various English (and sometimes also in American) reviews and magazines, have been revised, and in some cases considerably expanded. I am indebted to Mr. W. L. Courtney for permission to include "Thackeray as a Reader and Critic of Books," and "Thack- eray's Ballads," which appeared in the Fortnightly Review, and to Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., for permission to include "Thackeray and Dickens" which appeared in Temple Bar. With regard to "Thack- eray and his Illustrators," Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. have kindly allowed me to viii Some Aspects of Thackeray insert reproductions of several illustrations, including the late George du Maurier's illus- tration from "Esmond," and Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co., Ltd., that of Mr. Brock's illustration to "The Proser." Major Wil- liam H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, has kindly sent me several photographs taken from portraits of Thackeray in his possession, for reproduction in this volume. LEWIS MELVILLE. HARPENDEN, ENGLAND, June, 1911. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THACKERAY AND THE DIGNITY OF LIT- ERATURE 1 II THACKERAY AS A READER AND CRITIC OF BOOKS 22 III THACKERAY'S BALLADS 49 IV THACKERAY AND THE NEWGATE SCHOOL OF FICTION 82 V THACKERAY AS ARTIST 97 VI THACKERAY AND His ILLUSTRATORS . . 124 VII THACKERAY'S ORIGINALS 140 VIII THE LONDON OF " ESMOND" AND " THE VIRGINIANS" 180 IX SOME EDITIONS OF THACKERAY . . . 214 X THACKERAY AND DICKENS 225 XI THE CULT OF THACKERAY 242 XII THACKERAY AND THE STAGE 251 XIII THACKERAY'S "NEW SKETCH BOOK" . 259 XIV MR. WHIBLEY ON THACKERAY 271 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS William Makepeace Thackeray .... Frontispiece From a drawing by W. Drummond, 1850 PAGE Nathaniel Parker Willis 34 Thackeray, M. V. Higgins, and Henry Reeve . 38 From a sketch by Richard Doyle Thackeray's drawing for the ballad of "Little Miss Perkins" 50 Thackeray, from a bust by Deville 54 Thackeray, from a drawing by D. Dighton . . 68 William Harrison Ainsworth 86 Thackeray in 1835, from the drawing by Daniel Maclise 92 Thackeray's drawing for " King Glumpus " . . 98 Title Page to " Flore et Zephyr " 102 Title Page to " Comic Tales and Sketches " . . 106 Cover to "Mrs. Perkins's Ball " 110 Cover to "The Book of Snobs" 112 " Mr. Sedley at the Coffee-House " 114 Illustration by Thackeray for " Vanity Fair" Illustration by Thackeray for "Some Passages in the Life of Major Gahagan" . . . .116 Illustrations by George Cruikshank for a " Leg- end of the Rhine 7 1 120 xii List of Illustrations PAGE "Mr. Pigeon 11 124 Illustration by Kenny Meadows in " Heads of the People " " The Duel in Leicester Field " 128 Illustration by George Du Maurier for " Henry Esmond " "At the Sick Man's Door" '. 130 Illustration by Frederick Walker for "The Adven- tures of Philip " Illustration by Charles E. Brock for " Travels and Sketches in London " 132 Illustration by John Leech for " An Eastern Adventure of the Fat Contributor " . . 134 " Jeames Retiring from Service "" 136 Illustration by John Leech for "Jeames's Diary" " A Student of the Old Masters " . . . . 138 Illustration by Richard Doyle for "The New- comes" Dionysius Lardner 140 Edward Bulwer-Lytton ....'.... 144 Robert Montgomery 148 Benjamin Disraeli 152 The Rev. William Henry Brookfield ... 156 John Wilson Croker 160 William Maginn 164 Theodore P. Hook 170 View of Lincoln's Inn ........ 186 Theatre Royal, Co vent Garden 190 List of Illustrations xiii PAGE The North West Facade of the New Covent Garden Market 194 View of St. Jameses Palace 196 The Hall, Carlton House 200 Vauxhall on a Gala Night 204 View of Kensington Palace 208 Cover to "Our Street " 214 Title Page to " The History of Samuel Titmarsh and The Great Hoggarty Diamond " . . 218 Cover to " Dr. Birch and His Young Friends " 222 Cover to " Rebecca and Rowena " 226 Cover to "The Rose and the Ring " .... 230 Paper wrapper to a monthly part of " Vanity Fair" 234 Paper wrapper to a monthly part of "Pendennis" 238 Paper wrapper to a monthly part of " The New- comes" 244 Paper wrapper to a monthly part of " The Vir- ginians " 248 Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Colonel New- come 252 Mrs. Fiske as Becky Sharp 256 Thackeray, from a drawing by Samuel Laurence 260 Thackeray, from the portrait by Samuel Lau- rence, 1852 264 Thackeray, from one of his later photographs . 268 SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY CHAPTER I Thackeray and the Dignity of Literature THACKERAY was always proud to hold a brief for the dignity of his calling and it was, therefore, with no little irri- tation that one day early in 1850 he found himself arraigned by two London papers, the Examiner and the Morning Chronicle, by the latter for "fostering a baneful preju- dice" against literary men; by the former for "stooping to flatter" this prejudice in the public mind, and condescending to carica- ture his literary fellow-labourers in order to pay court to "the non-literary class." The attack was based upon the portrayal of the literary men who figured in the novel of "Pendennis." Thackeray's reply was very much to the point. In the first place he 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray denied that the characters were exaggerated. "I have seen the booksellers whom Bludyer robbed of his boots: 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," he wrote. "Why are these things not to be described if they illustrate, as they appear to do, that strange and awful struggle of good and wrong which takes place in our hearts and in the world?" In the second place, he expressed the opinion that he was entirely justified in what he had written. "I hope," he said, "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 honour at heart. If there are no spendthrifts or parasites amongst us, the satire becomes un- just; 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 The Dignity of Literature 3 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 indignant at the famous history of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. Are we to be passed over because we are faultless, 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 un- natural, and there would be a lamentable end of writers and readers of such com- positions." Thirdly, he laughed to scorn the notion that men of letters as a class were looked at askance by the non-literary class. "Does any man who has written a book worth reading any poet, novelist, man of science lose reputation by his character for genius or for learning?" he asked. "Does he not, on the contrary, get friends, sympathy, ap- 4 Some Aspects of Thackeray plause money, perhaps? all good and pleasant things in themselves, and not un- generously 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 literary 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 read- ers than shall choose to listen to another author; but surely all get their hearing. The literary profession is not held in dis- repute; nobody wants to disparage it; no The Dignity of Literature 5 man loses his social rank, whatever it may be, by practising 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 emi- nence is by any other kind of merit." The substance of this passage he repeated, when in the following year he replied for Litera- ture at the Royal Literary Fund's Annual Dinner. "We don't want patrons, we want friends; and I thank God we have them; and as for any idea that our calling is de- spised by the world, I do, for my part, pro- test against and deny the whole statement," he declared. "I have been in all sorts of society in this world, and I have never been despised that I know of. I don't believe there has been a literary man of the slight- est merit or of the slightest mark who did not greatly advance himself by his literary labours. I see along this august table gentle- men whom I have had the honour of shaking by the hand, and gentlemen whom I should never have called my friends but for the humble literary labours I have been engaged 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray in. And therefore I say, don't let us be pitied any more." Thackeray had little patience with those men of letters who suffered from the impres- sion that they were despised and with those who made strenuous efforts to combat a prejudice that was non-existent. "Instead of accusing the public of persecuting and dis- paraging 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 ques- tion which all people of sense must take to be settled. If I sit at your table, I suppose that I am my neighbour's equal, as that he is mine. If I begin straightway with a pro- test of e 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 neighbour, who would like to eat his soup in quiet, or the man of letters, who commences the argu- ment?" Indeed, he thought the man of letters received more sympathy than was due to him. "A literary man," he wrote in The Dignity of Literature 7 "Pendennis," "has often to work for his bread against time, or against his will, or in spite of his health, or of his indolence, or of his repugnance to the subject on which he is called to exert himself, just like any other daily toiler. When you want to make money by Pegasus (as he must, perhaps, who has no other saleable property) farewell poetry and aerial flights: Pegasus only rises now like Mr. Green's balloon, at periods adver- tised beforehand, and when the spectator's money has been paid. Pegasus trots in harness, over the stony pavement, and pulls a cart or cab behind him. Often Pegasus does his work with panting sides and trem- bling knees, and not seldom gets a cut of the whip of the driver. Do not let us, however, be too prodigal of our pity upon Pegasus. There is no reason why this animal should be exempt from labour, or illness, or decay, any more than any of the other creatures of God's world. If he gets the whip, Pegasus very often deserves it, and I for one am quite ready to protest . . . against the doctrine which some poetical sympathisers are in- 3 Some Aspects of Thackeray clined to put forward, viz., that men of letters, and what is called genius, are to be exempt from the prose duties of this daily bread-wanting, tax-paying life, and are not to be made to work and pay like their neighbours." If on the one hand Thackeray vehemently protested against the idea that those who followed the pursuit of letters required pity and sympathy, on the other he was the first to admit that the status of men of letters as a class might be improved. "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." An- thony Trollope has stated that Thackeray held strong views that much was due by the Queen's ministers to men of letters, and he added that Thackeray "no doubt had his feelings of slighted merit because no part of the debt was paid to him." Thackeray The Dignity of Literature 9 probably would have liked a baronetcy or a barony, and as a representative man of letters he might well have been created Lord Thackeray of Brompton. It was not, how- ever, that he was particularly desirous of any such distinction for himself, but he thought if titles and stars and ribands are good for soldiers and sailors and statesmen and artists and civil servants, why should they be withheld from authors? He attrib- uted the fact that the Fountain of Honour did not play upon men of letters to their comparative poverty. " Directly men of let- ters get rich, they will come in for their share of honour too," he declared. While Thackeray thus declared that men of letters should share in the rewards for meritorious services distributed by the gov- ernment, he confessed frankly that he did not see how these honours were to be dis- tributed. "I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at his accession, the King had a mind to establish an Order for literary men," he wrote in a "Roundabout Paper." "It was to have been called the io Some Aspects of Thackeray Order of Minerva I suppose with an Owl for a badge. The knights were to have worn a star of sixteen points, and a yellow ribbon; and good old Samuel Johnson was talked of as President, or Grand Cross, or Grand Owl, of the society. Now about such an order as this there certainly may be doubts. Consider the claimants, the difficulty of settling their claims, the rows and squabbles amongst the candidates, and the subsequent decision of posterity. Dr. Beattie would have ranked as first poet, and twenty years after the sub- lime Mr. Hayley would, no doubt, have claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not have been eligible, on account of his dangerous freethinking opinions; and her sex, as well as her republican sentiments, might have interfered with the knighthood of the immortal Mrs. Catharine Macaulay. How Goldsmith would have paraded the ribbon at Madame Comely s', or the Academy dinner! How Peter Pindar would have railed at it! Fifty years later, the noble Scott would have worn the Grand Cross and deserved it; but Gifford would have had it; The Dignity of Literature 1 1 and Byron, and Shelley, and Hazlitt, and Hunt would have been without it; and had Keats been proposed as officer, how the Tory prints would have yelled with rage and scorn! Had the star of Minerva lasted to our present time but I pause, not because the idea is dazzling, but too awful. Fancy the claimants, and the row about their precedence! . . . Fancy the struggle! Fancy the squabble! Fancy the distribution of prizes!" The bestowal of pensions was open to the same objections. " Even that prevailing senti- ment which regrets that means should not be provided for giving them leisure, for enabling them to perfect great works in retirement, that they should waste away their strength with fugitive literature, etc., I hold to be often uncalled for and dangerous," Thackeray wrote in his appreciation of Blan- chard. "I believe, if most men of letters were to be pensioned, I am sorry to say I believe they wouldn't work at all; and of others, that the labour which is to answer the calls of the day is the one best suited 12 Some Aspects of Thackeray to their genius. Suppose Sir Robert Peel were to write to you, and, enclosing a cheque for twenty thousand pounds, in- struct you to pension any fifty deserving authors, so that they might have leisure to retire and write 'great' work; on whom would you fix?" The dignity of literature, however, de- pends, not on its rewards, but upon the dig- nity of the men of letters; and the contempt that was felt for Grub Street in the eight- eenth century was, as Thackeray was at pains to point out, largely the fault of Grub Street, too many of the inhabitants of which were intemperate, improvident, and far from respectable, and not only the minor lights but some of the great men also. Things, happily, have changed, and if Grub Street is still with us, it is a more temperate, more clean-living neighbourhood than ever it was before, and its inhabitants, as well as the literary man in general, have a lofty ideal of their calling. Jealousy was once the bane of the calling; to-day that noxious passion is kept, on the whole, well under The Dignity of Literature 13 control. The Croker-Macaulay feud could not to-day be fought out in the quarterlies. "Human nature is not altered since Richard- son's time; and if there are rakes, male and female, as there were a hundred years since, there are, in like manner, envious critics now, as then," Thackeray wrote in his paper on Fielding. "How eager are they to predict a man's fall, how unwilling to acknowledge his rise! If a man write a popular work, he is sure to be snarled at; if a literary man rise to eminence out of his profession, all his old comrades are against him. They can't pardon his success: would it not be wiser for gentlemen of the pen to do as they do in France, have an esprit de corps, declare that their body and calling are as honourable as any other, feel their own power, and, instead of crying down any member of their pro- fession who happens to light on a prize, support him with all their strength? The condition of literary men might be very soon changed by a manly literary union of this kind." Thackeray, towards the end of his life, 14 Some Aspects of Thackeray laid down once for all the qualities that en- sure the dignity of the calling to which he belonged. "What ought to be the literary man's point of honour now-a-days?" he wrote in a "Roundabout Paper." "Suppose, friendly reader, you are one of the craft; what legacy would you like to leave to your children? First of all (and by Heaven's gracious help) you would pray and strive to give them such an endowment of love, as should last certainly for all their lives, and perhaps be transmitted to their children. You would (by the same aid and blessing) keep your honour pure, and transmit a name unstained to those who have a right to bear it. You would, though this quality of giving is one of the easiest of the literary man's qualities you would, out of your earnings, great or small, be able to help a poor brother in need, to dress his wounds, and, if it were but twopence, to give him succour. . . . You will, if letters be your vocation, find saving harder than giving and spending. To save be your endeavour too, against the night's coming when no man may The Dignity of Literature 15 work; when the arm is weary with the long day's labour; when the brain perhaps grows dark; when the old, who can labour no more, want warmth and rest, and the young ones call for supper." In yet another "Round- about Paper" Thackeray, writing after the death of Washington Irving and Macaulay, was happy to point his arguments on the dignity of literature by showing how they fulfilled his ideal of what a man of letters should be. "'Be a good man, my dear! 9 One can't but think of these last words of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the value of worldly success, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and, of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family gentle, generous, good-humoured, affectionate, self-denying: in society, a delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; quite unspoiled by pros- perity; never obsequious to the. great (or worse still, to the base and mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and other countries); eager to acknowledge every con- temporary's merit; always kind and affable 1 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray to the young members of his calling; in his professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the most charming masters of our lighter language; the constant friend to us and our nation; to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an ex- emplar of goodness, probity, and pure life. . . . 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; honoured 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 kindliness, 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 honour of the flag!" The Dignity of Literature 17 To such qualities as these two men, to mention no others, possessed, fame comes second. That is an accident, a happy, glori- ous accident for those upon whom its mantle falls. It may come with a first book, it may come in middle life, it may come at the end of a career hitherto obscure, it may come after death, it may come and go, it may come not at all. A man can but do his best, and take such reward as may come his way. "The literary character, let us hope or admit, writes quite honestly; but no man supposes he would work perpetually but for money. And as for immortality, it is quite beside the bargain," Thackeray wrote. "Is it reasonable to look for it, or to pretend that you are actuated by a desire to attain it? Of all the quill-drivers, how many have ever drawn that prodigious prize? Is it even fair to ask that many should? Out of a regard for poor dear prosperity and men of letters to come, let us be glad that the great immortality number comes up so rarely. Mankind would have no time otherwise, and would be so gorged with old masterpieces, 1 8 Some Aspects of Thackeray that they would not occupy themselves with new, and future literary men would have no chance of a livelihood." There are great men and little men, working in the field of letters as in other fields, and all cannot hope for the spoils that come to the victor. "In the battle of life are we all going to try for the honours of championship? If we can do our duty, if we can keep our place pretty honourably throughout the combat, let us say Laus Deo at the end of it, as the firing ceases, and the night falls upon the field." Thus the Weekday Preacher on "The Chances of the Literary Profession." "To do your work honestly, to amuse and instruct your reader of to-day, to die when your time comes, and go hence with as clean a breast as may be; may these be all yours and ours, by God's will. Let us be content with our status as literary craftsmen, telling the truth as far as may be, hitting no foul blow, con- descending to no servile puffery, filling not a very lofty, but a manly and honourable part." "Ah! ye knights of the pen! May honour The Dignity of Literature 19 be your shield and truth tip your lances! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him." In this passage Thackeray outlined his own course. Truth was the first consideration in his eyes, and it was the want of truth in such works as are commonly grouped as the New- gate School of Fiction that made him attack them as being dishonest and therefore im- moral. "If truth is not always pleasant, at any rate truth is best, from whatever chair from those whence grave writers or think- ers argue, as from that at which the story- teller sits," Thackeray wrote in the Preface to "Pendennis;" and elsewhere, in the lecture on "Charity and Humour," he en- larged on the theme. "I can't help telling the truth as I view it, and describing what I see. To describe it otherwise than it seems to me would be falsehood in that calling in which it has pleased Heaven to place me; treason to that conscience which says that men are weak; that truth must be told; 20 Some Aspects of Thackeray that fault must be owned; that pardon must be prayed for; and that Love reigns supreme over all." Thackeray took his profession very seriously, and never undervalued the responsibilities of the writer, even of the novelist, who, in his opinion, should be a teacher. " 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 which falls upon a man in such a station. Is it deserved or undeserved? Who is this that sets up to preach to man- kind, and to laugh at many things which men reverence? I hope I may be able to tell the truth always, and to see it aright, according to the eyes which God Almighty gives me. And if, in the exercise of my calling, I get friends and find encouragement and sympathy, I need not tell you how very much I feel and am thankful for this kind of support. Indeed I can't reply lightly upon this subject or feel otherwise than very grave when people praise me as you do." Thus he wrote to Dr. John Brown, who had been The Dignity of Literature 21 instrumental in organising a testimonial to him; and in reply to the Rev. Joseph Sortain, who had sent him a volume of sermons, "I want, too," he wrote, "to say in my way that love and truth are the greatest of Heaven's commandments and blessings to us; that the best of us, the many especially who pride themselves on their virtue most, are wretchedly weak, vain and selfish; and to preach such a charity at least as a common sense of our shame and unworthiness might inspire, to us poor people." Therein may be found Thackeray's confession of faith as a novelist and weekday preacher. CHAPTER II Thackeray as a Reader and Critic of Books SCARCELY a month passes without an article on Thackeray in some maga- zine or review. Reminiscences of Thackeray, Thackeray's Homes and Haunts, Thackeray's Originals, Thackeray in the United States, Thackeray as an Orator, Thackeray and Dickens, Thackeray as a Writer, Thackeray as Artist, Thackeray as Art-Critic, Thack- eray and the Stage, Thackeray and Punch, are among recent headings. It is strange, therefore, when it might be assumed that this author had been treated from every standpoint, to find that no one has thought it worth while to discourse of him as a reader and critic of books. As a boy Thackeray was fond of books, and at Cambridge he was an omnivorous read- er, principally, however, of fiction, poetry, and history. History, indeed, was one of Reader and Critic of Books 23 his favourite studies. "Read a tremendous lot of history," he advised a young cousin one day as they were leaving the Reading Room of the British Museum, where he had been searching for a book that would tell him, not of the battles of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, but, figuratively speaking, of the colour of his breeches. Though in later years, speaking of this branch of learning, he remarked to Mr. Jeffreson: "There 's nothing new, and there 's nothing true, and it don't much signify," yet as a young man he was a stickler for the dignity of history. Reviewing "The Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence" in the Times (1838) he expressed his disappointment that "the dignity of history sadly diminishes as we grow better acquainted with the materials which compose it. In our orthodox history books, the characters move on as in a gaudy play-house procession, a glittering pageant of kings and warriors and stately ladies majestically appearing and passing away. Only he who sits very near the stage can dis- cover of what poor stuff the spectacle is 24 Some Aspects of Thackeray made. The kings are poor creatures, taken from the dregs of the company; the noble knights are dirty dwarfs in tin-foil; the fair ladies are painted hags, with cracked feath- ers and soiled trains. One wonders how gas and distance could ever have rendered them so bewitching. The perusal of letters like these produces a very similar disenchantment, and the great historical figures dwindle down into the common proportions as we come to view them closely. Kings, Ministers, and Generals form the principal dramatis personnce; and, if we may pursue the stage parallel a little further, eye never lighted upon a troupe more contemptible. Weighty political changes had been worked in the country, others threatened equally great. Great questions were agitated whether the Protestant Religion should be the creed of the State, and the Elector of Hanover a King, or whether Papacy should be restored, and James III. placed on the throne whether the continental despotism aimed at by Louis should be established, or the war continued to maintain the balance of power Reader and Critic of Books 25 in Europe on these points our letter- writers hardly deign to say a word. The political question is whether Harley should be in or Godolphin, how Mrs. Masham, the chambermaid, can be checked or won over, how the Duchess of Marlborough can regain her lost influence over the queen, or whether the Duke is strong enough to do without it, can force his Captain-Generalcy for life, and compel the queen to ensure to his daughters the pension and places of their mother." If the Duchess of Marlborough' s correspond- ence disenchanted Thackeray, disgust was the result of a perusal of a volume entitled "A Diary relative to George IV. and Queen Caroline," and he reviewed it both in the Times and in Eraser's Magazine, with a virulence that, even in those early days, was unusual with him. "We may read this diary," Thackeray concluded his review in the Times, "and say, indeed, it is a ridicule to bear a towering name, or to pretend to the old virtue which characterized it, or to the honour which formerly belonged to it. It is ridicule indeed to come of a noble race, 26 Some Aspects of Thackeray and uphold the well-known honour of an ancient line. What matters it if you can read in your family record the history of a thousand years of loyalty and courage, of all that is noble in sentiment, honest and brave in action? The pride of ancestors is a faded superstition the emulation of them a needless folly. There is no need now to be loyal to your prince, or tender to his memory. Take his bounty while living, share his purse and his table, gain his confi- dence, and learn his secrets, flatter him, cringe to him, vow to him an unbounded fidelity and when he is dead, write a diary and betray him!" It was in quite another spirit that he criticised Carlyle's "French Revolution." While regretting that "never did a man's style so mar his subject and dim his genius," Thackeray admitted, almost to their fullest extent, the highest qualities with which the most enthusiastic of the historian's followers endowed him; praised him for his lofty and noble impartiality; and especially singled out for admiration the story of the fall of the Bastille, and the arrest and trial Reader and Critic of Books 27 of Danton and his colleagues. "The reader needs not be told that this book is written in an eccentric prose, here and there dis- figured by grotesque conceits and images; but, for all this, it betrays most extraordi- nary powers learning, observation, and humour," Thackeray wrote. "Above all, it has no CANT. It teems with sound, hearty philosophy (besides certain transcendental- isms which we do not pretend to understand), it possesses genius, if any book ever did. It wanted no more for keen critics to cry fie upon it! Clever critics have such an eye for genius, that when Mr. Bulwer published his forgotten book concerning Athens, they discovered that no historian was like to him; and that he, on his Athenean hobby, had quite outtrotted safely Mr. Gibbon, and with the same creditable unanimity they cried down Mr. Carlyle's history, opening upon it a hundred little piddling sluices of small wit, destined to wash the book sheer away; and lo! the book remains, it is only the poor wit which has run dry." Carlyle, however, was not quite satisfied with this praise. "I 28 Some Aspects of Thackeray understand there have been many reviews of a mixed character," he wrote to his brother. "I got one in the Times last week. The writer is one Thackeray, a half monstrous Cornish giant, kind of painter, Cambridge man, and Paris newspaper correspondent, who is now writing for his life in London. . . . His article is rather like him, and, I suppose, calculated to do the book good." It is not generally known that Thackeray on two occasions nearly entered the lists as an historian. The first time was in 1844, when he undertook to write a Life of Talley- rand for Messrs. Chapman and Hall. The biography was actually advertised, but Thackeray went Eastward Ho! and the publishers issued in its place the " Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo." The second time was sixteen years later, when he was asked to continue Macaulay's history. This offer he neither accepted nor yet definitely refused. "Queen Anne has long been my ambition," he wrote to Sir John (then Dr.) Skelton, "but she will take many a long year's labour, and I can't ask Reader and Critic of Books 29 any other writer to delay on my account. At the beginning of the year I had prepared an announcement stating that I was engaged on that history; but kept it back, as it was necessary that I should pursue my old trade of novelist for some time yet to come. Mean- while her image stands before St. Paul's, for all the world to look at, and who knows but some one else may be beforehand with both of us, and sketch her off while we are only laying the palette." Thackeray's first known pronouncement about a book occurs in a letter written at Cambridge, saying he would bring home with him Shelley's "Revolt of Islam," "a most beautiful poem though the story is absurd, and the republican sentiments conveyed in it, if possible, more absurd." But, after a short interval, he wrote that he would not take the poem with him because "it is an odd kind of book, containing poetry that would induce one to read it through, and sentiments which might strongly incline one to throw it on the fire." Shelley's works certainly interested him at this time, and 30 Some Aspects of Thackeray when the scheme of a university magazine to be called The Chimcera, was mooted, he volunteered to contribute an "Essay on Shelley." It is said that he actually wrote this paper at Paris during the Long Vaca- tion in 1829, but the bibliographers have failed to trace the publication of either magazine or article. During the few months Thackeray spent at Weimar he read Korner, and sent transla- tions of some poems to his mother. He also read "Faust," but without much enthusiasm. "Of course I am delighted," he said; "but not to that degree I expected." On the other hand, he had unbounded admiration for Schiller. "I have been reading Shake- speare in German. If I could ever do the same for Schiller in English, I should be proud of having conferred a benefit on my country. I do believe him to be after Shake- speare, 'the poet'!" He never attempted this gigantic task, though when a certain Fraulein, whom he affected to admire, lost her heart to a gentleman in the Guards, with magnificent waistcoats and ten thousand a Reader and Critic of Books 31 year, he bemoaned his fate by translating merrily some lines of his favourite author : "The world is empty, This heart is dead. Its hopes and its aches For ever are fled." When Thackeray was told that some one had translated "Wilhelm Tell" into English, and while so doing had improved the play, he replied that that was quite unnecessary. No doubt this preference for the lesser genius may be traced to the fact that while "Faust," in its essence, is metaphysical, the predomi- nant feature of "Wilhelm Tell" is the love of home. Love of home appealed to him, while the former did not attract him, for though after reading Cousin's "History of Philosophy," he admitted that he had been so interested that he thought the excitement of metaphysics must equal almost that of gambling, it may safely be assumed that he never pursued the study. Thackeray's reading when he was abroad in the thirties was not very deep. Of the great French writers he found little to say. 3 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray Montaigne, as one may guess from his later writings, he loved. He did not think Victor Hugo more poetical than Voltaire; and, while admiring "La Peau de Chagrin," found the characterisation feeble. He would have liked Scribe if all the characters in the plays did not break the Seventh Command- ment. "Of the drama, Victor Hugo and Dumas are the well-known and respectable guardians," he wrote in 1840. "Every piece Victor Hugo has written since * Hernani ' has contained a monster a delightful monster, saved by one virtue. There is Triboulet, a foolish monster; Lucrece Borgia, a ma- ternal monster; Mary Tudor, a religious monster; Monsieur Quasimodo, a hump- backed monster; and others that might be named whose monstrosities we are induced to pardon nay, admiringly to witness because they are agreeably mingled with some exquisite display of affection. And, as the great Hugo has one monster to each play, the great Dumas has, ordinarily, half- a-dozen, to whom murder is nothing; com- mon intrigue, and simple breakage of the Reader and Critic of Books 33 before-mentioned Commandment, nothing; but who live and move in a vast delightful complication of crime that cannot be easily conceived in England, much less described." But, later, he was a fervent admirer of the " Mousquetaires " series. "All the forenoon I read with intense delight a novel called *Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,' " he told Mrs. Brookfield; "a continuation of the famous * Mousquetaires,' and just as interesting, keeping one panting from volume to volume, longing for more." "Dumas is wonderful. He is better than Walter Scott," he said on another occasion. "I came near writing a book on the same subject, *Les Trois Mous- quetaires/ and taking Monsieur D'Artagnan for my hero. D'Artagnan was a real char- acter of the age of Louis XIV., and wrote his own 'Memoires.' I remember picking up a dingy copy of them on an old bookstall in London, price sixpence, and intended to make something of it. But Dumas got ahead of me." "His good spirits never seem to change," Thackeray said to John Esten Cooke. "He amuses you and keeps you in 34 Some Aspects of Thackeray a good humour, which is not the effect pro- duced on me by many writers. Some books please me and enliven me, and others de- press me. I never could read 'Don Quixote' with pleasure; the book makes me sad." Thackeray never liked the works of Eugene Sue. "Eugene Sue has written a very great number of novels beginning with mari- time novels in the Satanic style, so to speak, full of crime and murder of every descrip- tion. He met in his early work with no very great success. He gave up the indecencies of language and astonished the world with 'Mathilde' three years since" (i. e., in 1842), "which had the singular quality among French novels of containing no improprieties of expression. In my mind it is one of the most immoral books in the world. 'The Mysteries of Paris' followed, with still greater success, and the same cleverness of construction, and the same sham virtue." This opinion he expressed in a letter to Mac- vey Napier, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, to which periodical he desired to contribute. The outcome of the corre- NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS After an engraving from the drawing by G. W. Flagg Reader and Critic of Books 35 spondence was an amusing article on N. P. Willis's "Dashes at Life." While in Paris Thackeray translated "Le Bon Ange," verses introduced into Dumas' play, "Don Juan de Marana," which may be found in "The Paris Sketch Book," and he also wrote the delightful "Imitations of Beranger." In Germany he contrived to imbue himself with the spirit in which Uhland wrote his poems; and among the "Ballads" may be found admirable renderings of "Es pfliickte Bliimlein mannigfalt" ("The Chap- let"), and "Da liegen sie alle, die grauen Hohen" ("The King on the Tower"). It was in the National Standard, of which he was eventually proprietor and editor, that Thackeray's first "official" criticism appeared. The book reviewed was Robert Montgomery's "Woman: the Angel of Life." The notice is only remarkable for the con- cluding sentences, which follow an extract of fourteen lines of the poem. "These are nice verses. On examination, we find that the compositor, by some queer blunder, has printed them backwards; but as it does not 3 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray seem to spoil the sense, we shall not give him the trouble to set them up again. They are as good one way as the other." Mr. Yellow- plush may have been thinking of this when he took a sentence from "The Sea-Captain," a play by " Sawed wadgeorgeearllittnbulwig;" tried it every way, "backards, forards, and in all sorts of trancepositions," and found "all which are as sensible as the fust passidge." There is no doubt that at this time Thackeray, like Pendennis, would not have hesitated at twenty-four hours' notice to pass an opinion upon the greatest scholars or to give a judgment upon the encyclopaedia. One of his earliest Fraser papers was a violent onslaught on the "Keepsake" sort of production. " Miss Landon, Miss Mitford, or my Lady Blessington, writes a song . . . about 'Water-Lily,' chilly, stilly, shivering beside a streamlet, plighted, blighted, love- benighted, falsehood sharper than a gimlet, lost affection, recollection, cut connexion, tears in torrents, true-love token, spoken, broken, sighing, dying, girl of Florence; and Reader and Critic of Books 37 so on. The poetry is quite worthy of the picture, and a little sham sentiment is em- ployed to illustrate a little sham art. . . . It cannot be supposed that Miss Landon, a woman of genius Miss Mitford, a lady of exquisite wit and taste should, of their own accord, sit down to indite namby- pamby verses about silly, half -decent pic- tures; or that Jenkins, Powis, Meadows and Co. are not fatigued with the paltry labour assigned to them. . . . Who sets them to this wretched work? To paint those eternal fancy portraits of ladies in voluptuous atti- tudes and various stages of deshabille, to awaken the dormant sensibilities of misses in their teens, or tickle the worn-out palates of rakes and roues? What a noble occupa- tion for a poet! What a delicate task for an artist!" He was as bitter when writing of Miss Landon's "Ethel Churchill" and of Mrs. Trollope's "Vicar of Wrexhill," in which she abused those who interpreted the Scriptures in other ways than she. "Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings 38 Some Aspects of Thackeray and mend stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled reli- gion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their families and more lovingly among their neighbours. . . . Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide in their peculiar notions. . . . There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the poor erring woman it was the sin of pride." At this time Thackeray was asked to a party, and was about to accept, but he heard that Mrs. Trollope would be among the guests. "O, by Jove! I can't come," he exclaimed. "I Ve just cut up her * Vicar of Wrexhill* in a review. I think she tells lies." When "Ernest Maltravers " came into Thackeray's hands, he applied the lash with the utmost vigour. In his zeal for the pure and healthy in literature, he went too far, and showed what might easily have been construed as personal animus against the i C _i C 5 Reader and Critic of Books 39 author, though it is certain none existed. When he came to forty years he was sorry for what he had written, and asked pardon of the author of "The Caxtons," especially for two performances among the critical and biographical works of the erudite Mr. Yellowplush. Like most young writers, he sought for the blemishes rather than the virtues of books sent to him for review. "I suppose we all begin by being too savage," he said in after days; "I know one who did" He grew more gentle as the years passed, and the parodies in Punch were certainly written without malice. He laughed at the weaknesses of his victims, but the laugh was kindly. "I hate Juvenal," he wrote to Mr. Hannay, soon after "Esmond" appeared. "I mean, I think him a truculent brute, and I like 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 in- 4 Some Aspects of Thackeray tellectual 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." It was probably while Thackeray was at Cambridge that he laid the foundation of his love for the writers of the eighteenth century. In his Lectures, however, it is of the men and their lives rather than of their books he treated. Yet here and there are critical remarks. Swift he reluctantly ad- mitted to possess a surprising humour, noble, just, and honest satire, and the power of perfect imagery: "the greatest wit of all times," "an immense genius." But it is obvious that of all the writings he preferred the "Journal to Stella," than which, he de- clared, there was "nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching." He could not refuse to see Sterne's wit, humour, and pathos, but he disliked his pose: "he used to blubber perpetually in his study, and finding his tears infectious, and that they brought him a great popularity, Reader and Critic of Books 4 1 he exercised the lucrative gift of weeping; he utilised it, and cried on every occasion." He was prejudiced against both these writers, and in a letter to a correspondent who had lent him some Sterne MSS., one reason may be discovered: "Of course any man is wel- come to believe as he likes except a parson; and I can't help looking upon Swift and Sterne as a couple of traitors and renegades . . . with a scornful pity for them in spite of all their genius and their greatness." For Congreve, Wycherley, Farquhar, and their merry and shameless Comic Muse with the libertine heroes and the wanton heroines he had no liking. "A touch of Steele's tender- ness is worth all his [Congreve's] finery; a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addi- son's pure sunshine, and his tawdry play- house taper is invisible." It was not as the author of "Cato," nor of the poem celebrat- ing the victor of Blenheim that Addison attracted him, but as " a Tatler of small talk and a Spectator of Mankind." "He came in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle 42 Some Aspects of Thackeray satirist, who hit no unfair blow, the kind judge who castigated only in smiling." Thackeray loved Steele, whom he declared the founder of sentimental writing in Eng- lish, and the first author to pay a manly homage to woman. To be natural was a short cut to the heart of the author of "Vanity Fair," and on this ground he paid tribute to Steele and to Goldsmith, with his simple songs of love and beauty. He could not too highly praise "The Deserted Village," "The Vicar of Wakefield," or the two famous plays. Besides Goldsmith, his favourite poets seem to have been Prior and Gay, "Sweet lyric singers," he styled them. Prior, he regarded as the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poets; while Gay charmed him by the force of simple melody and artless ringing laughter. He singled out the six pastorals called "The Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of "Trivia," and remarked that "these are to poetry what charming little Dresden figures are to sculpture: graceful, minikin, fantastic, with a certain beauty always ac- Reader and Critic of Books 43 company ing them." Pope he unhesitatingly ranked highest among the poets, brightest among the English wits and humourists, and the greatest literary artist of the eighteenth century. Before Fielding and Smollett he bowed low, as a subject before his sovereign. "Humphrey Clinker" he thought the most amusing story written since the goodly art of novel-writing began, and he pronounced "Peregrine Pickle" "excellent for its liveli- ness and spirit, and wonderful for its atro- cious vulgarity." He preferred both these writers to Richardson, though he admitted that "Clarissa" had one of the best managed surprises he had read; but his favourite author was, of course, Fielding, who may be looked upon as the literary god-father of his famous successor. "I have just got two new novels from the library by Mr. Fielding," he wrote to Mrs. Brookfield in 1845; "the one is * Amelia,' the most delightful portrait of a woman that surely ever was penned; the other is * Joseph Andrews,' which gives me no particular pleasure, for it is both coarse and careless, and the author makes an absurd 44 Some Aspects of Thackeray brag of his twopenny learning, upon which he values himself evidently more than upon the best of his own qualities." He naturally does not think Tom Jones a virtuous char- acter, and he protests against the author's evident liking and admiration for his hero, but "as a picture of manners, the novel of 'Torn Jones' is indeed exquisite; as a work of construction, quite a wonder; the by- play of wisdom; the power of observation; the multiplied felicitous turns and thoughts; the varied character of the great Comic Epic: keep the reader in a perpetual ad- miration and curiosity." Years before, in the last article he wrote for the Times, he had paid tribute to this master of fiction. "What is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he brings upon his stage; in * Amelia* James has his generosity, and his silly wife her good-nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable object, whom we Reader and Critic of Books 45 like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness and love goes along with this laughter, and it was this mixed feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself, and knew so well how to excite in others. When- ever he has to relate an action of benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it. Some writers of fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad characters; these our author treats with a philosophic calmness it is when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic; you fancy that you see the tears in his manly eyes, nor does he care to disguise any of the affectionate sympathies of his great heart. This is a defect in art, perhaps, but a very charming one." It was not only Fielding's matter but also his man- ner that extorted Thackeray's praise. "My English would have been much better if I had read Fielding before I was ten," he once remarked. And because compliments did not flow from him too easily this has been recorded. Another magnificent tribute he paid to a great historian: "To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it 4 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray written on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it." For his contemporaries, however, so long as their works were free from vulgarity, af- fectation, and snobbishness, Thackeray usu- ally contrived to find pleasant words. He wrote an appreciative review of Macaulay's "Essays," when they were first collected in book form. He pronounced "The Song of the Shirt" to be the finest lyric ever written; and regarded Douglas Jerrold as his most important rival on the staff of Punch. "Jane Eyre" he mentioned as the master-work of a great genius, while for Tennyson's writings he had the most unbounded admiration. Lytton he praised for the example he set to other authors by being " thoroughly literate; " and many years before, he wrote "Cod- lingsby" he had praised "Coningsby" in the Pictorial Times. Lever pleased him, but he insisted that this author's character- istic was not humour, but sentiment. Many a friendly puff did he give to Dickens, both in the lectures and in articles. He was, however, constrained to admit that his great Reader and Critic of Books 47 contemporary was not a deep thinker, though "he has a clear and bright-eyed intelligence, which is better than philosophy. I think he is equal to Fielding and Smollett at any rate to Smollett. He is not such a scholar as Fielding was." "He knows that my books 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." It may confidently be assumed that Thack- eray had not much doubt as to which set of books was right. It cannot be contended that Thackeray was a great critic. Indeed there is no doubt but that, as a rule, he preferred second-rate books of the first-class to the greatest. For instance, while as a matter of course he ad- mitted that Milton was a great poet, he added that "he was such a bore that no one could read him." Whatever one may think of the discernment of a man who says that, it is impossible to doubt his honesty. He was often led away by the character of the author whose works he was criticising. He 48 Some Aspects of Thackeray disapproved of Swift and Sterne, and rather grudgingly admitted their qualities; but he gladly praised Pope, whom he loved because of his infirmity, and because of the love the poet bore his mother. His judgments came from the heart rather than the intellect. It was fortunate when these coincided. "St. Charles," he said to Edward FitzGerald, in a third-floor in Charlotte Street, putting one of Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead, remembering his devotion to his half-mad sister. "Humour is wit and love," he said in the lecture on "Charity and Humour," " and the best humour is that which contains most humanity, that which is flavoured throughout with tenderness and kindness." In that short passage is contained the keynote of all his criticism. Above all, it was neces- sary to be sincere to ensure a favourable ver- dict from the man whose proud boast it was : "Stranger! I have never writ a flattery, Nor signed the page that register'd a lie." CHAPTER III A WELL-KNOWN critic remarked many years ago that if in England you write poetry by profession, however bad that poetry may be, you are a poet; but if you are a merchant, a lawyer, a novelist, any- body, you do not count as a poet, for then the prevailing feeling is: "What business have you as a practical man to make such an ass of yourself?" This statement, the truth of which as regards the general reader cannot be controverted, may account in part for the comparative neglect of Thack- eray's ballads; while a second reason is, no doubt, that his poetry has been over- shadowed by his novels; and a third cause of neglect may be found in the lamentable fact that light verse does not meet with much encouragement in this country. The aver- 50 Some Aspects of Thackeray age Englishman takes poetry only a few degrees less seriously than he takes his Bible; as something only to be approached, meta- phorically speaking, after fasting and with prayer. He has the feeling that it is almost irreverent to read light verse: it comes as a shock as if, when prepared for a deluge, there came only a slight shower of rain. Still, though there has been no Heine in Eng- lish literature, and, as regards the majority, our poets have lacked the light touch of the French petit-maitre, we can boast of several writers of really good occasional and hu- morous verse in the nineteenth century: Hood, Barham, Calverley, Locker-Lampson, Gilbert, and the always delightful Austin Dobson. None the less, Thackeray's ballads and verses have been accorded so little at- tention that Mr. Whibley in his recent interesting monograph on that author did not even mention them. The love of versifying was in Thackeray's blood, and even as a child he wrote rhyming lines under his own drawings of the heroes of the nursery, of young Ned Torre, of Dicky THACKERAYS DRAWING FOR THE BALLAD OF LITTLE MISS PERKINS " From a manuscript in the British Museum Thackeray's Ballads 51 Snooks and Tom Spry, of dear Suky Jones and little Miss Perkins. As a boy at school Thackeray parodied the hyper-sentimental "Violets" of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, from which it may be deduced that even at a very early age he had a keen sense of the ridiculous; and before he left the Charterhouse he wrote a Holy- day song, a few verses of which may here be given as a curiosity: "Now let us dance and sing While Carthusian bells do ring; Joy twangs the fiddle-string, And Freedom blows the flute. "Tiddle-dum and Tiddli-di What a joke for you and I Dolce domum, let us cry Charterhouse adieu. "Purblind Cupid must still drag on Some more days ere he can brag on Killing game to fill a waggon, And thy shooting- jacket too ! "Yet, oh stay! thou beauteous sister Who hast caused heartburn and blister To that paragon young mister Joseph Carne! 52 Some Aspects of Thackeray "Queen of Beauty! Star of Harrow! Thou hast shot thro' heart and marrow And stricken Makepeace with thy arrow In the head and brain." More characteristic are some lines written at about the same time that were handed down orally for two score years before Anthony Trollope committed them to paper. "In the romantic little town of Highbury My father kept a circulating library; He followed in his youth that man immortal, who Conquered the French on the plains of Waterloo. Mamma was an inhabitant of Drogheda, Very good she was to darn and to embroider. In the famous isle of Jamaica, For thirty years I 've been a sugar-baker; And here I sit, the Muses' 'appy vot'ry, A cultivatin' every kind of po'try." The swing of these lines is undeniable; and the rhymes as awful as anything that even Thackeray ever perpetrated: "Immortal, who" is coupled with "plains of Waterloo," and "Jamaica" with "sugar-baker." But Thackeray never troubled much about correct rhyming. This disregard adds, perhaps, to the amusement in the case of such a humor- Thackeray's Ballads 53 ous description as "The White Squall," where there are to be found "soaks all" and "fo'ksal," and "Jacob" and "wake up;" but it is more noticeable and less pardonable when, in the most exquisite verse of " Vanitas Vanitatum" he rhymes "splendid" with "penned it." After Thackeray left school he wrote some stanzas about Lalor Sheil, and a speech which that worthy was prevented (by the police) from delivering, but which, notwith- standing, duly appeared in the morning papers. The verses are poor, but they are memorable as the author's first appearance in print. "IRISH MELODY "(Air: The Minstrel Boy) "Mister Sheil into Kent has gone, On Penenden Heath you '11 find him; Nor think you that he came alone, There 's Doctor Doyle behind him. " 'Men of Kent,' said the little man, 'If you hate Emancipation, You 're a set of fools.' He then began A cut and dry oration. 54 Some Aspects of Thackeray "He strove to speak, but the men of Kent Began a grievous shouting, When out of the waggon the little man went, And put a stop to his spouting. " 'What though these heretics heard me not!' Quoth he to his friend Canoncial, *My speech is safe in the Times I wot, And eke in the Morning Chronicle.' ' At Cambridge most of Thackeray's con- tributions to the Snob and the Goivnsman were in verse, as was much that he wrote for the National Standard; but all that can be said of these juvenile productions is that they show a keen sense of fun. In those days Thackeray had not found himself, for even when he abandoned painting he found some difficulty in choosing between the claims of poetry, criticism, and novel-writing. His first book, "Flore et Zephyr," was a collection of sketches; his earliest contribu- tions to Fraser's Magazine included an "Imi- tation of Beranger," and the free translation of some German ditties; "The Paris Sketch Book" was a medley of political essays, stories, verses, art-criticism, and reviews of WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, ABOUT 1822 From a Bust by Deville in the National Portrait Gallery Thackeray's Ballads 55 books; "Comic Tales and Sketches," a col- lection of stories, most of them illustrated by himself; while the best pages of the little brochure, "The Second Funeral of Napo- leon," were those devoted to the ballad, "The Chronicle of the Drum." As his literary career progressed, poetry took its place in his life as a relaxation, for, like his sketches, the writing of verses was a labour of love. He wrote many ballads for Punch political skits, love-songs, parodies, what- not but this did not exhaust his fertility. In private life, too, he was always rhyming. If he wrote to his intimates, if he inscribed his name in a visitors '-book or an autograph album, if he sent a note to a child, or a bunch of flowers to a young girl, or visited an old haunt, he would drop into metre. As a rule the lines flowed without effort from his facile pen, though sometimes he was in trouble. "I don't wonder at poets being selfish," he wrote to Mrs. Brookfield when he was composing the "May-Day Ode." "I have been for five days a poet, and have thought and remembered nothing else than 5 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray myself, and my rhymes, and my measures. If somebody had come to me and said, * Mrs. Brookfield has just had her arm cut off,' I should have gone on with * Queen of innum- erable Isles, tidumtidy, tidumtidy,' and not stirred from the chair. The children and no- body have n't seen me except at night, and now (though the work is just done) I hardly see the paper before me, so utterly beat, nervous, bilious, and overcome do I feel." Yet, though as a rule he wrote with ease, he was a severe critic of his work, and after publication would sometimes entirely revise the poem. There are two distinct versions of "The King of Brentford;" and no less than three times he materially altered "Lucy's Birthday." Thackeray wrote in all about one hundred poems. A fifth of this number were based upon political subjects, and of these there is little to say, save that most of them were composed in haste, often with the printer's devil at the door. Their merit consists in a certain humour, but their interest was for the day; they amused the generation for Thackeray's Ballads 57 which they were written, and so achieved their object. Clever they are undoubtedly, but few of them bear the hall-mark of the author's individuality; and, in all probability, the subjects were selected, or at least suggested, by the editor of Punch. The same defects, though in a lesser degree, are noticeable in the "Bow Street Ballads." They also convey in the reading the impression that they were written to order; and not all the fun of Policeman X54's quaint spelling and curious phrasing makes them quite acceptable, although here and there the personality of Thackeray emerges from the motley. Notably is this the case in "Jacob Homnium's Hoss," where he gives rein to his indignation against "Pallis Court," with its monstrous scale of costs : "Come down from that tribewn Thou Shameless and Unjust; Thou Swindle, picking pockets in The name of Truth august; Come down, thou hoary Blasphemy, For die thou shalt and must. 58 Some Aspects of Thackeray "And go it, Jacob Homnium, And ply your iron pen, And rise up Sir John Jervis, And shut me up that den; That sty for fattening lawyers in On the bones of honest men." The "Lyra Hibernica" are better. The fun is more spontaneous, the humour of a higher class; the quaint rhymes amuse, and the swing of the verses delights. It is not worth while, however, to argue the question of the accuracy of Thackeray's attempt to present phonetically the Irishman's pronun- ciation of the English language. The cata- logue of the exhibits of the Great Exhibition is delightful, and the apparent ease of the versification is not excelled even in the won- derful "White Squall." "There 's holy saints And window paints, By Maydiayval Pugin; Alhamborough Jones Did paint the tones Of yellow and gambouge in. "There 's statues bright Of marble white, Of silver, and of copper; Thackeray's Ballads 59 And some in zinc, And some, I think, That is n't over proper. "For thim genteels Who ride on wheels, There 's plenty to indulge 'em; There 's droskys snug From Paytersbug And vayhycles from Bulgium. "There 's cabs on stands And shandthry-danns; There 's waggons from New York here; There 's Lapland sleighs Have crossed the seas, And jaunting cyars from Cork here." Thackeray's favourite poets were Gold- smith and the "sweet lyric singers," Prior, whom he thought the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poets, and Gay, the force of whose simple melody and artless ringing laughter he appreciated. It is not surprising that Thackeray never essayed the "big bow-wow kind" of poetry. From the first he recog- nised his limitations; and to the end was content to be bound by them. He might 60 Some Aspects of Thackeray have said with Locker-Lampson, "My aim is humble. I used the ordinary metres and rhymes, the simplest language and ideas, I hope flavoured with individuality. I strove not to be obscure, not to be flat, above all, not to be tedious." As, indeed, Thackeray said to the author of the delightful "London Lyrics:" "I have a sixpenny talent (or gift) and so have you; ours is small beer, but, you see, it is the right tap." It is worthy of remark how much in common the verses of these men had. The poems of Locker- Lampson that author thought Thackeray was almost as humorous as Swift, and some- times almost as tender as Cowper often suggest those of the more famous writer. The dainty "St. James's Street" recalls "The Ballad of Bouillabaisse," as "Ger- trude's Necklace" conjures up a memory of "Lucy's Birthday." Both were artists to the finger-tips, both had a keen appreciation of humour; but Thackeray, though he could be dainty, was rather more virile and usually less elegant, with a leaning to burlesque. The sense of parody was, indeed, strongly Thackeray's Ballads 61 imbued in Thackeray. He wrote "The Willow Tree," and, seeing the opportunity, burlesqued it forthwith. "Larry O'Toole" from Phil Fogarty could easily be mistaken for one of the spirited songs with which Lever adorned his brilliant but more or less unreal stories of Ireland. "You Ve all heard of Larry O'Toole, Of the beautiful town of Drumgoole; He had but one eye, To ogle ye by O, murther, but that was a jew'l ! A fool He made of de girls, dis O'Toole. "*T was he was the boy did n't fail, That tuck down pataties and mail; He never would shrink From any sthrong dthrink, Was it whisky or Drogheda ale; I 'm bail This Larry would swallow a pail. "O many a night, at the bowl, With Larry I Ve sot cheek by jowl; He 's gone to his rest, Where there 's dthrink of the best, And so let us give his owl sowl A howl, For 't was he made the noggin to rowl." 62 Some Aspects of Thackeray The libretti of the 'forties and 'fifties were no more sensible than the majority of the similar compositions to-day, and they offered themselves as a good butt for ridicule. Thackeray started a series of parodies with the Mayfair and the Oriental Love Songs; but when the turn came of the Domestic song, the man's sentiment overcame his intention. Though prefaced by a burlesque prose introduction omitted in most re- prints there is little or nothing of the parody in the verse. Humour there is in plenty, but it is that tender humour that is not far away from tears; there is loving- kindness in every line; and the picture of the lonely bachelor thinking of the fair young girl whose presence had for a moment re- lieved the gloom of the dull chambers does not create more mirth than is to be found in a sad smile. "It was but a moment she sat in this place, She 'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face ! A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair, And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom' d chair. Thackeray's Ballads 63 "And so I have valued my chair ever since, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince; Sweet Fanny, my patroness sweet, I declare The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair. "When the candles burn low, and the company 's gone, In the silence of night as I sit here alone I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair. "She comes from the past and revisits my room; She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom, So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair, And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair." In the same vein of tenderness is the even better-known "Ballad of Bouillabaisse," written in Paris after a visit to the restaurant where the author and his wife and friends had been frequent visitors; and the exqui- site "Mahogany Tree," one of the author's favourites, which many a time he sang. A touching incident is narrated concerning these verses. On the Christmas Eve when "Horry" Mayhew brought the sad news of Thackeray's untimely death to the Punch staff, who suffered not the loss of the novelist so much as the loss of an old friend, he said, "I '11 tell you what we '11 do. We '11 sing the 64 Some Aspects of Thackeray dear old boy's * Mahogany Tree;' he'd like it." Accordingly they stood up, and with such memory of the words as each pos- sessed and a catching of the breath here and there, by about all of them, the song was sung. The most ambitious, as well as the longest, of Thackeray's poems was "The Great Cos- sack Epic of Demetrius Rigmarolovicz," founded, so the prefatory note informs us, on the legend of St. Sophia, whose statue is said to have walked of its own accord up the river Dnieper to take its station in the Church of Kiew. It is good fooling, and amusing enough, but it does not bear in any marked degree the imprint of Thackeray's individuality. It was followed by "The Chronicle of the Drum," which is on a quite different plane, and is as good as anything Thackeray ever wrote in verse. It is the narrative of a French drummer, whose an- cestors for the last four generations had rattled the sticks from the days of Henri of Navarre. In Germany, Flanders, and Holland Thackeray's Ballads 65 "... my grandsire was ever victorious, My grandsire and Monsieur Turenne;" his father was at Fontenoy and lost his life at Quebec; while the story-teller was present at Yorktown, helped to drum down the Bastille, and fought for the Republic in the days of the Terror. "We had taken the head of King Capet, We called for the blood of his wife; Undaunted she came to the scaffold, And bared her fair neck to the knife. As she felt the foul fingers that touched her, She shrank but she deigned not to speak, She look'd with a royal disdain, And died with a blush in her cheek!" He was in the Napoleonic army and a stout partisan of the Emperor. He was at Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, and took part in a hundred victorious wars; the Hundred Days found him at his post; and he was present at Waterloo. "A curse on those British assassins, Who ordered the slaughter of Ney; A curse on Sir Hudson, who tortured The life of our hero away. 66 Some Aspects of Thackeray A curse on all Russians I hate them On all Prussians and Austrian fry; And, oh but I pray we may meet them, And fight them again ere I die." "The Chronicle of the Drum" presents a fine picture of the wild enthusiasm of the French for then* Corsican leader and of the deep-seated hatred of "... those red-coated English, Whose bayonets helped our undoing." The drummer cares nothing for the cause, but everything for the battle; fighting was in his blood, for he loved his country and believed in his general as in his God; yet even when fierce excitement had the better of him, he could spare a thought for the poor woman waiting anxiously for news of her husband, who had marched with the army against Wolfe. "I think I can see my poor mammy With me in her hand as she waits, And our regiment, slowly retreating, Pours back through the citadel gates. Dear Mammy ! she looks in their faces, And asks if her husband has come? He is lying all cold on the glacis, And will never more beat on the drum." Thackeray's Ballads 67 This splendid martial poem contains much satirical humour and just the amount of underlying pathos that adds to the beauty; and it has many of the qualities that later were to combine in the making of the won- derful, ironical "Barry Lyndon." In his verses as in his prose, but more concisely in the former, Thackeray, as the latter-day "sad and splendid, the weary King Ecclesiast," cried his sermon. He had no new lesson to teach: the old tale was good enough for him to repeat. He would have women good and pure, and men brave and true; he would have parents respect their children, as he would have the young rever- ence their elders. Success is but little, he preached, for the race is not always to the swift, and the great may be overthrown and the lackey exalted; but none the less, "... if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman." "It is easy enough to knock off that non- sense about Policeman X," Thackeray said; "but to write a good occasional verse is a rare intellectual feat." Yet this, too, he 68 Some Aspects of Thackeray accomplished. He possessed the wit and fancy, the humour and tenderness, the re- finement, without all of which qualities "the real thing" cannot be produced. Nor was the lyrical strain absent from his composi- tion. His verse is easy and possesses the essential merit of apparent spontaneity. He was almost invariably humorous; yet there was always something more than mere fun. Frequently he was satirical, occasionally he was indignant; sometimes, as in "The End of the Play" and "Vanitas Vanitatum," he was didactic; usually he was tender and pathetic. He could be gay; he could sprinkle his verses with playful or ironic humour; and upon all his best work his personality is impressed; the man's great heart is there for all to see who care to look. Most of his ballads are good; all are readable, and many are possessed of distinction. As has been said, his rhymes were often appalling, and his metre not always perfect; but his language was as simple and direct as in his prose writ- ings. If he was not underrating his talent when he spoke of it as small beer, he certainly WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From a water-color drawing by D. Dighton By permission of Major William H. Lambert Thackeray's Ballads 69 was not guilty of an error of judgment when he declared it was the right tap. No "Lyra Elegantiarum" is complete without the inser- tion of "The Mahogany Tree," "The Ballad of Bouillabaisse," and "Peg of Limavaddy;" and no collection of humorous verse may omit "The Chronicle of the Drum." These alone give him a place of importance among the lighter poets; and if at present his eminence as a novelist has thrown his poems into shadow, as time passes his ballads will be more widely read, and his reputation as a poet will be considerably enhanced. It was thought when Mr. M. H. Spiel- mann discovered in Punch some score of hitherto unidentified ballads that the last discovery of verses by Thackeray had been made. However, there was another surprise in store. In the Monthly Review for October, 1904, an article by the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin on "Thackeray in search of a Pro- fession," disclosed the fact that Thackeray had contributed to the Foreign Quarterly Review, April, 1843, a review of Herwegh's 7 Some Aspects of Thackeray earlier poems headed: "Georg Herwegh. Gedichte eines Lebendigen, mit einer Dedi- kation an den Verstorbenen" ("Poems of a Living Man, with a Dedication to the Dead "), 1841-1842. Thackeray, however, had done more than criticise the poems. He had translated some of them. It cannot be contended that these are equal to his "Imitations of Beranger" for certainly Thackeray had more in common with that poet. His rendering of "II etait un roi d'Yvetot" retains much of the humour of the original; while "The Garret," the English version of "Le Grenier," reads like one of the translator's own ballads. "Let us begone the place is sad and strange How far, far off, those happy times appear; All that I have to live I 'd gladly change For one such month as I have wasted here To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power, From founts of hope that never will outrun, And drink all life's quintessence in an hour, Give me the days when I was twenty-one!" Herein may be detected an influence that was at work when the time came to com- pose "The Mahogany Tree" and "The Thackeray's Ballads 71 Ballad of Bouillabaisse." Thackeray trans- lated verses from Horace, and these charm by their humour; and also from Chamisso, De la Motte Fouque, and Uhland. With the latter he was particularly happy, for his rendering of "Der Konig auf dem Turme" was one of the best things he ever did. He must have taken much trouble to produce these verses, for nothing of the simple, sad beauty of this, one of the best of Uhland's poems, is lost in the translation. "The cold grey hills they bind me around, The darksome valleys lie sleeping below, But the winds, as they pass o'er all this ground, Bring me never a sound of woe! "Oh! for all I have suffered and striven, Care has embittered my cup and my feast; But here is the night and the dark blue heaven, And my soul shall be at rest. "O golden legends writ in the skies! I turn towards you with longing soul, And list to the awful harmonies Of the Spheres as on they roll." Herwegh is a poet little known in this country, and, indeed, not now greatly hon- oured in his own land. As a lad he showed 7 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray considerable talent. He published a very acceptable translation of some of Lamar- tine's writings; and later became the assist- ant of Lewald, the editor of a not very im- portant literary journal, Europe. At that time conscription was, of course, already in full swing in Germany; and, too poor to buy a substitute, Herwegh was impressed. The life in barracks was unendurable to the sensitive young man of letters. Recruits were coupled to prevent desertion, and his companion was a rough, coarse peasant. He wrote to Lewald and told him he would rather die than serve the remainder of his time. Thus spurred, the editor used his influence, and succeeded in obtaining for his protege unlimited leave of absence. All would have been well, therefore, but that at a public ball Herwegh quarrelled with an officer, and there was to be a duel until his antagonist discovered that Herwegh was a private in his regiment, when, as an officer cannot meet a private, the encounter was abandoned; but the poet's leave of absence was at once withdrawn. Thackeray's Ballads 73 Herwegh could not bring himself to re- turn to the army; and, instead, hastened over the Swiss frontier; but again influence must have been brought to bear on the mili- tary authorities, for his desertion was con- doned, and soon he returned and went to Berlin. There he became the lion of the season. The King granted him an inter- view; he was feted everywhere; and a wealthy woman married him. It was shortly after this that "Gedichte eines Lebendigen" was published. With his later career we have here no concern. Those who are not familiar with Herwegh 's works may be interested in an excerpt from Thackeray's criticism: "Her- wegh has fancy, wit, and strong words at command. He has a keen eye for cant, too, at times, and shows himself to be a pretty sharp and clear-headed critic of art. But it is absurd to place this young man forward as a master. His poetry is a convulsion, not an effort of strength; he does not sing, but he roars; his dislike amounts to fury; and ... in many instances his hatred and heroism are quite factitious, and his 74 Some Aspects of Thackeray enthusiasm has a very calculating look with it." The first piece translated is "Das Lied vom Basse" ("The Song of Hatred"). "Brave soldier, kiss the trusty wife, And draw the trusty blade ! Then turn ye to the reddening East, In freedom's cause arrayed; Till death shall part the blade and hand, They may not separate: We 've practised loving long enough, And come at length to hate! "To right us and to rescue us Hath Love essayed in vain; O Hate! proclaim thy judgment-day And break our bonds in twain. As long as ever tyrants last Our task shall not abate: We Ve practised loving long enough, And come at length to hate! "Henceforth let every heart that beats With hate alone be beating Look round! what piles of rotten sticks Will keep the flame a-heating As many as are free and dare From street to street go say 't: We 've practised loving long enough, And come at length to hate! Thackeray's Ballads 75 "Fight tyranny, while tyranny The trampled earth above is; And holier will our hatred be, Far holier than our love is. Till death shall part the blade and hand, They may not separate: We Ve practised loving long enough, And come at length to hate!" As Thackeray was the first to confess, much of the spirit of this rude, hearty song has evaporated and, to give one example of this, the last two lines in the English version are a poor exchange for the original "Wir haben lang genug geliebt und wollen endlich hassen." The second poem, "Zuruf" ("Appeal"), is' one in which martyrdom, republicanism, destruction of priesthood, and other favourite revolutionary doctrines of the writer are enunciated. "Behold, when the red sun appears, He shineth as bright in his station, As he shone in the day of creation, Ere he looked on the woes of long years. "Young hearts, be ye steady and bold, Confront ye the tempest undaunted, For He who the spirit has granted Is with us to-day as of old. 76 Some Aspects of Thackeray "For the last of all kings, make ye way, A million glad voices proclaim his Avatar, and FREEDOM his name is, And boundless and endless his sway. 1 "And not only Heaven as of yore, But earth shall be pure and divine, One priesthood man's sanctified line, And laymen among us no more! "Make way for our Saviour and Lord; It is not with hymns that we greet him, It is not with palms that we meet him, But he comes with the clang of the sword. "Then, Bards, lay aside for the blade, The harp and its idle diversions: Thermopylae waits for our Persians, And many a grave in the shade!" 1 The difficulty of the translation of this poem has resulted in a somewhat free rendering. A verse that should be inserted between the third and fourth was not translated by Thackeray, who, print- ing it in German, gives a footnote saying it was quite beyond his powers, and that he had shown it to a German friend, who was at a loss regarding the meaning of the last line. "Nimmer schwingt in unsrem Haus Der Kosake seine Kniite Uns're Deutsche Zauberruthe Schlagt noch manchen goldnen Friihling aus." Thackeray's Ballads 77 The following was obviously dictated by Herwegh's keen sense of the importance of his calling: "Wore I a soldier's weapon on my thigh, Drove I a rustic's plough upon the lea, At early eve I 'd fling my labours by, And drink my homely cup and so be free. "Such calm for spirits like mine may never be, My soul hath restless pinions and will fly, Still eager soaring higher and more high, And the kind evening brings no rest for me. "We raise not barriers to the Heavenly thus, Thought tracks us on the wide world's busy ways, It watches when we sleep there is no place, To shelter from that constant genius ! Its lightnings round about us ever blaze, And even in love's arms it reaches us." Then comes advice to a lady who was tempted to publish her verses, of which, ap- parently, the poet had not a high opinion: "On humble knees of silent nights, No more my lady prays; But now in glory she delights, And pines to wear the bays. 7 8 Some Aspects of Thackeray The gentle secret of her heart She'd tell to idle ears, And fain would carry to the mart The treasure of her tears ! "When there are roses freshly blown That forehead to adorn, Why ask the Poet's martyr-crown, The bitter wreath of thorn? That lip which all so ruddy is, With freshest roses vying, Believe me, sweet, was made to kiss, Not formed for prophesying. "Remain, my nightingale, remain, And warble in your shade! The heights of glory were in vain, By wings like yours essayed; And while at Glory's shrine the Priest A hecatomb must proffer, There 's Love oh, Love will take the least Small mite the heart can offer." It is only fair to the author to give the original of the last two lines, which are in- deed a very feeble rendering of "O Liebe! ist ein Scharflein auch wilkommen." " Comrade, why the song so joyous why the goblet in your hand? While in sackcloth and in ashes yonder weeps our Fatherland. Thackeray's Ballads 79 " Still the bells and bed the roses with girls on Ger- man strand; For deserted by her bridegroom, yonder site our Fatherland. "Wherefore strive for crowns, ye princes? quit your state, your jewels grand, See where at your palace portal, shivering sits our Fatherland. "Idle priestlings, what avails us prayer and pulpit, cowl and band? Trodden in the dust and groaning, yonder lies our Fatherland. "Counting out his red round rubles, yon sits Dives smiling bland Reckoning his poor wounds and sores, Lazarus, our Fatherland. "Wo, ye poor! for priceless jewels lie before ye in the sand, Even my tears, my best, my brightest! lie there, wept for Fatherland. " But, O poet, cease thy descant 't is not thine as judge to stand, Silence now the swan hath sung his death-song for our Fatherland." The "Protest," which follows, is a satire upon the pompous ballad of Becker that was so popular in Germany at a time when the 8o Some Aspects of Thackeray feeling of the nation was excited against France. "As long as I'm a Protestant, I 'm bounden to protest, Come every German musicant And fiddle me his best. You're singing of 'the Free old Rhine,' But I say no, good comrades mine, The Rhine could be Greatly more free, And that I do protest. "I scarce had got my christening o'er, Or was in breeches drest, But I began to shout and roar, And mightily protest. And since that time I 've never stopt, My protestations never dropped; And blessed be they Who every way And everywhere protest. "There's one thing certain in my creed, And schism is all the rest, That who 's a Protestant indeed, For ever must protest, What is the River Rhine to me? For from its source unto the sea Men are not free, Whate'er they be, And that I do protest Thackeray's Ballads 81 'As every man in reason grants, What always was confest, As long as we are Protestants, We sternly must protest. And when they sing ' the Free old Rhine,' Answer them, ' No, good comrades mine, The Rhine could be Greatly more free, And that you shall protest.' ' CHAPTER IV Thackeray and the Newgate School of Fiction IN the thirties of the last century arose the Newgate School of Fiction, which made heroes of highwaymen and other of- fenders, and so created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal. The ingenious Bulwer-Lytton it was who led the way and scored a great success with "Eugene Aram." Never before in an English novel had a murderer been portrayed as an earnest student of philosophy, with grave mien, gentle manners, and noble heart; never before had there been depicted a murderer a murderer who murdered for money, to boot whose character was so endearing and so sympa- thetic as to enslave most of those who read about him. The book was favourably re- ceived in most quarters, but here and there a dissentient voice was heard, and in Eraser's Magazine for August and September, 1832, Newgate School of Fiction 83 a tremendous onslaught, in the form of a story called "Elizabeth Brownrigge" (which dealt with the murderess of that name), was made upon the author of "Eugene Aram," to whom it was dedicated. "I am inclined to regard you as an original dis- coverer in the world of literary enterprise and to reverence you as the father of a new ' lusus naturae school/" so ran a passage in the dedication of the satire. "There is no other title by which your manner 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 con- trary, 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 not have been met with at all. Wanting a shrewd, selfish, 8 4 Some Aspects of Thackeray 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 mili- tary service, but, on the contrary, is marked by all the distinguishing features of a bank- rupt attorney or a lame duck from the Stock Exchange. Having to paint a cat, you endow her with the idiosyncrasies of a dog." There is one other passage which must also be quoted: "It is extraordinary that, as you had commenced a tragedy under the title of 'Eugene Aram,' I had already sketched a burletta with the title of 'Eliza- beth 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 favour 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." At the end of the satire, there is an "Advertise- Newgate School of Fiction 85 ment," which runs: "The author of the foregoing Tale begs leave to state that he is prepared to treat with any liberal and en- terprising publisher, who may be inclined to embark in the speculation, for a series of novels, each in 3 vols. 8vo, under the title of 'Tales of the Old Bailey, or Romances of Tyburn Tree;' in which the whole 'New- gate Calendar' shall be travestied, after the manner of 'Eugene Aram.' Letters (post- paid) addressed to X. Y. Z., 215, Regent Street [the offices of Eraser's Magazine], will receive immediate attention." "Elizabeth Brownrigge" was published anonymously, and if it attracted any atten- tion at the time, it certainly did not attract sufficient to make people desirous to discover the author. It may at the time of its pub- lication have been credited to this writer or to that, but it was not (so far as is known) until a month or two after Thackeray's death that Dr. John Brown in an article on the novelist in the North British Review (February, 1864) attributed it to him on what evidence he does not state, though he 86 Some Aspects of Thackeray may well have had the information from the author. "Elizabeth Brownrigge" is partic- ularly interesting because, whether Thack- eray did or did not write the story, there can be no question but that it was directly responsible for "Catherine," which had the same object as the earlier story. "'Eliza- beth Brownrigge' ought to be Thackeray's," Swinburne wrote to Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd in 1880, "for if it is not, he stole the idea, and to some extent the style, of his parodies on novels of criminal life, from this first sketch of the kind." A couple of years after "Eugene Aram" was published, William Harrison Ains worth came to the fore as an exponent of the New- gate School of Fiction. Lytton had taken a murderer for his hero; Ainsworth selected a highwayman. Dick Turpin was his jeune premier in "Rookwood," and that sorry young scoundrel Jack Sheppard gave his name to, and the raison d'etre for, another book. These novels, too, caught the public taste, and were widely read and praised highly even by those who should have known AUTHOR OF ROOKWOOD From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Newgate School of Fiction 87 better. Ainsworth's recent biographer, Mr. S. M. Ellis, for one, can see no objection to the "Jack Sheppard" class of novel. "The outcry against Ainsworth for having chosen a robber for a hero cannot seriously be justified," he has written. "If it is inher- ently immoral to take a criminal for literary purposes and make him picturesque and in- teresting, then the greatest writers will have to stand in the same pillory as the author of 'Jack Sheppard.' The principal characters of Shakespeare's tragedies of * Hamlet,' of 'Macbeth' of 'Othello,' are but murderers; Falstaff is a robber and worse. Scott must answer for 'Rob Roy; ' Fielding for 'Jonathan Wild;' Gay for 'The Beggars' Opera;' Schiller for 'The Robbers;' Hood for his magnificent 'Eugene Aram;' Dumas for his 'Celebrated Crimes,' and so on through literature of all times and countries. This brilliant band of criminals, illuminated and idealised by literary limelight, cannot deny the consanguineous claims of poor, abused, 'Jack Sheppard." It would indeed be a waste of time to dwell 88 Some Aspects of Thackeray upon the fallacies of this argument; but it may be remarked that Ainsworth's enthu- siastic defender has strangely misread "Jon- athan Wild," since he can mention that brilliant satire in connection with the New- gate School of Fiction; he might as well have added to the list "Catherine." Mr. Ellis insists that the Newgate novels of Ainsworth are moral because the villains end on the gallows. He ignores the fact that, while they do go to the gallows, they go as heroes, not as malefactors; but he inadvertently admits that Ainsworth "threw a romantic glamour over his merry sinners," and so, in a line, he gives away the case for which he has fought so strenuously in many pages. Forster and Thackeray now led the attack against the Newgate School of Fiction. "Bad as we think the morals, we think the puffs even more dangerous," Forster wrote in the Examiner. "Public morality and public decency have rarely been more en- dangered than by the trumpeted exploits of 'Jack Sheppard." In "Catherine," Thackeray had some- Newgate School of Fiction 89 thing to say of one of Dickens's books. "No one," he wrote, "has read that re- markable tale of * Oliver Twist' without being interested in poor Nancy and her murderer; and especially amused and tickled by the gambols of the Artful Dodger and his companions. The power of the writer is so amazing, that the reader at once be- comes his captive, and must follow him wherever he leads; and to what are we led? Breathless to watch all the crimes of Fagin, tenderly to deplore the errors of Nancy, to have for Bill Sikes a kind of pity and admiration, and an absolute love for the society of the Dodger. ... A most agreeable set of rascals indeed, who have their virtues, too, but not good company for any man. We had better pass them by in decent silence; for, as no writer can or dare tell the whole truth concerning them, and faithfully explain their vices, there is no need to give ex-parte statements of their virtue." It was, however, mainly against "Rookwood" and "Jack Sheppard" (the earlier part of which had appeared in Bent- 9 Some Aspects of Thackeray ley's Miscellany) that Thackeray tilted in "Catherine," which purported to be written by "Ikey Solomons, Esq., jr." Ikey Solo- mons having been a notorious "fence" and was dated from Horsemonger Lane, a particularly unsavoury district. Thackeray stated again that the writers of the Newgate School of Fiction did not dare to paint their heroes as the scoundrels he knew them to be. "In Freeny's (the highwayman) life," Thackeray wrote subsequently in "The Irish. Sketch Book" (ch. XV), "one man may see the evil of drinking, another the harm of horse-racing, another the danger attendant on early marriage, a fourth the exceeding inconvenience of the heroic highwayman's life which a certain Ainsworth in com- pany with a certain Cruikshank, have repre- sented as so poetic and brilliant, so prodigal of delightful adventure, so adorned with champagne, gold lace, and brocade." Thack- eray had no objection to a novelist taking a villain for his principal character; he himself selected Barry Lyndon for one such post of honour, but he insisted that it was Newgate School of Fiction 91 bad art, as well as dishonesty and immoral- ity, to confuse virtue and vice. "Vice," he wrote in his paper on the author of "Tom Jones," " is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably gets its punishment. See the consequences of hon- esty! Many a squeamish lady of our time would fling down one of these romances with horror, but would go through every page of Mr. Ainsworth's * Jack Sheppard ' with perfect comfort to herself. Ainsworth dared not paint his hero as the scoundrel he knew him to be; he must keep his brutalities in the background, else the public morals will be outraged, and so he produces a book quite absurd and unreal, and infinitely more im- moral than anything Fielding ever wrote. * Jack Sheppard ' is immoral actually because it is decorous. The Spartans, who used to show drunken slaves to their children, took care, no doubt, that the slaves should be really and truly drunk. Sham drunkenness, which never passed the limits of propriety, but only went so far as to be amusing, would 9 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray be rather an object to excite youth to in- toxication than to deter him from it, and some late novels have always struck us in the same light." Thackeray decided that his castigation of these immoral novels should take the form of a story in which all the principal char- acters were villains, portrayed, not indeed so vile as were the prototypes, for that was impossible to do in the page of a magazine, but so nearly to life as the public could be expected to tolerate. With this object in view he searched the "Newgate Calendar," and found therein the very heroine for such a story as he contemplated, Mrs. Cather- ine Hayes, whose history has been admirably summarised in the "Dictionary of National Biography" by Mr. Alsager Vian. Cath- erine Hall was her maiden name, and she was born near Birmingham in 1690. At a very early age she was led into evil courses. At the age of sixteen she married a carpenter, John Hayes, by whom (it is to be hoped) she had twelve children. Some years after the marriage, they went to London, where CO X ci S 3 Newgate School of Fiction 93 near Tyburn they set up a small shop and supplemented their income from this source by letting lodgings. With two of the lodgers, Wood and Billings, she became criminally intimate, and the three of them one night in March, 1726, made John Hayes drunk and killed him, cutting up the body, and disposing of the different parts in different places. One portion of the remains was discovered, and then another, and eventu- ally Mrs. Hayes and Billings were arrested for murder, and presently Wood was cap- tured and confessed. Mrs. Hayes pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of petty treason and sentenced to be burnt alive. The men were sentenced to be hanged. Wood died in Newgate the day before the execution, and Mrs. Hayes made an abortive attempt to poison herself. No story could be more sordid or unpleasant, and Thackeray de- liberately mitigated the horrors as little as possible. "Catherine" appeared in Eraser's Magazine from May, 1839, to February, 1840, and the author was heartily pleased when the conclusion was reached. "Having 94 Some Aspects of Thackeray finished our delectable meal," he wrote, "it behoves us to say a word or two by way of grace at its conclusion, and to be heartily thankful that it is over. It has been the writer's object carefully to exclude from his drama (except in two very insignificant instances mere walking gentlemen parts) any characters but those of scoundrels of the very highest degree. That he has not altogether failed in the object he had in view, is evident from some newspaper cri- tiques which he has had the good fortune to see; and which abuse the tale of 'Cath- erine ' as one of the dullest, most vulgar, and immoral works extant. It is highly gratify- ing to the author to find that such opinions are abroad, as they convince him that the taste for Newgate literature is on the wane; and that when the public critic has right down undisguised immorality set before him, the lowest creature is shocked at it, as he should be, and can declare his indignation in good round terms of abtise. The char- acters of the tale are immoral, and no doubt of it; but the writer humbly hopes the end Newgate School of Fiction 95 is not so. The public was, in our notion, dosed and poisoned by the prevailing style of literary practice, and it was necessary to administer some medicine that would pro- duce a wholesome nausea, and afterwards bring about a more healthy habit. And, thank Heaven, this effect has been produced in very many instances, and the 'Cath- erine' cathartic has acted most efficaciously. The author has been pleased at the disgust which his work has excited, and has watched with benevolent carefulness the wry faces that have been made by many of the patients who have swallowed the dose." "Be it granted," so the book concludes, "that Solomons is dull, but don't attack his morality; he humbly submits that, in his poem, no man shall mistake virtue for vice, no man shall allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration to enter his bosom for any character of the piece; it being, from begin- ning to end, a scene of unmixed rascality performed by people who never deviate into good feeling. And although he doth not pretend to equal the great modern authors 9 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray whom he hath mentioned, in wit or descrip- tive power; yet, in the point of moral, he meekly believes that he has been their supe- rior; feeling the greatest disgust for the char- acters he describes, and using his humble endeavour to cause the public also to hate them." "It is a disgusting subject and no mis- take," Thackeray wrote to his mother. "It was a mistake all through. It was not made disgusting enough that was the fact, and the triumph of it would have been to make readers so horribly horrified as to cause them to give up or rather throw up the book and all its kind; whereas you see the author had a sneaking kindness for his heroine, and did not like to make her quite worthless." Yet, in spite of the author's lament, "Catherine" achieved its object, for Ains worth gave way before the attack, and made no further con- tribution to the Newgate School of Fiction. CHAPTER V Thackeray as Artist WHEN, in July, 1833, Thackeray was acting as Paris correspondent of the National Standard and Journal of Litera- ture, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts, a little paper first edited and subse- quently purchased by him, he wrote to his mother: "I have been thinking very seri- ously of turning artist. I can draw better than I can do anything else, and certainly I should like it better than any other occu- pation, as why shouldn't I?" The last sentence seems to hint that some objections had been raised to his following this pro- fession, and, indeed, in the earlier years of the last century parents and guardians did not allow those young men who were under their control to embark upon such a Bohe- mian career as that of art. Perhaps in this case no objections were raised, perhaps they 9 8 Some Aspects of Thackeray were raised and overruled by an enthusi- astic young man. Be this as it may, early in the following year, when the National Standard came to an untimely end, its editor remained in Paris to devote him- self in all seriousness to the study of Art. Even as a child Thackeray was fond of drawing, and at a very early age he used his pencil and his paint box. He ornamented the leaves of his Charterhouse school-books with caricatures of his masters and his schoolfellows, and embellished with illustra- tions his copies of "Don Quixote," "The Castle of Otranto" (in which there is an intensely amusing sketch of Manfred hold- ing the door against Matilda), "Robinson Crusoe," "Joseph Andrews," and many other stories. 1 His skill was appreciated even in these early days, and many years later, in a "Roundabout Paper," he referred 1 Most of these volumes have found their way to the auction room, where they fetched very high prices. Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary, which Thackeray bought second-hand for a shilling, sold at his death for nearly five pounds, and recently changed hands at twenty-four pounds! KING- GLUMPUS. THACKERAY'S DRAWING FOR "KING GLTJMPTJS Thackeray as Artist 99 to these youthful efforts, "O Scottish Chiefs, did n't we weep over you! O Mysteries of Udolpho, did n't I and Briggs (Minor) draw pictures out of you! Efforts feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to ourselves and our friends. 'I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi tortured in the Inquisition,' or 'Draw us Don Quixote and the Windmills,' amateurs would say to boys who had a love of draw- ing." Many of the drawings done at school have been preserved, and a number were reproduced in the interesting volume en- titled "Thackeray ana." At Cambridge Thackeray amused himself in a similar manner, and, inter alia, sketched some droll pictures descriptive of life at the University "The Mathematics Lec- turer," "The Classman," "The Plodder," "The Grinder," etc.; and, by far the best, "First Term," showing a student hard at work, and "Second Term," showing the same student lying in the well of a sofa, the back of which is turned to the spectator, who can see only the cigar and the boots of the idler. These must not be confused with ioo Some Aspects of Thackeray two other drawings, bearing the same titles, and similar in subject, but not nearly so amusing, reprinted in the slim tome of "Etchings done while at Cambridge," pub- lished by Sotheran in 1878. Of this latter collection those most worthy of mention are the plates "Departure for Cambridge" and "Arrival from Cambridge." These were companion pictures, a favourite form in- dulged in by the artist, who, in "Pendennis," gave "Pen's Staircase 1, A Little Dinner;" and "Pen's Staircase 2, A Few Little Bills," which were quite in the style of his early vein. Soon after leaving Cambridge, Thackeray went abroad, and he has recorded how it was his delight in those days to make cari- catures for children, and how, when he re- visited Weimar more than twenty years later, he was touched to find they were re- membered, and that several had been kept. Of the few that have been reprinted the best are a set of "Legal Definitions (by One who may be called to the Bar)." In the autumn of 1831 Thackeray was Thackeray as Artist 101 entered as a student at the Middle Temple, where he read with the special pleader and conveyancer, Taprell, and rented chambers at No. 1, Hare Court. He never took kindly to the study of law, as readers of "Pen- dennis" are well aware, and when he came of age, in July, 1832, he gave up all pretence of reading for the Bar. Then began his con- nection with the National Standard, in which paper his first sketches appeared. They were fourteen in number, and included an illustration to "The Devil's Wager" (re- printed in "The Paris Sketch-Book"), and caricatures of Louis Philippe, Braham, Alfred Bunn, N. M. Rothschild, Sir Peter Laurie, and Crockford. The drawings were rough, however, and do not show the promise of some of his earlier work. It was about this time that he wrote and illustrated half-a-dozen sets of nursery rhymes, entitled "Simple Melodies," and the very amusing series of sketches depicting scenes from an imaginary melodrama, en- titled "The Bandit's Revenge, or, The Fatal Sword." A less elaborate version of "The 102 Some Aspects of Thackeray Bandit's Revenge," entitled "Vivaldi," ap- peared in the "Biographical" edition of Thackeray's Works. At first Thackeray made his sketches for the amusement of his friends. "If I had only kept the drawings from his pen which used to be chucked about as though they were nothing!" more than one person exclaimed to Anthony Trollope, who has told us of an album of drawings and letters which, in the course of twenty years, from 1829 to 1849, were sent by Thackeray to his life- long friend, Edward FitzGerald, the trans- lator of Omar. As time passed, however, he was persuaded that his work might have some pecuniary value, and eventually he sought a market for his caricatures. He did find a Mr. Gibbs, who offered to dispose of them for him, but whether he was able to do so or not is unrecorded in the history of the house of Thackeray. When Thackeray settled at Paris, after the failure of the National Standard, he spent most of his days in the studios, at first studying with Brine, a well-known artist, REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "FLORE ET ZEPHYR" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Thackeray as Artist 103 and afterwards with Gros, a favourite pupil of the great David. What his masters thought is not known, but he reported him- self satisfied with his progress, and thought, if he worked hard, in a year he might pro- duce something at which it would be worth while to look; but, he wrote naively to his mother, it would require at least that time to gain any readiness with his brush! He devoted many hours to the picture- galleries, where now and then he copied a picture a Watteau or a Lucas van Leyden ("a better man, I think, than Albert Diirer, and mayhap as great a composer as Raphael himself"). Edinburgh Reviewer Abraham Hayward, writing of "Vanity Fair" in January, 1848, well remembered "ten or twelve years ago finding him day after day engaged in copying pictures in the Louvre, in order to qualify himself for his intended profession." In 1836 Thackeray published "Flore et Zephyr. Ballet Mythologique Dedie a Flore par Theophile Wagstaffe," being a series of eight drawings with a pictorial wrapper. It 104 Some Aspects of Thackeray is a delightfully amusing production, original in conception, unconventional in design, and clearly showing how thoroughly developed, even at that date, was Thackeray's sense of humour. Soon after Thackeray came to London on business connected with the starting of the Constitutional (and Public Ledger), a paper in which his stepfather and himself were deeply interested as part-proprietors. Dur- ing this visit, Seymour, the designer of "Pickwick" committed suicide. It came to Thackeray's ears that the designs of the artist who took his place did not satisfy Dickens, and he made the now historic offer to illustrate the book. The offer was re- fused, and Thackeray always insisted on referring to it as "Mr. Pickwick's lucky escape." "Had it not been for the direct act of my friend who has just sat down, I should most likely never have been included in the toast which you have been pleased to drink; and I should have tried to be, not a 'writer, but a painter or designer of pictures," he said years later when, at a Royal Acad- Thackeray as Artist 105 emy dinner, he responded to the toast of Literature with which his name and Dickens's were associated. "That was the object of my early ambition; and I can remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works, of which I cannot mention the name, but which were coloured light green, and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I recollect walking up to his chambers in Furnival's Inn with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable. But for the unfortunate blight which came over my artistical ex- istence, it would have been my pride and pleasure to have endeavoured one day to find a place on these walls for one of my performances. This disappointment caused me to direct my attention to a different walk of art, and now I can only hope to be 'trans- lated* on these walls, as I have been, thanks to my talented friend, Mr. Egg." The Constitutional was a failure, and it 106 Some Aspects of Thackeray went under in the summer of 1838, carrying with it Thackeray's patrimony, or all that remained after losses at cards, and the failure of an Indian bank in which a portion of it had been invested. The young man had just married, and it was important that money should be forthcoming. Literary work was offered in abundance and perforce accepted. Thereupon he abandoned the hope of becoming a serious painter, though to the end of his days he never ceased to prac- tise the lighter vein of art. Indeed, from the time when he was a slim young man, cover- ing with sketches every scrap of paper lying about, drawing was his principal amuse- ment. All his life he preferred the pencil to the pen, and when he found the strain of literary composition irksome, he would turn with pleasure and a sense of relief to the drawing-board. "The sketches as they are given here are scarcely to be counted work," Lady Ritchie wrote in the preface to the volume of drawings published posthumously under the title of "The Orphan of Pimlico." "The hours which he spent upon his drawing- s^rc* I \ - : ~7%y T.ONT)air:H.CIINNTNGHAM.l,Sr MARTINS PLACE. TRAFALGAR SOITARE. 1941. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF " COMIC TALES AND SKETCHES" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert See pcje 110 Thackeray as Artist 107 blocks and sketch-books brought no fatigue or weariness. They were of endless interest and amusement to him, and rested him when he was tired. It was only when he came to etch upon steel or to draw for the engraver upon wood that he complained of effort and want of ease; and we used often to wish that his drawings could be given as they were first made, without the various transmigra- tions of wood and steel, and engraver's toil and printer's ink." But he was undoubtedly wise to give up painting. Even Henry Reeve, who was inclined to judge sympathetically, declared that he would willingly set him to copy a picture of Raphael, as far, at least, as the drawing went, but that the young artist, on his own confession, did not seem likely to get into a system of massive colouring. An interesting problem not yet solved is what were Thackeray's earliest writings in Eraser's Magazine. A question equally in- teresting, and one which no one has yet attempted to answer, is what were his earliest drawings in that periodical. There io8 Some Aspects of Thackeray is a note penned by an anonymous scribbler in the copy of Fraser's Magazine for April, 1838, belonging to the London Library, ascribing a portrait of Sidney Smith to Thackeray. Of course the writer's authority for this statement is unknown, but it opens up a new field for speculation. The principal drawings in this magazine known to be by Thackeray are the five plates accompanying "The Yellowplush Correspondence," and the four plates accompanying "Catherine." In other fields Thackeray was as busy with his pencil as with his pen. He supplied twelve full-page illustrations to Douglas Jerrold's "Men of Character" (1838); and contributed two drawings to the Anti-Corn Law Circular, entitled, "Illustrations of the Rent-Laws: No. 1, Poles offering Corn; No. 2, The Choice of a Loaf." In 1840 he made arrange- ments with Cunningham, the publisher of "The Second Funeral of Napoleon," to issue a series of "Sketches by Spec," but only No. I appeared: "Britannia protecting the Drama," signed with the famous spectacles. Britannia is seated, holding a trident, sur- Thackeray as Artist 109 rounded by lionesses, a panther and a lamb, and at her feet is a bust of Shakespeare, lying on its side, as a personification of the drama. Underneath the sketch is the follow- ing quaint letterpress : EXPLANATION OF THE HALLEGOBY This ladies and gentlemen is a Hallegory, and rep- resents Britanny patronising hof the Drama Look at the Drama laying at her feet & over it remark the Lioness is lifting hof her leg. That 's Britanny she 's holding hof a pitch fork (as well she may in sich company) and the hanimals round about her why, they are the principal hactors. For some parts (especially for BLOODY TRAGEDY) they beat the Common Garden ones hollow, and that 's why Britanny goes to Dury Lane. Look at the Lamb (hemblem of hinnocence!) has lying between the legs of the Panther, and thinking of the kind souls who got him of the situation. Brit- anny 's caressing the lioness, for she 's conspicuous for humanity, & theres no sich proof of kindness as being fond of the brute beasteses. The figure of Britanny is taken from the rewerse of that famous coin, the British Halfpenny, some people think it would apply to coins more waluable and is the very thing for the REWERSE of A SOVERING. The next important item in the artistic record of Thackeray's life is "The Paris 1 1 o Some Aspects of Thackeray Sketch-Book" (1840) with numerous sketches. This was followed by "Comic Tales and Sketches" (1841), a collection of stories that had appeared in various periodicals. In these volumes "The Yellowplush Cor- respondence" is furnished with five original plates in place of those which had accompa- nied it during its serial publication; "Some Passages in the Life of Major Gahagan" with four; and "The Professor" and "The Bedford Row Conspiracy" with one each. None of these were ever reprinted until recently, which seems strange, as they are among the best drawings ever executed by Thackeray, and the illustrations to "Major Gahagan" are delightful. There was also a pictorial title-page to "Comic Tales and Sketches," wherein are portrayed the figures of Titmarsh, Yellowplush, and Gahagan, who, the author tells us, little thinking how the word spoken in jest was by and by to come true, "are supposed to be marching hand in hand, and are just on the very brink of immortality." The verses which appeared in the Nation LONDON* CHAPMAN AND HALL, 180 STRAND REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE COVER TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "MRS. PERKINS'S BALL " From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Thackeray as Artist m (1843), entitled "Daddy, I'm Hungry," were accompanied by an illustration. Thack- eray also sent to the same paper a second drawing a stage coach, a royal mail, with a Highland driver and guard in plaids, but with no passengers, at which the country people are jeering. This sketch, the late Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, the editor of the Nation, informed the present writer, was not printed, because the controversy with which it was concerned was brought to a premature close by a decree of the govern- ment. It was not accompanied by any verses, he added, because it told its story so well. It is only necessary to give a list of the better-known works illustrated by the author: "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," "The Vir- ginians," and "Philip" (with the assistance of the late Frederick Walker), "Mrs. Per- kins's Ball," "Our Street," "Dr. Birch and his Young Friends," and "The Kickleburys on the Rhine " some copies of each of these Christmas Books contained coloured plates; "The Ring and the Rose," "Lovel ii2 Some Aspects of Thackeray the Widower," and the "Roundabout Papers." The number of drawings contributed by Thackeray to Punch was immense. Besides those familiar to readers of his collected works, there are a hundred or more which have never yet been reprinted except in Messrs. Macmillan's editions of Thackeray's Works. Thackeray illustrated all the best of his burlesques, ballads, and tales which appeared in this periodical: "Miss Tickle- toby's Lectures on English History," "The History of the Next French Revolution," "Wanderings of the Fat Contributor," " Jeames's Diary," "The Snobs of England," "Love Songs," "Prize Novelists," "Travels and Sketches in London," "Bow Street Ballads," " Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town," and the "Discourses by Dr. Solomon Pacifico." This list, however, covers but a portion of the contributions, which begins with an initial letter to "The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee" (June 18th, 1842), ends with the illustration to U A Second Letter to an Eminent Personage" (Sept. ra LONDON: PUNCH OFFICE, 85. FLEET STREET. [PRWB St. At] REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE COVER TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE BOOK OF SNOBS" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Thackeray as Artist 1 1 3 25th, 1854), and includes social cuts, thumb- nail sketches, initial letters, drawings ac- companying his own writings, and even illustrations to the letter-press of other writers. As an artist Thackeray was always at his best when illustrating his own writings. As has already been said, the chance of his mak- ing a success as a serious painter was ex- tremely remote; but there has rarely been an artist who made his drawings so helpful to the text. Indeed, the characters are depicted as truly by the pencil as by the pen, and they tell the story together. Thackeray's drawing may not always have been correct, the perspective may occasionally have been wrong, and an arm may sometimes have borne a strong resemblance to a fin, but for quaint fancy and humour his illustrations have seldom been surpassed. Take "Vanity Fair" and study the picto- rial work from the initial W, at the begin- ning of Chapter I., to the "Finis" tail-piece, which shows the children shutting up the puppets in the box after the play is played ii4 Some Aspects of Thackeray out. Look at the illustration on the cover of the monthly parts and at that on the title- page the former portraying the jester, standing on a cask, haranguing the yokels who are looking up at him, open-mouthed; the latter portraying the jester, lying on the ground, weary and worn, looking into a glass which reflects a countenance that is any- thing but gay. Look at "Rebecca's Fare- well" little Laura Martin crying bitterly because dear, kind Amelia Sedley is leaving the school, and Becky hurling out of the carriage the copy of Johnson's Dictionary, to the dismay of Miss Jemima Pinkerton, who, good-natured soul, had presented her with it as a souvenir of the Academy on Chiswick Mall: the look on Becky's face clearly indi- cates that she has no desire to remember the existence of Miss Pinkerton or the Academy, where, as a matter of fact, she had been far from happy. Look at Becky show- ing off "Miss Jenny," the doll, to her father's rather dissolute Bohemian friends; or, all alone, building a house of cards that, we know full well, will sooner or later fall, after MR. SEDLEY AT THE COFFEE-HOUSE From an illustration to "Vanity Fair" by Thackeray By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. Thackeray as Artist 115 the fashion of such unstable edifices; or fishing, and trying to entangle stupid, hulk- ing, conceited Mr. Jos; or as governess in the schoolroom, paying just so much atten- tion to her charges as might be expected from a lady with her turn of mind. Why, the slender thread of the story of Miss Rebecca Sharp might be reconstructed from the draw- ings! Look at Dobbin and Cuff fighting (in a capital C) ; or at Miss Eliza Styles (better known in the world as Captain Rawdon Crawley) reading a letter from his wife at Mr. Barnet's, saddler, Knightsbridge, near the barracks; or at Moss arresting Rawdon in Gaunt Square, while Moss's companion whistles for a hackney coach to convey the trio to the sponging-house in Cursitor Street. Glance at the tail-piece to Chapter IX. a delightful sketch of that sad jester, Thack- eray himself. Turn over the pages and, on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, compare Becky slumbering tranquilly, with Mrs. Major O'Dowd as Venus preparing the arms of Mars, her husband, who is sleeping heavily. Turn over more pages, and observe Miss 1 1 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray Horrocks of the ribbons playing the piano with the sycophantic Hester by the side, all admiration, and then glance at Sir Pitt nursed by Hester, the ill-conditioned, bully- ing attendant. Take any volume at random. Here are the "Prize Novelists." Look at George de Barnwell, forgetful of his duties as a sales- man, reading the godlike language of the blind old bard, " Ton d'apameibomenos pro- sephe" the while Martha Millwood wanted to be served with " sixperin'orth of tea-dust." Look at little Mendoza fighting Bullock, the most famous bruiser of Cambridge, before whose fists the gownsmen went down like ninepins. Who does not remember the way in which the result of the battle is indicated? "After the coroner's inquest, Mendoza gave ten thousand pounds to each of the bargeman's ten children." Or the interview between Louis Philippe and Mendoza? Or the two drawings of the executioner in "Barbazure," the first when apparently he is about to strike off the head of Fatima; the second in which he has, with one stroke o o ' H a 3 * 1 B J < 05 H Dp P J Thackeray as Artist 117 of his tremendous sword, decapitated Barba- zure? There is the giant's head, with its plumed cap, two feet higher in the air. But best of all is the attack of Harry Fogarty and the Onety-oneth regiment. What though two pistols are pointed at his head, and Napoleon himself is exercising his old trade as an artilleryman, Phil Fogarty escapes without a scar! What though Phil was captured! On his Irish horse Bugaboo he jumped over the Emperor on horseback, and went away with an army of a hun- dred and seventy-three thousand eight hun- dred men at his heels! More admirable burlesque sketches than these do not exist. Or take "Pendennis." Look at Fanny Bolton in bed, her two little sisters sleeping by her side. The poor, foolish little girl is reading the young Lothario's novel entitled "Walter Lorraine," and thinking all sorts of flattering things about the author. Poor child ! she thought to die of a disappointed love; yet turn the pages and see "Fanny's new Physician," the hearty, rather dirty, Huxter, who consoled this Calypso. 1 1 8 Some Aspects of Thackeray If space permitted it would be possible to go through each of the novels and point out drawing after drawing, delightful to regard. The "Christmas Books" owe more than half their charm to the plates. Take Thackeray's portraits of Mr. Titmarsh and Mr. Mulligan of Ballymulligan, of Mr. Flam, of Mr. Larkins; of those famous literary lights, Miss Bunion and Mr. Hicks; of Miss Trotter, whose face is bright at the arrival of the hideous but wealthy Lord Methusalah; of Mr. Beaumoris, Mr. Grig and Mr. Flinders; and of a host of others all present at "Mrs. Perkins's Ball." "Our Street" contained all sorts and conditions of people duly sketched by the author, from the inquisitive old lady looking out of the window to "the lady whom nobody knows;" from "the lion of the street," Clarence Bulbul, who wrote the Mayfair love-song, "The Cane-bottom 'd Chair," which appeared in the columns of Punchy to that of "the happy family," in which is depicted the happy home-life of the Fair- faxes. "The Rose and the Ring" has al- Thackeray as Artist 1 1 9 ready delighted several generations of great and small children. The drawings were begun at Rome as Twelfth Night pictures for his children, and the whole was sub- sequently finished soon after in London. Thackeray revelled in this sort of work: all his life he loved to amuse children, and to his love for the "little 'uns" he has left this abiding memory. Consider the originality of the draw- ings, the fancy, the whimsicality, the sense of humour which inspired them, the insight into life which they show, the power of bringing a whole scene vividly before the observer. Cavillers say that Thackeray was no artist; but if this is not art, why, then, the boundaries of art should at once be enlarged! Thackeray was under no misapprehension as to the value of his gift, and he was well aware of his limitations. For instance, when a man in all good faith said to him, "But you can draw," he instantly set him down in his mind as a snob and a flatterer; and when Mr. Corkran found him grumb- 120 Some Aspects of Thackeray ling over a sketch of his own: "Look," said he, "now George [Cruikshank], by a few touches, throwing some light or shadow here and there, would make this a picture. How it is I know not, but I certainly can- not do it at all." Thackeray frequently made fun of himself as a serious painter in his art criticisms in Eraser's Magazine and elsewhere; and in his very first paper on art, written in the form of a letter, he remarked: "I wish you could see my his- torical picture of ' Heliogabalus in the ruins of Carthage;' or the full-length of 'Sir Samuel and his Lady,' sitting in a gar- den light, reading 'The Book of Beauty/ 'Sir Samuel catching a butterfly, which is settling on a flower-pot." And, still laugh- ing at himself, he wrote to Edmund Yates in the fifties: 'You have a new artist on the Train, I see, dear Yates. I have been looking at his work, and I have solved a problem. I find there is a man alive who draws worse than myself!" Thackeray realized his lack of technical skill as an etcher. He asked the late Henry ILLUSTRATION FOR " A LEGEND OF THE RHINE " From the picture by G. Cruikshank By permission of Messrs. SmUh, Elder, & Co. See page 134 Thackeray as Artist 121 Vizetelly, the founder of the Pictorial Times, to find him some one who, from his water colour sketch, would etch the fron- tispiece to " Notes of a Journey from Corn- hill to Grand Cairo.'* The task was entrusted to a young man named Thwaites, who subsequently put on the wood a num- ber of drawings for "Mrs. Perkins's Ball." Thackeray saw, however, that his origi- nality was more valuable than an inferior hand's correctness of line. "I return the drawings after making a few alterations in them," he wrote to Mr. Vizetelly on one occasion. "Present Mr. Titmarsh's compliments to your talented young friend, and say M. A. T. would take it as a great favour if he would kindly confine his im- provements to the Mulligan's and Mrs. Perkins's other guest's extremities. In your young gentleman's otherwise praiseworthy corrections of my vile drawings, a certain je ne sais quai, which I flatter myself exists in the original sketches, seems to have given him the slip, and I have tried in vain to recapture it. Somehow I prefer my own 122 Some Aspects of Thackeray Nuremburg dolls to Mr. Thwaites's super- fine wax models." "You will not easily find a second Thack- eray," Charlotte Bronte wrote in 1848 a propos of Thackeray as a draughtsman and illustrator. "How he can render, with a few black lines and dots, shades of ex- pression so fine, so real; traits of character so minute, so subtle, so difficult to seize and fix, I cannot tell I can only wonder and admire. Thackeray may not be a painter, but he is a wizard of a draughts- man; touched with the pencil, the paper lives. And then his drawing is so refreshing: after the wooden limbs one is accustomed to see portrayed by common-place illus- trators, his shapes of bone and muscle clothed with flesh, correct in proportion and anatomy, are a real relief. All is true in Thackeray. If Truth were again a god- dess, Thackeray should be her high priest." The praise is high. Whether it is too high time will show. His talent was of the Hogarth kind; and the works of Ho- garth have not been adjudged valueless. Thackeray as Artist 123 Thackeray himself always declared that although he was not a first-rate artist, he was not half so bad as the woodcutters made him appear. And an inspection of his drawings supports this view. Certainly, though he lacked academic correctness and technical mastery, the undeniable original- ity and humour of his sketches will secure for them a very long lease of life. They place him in the ranks of the caricaturists on a level with Doyle, and not far below Leech and Cruikshank, though, as far as imaginative power is concerned, he was the equal of the latter. Whatever may be the opinion of him as a draughtsman, few w T ill venture to dispute his great merits as the illustrator of his own books. CHAPTER VI Thackeray and his Illustrators THACKERAY has had innumerable illustrators. These, for the purposes of this paper, may be divided into those who furnished the illustrations to the first editions, and those of a later generation who contributed to subsequent issues. To the former class belong the author, Cruik- shank, Leech, Doyle, Kenny Meadows, and Frederick Walker a galaxy of talent. To the latter, Fred Barnard, Lady Butler, John Collier, Harry Furniss, Luke Fildes, Linley Sambourne, E. J. Wheeler, W. J. Webb, W. Ralston, and many others; and, still more recently, F. W. Robinson, Francis Bedford, Hugh Thomson, C. E. Brock, and Miss Hammond. George du Maurier, strictly speaking, belongs also to this group, for his drawings to "Esmond" did not appear in the first edition; but as that MR. PIGEON. ("CAPTAIN ROOK AND MR. PIGEON") From a drawing by Kenny Meadows in " Heads of the People " See page 132 Thackeray and his Illustrators 125 famous historical romance was published without illustrations, and as, consequently, his work did not supersede that of an earlier artist, he may be mentioned among the original men. Reversing the usual order, the later draw- ings, as for the most part they are less famil- iar to the public, may be first considered. Both Mr. Robinson and Mr. Bedford illus- trated "Esmond" but as illustrators of this book the artists do not call for any particular mention. Their work was with- out distinction, conventional. Miss Chris Hammond has also illustrated the story, but, charming as are her designs, she has not quite succeeded in presenting the char- acters that Thackeray drew. Take, for example, one of the plates in which Beatrix and Henry Esmond are depicted. Henry has just told his cousin that the Duke of Hamilton, her affianced husband, has been slain. The news has overpowered her. She has looked wildly at her cousin, and has fallen back against the wall. "And you come here and and you killed him!" 126 Some Aspects of Thackeray she cries. "No, thank heaven!" her kins- man says; "the blood of that noble heart does not stain my sword! In its last hour it was faithful to you." Esmond is por- trayed as a superior person, calm and un- moved; nothing is shown of the horror of that last hour when the Duke was killed, nor of the despair of Beatrix, who had played for the strawberry leaves, had won, and at the eleventh hour had lost the prize. All her hopes were dashed to the ground. It was a tragedy for her, who later was to play for the love of a prince, and per- haps to dream of a crown. It was a tragedy, and Miss Hammond offers only a social cut with the performers in eighteenth-century garb. The next two artists to whom reference must be made, and tribute paid, are Mr. Hugh Thomson and Mr. Charles E. Brock. Mr. Thomson, however, has not as yet illustrated many of Thackeray's stories, but what work he has done in this direction gives good reason to believe that the suc- cess that has attended it may incline him Thackeray and his Illustrators 127 to extend his labours. Nothing could be better than the drawings that accompany "The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond." Mr. Thomson has selected for one of his subjects the well- known scene in the jeweller's shop where the Countess recognises the medallion that gives the title to the story: "As I live," she cries, "it is the great Hoggarty Dia- mond." The Countess conjured up by Mr. Thomson is the half-silly yet not always undiscerning woman of the text; his Lady Jane and Lady Fanny are well- contrasted, the one dignified, the other brimming over with fun; while Polonius, the jeweller, is the early Victorian trades- man to the life. How well conceived is the drawing depicting the Broughs at home. "Is there any duke in the land can give a better dinner than John Brough?" and that, too, of Brough at his office dictating to Samuel Titmarsh a letter that is to bring within his net the property of a well-to-do old woman. Mr. Brock has recently issued some three 128 Some Aspects of Thackeray hundred sketches distributed over an entire edition of Thackeray's prose works. These are delightful, admirably planned and well executed, and it may safely be said that readers who take up his edition to decide for them- selves will be sure to find much to please them. What, for instance, could be better than the portrait of Blanche Crowder, that very large woman who in her flounces oc- cupies the best part of a little drawing-room ; or the sketch in which is shown Jeames de la Pluche, showing himself to Mary Ann Hoggins in all the glory of his captain's uni- form of the North Diddlesex Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry? In the tender little picture ^of the little ingenue confiding her secrets to the Old Fogy, Mr. Brock is per- haps at his best. And his best is very good. The first complete edition of Thackeray's works was issued in 1867. This, which is known as the "Library" edition, included most of the drawings in the original issues. Only illustrations to "Esmond" by George du Maurier were added. Subsequently a "Standard" edition was brought out, but Thackeray and his Illustrators 129 this calls for no comment here. In 1877, however, a "Cheaper Illustrated" edition was placed on the market. This contained the work of the second group of illustrators, whose names have already been given. These drawings superseded the originals, only too often without improving upon them. The sketches by Mr. Harry Fur- niss accompanying "The Tremendous Ad- ventures of Major Gahagan" are espe- cially noteworthy. Curiously enough, they bear a marked resemblance to Thackeray's own illustrations to the story, though it is more than probable that the artist never saw the novelist's designs, for they were not issued when the burlesque was serial- ised, and only appeared in a volume of reprints which for a long time past has been very difficult to obtain. Mr. Furniss has entered into the spirit of burlesque, and, as it were, has received the character direct from its creator. It is impossible not to smile at the bombastic figures. Mr. Barnard ranks with Mr. du Maurier as an admirable illustrator of Thackeray's works. He was 1 30 Some Aspects of Thackeray not, however, uniformly successful in his "Character Sketches." Too frequently he presented merely a caricature. Just a touch of caricature is permissible, perhaps, but caricature is criticism, and the illustrator should not be the critic of the creator, but a sympathetic friend. Mr. Barnard was at his best when portraying Becky Sharp, Dobbin, and Colonel Newcome, and he excelled himself in the presentation of the immortal Costigan. A critic might object that this Costigan looks too much like a sharper, instead of the poor, drunken, swindling reprobate he was. But there he sits in his daughter's dressing-room, on a chair in the corner of which is a "property" crown, disreputable enough, unkempt, and with his hat cocked over on one side. It is not easy to caricature the Captain, and this may be at least one reason why Mr. Barnard is most successful in this portrayal. As has already been stated, the "Esmond" sketches by George du Maurier were the novelty of the edition of 1867. It may be said that no artist could have succeeded better AT THE SICK MAN S DOOR From an illustration to "The Adventures of Philip" by Frederick Walker By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. See page 133 Thackeray and his Illustrators 131 in this difficult task, and, though many have tried, none have equalled the designs in black and white by this master of line. Rarely has an illustrator so happily caught the tone of a book, rarely has he executed his conception so admirably as Mr. du Maurier. Take the plates one by one. Look at little Henry being ordered by the Dowager Lady Castlewood to obey the Jesuit Father Holt in everything; or, a little later at Henry reproached unreason- ably by the reigning Viscountess for having brought the smallpox from the village into the house; or, years after, see the lad, dressed as a divine, watching Rachel and Beatrix reading from the same book. Turn over the pages and look at the picture of the duel between Castlewood and Mohun (who was christened Henry by the novelist, though his name was Charles) ; or at Rachel visiting Harry in prison. See Harry at his mother's simple grave in the garden of the convent at Brussels; or drinking in the tavern with Addison and "Dick" Steele; or informing Beatrix of Hamilton's death. Or i3 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray again, look at Beatrix being presented to the Pretender, or standing at bay against Esmond and her mother and brother. Each drawing is admirable indeed; the whole set is a triumph. And now, having cleared the ground, one may devote some consideration to the artists who contributed to the original edi- tions. Of Kenny Meadows it is easy to dispose. Indeed, it can scarcely be said that he illustrated Thackeray, for in all prob- ability it'would be more accurate to say that Thackeray furnished the letterpress to the drawings. Kenny Meadows drew a series of "Heads of the People, or, Portraits of the English," around which "distinguished writers," so runs the title-page, wrote "orig- inal essays." To this work Thackeray con- tributed "Mr. Rook and Captain 'Pigeon" (which had already appeared in the New York Corsair), "The Artists," and "The Fashionable Authoress." Five plates, almost unknown to the present generation, accom- panied these "Character Sketches." Mead- ows was a capable mechanical draughtsman. ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES E. BROCK FOR " TRAVELS AND SKETCHES IN LONDON" By permission of Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co., Ltd. See page 126 Thackeray and his Illustrators 133 There was nothing subtle in his humour. His work has not lived. Frederick Walker only came upon the scene in the last years of Thackeray's life, when the novelist was weary and ill, and did not feel equal to illustrating his stories. Thackeray found it troublesome to draw on the wood the illustrations for "The Adventures of Philip," when that story was running through the Cornhill Maga- zine. Some of the drawings, executed on paper, when done on wood had not satis- fied him. Walker was then introduced by his publisher, Mr. George Smith, of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Company; but this talented artist, after re-drawing a few of Thackeray's sketches, declared himself capable of better work, and declined to go on with the' job. Eventually the work was left in his hands with only written suggestions, though some- times a rough pen-and-ink sketch by the author was sent. Probably "Good Samari- tans" was the first drawing executed by him on his own responsibility. Subsequently he illustrated the fragment of "Denis Duval," 134 Some Aspects of Thackeray which appeared posthumously. Frederick Walker has been much more successful in the more original, and, it may be assumed, more congenial branches of his art, as is only to be expected. His illustrations are admirably drawn, but his figures lack vi- tality, and the designs seem somewhat conventional. George Cruikshank and John Leech oc- cupy the proud position of the greatest humorous artists of the nineteenth cen- tury. Leech only contributed a few little sketches of initial letters to Thackeray's writings in Punch, a drawing to "An Eastern Adventure of the Fat Contributor," and one amusing illustration to "A Lucky Specu- lator." In this last stands Jeames in his livery, shaking hands with his master Sir George Flimsy, who congratulates him upon having won thirty thousand pounds in rail- road speculation. This sketch is especially interesting, for it affords an opportunity to contrast Leech's and Thackeray's humour. Leech's Jeames is admirable, with the smirk on his face, the embarrassment caused by AN ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN LEECH FOR AN EASTERN ADVENTURE OF THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR " Thackeray and his Illustrators 135 his master's unexpected friendliness, withal a certain smug complacency. Cruikshank, at whose feet Thackeray sat, was never at his best in his illustrations to the novelist's works. His drawings in "A Legend of the Rhine" are amusing, but not wholly satis- fying; and the same may be said of those in "Stubbs's Calendar." But the plates to "Cox's Diary" are more like the real thing. Still, they will not bear comparison with the master's other work. Neither was Richard Doyle happiest when illustrating "The Newcomes." Thackeray had intended to illustrate the story, and actually made two sketches for the first number, before he decided that Doyle should furnish the drawings. The two sketches were adopted and redrawn by Doyle. "He does beautifully and easily what I want to do, and can't," said the author. Doyle was a far better draughtsman, but he was in no degree Thackeray's superior in origi- nality of design, and he was not his equal as an illustrator; yet he did his work well, and some of the plates were excellent. "A i3 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray Letter from Clive" was one of these. There is the Colonel regaling the ladies of the regiment with Clive's letter, boring some of his hearers with the prattle, being laughed at by others, but with a kindly laugh, for the simple-hearted man is a great favourite, and every one who knows him and can appreciate his modesty, generosity, and hon- our, loves him. Where is there anything more touching than the Colonel as "A Student of the Old Masters," sitting alone before the pictures that his son loves, and praying to be able to understand wherein lies their beauty, so that he may be the companion of the lad even in his studies? Doyle is no less successful when "The Colonel tells Sir Barnes a bit of his mind" in the bank parlour before the bank clerks. The old man, towering over his nephew, looks the personification of injured inno- cence and dignity. "I repeat, sir, I con- sider you guilty of treachery, falsehood, and knavery. And if ever I see you at Bay's Club, I will make the same state- ment to your acquaintance at the west end JEAMES RETIRING FROM SERVICE From an illustration to "Jeames's Diary" by John Leech See page 134 Thackeray and his Illustrators 137 of the town. A man of your baseness ought to be known, sir; and it shall be my busi- ness to make men of honour aware of your character. . . . Sir Barnes Newcome, for fear of consequences that I should deplore, I recommend you to keep a wide berth of me." Further on comes an illustration of a different kind. It is a street row at New- come, where the election for the member of parliament is progressing. "Newcome versus Newcome." It is in Doyle's best manner, and is a magnificent picture of a crowd. And almost at the end of the book is another exquisite design. It is after the final quarrel between Clive and the Cam- paigner, and Clive asks his father to come and help put Tommy to bed. "The old man's eyes lighted up; his scared thoughts returned to him: he followed his two chil- dren up the stairs, and saw hi? grandson in his little bed; and as he walked home with him he told me how sweetly Boy had said 'Our Father,' and prayed God bless all who loved him, as they laid him to rest." And you see the child, in his white night- 138 Some Aspects of Thackeray shirt on his knees at the foot of the little bed, and Clive standing reverently by the side; and the old, weary Colonel, seated, looking lovingly at his grandchild. It is a pretty, even a beautiful sketch, and with it we may take leave of the preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, whose heart was as that of a little child, and who so soon after was to stand in the presence of the Master. If Doyle was on the whole successful in his treatment of the themes in "The New- comes," with "Rebecca and Rowena" he achieved a veritable success. His illustra- tions to this burlesque rank with his best work. He was less fettered by the more frivolous text, and was able to give full play to his humour. Most amusing is the "Assault on the Castle of Chalus." Could anything be better than the expression of the fat man who, mounted on a six-foot ladder, is endeavouring to scale a twenty- foot wall, and suddenly becomes aware of three spears thrust through an aperture within an inch of his nose? "Ivanhoe slay- A STUDENT OF THE OLD MASTERS From an illustration to "The Xewcomes" by Richard Doyle By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, A Co. See page 136 Thackeray and his Illustrators 139 ing the Moors" is every whit as good. It is apparently the knight contra mundum. The Moors, hundreds of them, have set upon him, and, with the greatest ease, he is killing them by tens. The ground is littered with the corpses of his victims, and in the background on the hillock stands his horse, calmly watching the scene with interest, and awaiting placidly his master's return. Thackeray's own drawings for his works, like his poetry, have been overshadowed by his genius as a novelist. When the name of the great man is mentioned it conjures up the picture of the author of "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," and "Esmond," and the excellence of his work as an illustrator has been overlooked. This is the mis- fortune of the public, through the fault of those responsible for the editions of his works having replaced much of his work with that of other men, who may have been better artists, but have never ap- proached him as an illustrator. CHAPTER VII Thackeray's Originals HE who would trace the prototypes of Thackeray's characters is met at the outset with the novelist's declaration that he never copied any one. "Mr. Thackeray was only gently skilful and assimilative and combinative in his char- acters," said the late George Augustus Sala. "They passed through the alembic of his study and observation. The Marquis of Steyne is a sublimation of half-a-dozen characters. So is Captain Shandon; so are Costigan and the Mulligan. And the finest of Mr. Thackeray's characters Becky, Dob- bin, Jos Sedley, and Colonel Newcome are wholly original, from the celebrity point of view at least." The accuracy of these statements will now be examined. Yet, though Thackeray may never deliberately have copied anybody, no doubt, as is the THE EDITOR OF THE CABINET CYCLOPEDIA From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Thackeray's Originals case with all writers, he must, though perhaps all unconsciously, have received suggestions for characters from persons with whom he was acquainted. That he used such sugges- tions, sometimes without realising that he was doing so, will be shown in the case of the creation of that particularly objectionable young lady, Miss Blanche Amory, who has come down to posterity as the author of "Mes Larmes." Thackeray's characters, for the purposes of this paper, may best be divided into those of whose identity there can be no doubt; and those of which the prototype cannot with any degree of certainty be stated. In "The Yellowplush Correspondence" among the earliest of Thackeray's writings Thackeray lampooned two well-known men of the day: Doctor Dionysius Lardner, the edi- tor of an Encyclopaedia and of the "Cabinet Library," as Docthor Dioclesius Larner and Docthor Athanasius Lardner; and the nov- elist Bulwer-Lytton, who is made to announce himself as " Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig. In common with most of the Eraser set, Some Aspects of Thackeray Thackeray was never tired of attacking this author, whose dandiacal pretensions aroused his ire. He made a savage onslaught on "Ernest Maltravers" in "Our Batch of Novels for Christmas 1837;" and attacked with much bitterness "The Sea-Captain" in "Epistles to the Literati." "Catherine" was written avowedly to counteract the injurious effect of the "Newgate" novels of Lytton and Ainsworth. Later, Thackeray in Punch made fun of the many Christian names of "The Author of Pelham;" and in "The Snobs of England" made playful al- lusion to him as "the celebrated author . . . who has been taking leave of the public any time these ten years in his prefaces." He never met Lytton, and on the one occasion when he was asked to dinner for that purpose felt himself constrained to refuse the invita- tion as he was about to publish "George de Barnwell," the first of the delightful "Prize Novelists," though, as he remarked in his letter, the parody was written without malice. Later still a mutual friend of the novelists wrote to Lytton: "I saw Thack- Thackeray's Originals 143 eray at Folkestone. He spoke of you a great deal, and said he would have given worlds to have burnt some of his writings, espe- cially some lampoons written in his youth. He much wished to see you and express his contrition. His admiration as expressed to me was boundless; also his regret to have given vent to his youthful jealousy, etc. I tell you all this because I feel certain he meant me to repeat it." A more direct apology was made in the Preface to Messrs. Appleton's edition of his minor works (New York, 1853), of which he sent a copy, with a cry of "Peccavi," to the author of "The Caxtons." Yellowplush was innocent of a prototype, though when he reappeared after many years as " Jeames of Buckley Square" there is reason to suppose he was drawn from Mr. Foster, the reporter who for many years was the contributor of fashionable intelli- gence to the Morning Post, and was fre- quently caricatured as "Jenkins" in Punch. The villain of "The Yellowplush Corre- spondence," Deuceace, was a portrait. Once, when Thackeray was at Spa, he pointed out 144 Some Aspects of Thackeray to Sir Theodore Martin a tall, shabbily dressed person. "That was the original of my Deuceace," he remarked. "I have not seen him since the day he drove me down in his cabriolet to my broker's in the City, where I sold out my patrimony and handed it over to him." "Poor devil," he added, "my money does n't seem to have thriven with him." It was this person that Thackeray had in his mind when in later years he wrote in the "Roundabout Papers" of "ogres." "Ogres in our days need not be giants at all," he said. " In former times, and in children's books, where it is necessary to paint your moral in such large letters that there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with that enormous mouth and ratelier which you know of, and with which they can swallow down a baby, almost without using that great knife which they always carry. They are too cunning nowadays. They go about in society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially great appetite. In my own young days there used to be play ogres men who would devour a young fellow AUTHOR OF THE SIAMESE TWINS From a drawing by Daniel Maclise See page 151 Thackeray's Originals 145 in one sitting, and leave him without a bit of flesh on his bones. They were quiet, gentlemanlike-looking people. They got the young fellow into their cave. Champagne, pate de fois gras, and numberless good things were handed about; and then, having eaten, the young man was devoured in his turn." On the whole Thackeray rarely indulged in personalities, and such as he penned after the days of his youth appeared in the pages of Punch. He attacked William Harrison Ainsworth, when the latter, after purchas- ing from Colburn The New Monthly Maga- zine^ announced he had secured the aid of several writers "eminent not only for talent but for high rank." This roused the Snobo- grapher, who spoke his mind in a now little- known article called "Immense Opportu- nity." No sooner was this written than there came from Ainsworth to Thackeray an invi- tation to dinner, whereupon he must needs avow the authorship. "There's one thing I regret very much too, and must be told to you now in making a clean breast of it is a certain paragraph in the next Punchy relat- 146 Some Aspects of Thackeray ing to a certain advertisement about contribu- tors, 'not only of talent, but of rank. 9 This moved my wrath; and has been hardly handled this was before our meeting and explanation I always must think it a very objectionable advertisement but should n't have lifted my hand to smite my friend, had explanation come sooner, so that now you must be called upon to play the part of for- giver, in which I am sure you will shine." It may be remarked en passant that Thack- eray, who had been a contributor to The New Monthly Magazine under Colburn, did not again appear in its pages after the change of proprietors; but his acquaintance with Ainsworth continued for many years. Thackeray's first contribution to Punch was ' ' The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee. ' ' This was a skit on John Abraham Heraud, a writer of poems "The Descent into Hell," "The Judgment of the Flood," etc. whose works are quite unknown to the present generation of readers. In the "Legend" the author contrived to introduce under orientalised forms the names of several of his contempora- Thackeray's Originals H7 ries : Bulwer-Khan and his " Siamee-Geminee" is, of course, Bulwer's "Siamese-Twins;" Thomas the Moor is Thomas Moore; and Mollah Moongoomeree, Robert Montgom- ery, and his poem "Eblis" is the now- forgotten "Satan." Thackeray had already reviewed another poem by the same writer, "Woman: The Angel of Life," in an article that concluded with the last ten lines of the poem printed backwards. Ulphabeet-Bailee in the "Legend" is F. W. N. Bailey, who must not be confused with the better-known Haynes Bayly, the author of the once pop- ular English song " We met 't was in a crowd." "I'd be a Butterfly," an earlier success, had the distinction of being parodied by Thackeray, when an undergraduate at Cambridge University. F. W. N. Bailey was the originator of "The National Omni- bus," the "first of the cheaper publications," as he styled it. Subsequently he founded the National Standard of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts, which grandiloquently named periodical he con- trived to sell to Thackeray. The latter an- 148 Some Aspects of Thackeray nounced the change in the columns of the paper: "We have got free of the Old Bailey, and changed the Governor." The National Standard never had a reasonable chance of success, and what Thackeray thought of the transaction in after days those who will may read in "Lovel the Widower" in the passage in which Mr. Batchelor tells the story of his newspaper venture. In his paper Thackeray lampooned and caricatured Louis Philippe, N. M. Rothschild, Crockford, Braham, and Alfred Bunn. Crockford, of course, was the proprietor of the famous London gaming house. Braham was the well-known tenor, of whom Sir Walter Scott remarked: "a beast of an actor, though an angel of a singer." He erected the Colloseum in Regent's Park, and, it is said, lost fifty thousand pounds in that speculation. Undismayed, however, he spent another thirty thousand pounds on the St. James's Theatre, erected on the site of Nerot's Hotel, a resort much frequented by Anglo-Indians, and famous as the place to which, upon their return to England, re- paired Colonel Newcome, C. B., and James THE AUTHOR OF SATAN From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Thackeray's Originals 149 Binnie, his civilian colleague in the Honour- able East India Company's Service. Alfred Bunn was a theatrical manager with literary tastes which were later to provoke the attacks of Mr. Punch's young men. As a matter of fact the attentions of this band of talented writers to "the Poet Bunn" irri- tated their victim to such a degree that he called to his assistance the powerful aid of George Augustus Sala and with him con- cocted "A Word with Punch," in which a violent attack was made upon his principal assailants, Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, and, perhaps the most virulent of them all, Gilbert Abbott a Beckett (Thackeray's "a, Beckett the Beak"). Thackeray, however, had no part in the attacks on Bunn in Punch, but he had earlier caricatured him in "Flore et Zephyr," and later introduced him as "Dolphin" in "Pendennis." A favorite butt of Thackeray in Punch was James Grant, who must not be confused with James Grant, the novelist, nor with James Augustus Grant, the author of "A Walk Across Africa," and other books of travel. The i5 Some Aspects of Thackeray James Grant in question was the editor of the Morning Advertiser, and author of "The Great Metropolis" and "Paris and its Peo- ple," both of which books were reviewed by Thackeray in Eraser's Magazine. "The Snobs of England "contains many allusions to the author's contemporaries. Benjamin Dis- raeli is introduced as "Ben de Minories;" Theodore Hook as "Theodore Crook;" Mrs. Gore, the author of "Mothers and Daugh- ters" and other novels, as "Mrs. Cruor;" Mrs. Trollope, the authoress of "The Vicar of Wrexhill " and other works of fiction, and the mother of Anthony, as "Mrs. Wallop;" Thomas Babington Macaulay as "Tom Macau;" and Thomas Slingsby Dun- combe, member of Parliament for Finsbury, "Thomas of Finsbury." "The Duke of Coeurdelion" has, as prototype, the Duke of Buckingham, an aristocrat of the old school, who, at the eleventh hour, forcibly prevented the marriage of his twenty-six-year-old daughter with a well-to-do, well-born gentle- man, against whom it could only be urged that he was not a nobleman. Mr. Stephen Thackeray's Originals 151 Price appeared as Captain Shindy, and a woodblock presenting a portrait of Mr. Wyndham Smith was inserted among the sporting snobs. The originals of "Punch's Prize Novelists," now better known as "Nov- els by Eminent Hands," are more or less obvious. "E. L. B. L. B. B. L. L. B. B. B. L. L. L." is Bulwer Lytton; "B. de Shrews- bury" is Benjamin Disraeli, who at that time was member of Parliament for Shrews- bury; "The Authoress of 'Dukes and De- jeuners,' 'Hearts and Diamonds/ 'Mar- chionesses and Milliners,' etc., etc.," is Mrs. Gore; " G. P. R. Jeames" is, of course, George Payne Rainsford James, the author of "Richelieu" and many other novels, all bearing a strong family likeness; "Harry Rollicker" is Charles Lever, and "The Author of 'The Last of the Mulligans,' 'Pilot,' etc.," is, of course, Fenimore Cooper. Several of the characters in "Vanity Fair" had prototypes in real life. It is commonly supposed that the inimitable Becky had an original, though her name is known to few. i5 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray Lady Ritchie saw her once. She drove to Young Street to see Thackeray, a most charm- ing, dazzling little lady, dressed in black, who greeted the novelist with great affection and brilliancy, and on her departure presented him with a bunch of violets. Thackeray always parried with a laugh all questions concerning this prototype. However, a lady who knew him intimately was not so reti- cent. She said the character of Becky was an invention, but it had been suggested to him by a governess who lived in the neigh- bourhood of Kensington Square, and was the companion of a very rich and very selfish old woman. The governess, strange to say, followed in the footsteps of Becky. Some years after the publication of "Vanity Fair" she ran away with the nephew of the lady with whom she was living, and for a while made a sensation in society circles, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's style and entirely by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's methods. This living handsomely on nothing a year re- sulted in the usual way; and in the end the ex-governess fled the country, and was to AUTHOR OF VIVIAN GREY From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Thackeray's Originals 153 be seen on the Continent flitting from gamb- ling-place to gambling-place. Charles Kingsley used to tell a good story of a lady who confided to Thackeray that she liked "Vanity Fair" exceedingly. "The characters are so natural," she said, "all but the baronet, Sir Pitt Crawley, and surely he is overdrawn; it is impossible to find such coarseness in his rank of life." "That character," the author smilingly replied, "is almost the only exact portrait in the book." The identity of the prototype was not revealed for many years; but it has recently been asserted that the character was sketched from a former Lord Rolle. " Sir Pitt's letters to Becky were very badly spelt and written," remarks the gentleman who puts forward this theory, "and I may say that I have in my possession a letter written by Sir Robert Brownrigg to His Royal Highness the Duke of York when Commander-in-Chief of the British army, complaining that a report received from Lord Rolle, as Lord-Lieutenant of his county, was so badly written that he could not decipher it." 154 Some Aspects of Thackeray "You know that you are only a piece of Amelia," Thackeray wrote to Mrs. Brook- field. "My Mother is another half; my poor little Wife y est pour beaucoup." Mrs. Brookfield was a daughter of Sir Charles Elton, who lived at Clevedon Court, Somerset which house figures in "Es- mond" as Castlewood. Her husband, the Rev. W. H. Brookfield, was one of Thack- eray's intimates, and their friendship dated back to their university days. Thackeray paid tribute to Brookfield's fine qualities by drawing him as Frank Whites tock in "The Curate's Walk;" and when asked towards the end of his life which of his friends he loved the best, replied: "Why, dear old Fitz, of course; and Brookfield." Fitz was Edward FitzGerald, the translator of "Omar." An- other old college chum, John (afterwards Archdeacon) Allen, was presented as Dobbin, w T ho at the outset obviously was to be the butt of the story; but in the end the char- acter, mastering its creator, developed into the fine, noble gentleman we know. Although all are agreed that the original Thackeray's Originals 155 of the Marquis of Steyne was a Marquis of Hertford, the question is, which Lord Hert- ford is entitled to the invidious distinction? The first marquis lived too early, and for many reasons the fourth may be put out of court. Mr. George Somes Layard plumps for the third marquis; Mr. S. M. Ellis is all for the second, and writes as follows to the present writer: "May I give my reasons for thinking Thackeray had Francis, second Marquis of Hertford, in his mind when writing his description of Lord Steyne and Gaunt House? The third marquis was the son of the second, and both were intimate friends of George IV., who in point of age came just between the two: second marquis born 1743; George IV. born 1762; third marquis born 1777. Now, the second marquis did not die until 1822, which would cover the * Vanity Fair' period. Again, if chro- nology may be relied upon, there is much evidence in the book itself that points to the second marquis being Steyne. For instance, in the chapter entitled 'Gaunt House,' where the 'fast' history of the 156 Some Aspects of Thackeray house is given, Thackeray says: 'The Prince and Perdita have been in and out of that door,' etc. Now the Prince of Wales finally separated from Mrs. Robinson in 1783, when the future third marquis was only six years old. In the same paragraph Thackeray mentions Egalite, Duke of Orleans, as a friend of Steyne's. Egalite was executed in 1793; and then, so far as dates are concerned, the Gaunt House period is in the twenties, when the third marquis would have been forty years old or so, whereas Lord Steyne is described as an old man and a grand- father. Of course these dates may prove nothing in view of an author's license to transpose and alter such things to suit his purpose. My strongest point is that the second marquis was a notorious roue, whereas his son, the third marquis, was nothing out of the way in this attribute for a Regency buck. But his ancient father was a byword even at this period. He was called 'The Hoary Old Sinner,' and is constantly men- tioned in the Examiner, the Courier, and the other papers which supported the cause of THE REV. WILLIAM HENRY BROOKFIELD From the painting by Samuel Laurence By permission of Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. See page 154 Thackeray's Originals 157 Queen Caroline against the king and his friends. One of the most notorious acts with which the second Lord Hertford excited society was the seduction of Mrs. Massey. This is alluded to by Thomas Moore in his satirical series of poems, 'The Twopenny Post-Bag,' where he calls the marquis 'the hoary old sinner. 5 Of course Lord Hert- ford's wife was the mistress of George IV., and her husband and son were very com- plaisant over the matter. There is one other point: Thackeray says Lord Steyne was 'Lord of the Powder Closet;' the second Marquis of Hertford was Lord Chamberlain of the king's household, but his son was not." Mr. Layard's opinion, however, is stated very plainly: "No one who has taken the trouble to investigate the lives of the three marquises can hesitate for a moment in identifying the Marquis of Steyne with the third Marquis of Hertford." And he dwells on the resemblance between Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of the third marquis and the "suppressed" woodcut of Lord 158 Some Aspects of Thackeray Steyne contained in the first issue of "Vanity Fair." Both he and Mr. Charles Whibley, the well-known critic and the author of a recent interesting monograph on Thackeray, assume that Lord Steyne of "Vanity Fair" and Lord Monmouth of "Coningsby" are drawn from the same peer. But is not this assumption too readily made? It is generally accepted that Lord Monmouth is the third Marquis of Hertford. Yet, though there are so many differences between Lord Mon- mouth and Lord Steyne, the critics are content to state that these differences arise naturally from the diverse treatment of the two authors. For instance, Mr. Whibley remarks that Thackeray gives us a brute, Disraeli a man. Yet this, to a certain extent, is explained if Thackeray drew from the second and Disraeli from the third marquis. But surely there is a still simpler explana- tion. Disraeli presented in "Coningsby" a roman-a-clef, a political study of a period, and naturally he was at pains to give an accurate portrait of his model. With Thack- eray the case was very different. He was Thackeray's Originals 159 writing a work of fiction and nothing more. He had heard stories of the Marquises of Hertford, and when he created a profligate peer, what more likely than that he should tack these stories on to his creation? Or, being in possession of these stories, he drew a purely fancy portrait of Lord Hertford, since there was no reason why he should trouble to study the character of the noble- man in question. With these suggestions we may take leave of the "richly-dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end." There seems no doubt, however, that the Marquis of Steyne's managing man, Wenham, was drawn from the managing man of the third Marquis of Hertford, John Wilson Croker, who of course stood for Rigby in "Coningsby." Now Rigby is Croker to the life, as seen by the prejudiced. In some such fashion would Macaulay have depicted him. Unfair as is the portraiture, this is not the place to rehabilitate the much-abused, well- hated politician. Wenham, however, could 160 Some Aspects of Thackeray have been no more flattering to the original, for he is depicted as a mean, despicable creature. Thackeray had coals of fire poured upon him a little later when he was proposed at the Athenaeum Club as a candidate to be elected without ballot as a person of distinguished eminence in literature, for then Croker supported him. It must have been strange indeed, as Milman remarked, to see Macaulay and Croker row together in the same boat. A good story is told of Croker and the author of "Vanity Fair." When Croker was dead a mutual friend told Thackeray how Croker had begged his wife to seek out some homeless boys to stay with them from Saturday till Monday. "They will destroy your flower-beds and upset my inkstands, but we can help them more than they can hurt us." Thackeray choked, and went to see Mrs. Croker, and assured her he would never again speak or think ill of her husband. "Pendennis," so the story goes, was based upon a true anecdote of Brighton life, told to Thackeray by the Misses Smith (daughters O ~ 05 SF 2 Thackeray's Originals 161 of Horace, part author of "Rejected Ad- dresses") when he told them he had to pro- duce the first number of a novel in a few days, and had no idea how to start one. In gratitude he christened his heroine Laura after a younger sister, Mrs. Round. When "Pen- dennis" was finished the original Laura was very angry, or at least pretended to be very angry. "I'll never speak to you again, Mr. Thackeray," she declared. "You know I meant to marry Bluebeard" Lady Rock- minster's name for George Warrington. It may, perhaps, be remarked that it is rather curious that Thackeray should have chris- tened his heroine Laura Bell, for that was the name of a demi-mondaine of the day, so notorious that it is inconceivable that such a man about town as the author should not have heard of her. Young Pendennis was a great favourite with the author, which is not unnatural when it is remembered that the character was in great part drawn from himself. "Being entirely occupied with my two new friends, Mrs. Pendennis and her son, Arthur Pendennis," Thackeray wrote 1 62 Some Aspects of Thackeray from Brighton to the Brookfields, "I got up very early again this morning, and was with them for more than two hours before break- fast. He is a very good-natured, generous young fellow, and I begin to like him con- siderably. I wonder if he is interesting to me from selfish reasons, and because I fancy we resemble each other in many parts." Pendennis followed closely in the footsteps of his creator. Both went to the Grey Friars' School the Charterhouse of reality where Dr. Swishtail, the head-master, was as severe with the eponymous hero as Dr. Russell with the novelist when a lad. Pen- dennis lived for a while at Ottery St. Mary, in a house Fairoaks that corresponds to Larkbeare, the residence of Thackeray's mother and stepfather. Pendennis sent poems to the County Chronicle and Chatteris Cham- pion, Thackeray to the Western Luminary. Pendennis made friends with the vicar, Doctor Portman, who is no doubt drawn from Thackeray's friend, the Rev. Dr. Cor- nish. Pendennis went to the Chatteris Theatre, as we may be sure Thackeray, al- Thackeray's Originals 163 ways a lover of the theatre, visited the Exeter Theatre. It is not known that Thackeray fell in love with an actress in the Exeter Theatre stock company, but so autobio- graphical, apparently, is this part of the novel that Mr. Herman Merrivale is inclined to think the fiction is based upon fact. Miss Emily Costigan, better known under her theatrical name of Fotheringay, was freely adapted from Miss O'Neill, who became Lady Becher. We have it on Thackeray's authority that her father, Captain "Jack" Costigan, was a fancy portrait. Thackeray, however, in later life, met some one who might have sat for the immortal captain. "In the novel of 'Pendennis,' written ten years ago," he mentioned in"De Finibus," "there is an account of a certain Costigan whom I had invented (as I suppose authors invent their personages out of scraps, heel- taps, odds and ends of characters). I was smoking in a tavern parlour one night, and this Costigan came into the room alone the very man the most remarkable resem- blance of the printed sketches of the man, 164 Some Aspects of Thackeray of the rude drawings in which I had depicted him. He had the same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on one eye, the same twinkle in that eye. 'Sir,' said I, knowing him to be an old friend whom I had met in unknown regions; 'Sir,' I said, 'may I offer you a glass of brandy and water?' 'Bedad, ye may? says he; 'and I 'II sing ye a song tu.' Of course he spoke with an Irish accent. Of course he had been in the Army. In ten minutes he pulled out an Army Agent's account, whereon his name was written. A few months after, we read of him in a police court." Pendennis went later to St. Boniface's College, Oxbridge, as Thackeray had been to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a more notorious character than his prototype. Crump of Boniface was Whe- well, Master of Trinity. Subsequently Pen- dennis came to town to study law, which, however, he soon abandoned for journalism, as Thackeray had done before him. Like Thackeray, too, he lived in the Temple, shared chambers with George Warrington, THE DOCTOR From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Thackeray's Originals 165 as Thackeray had lived with Tom Taylor or another. "You will find much to remind you of old talk and faces of William John O'Con- nell, Jack Sheehan, and Andrew Arcedechne," Thackeray wrote to George Moreland Craw- ford, who had nursed him through the ill- ness that nearly brought "Pendennis" to a premature conclusion. "There is some- thing of you in Warrington, but he is not fit to hold a candle to you, for, taking you all round, you are the most genuine fellow that ever strayed from a better world into this. You don't smoke, and he is a con- firmed smoker of tobacco. Bordeaux and port were your favourites at the Deanery l and the Garrick, and Warrington is always guzzling beer. But he has your honesty, and, like you, could not posture if he tried. You have a strong affinity for the Irish. May you some day find an Irish girl to lead you to matrimony ! There 's no such good 1 The "Deanery" was an old-fashioned public-house near St. Paul's, so referred to by a certain set because it was often graced by the presence of Barham, of "Ingoldsby Legends" fame, a canon of the neighbouring cathedral. 1 66 Some Aspects of Thackeray wife as a daughter of Erin." Lady Ritchie thinks there is something of her father in Warrington, and perhaps a likeness to Ed- ward FitzGerald; and it has been said that the character was based partly on George Stoven Venables, whose name figures in Thackeray's personal history as the smasher of the latter's nose in a fight at the Charter- house. The noblemen on the staff of the paper "written by gentlemen for gentlemen " were Lords William and Henry Lennox and a brother of the Duke of St. Albans, of whom Sheehan said : " His name Beauclerc is a misnomer, for he is always in a fog and never clear about anything." Most im- portant of all men of letters in "Penden- nis" is Captain Shandon, the prototype of which character is Doctor William Maginn. Thackeray's acquaintance with Maginn dates from the days when the former was studying painting in Paris. The story that Thackeray gave Maginn five hundred pounds is probably apocryphal. It could not have happened after the failure of the Constitu- tional newspaper, for that carried with it Thackeray's Originals 167 all that remained of the young man's pat- rimony. It is said, however, that in Paris Thackeray and Maginn discussed the scheme of a magazine, which the former was to capitalize; and this may have started the rumour. Anyhow, the two men were close friends, and it was no doubt the Doctor who introduced Thackeray as a contributor to Eraser's Magazine, of which periodical he was the editor and, perhaps, the most valuable contributor. " 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 place," Thackeray has written. But Maginn was a greater than Shandon in whom only one side of him and that the worse side is shown. Maginn was probably all that is depicted in Shan- don, but he was also much more. He may have written indeed, he did write articles that w r ere models of virulent abuse; but he was a parodist of no mean merit, and his Shakespearian essays and his Latin versions of "Chevy Chase" and other 1 68 Some Aspects of Thackeray ballads extorted praise even from his enemies. Foker differs from Thackeray's other char- acters because it was an accurate portrait of a member of the Garrick Club. It was most probably this breach of etiquette that was the cause of Thackeray being black- balled at the Traveller's Club, where the ballot is by members and not by the com- mittee, the members fearing lest any one of them who had marked peculiarities of manner might be introduced in some later novel. The member of the Garrick who sat for Foker was Andrew Arcedechne, who, as says the Hon. Henry J. Coke in his "Tracks of a Rolling-stone," was so like a seal that he was often called "Phoca" by his intimates. Arcedechne was small in stature and eccentric in his mode of dressing; he drove stage-coaches as an amateur, loved cock-fighting and the prize- ring and had a large estate in Norfolk. It is pleasant to record, that no quarrel between him and his lampooner was oc- casioned by the publication of "Penden- Thackeray's Originals 169 nis." Thackeray always declared his model to be "not half a bad fellow," and Arce- dechne remarked: "Awfully good chap old Thack was. Lor' bless you, he did n' mind me a bit. But I did take it out of him now and again. Never gave him time for a repartee." The victim did, indeed, sometimes contrive to score off his per- secutor and once or twice with marked success, and Thackeray became uncomfort- able in his presence. When the great man was telling a story in the smoking room at the Garrick, and Arcedechne entered, the narrator would hesitate, stammer, and break down; whereupon the other, with a bland smile would say, "Proceed, sweet warbler, thy story interesteth me!" which remark invariably reduced Thackeray to silence, and often to flight. Or Arcedechne would be in the room and when the novelist entered would greet him affably, "Ha! Mr. Thackeray! literary cove! Glad to see you, sir. How's Major Dobbing?" and would summon a waiter and tell him to "Give this gent a glass of Toker's Own,' and i7 Some Aspects of Thackeray score it up to yours truly!" Once Arce- dechne scored a triumph over Thackeray that has become historic. He went to the first lecture on the "English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century," and afterwards Thackeray asked him how he had liked it. "Very good, Thack, my boy, very good. But wants a pianner!" Pendennis naturally went to Thackeray's haunts, "The Cave of Harmony" and "The Back Kitchen," better known as " Evans's Coffee-house," and "The Cider Cellars," and at the latter heard Mr. Nadab, the improvisa- tore, who in life was known as Charles Sloman, again introduced into "The Newcomes" as "the great little Jew at the Coal Hole." He was intimate with Thackeray's friends and acquaintances, and in his illness was at- tended by Thackeray's doctor, Elliotson to whom "Pendennis" is dedicated who figures in the story as Doctor Goodenough. Major Pendennis's noble friend, Lord Col- chicum, was a sketch from life of the very naughty Lord Lonsdale of the day; and there was, says Thackeray, writing to Amer- x^Cfc-*-'^ ^^"^X AUTHOR or "SAYINGS AND DOINGS From a drawing by Daniel Maclise Thackeray's Originals 171 lean intimates, "a friend of mine who is coming out to New York, and to whom I shall give a letter a queer fellow, the orig- inal of the Chevalier Strong." Many of the journalists and men of letters in the book had their prototypes. Bungay is a caricature of Colburn the pub- lisher, and the proprietor of the New Monthly Magazine, to which at one time Thackeray was a contributor. Colburn is eminent among the publishers who have missed opportunities, for he declined to commission Thackeray to finish a novel of which he was shown the earlier chapters, and which is known to us as "Vanity Fair." It is said that the late W. H. Wills, the business manager of Household Words, suggested to Thackeray the publisher's reader who, "from having broken out in the world as a poet of a tragic and suicidal cast, had now sub- sided into one of Mr. Bungay's back shops, as reader for that gentleman." A visitor at one of Bungay's dinner-parties, Captain Sumph, with his silly stories of Byron, was sketched from Captain Medwin, the author *7 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray of a volume of dull "Conversations with Byron." Mr. Wagg, a henchman of Lord Steyne, was drawn from Theodore Hook, the author of some now almost forgotten novels, and, more particularly, of the Rams- bottom Letters in the John Bull newspaper. Those letters were parodied by Thackeray in the Snob and the Gownsman, weekly periodicals written and published by Cam- bridge undergraduates in 1829 and 1830. Thackeray actually had the audacity to put into Wagg's mouth one of Hook's own jokes. Wagg is made to ask Mrs. Bungay, "Does your cook say he's a Frenchman?" and to reply, when that lady expresses her ignorance, "Because if he does, he 's a- quizzin' yer (cuisinier)" Mr. Charles Whib- ley informs us that "Archer, the quidnunc, whose advice is always wanted at the palace, and whose taste for cold beef the Duke him- self consults, is none other than Tom Hill of the Monthly Mirror, whom Theodore Hook painted as Hull in * Gilbert Gurney.' ' Of all the women in "Pendennis," only one has been traced to an original. Like Thackeray's Originals 173 Becky, Blanche Amory, if, strictly speaking, she had not a prototype, at least was sug- gested by an acquaintance. "At the train, whom do you think I found? Miss G , who says she is Blanche Amory, and I think she is Blanche Amory; amiable at times, amusing, clever, and depraved," Thackeray wrote to the Brookfields. "We talked and persiflated all the way to London, and the idea of her will help me to a good chapter, in which I will make Pendennis and Blanche play at being in love, such a wicked, false, humbugging, London love as two blase Lon- don people might act and half-deceive themselves that they were in earnest. That will complete the cycle of Mr. Pen's worldly experiences, and then we will make, or try to make, a good man of him." The resem- blance of Blanche Amory to Miss G was distinct enough for Mrs. Carlyle to notice. "Not that poor little is quite a little devil as Thackeray, who has detested her from a child, has here represented," she remarked. "But the looks, the manners, the wiles, the larmes, and all that sort of 174 Some Aspects of Thackeray thing are perfect." This was almost mag- nanimous of Mrs. Carlyle, for both she and her husband disliked the girl. "Oh, my dear!" Mr. Carlyle exclaimed when she went away, "we cannot be sufficiently thankful." Not that Carlyle's objection counts for much, for he was a gey ill person to get along with. In Thackeray's remaining books (other than the historical works) it is not so easy to trace originals. Abraham Hayward, whose elderly effigy was cartooned in "Vanity Fair," was also introduced into "Mrs. Per- kins's Ball" as Mr. Flam, and, Mr. Locker- Lampson has recorded, like that exquisite he had curling locks, a neat little foot, a lip vermilion, and an Abraham nose. There was a prototype for Dorothea, and probably for other heroines of Mr. George Savage FitzBoodle's amorous adventures. Captain Granby Calcroft lives as Captain Granby Tip toff; and Mr. J. M. Evans, one of the proprietors of Punch, was portrayed in "The Kickleburys on the Rhine." Miss Baxter claims that her sister Lucy (to whom, Thackeray's Originals 175 on her seventeenth birthday, the novelist sent the verses, "Seventeen rosebuds in a ring") suggested at least some aspects of Ethel Newcome, the sweet and wayward "my sister at that time going much into (American) society she was not yet twenty, and had both wit and beauty. In his pic- ture of Ethel Newcome, as she holds a little court about her at one of the great London balls, Thackeray reproduces some impressions made by the New York girl. Some of Ethel's impatience for the disil- lusions of society, its spiteful comment and harsh criticism, might well be reflections from discussions with my sister in the Brown House library, where Mr. Thack- eray passed many an hour talking of mat- ters grave and gay." In "The Newcomes" only a few char- acters can be identified. Lady Kew is said to have had her original in Lady Lang- ford; and the Rev. Charles Hqneyman, the incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, so "great in the lachrymatory line," was, it was commonly reported, drawn from a 176 Some Aspects of Thackeray well-known preacher, whose enemies said he had missed his vocation, insomuch as he should have been an actor. Doyle's portrait of Fred. Bayham suggested For- ster's burly figure, but there, in spite of suggestions to the contrary, the resem- blance ends; though Gandish, the painter who kept an art-school in Newman Street, is stated by Mr. T. H. S. Escott to have had his prototype in "Professor" Percival Leigh's father, who had a drawing-school in the same neighbourhood. Lastly, must be mentioned Colonel Thomas Newcome, C. B., who, like "Jos" Sedley and James Binnie, was the outcome of Thackeray's Anglo-Indian connections: like them he stepped out of the Oriental Club in Han- over Square. After visiting that institu- tion when "The Newcomes" was appear- ing, a friend said to Thackeray, "I see where you got your Colonel." "To be sure you would," said the novelist, "only I had to angelicise the old boys a little." Mr. Alexander F. Baillie, the historian of the Oriental Club, indicates as an instance of Thackeray's Originals 177 Thackeray's carefulness, that in "Vanity Fair" when Jos returned for the first time from India, he drove his horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres, and so on; but that when the Collector of Boggley -Wallah came home in 1827, three years after the Oriental Club was founded, "his very first point, of course, was to become a member of the Club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine." It has been asserted by those who were acquainted with Thackeray's family circle that the character was taken from one or more of his relatives from Major Car- michael Smyth, of the Bengal Engineers; or General Charles Carmichael, of the 2nd European Bengal Light Cavalry (20th Hus- sars); or Colonel John Dowdeswell Shake- spear. It matters little from which of these the preux chevalier was drawn. Thackeray was at his old school, the Charterhouse, on 178 Some Aspects of Thackeray Founder's Day, 1854, when the idea struck him to make the Colonel a "Codd" (a colloquial term for a Poor Brother of the Charterhouse). He invited a boy with whom he was acquainted to introduce him to Captain Light, an old army man whom reduced circumstances had compelled to seek the shelter of Thomas Sutton's Hos- pital. Many times he went to see the veteran, who gleefully told all and sundry, "I 'm sitting for Colonel Newcome." As readers of the book can never forget, the Colonel spent the last months of his life as a "Codd," and it was in that quiet re- treat he drew his last breath. "At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat a time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum! ' and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a "little child, had answered to his name, and stood Thackeray's Originals 179 in the presence of The Master." Six years after the publication of "The Newcomes," Thackeray's stepfather passed away at a patriarchal age and he was buried in the Episcopal Church at Ayr, where there is a memorial brass, bearing the following in- scription : SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MAJOR WILLIAM HENRY CARMICHAEL SMYTH, OF THE BENGAL ENGINEERS, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE AT AYR, 9TH SEPTEM- BER, 1861; AGED 81 YEARS. "Adsum. "And lo, he whose heart was as that of a little child had answered to his name, and stood in the pres- ence of the Master." Newcomes, vol. iii., chap. 26. On the rebuilding of the church, his grave was brought within the walls. He was laid to rest immediately beneath this place by his step-son, William Make- peace Thackeray. This memorial was put in 1887 by some members of the family. CHAPTER VIII The London of "Esmond" and "The Virginians" THE London of "Esmond" and "The Virginians" is virtually the London of the eighteenth century. It was the age of the splendid, embroidered, beruffled, snuff- boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, that withal knew how to make itself respected. It was the age of the bel air and the dignified mien, of perukes and powder and paint, when gallantry was the recognised pursuit and morality was at nearly so low an ebb as in that period of mad excesses, the Restora- tion. It was the age when men drank deep and swore heavily, when swords were drawn on the slightest provocation and women were left widows through the consequences of careless words uttered by excited men at the gaming-tables. It was the age of three- bottle men and of all-night sittings at tav- "Esmond" and "Virginians" 181 erns. The "pace" of the viveurs of the day was awful. Peterborough lived into the very jaws of death, and Godolphin laboured all day and gambled all night; while Boling- broke in a letter to Swift, written when he had retired to Dawling, mentioned that he rose at six o'clock in the morning, refreshed, serene, and calm, and called to mind the time when he lived in London and about that hour would be going to bed, surfeited by pleasure and jaded with business. An ex- amination of the habits of men of the beau monde of the day cannot but fill us with envy of the strength of their constitutions. Of all the wits only Pope, always more or less an invalid, did not lead this life, and of all the wits only he and Prior were not fat. Swift, Addison, Steele, Gay, Thomson, all were corpulent, as must be those who, taking no exercise, spend their time, drinking, in heated rooms. The difference between the present time and the reign of Queen Anne is not to be explained merely by the lapse of two cen- turies. There was less difference between the 1 82 Some Aspects of Thackeray years 1700 and 1500 than in the later similar interval. Progress has made immense strides, and as Bulwer Lytton would have said, the British Lion is aroused and the schoolmaster is abroad. A picture of the day is conjured up by Thackeray : " The maypole rises in the Strand again in London, the churches are thronged with daily worshippers, the beaux are gather- ing in the coffee-houses, the gentry are going to the drawing-room, the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops, the chairmen are jostling in the streets, the footmen are running with links before the chariots or fighting round the theatre doors. In the country I see the young squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. To make that journey from the squire's and back, Will is a week on horseback. The coach takes five days between London and Bath. The Judges and the Bar ride the circuit. If my Lady comes to town in her post-chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her couri- "Esmond" and ' ' Virginians' ' 183 ers ride ahead to prepare apartments for her at the great caravanseries on the road; Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of the 'Bell' or the 'Ram/ and he and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state apartments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the courtyard, where the 'Exe- ter Fly' is housed that performs the journey in eight days, God willing, having achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the Captain's man, having hung up his master's half-pike, is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, who have their club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden gallery, or brib- ing her to know who is the pretty young mistress that has come in the coach. The pack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of military appearance, who travels with pistols, as all 184 Some Aspects of Thackeray the rest of the world does, and has a rattling gray mare in the stable which will be saddled and away with its owner half-an-hour before the 'Fly* sets out on its last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the 'Ex- eter Fly' comes jingling and creaking on- wards, it will suddenly be brought to a halt by a gentleman on a gray mare, with a black vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the coach window, and bids the com- pany to hand out their purses. ..." The maypole has gone; the churches are not filled on week-days; the toy -shops no longer exist; footmen do not run with links before the chariots of the nobility. Links died out when the streets were lighted with gas, the coaches have been replaced by rail- ways, and even the steam-engine is passing as electricity slowly but surely takes its place as the motive-power of the future. The country inns have died of inanition, though the motor-car may here and there be giving a few hostelries a new lease of life, and the highwayman is as extinct as the dodo. The city of London during the reign of "Esmond" and "Virginians" 185 Queen Anne multiplied its size manifold, and expanded beyond its walls, but there were still spaces on all sides Hoxton Fields, White Conduit Street, Lamb's Conduit Fields, Marylebone Fields; but beyond St.-Martin- le-Grand the streets were left in darkness absolute, and Temple Bar and the other city gates were closed at night. Bloomsbury was beginning. Southampton House was there, and Bedford House, at the back of which, and overlooking the gardens, George Warrington lived in the street now known as Southampton Row. Montague House was a landmark, and in 1759 was opened as the British Museum. "There's Montague House made into a confounded Don Saltero's museum, with books and stuffed birds and rhinoceroses," Lord March ex- claimed at White's in disgust. Soon the Sloane and other collections outgrew their habitation, and a new Ionic structure was erected in 1823 by Sir Robert Smirke, which is regarded as perhaps the most successful imitation of the Greek architecture in this country. The famous reading-room under 1 86 Some Aspects of Thackeray the dome, however, was not built until half- a-century later. Steele, who, after marrying his "dear Prue," had lived in "the third house from Germaine Street, left hand of Berry Street," in St. James's, where the rent was not paid until after the landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture, moved to a mansion in Bloomsbury Square. At this residence there was the same diffi- culty about the payment of rent, and it was here probably that Steele put the bailiff's men into his livery and made them wait at table. "Do I know the Mall? Do I know the Opera? Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode" the satirical Mr. St. John assured Mrs. Steele. " T is rus in urbe. You have gardens all the way to Hampstead and palaces round about you." It is almost impossible nowadays to realise that remark about the surroundings of Bloomsbury; yet when Queen's Square was built in the reign of Queen Anne it was named in compliment to her, but the statue in the gardens is that of Queen Charlotte much praise was be- stowed upon it because of the beautiful view ' ^ ft 8 2 r C3 o I I p "Esmond" and "Virginians" 187 to the Hampstead and Highgate hills, for which reason the north side was left open! The outlook to the north is to-day confined to the immediately adjacent Guildford Street. South of Old Bourne, or Holborn, as it is now written, was a popular quarter. Old Lord Castlewood had at one time a fine house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, nigh to the Duke's Theatre and the Portuguese Ambas- sador's Chapel. It was at the Duke's Play- house that Francis, Viscount Castlewood, arranged to meet Lord Mohun before going on to sup at the "Rose" or the "Greyhound," where they had agreed to quarrel. The play was Mr. Wycherley's "Love in a Wood." Thackeray has mentioned: "Mrs. Bracegirdle performed the girl's part in the comedy. . . . She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the gentle- men as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with a pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my Lord, and asked what ailed the gentleman from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock Fair. Between the acts of the play the gentlemen i88 Some Aspects of Thackeray crossed over and conversed freely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney in a military habit, and a gentle- man in a suit of blue velvet and silver in a fair periwig, with a rich fall of point of Venice lace my Lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland. My Lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate, and offered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, when my Lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him and asked him what he did there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else, as they did poor Will Mountford." But the play could not have been "Love in a Wood," for the disguise of a page is not worn by any of the ladies in Mr. Wycherley's comedy, and Mrs. Bracegirdle is not known ever to have sustained any part in that work, which was revived at Drury Lane in 1718, when the play-bills stated it had not been represented for thirty years. In Thackeray's historical novels, as indeed in most of his writings, there is frequent reference to the playhouse. It will be re- "Esmond" and ''Virginians' 1 189 membered that when Colonel Esmond re- tired from the army he devoted his leisure to the composition of a play, whereof the promp- ter's copy, once in the possession of Mrs. Rachel Esmond Warrington of Virginia, is docketed "The Faithful Fool: a Comedy." It was a sentimental piece, being written by a young man deeply in love with a beautiful woman, and was admired more by Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Steele than by Mr. Addison. The latter was bringing out his play of "Cato" at the time, the blaze of which quite extinguished the amateur's pro- duction, which perished on the third night of its performance by their Majesties' Ser- vants, with only half-a-dozen persons to be- hold its last agonies. Esmond did not put his name to the piece, which was printed as by "A Person of Quality." Only nine copies were sold, though the famous Mr. Dennis praised it, and said it was a work of great merit; and Colonel Esmond had the whole impression burned one day in a rage by Jack Lockwood, his man. In "The Virginians" the Warringtons and i9 Some Aspects of Thackeray the Lamberts go to Covent Garden Theatre to witness a performance of the play, by the great Mr. John Home of Scotland, entitled "Douglas," in which Mr. Spranger Barry was magnificently attired as the immortal Norval, and the beautiful Mrs. Washington made all the ladies, and even the grenadiers on guard on each side of the stage, weep visibly and audibly. From his grandfather, Colonel Esmond, Mr. George Warrington inherited some literary ambitions, and his play "Carpezan" was produced with great success, with Mr. Rich, at Covent Garden. George was less fortunate with his second play, a poetical tragedy entitled "Poco- hontas," produced at Drury Lane by Gar- rick, with O'Hagan (ne Geoghagan) as Sir Walter Raleigh, and Mrs. Pritchard as the eponymous heroine. At the first perform- ance, in the front boxes sat Samuel Johnson, who could not see, and Joshua Reynolds, who could not hear, and who had come good- naturedly a deux to form an opinion of the play. Everything went smoothly enough; but when the heroine rushed to the prison- s o 8 fa H 3 H "Esmond" and " Virginians" 191 er's arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a rude fellow in the pit bawled out, "Bedad! there's the Belle Sav- age kissing the 'Saracen's Head'" the ignorant fellow not knowing that Pocohontas was the Belle Savage from which the tavern took its name. The incident in "The Virginians" of the marriage of O'Hagan with Lady Maria was doubtless founded upon the true story of O'Brien the actor, who ran away with Lady Susan Fox Strangways, whose relations sent them to America, with an allowance of four hundred a year, settled by Lord Holland on his niece; but the daring couple eventually decided not to accept expatriation, and re- turned to England, where they led a happy and contented life. Though to-day the glory of Covent Garden has faded, yet a portion of the Italian colon- nade known as the Piazza, remains to remind us of the time when it was one of the sights of the town. Great houses were dotted around the vast square, and there still stands a corner house the frontage, unaltered through i9 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray many generations, may be seen in Hogarth's "Morning" which after the Restoration was occupied by Sir Kenelm Digby, later by Admiral the Earl of Orford, and eventually by Evans's famous tavern. Co vent Garden was one of the great centres of the taverns and coffee-houses which played so great a part in the social life of the eighteenth cen- tury, the better class of which were the pre- decessors of the clubs of to-day, and the less reputable, and those frequented by the lower orders, of the modern public-houses. Each and all, however, were social exchanges for news, which but for these meeting-places would have travelled slowly in an era when newspapers were, to all intents and purposes, non-existent. Button, once the servant of that Countess of Warwick whom Addison married, set up his coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, two doors from Covent Garden, and it was here that the famous Mr. Congreve came, and the still greater Dean Swift. Mr. Addison set up his headquarters at Button's, and was usually to be found there, surrounded by "Dick" Steele, Bud- "Esmond" and "Virginians" 193 gell, Tickell, Phillips, and Carey, the principal officers of his court. There was a time when Mr. Alexander Pope sat at the feet of the author of "Cato," but the latter could "bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne," and Mr. Pope withdrew from that society. It was on the west side of Bow Street (where Lord Mohun lived in lodgings), at the corner of Russell Street, that the Rose Tavern stood. This had a singularly bad reputation, and a room in the hostelry, show- ing a midnight debauch, was depicted in the third print of "The Rake's Progress." Sub- sequently it was rechristened Will's, and its character improved. Nowhere was the smok- ing more constant than at Will's, that cele- brated house, sacred to polite letters. " Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen," Macaulay has recorded. " There were earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cas- socks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from the universities, translators and index-makers in ragged coats of frieze." Old Dryden went there and sat for hours together in a room on the first floor, where the com- 194 Some Aspects of Thackeray pany assembled, and beaux contended to- gether for the honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of the great man's snuff-box. Tom's was a resort frequented by Dr. Johnson, Reynolds, and Garrick; and Offley's, in Henrietta Street, was visited by all who cared to listen to high-class singing. Not far off was the old Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, where Ben Jonson had reigned supreme among the wits and gallants of his day. The "Greyhound" (in Charing Cross, where my Lord Castlewood stayed) and Lockit's (in Spring Gardens) were also popular resorts. Farther west were the "George" and the "Star and Garter," "over against the gate of the palace in Pall Mall;" and in St. James's Street the " Cocoa-Tree" and White's Chocolate-House. White's Club, frequented by the fashionable men about town, had its home at the chocolate-house of the same name. Close by the corner of St. James's Street which faces that part of St. James's Palace which stands between the Colour Court and the Ambassador's Court was the "Esmond" and "Virginians" 195 St. James's Coffee-House, where fashionable wits forgathered, and Swift wrote so many of his letters to sweet, womanly Stella. "He never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new one in the same day. He can't bear to let go her little hand, as it were." Next door, in later days, Thackeray lived for two years. Pall Mall, perhaps owing to its proximity to St. James's Palace, has always been a favourite street of "the quality:" " In town let me live, in town let me die, For in truth I can't relish the country, not I; If one must have a villa in summer to dwell, Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall ! " "I lodged in the street called Pall Mall, the ordinary residence of strangers because of its vicinity to the Queen's Palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the theatres, and the chocolate and coffee houses, where the best company frequent," says Defoe. "If you would know our manner of living, 't is thus : we rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as at Holland, go to 196 Some Aspects of Thackeray tea-tables. About twelve, the beau monde assembles in several coffee and chocolate houses, the best of which are the Cocoa-Tree or White's Chocolate House; the St. James's, the Smyrna, Mr. Crockford's and the British coffee-houses; and all these so near one another that in less than one hour you can see the company of them all." Thackeray also has written of Pall Mall and its memories, which were especially dear to him. He lived at the southwest corner of St. James's Street, and one may well believe that as he walked through the famous street he peopled it with the cele- brated folk who had lived and walked and talked there. "I remember peeping through the colon- nade at Carlton House, and seeing the abode of the great Prince Regent. I can see yet the Guards pacing before the gate of the palace. The palace! What palace? The palace exists no more than the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It is but a name now. Where be the sentries who used to salute as the Royal chariots drove in and out? The < z "Esmond" and "Virginians" 197 chariots, with the kings inside, have driven to the realms of Pluto; the tall Guards have marched into darkness, and the echoes of their drums are rolling in Hades. Where the palace once stood a hundred little children are paddling up and down the steps to St. James's Park. A score of grave gentlemen are taking their tea at the Athenaeum Club; as many grisly warriors are garrisoning the United Service Club opposite. Pall Mall is the great social Exchange of London now the mart of news, of politics, of scandal, of rumour the English Forum, so to speak, where men discuss the last despatch from the Crimea, the last speech of Lord Derby, the next move of Lord John. And, now and then, to a few antiquarians whose thoughts are with the past rather than with the present, it is a memorial of old times and old people, and Pall Mall is our Palmyra. Look ! About this spot Tom of Ten Thou- sand was killed by Konigsmarck's gang. In that great red house Gainsborough lived, and Culloden Cumberland, George III.'s uncle. Yonder is Sarah Marlborough's palace, 198 Some Aspects of Thackeray just as it stood when that termagant occu- pied it. At 25 Walter Scott used to live; at the house now 79, and occupied by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, resided Mistress Eleanor Gwynn, comedian. How often has Queen Caroline's chair issued from under yonder arch! All the men of the Georges have passed up and down the street. It has seen Walpole's chariot and Chatham's sedan; and Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, on their way to Brooks's; and stately William Pitt, stalking on the arm of Dundas; and Hanger and Tom Sheridan reeling out of Raggett's; and Byron limping into Wattier's; and Swift striding out of Bury Street; and Mr. Addi- son and Dick Steele, both perhaps a little the better for liquor; and the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York clattering over the pavement; and Johnson counting the posts along the street, after dawdling before Dodsley's window; and Horry Walpole bob- bing into his carriage with a gimcrack just bought at Christie's; and George Selwyn sauntering into White's." "Esmond" and "Virginians" 199 Pall Mall is now as much as ever the great social Exchange of London, and if it now contains few historic mansions, it contains some of the best-known clubs in the world; and a man who is acquainted with those whom not to know argues yourself unknown may meet more famous people in an hour in that street than in a week in any other thoroughfare. Dick Steele and Joseph Addison, just mentioned in the passage quoted from "The Four Georges," appear frequently in "Es- mond." Steele met Esmond for the first time when Harry was a child at Castlewood and the author was a soldier in the Life Guards. It was years later when Thackeray's hero met the gentleman whom Pope satirised as Atticus. Esmond, after dining with Dick Steele at the Guard-table at St. James's Palace, and having left early one sunny afternoon, when his host had by chance a sober fit, in walking down the street was surprised when his companion suddenly left his arm and ran after a gentleman who was poring over a folio volume at the book-shop 200 Some Aspects of Thackeray near to St. James's Church. The tall, fair man in a snuff-coloured suit, with a plain sword, very sober and almost shabby in appearance at least, when compared with Captain Steele, who loved to adorn his jolly, round person with the finest of clothes, and shone in scarlet and gold lace was no less a person than Mr. Joseph Addison, who took them both to his lodgings in the Hay- market, and gave them a bottle of wine, invited Harry to give him some particulars of Marlborough's action for use in "The Campaign," upon the writing of which he was then engaged, and subsequently read them the portion already composed. At the Court end of the town, north of St. James's, lies Mayfair. There, in Bond Street, stayed Mr. Harry Warrington in lodgings, the landlord of which was Mr. Ruff, the head-waiter and aide-de-camp of Mr. Mackreth, the proprietor of White's Club. It was by the advice of his fashion- able friends who introduced him to White's that the "Fortunate Youth" moved west- ward from his quarters at the Bedford -o o 1 'Esmond" and "Virginians" 201 Coffee-House in Covent Garden. In Hill Street, close by, lived Harry's uncle, Sir Miles Warrington; and also the best friends a man could desire, Major-General and Mrs. Lambert, and their children, Theo and Hetty. In Hill Street for a time stayed Mr. Redmond Barry, afterwards known as Mr. Barry Lyndon, when he was forcing his addresses upon Honoria, Countess of Lyndon, who had a house in Berkeley Square. Hill Street figures largely in many of Thackeray's books, and it is the great Gaunt Street of "Vanity Fair," where lived Lady Gaunt's mother and Sir Pitt Crawley, to the latter of whom Becky went as governess. Who does not remember her arrival there from the Sedleys' house in Russell Square? "Hav- ing passed through Shiverley Square into Great Gaunt Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall, gloomy house between two other tall, gloomy houses, each with the hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual." Shiverley Square, 202 Some Aspects of Thackeray also called by Thackeray Gaunt Square, is Berkeley Square, in which is situated Gaunt House, once the residence of the Most Honourable George Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne. "Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the Square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have passed away into dowagerism tall, dark houses, with window-frames of stone, or picked out in a lighter red. Little light seems to be behind those lean, comfortless casements now; and hospitality to have passed away from their doors as much as the laced lacqueys and link-boys of old times who used to put out their torches with the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamp over the steps. The Square has a dreary look; nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns at the great gates, through which an old porter peers, with a fat and gloomy red face, and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the chimney out of which there seldom comes any smoke now." "Esmond" and "Virginians" 203 In Clarges Street Barry Lyndon's father lived in the day of his splendour; and there, too, Beatrix, Baroness Bernstein (nee Es- mond), held her card-parties, her Wednesday and Sunday evenings, save during the short season when Ranelagh was open on a Sun- day, when the desolate old woman sat alone, waiting hopelessly for the scapegrace nephew that her battered heart had learned to love. The whirligig of time had brought its re- venge, and the once beautiful Beatrix, who scorned the love of honest men, who schemed to become a duchess, who intrigued to marry a prince, and contented herself with becom- ing his mistress the lovely, wayward girl was left in her old age to hunger for love that was now denied her. We know she was heartless, we know she was cruel, but, such is man's nature, he forgives her all because of her marvellous charm, and gives her the pity that, to her credit be it said, she would have refused with scorn. Ranelagh, with its Rotunda, was a great resort alike of the monde and the demi-monde. Harry Warrington took his brother there, 204 Some Aspects of Thackeray and heard for the first time a full orchestra and a piece of Mr. Handel's satisfactorily performed. Vauxhall Gardens, with its "twenty thousand additional lamps" lighted every night, was quite as well known, and in later years was honoured by a visit from Mr. Arthur Pendennis of the Temple (the author of "Walter Lorraine," a novel that enjoyed some favour in its time). There he was fortunate enough to rescue beauty in distress in the person of Miss Fanny Bolton, who with her mother kept the lodge at Shepherd's Inn. Marylebone Gardens was another place of amusement; and there was also an entertainment at Sadler's Wells, Islington, where at one time the attractions were "the most singular kind of diversion on eight hand-bells by Mr. Franklin, as well as the surprising performances of Signora Catterina." Gaming, however, was the fash- ionable enjoyment of the upper classes. Those who were fond of books read them in secret, for all the world as if reading were a vice. "Books! Prithee, don't talk to me about books," said Sarah, Duchess of Marl- < "5 Z S " Esmond" and "Virginians" 205 borough. "The only books I know are men and cards." The king in state played hazard with the nobility on Twelfth-Day for the benefit of the groom-porter, and even clergy- men did not look unkindly at the practice. Gentlemen lost and won thousands at a sitting: it is said that Lord Steyne won his marquisate at the gaming-table. Many after running through their patrimony found their way to the sponging-houses in Cursitor Street, en route to the debtors' prisons of the Fleet, King's Bench, and the Marshalsea. Some of the earthenware pots who tried to go down-stream with the iron pots eventu- ally found themselves at Newgate or at Tyburn. An admirable picture of the gam- bling set may be found in the earlier part of "The Virginians," and, for those who prefer history at first hand, in the letters of George Selwyn and Horace Walpole. The western boundary of Mayfair is Hyde Park. This was the scene of many duels. The Duke of Graf ton went out in 1685, and killed the Hon. John Talbot; and in the eighteenth century John Wilkes, Lord Thurs- 206 Some Aspects of Thackeray ton, Charles James Fox, Colonel Fullerton, and many others took the ground. In 1712 the Duke of Hamilton met Lord Mohun (Charles, not Henry, as Thackeray chris- tened him) . They fought near Price's Lodge just before sunset, and both died on the ground. The Duke killed his antagonist, but there is some doubt as to how the Duke was killed. It was said at the time that Colonel Macartney, Mohun's second, came up after Mohun fell and stabbed the Duke in the back. Thackeray was wrong in saying in "Esmond," where the story of the duel is recorded at length, that Macartney fled and never returned to England; for though he fled, after four years he returned, was tried by the Court of King's Bench, and acquitted. Readers of "Esmond" will remember that the duel, which arose out of a quarrel con- cerning property, took place on the eve of the marriage of the Duke to Beatrix Castle- wood. Lord Mohun was a notorious char- acter. In earlier days he had been con- cerned with Lord Warwick, the husband of the countess whom Addison married, in the "Esmond" and "Virginians" 207 murder of Will Mountford the comedian, and for this offence the noblemen were tried by their peers and acquitted. Thackeray makes Mohun kill Lord Castlewood in a duel in Leicester Fields, now Leicester Square, where, on the north side, stood Leicester House, built early in the seventeenth century by the then Earl of Leicester. Leicester House was purchased for George II. when Prince of Wales, and it was not until 1766 that it ceased to be a royal residence. The Empire Theatre now occupies the site of the mansion. A third spot favoured by duellists was the ground behind Montague House, and here the father of Barry Lyndon pinked Count Tiercelin. Much of the action of "Esmond" took place in Kensington. "In those days," Lady Ritchie, the author of the charming "Old Kensington," says, "the hawthorn spread across the fields and market-gardens that lay between Kensington and the river. Lanes ran to Chelsea, to Fulham, to North End, where Richardson once lived and wrote in his garden-house. The mist of the great 208 Some Aspects of Thackeray city hid the horizon and dulled the sound of the advancing multitude; but close at hand . . . were country corners untouched blos- soms instead of bricks in spring-time, summer shade in summer." When the father of Rachel, Lady Castlewood, died and left her some three thousand pounds, with this little fortune she was enabled, when her daughter's turn came as Maid of Honour at Court, to come to London, where she took a small, genteel house at Kensington Square. This was adjacent to the Court. The red-brick Kensington Palace, built by William and Mary, was the social headquarters of the Court, though State ceremonies still took place at St. James's Palace, and in summer Majesty migrated to Hampton Court or Windsor. Kensington Square was commenced in the reign of James II., and was finished towards the close of that of William. In the time of Queen Anne and the first Georges it was very fashionable; and, owing to its proximity to the Court, lodgings were so much in demand that an ambassador, a bishop, and a physi- H SH _ S i 1 2 * 2 ^ ^ o "Esmond" and " Virginians" 209 cian occupied apartments in the same house. Talleyrand lived there, and Mrs. Scurlock, whom Steele married, and Addison before his grand, miserable marriage with the chatelaine of Holland House; while Nos. 10 and 11 were reserved for the Maids of Honour who could not be housed at the palace. When Lady Castle wood moved to Ken- sington, Esmond, so as to be near his "dear lady," took lodgings at Knightsbridge (in those days spelt Knyghtbrigg), then a hamlet in the parishes of Chelsea, Kensington, and St. Margaret's, Westminster, "between Lon- don and Kensington, and overlooking the gardens." It was some distance from Lon- don, and so late as 1740 the Bristol mail was robbed there. The house in Kensington Square had been in the early years of the eighteenth century the residence of the Marquis of Powis, who accompanied James II. into exile, and by the grateful monarch was created Duke of Powis, a title now extinct. It then had stabling and a cottage attached to it. Upon the site of the cottage 210 Some Aspects of Thackeray was built the house in Young Street, "Our Street," where Thackeray lived from 1846 to 1853, and where he wrote "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," and "Esmond." The old "Greyhound," since rebuilt, with its memo- ries of Pope, Addison, and Macaulay, was at the corner opposite. It was from here that on an eventful night Esmond watched the door of Lady Castlewood's residence lest the Prince should escape from it. It was at the "King's Arms," Kensington, that Es- mond enrolled a little army of gentlemen to enforce the Pretender's claim to the throne. They assembled, in parties of two and three, to the number of fifty-three, and his Grace the Duke of Ormonde was to take command. But when the moment for action came the Prince was absent at Castlewood paying dishonourable court to Beatrix. So, accord- ing to Thackeray, ended the conspiracy which might have altered the history of England by restoring the Stuarts to the throne. It was to Lady Castlewood's that the Pretender came incognito, and from there "Esmond" and "Virginians" 211 was taken to see his sister the Queen, when she and her favourite lady-in-waiting were taking the air in the cedar-walk behind the new banqueting-hall; and it was there that Esmond warned the Prince that if his Royal Highness harboured thoughts of dishonour towards Beatrix, his faithful servant would call in the watchman and give him up. The windows of the house were open both towards the gardens and the square; in the square was the watchman, who would be glad to secure the five hundred pounds set on the Pretender's head, and in the gardens was the palace where the Prince might hope to reign. His Royal Highness hesitated, and then pledged his word. He broke faith and followed Beatrix to Castlewood, and by so doing lost a throne. It was also at the house in Kensington Square that the Duke of Hamilton wooed and won Beatrix; and it was in the drawing-room that he objected to Esmond, whom he believed to be a bastard, giving his future wife a grand parure of diamonds as a wedding-gift. This led up to one of the greatest scenes in 212 Some Aspects of Thackeray the book a scene which shows Thack- eray's genius at its best when Lady Castlewood, pale, trembling, and indignant, tells the story of the noble gentleman's renunciation : "My daughter may receive presents from the head of our house; my daughter may thankfully take kindness from her father's, her mother's, her brother's dearest friend; and be grateful for one more benefit besides the thousands that we owe him. What is a string of diamonds compared to that affec- tion he has given us our dearest preserver and benefactor? We owe him, not only Frank's life, but our all yes, our all. The title we bear is his, if he would claim it. 'T is we who have no right to our name; not he, that's too great for it. He sacrificed his name at my dying lord's bedside sacri- ficed it to my orphan children; gave up rank and honour because he loved us so nobly. His father was Viscount of Castlewood and Marquis of Esmond before him; and he is his father's lawful son and true heir, and we are the recipients of his bounty, and he " Esmond" and "Virginians" 213 the chief of a house that's as old as your own. And if he is content to forego his name that my child may bear it, we love him and honour him and bless him, under whatever name he bears." CHAPTER IX Some Editions of Thackeray BEFORE the dawn of the nineteenth century when newspapers were few and magazines practically unknown, the young man usually began his literary career by issuing a volume containing the first fruits of his work. Since then, although now and again a venturesome author may in the same way make a bid for fame, it has been more usual for the aspirant to start as a con- tributor to some periodical. It was in this way that Thackeray commenced author. When he was at Trinity College, Cambridge, he wrote for two little papers edited and written by undergraduates: the first was The Snob, A Literary and Scientific Journal NOT Conducted by Members of the University, which was published weekly, from April 9 to June 18, 1829; and the second, The BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH. LONlMlX: CHAPMAN AND HALL. MIHVrXI.VIII. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE COVER TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "OUR STREET" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Some Editions of Thackeray 215 Gownsman (formerly called The Snob) A Literary and Scientific Journal now Con- ducted by Members of the University, which ran from November 9, 1829, to February 25, 1830. The Snob was printed on papers of different colours; and Nos. 1 to 6 were marked 5th edition, Nos. 2 and 9 3rd edition, Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, 4th edition, and Nos. 8, 10, 11, 2nd edition. The Gownsman was printed on white paper, and the editor of that little periodical abandoned the feeble humour of the editor of the earlier one and did not mark the various issues as being of any partic- ular edition. To this paper Thackeray con- tributed the often reprinted burlesque, "Tim- buctoo," and also a series of rather poor imi- tations of Theodore Hook's "Ramsbottom Papers," as well as a parody of Haynes Baily's "I'd be a Butterfly." To The Gownsman, when the numbers were bound up in book form, he contributed a dedication to the Proctors : "Whose taste it is our privilege to follow, Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate, And whose business it is our interest to avoid." 2i 6 Some Aspects of Thackeray Though Thackeray's contributions to The Snob and The Gownsman have little or no literary value and are interesting only as curiosities, still the papers are much sought after by collectors, and a copy of the two bound together realised, at an auction sale a few years ago, the fancy price of 132. After Thackeray left the University, his thoughts turned to literature, and in a more or less amateurish spirit he became first a contributor and then editor and proprietor of a weekly paper grandiloquently called The National Standard and Journal of Litera- ture, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts, which name was subsequently altered to The National Standard and Literary Representative. To this Thackeray contrib- uted many articles, sketches, poems, and translations, not all of which have yet been identified, though many of them have been re-printed in Mr. W. T. Spencer's volume. Copies of this newspaper rarely come into the market, and the same may be said of another newspaper with which he was sub- sequently connected, The Constitutional and Some Editions of Thackeray 217 Public Ledger, to which he contributed Paris correspondence which may also be read by the curious in Mr. Spencer's volume. More interesting than these, and at least as valuable from the pecuniary point of view, are the first books with which Thackeray was connected. In 1836 he was in Paris and there saw a ballet entitled "Flore et Zephyr." This provided him with a subject for a series of caricatures which he published hi book form through Mitchell's library in London, and Rittner and Goupil in Paris. The book bore the title: "Flore et Zephyr, Ballet Mythologique Dedie a (Sketch of Flore) par Theophile Wagstaffe." This little brochure, which consisted of eight plates and wrapper with vignette, lithographed by Edward Morton, is perhaps the rarest of all Thackeray's earliest works, and in 1896 a copy with the plates backed with linen and one wrapper missing, was sold for 55. Two other little books, "King Glumpus" and "The Exquisites," privately printed respectively in 1837 and 1839, were for many years attributed to Thackeray. 2 1 8 Some Aspects of Thackeray It has since transpired, however, that John Borrow was responsible for the letterpress and that Thackeray contributed only the illustrations, of which there are three in "King Glumpus" and four in "The Exquis- ites." Copies of these are very scarce, and the market price of "King Glumpus" seems to be about 150, while a copy of "The Exquisites" with coloured plates (the only known copy) realised 85, and another with uncoloured plates 58. At least as rare as these is the little volume, published by Carey and Hart, of Philadelphia, 1838, con- taining "The Yellowplush Correspondence," though what its money value is it is impos- sible to say, since no copy has been offered for sale for many years. It was an unauth- orised edition, published two years before the "Correspondence" was re-printed in England. There is one point to note about the volume, and that is that the first page is numbered 13 in all known copies; the as- sumption being that it was intended to in- troduce the "Correspondence" with a pref- ace. Another early edition was that issued TITMARSK REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE HISTORY OF SAMUEL TITMARSH & THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Some Editions of Thackeray 2 1 9 in 1839 containing the "Reminiscences of Major Gahagan" which had first appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. Of this, no copy is known to exist, but Mr. Frederick S. Dickson gives it a place in his Bibliography, because in the preface to "Comic Tales and Sketches" the following passage appears: "'Mr. Yellowplush's Memoirs' . . . exclu- sively popular in America, where they have been re-printed more than once with * Major Gahagan's Reminiscences' from the New Monthly Magazine and received by our Ameri- can brethren with similar piratical honours." The first book of Thackeray's published under his own auspices was "The Paris Sketch Book" (1840), a collection of tales and articles many of which had already appeared in the reviews and magazines; and in the same year appeared his essay "On the Genius of George Cruikshank," published with nu- merous illustrations of his works from the Westminster Review. In 1841 was issued in a grey pictorial cover "The Second Funeral of Napoleon in Three Letters to Miss Smith of London. And the Chronicle of the Drum." 220 Some Aspects of Thackeray This book was a great failure as a publishing speculation, as the author's correspondence shows, and copies of it are so very rarely to be met with that a good example recently changed hands at 40. The first edition was reprinted in facsimile in 1896, and distributed as a gift by certain Philadelphian and Chica- goan Sunday newspapers. In the same year as "The Second Funeral of Napoleon" ap- peared "Comic Tales and Sketches," in which were printed the "Yellowplush Cor- respondence" and "Major Gahagan," with new illustrations taking the place of those that had accompanied the original issue of this series in the magazines. Thackeray's next publications in book form were "The Irish Sketch Book" (1843), and "Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo." The latter appeared in 1846, the year in which was published the first of the Christmas-Books, "Mrs. Perkins's Ball," which was followed in successive years by "Our Street," "Dr. Birch and his Young Friends," "Rebecca and Rowena" (with illustrations by Richard Doyle) and "The, Some Editions of Thackeray 221 Kickleburys on the Rhine" in 1850. A second edition of "The Kickleburys on the Rhine" was called for early in 1851, and it is more valuable than the original issue be- cause it contains the famous preface, "An Essay to Thunder and Small Beer," which was a reply to the Times criticism of the little book. It was in January, 1847, that the first monthly part of "Vanity Fair" appeared in the wellknown yellow pictorial wrapper, and month by month the publication was continued until the double number brought it to a close in July, 1848, immediately after which the novel was reissued in book form. The issue in parts is, of course, the most valuable of all editions and a perfect copy recently fetched 100. This, like the first edition, contains a wood-cut of the Marquis of Steyne, which was deleted or suppressed in subsequent re-issues of the book during the lifetime of the author. The reason for the absence of this wood-cut has never been agreed upon by the bibliographers, but it is usually asserted that the plate was removed 222 Some Aspects of Thackeray because of the likeness of the fictitious char- acter to a certain eminently disreputable nobleman not long deceased. "Pendemris," "TheNewcomes," and "The Virginians" also appeared in monthly parts, and these in good condition are not easily obtainable. These novels, too, were im- mediately after their issue in parts published in book form in England and America. "Esmond," however, appeared for the first time in the three-volume edition, and the original issue was printed in the obsolete type of the reign of Queen Anne. As Thackeray's fame advanced, his mis- cellanies attracted more and more attention, especially in America. In 1846 "Jeames's Diary" was published in New York, Phila- delphia, and Baltimore, and in 1848 "The Great Hoggarty Diamond" was brought out by Harpers in New York. Thackeray himself, in the same year, issued in London, "The Snobs of England" from Punch, under the title of "The Book of Snobs;" omitting, however, certain chapters because, so the Author's note runs, "on re-perusing these $ & \\\ .MR. M. A, TliMARSH. ^ WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE -AUTHOR ,.N'DON: CHAPMAN b Jkftrh Book :" "JourMY from Coinkill to Grind Ciro:" of " Jere^'. Diary " inciihc Punch:" Ac. to. LONDON: I'Uni.l.^HED AX THE ITXCH OFFICE. 85, FLKET VS 1847. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE PAPER WRAPPER TO A MONTHLY PART OF " VANITY FAIR " From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Thackeray and Dickens 235 the fashion set by Dickens, was issued in monthly parts. Their methods of working were different. Dickens was industrious in a manner that Thackeray could never claim to be. The former never doubted his powers, the latter always mistrusted his hold on the public. Even so late as 1849 he endeavoured to obtain a Government appointment. "You are a good and lovable adviser and M. P.," he wrote to his friend Monckton Milnes, "but I cannot get the Magistrate's place, not being eligible. I was only called to the bar last year, and they require barristers of seven years' standing. Time will qualify me, however, and I hope to be able to last six years in the literary world; for though I shall write, I daresay, very badly, yet the public won't find it out for some time, and I shall live on my past reputation. It is a pity, to be sure. If I could get a place and rest, I think I could do something better than I have done, and leave a good and lasting book behind me; but Fate is over- ruling." What a longing for rest from the 236 Some Aspects of Thackeray never-ceasing writing and revising is here! But while the pathos is marked, a smile cannot be suppressed as one thinks of Thackeray, who had not then written "Es- mond" or "The Newcomes," hoping to be able to live for six years in the literary world by trading on his past reputation. Dickens, less sensitive, never doubted but that he could suit the public, though he lived to be threescore and ten. He knew what it wanted and he supplied the want. Thack- eray, on the other hand, wrote as he de- sired to write and the general reader is not easily trained to appreciate work of a class higher than that to which he has been accustomed. Thackeray was terribly self-conscious, and usually presented a very poor appearance when he attempted to deliver a speech. "Why can't they get Dickens to take the chair?" he grumbled, when he had to pre- side at the General Theatrical Fund. "He can make a speech and a good one. . . . I 'm of no use. . . . They little think how nervous I am; and Dickens does n't know Thackeray and Dickens 237 the meaning of the word." An amusing story is recorded of the occasion when, with Mr. Fields, the well-known American pub- lisher, Thackeray travelled to Manchester to make a speech at the founding of the Free Library Institution in that town. The would-be orator declared that although Dick- ens and Bulwer Lytton and Sir James Stephen were to precede him, he intended to beat each of them on this occasion. He insisted that Mr. Field should be seated directly in front of him, so that he should not miss a single word. Later, as he rose, he looked at his friend as much as to say, "I'll show you what speaking is." He began fluently, was excellent for two minutes, and then, in the midst of a most earnest sentence, stopped suddenly, gave a look of comic despair . . . and sat down. "My boy," he said, when the meeting was over, "my boy, you have accidentally missed hearing one of the finest speeches ever prepared by a great British orator." Again, Thackeray hated the lecture desk, while Dickens declared he never felt the least 238 Some Aspects of Thackeray diffidence in addressing an audience. The former appeared on the platform simply as a well-bred gentleman reading, to a large circle of friends, certain essays with which he was well acquainted; the latter gave dramatic readings from his books. There are many meetings between the two men recorded, notably when they were both staying at Boulogne in 1854, and at the private theatricals at Tavistock House in 1855. Later in the same year, on October llth, Dickens took the chair at a grand banquet given at the London Tavern to wish Thackeray God-speed on the eve of his departure to America to deliver the Lec- tures on the Georges, and proposed the health of the guest of the evening. Two years later, when Thackeray was canvass- ing at Oxford, he sent Dickens a droll note urging him to "come down and make a speech, and tell them who I am, for I doubt whether more than two of the electors have ever heard of me, and I think there may be as many as six or eight who have heard of you." But Dickens did not go. [November.] HIS FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS GREATEST ENEMY. W. M. THACKERAY, Author of" Vanity V:ur," (he "Snob Papers" in PU REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE PAPER WRAPPER TO A MONTHLY PART OF " PENDENNIS " From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert Thackeray and Dickens 239 And then came the unfortunate Edmund Yates affair. Into the details of this quarrel it is unnecessary to enter. At the time it was believed (and the belief has not yet been refuted), that Dickens, acting for Yates, conducted the matter in a spirit hostile to Thackeray. Mr. Yates has since declared that there was no real intimacy or any- thing like friendship between the two men, and he asserted that Thackeray was more angry with Dickens than with the original offender, who, much to his detriment, was made the subject of a trial of strength between them. Mr. Jeffreson has supported this opinion by avowing that Thackeray said to him, "You must not think, young 'un, I am quarrelling with Mr. Yates, I am hitting the man behind him" How far these statements are accurate it is not difficult to determine. Certainly if jealousy existed be- tween the two men, it was not on Thack- eray's side. No man with fewer literary jealousies and animosities ever existed. But it must be admitted that it was Dickens the author rather than Dickens the man 24 Some Aspects of Thackeray whom he admired. "Genial? Yes," he once said of him. "But frank" and a twinkle came over the spectacles " well, frank as an oyster." As a result of the affair, the novelists did not speak for some years. At last they met on the steps of the Athenaeum Club a few days before the Christmas of 1863. They passed each other, then Thackeray turned back, and with out- stretched hand went up to Dickens and said he could no longer bear to be on any but the old terms of friendship. "I saw him . . . shortly before Christmas at the Athena3um Club," Dickens has recorded, "when he told me he had been in bed three days that after these attacks he was troubled with cold shiverings which quite took the work out of him, and that he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he described. He was very cheerful, and looked very bright." A few days later Dickens was looking down into the grave of his great rival. "You will have heard about poor Thackeray's death sudden and yet not sudden for Thackeray and Dickens 24 1 he had long been alarmingly ill," Dickens wrote to a friend. "At the solicitation of Mr. Smith and some of his friends I have done what I would gladly have excused myself from doing if I felt I could, written a couple of pages about him in what was his own magazine. Therein I have tried so far as I could, with his mother and chil- dren before me, to avoid the fulsome and injudicious trash that has been written about him in the papers. . . . You can have no idea of the vile stuff . . . people who would have beslavered him living, began to be- spatter him dead." CHAPTER XI The Cult of Thackeray 1WAS reading the other day of a man at a public dinner many years ago who, proposing the toast of literature, concluded: "I drink to the health of two of the greatest forces in fiction in the nineteenth century, Dackens and Thickeray . . . no, no, I mean Dackeray and Thickens." With a mighty effort he pulled himself together, and began again: "Gentlemen, I drink to the health of Thackens and Dickeray." Then he sat down, pleased at having extricated himself from the muddle. The anecdote is trivial, but, in a way, typical. As Beaumont and Fletcher are always allied in the popular mind, so Thack- eray and Dickens are always contrasted. The result is identical. The thought of one writer conjures up the other. In the midst of a group of people say something about The Cult of Thackeray 243 Thackeray, and you will be bombarded with statements about Dickens. It is sometimes said the men were not rivals. As well say they were angels. For many years Thackeray envied Dickens his popularity and financial success; for ever Dickens was jealous of Thackeray's style. Undoubtedly Thackeray was spurred to fresh effort by each new success of his great contemporary. Even to-day there are few who will assert that they read with equal pleasure the works of both writers. Mr. Andrew Lang is a notable exception, but he is a man of letters with tastes unusually catholic. As Lowell said, Dickens is a satiriser, Thackeray a satirist. The former is undoubtedly the gift which attracts the multitude. Readers of all classes appreciate Dickens; it is rare that an admirer of Thackeray's works is found among the unlettered. It is not surprising, therefore, that the cult of Thackeray is not so extensive as that of the author of "Pickwick." Until recently there was no Titmarsh Club, and 244 Some Aspects of Thackeray even to-day there is no Thackeray Fellow- ship, including the two millionaires recently claimed as adherents of Dickens. No doubt the absence of the millionaires is to be regretted, but possibly it is an advantage to escape the attentions of the worthy plain folk. Perhaps there is no greater difference between the Dickensians and the Thackerayans than that the former boast of the favour with which their master is regarded by the un- educated, and that the latter are profoundly indifferent to such distinction. The admirers of Thackeray and the wor- shippers of Dickens are as a regiment to an army. Yet, happily, every day brings fresh adherents to the standard of the author of "Esmond." Articles on his merits as a novelist, poet, parodist, lecturer, artist, appear frequently in the periodicals. Every detail of his life is eagerly discussed. The discovery of an article by him is heralded far and wide. Mr. Whibley says the search for Thackeray's contributions to Eraser's Magazine has become a recognized parlour- game for the cultured. A collection of his MB. THACKEBATS NEW MONTHLY WORK. w RICHARD DOYLE. LONDON: BEADBUKY AND ETANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET. 1853. No. 1. OCTOBER. Price Is. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE PAPER WRAPPER TO A MONTHLY PART OF "THE NEWCOMES " From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert The Cult of Thackeray 245 letters attracts much attention. Even his "country" is not neglected; and during the last few years several English publishers have thought it worth while to bring out editions of his works. In the United States Thackeray has always aroused more interest than in his own land. So early as 1838 the "Yellow- plush Correspondence" was reprinted there; and in the following year the "Memoirs of Major Gahagan" were taken from the pages of the New Monthly Magazine and treated with similar honours. These publications at once attracted attention; and Mr. N. P. Willis, visiting England, hastened to secure for his paper, the Corsair, the services of their author, whom he described as " one of the cleverest and most brilliant of periodical- writers." His minor writings were collected years before there was any demand for them here ; and American publishers have vied with one another in issuing complete editions. Even in America, however, Thackeray has never eclipsed Dickens in point of sales. 246 Some Aspects of Thackeray Entering a bookstore in South Carolina, Thackeray inquired how many copies of "The Newcomes" had been sold. He was informed that the first order was for three hundred, and that two hundred had subse- quently been required. He then asked how many copies of "Bleak House" had been sold. He learnt that the first order had been for five hundred, and the repeat order for six hundred. " I ask these questions where- ever I go," he said, "and the answers are the same everywhere." He always insisted that five copies of Dickens's books were sold for every one of his own. Yet the London representative of an American firm, famous for its reprints of classical authors, said the other day that Thackeray, in spite of the fact that he is read more and more every year, presents a knotty point for publishers. For the sake of uniformity, to prevent a gap in their cata- logues, each great publishing house feels it incumbent to bring out an edition; but it does so, if not actually in fear and trembling, at least with no enthusiasm so far as the The Cult of Thackeray 247 counting-house is concerned. The fact of the matter is that the great novels sell, but there is astonishingly little demand for the minor works. Now, as in a new edition, the great novels "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," "Esmond," "The Newcomes," "The Vir- ginians," "Philip," are given in six vol- umes, while there are about twenty-one volumes in all, the reader with a turn for figures may work out the chances of a satis- factory profit. Some credit for the increase of interest in Thackeray is undoubtedly due to the Thack- eray enthusiasts. Prominent among these, naturally enough, is Lady Ritchie, whose biographical introductions to an edition of her father's works attracted much attention. Mr. Herman Merivale and Sir Frank T. Marzials may claim a share in the good work, for their monograph on Thackeray is the best that has been issued. It seems incon- ceivable that a more admirably written, more sympathetic memoir of the author can ever be penned. Mention must be made of Sir Leslie Stephen, Dr. John Brown, and 248 Some Aspects of Thackeray Richard Herne Shepherd; and, among pres- ent-day writers, of Mr. M. H. Spielmann, the historian of Punch, and the authority upon all matters concerning Thackeray's dealings with that periodical ; and Mr. Walter Jerrold, who edited Messrs. Dent's dainty edition, which will always occupy a unique place by virtue of Mr. C. E. Brock's delight- ful illustrations. Across the ocean, enthusiasts, past and present, must be counted not by units, but by battalions; but since this is not a cata- logue, only a few can be named: Mr. J. T. Fields, publisher and man of letters; Mr. Evert A. Duyckinck, the editor of the first edition of the minor works; Mr. Horace E. Scudder, the editor of the 1889 edition; and the famous collectors, Mr. Frederick S. Dick- son the greatest authority on Thackeray's very complicated bibliography Mr. W. T. Bixby; and Major William H. Lambert, whose collection of Thackeray editions and manuscripts is unrivalled. The influence of Dickens upon writers has been stronger, numerically, at least, than No. 1 1 [NOVEMBER.] [ Price Is. A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY BY W. M. THACKERAY. LONDON : BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, EOUVERIE STREET. 1857. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE PAPER WRAPPER TO A MONTHLY PART OF "THE VIRGINIANS" From the copy owned by Major William H. Lambert The Cult of Thackeray 249 that of Thackeray because there can be no doubt that it is easier to follow the former, though his excellence is as difficult of attain- ment. A hearty style and an exaggerated domesticity: by these shall ye know the imitators of the inimitable author of " David Copperfield." Thackeray has no obvious imitators. He does not lend himself easily even to the parodist. Read some lines of Lover's bur- lesque, which is not only the worst parody that Lover ever wrote, but probably the worst ever written. It is cast in the form of a letter refusing to become a member of a committee appointed to adjudicate upon prose poems written in honour of the Burns Centenary. "A strange compliment, in sooth, to be asked to have one's ears scratched with the wretched rhymes and false metres in which some hundreds of poetasters will measure of the contents of their poetic gasometers, whose emanations are more likely to be remarkable for mephitism than brilliancy." Could anything be more unlike Thackeray, whose style was at least as near perfection 25 Some Aspects of Thackeray as that of any of his contemporaries, and who, whatever his faults, never wrote a sentence that was not simple and lucid? Yet the influence of Thackeray may be detected in some quarters. By right of seniority, Mr. W. E. Norris shall be men- tioned first; and after him Mr. Percy White. If the name of Mr. G. S. Street is put third, it is because many men of letters have a grudge against him. In an age when the general complaint is that every one writes, and that every one writes too much, those who know Mr. Street's work complain that he writes too little. If he owes a debt of sentiment to Thackeray, he is a writer so distinctive that we may be sure the debt would gratefully be cancelled by the creditor. This is not the place to enter into the question of the value of Thackeray's con- tributions to literature; still, this paper may conclude with the remark there are few who will deny that he has achieved the place he desired to occupy when he said to a friend, "I wish one day to rank with th**. classical writers." I CHAPTER XII Thackeray and the Stage F we have made ourselves familiar with a famous work of fiction in an unillus- trated copy, and subsequently come across an illustrated edition of the same book, it is long odds that. we are dissatisfied with the plates. Indeed, it is almost certain that we quarrel with the artist's conception of the characters, let the artist be ever so dis- tinguished. We had always conceived the hero tall, broad, and fair; the villain dark, narrow and swarthy; or vice versa; and we feel ourselves cheated when we look at their counterfeit presentments, and behold them depicted as other than they are in our mind's eye. The case is parallel with that of an adaptation for the stage of a classic novel, and I suppose that it was with mixed feelings that admirers of "The Newcomes" heard of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production 25 2 Some Aspects of Thackeray of a dramatic version at His Majesty's Theatre. Pre-eminent among the conflicting emo- tions is the fear that the adapter, however skilful he may be, cannot have done justice to the book. The first question we ask ourselves is : How can he possibly have com- pressed into the three hours' traffic of the stage all the incidents and all the characters? A moment's reflection assures us that he will have made no such impossible attempt, and that he has selected a few prominent characters and attached them to an incident or a series of incidents. Then we wonder which characters and which incidents will be presented, and we argue about them and discuss their suitability with the greatest interest. Nowadays, the bookish section of the public is inclined rather to hold aloof from the theatre where the plays produced may have great merits but usually lack any literary qualities; but such a piece as "Colonel Newcome" surely draws them all. In spite of the difficulties presented by works that depend more on atmosphere than Copyright by F. W. Burford, London. SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE AS COLONEL NEWCOME Thackeray and the Stage 253 plot, and more on characterisation than situ- ation, there have been several adapters of Thackeray's books for the stage. "Jeames's Diary" was dramatised before it had run its course in Punch, where the close of the narrative left Jeames happy and contented, save that "a written version of his adventures has been produced at the Princess's Theatre, 'without your leaf or by your leaf.' ' That was in 1846; and it was not until thirty-two years later that Mr. John Hollingshead produced at the Gaiety Theatre Mr. (now Sir F. C.) Bur- nand's "Jeames: a New and Original Com- edy," with Mr. Edward Terry as De La Pluche, and Miss Ellen Farren as Mary Ann Hoggins. "Vanity Fair" has had many theatrical adventures. "We all set to work on 'Vanity Fair' with our mind's eye set on Marie Ban- croft for Becky, and Bancroft for 'Dobbin of Ours,' and Fred Yonge for Rawdon, and Hare for the Marquis of Steyne," Clement Scott has recorded. "That was for the old Prince of Wales's. Tom Hood tried it. 254 Some Aspects of Thackeray Arthur Sketchley tried it, every one more or less breaking down." A version was pro- duced at Leeds in 1882, but it was Mr. J. M. Barrie who first set the ball really rolling in 1893, with the presentation of the scene in which Becky (Miss Janet Achurch), fallen upon evil days at Pumpernickel-Weimar, makes her last desperate and successful attempt to ensnare Jos Sedley (Mr. Edmund Maurice). This was followed eight years later by Mr. Balsillie's version (with the Duchess of Richmond's ball scene), pro- duced at Croydon by Miss Annie Hughes, who, of course, played Becky, with Mr. Wigney Percyval as "the wicked nobleman," and Miss Kate Bishop as Miss Crawley; and about the same time appeared at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, the successful Hichens-Gordon-Lennox adaptation, with a very long cast (from which Dobbin was unaccountably omitted), including Miss Marie Tempest as Becky, Mr. Leonard Boyne as Rawdon, and Mr. Gilbert Hare as Lord Steyne. In America there have been at least three "Vanity Fair" plays, one so Thackeray and the Stage 255 early as 1849 by the actor-dramatist, Mr. John Brougham, another by the dramatist- actor, Mr. George Fawcett Rowe, and a third, in 1899, by Mr. Langdon Mitchell, with Mrs. Fiske as Becky. After "Vanity Fair," "Esmond" has had most attraction for the adapters. A version was written for Mr. E. H. Sothern, and another by Mr. W. H. Wills was prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, and came into the possession of Sir Henry Irving, by whom it was handed over to the amateur dramatic club that bears his name, which gave a per- formance of it in June, 1893. Then Mr. T. Edgar Pemberton tried his hand, and the result of his labours saw the light in the provinces in 1897. With regard to Thack- eray's other books there has been an adap- tation of "The Rose and the Ring," by Mr. H. Saville Clarke, with music by Mr. Walter Slaughter; and I have read of a one-act play, "The Fotheringay," given by the Old Comedy Company, which was based upon the earlier chapters of "Pendennis." Thackeray in his early days wrote "Read- 256 Some Aspects of Thackeray ing a Poem," a sketch in dialogue treating of the days when Bungay and Bacon, the publishers in "Pendennis," issued "Keep- sakes" and "Spring Annuals," and would pay large sums to obtain the poems or at least, the names of titled folk. The satire is keen, but best of all are the descriptions of the characters. Mr. Bogle "the cele- brated publisher in a publisher's costume of deep black." Mr. Bludyer "an English gentleman of the Press, editor of the Weekly Bravo . . . should smell very much of stale smoke, and need not shave for two or three days before performing the part." It was always a grief to Thackeray that he could not write a play that managers would produce. It is, of course, well known that he wrote a comedy, "The Wolves and the Lamb," which, when Buckstone and Wigan declined, he converted into "Lovel the Widower." But he made the change with regret, and when some one asked him for permission to turn "Lovel the Widower" into a play, it is doubtful whether he was pleased or grieved. "The last act is so very MRS. FISKE AS BECKY SHARP See page 255 Thackeray and the Stage 257 lively and amusing that I cannot but think Mr. Wigan and Mr. Buckstone were wrong concerning it,'* he told his correspondent. "I thought I could write a play," he said on another occasion, "but it seems I can't." However, since he could not have "The Wolves and the Lamb" performed in public, he gave private representations of it when he moved into "the reddest house in all the town" at Palace-green, and he took part in it himself, but, declining a speaking part on the ground that he could not possibly learn such poor words, he contented himself with an appearance as the clerical father just before the fall of the curtain, when he held out his hands and said in pantomime to actors and audience, "Bless you, my children." Thackeray was always happy in a theatre. Once he asked a friend if he loved "the play," and received the qualified answer, " Ye-es, I like a good play." " Oh, get out ! " the great man retorted. "I said the play. You don't even understand what I mean!" And FitzGerald went one night with Thack- 258 Some Aspects of Thackeray eray in the pit to witness a piece which, with its mock sentiment, its indifferent humour, and ultra-theatrical scenes bored him so terribly that he was about to suggest they should leave the theatre, when Thack- eray turned to him, and exclaimed delight- edly: "By Gd! isn't it splendid!" Thackeray's "New Sketch Book " 1 THE legend on the back of this volume runs: "W. M. Thackeray: The New Sketch Book. Edited by Robert S. Garnett," and neither there nor on the title-page is given any indication that the collection of papers is only believed by the editor to have been written by the great novelist. Not until one reads the admirable introduction is it realised that the articles appeared anony- mously in the Foreign Quarterly Review be- tween 1842 and 1844, and, so far as Mr. Garnett is aware, the authorship is proved only by the all too often misleading sugges- tions of "internal evidence." The "find," however, has been accepted as genuine so 1 "W. M. Thackeray: The New Sketch Book." Being Essays now first collected from "The Foreign Quarterly Review." Edited, with an Introduction by Robert S. Garnett, with an Appendix on the Authors Criticised. 7s. 6d. net. (Alston Rivers). 260 Some Aspects of Thackeray far as most of the papers are concerned by such weighty critics as Mr. W. L. Court- ney and Mr. Walter Jerrold. I am fortunate enough to be in a position now to bring forward some important evi- dence bearing upon the authorship of the papers in question, obtained by following up a clue suggesting itself to me by a few lines in the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin's interesting account of "Thackeray in Search of a Pro- fession" (The Monthly Review, October, 1904) : "In his review, in 1843, of the rabid politi- cal verses by the German Herwegh, whose panacea for social evils was the extermination by civil war of rulers and clergy, Thackeray, in ridicule of his savage rant, said that twenty years earlier some young philosophers might possibly in part have applauded his doctrines at a Union debate. Arthur Pendennis was one of these precocious philanthropists." Appended to this was a footnote referring to the Herwegh paper: "In the Foreign Quar- terly Review,, April, 1843." At the time I thought nothing of this, though I looked at the Herwegh paper; but it recurred to me WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From a drawing by Samuel Laurence By permission of Major WtUlam H. Lambert "New Sketch Book" 261 at the time when "The New Sketch Book" was published. The reference to this peri- odical struck me for the first time as curious, since it was not then generally known that Thackeray contributed to this long-forgotten quarterly; and it occurred to me, belatedly enough, that he who wrote the footnote might probably have some further knowledge on the subject of Thackeray's connection with this Review. I wrote to Mr. John Murray (to whom I here express my thanks) to ask if he could tell me whether the note was in the original manuscript of the late editor of the Quarterly Review, or whether it had been added by another hand. It tran- spires that it was inserted by the author's son, who has supplied further information, which, by his courtesy, I am permitted to make use. Mr. Elwin found among his father's Thack- eray memoranda it is an open secret that the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin intended to write the life of Thackeray the following: "List of Thackeray's articles in Foreign 262 Some Aspects of Thackeray Quarterly Review. July 1842. The German in England; Oct. 1842. Travelling Ro- mancers. M. Dumas on the Rhine; April 1843. Georg Herwegh's Poems. Vol. 31; April 1843. Les Mysteres de Paris. By Eugene Sue. 6 vols. Paris. 1843. Vol. 31; Oct. 1843. Death and Dying in France. Vol. 32; Oct. 1843. French Romancers on England. Le Bananier, par Frederic Soulie. Vol. 32; Jan. 1844. New Accounts of Paris. Vol. 32. Mainly a review of 'Lettres Parisiennes, par Emile de Girardin.' I take this article to be Thackeray's from internal evidence. At the close he briefly notices * Paris and its People. By the Author of "Random Recollections of the House of Commons." In Eraser's Magazine for Dec. 1843, he has a separate article entirely de- voted to Grant's book." The above has been copied verbatim by Mr. Elwin, who thinks that from the last note his father had more authority than "in- ternal evidence" for attributing the rest of the list positively to Thackeray. "John Forster edited the Foreign Quarterly Review "New Sketch Book" 263 at this time, and my father may have known from him that Thackeray contributed to it," Mr. Elwin remarks. "But all Forster's papers passed through my father's hands as literary executor, and I do not doubt that the list was derived from them in some way, and that it is authoritative as far as it goes. It does not follow that it is complete, but my father searched the Foreign Quarterly Review for that period, and I have no doubt it includes all he thought to be Thackeray's." For these papers additional evidence can be produced. To take two or three at hap- hazard! Compare the review of "Paris and its People," in "The New Sketch Book," with the acknowledged paper on the same book in Eraser's Magazine, "Grant in Paris," which appeared a month earlier (December, 1843). Each article is scathing, though in the latter the critic used all his power of invec- tive upon Grant, who was one of the favourite butts in Punch. In each there is mention of the fact that Grant was unacquainted with the French language; in each are pointed out the same two blunders, Palais Royale and 264 Some Aspects of Thackeray Chautdbriand ; in each are references to Grant's statements that the most elegant ladies of the land sit alongside of dirty drivers in hack-cabriolets, and that the gentry of Paris are in the habit of dining at thirty- sous eating-houses, which eating-houses pro- vide a meal that the traveller regards as luxury! It is surely unnecessary to make further analysis. Next take the review of "Les Mysteres de Paris," and read it, remembering what Thackeray in a little-known letter said of the works of Eugene Sue. And who but the author of "Catherine" could have written this passage anent one of the characters in that remarkable novel: "This sum of money the young woman spent very carelessly, and having given away her last fifty francs to a poor woman in distress (who was afterwards murdered by her hus- band), the goualeuse had no other resource but shame, and became the creature of the ogress in whose house she lived. With all this, and although she had been accustomed to drinking, and although she had been edu- WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From the portrait by Samuel Laurence, 1852 By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder. & Co. "New Sketch Book" 265 cated in a prison, and although she earned her livelihood in the way indicated, perhaps the world never contained a more lovely, fascinating, delicate, sweet creature than the goualeuse"? Lastly, read a passage from the review of Madame de Girardin's "Lettres Parisi- ennes:" "And is it so? Is it true that the women of Madame de Girardin's country, and of fashionable life, are the heartless, odious, foolish, swindling, smiling, silly, sel- fish creatures she paints them? Have they no sense of religious duty, no feeling of maternal affection, no principle of conjugal attachment, no motive except variety, for which they will simulate passion (it stands to reason that a woman who does not love husband and children can love nobody) and break all law? Is this true as every French romance that has been written time out of mind, would have us believe? Is it so com- mon that Madame de Girardin can afford to laugh at it as a joke, and talk of it as a daily occurrence? and if so, if we must take the Frenchman's own word for it in spite of 266 Some Aspects of Thackeray all the faults, and all the respectability, and all the lord- worship, and all the prejudice, and all the insoluble dulness of Baker Street Miss (the young and amiable English lady before apostrophised) had much bet- ter marry in the Portman Square than in the Place Vendome quarter." Of this passage, as Mr. W. L. Courtney says of another, surely the reader will be inclined to say, "Aut Thackeray, aut Diabolus." Of the seven papers identified, of one "Dumas on the Rhine" further proof of authorship is to be found in Fitzpatrick's "Life of Lever," and it has therefore been included in a recent edition of Thackeray's works (Macmillan; Vol. XV.: "The Fitz- Boodle Papers, etc.; " 1904); while another "Death and Dying in France" is now first made known. The remaining five are included among the eleven papers in "The New Sketch Book." It cannot be denied, however, that while mention in the Rev. Whitwell Elwin's list makes Mr. Garnett's assumptions appear accurate so far as the "New Sketch Book" 267 five articles are concerned, the omission of the other six renders very doubtful indeed the suggestion that they, too, were written by Thackeray. Still, they must not be dis- missed without considerations. Take, first, the reviews of Victor Hugo's "Le Rhin" (April, 1842), and Alfred Michiel's "Angle- terre" (July, 1844), which appeared respec- tively before the first and after the last article mentioned by Elwin, who, therefore may or may not have read them. It is cer- tainly difficult not to accept as from Thack- eray's pen the paper on Victor Hugo's book, after listening to what Mr. Garnett has to say on the subject. "In 1842 Thackeray wrote to Edward FitzGerald that he had read no good books or novels worth mentioning, but scores of volumes of history, and, by way of amusement, Victor Hugo's new book on the Rhine. 'He is very great, and writes like a God Almighty,' continues Thackeray, and he explains that he has been trying to write about Hugo's letters that day, only squeezing out one page. A remark of Hugo's about looking at the stars that night is as 268 Some Aspects of Thackeray it were the normal colour of heaven struck him, and he says that to him there is some- thing awful in it, and that he is certain that time and space are dark blue. The tone of the letter and of the review are so strikingly similar as to admit no doubt of the identity of the writer. 'He is very great, and writes like a God Almighty,' says the letter-writer, and on the first page of the review that page which Thackeray squeezed out so laboriously we find him parodying Victor Hugo, who is very great; and on the third page he shows him posed precisely as a divinity. And a little further on we find him quoting and admiring with a touch of generosity which is charming in the contrast a passage of description of the night sky, such a passage as that which had so moved Edward FitzGerald's correspondent." Surely this is conclusive so far as internal evidence ever can be conclusive. But, although Mr. Garnett regards the scathing notice of Michiel's "Angleterre" as "thor- oughly typical of the critic's mature talent," WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY After one of his later photographs, taken by the London Stereoscopic Company By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. "New Sketch Book" 269 I would not like to say more than that Thackeray may have written it. It is true that the geniality that is commonly regarded as a feature of the master's writings is want- ing, but then it must be remembered that the contributions to the Foreign Quarterly Review were written in the days when he sent to Eraser's Magazine articles full of virulent abuse. After careful study of the review of Du- mas' "Crimes Celebres," I am not inclined to attribute it to Thackeray, and I am of the same opinion with regard to the review of Balzac's "Monographic de la Paresse Pari- sienne," although the observations upon the woodcut illustrations read like him. Mr. Garnett believes the paper on Gutznow's "Briefe aus Paris" was written by Thackeray and revised by the Editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review, but I cannot find many passages that to me seem to have been indited by Thackeray. We are, however, on less debatable ground with the only item not yet mentioned, "English History and Character on the French Stage," for a comparison with 270 Some Aspects of Thackeray a similar article in "The Paris Sketch Book" will convince most people of the identity of the author. Though these papers can add nothing to Thackeray's reputation, and though some of them are mere journeyman's work, yet, without claiming for them high value as criticism for Thackeray, indeed, was in- sular in his prejudices they are certainly most entertaining to read. Mr. Garnett has done well to reprint them, even in the face of the prejudice that exists in some quarters against the "resurrection" of the minor writings of a great author; and it is right that, in addition, grateful acknowledgment should be made of his services as editor, his excellent introduction, and his valuable notes on the authors criticised. CHAPTER XIV Mr. Whibley on Thackeray l THERE is no doubt that the popularity of Thackeray increases by leaps and bounds. A certain section of the public has always been faithful to the author of "Esmond," but every day fresh adher- ents are crowding round the standard of the great novelist of the nineteenth century. Looking back, it seems as if Lady Ritchie's Biographical Introduction to an edition of her father's works, and a "Life of William Makepeace Thackeray," both published in 1899, gave an impetus to the movement. Certainly, they afforded much food for discussion. Interest in Thackeray having been stimulated, various collections of the lesser known writings of the great man 1 "William Makepeace Thackeray." By Charles Whibley. " Modern English Writers." 272 Some Aspects of Thackeray appeared in quick succession "Contri- butions to the National Standard and the Constitutional," " Stray Papers," and "The Hitherto Unidentified Contributions to Punch." Publishers soon realised there was an ever-increasing demand for Thackeray's works, and several new editions, each pos- sessing some special feature, have been offered to the public. Messrs. Nelson issued a thin paper edition; Messrs. Dent an edition, edited by Mr. Walter Jerrold, one of the leading authorities on the novelist, and illustrated by Mr. C. E. Brock; and Messrs. Macmillan the first absolutely com- plete edition of Thackeray's writings and drawings, edited by the present writer. At this moment Messrs. Macmillan are reissuing their edition with the special fea- ture of five hundred illustrations by Mr. Harry Furniss; and Messrs. Smith, Elder and Company are bringing out an admir- able Centenary edition which includes Lady Ritchie's Introduction. Contributions to the reviews upon the various aspects of Thackeray are of frequent occurrence, and Mr. Whibley on Thackeray 273 it rarely happens that a month passes with- out the publication in England or America of a paper treating of Thackeray as novelist or essayist, as lecturer or poet, as artist or art-critic, as moralist or cynic or humour- ist. This tends to prove that Thackeray, once the spoiled darling of the cultured, has now found favour in the eyes of the great mass of educated readers. The change was for a long time so slight as to be al- most imperceptible, but during the last few years it has been so rapid, that it is well to pause for a moment to consider what is Thackeray's place in literature accord- ing to the new and somewhat altered view. Mr. Charles Whibley's long-promised mon- ograph on Thackeray has at last been published, and there is no doubt it will be very widely read. Mr. Whibley has won his spurs as an author with "Studies in Frankness," "A Book of Scoundrels," and other volumes pleasant to read; and he has proved himself a clear-sighted and erudite critic, whose opinions are usually 274 Some Aspects of Thackeray sound and frequently suggestive. Indeed, Messrs. Blackwood may be congratulated upon having induced him to write the Thackeray volume of their excellent "Mod- ern English Writers" series. Mr. Whibley is not to be blamed because he has nothing new to say concerning Thackeray's life. The life of a man of letters is usually devoid of incident, and though in this particular instance there are some special features of interest, it is highly improbable that there is anything to say that has not been said over and over again. Thackeray's first biographer was John Camden Hotten, and his book was verily a thing of shreds and patches. Later, Anthony Trollope outlined Thack- eray's career with no sympathetic pen, but perhaps with more truth than is gener- ally admitted, and then followed Messrs. Hermann Merivale and Frank T. Marzial's monograph, Lady Ritchie's Biographical In- troductions, and the present writer's "Life of William Makepeace Thackeray." It is to be expected that at some remote date, Mr. Whibley on Thackeray 275 and perhaps by some writer as yet unborn, an "official" biography will appear but even such a work will contain little that is unknown, save, possibly, some hitherto un- printed letters. Mr. Whibley's book, there- fore, is interesting chiefly as a critical review. It has been stated so frequently and with such persistence that Thackeray's style is as near perfection as is humanly possible, that Mr. Whibley's remark that he is far from satisfied with that style has the effect of a cold douche. "His words flow like snow-water upon the mountain-side. He could no more restrain the current of his prose than a gentle slope could turn a rivulet back upon its course. His sentences dash one over the other in an often aimless suc- cession, as though impelled by a force in- dependent of their author," he remarks; and he complains that Thackeray possessed no economy of speech, and that he never used one word if a page and a half could adequately express the meaning. It is im- possible to contradict the critic. Thackeray did amble along, often almost aimlessly, 276 Some Aspects of Thackeray and he did pile up mountains of words without getting any "forrader;" just as he only too frequently interrupted what slight thread of story there was to interject little essays germane to the narrative. These objections from a lesser man than Mr. Whibley might be dismissed as a pro- test against novels without plots; but Mr. Whibley is himself too capable an artist to mean only this. He is angry, and his anger is aroused by the feeling that Thack- eray did not do his best. He is regretful and his regret occasionally turns almost to bitterness because he realises if only Thackeray had been able to write more leisurely, and had not been compelled to live from hand to mouth, as it were, the novelist would have told a better story, and would have more carefully penned the pages in which it was unfolded. "That turning back to the old pages," Thackeray wrote in a Roundabout Paper, "produces anything but elation of mind. Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel some of them? Ah, the sad old pages, Mr. Whibley on Thackeray 277 the dull old pages!" The critic admits that Thackeray's style is graphic, various, and at times eloquent; and he instances several passages that entitle Thackeray to a high place among English writers much of "Esmond," Harry Warrington's first visit to England, Denis Duval's journey to Lon- don, Barry Lyndon's famous defence of play, and the Waterloo chapters of "Vanity Fair." After all, Thackeray's style at its worst was equal to that of any contemporary novelist; at its best it has been excelled by none. Mr. Whibley points out that Thackeray's contemporaries believed he was something more than a novelist a social regenerator; and that Thackeray regarded himself as a moralist. Thackeray never wrote a novel with a purpose, such as "Nicholas Nickleby," or "Man and Wife," or "It is Never too Late to Mend," for he was too great an artist to make that fatal blunder; but he regarded himself as a latter-day " sad and weary, splen- did King Ecclesiast," crying his sermon from the modern equivalent of the Mount 278 Some Aspects of Thackeray of Hermon. " [Thackeray] the moralist was so tight-bound to the superstitions of his age, that he will probably never appear as great as he did to some of his contempo- raries," says Mr. Whibley. Mr. Whibley is on firmer ground when he asserts that there were always two men in Thackeray, the sen- timental moralist, and "the keen-eyed iron- ist, for whom life was an amusing game, whose rules were independent of virtue, and in which the scoundrel was most often victo- rious." The ironist was sometimes defeated by the sentimentalist, sometimes by the moralist, but when he could have his way un- fettered, he drew Barry Lyndon and in his heart of hearts often admired the knave and portrayed Becky with more pleasure than the Amelia for whom Dobbin waited too long. A propos of "Vanity Fair," Mr. Whibley in- sists that the logical end of the book is Rawdon Crawley's appointment to the Gov- ernorship of Coventry Island, and that the regathering of the threads is a wanton and tedious operation. There is something to be said for this view, only then we should Mr. Whibley on Thackeray 279 have lost the chapters Am Rhein and the picture of Becky in her degringolade, which most of us would not miss but with deep regret. Mr. Whibley writes with enthusiasm of Thackeray as a creator of character. There are few novelists who have such a gallery of characters as can be collected from Thack- eray's stories. Think of those universally known. Becky and her husband Rawdon, Major Pendennis, Mirobolant, Costigan, Foker, "J. J.," Ned Bayham, Madame d'lvry, Mons. le Prince de Moncontour (better known as M. de Florae), Beatrix Esmond, wonderful as a girl, marvellous as an old lady the catalogue might be con- tinued almost indefinitely. How truly they are described, how minutely, how humanly, and also how humanely. They are more real to many of us, better known to many of us, than the people of flesh and blood we meet every day. Mr. Whibley treats of Thack- eray as lecturer, attacking almost with virulence the lecture on Swift; as art critic; and, of course, as novelist and essayist. 280 Some Aspects of Thackeray Strangely enough, however, he says no word of Thackeray as the writer of verse; this is surprising, for, though by no means a great poet, Thackeray wrote many charming bal- lads, though his rhymes were often appalling, his metre not always perfect. There can be little doubt that his ballads will be more widely read and his reputation as a writer of verse be considerably enhanced. Again, though Mr. Whibley mentions that Thack- eray studied art, he does not anywhere refer to him as an artist, or as the illustrator of his own works. Mr. Whibley agrees with the critics who have preceded him that"Lovel the Widower" may be disregarded; that "Philip," though built upon an ampler scale, is almost tedious, and frequently shows the weariness of the hand that penned it; and that in "Denis Duval" he recovered his old mastery and displayed his old style but "Denis Duval," which bade fair to rank with "Esmond," is, alas ! but a fragment. Thack- eray will go down to posterity as the author of "Vanity Fair" and "Pendennis," of "Barry Lyndon" and the inimitable "Es- Mr. Whibley on Thackeray 281 mond," the greatest historical novel written by an Englishman; as the most humorous of nineteenth century novelists, and as the lineal descendant in letters of the man be- fore whom he bent the knee, Henry Fielding. 121EC7 *