CHAPTER I.

E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Lisa Reigel, and the

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Transcriber's note:

The letter "o" with a macron is rendered [=o] in this text. It

only appears in the word "Public[=o]la".

A detailed transcriber's note will be found at the end of the text.

English Men of Letters

Edited by John Morley

THACKERAY

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

London:

MacMillan and Co.

1879.

The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.

Charles Dickens and Evans,

Crystal Palace Press.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

BIOGRAPHICAL 1

CHAPTER II.

FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH 62

CHAPTER III.

VANITY FAIR 90

CHAPTER IV.

PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES 108

CHAPTER V.

ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS 122

CHAPTER VI.

THACKERAY'S BURLESQUES 139

CHAPTER VII.

THACKERAY'S LECTURES 154

CHAPTER VIII.

THACKERAY'S BALLADS 168

CHAPTER IX.

THACKERAY'S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK 184

THACKERAY

CHAPTER I.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

In the foregoing volumes of this series of _English Men of Letters_, and

in other works of a similar nature which have appeared lately as to the

_Ancient Classics_ and _Foreign Classics_, biography has naturally been,

if not the leading, at any rate a considerable element. The desire is

common to all readers to know not only what a great writer has written,

but also of what nature has been the man who has produced such great

work. As to all the authors taken in hand before, there has been extant

some written record of the man's life. Biographical details have been

more or less known to the world, so that, whether of a Cicero, or of a

Goethe, or of our own Johnson, there has been a story to tell. Of

Thackeray no life has been written; and though they who knew him,--and

possibly many who did not,--are conversant with anecdotes of the man,

who was one so well known in society as to have created many anecdotes,

yet there has been no memoir of his life sufficient to supply the wants

of even so small a work as this purports to be. For this the reason may

simply be told. Thackeray, not long before his death, had had his taste

offended by some fulsome biography. Paragraphs, of which the eulogy

seemed to have been the produce rather of personal love than of inquiry

or judgment, disgusted him, and he begged of his girls that when he

should have gone there should nothing of the sort be done with his name.

We can imagine how his mind had worked, how he had declared to himself

that, as by those loving hands into which his letters, his notes, his

little details,--his literary remains, as such documents used to be

called,--might naturally fall, truth of his foibles and of his

shortcomings could not be told, so should not his praises be written, or

that flattering portrait be limned which biographers are wont to

produce. Acting upon these instructions, his daughters,--while there

were two living, and since that the one surviving,--have carried out the

order which has appeared to them to be sacred. Such being the case, it

certainly is not my purpose now to write what may be called a life of

Thackeray. In this preliminary chapter I will give such incidents and

anecdotes of his life as will tell the reader perhaps all about him that

a reader is entitled to ask. I will tell how he became an author, and

will say how first he worked and struggled, and then how he worked and

prospered, and became a household word in English literature;--how, in

this way, he passed through that course of mingled failure and success

which, though the literary aspirant may suffer, is probably better both

for the writer and for the writings than unclouded early glory. The

suffering no doubt is acute, and a touch of melancholy, perhaps of

indignation, may be given to words which have been written while the

heart has been too full of its own wrongs; but this is better than the

continued note of triumph which is still heard in the final voices of

the spoilt child of literature, even when they are losing their music.

Then I will tell how Thackeray died, early indeed, but still having done

a good life's work. Something of his manner, something of his appearance

I can say, something perhaps of his condition of mind; because for some

few years he was known to me. But of the continual intercourse of

himself with the world, and of himself with his own works, I can tell

little, because no record of his life has been made public.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Calcutta, on July 18, 1811. His

father was Richmond Thackeray, son of W. M. Thackeray of Hadley, near

Barnet, in Middlesex. A relation of his, of the same name, a Rev. Mr.

Thackeray, I knew well as rector of Hadley, many years afterwards. Him I

believe to have been a second cousin of our Thackeray, but I think they

had never met each other. Another cousin was Provost of Kings at

Cambridge, fifty years ago, as Cambridge men will remember. Clergymen of

the family have been numerous in England during the century, and there

was one, a Rev. Elias Thackeray, whom I also knew in my youth, a

dignitary, if I remember right, in the diocese of Meath. The Thackerays

seem to have affected the Church; but such was not at any period of his

life the bias of our novelist's mind.

His father and grandfather were Indian civil servants. His mother was

Anne Becher, whose father was also in the Company's service. She married

early in India, and was only nineteen when her son was born. She was

left a widow in 1816, with only one child, and was married a few years

afterwards to Major Henry Carmichael Smyth, with whom Thackeray lived on

terms of affectionate intercourse till the major died. All who knew

William Makepeace remember his mother well, a handsome, spare,

gray-haired lady, whom Thackeray treated with a courtly deference as

well as constant affection. There was, however, something of discrepancy

between them as to matters of religion. Mrs. Carmichael Smyth was

disposed to the somewhat austere observance of the evangelical section

of the Church. Such, certainly, never became the case with her son.

There was disagreement on the subject, and probably unhappiness at

intervals, but never, I think, quarrelling. Thackeray's house was his

mother's home whenever she pleased it, and the home also of his

stepfather.

He was brought a child from India, and was sent early to the Charter

House. Of his life and doings there his friend and schoolfellow George

Venables writes to me as follows;

"My recollection of him, though fresh enough, does not furnish

much material for biography. He came to school young,--a

pretty, gentle, and rather timid boy. I think his experience

there was not generally pleasant. Though he had afterwards a

scholarlike knowledge of Latin, he did not attain distinction

in the school; and I should think that the character of the

head-master, Dr. Russell, which was vigorous, unsympathetic,

and stern, though not severe, was uncongenial to his own. With

the boys who knew him, Thackeray was popular; but he had no

skill in games, and, I think, no taste for them.... He was

already known by his faculty of making verses, chiefly

parodies. I only remember one line of one parody on a poem of

L. E. L.'s, about 'Violets, dark blue violets;' Thackeray's

version was 'Cabbages, bright green cabbages,' and we thought

it very witty. He took part in a scheme, which came to

nothing, for a school magazine, and he wrote verses for it, of

which I only remember that they were good of their kind. When

I knew him better, in later years, I thought I could recognise

the sensitive nature which he had as a boy.... His change of

retrospective feeling about his school days was very

characteristic. In his earlier books he always spoke of the

Charter House as Slaughter House and Smithfield. As he became

famous and prosperous his memory softened, and Slaughter House

was changed into Grey Friars where Colonel Newcome ended his

life."

In February, 1829, when he was not as yet eighteen, Thackeray went up to

Trinity College, Cambridge, and was, I think, removed in 1830. It may be

presumed, therefore, that his studies there were not very serviceable to

him. There are few, if any, records left of his doings at the

university,--unless it be the fact that he did there commence the

literary work of his life. The line about the cabbages, and the scheme

of the school magazine, can hardly be said to have amounted even to a

commencement. In 1829 a little periodical was brought out at Cambridge,

called _The Snob_, with an assurance on the title that it was _not_

conducted by members of the university. It is presumed that Thackeray

took a hand in editing this. He certainly wrote, and published in the

little paper, some burlesque lines on the subject which was given for

the Chancellor's prize poem of the year. This was _Timbuctoo_, and

Tennyson was the victor on the occasion. There is some good fun in the

four first and four last lines of Thackeray's production.

In Africa,--a quarter of the world,--

Men's skins are black; their hair is crisped and curled;

And somewhere there, unknown to public view

A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.

* * * * *

I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,

And sell their sugars on their own account;

While round her throne the prostrate nations come,

Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum.

I cannot find in _The Snob_ internal evidence of much literary merit

beyond this. But then how many great writers have there been from whose

early lucubrations no future literary excellence could be

prognosticated?

There is something at any rate in the name of the publication which

tells of work that did come. Thackeray's mind was at all times

peculiarly exercised with a sense of snobbishness. His appreciation of

the vice grew abnormally, so that at last he had a morbid horror of a

snob--a morbid fear lest this or the other man should turn snob on his

hands. It is probable that the idea was taken from the early _Snob_ at

Cambridge, either from his own participation in the work or from his

remembrance of it. _The Snob_ lived, I think, but nine weeks, and was

followed at an interval, in 1830, by _The Gownsman_, which lived to the

seventeenth number, and at the opening of which Thackeray no doubt had a

hand. It professed to be a continuation of _The Snob_. It contains a

dedication to all proctors, which I should not be sorry to attribute to

him. "To all Proctors, past, present, and future--

Whose taste it is our privilege to follow,

Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate,

Whose presence it is our interest to avoid."

There is, however, nothing beyond fancy to induce me to believe that

Thackeray was the author of the dedication, and I do not know that there

is any evidence to show that he was connected with _The Snob_ beyond the

writing of _Timbuctoo_.

In 1830 he left Cambridge, and went to Weimar either in that year or in

1831. Between Weimar and Paris he spent some portion of his earlier

years, while his family,--his mother, that is, and his stepfather,--were

living in Devonshire. It was then the purport of his life to become an

artist, and he studied drawing at Paris, affecting especially

Bonnington, the young English artist who had himself painted at Paris

and who had died in 1828. He never learned to draw,--perhaps never could

have learned. That he was idle, and did not do his best, we may take for

granted. He was always idle, and only on some occasions, when the spirit

moved him thoroughly, did he do his best even in after life. But with

drawing,--or rather without it,--he did wonderfully well even when he

did his worst. He did illustrate his own books, and everyone knows how

incorrect were his delineations. But as illustrations they were

excellent. How often have I wished that characters of my own creating

might be sketched as faultily, if with the same appreciation of the

intended purpose. Let anyone look at the "plates," as they are called in

_Vanity Fair_, and compare each with the scenes and the characters

intended to be displayed, and there see whether the artist,--if we may

call him so,--has not managed to convey in the picture the exact feeling

which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in

which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an

aide-de-camp,--messenger I had perhaps better say, lest I might affront

military feelings,--who is kneeling on the field of battle and

delivering a despatch to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease

with which the duke receives the message though the messenger's head be

gone, and the soldier-like precision with which the headless hero

finishes his last effort of military obedience, may not have been

portrayed with well-drawn figures, but no finished illustration ever

told its story better. Dickens has informed us that he first met

Thackeray in 1835, on which occasion the young artist aspirant, looking

no doubt after profitable employment, "proposed to become the

illustrator of my earliest book." It is singular that such should have

been the first interview between the two great novelists. We may presume

that the offer was rejected.

In 1832, Thackeray came of age, and inherited his fortune,--as to which

various stories have been told. It seems to have amounted to about five

hundred a year, and to have passed through his hands in a year or two,

interest and principal. It has been told of him that it was all taken

away from him at cards, but such was not the truth. Some went in an

Indian bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at cards. But

with some of it,--the larger part as I think,--he endeavoured, in

concert with his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There

seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so concerned, _The

National Standard_ and _The Constitutional_. On the latter he was

engaged with his stepfather, and in carrying that on he lost the last of

his money. _The National Standard_ had been running for some weeks when

Thackeray joined it, and lost his money in it. It ran only for little

more than twelve months, and then, the money having gone, the periodical

came to an end. I know no road to fortune more tempting to a young man,

or one that with more certainty leads to ruin. Thackeray, who in a way

more or less correct, often refers in his writings, if not to the

incidents, at any rate to the remembrances of his own life, tells us

much of the story of this newspaper in _Lovel the Widower_. "They are

welcome," says the bachelor, "to make merry at my charges in respect of

a certain bargain which I made on coming to London, and in which, had I

been Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I could scarcely have

been more taken in. My Jenkinson was an old college acquaintance, whom I

was idiot enough to imagine a respectable man. The fellow had a very

smooth tongue and sleek sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular

preacher, and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit. He and a queer wine

merchant and bill discounter, Sherrick by name, had somehow got

possession of that neat little literary paper, _The Museum_, which

perhaps you remember, and this eligible literary property my friend

Honeyman, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to purchase." Here is

the history of Thackeray's money, told by himself plainly enough, but

with no intention on his part of narrating an incident in his own life

to the public. But the drollery of the circumstances, his own mingled

folly and young ambition, struck him as being worth narration, and the

more forcibly as he remembered all the ins and outs of his own

reflections at the time,--how he had meant to enchant the world, and

make his fortune. There was literary capital in it of which he could

make use after so many years. Then he tells us of this ambition, and of

the folly of it; and at the same time puts forward the excuses to be

made for it. "I daresay I gave myself airs as editor of that confounded

_Museum_, and proposed to educate the public taste, to diffuse morality

and sound literature throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal

salary in return for my services. I daresay I printed my own sonnets, my

own tragedy, my own verses.... I daresay I wrote satirical articles....

I daresay I made a gaby of myself to the world. Pray, my good friend,

hast thou never done likewise? If thou hast never been a fool, be sure

thou wilt never be a wise man." Thackeray was quite aware of his early

weaknesses, and in the maturity of life knew well that he had not been

precociously wise. He delighted so to tell his friends, and he delighted

also to tell the public, not meaning that any but an inner circle should

know that he was speaking of himself. But the story now is plain to all

who can read.[1]

It was thus that he lost his money; and then, not having prospered very

well with his drawing lessons in Paris or elsewhere, he was fain to take

up literature as a profession. It is a business which has its

allurements. It requires no capital, no special education, no training,

and may be taken up at any time without a moment's delay. If a man can

command a table, a chair, pen, paper, and ink, he can commence his trade

as literary man. It is thus that aspirants generally do commence it. A

man may or may not have another employment to back him, or means of his

own; or,--as was the case with Thackeray, when, after his first

misadventure, he had to look about him for the means of living,--he may

have nothing but his intellect and his friends. But the idea comes to

the man that as he has the pen and ink, and time on his hand, why

should he not write and make money?

It is an idea that comes to very many men and women, old as well as

young,--to many thousands who at last are crushed by it, of whom the

world knows nothing. A man can make the attempt though he has not a coat

fit to go out into the street with; or a woman, though she be almost in

rags. There is no apprenticeship wanted. Indeed there is no room for

such apprenticeship. It is an art which no one teaches; there is no

professor who, in a dozen lessons, even pretends to show the aspirant

how to write a book or an article. If you would be a watchmaker, you

must learn; or a lawyer, a cook, or even a housemaid. Before you can

clean a horse you must go into the stable, and begin at the beginning.

Even the cab-driving tiro must sit for awhile on the box, and learn

something of the streets, before he can ply for a fare. But the literary

beginner rushes at once at the top rung of his ladder;--as though a

youth, having made up his mind to be a clergyman, should demand, without

preliminary steps, to be appointed Bishop of London. That he should be

able to read and write is presumed, and that only. So much may be

presumed of everyone, and nothing more is wanted.

In truth nothing more is wanted,--except those inner lights as to which,

so many men live and die without having learned whether they possess

them or not. Practice, industry, study of literature, cultivation of

taste, and the rest, will of course lend their aid, will probably be

necessary before high excellence is attained. But the instances are not

to seek,--are at the fingers of us all,--in which the first uninstructed

effort has succeeded. A boy, almost, or perhaps an old woman, has sat

down and the book has come, and the world has read it, and the

booksellers have been civil and have written their cheques. When all

trades, all professions, all seats at offices, all employments at which

a crust can be earned, are so crowded that a young man knows not where

to look for the means of livelihood, is there not an attraction in this

which to the self-confident must be almost invincible? The booksellers

are courteous and write their cheques, but that is not half the whole?

_Monstrari digito!_ That is obtained. The happy aspirant is written of

in newspapers, or, perhaps, better still, he writes of others. When the

barrister of forty-five has hardly got a name beyond Chancery Lane, this

glorious young scribe, with the first down on his lips, has printed his

novel and been talked about.

The temptation is irresistible, and thousands fall into it. How is a man

to know that he is not the lucky one or the gifted one? There is the

table and there the pen and ink. Among the unfortunate he who fails

altogether and from the first start is not the most unfortunate. A short

period of life is wasted, and a sharp pang is endured. Then the

disappointed one is relegated to the condition of life which he would

otherwise have filled a little earlier. He has been wounded, but not

killed, or even maimed. But he who has a little success, who succeeds in

earning a few halcyon, but, ah! so dangerous guineas, is drawn into a

trade from which he will hardly escape till he be driven from it, if he

come out alive, by sheer hunger. He hangs on till the guineas become

crowns and shillings,--till some sad record of his life, made when he

applies for charity, declares that he has worked hard for the last year

or two and has earned less than a policeman in the streets or a porter

at a railway. It is to that that he is brought by applying himself to a

business which requires only a table and chair, with pen, ink, and

paper! It is to that which he is brought by venturing to believe that he

has been gifted with powers of imagination, creation, and expression.

The young man who makes the attempt knows that he must run the chance.

He is well aware that nine must fail where one will make his running

good. So much as that does reach his ears, and recommends itself to his

common sense. But why should it not be he as well as another? There is

always some lucky one winning the prize. And this prize when it has been

won is so well worth the winning! He can endure starvation,--so he tells

himself,--as well as another. He will try. But yet he knows that he has

but one chance out of ten in his favour, and it is only in his happier

moments that he flatters himself that that remains to him. Then there

falls upon him,--in the midst of that labour which for its success

especially requires that a man's heart shall be light, and that he be

always at his best,--doubt and despair. If there be no chance, of what

use is his labour?

Were it not better done as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

and amuse himself after that fashion? Thus the very industry which alone

could give him a chance is discarded. It is so that the young man feels

who, with some slight belief in himself and with many doubts, sits down

to commence the literary labour by which he hopes to live.

So it was, no doubt, with Thackeray. Such were his hopes and his

fears;--with a resolution of which we can well understand that it should

have waned at times, of earning his bread, if he did not make his

fortune, in the world of literature. One has not to look far for

evidence of the condition I have described,--that it was so, Amaryllis

and all. How or when he made his very first attempt in London, I have

not learned; but he had not probably spent his money without forming

"press" acquaintances, and had thus found an aperture for the thin end

of the wedge. He wrote for _The Constitutional_, of which he was part

proprietor, beginning his work for that paper as a correspondent from

Paris. For a while he was connected with _The Times_ newspaper, though

his work there did not I think amount to much. His first regular

employment was on _Fraser's Magazine_, when Mr. Fraser's shop was in

Regent Street, when Oliver Yorke was the presumed editor, and among

contributors, Carlyle was one of the most notable. I imagine that the

battle of life was difficult enough with him even after he had become

one of the leading props of that magazine. All that he wrote was not

taken, and all that was taken was not approved. In 1837-38, the _History

of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond_ appeared in the

magazine. The _Great Hoggarty Diamond_ is now known to all readers of

Thackeray's works. It is not my purpose to speak specially of it here,

except to assert that it has been thought to be a great success. When it

was being brought out, the author told a friend of his,--and of

mine,--that it was not much thought of at Fraser's, and that he had been

called upon to shorten it. That is an incident disagreeable in its

nature to any literary gentleman, and likely to be specially so when he

knows that his provision of bread, certainly of improved bread and

butter, is at stake. The man who thus darkens his literary brow with the

frown of disapproval, has at his disposal all the loaves and all the

fishes that are going. If the writer be successful, there will come a

time when he will be above such frowns; but, when that opinion went

forth, Thackeray had not yet made his footing good, and the notice to

him respecting it must have been very bitter. It was in writing this

_Hoggarty Diamond_ that Thackeray first invented the name of Michael

Angelo Titmarsh. Samuel Titmarsh was the writer, whereas Michael Angelo

was an intending illustrator. Thackeray's nose had been broken in a

school fight, while he was quite a little boy, by another little boy, at

the Charter House; and there was probably some association intended to

be jocose with the name of the great artist, whose nose was broken by

his fellow-student Torrigiano, and who, as it happened, died exactly

three centuries before Thackeray.

I can understand all the disquietude of his heart when that warning, as

to the too great length of his story, was given to him. He was not a man

capable of feeling at any time quite assured in his position, and when

that occurred he was very far from assurance. I think that at no time

did he doubt the sufficiency of his own mental qualification for the

work he had taken in hand; but he doubted all else. He doubted the

appreciation of the world; he doubted his fitness for turning

his intellect to valuable account; he doubted his physical

capacity,--dreading his own lack of industry; he doubted his luck; he

doubted the continual absence of some of those misfortunes on which the

works of literary men are shipwrecked. Though he was aware of his own

power, he always, to the last, was afraid that his own deficiencies

should be too strong against him. It was his nature to be idle,--to put

off his work,--and then to be angry with himself for putting it off.

Ginger was hot in the mouth with him, and all the allurements of the

world were strong upon him. To find on Monday morning an excuse why he

should not on Monday do Monday's work was, at the time, an inexpressible

relief to him, but had become deep regret,--almost a remorse,--before

the Monday was over. To such a one it was not given to believe in

himself with that sturdy rock-bound foundation which we see to have

belonged to some men from the earliest struggles of their career. To

him, then, must have come an inexpressible pang when he was told that

his story must be curtailed.

Who else would have told such a story of himself to the first

acquaintance he chanced to meet? Of Thackeray it might be predicted that

he certainly would do so. No little wound of the kind ever came to him

but what he disclosed it at once. "They have only bought so many of my

new book." "Have you seen the abuse of my last number?" "What am I to

turn my hand to? They are getting tired of my novels." "They don't read

it," he said to me of _Esmond_. "So you don't mean to publish my work?"

he said once to a publisher in an open company. Other men keep their

little troubles to themselves. I have heard even of authors who have

declared how all the publishers were running after their books; I have

heard some discourse freely of their fourth and fifth editions; I have

known an author to boast of his thousands sold in this country, and his

tens of thousands in America; but I never heard anyone else declare that

no one would read his _chef-d'oeuvre_, and that the world was becoming

tired of him. It was he who said, when he was fifty, that a man past

fifty should never write a novel.

And yet, as I have said, he was from an early age fully conscious of his

own ability. That he was so is to be seen in the handling of many of

his early works,--in _Barry Lyndon_, for instance, and the _Memoirs of

Mr. C. James Yellowplush_. The sound is too certain for doubt of that

kind. But he had not then, nor did he ever achieve that assurance of

public favour which makes a man confident that his work will be

successful. During the years of which we are now speaking Thackeray was

a literary Bohemian in this sense,--that he never regarded his own

status as certain. While performing much of the best of his life's work

he was not sure of his market, not certain of his readers, his

publishers, or his price; nor was he certain of himself.

It is impossible not to form some contrast between him and Dickens as to

this period of his life,--a comparison not as to their literary merits,

but literary position. Dickens was one year his junior in age, and at

this time, viz. 1837-38, had reached almost the zenith of his

reputation. _Pickwick_ had been published, and _Oliver Twist_ and

_Nicholas Nickleby_ were being published. All the world was talking

about the young author who was assuming his position with a confidence

in his own powers which was fully justified both by his present and

future success. It was manifest that he could make, not only his own

fortune, but that of his publishers, and that he was a literary hero

bound to be worshipped by all literary grades of men, down to the

"devils" of the printing-office. At that time, Thackeray, the older man,

was still doubting, still hesitating, still struggling. Everyone then

had accepted the name of Charles Dickens. That of William Thackeray was

hardly known beyond the circle of those who are careful to make

themselves acquainted with such matters. It was then the custom, more

generally than it is at present, to maintain anonymous writing in

magazines. Now, if anything of special merit be brought out, the name of

the author, if not published, is known. It was much less so at the

period in question; and as the world of readers began to be acquainted

with Jeames Yellowplush, Catherine Hayes, and other heroes and heroines,

the names of the author had to be inquired for. I remember myself, when

I was already well acquainted with the immortal Jeames, asking who was

the writer. The works of Charles Dickens were at that time as well known

to be his, and as widely read in England, as those almost of

Shakespeare.

It will be said of course that this came from the earlier popularity of

Dickens. That is of course; but why should it have been so? They had

begun to make their effort much at the same time; and if there was any

advantage in point of position as they commenced, it was with Thackeray.

It might be said that the genius of the one was brighter than that of

the other, or, at any rate, that it was more precocious. But

after-judgment has, I think, not declared either of the suggestions to

be true. I will make no comparison between two such rivals, who were so

distinctly different from each, and each of whom, within so very short a

period, has come to stand on a pedestal so high,--the two exalted to so

equal a vocation. And if Dickens showed the best of his power early in

life, so did Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of

mental force did he rise above _Barry Lyndon_. I hardly know how the

teller of a narrative shall hope to mount in simply intellectual faculty

above the effort there made. In what then was the difference? Why was

Dickens already a great man when Thackeray was still a literary

Bohemian?

The answer is to be found not in the extent or in the nature of the

genius of either man, but in the condition of mind,--which indeed may be

read plainly in their works by those who have eyes to see. The one was

steadfast, industrious, full of purpose, never doubting of himself,

always putting his best foot foremost and standing firmly on it when he

got it there; with no inward trepidation, with no moments in which he

was half inclined to think that this race was not for his winning, this

goal not to be reached by his struggles. The sympathy of friends was

good to him, but he could have done without it. The good opinion which

he had of himself was never shaken by adverse criticism; and the

criticism on the other side, by which it was exalted, came from the

enumeration of the number of copies sold. He was a firm reliant man,

very little prone to change, who, when he had discovered the nature of

his own talent, knew how to do the very best with it.

It may almost be said that Thackeray was the very opposite of this.

Unsteadfast, idle, changeable of purpose, aware of his own intellect but

not trusting it, no man ever failed more generally than he to put his

best foot foremost. Full as his works are of pathos, full of humour,

full of love and charity, tending, as they always do, to truth and

honour and manly worth and womanly modesty, excelling, as they seem to

me to do, most other written precepts that I know, they always seem to

lack something that might have been there. There is a touch of vagueness

which indicates that his pen was not firm while he was using it. He

seems to me to have been dreaming ever of some high flight, and then to

have told himself, with a half-broken heart, that it was beyond his

power to soar up into those bright regions. I can fancy as the sheets

went from him every day he told himself, in regard to every sheet, that

it was a failure. Dickens was quite sure of his sheets.

"I have got to make it shorter!" Then he would put his hands in his

pockets, and stretch himself, and straighten the lines of his face, over

which a smile would come, as though this intimation from his editor were

the best joke in the world; and he would walk away, with his heart

bleeding, and every nerve in an agony. There are none of us who want to

have much of his work shortened now.

In 1837 Thackeray married Isabella, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe,

and from this union there came three daughters, Anne, Jane, and Harriet.

The name of the eldest, now Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, who has followed so

closely in her father's steps, is a household word to the world of novel

readers; the second died as a child; the younger lived to marry Leslie

Stephen, who is too well known for me to say more than that he wrote,

the other day, the little volume on Dr. Johnson in this series; but she,

too, has now followed her father. Of Thackeray's married life what need

be said shall be contained in a very few words. It was grievously

unhappy; but the misery of it came from God, and was in no wise due to

human fault. She became ill, and her mind failed her. There was a period

during which he would not believe that her illness was more than

illness, and then he clung to her and waited on her with an assiduity of

affection which only made his task the more painful to him. At last it

became evident that she should live in the companionship of some one

with whom her life might be altogether quiet, and she has since been

domiciled with a lady with whom she has been happy. Thus she was, after

but a few years of married life, taken away from him, and he became as

it were a widower till the end of his days.

At this period, and indeed for some years after his marriage, his chief

literary dependence was on _Fraser's Magazine_. He wrote also at this

time in the _New Monthly Magazine_. In 1840 he brought out his _Paris

Sketch Book_, as to which he tells us by a notice printed with the first

edition, that half of the sketches had already been published in various

periodicals. Here he used the name Michael Angelo Titmarsh, as he did

also with the _Journey from Cornhill to Cairo_. Dickens had called

himself Boz, and clung to the name with persistency as long as the

public would permit it. Thackeray's affection for assumed names was more

intermittent, though I doubt whether he used his own name altogether

till it appeared on the title-page of _Vanity Fair_. About this time

began his connection with _Punch_, in which much of his best work

appeared. Looking back at our old friend as he used to come out from

week to week at this time, we can hardly boast that we used to recognise

how good the literary pabulum was that was then given for our

consumption. We have to admit that the ordinary reader, as the ordinary

picture-seer, requires to be guided by a name. We are moved to absolute

admiration by a Raphael or a Hobbema, but hardly till we have learned

the name of the painter, or, at any rate, the manner of his painting. I

am not sure that all lovers of poetry would recognise a _Lycidas_ coming

from some hitherto unknown Milton. Gradually the good picture or the

fine poem makes its way into the minds of a slowly discerning public.

_Punch_, no doubt, became very popular, owing, perhaps, more to Leech,

its artist, than to any other single person. Gradually the world of

readers began to know that there was a speciality of humour to be found

in its pages,--fun and sense, satire and good humour, compressed

together in small literary morsels as the nature of its columns

required. Gradually the name of Thackeray as one of the band of brethren

was buzzed about, and gradually became known as that of the chief of the

literary brothers. But during the years in which he did much for

_Punch_, say from 1843 to 1853, he was still struggling to make good his

footing in literature. They knew him well in the _Punch_ office, and no

doubt the amount and regularity of the cheques from Messrs. Bradbury and

Evans, the then and still owners of that happy periodical, made him

aware that he had found for himself a satisfactory career. In "a good

day for himself, the journal, and the world, Thackeray found _Punch_."

This was said by his old friend Shirley Brooks, who himself lived to be

editor of the paper and died in harness, and was said most truly.

_Punch_ was more congenial to him, and no doubt more generous, than

_Fraser_. There was still something of the literary Bohemian about him,

but not as it had been before. He was still unfixed, looking out for

some higher career, not altogether satisfied to be no more than one of

an anonymous band of brothers, even though the brothers were the

brothers of _Punch_. We can only imagine what were his thoughts as to

himself and that other man, who was then known as the great novelist of

the day,--of a rivalry with whom he was certainly conscious. _Punch_ was

very much to him, but was not quite enough. That must have been very

clear to himself as he meditated the beginning of _Vanity Fair_.

Of the contributions to the periodical, the best known now are _The Snob

Papers_ and _The Ballads of Policeman X_. But they were very numerous.

Of Thackeray as a poet, or maker of verses, I will say a few words in a

chapter which will be devoted to his own so-called ballads. Here it

seems only necessary to remark that there was not apparently any time in

his career at which he began to think seriously of appearing before the

public as a poet. Such was the intention early in their career with many

of our best known prose writers, with Milton, and Goldsmith, and Samuel

Johnson, with Scott, Macaulay, and more lately with Matthew Arnold;

writers of verse and prose who ultimately prevailed some in one

direction, and others in the other. Milton and Goldsmith have been known

best as poets, Johnson and Macaulay as writers of prose. But with all of

them there has been a distinct effort in each art. Thackeray seems to

have tumbled into versification by accident; writing it as amateurs do,

a little now and again for his own delectation, and to catch the taste

of partial friends. The reader feels that Thackeray would not have begun

to print his verses unless the opportunity of doing so had been brought

in his way by his doings in prose. And yet he had begun to write verses

when he was very young;--at Cambridge, as we have seen, when he

contributed more to the fame of Timbuctoo than I think even Tennyson has

done,--and in his early years at Paris. Here again, though he must have

felt the strength of his own mingled humour and pathos, he always struck

with an uncertain note till he had gathered strength and confidence by

popularity. Good as they generally were, his verses were accidents,

written not as a writer writes who claims to be a poet, but as though

they might have been the relaxation of a doctor or a barrister.

And so they were. When Thackeray first settled himself in London, to

make his living among the magazines and newspapers, I do not imagine

that he counted much on his poetic powers. He describes it all in his

own dialogue between the pen and the album.

"Since he," says the pen, speaking of its master, Thackeray:

Since he my faithful service did engage,

To follow him through his queer pilgrimage

I've drawn and written many a line and page.

Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes,

And dinner-cards, and picture pantomimes,

And many little children's books at times.

I've writ the foolish fancy of his brain;

The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;

The idle word that he'd wish back again.

I've helped him to pen many a line for bread.

It was thus he thought of his work. There had been caricatures, and

rhymes, and many little children's books; and then the lines written for

his bread, which, except that they were written for _Punch_, were hardly

undertaken with a more serious purpose. In all of it there was ample

seriousness, had he known it himself. What a tale of the restlessness,

of the ambition, of the glory, of the misfortunes of a great country is

given in the ballads of Peter the French drummer! Of that brain so full

of fancy the pen had lightly written all the fancies. He did not know it

when he was doing so, but with that word, fancy, he has described

exactly the gift with which his brain was specially endowed. If a writer

be accurate, or sonorous, or witty, or simply pathetic, he may, I think,

gauge his own powers. He may do so after experience with something of

certainty. But fancy is a gift which the owner of it cannot measure, and

the power of which, when he is using it, he cannot himself understand.

There is the same lambent flame flickering over everything he did, even

the dinner-cards and the picture pantomimes. He did not in the least

know what he put into those things. So it was with his verses. It was

only by degrees, when he was told of it by others, that he found that

they too were of infinite value to him in his profession.

The _Irish Sketch Book_ came out in 1843, in which he used, but only

half used, the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. He dedicates it to

Charles Lever, and in signing the dedication gave his own name. "Laying

aside," he says, "for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, let

me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, &c.

&c., W. M. Thackeray." So he gradually fell into the declaration of his

own identity. In 1844 he made his journey to Turkey and Egypt,--_From

Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, as he called it, still using the old nom de

plume, but again signing the dedication with his own name. It was now

made to the captain of the vessel in which he encountered that famous

white squall, in describing which he has shown the wonderful power he

had over words.

In 1846 was commenced, in numbers, the novel which first made his name

well known to the world. This was _Vanity Fair_, a work to which it is

evident that he devoted all his mind. Up to this time his writings had

consisted of short contributions, chiefly of sketches, each intended to

stand by itself in the periodical to which it was sent. _Barry Lyndon_

had hitherto been the longest; but that and _Catherine Hayes_, and the

_Hoggarty Diamond_, though stories continued through various numbers,

had not as yet reached the dignity,--or at any rate the length,--of a

three-volume novel. But of late novels had grown to be much longer than

those of the old well-known measure. Dickens had stretched his to nearly

double the length, and had published them in twenty numbers. The attempt

had caught the public taste and had been pre-eminently successful. The

nature of the tale as originated by him was altogether unlike that to

which the readers of modern novels had been used. No plot, with an

arranged catastrophe or _dénoûment_, was necessary. Some untying of the

various knots of the narrative no doubt were expedient, but these were

of the simplest kind, done with the view of giving an end to that which

might otherwise be endless. The adventures of a _Pickwick_ or a

_Nickleby_ required very little of a plot, and this mode of telling a

story, which might be continued on through any number of pages, as long

as the characters were interesting, met with approval. Thackeray, who

had never depended much on his plot in the shorter tales which he had

hitherto told, determined to adopt the same form in his first great

work, but with these changes;--That as the central character with

Dickens had always been made beautiful with unnatural virtue,--for who

was ever so unselfish as _Pickwick_, so manly and modest as _Nicholas_,

or so good a boy as _Oliver_?--so should his centre of interest be in

every respect abnormally bad.

As to Thackeray's reason for this,--or rather as to that condition of

mind which brought about this result,--I will say something in a final

chapter, in which I will endeavour to describe the nature and effect of

his work generally. Here it will be necessary only to declare that, such

was the choice he now made of a subject in his first attempt to rise out

of a world of small literary contributions, into the more assured

position of the author of a work of importance. We are aware that the

monthly nurses of periodical literature did not at first smile on the

effort. The proprietors of magazines did not see their way to undertake

_Vanity Fair_, and the publishers are said to have generally looked shy

upon it. At last it was brought out in numbers,--twenty-four numbers

instead of twenty, as with those by Dickens,--under the guardian hands

of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. This was completed in 1848, and then it

was that, at the age of thirty-seven, Thackeray first achieved for

himself a name and reputation through the country. Before this he had

been known at _Fraser's_ and at the _Punch_ office. He was known at the

Garrick Club, and had become individually popular among literary men in

London. He had made many fast friends, and had been, as it were, found

out by persons of distinction. But Jones, and Smith, and Robinson, in

Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, did not know him as they knew

Dickens, Carlyle, Tennyson, and Macaulay,--not as they knew Landseer, or

Stansfeld, or Turner; not as they knew Macready, Charles Kean, or Miss

Faucit. In that year, 1848, his name became common in the memoirs of the

time. On the 5th of June I find him dining with Macready, to meet Sir J.

Wilson, Panizzi, Landseer, and others. A few days afterwards Macready

dined with him. "Dined with Thackeray, met the Gordons, Kenyons,

Procters, Reeve, Villiers, Evans, Stansfeld, and saw Mrs. Sartoris and

S. C. Dance, White, H. Goldsmid, in the evening." Again; "Dined with

Forster, having called and taken up Brookfield, met Rintoul, Kenyon,

Procter, Kinglake, Alfred Tennyson, Thackeray." Macready was very

accurate in jotting down the names of those he entertained, who

entertained him, or were entertained with him. _Vanity Fair_ was coming

out, and Thackeray had become one of the personages in literary

society. In the January number of 1848 the _Edinburgh Review_ had an

article on Thackeray's works generally as they were then known. It

purports to combine the _Irish Sketch Book_, the _Journey from Cornhill

to Grand Cairo_, and _Vanity Fair_ as far as it had then gone; but it

does in truth deal chiefly with the literary merits of the latter. I

will quote a passage from the article, as proving in regard to

Thackeray's work an opinion which was well founded, and as telling the

story of his life as far as it was then known;

"Full many a valuable truth," says the reviewer, "has been sent

undulating through the air by men who have lived and died unknown. At

this moment the rising generation are supplied with the best of their

mental aliment by writers whose names are a dead letter to the mass; and

among the most remarkable of these is Michael Angelo Titmarsh, alias

William Makepeace Thackeray, author of the _Irish Sketch Book_, of _A

Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, of _Jeames's Diary_, of _The Snob

Papers_ in _Punch_, of _Vanity Fair_, etc. etc.

"Mr. Thackeray is now about thirty-seven years of age, of a good family,

and originally intended for the bar. He kept seven or eight terms at

Cambridge, but left the university without taking a degree, with the

view of becoming an artist; and we well remember, ten or twelve years

ago, finding him day after day engaged in copying pictures in the

Louvre, in order to qualify himself for his intended profession. It may

be doubted, however, whether any degree of assiduity would have enabled

him to excel in the money-making branches, for his talent was altogether

of the Hogarth kind, and was principally remarkable in the pen-and-ink

sketches of character and situation, which he dashed off for the

amusement of his friends. At the end of two or three years of desultory

application he gave up the notion of becoming a painter, and took to

literature. He set up and edited with marked ability a weekly journal,

on the plan of _The Athenæum_ and _Literary Gazette_, but was unable to

compete successfully with such long-established rivals. He then became a

regular man of letters,--that is, he wrote for respectable magazines and

newspapers, until the attention attracted to his contributions in

_Fraser's Magazine_ and _Punch_ emboldened him to start on his own

account, and risk an independent publication." Then follows a eulogistic

and, as I think, a correct criticism on the book as far as it had gone.

There are a few remarks perhaps a little less eulogistic as to some of

his minor writings, _The Snob Papers_ in particular; and at the end

there is a statement with which I think we shall all now agree; "A

writer with such a pen and pencil as Mr. Thackeray's is an acquisition

of real and high value in our literature."

The reviewer has done his work in a tone friendly to the author, whom he

knew,[2]--as indeed it may be said that this little book will be written

with the same feeling,--but the public has already recognised the truth

of the review generally. There can be no doubt that Thackeray, though he

had hitherto been but a contributor of anonymous pieces to

periodicals,--to what is generally considered as merely the ephemeral

literature of the month,--had already become effective on the tastes and

morals of readers. Affectation of finery; the vulgarity which apes good

breeding but never approaches it; dishonest gambling, whether with dice

or with railway shares; and that low taste for literary excitement which

is gratified by mysterious murders and Old Bailey executions had already

received condign punishment from Yellowplush, Titmarsh, Fitzboodle, and

Ikey Solomon. Under all those names Thackeray had plied his trade as a

satirist. Though the truths, as the reviewer said, had been merely sent

undulating through the air, they had already become effective.

Thackeray had now become a personage,--one of the recognised stars of

the literary heaven of the day. It was an honour to know him; and we may

well believe that the givers of dinners were proud to have him among

their guests. He had opened his oyster,--with his pen, an achievement

which he cannot be said to have accomplished until _Vanity Fair_ had

come out. In inquiring about him from those who survive him, and knew

him well in those days, I always hear the same account. "If I could only

tell you the impromptu lines which fell from him!" "If I had only kept

the drawings from his pen, which used to be chucked about as though they

were worth nothing!" "If I could only remember the drolleries!" Had they

been kept, there might now be many volumes of these sketches, as to

which the reviewer says that their talent was "altogether of the Hogarth

kind." Could there be any kind more valuable? Like Hogarth, he could

always make his picture tell his story; though, unlike Hogarth, he had

not learned to draw. I have had sent to me for my inspection an album of

drawings and letters, which, in the course of twenty years, from 1829 to

1849, were despatched from Thackeray to his old friend Edward

Fitzgerald. Looking at the wit displayed in the drawings, I feel

inclined to say that had he persisted he would have been a second

Hogarth. There is a series of ballet scenes, in which "Flore et Zephyr"

are the two chief performers, which for expression and drollery exceed

anything that I know of the kind. The set in this book are lithographs,

which were published, but I do not remember to have seen them elsewhere.

There are still among us many who knew him well;--Edward Fitzgerald and

George Venables, James Spedding and Kinglake, Mrs. Procter,--the widow

of Barry Cornwall, who loved him well,--and Monckton Milnes, as he used

to be, whose touching lines written just after Thackeray's death will

close this volume, Frederick Pollock and Frank Fladgate, John Blackwood

and William Russell,--and they all tell the same story. Though he so

rarely talked, as good talkers do, and was averse to sit down to work,

there were always falling from his mouth and pen those little pearls.

Among the friends who had been kindest and dearest to him in the days of

his strugglings he once mentioned three to me,--Matthew Higgins, or

Jacob Omnium as he was more popularly called; William Stirling, who

became Sir William Maxwell; and Russell Sturgis, who is now the senior

partner in the great house of Barings. Alas, only the last of these

three is left among us! Thackeray was a man of no great power of

conversation. I doubt whether he ever shone in what is called general

society. He was not a man to be valuable at a dinner-table as a good

talker. It was when there were but two or three together that he was

happy himself and made others happy; and then it would rather be from

some special piece of drollery that the joy of the moment would come,

than from the discussion of ordinary topics. After so many years his old

friends remember the fag-ends of the doggerel lines which used to drop

from him without any effort on all occasions of jollity. And though he

could be very sad,--laden with melancholy, as I think must have been the

case with him always,--the feeling of fun would quickly come to him, and

the queer rhymes would be poured out as plentifully as the sketches were

made. Here is a contribution which I find hanging in the memory of an

old friend, the serious nature of whose literary labours would certainly

have driven such lines from his mind, had they not at the time caught

fast hold of him:

In the romantic little town of Highbury

My father kept a circulatin' library;

He followed in his youth that man immortal, who

Conquered the Frenchmen on the plains of Waterloo.

Mamma was an inhabitant of Drogheda,

Very good she was to darn and to embroider.

In the famous island 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,

There may, perhaps, have been a mistake in a line, but the poem has been

handed down with fair correctness over a period of forty years. He was

always versifying. He once owed me five pounds seventeen shillings and

sixpence, his share of a dinner bill at Richmond. He sent me a cheque

for the amount in rhyme, giving the proper financial document on the

second half of a sheet of note paper. I gave the poem away as an

autograph, and now forget the lines. This was all trifling, the reader

will say. No doubt. Thackeray was always trifling, and yet always

serious. In attempting to understand his character it is necessary for

you to bear within your own mind the idea that he was always, within his

own bosom, encountering melancholy with buffoonery, and meanness with

satire. The very spirit of burlesque dwelt within him,--a spirit which

does not see the grand the less because of the travesties which it is

always engendering.

In his youthful,--all but boyish,--days in London, he delighted to "put

himself up" at the Bedford, in Covent Garden. Then in his early married

days he lived in Albion Street, and from thence went to Great Coram

Street, till his household there was broken up by his wife's illness. He

afterwards took lodgings in St. James's Chambers, and then a house in

Young Street, Kensington. Here he lived from 1847, when he was achieving

his great triumph with _Vanity Fair_, down to 1853, when he removed to a

house which he bought in Onslow Square. In Young Street there had come

to lodge opposite to him an Irish gentleman, who, on the part of his

injured country, felt very angry with Thackeray. _The Irish Sketch Book_

had not been complimentary, nor were the descriptions which Thackeray

had given generally of Irishmen; and there was extant an absurd idea

that in his abominable heroine Catherine Hayes he had alluded to Miss

Catherine Hayes the Irish singer. Word was taken to Thackeray that this

Irishman intended to come across the street and avenge his country on

the calumniator's person. Thackeray immediately called upon the

gentleman, and it is said that the visit was pleasant to both parties.

There certainly was no blood shed.

He had now succeeded,--in 1848,--in making for himself a standing as a

man of letters, and an income. What was the extent of his income I have

no means of saying; nor is it a subject on which, as I think, inquiry

should be made. But he was not satisfied with his position. He felt it

to be precarious, and he was always thinking of what he owed to his two

girls. That _arbitrium popularis auræ_ on which he depended for his

daily bread was not regarded by him with the confidence which it

deserved. He did not probably know how firm was the hold he had obtained

of the public ear. At any rate he was anxious, and endeavoured to secure

for himself a permanent income in the public service. He had become by

this time acquainted, probably intimate, with the Marquis of

Clanricarde, who was then Postmaster-General. In 1848 there fell a

vacancy in the situation of Assistant-Secretary at the General Post

Office, and Lord Clanricarde either offered it to him or promised to

give it to him. The Postmaster-General had the disposal of the

place,--but was not altogether free from control in the matter. When he

made known his purpose at the Post Office, he was met by an assurance

from the officer next under him that the thing could not be done. The

services were wanted of a man who had had experience in the Post Office;

and, moreover, it was necessary that the feelings of other gentlemen

should be consulted. Men who have been serving in an office many years

do not like to see even a man of genius put over their heads. In fact,

the office would have been up in arms at such an injustice. Lord

Clanricarde, who in a matter of patronage was not scrupulous, was still

a good-natured man and amenable. He attempted to befriend his friend

till he found that it was impossible, and then, with the best grace in

the world, accepted the official nominee that was offered to him.

It may be said that had Thackeray succeeded in that attempt he would

surely have ruined himself. No man can be fit for the management and

performance of special work who has learned nothing of it before his

thirty-seventh year; and no man could have been less so than Thackeray.

There are men who, though they be not fit, are disposed to learn their

lesson and make themselves as fit as possible. Such cannot be said to

have been the case with this man. For the special duties which he would

have been called upon to perform, consisting to a great extent of the

maintenance of discipline over a large body of men, training is

required, and the service would have suffered for awhile under any

untried elderly tiro. Another man might have put himself into harness.

Thackeray never would have done so. The details of his work after the

first month would have been inexpressibly wearisome to him. To have gone

into the city, and to have remained there every day from eleven till

five, would have been all but impossible to him. He would not have done

it. And then he would have been tormented by the feeling that he was

taking the pay and not doing the work. There is a belief current, not

confined to a few, that a man may be a Government Secretary with a

generous salary, and have nothing to do. The idea is something that

remains to us from the old days of sinecures. If there be now remaining

places so pleasant, or gentlemen so happy, I do not know them.

Thackeray's notion of his future duties was probably very vague. He

would have repudiated the notion that he was looking for a sinecure, but

no doubt considered that the duties would be easy and light. It is not

too much to assert, that he who could drop his pearls as I have said

above, throwing them wide cast without an effort, would have found his

work as Assistant-Secretary at the General Post Office to be altogether

too much for him. And then it was no doubt his intention to join

literature with the Civil Service. He had been taught to regard the

Civil Service as easy, and had counted upon himself as able to add it to

his novels, and his work with his _Punch_ brethren, and to his

contributions generally to the literature of the day. He might have done

so, could he have risen at five, and have sat at his private desk for

three hours before he began his official routine at the public one. A

capability for grinding, an aptitude for continuous task work, a

disposition to sit in one's chair as though fixed to it by cobbler's

wax, will enable a man in the prime of life to go through the tedium of

a second day's work every day; but of all men Thackeray was the last to

bear the wearisome perseverance of such a life. Some more or less

continuous attendance at his office he must have given, and with it

would have gone _Punch_ and the novels, the ballads, the burlesques, the

essays, the lectures, and the monthly papers full of mingled satire and

tenderness, which have left to us that Thackeray which we could so ill

afford to lose out of the literature of the nineteenth century. And

there would have remained to the Civil Service the memory of a

disgraceful job.

He did not, however, give up the idea of the Civil Service. In a letter

to his American friend, Mr. Reed, dated 8th November, 1854, he says;

"The secretaryship of our Legation at Washington was vacant the other

day, and I instantly asked for it; but in the very kindest letter Lord

Clarendon showed how the petition was impossible. First, the place was

given away. Next, it would not be fair to appoint out of the service.

But the first was an excellent reason;--not a doubt of it." The validity

of the second was probably not so apparent to him as it is to one who

has himself waited long for promotion. "So if ever I come," he

continues, "as I hope and trust to do this time next year, it must be in

my own coat, and not the Queen's." Certainly in his own coat, and not in

the Queen's, must Thackeray do anything by which he could mend his

fortune or make his reputation. There never was a man less fit for the

Queen's coat.

Nevertheless he held strong ideas that much was due by the Queen's

ministers to men of letters, and no doubt had his feelings of slighted

merit, because no part of the debt due was paid to him. In 1850 he wrote

a letter to _The Morning Chronicle_, which has since been republished,

in which he alludes to certain opinions which had been put forth in _The

Examiner_. "I don't see," he says, "why men of letters should not very

cheerfully coincide with Mr. Examiner in accepting all the honours,

places, and prizes which they can get. The amount of such as will be

awarded to them will not, we may be pretty sure, impoverish the country

much; and if it is the custom of the State to reward by money, or titles

of honour, or stars and garters of any sort, individuals who do the

country service,--and if individuals are gratified at having 'Sir' or

'My lord' appended to their names, or stars and ribbons hooked on to

their coats and waistcoats, as men most undoubtedly are, and as their

wives, families, and relations are,--there can be no reason why men of

letters should not have the chance, as well as men of the robe or the

sword; or why, if honour and money are good for one profession, they

should not be good for another. No man in other callings thinks himself

degraded by receiving a reward from his Government; nor, surely, need

the literary man be more squeamish about pensions, and ribbons, and

titles, than the ambassador, or general, or judge. Every European state

but ours rewards its men of letters. The American Government gives them

their full share of its small patronage; and if Americans, why not

Englishmen?"

In this a great subject is discussed which would be too long for these

pages; but I think that there now exists a feeling that literature can

herself, for herself, produce a rank as effective as any that a Queen's

minister can bestow. Surely it would be a repainting of the lily, an

adding a flavour to the rose, a gilding of refined gold to create

to-morrow a Lord Viscount Tennyson, a Baron Carlyle, or a Right

Honourable Sir Robert Browning. And as for pay and pension, the less the

better of it for any profession, unless so far as it may be payment made

for work done. Then the higher the payment the better, in literature as

in all other trades. It may be doubted even whether a special rank of

its own be good for literature, such as that which is achieved by the

happy possessors of the forty chairs of the Academy in France. Even

though they had an angel to make the choice,--which they have not,--that

angel would do more harm to the excluded than good to the selected.

_Pendennis_, _Esmond_, and _The Newcomes_ followed _Vanity Fair_,--not

very quickly indeed, always at an interval of two years,--in 1850, 1852,

and 1854. As I purpose to devote a separate short chapter, or part of a

chapter, to each of these, I need say nothing here of their special

merits or demerits. _Esmond_ was brought out as a whole. The others

appeared in numbers. "He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." It is

a mode of pronunciation in literature by no means very articulate, but

easy of production and lucrative. But though easy it is seductive, and

leads to idleness. An author by means of it can raise money and

reputation on his book before he has written it, and when the pang of

parturition is over in regard to one part, he feels himself entitled to

a period of ease because the amount required for the next division will

occupy him only half the month. This to Thackeray was so alluring that

the entirety of the final half was not always given to the task. His

self-reproaches and bemoanings when sometimes the day for reappearing

would come terribly nigh, while yet the necessary amount of copy was

far from being ready, were often very ludicrous and very sad;--ludicrous

because he never told of his distress without adding to it something of

ridicule which was irresistible, and sad because those who loved him

best were aware that physical suffering had already fallen upon him, and

that he was deterred by illness from the exercise of continuous energy.

I myself did not know him till after the time now in question. My

acquaintance with him was quite late in his life. But he has told me

something of it, and I have heard from those who lived with him how

continual were his sufferings. In 1854, he says in one of his letters to

Mr. Reed,--the only private letters of his which I know to have been

published; "I am to-day just out of bed after another, about the

dozenth, severe fit of spasms which I have had this year. My book would

have been written but for them." His work was always going on, but

though not fuller of matter,--that would have been almost

impossible,--would have been better in manner had he been delayed

neither by suffering nor by that palsying of the energies which

suffering produces.

This ought to have been the happiest period of his life, and should have

been very happy. He had become fairly easy in his circumstances. He had

succeeded in his work, and had made for himself a great name. He was

fond of popularity, and especially anxious to be loved by a small circle

of friends. These good things he had thoroughly achieved. Immediately

after the publication of _Vanity Fair_ he stood high among the literary

heroes of his country, and had endeared himself especially to a special

knot of friends. His face and figure, his six feet four in height, with

his flowing hair, already nearly gray, and his broken nose, his broad

forehead and ample chest, encountered everywhere either love or respect;

and his daughters to him were all the world,--the bairns of whom he

says, at the end of the _White Squall_ ballad;

I thought, as day was breaking,

My little girls were waking,

And smiling, and making

A prayer at home for me.

Nothing could have been more tender or endearing than his relations with

his children. But still there was a skeleton in his cupboard,--or rather

two skeletons. His home had been broken up by his wife's malady, and his

own health was shattered. When he was writing _Pendennis_, in 1849, he

had a severe fever, and then those spasms came, of which four or five

years afterwards he wrote to Mr. Reed. His home, as a home should be,

was never restored to him,--or his health. Just at that period of life

at which a man generally makes a happy exchange in taking his wife's

drawing-room in lieu of the smoking-room of his club, and assumes those

domestic ways of living which are becoming and pleasant for matured

years, that drawing-room and those domestic ways were closed against

him. The children were then no more than babies, as far as society was

concerned,--things to kiss and play with, and make a home happy if they

could only have had their mother with them. I have no doubt there were

those who thought that Thackeray was very jolly under his adversity.

Jolly he was. It was the manner of the man to be so,--if that continual

playfulness which was natural to him, lying over a melancholy which was

as continual, be compatible with jollity. He laughed, and ate, and

drank, and threw his pearls about with miraculous profusion. But I fancy

that he was far from happy. I remember once, when I was young,

receiving advice as to the manner in which I had better spend my

evenings; I was told that I ought to go home, drink tea, and read good

books. It was excellent advice, but I found that the reading of good

books in solitude was not an occupation congenial to me. It was so, I

take it, with Thackeray. He did not like his lonely drawing-room, and

went back to his life among the clubs by no means with contentment.

In 1853, Thackeray having then his own two girls to provide for, added a

third to his family, and adopted Amy Crowe, the daughter of an old

friend, and sister of the well-known artist now among us. How it came to

pass that she wanted a home, or that this special home suited her, it

would be unnecessary here to tell even if I knew. But that he did give a

home to this young lady, making her in all respects the same as another

daughter, should be told of him. He was a man who liked to broaden his

back for the support of others, and to make himself easy under such

burdens. In 1862, she married a Thackeray cousin, a young officer with

the Victoria Cross, Edward Thackeray, and went out to India,--where she

died.

In 1854, the year in which _The Newcomes_ came out, Thackeray had broken

his close alliance with _Punch_. In December of that year there appeared

from his pen an article in _The Quarterly_ on _John Leech's Pictures of

Life and Character_. It is a rambling discourse on picture-illustration

in general, full of interest, but hardly good as a criticism,--a portion

of literary work for which he was not specially fitted. In it he tells

us how Richard Doyle, the artist, had given up his work for _Punch_, not

having been able, as a Roman Catholic, to endure the skits which, at

that time, were appearing in one number after another against what was

then called Papal aggression. The reviewer,--Thackeray himself,--then

tells us of the secession of himself from the board of brethren.

"Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of _Jeames_, the

author of _The Snob Papers_, resigned his functions, on account of Mr.

Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose

anger Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse." How hard it must be

for Cabinets to agree! This man or that is sure to have some pet

conviction of his own, and the better the man the stronger the

conviction! Then the reviewer went on in favour of the artist of whom he

was specially speaking, making a comparison which must at the time have

been odious enough to some of the brethren. "There can be no blinking

the fact that in Mr. Punch's Cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man.

Fancy a number of _Punch_ without Leech's pictures! What would you give

for it?" Then he breaks out into strong admiration of that one

friend,--perhaps with a little disregard as to the feelings of other

friends.[3] This _Critical Review_, if it may properly be so called,--at

any rate it is so named as now published,--is to be found in our

author's collected works, in the same volume with _Catherine_. It is

there preceded by another, from _The Westminster Review_, written

fourteen years earlier, on _The Genius of Cruikshank_. This contains a

descriptive catalogue of Cruikshank's works up to that period, and is

interesting from the piquant style in which it is written. I fancy that

these two are the only efforts of the kind which he made,--and in both

he dealt with the two great caricaturists of his time, he himself being,

in the imaginative part of a caricaturist's work, equal in power to

either of them.

We now come to a phase of Thackeray's life in which he achieved a

remarkable success, attributable rather to his fame as a writer than to

any particular excellence in the art which he then exercised. He took

upon himself the functions of a lecturer, being moved to do so by a hope

that he might thus provide a sum of money for the future sustenance of

his children. No doubt he had been advised to this course, though I do

not know from whom specially the advice may have come. Dickens had

already considered the subject, but had not yet consented to read in

public for money on his own account. John Forster, writing of the year

1846, says of Dickens and the then only thought-of exercise of a new

profession; "I continued to oppose, for reasons to be stated in their

place, that which he had set his heart upon too strongly to abandon, and

which I still can wish he had preferred to surrender with all that

seemed to be its enormous gain." And again he says, speaking of a

proposition which had been made to Dickens from the town of Bradford;

"At first this was entertained, but was abandoned, with some reluctance,

upon the argument that to become publicly a reader must alter, without

improving, his position publicly as a writer, and that it was a change

to be justified only when the higher calling should have failed of the

old success." The meaning of this was that the money to be made would

be sweet, but that the descent to a profession which was considered to

be lower than that of literature itself would carry with it something

that was bitter. It was as though one who had sat on the woolsack as

Lord Chancellor should raise the question whether for the sake of the

income attached to it, he might, without disgrace, occupy a seat on a

lower bench; as though an architect should consider with himself the

propriety of making his fortune as a contractor; or the head of a

college lower his dignity, while he increased his finances, by taking

pupils. When such discussions arise, money generally carries the

day,--and should do so. When convinced that money may be earned without

disgrace, we ought to allow money to carry the day. When we talk of

sordid gain and filthy lucre, we are generally hypocrites. If gains be

sordid and lucre filthy, where is the priest, the lawyer, the doctor, or

the man of literature, who does not wish for dirty hands? An income, and

the power of putting by something for old age, something for those who

are to come after, is the wholesome and acknowledged desire of all

professional men. Thackeray having children, and being gifted with no

power of making his money go very far, was anxious enough on the

subject. We may say now, that had he confined himself to his pen, he

would not have wanted while he lived, but would have left but little

behind him. That he was anxious we have seen, by his attempts to

subsidise his literary gains by a Government office. I cannot but think

that had he undertaken public duties for which he was ill qualified, and

received a salary which he could hardly have earned, he would have done

less for his fame than by reading to the public. Whether he did that

well or ill, he did it well enough for the money. The people who heard

him, and who paid for their seats, were satisfied with their

bargain,--as they were also in the case of Dickens; and I venture to say

that in becoming publicly a reader, neither did Dickens or Thackeray

"alter his position as a writer," and "that it was a change to be

justified," though the success of the old calling had in no degree

waned. What Thackeray did enabled him to leave a comfortable income for

his children, and one earned honestly, with the full approval of the

world around him.

Having saturated his mind with the literature of Queen Anne's time,--not

probably in the first instance as a preparation for _Esmond_, but in

such a way as to induce him to create an Esmond,--he took the authors

whom he knew so well as the subject for his first series of lectures. He

wrote _The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century_ in 1851, while

he must have been at work on _Esmond_, and first delivered the course at

Willis's Rooms in that year. He afterwards went with these through many

of our provincial towns, and then carried them to the United States,

where he delivered them to large audiences in the winter of 1852 and

1853. Some few words as to the merits of the composition I will

endeavour to say in another place. I myself never heard him lecture, and

can therefore give no opinion of the performance. That which I have

heard from others has been very various. It is, I think, certain that he

had none of those wonderful gifts of elocution which made it a pleasure

to listen to Dickens, whatever he read or whatever he said; nor had he

that power of application by using which his rival taught himself with

accuracy the exact effect to be given to every word. The rendering of a

piece by Dickens was composed as an oratorio is composed, and was then

studied by heart as music is studied. And the piece was all given by

memory, without any looking at the notes or words. There was nothing of

this with Thackeray. But the thing read was in itself of great interest

to educated people. The words were given clearly, with sufficient

intonation for easy understanding, so that they who were willing to hear

something from him felt on hearing that they had received full value for

their money. At any rate, the lectures were successful. The money was

made,--and was kept.

He came from his first trip to America to his new house in Onslow

Square, and then published _The Newcomes_. This, too, was one of his

great works, as to which I shall have to speak hereafter. Then, having

enjoyed his success in the first attempt to lecture, he prepared a

second series. He never essayed the kind of reading which with Dickens

became so wonderfully popular. Dickens recited portions from his

well-known works. Thackeray wrote his lectures expressly for the

purpose. They have since been added to his other literature, but they

were prepared as lectures. The second series were _The Four Georges_. In

a lucrative point of view they were even more successful than the first,

the sum of money realised in the United States having been considerable.

In England they were less popular, even if better attended, the subject

chosen having been distasteful to many. There arose the question whether

too much freedom had not been taken with an office which, though it be

no longer considered to be founded on divine right, is still as sacred

as can be anything that is human. If there is to remain among us a

sovereign, that sovereign, even though divested of political power,

should be endowed with all that personal respect can give. If we wish

ourselves to be high, we should treat that which is over us as high.

And this should not depend altogether on personal character, though we

know,--as we have reason to know,--how much may be added to the firmness

of the feeling by personal merit. The respect of which we speak should,

in the strongest degree, be a possession of the immediate occupant, and

will naturally become dim,--or perhaps be exaggerated,--in regard to the

past, as history or fable may tell of them. No one need hesitate to

speak his mind of King John, let him be ever so strong a stickler for

the privileges of majesty. But there are degrees of distance, and the

throne of which we wish to preserve the dignity seems to be assailed

when unmeasured evil is said of one who has sat there within our own

memory. There would seem to each of us to be a personal affront were a

departed relative delineated with all those faults by which we must own

that even our near relatives have been made imperfect. It is a general

conviction as to this which so frequently turns the biography of those

recently dead into mere eulogy. The fictitious charity which is enjoined

by the _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_ banishes truth. The feeling of which

I speak almost leads me at this moment to put down my pen. And, if so

much be due to all subjects, is less due to a sovereign?

Considerations such as these diminished, I think, the popularity of

Thackeray's second series of lectures; or, rather, not their popularity,

but the estimation in which they were held. On this head he defended

himself more than once very gallantly, and had a great deal to say on

his side of the question. "Suppose, for example, in America,--in

Philadelphia or in New York,--that I had spoken about George IV. in

terms of praise and affected reverence, do you believe they would have

hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with anything of

respect?" And again; "We degrade our own honour and the sovereign's by

unduly and unjustly praising him; and the mere slaverer and flatterer is

one who comes forward, as it were, with flash notes, and pays with false

coin his tribute to Cæsar. I don't disguise that I feel somehow on my

trial here for loyalty,--for honest English feeling." This was said by

Thackeray at a dinner at Edinburgh, in 1857, and shows how the matter

rested on his mind. Thackeray's loyalty was no doubt true enough, but

was mixed with but little of reverence. He was one who revered modesty

and innocence rather than power, against which he had in the bottom of

his heart something of republican tendency. His leaning was no doubt of

the more manly kind. But in what he said at Edinburgh he hardly hit the

nail on the head. No one had suggested that he should have said good

things of a king which he did not believe to be true. The question was

whether it may not be well sometimes for us to hold our tongues. An

American literary man, here in England, would not lecture on the morals

of Hamilton, on the manners of General Jackson, on the general amenities

of President Johnson.

In 1857 Thackeray stood for Oxford, in the liberal interest, in

opposition to Mr. Cardwell. He had been induced to do this by his old

friend Charles Neate, who himself twice sat for Oxford, and died now not

many months since. He polled 1,017 votes, against 1,070 by Mr. Cardwell;

and was thus again saved by his good fortune from attempting to fill a

situation in which he would not have shone. There are, no doubt, many to

whom a seat in Parliament comes almost as the birthright of a well-born

and well-to-do English gentleman. They go there with no more idea of

shining than they do when they are elected to a first-class

club;--hardly with more idea of being useful. It is the thing to do, and

the House of Commons is the place where a man ought to be--for a certain

number of hours. Such men neither succeed nor fail, for nothing is

expected of them. From such a one as Thackeray something would have been

expected, which would not have been forthcoming. He was too desultory

for regular work,--full of thought, but too vague for practical

questions. He could not have endured to sit for two or three hours at a

time with his hat over his eyes, pretending to listen, as is the duty of

a good legislator. He was a man intolerant of tedium, and in the best of

his time impatient of slow work. Nor, though his liberal feelings were

very strong, were his political convictions definite or accurate. He was

a man who mentally drank in much, feeding his fancy hourly with what he

saw, what he heard, what he read, and then pouring it all out with an

immense power of amplification. But it would have been impossible for

him to study and bring home to himself the various points of a

complicated bill with a hundred and fifty clauses. In becoming a man of

letters, and taking that branch of letters which fell to him, he

obtained the special place that was fitted for him. He was a round peg

in a round hole. There was no other hole which he would have fitted

nearly so well. But he had his moment of political ambition, like

others,--and paid a thousand pounds for his attempt.

In 1857 the first number of _The Virginians_ appeared, and the

last,--the twenty-fourth,--in October, 1859. This novel, as all my

readers are aware, is a continuance of _Esmond_, and will be spoken of

in its proper place. He was then forty-eight years old, very gray, with

much of age upon him, which had come from suffering,--age shown by

dislike of activity and by an old man's way of thinking about many

things,--speaking as though the world were all behind him instead of

before; but still with a stalwart outward bearing, very erect in his

gait, and a countenance peculiarly expressive and capable of much

dignity. I speak of his personal appearance at this time, because it was

then only that I became acquainted with him. In 1859 he undertook the

last great work of his life, the editorship of _The Cornhill Magazine_,

a periodical set on foot by Mr. George Smith, of the house of Smith and

Elder, with an amount of energy greater than has generally been bestowed

upon such enterprises. It will be well remembered still how much _The

Cornhill_ was talked about and thought of before it first appeared, and

how much of that thinking and talking was due to the fact that Mr.

Thackeray was to edit it. _Macmillan's_, I think, was the first of the

shilling magazines, having preceded _The Cornhill_ by a month, and it

would ill become me, who have been a humble servant to each of them, to

give to either any preference. But it must be acknowledged that a great

deal was expected from _The Cornhill_, and I think it will be confessed

that it was the general opinion that a great deal was given by it.

Thackeray had become big enough to give a special _éclat_ to any

literary exploit to which he attached himself. Since the days of _The

Constitutional_ he had fought his way up the ladder and knew how to take

his stand there with an assurance of success. When it became known to

the world of readers that a new magazine was to appear under Thackeray's

editorship, the world of readers was quite sure that there would be a

large sale. Of the first number over one hundred and ten thousand were

sold, and of the second and third over one hundred thousand. It is in

the nature of such things that the sale should fall off when the novelty

is over. People believe that a new delight has come, a new joy for ever,

and then find that the joy is not quite so perfect or enduring as they

had expected. But the commencement of such enterprises may be taken as a

measure of what will follow. The magazine, either by Thackeray's name or

by its intrinsic merits,--probably by both,--achieved a great success.

My acquaintance with him grew from my having been one of his staff from

the first.

About two months before the opening day I wrote to him suggesting that

he should accept from me a series of four short stories on which I was

engaged. I got back a long letter in which he said nothing about my

short stories, but asking whether I could go to work at once and let him

have a long novel, so that it might begin with the first number. At the

same time I heard from the publisher, who suggested some interesting

little details as to honorarium. The little details were very

interesting, but absolutely no time was allowed to me. It was required

that the first portion of my book should be in the printer's hands

within a month. Now it was my theory,--and ever since this occurrence

has been my practice,--to see the end of my own work before the public

should see the commencement.[4] If I did this thing I must not only

abandon my theory, but instantly contrive a story, or begin to write it

before it was contrived. That was what I did, urged by the interesting

nature of the details. A novelist cannot always at the spur of the

moment make his plot and create his characters who shall, with an

arranged sequence of events, live with a certain degree of eventful

decorum, through that portion of their lives which is to be portrayed. I

hesitated, but allowed myself to be allured to what I felt to be wrong,

much dreading the event. How seldom is it that theories stand the wear

and tear of practice! I will not say that the story which came was good,

but it was received with greater favour than any I had written before or

have written since. I think that almost anything would have been then

accepted coming under Thackeray's editorship.

I was astonished that work should be required in such haste, knowing

that much preparation had been made, and that the service of almost any

English novelist might have been obtained if asked for in due time. It

was my readiness that was needed, rather than any other gift! The riddle

was read to me after a time. Thackeray had himself intended to begin

with one of his own great novels, but had put it off till it was too

late. _Lovel the Widower_ was commenced at the same time with my own

story, but _Lovel the Widower_ was not substantial enough to appear as

the principal joint at the banquet. Though your guests will undoubtedly

dine off the little delicacies you provide for them, there must be a

heavy saddle of mutton among the viands prepared. I was the saddle of

mutton, Thackeray having omitted to get his joint down to the fire in

time enough. My fitness lay in my capacity for quick roasting.

It may be interesting to give a list of the contributors to the first

number. My novel called _Framley Parsonage_ came first. At this banquet

the saddle of mutton was served before the delicacies. Then there was a

paper by Sir John Bowring on _The Chinese and Outer Barbarians_. The

commencing number of _Lovel the Widower_ followed. George Lewes came

next with his first chapters of _Studies in Animal Life_. Then there was

Father Prout's _Inauguration Ode_, dedicated to the author of _Vanity

Fair_,--which should have led the way. I need hardly say that Father

Prout was the Rev. F. Mahony. Then followed _Our Volunteers_, by Sir

John Burgoyne; _A Man of Letters of the Last Generation_, by Thornton

Hunt; _The Search for Sir John Franklin_, from a private journal of an

officer of the Fox, now Sir Allen Young; and _The First Morning of

1860_, by Mrs. Archer Clive. The number was concluded by the first of

those _Roundabout Papers_ by Thackeray himself, which became so

delightful a portion of the literature of _The Cornhill Magazine_.

It would be out of my power, and hardly interesting, to give an entire

list of those who wrote for _The Cornhill_ under Thackeray's editorial

direction. But I may name a few, to show how strong was the support

which he received. Those who contributed to the first number I have

named. Among those who followed were Alfred Tennyson, Jacob Omnium, Lord

Houghton, William Russell, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Browning, Robert

Bell, George Augustus Sala, Mrs. Gaskell, James Hinton, Mary Howitt,

John Kaye, Charles Lever, Frederick Locker, Laurence Oliphant, John

Ruskin, Fitzjames Stephen, T. A. Trollope, Henry Thompson, Herman

Merivale, Adelaide Proctor, Matthew Arnold, the present Lord Lytton, and

Miss Thackeray, now Mrs. Ritchie. Thackeray continued the editorship for

two years and four months, namely, up to April, 1862; but, as all

readers will remember, he continued to write for it till he died, the

day before Christmas Day, in 1863. His last contribution was, I think, a

paper written for and published in the November number, called,

"_Strange to say on Club Paper_," in which he vindicated Lord Clyde from

the accusation of having taken the club stationery home with him. It was

not a great subject, for no one could or did believe that the

Field-Marshal had been guilty of any meanness; but the handling of it

has made it interesting, and his indignation has made it beautiful.

The magazine was a great success, but justice compels me to say that

Thackeray was not a good editor. As he would have been an indifferent

civil servant, an indifferent member of Parliament, so was he

perfunctory as an editor. It has sometimes been thought well to select a

popular literary man as an editor; first, because his name will attract,

and then with an idea that he who can write well himself will be a

competent judge of the writings of others. The first may sell a

magazine, but will hardly make it good; and the second will not avail

much, unless the editor so situated be patient enough to read what is

sent to him. Of a magazine editor it is required that he should be

patient, scrupulous, judicious, but above all things hard-hearted. I

think it may be doubted whether Thackeray did bring himself to read the

basketfuls of manuscripts with which he was deluged, but he probably

did, sooner or later, read the touching little private notes by which

they were accompanied,--the heartrending appeals, in which he was told

that if this or the other little article could be accepted and paid for,

a starving family might be saved from starvation for a month. He tells

us how he felt on receiving such letters in one of his _Roundabout

Papers_, which he calls "_Thorns in the cushion_." "How am I to know,"

he says--"though to be sure I begin to know now,--as I take the letters

off the tray, which of those envelopes contains a real _bona fide_

letter, and which a thorn? One of the best invitations this year I

mistook for a thorn letter, and kept it without opening." Then he gives

the sample of a thorn letter. It is from a governess with a poem, and

with a prayer for insertion and payment. "We have known better days,

sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers

and sisters who look to me." He could not stand this, and the money

would be sent, out of his own pocket, though the poem might

be--postponed, till happily it should be lost.

From such material a good editor could not be made. Nor, in truth, do I

think that he did much of the editorial work. I had once made an

arrangement, not with Thackeray, but with the proprietors, as to some

little story. The story was sent back to me by Thackeray--rejected.

_Virginibus puerisque!_ That was the gist of his objection. There was a

project in a gentleman's mind,--as told in my story,--to run away with a

married woman! Thackeray's letter was very kind, very regretful,--full

of apology for such treatment to such a contributor. But--_Virginibus

puerisque!_ I was quite sure that Thackeray had not taken the trouble to

read the story himself. Some moral deputy had read it, and disapproving,

no doubt properly, of the little project to which I have alluded, had

incited the editor to use his authority. That Thackeray had suffered

when he wrote it was easy to see, fearing that he was giving pain to one

he would fain have pleased. I wrote him a long letter in return, as full

of drollery as I knew how to make it. In four or five days there came a

reply in the same spirit,--boiling over with fun. He had kept my letter

by him, not daring to open it,--as he says that he did with that

eligible invitation. At last he had given it to one of his girls to

examine,--to see whether the thorn would be too sharp, whether I had

turned upon him with reproaches. A man so susceptible, so prone to work

by fits and starts, so unmethodical, could not have been a good editor.

In 1862 he went into the new house which he had built for himself at

Palace Green. I remember well, while this was still being built, how his

friends used to discuss his imprudence in building it. Though he had

done well with himself, and had made and was making a large income, was

he entitled to live in a house the rent of which could not be counted at

less than from five hundred to six hundred pounds a year? Before he had

been there two years, he solved the question by dying,--when the house

was sold for two thousand pounds more than it had cost. He himself, in

speaking of his project, was wont to declare that he was laying out his

money in the best way he could for the interest of his children;--and it

turned out that he was right.

In 1863 he died in the house which he had built, and at the period of

his death was writing a new novel in numbers, called _Denis Duval_. In

_The Cornhill_, _The Adventures of Philip_ had appeared. This new

enterprise was destined for commencement on 1st January, 1864, and,

though the writer was gone, it kept its promise, as far as it went.

Three numbers, and what might probably have been intended for half of a

fourth, appeared. It may be seen, therefore, that he by no means held to

my theory, that the author should see the end of his work before the

public sees the commencement. But neither did Dickens or Mrs. Gaskell,

both of whom died with stories not completed, which, when they died,

were in the course of publication. All the evidence goes against the

necessity of such precaution. Nevertheless, were I giving advice to a

tiro in novel writing, I should recommend it.

With the last chapter of _Denis Duval_ was published in the magazine a

set of notes on the book, taken for the most part from Thackeray's own

papers, and showing how much collateral work he had given to the

fabrication of his novel. No doubt in preparing other tales, especially

_Esmond_, a very large amount of such collateral labour was found

necessary. He was a man who did very much of such work, delighting to

deal in little historical incidents. They will be found in almost

everything that he did, and I do not know that he was ever accused of

gross mistakes. But I doubt whether on that account he should be called

a laborious man. He could go down to Winchelsea, when writing about the

little town, to see in which way the streets lay, and to provide himself

with what we call local colouring. He could jot down the suggestions, as

they came to his mind, of his future story. There was an irregularity in

such work which was to his taste. His very notes would be delightful to

read, partaking of the nature of pearls when prepared only for his own

use. But he could not bring himself to sit at his desk and do an

allotted task day after day. He accomplished what must be considered as

quite a sufficient life's work. He had about twenty-five years for the

purpose, and that which he has left is an ample produce for the time.

Nevertheless he was a man of fits and starts, who, not having been in

his early years drilled to method, never achieved it in his career.

He died on the day before Christmas Day, as has been said above, very

suddenly, in his bed, early in the morning, in the fifty-third year of

his life. To those who saw him about in the world there seemed to be no

reason why he should not continue his career for the next twenty years.

But those who knew him were so well aware of his constant sufferings,

that, though they expected no sudden catastrophe, they were hardly

surprised when it came. His death was probably caused by those spasms of

which he had complained ten years before, in his letter to Mr. Reed. On

the last day but one of the year, a crowd of sorrowing friends stood

over his grave as he was laid to rest in Kensal Green; and, as quickly

afterwards as it could be executed, a bust to his memory was put up in

Westminster Abbey. It is a fine work of art, by Marochetti; but, as a

likeness, is, I think, less effective than that which was modelled, and

then given to the Garrick Club, by Durham, and has lately been put into

marble, and now stands in the upper vestibule of the club. Neither of

them, in my opinion, give so accurate an idea of the man as a statuette

in bronze, by Boehm, of which two or three copies were made. One of them

is in my possession. It has been alleged, in reference to this, that

there is something of a caricature in the lengthiness of the figure, in

the two hands thrust into the trousers pockets, and in the protrusion of

the chin. But this feeling has originated in the general idea that any

face, or any figure, not made by the artist more beautiful or more

graceful than the original is an injustice. The face must be smoother,

the pose of the body must be more dignified, the proportions more

perfect, than in the person represented, or satisfaction is not felt.

Mr. Boehm has certainly not flattered, but, as far as my eye can judge,

he has given the figure of the man exactly as he used to stand before

us. I have a portrait of him in crayon, by Samuel Lawrence, as like, but

hardly as natural.

A little before his death Thackeray told me that he had then succeeded

in replacing the fortune which he had lost as a young man. Ho had, in

fact, done better, for he left an income of seven hundred and fifty

pounds behind him.

It has been said of Thackeray that he was a cynic. This has been said so

generally, that the charge against him has become proverbial. This,

stated barely, leaves one of two impressions on the mind, or perhaps the

two together,--that this cynicism was natural to his character and came

out in his life, or that it is the characteristic of his writings. Of

the nature of his writings generally, I will speak in the last chapter

of this little book. As to his personal character as a cynic, I must

find room to quote the following first stanzas of the little poem which

appeared to his memory in _Punch_, from the pen of Shirley Brooks;

He was a cynic! By his life all wrought

Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways;

His heart wide open to all kindly thought,

His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise!

He was a cynic! You might read it writ

In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair;

In those blue eyes, with childlike candour lit,

In that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear!

He was a cynic! By the love that clung

About him from his children, friends, and kin;

By the sharp pain light pen and gossip tongue

Wrought in him, chafing the soft heart within!

The spirit and nature of the man have been caught here with absolute

truth. A public man should of course be judged from his public work. If

he wrote as a cynic,--a point which I will not discuss here,--it may be

fair that he who is to be known as a writer should be so called. But, as

a man, I protest that it would be hard to find an individual farther

removed from the character. Over and outside his fancy, which was the

gift which made him so remarkable,--a certain feminine softness was the

most remarkable trait about him. To give some immediate pleasure was the

great delight of his life,--a sovereign to a schoolboy, gloves to a

girl, a dinner to a man, a compliment to a woman. His charity was

overflowing. His generosity excessive. I heard once a story of woe from

a man who was the dear friend of both of us. The gentleman wanted a

large sum of money instantly,--something under two thousand pounds,--had

no natural friends who could provide it, but must go utterly to the wall

without it. Pondering over this sad condition of things just revealed to

me, I met Thackeray between the two mounted heroes at the Horse Guards,

and told him the story. "Do you mean to say that I am to find two

thousand pounds?" he said, angrily, with some expletives. I explained

that I had not even suggested the doing of anything,--only that we might

discuss the matter. Then there came over his face a peculiar smile, and

a wink in his eye, and he whispered his suggestion, as though half

ashamed of his meanness. "I'll go half," he said, "if anybody will do

the rest." And he did go half, at a day or two's notice, though the

gentleman was no more than simply a friend. I am glad to be able to add

that the money was quickly repaid. I could tell various stories of the

same kind, only that I lack space, and that they, if simply added one to

the other, would lack interest.

He was no cynic, but he was a satirist, and could now and then be a

satirist in conversation, hitting very hard when he did hit. When he was

in America he met at dinner a literary gentleman of high character,

middle-aged, and most dignified deportment. The gentleman was one whose

character and acquirements stood very high,--deservedly so,--but who, in

society, had that air of wrapping his toga around him, which adds, or is

supposed to add, many cubits to a man's height. But he had a broken

nose. At dinner he talked much of the tender passion, and did so in a

manner which stirred up Thackeray's feeling of the ridiculous. "What has

the world come to," said Thackeray out loud to the table, "when two

broken-nosed old fogies like you and me sit talking about love to each

other!" The gentleman was astounded, and could only sit wrapping his

toga in silent dismay for the rest of the evening. Thackeray then, as at

other similar times, had no idea of giving pain, but when he saw a

foible he put his foot upon it, and tried to stamp it out.

Such is my idea of the man whom many call a cynic, but whom I regard as

one of the most soft-hearted of human beings, sweet as Charity itself,

who went about the world dropping pearls, doing good, and never wilfully

inflicting a wound.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The report that he had lost all his money and was going to live by

painting in Paris, was still prevalent in London in 1836. Macready, on

the 27th April of that year, says in his _Diary_; "At Garrick Club,

where I dined and saw the papers. Met Thackeray, who has spent all his

fortune, and is now about to settle in Paris, I believe as an artist."

But at this time he was, in truth, turning to literature as a

profession.

[2] The article was written by Abraham Hayward, who is still with us,

and was no doubt instigated by a desire to assist Thackeray in his

struggle upwards, in which it succeeded.

[3] For a week there existed at the _Punch_ office a grudge against

Thackeray in reference to this awkward question: "What would you give

for your _Punch_ without John Leech?" Then he asked the confraternity to

dinner,--_more Thackerayano_,--and the confraternity came. Who can doubt

but they were very jolly over the little blunder? For years afterwards

Thackeray was a guest at the well-known _Punch_ dinner, though he was no

longer one of the contributors.

[4] I had begun an Irish story and half finished it, which would reach

just the required length. Would that do, I asked. I was civilly told

that my Irish story would no doubt be charming, but was not quite the

thing that was wanted. Could I not begin a new one,--English,--and if

possible about clergymen? The details were so interesting that had a

couple of archbishops been demanded, I should have produced them.