'Thackeray, William Makepeace, author, was born in India, in 1811. He is
of good family, and was originally intended for the bar, of which he is
now a member. He kept seven or eight terms at Cambridge, but left the
university without taking a degree, for the purpose of becoming an
artist. After about three years' desultory practice, he devoted himself
to literature, abandoning the design of making a position as a painter,
and only employed his pictorial talents in illustration of his own
writings. For a short time, he conducted a literary and artistic review,
similar in plan to the _Athenæum_; but the new journal, although
characterised by great ability, perished in competition with established
rivals. He also, with the assistance of Dr Maginn, started a newspaper;
but this was unsuccessful. His first distinction was won as a writer in
_Fraser's Magazine_, _Punch_, and other periodicals of character. In the
latter amusing periodical appeared his _Jeames's Diary_, a clever satire
on the follies of the railway mania, exposing the hollow foundation upon
which railway fortunes and reputations were made. His _Snob Papers_,
published in the same manner, have since been collected and reprinted
with great success. His satire is as keen as that of Fielding. His
_Paris Sketch-Book_ appeared in 1840. His _Irish Sketch-Book_, with
numerous engravings drawn by the author, was published in 1845. In the
next year, appeared his _Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand
Cairo_; and in 1847, the first numbers of _Vanity Fair_ appeared, in the
proper name of their author. This, Thackeray's first fully-developed
novel, has been followed by _Arthur Pendennis_, completed in 1851. His
Christmas-book, entitled _The Kickleburies on the Rhine_, was attacked
by a writer in the _Times_; whereupon Mr Thackeray replied, in a very
unmistakable way, in a preface to the second edition of the work. The
critic fared very badly in the contest.' The charge made against Mr
Thackeray is, that he abuses the characters of the literary class with a
view apparently of catering to public prejudice. We believe that any
such imputation is entirely unfounded; and that Mr Thackeray's
observations on the infirmities of authors are due to an honest
exposition of his subject. Mr Thackeray has lately imparted much delight
by delivering lectures on the literary personages of last century; and
in this very act has gracefully raised the public estimation of living
authorcraft.
We may extract the following passages respecting the early career of Mr
Dickens:--
'Dickens, Charles, the most popular writer of his time, was born in
February 1812, at Landport, Portsmouth. His father, the late Mr John
Dickens, in the earlier part of his life, enjoyed a post in the Navy Pay
Department, the duties of which required that he should reside from time
to time in different seaports: now at Plymouth, now at Portsmouth, and
then at Sheerness. "In the glorious days" of the war with France, these
towns were full of life, bustle, and character; and the father of "Boz"
was at times fond of dilating upon the strange scenes he had witnessed.
One of his stories described a sitting-room he once enjoyed at
Blue-town, Sheerness, abutting on the theatre. Of an evening, he used to
sit in this room, and could hear what was passing on the stage, and join
in the chorus of _God save the King_, and _Britannia rules the
Waves_--then the favourite songs of Englishmen. The war being at an end,
amongst those who left the public service with a pension was the father
of our novelist. Coming to London, he subsequently found lucrative
employment for his talents on the press as a reporter of parliamentary
debates. Charles Dickens may, therefore, be said to have been in his
youth familiarised with "copy;" and when his father, with parental
anxiety for his future career, took the preliminary steps for making his
son an attorney, the dreariness of the proposed occupation fell so
heavily upon the mind of the future author, that he induced his father
to permit him to resign the law, and join the parliamentary corps of a
daily newspaper. His first engagement was on the _True Sun_, an
ultra-liberal paper, then carrying on a fierce struggle for existence,
from the staff of which he afterwards passed into the reporting ranks of
the _Morning Chronicle_. On that paper, he obtained reputation as a
first-rate man--his reports being exceedingly rapid, and no less
correct. In the columns of the _Chronicle_ he soon gave proofs of other
talents than those of a reporter; for in the evening edition of that
journal appeared the _Sketches of English Life and Character_,
afterwards collected to form the two well-known volumes of _Sketches by
Boz_, published respectively in 1836 and 1837. These at once attracted
considerable notice, and obtained great success; and the publisher of
the collected edition, anxious to make the most of the prize which had
fallen to his lot, gladly came to an arrangement with Mr Dickens and
Seymour, the comic draughtsman--the one to write, and the other to
illustrate a book which should exhibit the adventures of a party of
Cockney sportsmen. Hence the appearance of _Pickwick_, a book which made
its author's reputation and the publishers' fortune. After the work had
commenced, poor Seymour committed suicide, and Mr Hablot K. Browne was
selected to continue the illustrations, which he did under the signature
of "Phiz." Meanwhile, Mr Dickens had courted and married the daughter of
Mr George Hogarth, then, and now, a musical writer; a man of
considerable attainments, and who, in his earlier days, whilst a writer
to the Signet in Edinburgh, enjoyed the intimate friendship of Sir
Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and the other literary notables at that day
adorning the Modern Athens. The great success of _Pickwick_ brought down
upon its author demands from all sides for another work, and "Boz"
agreed to write _Nicholas Nickleby_, to be published in monthly parts.
In the prefatory notices, which give additional value to the cheap and
elegant reprint of the works of Dickens, we are indulged with slight
glimpses of his own recollections, personal and literary.' It is
unnecessary to note the titles of Mr Dickens's subsequent works, all of
which have justly obtained popularity. He has latterly entered on a path
not dissimilar to our own, and in this he has our very best wishes. The
cause of social melioration needs a union of hearts and hands.