V.—WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

(1811-1863.)

LIFE.-William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Calcutta, India, July 18, 1811. His father, who had been in the service of the East India Company, died five years later. Thackeray was sent to England for his schooling, and attended Charterhouse from 1822 to 1828. In February, 1829, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but left in the following year. travelled on the Continent, studied a little law in the Middle Temple, and edited an unsuccessful paper.

Then he

Losses at cards and

poor investments impaired the generous property left him by his father to such an extent that he needed to earn his own living. Accordingly he settled in Paris to study art, and at times acted as Paris correspondent for London papers.

On August 20, 1836,

he married Isabella Shawe, and in 1837 returned with her to London. Within a few years occurred the tragedy in Thackeray's life. His wife lost her mind, and though her death did not occur until 1892, Thackeray was left worse than a widower. His London life was devoted to literary work, commencing with contributions to Fraser's Magazine and Punch, for which he also drew In January, 1860, he became editor of the Cornhill Magazine. He died on the night of December 23-24, 1863, and was buried at Kensal Green. are so well known Thackeray's reticence and dislike of publicity a

almost four hundred sketches.

as that of

to be sure, there is a page that recalls his first literary venture Lamb or Irving. In the opening chapter of Lovel the Widower, and failure as editor. It seems to be Thackeray himself who was of my wit and criticisms, got up for the nonce out of encyclopae' eligible literary property,"—who

tricked into purchasing the "

wrote "satirical articles in which I piqued myself

on the fineness

109

dias and biographical dictionaries; so that I would be actually astounded at my own knowledge." In the ballad The Pen and the Album, too, Thackeray seems to refer quite clearly to his own early verse-makings. Again, the background of Pendennis is Thackeray's own college life and journalistic struggles, but even the Paris and Irish Sketch Books are often markedly impersonal, turning from the author himself to the scenes around.

Yet one may find the record, if not of facts, of character. In the delightful moralizing disgressions in the novels, and, best of all, in the Roundabout Papers, we find Thackeray himself. Here are proofs of his appreciation of Fielding, Dumas, Scott, Montaigne, Howell, Irving, Macaulay, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, and so many others whom he delighted to honor. Here, too, is the best answer to the old charge of cynicism. Snobbery, self-seeking, flunkeyism, hypocrisy-Thackeray fought his life long, but the spirit in which he fought was this-" Ah, ye knights of the pen! May honor be your shield, and truth tip your lances ! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him." Thackeray's warm heart, tender beyond measure to his own two daughters, found room to add to his family the daughter of an old friend. The same sympathy with distress is touchingly shown in the Thorns in the Cushion, in the editor's heartache in rejecting the contributions of needy authors. In the ballad, The End of the Play, he set forth a high motto:

"Go, lose or conquer as you can;

But if you fail, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.”

WRITINGS.—Thackeray's earliest published work was in The Snob, an undergraduate paper at Cambridge. He wrote a burlesque on Timbuctoo," the subject assigned for a prize which Tennyson's poem won. His early literary work was varied-newspaper correspondence, book and art reviews, and comic sketches for Punch-most important of these in securing public attention, the Snob Papers. Thackeray's literary prestige, was established by the publication of Vanity Fair. Following the lead of Dickens, this appeared in installments from January, 1847, to July, 1848.

His other chief novels followed in this order: Pendennis (184850), Henry Esmond (1852), The Newcomes (1853-1855), and The Virginians (1857-1859). Two series of lectures, The English Humorists and The Four Georges, were delivered both in England and America. The Roundabout Papers appeared in the Cornhill Magazine (1860-1863).

LITERARY QUALITIES.-Thackeray's burlesques show but a relatively unimportant side of his genius. Burlesque is at best negative, destructive. For the positive, constructive genius of Thackeray, one must turn to his essays and novels. Thackeray was pre-eminently a realist. His perfect sanity led him first to burlesque the unreal and unnatural in the writings of his contemporaries, and then to expose the artificial in character and life. In Vanity Fair he turned away from the heroics of Scott, the moralities of Maria Edgeworth, and the sentimentalities of Bulwer, and wrote A Novel without a Hero. In real life he saw that good people have faults and villains some virtues. Amelia's "nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine "-she clung to the memory of a husband whom only a bullet at Waterloo had prevented from deserting her for an adventuress, and refused the devotion of Major Dobbin until almost the end of the chapter. Becky Sharp betrayed Rawdon Crawley's honor, but when he flung the miserable Marquis of Steyne to the ground bleeding "she admired her husband, strong, brave, and victorious." In the preface to Pendennis Thackeray wrote, "If truth is not always pleasant, at any rate truth is best," and he gives us Arthur Pendennis "with all his faults and shortcomings, who does not claim to be a hero, but only a man and a brother." In The Newcomes, side by side with the immortal Colonel Newcome are Barnes Newcome, 66 as scrupulously whited as any sepulchre in the whole bills of mortality," and Charles Honeyman, the clergyman who hides hypocrisy behind his white cambric pocket-handkerchief. In his later novels Thackeray still attacked the "Ogre Humbug," but never with Swift's cynicism. In Esmond he wrote, We get to understand truth better and grow simpler as we grow older." If the keenness of the attack abated in his later work, he still sought truth to life. "He would speak "-the passage is

in Esmond-" without anger, but wtth truth, as far as he knows it, neither extenuating nor setting down aught in malice."

Thackeray gave to Vanity Fair the historical setting of Waterloo. In Esmond and The Virginians he wrote historical novels, but with history always subordinate to the story. In Vanity Fair the climax of Waterloo lies not in the defeat of Napoleon nor the triumph of Wellington, but in that "Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart." In Esmond Marlborough wins the battle of Blenheim, but "of this famous victory, Mr. Esmond knows nothing, for a shot brought down his horse" and left him senseless on the field. In open revolt against the heroes of romantic fiction and their impossible achievements in love and war, Thackeray's Esmond in the Vigo Bay expedition draws his sword only to knock down a sentinel who is insulting "a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turn out a beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lost and never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor old dropsical woman, with a wart upon her nose.”

Character-drawing, mastery of style, humor, pathos, passion— all these Thackeray had. One thing he lacked-high poetic imagination. "I have no brains above my eyes," Prof. Beers has quoted him as saying: "I describe what I see. None knew more fully the world in which men love and fear and flatter and hate and sorrow, but beyond his horizon lay the forest of Arden and the seacoast of Bohemia.

PHIL FOGARTY.-The series of burlesques entitled Punch's Prize Novelists or Novels by Eminent Hands appeared first in the London Punch, during 1847. The authors burlesqued are Bulwer, Disraeli, Lever, G.P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, and Cooper.

Phil Fogarty is a burlesque of Charles Lever, the Irish novelist (1806-1872). Lever first came into general favor in 1837, on the appearance of the first installments of Harry Lorrequer. Here and in Charles O'Malley and in Tom Burke of Ours and in many now forgotten stories, Lever sketched with rollicking vigor the Irish dragoon, of equal prowess at Waterloo and at the punch-bowl. Lever's characters though lively are never subtle-the constant anecdotes interpersed in his stories were often second-hand-but

he had a zest and spirit withal that carried him into popular favor.

Thackeray met Lever in Ireland in 1842-3, liked him, and, understanding that he was in some trouble with his publishers, advised him warmly to leave Dublin for London, urging the fickleness of the Irish favor which Lever then enjoyed. Though Lever disregarded the advice, Thackeray's interest in him continued, and to him he dedicated the Irish Sketch Book (1843). The extravagances of Lever's works gave a fair field for burlesque. Though Lever's military stories all conform to nearly the same plan, Thackeray's burlesque seems devoted chiefly to Harry Lorrequer. This is shown, perhaps, in the name given to the supposed author-" Harry Rollicker". -a title that admirably characterizes Lever himself. It is the spirit of Lever's whole work, rather than individual passages, that Thackeray has parodied. Yet there are not wanting specific instances of special burlesque. Thackeray's duel between Phil Fogarty and Cambacères may have in mind the duel in chapter six of Lorrequer, while Fogarty's flying leap on horseback over the Emperor's head is a palpable hit at the incredible horsemanship and fence-jumping in chapter two, and in parts of Charles O'Malley. The whistling of Garryowen ", the drinking songs, the familiarity of Fogarty with the crowned heads of the continent, the Irish jokes and anecdotes, all find ready counterparts in the early chapters of Lorrequer.

66

Phil Fogarty.

A TALE OF THE FIGHTING ONETY-ONETH.

BY HARRY ROLLICKER.

THE gabion was ours.

(1847.)
I.

After two hours' fighting we

were in possession of the first embrasure and made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would admit. Jack Delamere, Tom Delancy, Jerry Blake, the