This brilliant and mordant writer was born in
Calcutta in 1811.
His father, a man of good family, was in the East India Company's civil service.--Young
Thackeray was sent at an early age to
England, and received the best part of his education at the
Charter house School.
He then entered the
University of Cambridge, but did not take a degree there, owing probably to the fact that he came into possession of a legacy of £20,000, which left-him free to consult his own tastes.
He chose he profession of an artist, and spent several years on the continent in travel and study.
Of the proficiency which he attained in this pursuit we can form some idea from the capital drawings with which he illustrated some of his earlier works.
A newspaper speculation in which he embarked with his father in
London swallowed up the greater part of the fortune which he had acquired on coming of age, and he decided on devoting himself to literature as a profession.
Whatever may be the delinquencies of the London
Times, one great quality cannot be denied to its management.
Its columns are always open to the articles of young writers whose contributions exhibit evidences of talent.
In article, literary, and political efforts for that paper.
Thackeray's pen found for a time profitable employment.
He then became a contributor to
Frazer's Magazine, for which he wrote stories and a little of almost everything.
Under the pseudonym of
Michael Angela Tatmarsh he produced successively "Our Wives" "The Yellow Plush Papers," "The Paris Sketchbook," "Rebecca and Rowena," "A Journey from Corehill to
Cairo," "The Irish Sketchbook." "The second Funeral of
Napoleon." "The Ch the Brum," &c. None of these attained any great popularity, nor did their author take any real hold of the public favor until the establishment of
Punch. Here his peculiar vein of satire found its natural field of employment.
The papers "The Fat Contributor," "Jereme Diary," and "The Snob Papers" at once attracted attention and fixed his place as a writer.
The high estimate formed of his abilities from these effort was confirmed by the publication of "Vanity Fair," The completion of the work, which was published in monthly parts, left him second only, in popularity, to
Dickens.
The reputation thus acquired was brilliantly sustained by "Pendennis," (1850) "The History of
Henry Esmond," (1852) "The
Newcomes," (1853) and "The Virginians," (1857) His later novels. "Lowel, the Widower," published in the
Cornhill Magazine, a periodical of which he assumed the editorial charge, and "The Adventures of Philip," take lower rank.
In the intervals between the appearance of the above he published several minor and
Christmas stories, such as "Our Street," "
Dr. Birch and his Young Friend," "The Kickel burys on the Ruine," &c.
In the summer of 1851
Mr. Thackeray made his first essay before
London audience as a lecturer.
The subject that he chose for this occasion was "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," to watch no man was more qualified to do justice.
The brilliant series of discourses which he grouped under this head had an immense success, and were repeated with the same favor in
Scotland and this country.
He found the results of his visit here so profitable that he embraced the first opportunity that his literary engagements to repeat it. His lectures on "The Four " formed the staple of his budget this time, and they were delivered in New York and other cities in the winter of 1855.
Mr. Thackeray made a large sum of money by these lectures.
A writer in the
London Critic gives the following rather unfavorable criticism upon.
Thackeray, yet all who are familiar with his writings will acknowledge that there is much truth in it:
Unlike
Dickens,
Thackeray has more genius than geniality.
Where there is genius of the highest kind, the geniality wall always be in proportion, as we see in the illustrious instance of
Shakespeare.
But in genius of a high kind, though not of the highest, geniality, as in the case of
Dante may be altogether wanting.
Without genius of the highest kind without genius of a high kind.
Thackeray is as destitute of geniality as it is possible for a man of genius to be. Even more important than faith in God is faith in nature.
This faith
Thackeray does his utmost to destroy.
He paints; he seldom , but he seems to delight in painting only such life as can be seen in London Clubs and
Paris hells.
Every man has ugly leprous spots on his own nature, which the evening denies continually thrust before his eyes.
Why, to kill shame or hope, or nobleness in his soul, should you in addition drive him into an atmosphere heavy with the stench of all the ? You make fresh lution when continually thring the pollutions.--Let the pollutions alone, unless, like
Hercules, you can turn a river in upon them to carry them away.
Glancing back for a hundred and fifty years,
Thackeray could see nothing but four detestable kings.
Glancing around, he can see nothing but
Palmers that murder,
Robson that suicide, and universal snobbery.
I dare say all the while
Thackeray, as prosperous author and lecturer continues in the midst of this horrible world to make himself very comfortable.
Your misanthropist, or pretended misanthropist, loves at least one man well.
Quarrelling with
Thackeray's criticisms, do I like wise quarrel with his style?
Not as style, for few styles can be better.
I object to it that it is an elaborate imitation of English style in the Addisonian period.
Mr. Edmund Yates, a member like
Thackeray, of the
Carrick Club in
London, gives us the following portrait of the great author — a portrait, by the way, that called forth a sharp letter from
Thackeray, demanding an apology:
"
Mr. Thackeray is 40 years old, (this was in 1858,) though from the silvery whiteness of his hair, he appears somewhat older.
He is very tall; standing upwards of six feet two inches, and as he walks erect, his height makes conspicuous in every assembly.
His face is bloodless, and not particularly expressive, but remarkable for the fracture of the bridge of the nose, the result of an accident in youth.
He wears a small grey whisker, but otherwise is clean shaven.
No one meeting him could rail to recognize in him a gentleman; his bearing is cold and uninviting his stlye of conversation either openly cynical or assertedly good natured and benevolent; his is forced, his with biting, his pride cavity touched — but his appearance is invariably that of the cool , well gentleman, who, whatever may be rankling within, suffers no surface display of his emotion."