THACKERAY;

THE

HUMOURIST AND THE MAN OF LETTERS.

THE STORY

OF HIS LIFE AND LABOURS.

CHAPTER I.

THACKERAY'S ANCESTORS-DR. THOMAS THACKERAY, HEAD

MASTER OF HARROW-BISHOP HOADLEY-THEODOSIA WOODWARD THE ORIGIN OF THE CONNEXION OF THE THACKERAYS WITH INDIA BIRTH OF THE FUTURE

NOVELIST-VOYAGE

ΤΟ

ENGLAND-RECOLLECTION OF

NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA-THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE- HADLEY-THE CHARTERHOUSE

66

PARTICULARS OF HIS CAREER THERE -CAMBRIDGECONDUCTS THE SNOB," A CAMBRIDGE FACETIOUS MAGAZINE-SPECIMENS OF HIS EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS TO 66 THE SNOB"-TENNYSON AND JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE -SOJOURN AT WEIMAR-RECOLLECTIONS OF GOETHEVISIT TO ROME-DESTINED FOR THE BAR-ART-STUDIES IN PARIS-FRIENDSHIP FOR LOUIS MARVY-THACKERAY'S CRITICISMS ON THE ENGLISH

PAINTERS.

LANDSCAPE

THE fondness of Mr. Thackeray for lingering amidst the scenes of a boy's daily life in a public grammar school, has generally been attributed to

B

his early education at the Charterhouse, that celebrated monastic-looking establishment in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, which he scarcely disguised from his readers as the original of the familiar "Grey Friars" of his works of fiction. Most of our novelists have given us in various forms their school reminiscences; but none have reproduced them so frequently, or dwelt upon them with such manifest bias towards. the subject, as the author of "Vanity Fair," "The Newcomes," and "The Adventures of Philip." It is pleasing to think that this habit, which Mr. Thackeray was well aware had been frequently censured by his critics as carried to excess, was, like his partiality for the times of Queen Anne and the Georges, in some degree due to the traditional reverence of his family for the memory of their great-grandfather, Dr. Thomas Thackeray, the well-remembered headmaster of Harrow. No memoir of William Makepeace Thackeray should begin with any other name than that of this excellent man, who was in every sense the founder of his family. If the evil which men do finds its unhappy conse

quences in the generations that come after, it is no less true that the life benè acta, sows seeds of good of which none can foretell the final fruit. It would not, perhaps, be "considering too curiously," to trace something of the success of his great descendant to that meritorious life of studious industry which secured to the good doctor's family the means of giving to their children, and through them to their children's children, the benefits of culture and good habits.

The memory of Dr. Thomas Thackeray is still held in honour at Harrow among those of the masters who have most contributed to raise the school to the high character it has long enjoyed. The Thackerays came originally from Hampsthwaite, near Knaresborough, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In this little village Dr. Thomas, the future head-master of Harrow, was born. Of the position in life of the Thackeray family at Hampsthwaite we are not able to give any account; but it is probable that they were of humble means. At all events, Thomas was admitted on the foundation to Eton, from which school he was elected to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, in

1711. The Yorkshire lad took degrees and reaped honours rapidly. He was A.B. in 1715, and A.M. in 1719. Subsequently he returned as assistantmaster to the school to which he owed his early education, and was a candidate for the provostship of King's College in 1744, when Dr. George was elected. Dr. Thackeray, however, was in most things a fortunate man. In 1746 he succeeded to the head-mastership of Harrow, where he soon made powerful friends. The renown of the school rapidly increased under his rule. He obtained several livings, became Archdeacon of Surrey, and was appointed chaplain to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the dull and despicable father of George III., whom the author of the "Lectures on the Four Georges" sketches with so strong a hand. Dr. Edmund Pyle, of Lynn, in a letter dated 1756, gives some interesting particulars of the Master of Harrow's history. He says: "Dr. Thackeray, who keeps a school at Harrow-on-the-Hill, has one living and fourteen children: a man bred at Eton, and a great scholar in the Eton way, and a good one every way; a true Whig, and proud to be so by some special marks of integrity. He

was candidate for the headship of King's, and would have beat all men but George, and George too, if Sir Robert Walpole had not made George's promotion a point. Since this disappointment he took the school at Harrow, to educate his own and other people's children, where he has performed all along with great reputation. The Bishop of Winchester never saw this man in his life, but had heard so much good of him, that he resolved to serve him some way or other if ever he could, but said nothing to anybody. On Friday last, he sent for this Dr. Thackeray, and when he came into the room my Lord gave him a parchment, and told him he had long heard of his good character, and long been afraid he should never be able to give him any serviceable proof of the good opinion he had conceived of him that what he had put into his hands was the Archdeaconry of Surrey, which he hoped would be acceptable to him, as he might perform the duty of it yearly at the time of his leisure in the Easter holidays. Dr. Thackeray was so surprised and overcome with this extraordinary manner of doing him a favour, that he was very near fainting as he was giving him