/k PR Library Cornell University PR 5634.B46 The Thackeray country, Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014159945 Zhc IpilGrimaoe Series THE THACKERAY COUNTRY IN THE SAME SERIES THE SOOTT COUNTRY BY W. S. CROCKETT Minister of Tweedsmuir \V. M. THACKERAY. Frryin an Etching in dry point by G. Barnctt Smith. THE THACKERAY COUNTRY LEWIS MELVILLE AUTHOR OK "the LIFE OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY," ETC., ETC. WITH FORTY .EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS MOSTLY FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY C. W. BARNES WARD LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK SOHO SQUARE 1906 First Published . Janmry 1911 Reprinted . August TO MY WIFE PREFACE Though no book treating of the Thackeray Country has been written, there have been workers in the field. First came Mr W. H. Rideing's pamphlet on Thackeray's London; then appeared the volumes, Thackeray s Haunts and Homes and With Thackeray in America, written and illustrated by Mr Eyre Crowe, who for a while was Thackeray's secretary, and who accompanied him on one of the visits to the United States quite recently, Mr W. Sharp has ; written a most interesting paper on " The Liter- " ary Geography of Thackeray ; and Mr James MacVicar is contributing topographical introduc- tions to the " London " edition of Thackeray's works, now in course of publication. To each of these writers I express my indebtedness for valuable suggestions contained in their writings. VllI PREFACE I have also derived a not inconsiderable amount of information from Miss G. E. Mitton and the late Sir Walter Besant's admirable hand- books, The Fascination of London ; and also from Mrs Ritchie's Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs, and her Biographical Introductions to an edition of her father's works. Lewis Melville. Barnes, New Year's Day 1905. — CONTENTS t-MAF. PAGE PREFACE ..,.,., vii INTRODUCTORY ..,.,. 1 I. THACKERAY'S EARLY . HOMES . .19 II. THACKERAY AND THE CHARTERHOUSE . 33 III. PENDENNIS-LAND, CAMBRIDGE, AND THE TEMPLE . 50 IV. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THACKERAY'S HOMES I. TYBURNIA ; II. BLOOMSBURY . 72 V. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THACKERAY'S HOMES— III. ST JAMES'S AND MAYFAIR . 9I VL THACKERAY'S CLUBS AND HAUNTS . .110 VII. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THACKERAY'S HOMES— IV. KENSINGTON ; V. BROMPTON . .136 VIII. THACKERAY IN PARIS . .165 IX. THACKERAY ON THE CONTINENT . 181 X. THACKERAY IN AMERICA . .198 INDEX .,,,,,, 215 IX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS From Photographs by C. W. Barnes Ward, etc. W. M. Thackeray, from an Etching in dry Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Colonel Newcome's House, Fitzroy Square Facingpage Lincoln's Inn Fields, South Side Old Newgate Prison . Bedford Hotel, Covent Garden Jermyn Street . St James's Palace, Pall Mall . 23 Walpole Street Hertford House, Manchester Square Becky Sharp's House in Curzon Street Strangers' Room, Reform Club Vauxhall Gardens The Colonnade, Covent Garden The Ring Drive, Hyde Park . 13 (now 16) Young Street, Kensington Kensington Palace Kensington Square 36 Onslow Square, Brompton 2 Palace Green, Kensington . Palace Green . Thackeray's Grave, Kensal Green Cemetery W. M. Thackeray, from an Ink Drawing by Samuel Laurence W. M. Thackeray, from a Pencil Drawing by Richard Doyle W, M. Thackeray, Bust in Westminster Abbey THE THACKERAY COUNTRY INTRODUCTORY "If you want to travel, my poor Spec," said Frank Whitestock, the curate, to ' The Fat Contributor,' "you should not be trusted very far beyond Islington. It is certain that you can describe a tea-kettle better than a pyramid." So Thackeray made fun of his powers of description. Yet surely he was not quite fair to himself. It was his custom to belittle his own performances. He spoke slightingly of his lectures, and made disparaging remarks about his books. " I have just read such a stupid part of Pendennis, but how well written it is." " I can't say I think much of Pendennis, at least of the execution ; it certainly drags about the middle ; but I had an attack of illness at the time I reached that part of the book, and could not make it any better than I did," He had the audacity to say that Esmond was dull. Esmond, the greatest historical novel in the language, the high-water mark of English fiction in the nineteenth century. But his remarks were not always damning. " I bought the Kickleburys, Rebecca and Rowena, and ; 2 THE THACKERAY COUNTRY the Rhine Story, and read them through with immense pleasure. Do you know, I think all three capital ; and R. and R. not only made me laugh, but the other thing." "I have been reading The Hoggarty Diamond this morning upon my word and honour, if it doesn't make you cry, I shall have a mean opinion." Even of Esmond he spoke well when Mr Fields met him in Beacon Street, New York, with the three volumes of that book tucked under his arm. "Here is the very best I can do," he said; "and I am carrying it to Prescott as a reward for having given me my first dinner in America. I stand by this book, and am willing to leave it, where I go, as my card." Thackeray was no doubt more at home in Mayfair than in Palestine ; but probably the majority of those who read the Paris and Irish Sketch-books and From Cornhill to Grand Cairo, will not hesitate to affirm that his pen-pictures of foreign towns and his descriptions of scenery leave little to be desired. Take, for example, the visit of Henry Esmond to the grave of his mother in the convent cemetery, close by the church of St Gudule at Brussels. " Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring, and saw, amidst a thousand black crosses, casting their shadows across the grassy mounds, that particular one that marked his mother's resting-place. Many more of those poor creatures that lay there had adopted that same name, Sceur Marie Madeleine, with which sorrow had rebaptised her, and which fondly seemed to hint their individual story of love and grief He fancied her in tears and !: INTRODUCTORY 3 darkness, kneeling at the foot of her cross, under which her cares were buried. Surely he knelt down, and said his own prayer there, not in sorrow so much as in awe (for even his memory had no recollection of her), and in pity for the pangs which the gentle soul in life had been made to suffer. To this cross she brought them ; for this heavenly bridegroom she exchanged the husband who had wooed her, the traitor who had left her. A thousand such hillocks lay around, the gentle daisies springing out of the grass over them, and each bearing its cross and requiescat. A nun, veiled in black, was kneeling hard by, at a sleeping sister's bedside (so freshly made, that the spring had scarce had time to spin a coverlid for it) ; beyond the cemetery walls you had glimpses of life and the world, and the spires and gables of the city. A bird came down from a roof opposite, and lit first on a cross, and then on the grass below it, whence it flew away presently with a leaf in its mouth : then came a sound as of chanting, from the chapel of the sisters hard by ; others had long since filled the place which poor Mary Magdaleine once had there, were kneeling in the same stall, and hearing the same hymns and prayers in which her stricken heart had found consolation. Might she sleep in peace—might she sleep in peace ; and we, too, when our struggles and pains are over But the earth is the Lord's as the heaven is we are alike his creatures here and yonder. I took a little flower off the hillock and kissed it, and went my way, like the bird that had just lighted on the cross by me, back into the world 4 THE THACKERAY COUNTRY again. Silent receptacle of death ; tranquil depth of calm, out of the reach of tempest and trouble! I felt as one who had been walking below the sea, and treading amidst the bones of shipwrecks." Of description there is but a minimum, yet the scene is conjured up more minutely than probably could be done by the most exact topographer. It remains with one through the years, and, though a decade may have passed since the book was read, yet the slightest reference brings before the mind the picture of the ill-used lad standing by the side of the earthly resting-place of his erring, forsaken mother. Take another passage from an earlier work treating of the Kickleburys and Mr Titmarsh am Rhein. "The next morning we had passed by the rocks and towers, the old familiar landscapes, the gleaning towns by the river-side, and the green vineyards combed along the hills, and when I woke up it was at a great hotel at Cologne and it was not sunrise yet. Deutz lay opposite, and over Deutz the dusky sky was reddened. The hills were veiled in the mist and the grey. The grey river flowed underneath us ; the steamers were roosting along the quays, a light keeping watch in the cabins here and there, and its reflections, quivering in the water. As I look, the sky-line towards the east grows redder and redder. A long troop of grey horsemen winds down the river road, and passes over the bridge of boats. You might take them for ghosts, those grey horsemen, so shadowy do they look ; but you hear the trample of their hoofs as they pass over the planks.