The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-08 00:00:00

SUN,

W. M. THACKER4Y, ESQ., AUTHOR OF!
"PI:NDENNIS,"
The New York Tribune says-- N are glad to help
ourselves and our readers to a little knowledge of Mr.
Thackeray, who is expected to visit the United States
this year. He was born in Calcutta in the year 1811,
sad is now consequently 41 years old. His father was
a high official of the East India Company, which se-
cured him the entree of the best society, and a large
income. Our author was born a gentleman.' He
went to school in England—experienced all the tyranny
of a brutal master, and the misery of fagging. He left
school for the University of Cambridge, where he
studied with Kinglake, the author of Eothen'—Eliot
Warburton, who wrote the Crescent and the Cross,'
and was lost with the Amazon—and Richard Monckton
Milnes. Meanwhile the elder Thackeray died, and the
future historian of Vanity Fair' launched himself into
its midst with an annual income of about a thousand
pounds. He lived according to his whims, drew sharp
arid clever caricatures, smoked, lounged, feasted upon
books of every kind, and opened the oyster of the world
at leisure. His mother, a woman of great beauty, and
full of talent and tenderness, whose memory is so filially
embalmed in tha character of the mother of Arthur
Pondennis,' married again about this time, and the
young man, always the object of the proudest maternal
love, came into possession of his paternal inheritance.
Ho immediately returned from the Continent, where he
had been staying a little time, and took up his residence
in the Temple. Here Thackeray entered himself as a
student of jurisprudence, and in the character or War-
riugton,' in 'Pendennis,' he has developed the career of
the students, and the varied life of the Temple, in
some of the best passages he has ever written.
Henry Taylor, the dramatist, author of Philip Van
Artevelde,' is among the residents of the Temple,
and is mentioned by the German commentator as the
original of a character in Thackeray's romance.
We ere at a loss to determine which; for if
Warrington' be so intended, he seems to us to
lose the point. ' Warrington' is a man of power
without a career—Taylor a man of talent, who
has certainly achieved a reputation quite equal to his
just claims. However, the Temple not only furnished
our author characters, but also the necessity of drawing
them; for while there, and when scarcely more than
twenty-three years old, the young man had fooled
away' his property, and was poor. The days of loung-
ing wore evidently ending, and ho betook himself to
Paris, conceiving, from his facility in sketching, that he
was born for an artist. A brief time among the Parisian
ateliers sufficed to remove this idea. But as his step-
tether at this period established a journal in London,
called the Constitutional, the artist naturally became
the Paris correspondent. Thus, like Dickens, he com-
menced his literary career as a journalist. In Paris,
Thackeray met his present wife, an Irish lady of good
family, and married her. From this time dates his first
purely literary effort, the Yellowplush Papers,' after-
wards published as Jeames's Diary'—in which his cha-
racteristic tendency is clearly indicated. The step-father's
Constitutional absorbed most of his property, of course,
and tailed. The son was obliged to return to England,
and to begin work in earnest for himself."

RACES IN CALIFORNIA.
On Wednesday, the 21st ultimo, the longest arid most
exciting race that has ever been run in California, came
off on the track, two miles south-east of this city, between
the Sydney mare Black Swan and the California horse
Sarco. This race has furnished food for conversation for
six weeks past, and a great deal of interest was felt in the
re,,ult,not only in this county but throughout the southern
part of thu State; and the crowd collected to witness
the sport was such as is seldom seen here. The Sarco
was thought by the native population to be invincible,
and many hesitated not to stake their whole on his win-
ning the race. The Black Swan is well known as a race
horse, having run several races in the northern part of
the state. Both animals were in good condition on ar-
riving at the ground, though .it was easy to perceive the
superior training of the mare. At the word "Santiago,"
they were eft The horse at the start was about two
lengths ahead, but in going fifty yards the mare dia.
t4n,ed him, and kept her position till the arrival at the
turning point, when the horse again led. As before, how-
ever, the mare soon came up, and arrived at the winning
post about 75 yards ahead, having completed the nine
miles in just nineteen minutes and twenty seconds.
The principal stake was one thousand head of cattle,
and two thousand dollars in money, but from reliable
sources we are informed that not less than fifty thou-
sand dollars charged hands on this occasion. As an in-
stance of the excitement which prevailed, we would cite
an incident that occurred under our own observation.
An honourable disciple of Esculapius who is doing a
small business in the curative line, among the native
population, was on the ground and happened to take a
fancy to the mare. Ile staked all the cash ho had—
the proceeds of many a pill and blister—his horse, and
then his cloak, and when last we saw him, he was ban-
tering the yenta to stake his hat upon the mare.
On Friday, the 2d instant, a race of scarcely less im-
portance came off on the Wolfskill land, about a mile
below the city, between the American horse Bear Meat
and the American mare Nubbins, the principal stake
being four hundred head of cows aside, and the distance
four hundred yards. Tho mare came in about ton feet
ahead; but, judging from the way the horse had gained
on the mare in the last twenty jumps, had the distance
been a hundred yards further, victory would have de-
cided in favour of Bear Meat.—Los Angeles Star.