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

W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ., AUTHOR OF
" PANDENNIS,"
The New York Tribune says—" We 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,
and 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 Singlake, 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
and clever caricatures, smoked, lounged, 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 the character of the mother of Arthur
Pendennis,' married again about this time, and the
young man, always the object of the proudest maternal
love, came into possession of his paternal inheritance.
He 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 of War-
rington,' in 'Peudennis,' he has developed the career of
the students, and the varied life of the Temple, in
some of the best passages ho 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 are 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 were evidently ending, and he 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-
father 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,
Thaokeray met his present wife, an Irish lady of good
family, and married her. From this time dates his first
purelyr literary effort, the Yellowplush Papers,' after-
wards published as Jeamea's Diary'—in which his cha-
racteristic tendency is clearly indicated. The step-father's
Constitutional absorbed most of his property, of course,
and failed. 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 and 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
result, not only in this county but throughout the southern
part of the 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 off. The horse at the start was about two
lengths ahead, but in going fifty yards the mare dis-
tanced bum, 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 io 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 changed hands on this occasion. As an in-
stance of the excitement which prevailed, we would cite
an incident that occurred under our own observation.
E
An honourable disciple ofsculapius 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. He 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 Wolfshill laud, about a mile
below the city, between the American horse Bear Mefkt
and the American mare Nubbins, the principal stake
being four hundred head of cows aside, and the distance
four hundred yards. The mare came in about ten 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.

MISS JENKYNS IN ALARM. AT.
BONAPARTE.

I think it was in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns wrote the
longest series of letters, on occasion of her absence on a
visit to some friends near Newcastle-upon-Tyno. These
friends were intimate with the commandant of
the garrison there, and • heard from him of
all the preparations that were being made
to repel the invasion of Bonaparte, which
some people imagined might take place at the month of
the Tyne. Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much
alarmed; and the first part of her letters was often
written in pretty intelligible English, conveying particu-
lars of • the preparations which were made in
the family with whom she was residing against
the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes that
were packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor (a
wild hilly piece of ground between Northumber-
land and Cumberland); the signal that was to be given
for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning out of
the volunteers under arms; which said signal was to
consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing church bells
in a particular and ominous manner. This warning
summons was actually given one day, when
Miss Jenkyns and, her hosts were at a dinner-
party. in Newcastle (not a very wise proceeding,
if there be any truth in the moral attached
to the fable of the Boy and the Wolf; but so it was),
and Miss Jenkyns, hardly recovered from her fright,
wrote the next day to describe the sound, the breath-
less shock, the hurry and alarm; and then, taking
breath, she added, " How trivial, my dear father, do all
our apprehensions of the last evening appear, at the
present moment, to calm and inquiring minds!" And
here Miss Matey broke in with—" But, indeed, my
dear, they were not at all trivial or trifling at the
time. I know I used to wake up in the
night many a time, and think I heard the tramp of the
French entering Cranford. My mother has sat by my bed
half a night through, holding my hand and comforting
me; and many people talked of hiding themselves in the
salt mines—and meat would have keptcapitallydown there,
only perhaps we should have been thirsty. And my fa-
ther preached a.whole set of sermons on the occasion;
one set in the mornings, all about David and Goliath,
to spirit up the people to fighting with spades or bricks,
.if need were ; and the other set in the afternoon, prov-
ing that Napoleon (that was another name for Bony, as
we used to call him), was all the same as Apollyon and
Abaddon. I remember, my father rather thought he
should be asked to print this last set; but the parish
had, perhaps, had enough of them with hearing."—
Dickens's " Household Words."

SEABORNE MAILS.
[N signifies that the mails are sent from the General Post-Mee
by the eight--and M by the morning—dispatch.)