The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-06 00:00:00

Thackeray's Likeness,

The last, and in some respects the best, be-
yond all doubt the most interesting Likeness of
Thackeray, is the little carte de visite half-profile
photographed very beautifully by S. Ayling,
of 495, New Oxford-street, from a drawin g
(now the property of Chief Baron Pollock)
taken very recently (from the life) by the skilled
crayon of Samuel Laurence. The famous portrait
of Thackeray taken by S. Laurence years ago—the
portrait so admirably engraved by Holl and so
eloquently eulogised by Charlotte Bronte—is
known, of course, long since, to almost every one.
But the same artist's second limning of our
great humourist, the one now so very charmingly
and opportunely photographed by Mr. Ayling,
possesses in some particulars a superior attraction
even to that more highly elaborated work of art.
It shows us—this thrice-welcome carte de visite—
Thackeray as he was shortly before his lamented
death. Lightly sketched though the portraiture
is, it is pronounced by the most intimate friends
of the deceased to be—among all the pictures taken
of him—the most lifelike.

Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and
Baronetage for 1861.

Always admirably good, Debrett's Peerage—
" The British Bib e," as poor Thackeray calls it
in his witty Book of Snobs—is better than ever in
this its latest issue. It is more complete, this edi•
tion of it for 1864, than any one of its predecessors.
It appears to have been more carefully revised. It
is as compact as any such publication can possibly
contrive to be, with a due regard to comprehensive-
ness. It is illustrated profusely with heraldic designs.
It is arranged alphabetically. Its abbreviations are
perfectly clear and comprehensible throughout. And
altogether, for three half-crowns, the purchaser, in it,
obtains the most reliable repertory of information
any where procurable in regard to every one directly
related to, or forming an integral portion of, that
Aristocracy of ours, known, in common parlance, as
the Upper Ten thousand. Yet so wonderfully diffi-
cult must be the task of securing strict accuracy in
a compilation, made up of materials so perpetually
fluctuating—a task as difficult in its way as that ot
taking a faithful sket ch of a pattern in a kaleidoscope,
when the kaleidoscope is being perpetually shaken—
that even here, in this most recently and most care-
fully revised edition of Debrett, we note sparsely
sprinkled among the contents, infinitesimal errors of
facts,s)ips of the pen, slips of the press. For example,
the venerable Bishop of Exeter is spoken of, at page
225, as the "son of Mr. John Phillpotts, Esq., ot
Bridgewater." Again, at page 149, Earl Nelson's
coat-of-arms (supporters and all) is found to be be-
wilderingly, introduced in its proper place, topsy-
turvy. While, immediately above it, as if that
particular page of the work had somehow been un-
luckily overlooked in the correcting of the proof-
sheets, the motto of the Napier's, " Ready, aye
Ready," is oddly enough translated into "Without
Stain !" Another while, if we turn the literary
microscope of hypercritism upon the volume, solely
ith an eye to test the correctness of the typography
we may instance, at page 16, an announcement (that
would rather tend to puzzle a Foreigner) in re-
spect to the marriage of the Duchess of Inver-
ness, to the effect that the legality of her grace's
marriage with H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex
" was not sanctioned by the English aw"—the
1 having slipped up inadvertently a couple cif lines
higher and thence never having been brought
down again ! As a whole, however, the
work is really a marvel of accuracy. Ap-
pended to the original contents, moreover, it
is only fair to add, before closing our notice
of this new edition of Debrett for the current
year, that besides the fall and copious Peerage and
Baronetage, et cetera, the volume now at our elbow
comprises within it all the various orders of knight-
hood, together with many most acceptable explana-
tions (for the unlearned) of Heraldic figures and
terms, such as—points of the escutcheon, tinctures,
furs, charges, and roundles ; dexter, sinister, fess,
and nombril ; gules, purpure, or, and argent ;
ermine, ermines, and erminois; passant, rampant,
couchant, and regardant ; bruised, couped, roussant,
and adorsed ; bezant, pomey, galpe, and torteaux.