Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-01-22
THE DAILY TIMES
A LIST OF THACKERAY'S WRITINGS.

A LIST OF THACKERAY'S WRITINGS
As for the various lives of Thackeray that hav
been written and read, they are not half as tru
as the biography of Goody Two Shoes, as oul
youngest, not of petticoats, who swears by thu
latter, can vouch. The first trace we find O
Ihaekerays public works, for of his private there
IS nothing authentic yet published, is his appear.
ance IN 1885, after short term at the University
| OF Cambridge (which he left without taking q
degree: at the Louvre, copying pictures with the
| view OF becoming an artist. But he turned from
| to the more congenial and Hogarthian vein of ca
rlcature. There were ''more kicks than coppers''
to be got in this school, and so there was an end
TO his mere artist life, and Thackeray took to
literature as profession, for which the world
now gives bin loud thanks, and which genera
tons 10 come will continue in prolongt 4 echo
LIS hrst literary attempt was weekly journal
Ike our own, but which, unlike our own, was
unsuccessful. Now he was all abroad in the lite
lary world. Fraser soon secured him, and in
his service Thackeray has done some of his best
work, and achieved his first triumph, In that
festive group of the Fraserians, sketched picto-
rally by the pencil of Crowquil, and published
decade ago in Fraser's Magazine. you can see
across the table through crowd of bottles, two
at least to each man, somewhat in the distance,
| round face, peering through eye-glass, which,
IT you have ever seen Thackeray, you will pro-
nounce at once to be his lie is on the right, in
the picture, Of Maginn, who is presiding, and
mixing punch, or drawing cork, Oh singing a
song, OR saying witty thing, or doing other con-
VITALITY, which we forget, for we are trusting to
our memory.
To resume our figure and as we have promised
our readers battue, let beat the covers of old
Fraser, the London Punch, Cruikshank's comic
almanac, and other famous preserves. We will
start manifold game, a fat buck or so, some wild
| fowl, some rather small birds perhaps, but we
promise the hunters rare sport, and delectable
feast, and we wish them good appetite.
Charles YelloWplush seems to have made his
debut In Fraser's MagaSane in 1887, in a charac-
teristic review of one of those Chesterfeldian
books on polite conversation which appear from
time to time, and to which, by the way, as with
the books on cookery, a considerable deal of non
sense is reasonably to be allowed. This was en-
titled "My Book; or, the Anatomy of Conduct"
and had more than the usual share of nonsense.
1t was easy prey to Yelowplush who next
year in his papers entered on graver matters, in
the tragic history of Mr.. Deuceace, which still
remains one of the most powerful of his charac-
ters.
In 1889 he published in Fraser Catha,1ne, a
Story By key Solomons, Esq, Jr.-a second alias
of the anonymous author. 1t was illustrated with
etchngs. 1t was a we'll directed and strongly
expressed satire. All the characters are rogues
or worse-of the Paul Clifford, lockwood, and
Oliver Twist stamp. 1t was reductio ad absur-
dun of the Newgate Calendar school of novel
writing. The fashion has become extinct, and'
the satire now would probably shock without i'm
provement by its necessary coarseness.
In the same year we find Mr.. Thackeray the
correspondent of paper in this city, the Corsoir,
then conducted by Willis and Porter His COM
munications are entitled Letters from London,
Paris, Petersburg, 9c.
Stubs Calendar; or, the Fatal Boots, q comic
diversion, ran through Cruikshank's Comic Al
manac, 1889, in twelve chapters for the months.
illustrated by that artist 1t has since been print
ed by the author in another form.
Barber Coz and the Cutting of his Comb, ran
through Cruikshank for 1910. 1t has the SUI
generis character of Thackeray is a story of
parvenu who gets no mercy at the hands of the
author, but is first laughingly tickled into impor-
| lance, and then merclessly collapsed, as the
boys treat certain fish which they titilate I'M
til it swells enormously, and then cruelty burst
with crack.
The PARIS Sketch Book, by Michael Angelo
Titmarsh, appeared in two volumes in London,
in 1870 Many of its papers had been issued in
Fraser. One of them, entitled {" Napoleon and
his System" is review of Prince Louis Napo
Icons work, the Mees Napohoniennes. 1t closes
with the remarkable sentence, which is, for such
things, quite propheoy-tln like manner Ma
poleon III. returned from exile, and made his
at Strasburg, and from Strasburg advanced to
the capital; but it arrived at Paris with keeper,
and IN post-chaise; whence, by the orders of
the sovereign, it was removed to the American
shores, and there magnanimously let loose. Who
knows, however, how soon it will be on the wing
again, and what flight it will take!" The
Paris Sketch Book has also, in those profound
calculations at Versailles" satire picture of
majesty in undress, which Thackeray has often
repeated in the course of his books the lay figure
being indifferently Louis XIV. or George w.
Everybody remembers the picture of the Snob
Royal, Georgius ". 1t has appeared in our CO.
lumns and was at another time written by our
author in the form of an epitaph Here it is in
the latter dress-one of series of pithy notices
for the Parliament House statues of the Georges
1t is from Punch:
ssGEoRGIUs uLTIMUs.
CHE left an example for age and for youth
To avoid,
Ho never acted well by Man or Woman,
And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.
He deserted his Friends and his Principles.
He was so Ignorant that he could scarcely Spell;
But he had some Skill in Cutting out Goats,
And an undenable Taste for Cookery.
He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Bucking-
ham,
And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,
An admiring Aristocracy
Christened him the First Gentleman in Europe.
Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,
And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.
A Shabby Genteel Story appeared in Fraser in
lS4I.
In 1871 two volumes of Comic Tales and
Sketches were published, which contained the
YellowpIush Papers and several short tales, The
Bedford Row Conspiracy, the Professor, and
Some Passages an lie Life Of Major Gahagan.
The last has just been republished by the Apple
tons, and is full of boisterous fun. The military
novelists, horse, foot, and dragoon, with drum
fife, and colors flying, are pafading before us in
this satire in all the splendor of amusing absurdi
ty. Baron Munchausen is a truth teller in COM
parison with Gahagan, and common Irish bulls
are sucking calves to those of the gallant major