The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-11
From the London Bookman.

From the London Bookman.
 /" LANCE decided the career of the young Thackeray. Born in India,
 O sent home to be educated at Cam bridge, he decided to follow the law and entered himself as a student of the Mid dle temple, but disliking the profession, abandoned it, over his mothers protest, upon coming of age. He soon squan- dered or lost the patrimony which had made him independent in- this matter and found it imperative to get something to do.
 "A chance decided his choice" the writer continues. "He happened to know Alphabet Bayley, who had just started a weekly paper, the National Standard and Journal of Literature, Science, Mu- sic. Theatricals and Fine Arts. To this periodical Thackeray contributed early in his career; soon he bought it, and for seven or eight months edited 1t and poured into It's columns reviews, stories, verses, articles and drawings, not any of them. it must be confesed, of any partic- ular merit.
 When his finances could no longer stand the strain of the weekly losses, for the paper never paid it's way, the publ- cation was stopped. The story of this unfortunate venture may be read i'll Lovel the Widower "
 Not finding journalism ''hoverandabuv remunerative." as he expressed 1t, he de- cided to try painting, but returned to writing to make his fame and fortune in series of Pencil Sketches of English Society" published monthly and called "vanity Fair
 "Of all novelists cf the Nineteenth Gen. tury," says the Bookman "Thackeray is par excellence the novelist of the London of the well to do, and it would doubtless be possible, and at some future time may well be done, to reconstruct from his pages the life in early and mid-victorian days of the middle and upper classes in the metropolis.
 "Thackeray was in many ways cosmo- | politan, but he was at heart as arrant a cockney as ever was born within sound | of Bow Bells. He loved his London and | knew it as well as most men; but his Lon | don, it must be confessed, did not cover | the entire area of the capital. With the | city he had but little acquaintance, Of the East End he knew nothing, and little more of the suburbs, save those directly west of Kensington church.
 l ''I1e knew the west central district be- cause he lived for time in Great Coram ! street and the Temple he both knew and l loved; but the West End was his beat, | from the Garrick club in King street, | Covent Garden, to Holland House and Fayfair and St. James were the quarters | in which he delighted.
 "Thackeray's interest in London, how lever, was not, so much typographical as human. it was. not in perambulating it's highways and byways that he found his pleasure, but in the people that lived in its houses and thronged it's thorough fares It is difficult to recall descriptions l of places in his novels. yet with sure touch he always gave the correct atmos- 1 rhere to any district he introduced. That
 Thackeray knew his limitation there car | se no doubt, for he made fun of himself in this respect
 Spec he makes the Rev. Frank White stock address nlm when He IS SettiiiS ou'
 on his Travels in London you should not be trusted very far beyond Islington
 It is certain that you can describe tea
 kettle better than a pyramid.
 "He also knew his gift, which was to
 observe people,; wherever he went nc
 kept hiss eyes open. Where the ordinary
 man saw a grumpy old rtired officer ne
 saw Major Pendennis; where the ordi'
 nary man saw an interruptions adven- turess he saw Miss Rebecca Shafp
 where the ordinary man saw disrepu'
 table Irishman he saw Captain Costigah
 Though we pass them by with unsee, ing eyes, his characters are 10 pc me
 with every day. To quote from one o the very interesting Artists Prefaces'
 which Harry Furniss is contributing ts his edition of the novelist's works:
 .costigans will not disappear wher home rule is granted.s Claverings ant
 AItamonts are walking about London ana
 occasionally can be sketched in the docl
 at Bow street: and as for Major Pendoa