tlewood. Her husband, the Rev. W. H. Brookfield, was one of Thackeray's intimates, and their friendship dated back to their university days. Thackeray paid tribute to Brookfield's fine qualities by drawing him as Frank Whitestock in The Curate's Walk; and when asked towards the end of his life which of his friends he loved the best, replied, "Why, dear old Fitz, of course; and Brookfield." Fitz was Edward FitzGerald, the translator of Omar. Another old college chum, John (afterwards Archdeacon) Allen, was presented as Dobbin, who at the outset obviously was to be the butt of the story; but in the end the character, mastering its creator, developed into the fine, noble gentleman we know.

Although all are agreed that the original of the Marquis of Steyne was a Marquis of Hertford, the question is, which Lord Hertford is entitled to the invidious distinction? The first marquis lived too early, and for many reasons the fourth may be put out of court. Mr. George Somes Layard plumps for the third marquis; Mr. G. M. Ellis is all for the second, and writes as follows to the present writer: "May I give my reasons for thinking Thackeray had Francis, second Marquis of Hertford, in his mind when writing his description of Lord Steyne and Gaunt House? The third marquis was the son of the second, and both were intimate friends of George IV., who in point of age came just between the two: second marquis born 1743; George IV. born 1762; third marquis born 1777. Now, the second marquis did not die until 1822, which would cover the Vanity Fair period. Again, if chronology may be relied upon, there is much evidence in the book itself that points to the second marquis being Steyne. For instance, in the chapter entitled "Gaunt House," where the "fast" history of the house is given, Thackeray

says: "The Prince and Perdita have been in and out of that door," &c. Now the Prince of Wales finally separated from Mrs. Robinson in 1783, when the future third marquis was only six years old. In the same paragraph Thackeray mentions Egalité, Duke of Orleans, as a friend of Steyne's. Egalité was executed in 1793; and then, so far as dates are concerned, the Gaunt House period is in the twenties, when the third marquis would have been forty years old or so, whereas Lord Steyne is described as an old man and a grandfather. Of course these dates may prove nothing in view of an author's license to transpose and alter such things to suit his purpose. My strongest point is that the second marquis was a notorious roué, whereas his son, the third marquis, was nothing out of the way in this attribute-for a Regency buck. But his ancient father was a byword even at this period. He was called "The Hoary Old Sinner," and is constantly mentioned in The Examiner, The Courier, and the other papers which supported the cause of Queen Caroline against the king and his friends. One of the most notorious acts with which the second Lord Hertford excited society was the seduction of Mrs. Massey. This is alluded to by Thomas Moore in his satirical series of poems The Twopenny Post-Bag, where he also calls the marquis "the hoary old sinner." Of course Lord Hertford's wife was the mistress of George IV., and her husband and son were very complaisant over the matter. There is one other point: Thackeray says Lord Steyne was "Lord of the Powder Closet"; the second Marquis of Hertford was Lord Chamberlain of the king's household, but his son was not." Mr. Layard's opinion, however, is stated very plainly: "No one who has taken the trouble to investigate the lives of the three marquises can hesi

tate for a moment in identifying the 'Marquis of Steyne' with the third Marquis of Hertford." And he dwells on the resemblance between Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of the third marquis and the "suppressed" woodcut of Lord Steyne contained in the first issue of Vanity Fair. Both he and Mr. Charles Whibley, the wellknown critic and the author of a recent interesting monograph on Thackeray, assume that Lord Steyne of Vanity Fair and Lord Monmouth of Coningsby are drawn from the same peer. But is not this assumption too readily made? It is generally accepted that Lord Monmouth is the third Marquis of Hertford. Yet, though there are so many differences between Lord Monmouth and Lord Steyne, the critics are content to state that these differences arise naturally from the diverse treatment of the two authors. For instance, Mr. Whibley remarks that Thackeray gives us a brute, Disraeli a man. Yet this, to a certain extent, is explained if Thackeray drew from the second and Disraeli from the third marquis. But surely there is a still simpler explanation. Disraeli presented in Coningsby a roman-à-clef, a political study of a period, and naturally he was at pains to give an accurate portrait of his model. With Thackeray the case was very different. He was writing a work of fiction and nothing more. of the Marquises of Hertford, and when he created a profligate peer, what more likely than that he should tack these stories on to his creation? Or, being in possession of these stories, he drew a purely fancy portrait of Lord Hertford, since there was no reason why he should trouble to study the character of the nobleman in question. With these suggestions we may take leave of "the richly-dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which

Old Nick will fetch away at the end." There seems no doubt, however, that the Marquis of Steyne's managing man, Wenham, was drawn from the managing man of the third Marquis of Hertford, John Wilson Croker, who of course stood for Rigby in Coningsby. Now Rigby is Croker to the life, as seen by the prejudiced. In some such fashion would Macaulay have depicted him. Unfair as is the portraiture, this is not the place to rehabilitate the much-abused, well-hated politician. Wenham, however, could have been no more flattering to the original, for he is depicted as a mean, despicable creature. Thackeray had coals of fire poured upon him a little later when he was proposed at the Athenæum Club as a candidate to be elected without ballot as a person of distinguished eminence in literature, for then Croker supported him. It must have been strange indeed, as Milman remarked, to see Macaulay and Croker row together in the same boat. A good story is told of Croker and the author of Vanity Fair. When Croker was dead a mutual friend told Thackeray how Croker had begged his wife to seek out some homeless boys to stay with them from Saturday till Monday.

"They

will destroy your flower-beds and upset my inkstands, but we can help them more than they can hurt us." Thackeray choked, and went to see assured Croker, and her he would never speak or think ill of her husband again.

The History of Pendennis, so the story goes, was based upon a true anecdote of Brighton life, told to Thackeray by the Misses Smith (daughters of Horace, part-author of Rejected Addresses) when he told them he had to produce the first number of a novel in a few days, and had no idea how to start one. In gratitude he christened his heroine Laura after a younger sister, Mrs. Round. When Pendennis was finished

the original Laura was very angry, or at least pretended to be very angry. "I'll never speak to you again, Mr. Thackeray," she declared. "You know I meant to marry Bluebeard" - Lady Rockminster's name for George Warrington.

Young Pendennis was a great favorite with the author, which is not unnatural when it is remembered that the character was in great part drawn from himself. "Being entirely occupied with my two new friends, Mrs. Pendennis and her son, Arthur Pendennis," Thackeray wrote from Brighton to the Brookfields, "I got up very early again this morning, and was with them for more than two hours before breakfast. He is a very good-natured, generous young fellow, and I begin to like him considerably. I wonder if he is interesting to me from selfish reasons, and because I fancy we resemble each other in many parts." Pendennis followed closely in the footsteps of his creator. Both went to the Gray Friars School-the Charterhouse of realitywhere Doctor Swishtail was as severe upon the eponymous hero as Doctor Russell upon the novelist when a lad. Pendennis lived for a while at Ottery St Mary, in a house-Fairoaks-that corresponds to Larkbeare, the residence of Thackeray's mother and stepfather. Pendennis sent poems to The County Chronicle and Chatteris Champion, Thackeray to The Western Luminary. Pendennis made friends with the vicar, Doctor Portman, who is no doubt drawn from Thackeray's friend, the Rev. Dr. Cornish. Pendennis went to the Chatteris Theatre, as we may be sure Thackeray visited the Exeter Theatre. The latter was always a lover of the theatre. It is recorded that he asked a friend if he loved "the play," and was answered, "Ye-es, I like a good play"; whereupon he retorted, "Oh, get out! I said the play. don't even understand what I mean.”

You

It is not known that Thackeray fell in love with an actress in the Exeter Theatre stock company, but so autobiographical, apparently, is this part of the novel that Mr. Herman Merivale is inclined to think the fiction is based upon fact. Miss Emily Costigan, better known under her theatrical name of Fotheringay, was freely adapted from Miss O'Neill, who became Lady Becher. We have it on Thackeray's authority that her father, Captain "Jack" Costigan, was a fancy portrait. Pendennis went later to St. Boniface's College, Oxbridge (as Thackeray had been to Trinity College, Cambridge), where he was a more notorious character than his prototype. Crump of Boniface was Whewell, Master of Trinity. Subsequently Pendennis came to town to study law, which, however, he soon abandoned for journalism, as Thackeray had done before him. Like Thackeray, too, he lived in the Temple, and shared chambers with George Warrington, as Thackeray had lived with Tom Taylor or another.

"You will find much to remind you of old talk and faces-of William John O'Connell, Jack Sheehan, and Andrew Arcedeckne," Thackeray wrote to George Moreland Crawford, who had nursed him through the illness that nearly brought Pendennis to a premature conclusion. "There is something of you in Warrington, but he is not fit to hold a candle to you, for, taking you all round, you are the most genuine fellow that ever strayed from a better world into this. You don't smoke, and he is a confirmed smoker of tobacco. Bordeaux and port were your favorites at the Deanery1 and the Garrick, and Warrington is always guzzling beer. But he has your honesty, and, like you,

I The "Deanery" was an old-fashioned public-house near St. Paul's, so referred to by a certain set from the fact that it was often graced by the presence of Barham, of "Ingoldsby Legends" fame, a canon of the neighboring cathedlra.

could not posture if he tried. You have a strong affinity for the Irish. May you some day find an Irish girl to lead you to matrimony! There's no such good wife as a daughter of Erin." Mrs. Ritchie thinks there is something of her father in Warrington, and perhaps a likeness to Edward FitzGerald; and it has been said that the character was based partly on George Stovin Venables, whose name figures in Thackeray's personal history as the smasher of the latter's nose in a fight at the Charterhouse. Opinions are divided as to whether Jack Sheehan or Maginn sat for Captain Shandon. But Maginn, an old friend of the author, was a greater than Shandon. He may have dictated the prospectus of some Pall Mall Gazette from the Fleet Prison; he may have written-indeed, he did write -articles that were models of virulent abuse; but he was a parodist of no mean merit, and his Shakespearian essays and his Latin versions of "Chevy Chase" and other ballads extorted praise even from his enemies. The noblemen on the staff of the paper "written by gentlemen for gentlemen" were Lords William and Henry Lennox and a brother of the Duke of St. Albans, of whom Sheehan said, "His name Beauclerc is a misnomer, for he is always in a fog and never clear about anything."

Foker differs from Thackeray's other characters, for there can be little doubt it was an accurate portrait of Andrew Arcedeckne of the Garrick Club. It was probably this which was the cause of Thackeray's being blackballed at the Traveller's Club, where the ballot is by members and not by the committee, on the grounds that the members feared they might appear in some later novel. It is said that Arcedeckne was small in stature and eccentric in his mode of dressing, drove stagecoaches as an amateur, loved fighting-cocks and the prizering, and had a large estate in Nor

folk. The Hon. Henry Coke says he was so like a seal that he was called "Phoca" by his intimates. It was Arcedeckne who criticised Thackeray's first lecture on "The Four Georges." "Bravo, Thack, my boy! Uncommon good show! But it'll never go without a pianner!" There was, however, no enmity between them. Thackeray declared his model to be "not half a bad fellow"; and Arcedeckne remarked, "Awfully good chap old Thack was. Lor' bless you, he didn't mind me a bit. But I did take it out of him now and again. Never gave him time for repartie."

Pendennis naturally went to Thackeray's haunts, "The Cave of Harmony" and "The Back Stairs," better known as Evans's Coffee-house and "The Cider Cellars," and at the latter heard Mr. Nadab the improvisatore, who in life was known as Charles Sloman. He was intimate with Thackeray's friends and acquaintances, and in his illness was attended by Thackeray's doctor, Elliotson - to whom Pendennis is dedicated - who figures in the story as Doctor Goodenough, the friend of Major Pendennis. Major Pendennis's noble friend, Lord Colchicum, was sketched from the very naughty Lord Lonsdale of the day; and there was, says Thackeray, writing to American intimates, "a friend of mine who is coming out to New York, and to whom I shall give a letter a queer fellow, the original of the Chevalier Strong." Many of the journalists and men of letters in the book had their prototypes. Bungay is a caricature of Colburn the publisher, and the proprietor of The New Monthly Magazine, to which at one time Thackeray was a contributor. Colburn is eminent among the publishers who have missed opportunities, for he declined to commission Thackeray to finish a novel of which he was shown the earlier chapters, and which is known to us

a

as Vanity Fair. It is said that the late W. H. Wills, the business manager of Household Words, suggested to Thackeray the publisher's reader who, "from having broken out in the world as a poet of a tragic and suicidal cast, had now subsided into one of Mr. Bungay's back shops, as reader for that gentleman." A visitor at one of Bungay's dinner-parties, Captain Sumph, with his silly stories of Byron, was sketched from Captain Medwin, the author of a volume of dull Conversations with Byron. Mr. Wagg, henchman of Lord Steyne, was drawn from Theodore Hook, the author of some now almost forgotten novels, and, more particularly, of the Ramsbottom Letters in the John Bull newspaper. Those letters were parodied by Thackeray in The Snob and The Gownsman, weekly periodicals written and published by Cambridge undergraduates in 1829 and 1830. Thackeray actually had the audacity to put into Wagg's mouth one of Hook's own jokes. Wagg is made to ask Mrs. Bungay, "Does your cook say he's a Frenchman?" and to reply, when that lady expresses her ignorance, "Because if he does, he's a-quizzin' yer" (cuisinier). Mr. Charles Whibley informs us that "Archer, the quidnunc," whose advice is always wanted at the palace, and whose taste for cold beef the Duke himself consults, is none other than Tom Hill of The Monthly Mirror, whom Theodore Hook painted as Hull in Gilbert Gurney.

Of all the women in Pendennis, only one has been traced to an original. Like Becky, Blanche Amory, if, strictly speaking, she had not a prototype, at least was suggested by an acquaint

"We talked and persiflated all the way to London, and the idea of her will help me to a good chapter, in which I will make Pendennis and Blanche play at being in love, such a wicked, false, humbugging, London love as two blasé London people might act, and half-deceive themselves that they were in earnest. That will complete the cycle of Mr. Pen's worldly experiences, and then we will make, or try to make, a good man of him." The resemblance of Blanche Amory to Miss Gwas distinct enough for Mrs. Carlyle to notice. "Not that poor little is quite such a little devil as Thackeray, who has detested her from a child, has here represented,” she remarked. "But the looks, the manners, the wiles, the larmes, and all that sort of thing are perfect." This was almost magnanimous of Mrs. Carlyle, for both she and her husband disliked the girl. "Oh, my dear!" Mr. Carlyle exclaimed when she went away, "we cannot be sufficiently thankful." Not that Carlyle's objection counts for much, for he was a gey ill person to get along with.

In Thackeray's remaining books other than the historical works, of which the discussion in this article is forbidden by considerations of space - it is not so easy to trace originals. Abraham Hayward, whose elderly effigy was cartooned in Vanity Fair, was also introduced into Mrs. Perkins's Ball as Mr. Flam, and, Mr. LockerLampson has recorded, like that exquisite he had curling locks, a neat little foot, a lip vermilion, and an abra'm nose. There was a prototype for Dorothea, and probably for other heroines of Mr. George Savage FitzBoodle's amorous adventures. Captain Granby Calcroft lives as Captain Granby Tiptoff; and Mr. J. M. Evans, one of the proprietors of Punch, was portrayed in The Kickleburys on the Rhine. Miss Baxter claims that her