with his last illness, and there were to be no, near to Berne, in Switzerland, I strayed more Whister parties for him. Will Whister from them into a little wood; and coming himself, hospitable, pigtailed shade, welcome out of it presently told them how the him to Hades? And will they sit down-no, story had been revealed to me somehow, stand up to a ghostly supper, devouring the which for three-and-twenty months the 1000s oxas of oysters and all sorts of birds? reader has been pleased to follow." It I never feel pity for a man dying, only for survivors, if there be such passionately de- was on this Swiss tour that he wrote me ploring him. You see the pleasures the under- the following characteristic letter, filled signed proposes to himself here in future years with kindly recollections of convivial hours -a sight of the Alps, a holiday on the Rhine, in Philadelphia, of headaches which he had a ride in the park, a colloquy with pleasant contributed to administer, and of friends friends of an evening. If it is death to part whose society he cherished. On the back with these delights (and pleasures they are, and of this note is a pen-and-ink caricature of no mistake), sure the mind can conceive others which he was not conscious when he began afterwards; and I know one small philosopher to write. It is what he alludes to as "the who is quite ready to give up these pleasures; rubbishing picture which I didn't see." quite content (after a pang or two of separation The sketch is very spirited, and, as a friend from dear friends here) to put his hand into to whom I have shown it reminds me, evithat of the summoning angel, and say, Lead dently is the original of one of the illus on, O messenger of God our Father, to the next trations of his grotesque fairy tale of place whither the divine goodness calls us!' We must be blindfolded before we can pass, I "The Rose and the Ring," written, so he know; but I have no fear about what is to come, told a member of my family years afterany more than my children need fear that the wards, while he was watching and nursing love of their father should fail them. I thought his children who were ill during this vacamyself a dead man once, and protest the notion tion ramble. gave me no disquiet about myself at least, the philosophy is more comfortable than that which is tinctured with brimstone.

"The Baltimoreans flock to the stale old lectures as numerously as you of Philadelphia. Here the audiences are more polite than numerous, but the people who do come are very well pleased with their entertainment. I have had many dinners. Mr. Everett, Mr. Fish- our minister, ever so often- the most hospitable of envoys. I have seen no one at all in Baltimore, for it is impossible to do the two towns togethor; and from this I go to Richmond and Charleston, not to New Orleans, which is too far; and I hope you will make out your visit to Washington, and that we shall make out a meeting more satisfactory than that dinner at New York, which did not come off. The combination failed which I wanted to bring about. Have you heard Miss Furness of Philadelphia sing? She is the best ballad-singer I ever heard. And will you please remember me to Mrs. Reed and your brother, and Wharton, and Lewis and his pretty young daughter; and believe me ever faithfully yours,

dear Reed,

W. M. THACKERAY."

The "famous autograph" was, if my memory does not mislead me, a letter of Washington, for which he had expressed a wish, and which I gladly gave him; and the plan of coming to America, as will be seen, though at first rejected, seems to

have taken root in his mind.

Thackeray left us in the winter of 1853, and in the summer of the year was on the Continent with his daughters. In the last chapter of "The Newcomes," published in 1855, he says: "Two years ago, walking, with my children in some pleasant fields

"NEUFCHATEL, Switzerland, July 21, 1853. "MY DEAR REED,- Though I am rather and as with tailors, so with men; I pay my slow in paying the tailor, I always pay him: debts to my friends, only at rather a long day. Thank you for writing to me so kindly, you who have so much to do. I have only begun to work ten days since, and now in consequence from the West, it was flying from London to have a little leisure. Before, since my return Paris, and vice versa, dinners right and left, parties every night. If I had been in Philadel phia, I could scarcely have been more feasted. Oh, you unhappy Reed! I see you (after that little supper with McMichael) on Sunday, at your own table, when we had that good SherryMadeira, turning aside from the wine-cup with your pale face! That cup has gone down this that I wonder the cup isn't broken, and the well so often [meaning my own private cavity], well as well as it is.

"Three weeks of London were more than

enough for me, and I feel as if I had had
enough of it and pleasure. Then I remained a
month with my parents; then I brought my
girls on a little pleasuring tour, and it has
really been a pleasuring tour.
We spent ten
days at Baden, when I set intrepidly to work
again; and have been five days in Switzerland
now; not bent on going up mountains, but on
taking things easily. How beautiful it is! How
pleasant! How great and affable, too, the land-
scape is! It's delightful to be in the midst of
such scenes the ideas get generous reflections
from them. I don't mean to say my thoughts
grow mountainous and enormous like the Alpine
chain yonder; but, in fine, it is good to be in
the presence of this noble nature. It is keeping
good company; keeping away mean thoughts.

I see in the papers now and again accounts of | Arctic. Thackeray had known my brother fine parties in London. Bon Dieu! is it pos- in this country, and duly estimated what I sible any one ever wanted to go to fine London may be pardoned for describing as his gentle parties, and are there now people sweating in virtues and refined and scholar-like tastes. Mayfair routs? The European continent swarms He measured, too, the anguish which, even with your people. They are not all as polished at this lapse of time now nearly ten as Chesterfield. I wish some of them spoke French a little better. I saw five of them at years-freshens when I think of it, and supper at Basle the other night with their knives which then bowed a whole family to the down their throats. It was awful! My daugh- earth. It was in reply to my letter anter saw it, and I was obliged to say, My dear, nouncing that all hope of rescue or escape your great-great-grandmother, one of the finest was over, and that "a vast and wanderladies of the old school I ever saw, always ap-ing grave was theirs," that in November plied cold steel to her wittles. It's no crime to eat with a knife,' which is all very well: but I wish five of 'em at a time wouldn't.

"

where he had been at the opening of a mission- | possible, a greater success than "The Hu-
though I confess I had, and
ary college. He was going to Scotland, I think, morists;
and to leave London instantly, for he and Miss have, a lurking preference for the genial
B. refused hospitality, &c.; and we talked about communion with Steele and Fielding (his
the memoir of Hester Reed which I had found,
great favourites), and Swift and Sterne
(his aversions), to the dissection of the
But there was in one of these lectures a
tainted remains of the Hanoverian kings.
passage familiar to every listener and ev-
ery hearer which I reproduce here, not
merely from an association presently to be
referred to. but because it seems to me in
transcribing it that I have the dead again
before me, and hear a sweet voice in the
very printed words:

I didn't know how, on my study-table, and about the people whom he had met at Lord Mahon's—and I believe I said I should like to be And we parted going with him in the Arctic. with a great deal of kindness, please God, and friendly talk of a future meeting. May it happen one day! for I feel sure he was a just man. I wanted to get a copy of Esmond' to send by him (the first edition, which is the good one); but I did not know where to light on one, having none myself, and a month since bought a couple of copies at a circulating library for 73. 6d. apiece.

"I am to-day just out of bed after another, about the dozeuth, severe fit of spasms, which I have this year. My book would have been written but for them, and the lectures begun, with which I hope to make a few thousand more dollars for those young ladies. But who knows whether I shall be well enough to deliver them, or what is in store for next year? The secretaryship of our legation at Washington was vacant the other day, and I instantly asked for it; but in the very kindest letter Lord Clarendon showed how the petition was impossible. First, the place was given away; next, it would not be fair to appoint out of the service. But the first was an excellent reason, not a doubt of it. So if ever I come, as

hope and trust to do this time next year, it must be at my own cost, and not the Queen's. Good-bye, my dear Reed, and believe that I have the utmost sympathy in your misfortune, and am most sincerely yours,

"W. M. THACKERAY."

The copy of "Esmond" was for my wife, who had expressed her liking for it beyond all his works. It came the next year thus inscribed:

"With the grateful regards of W. M. THACKERAY. LONDON, October, 1855.” And is now among the most cherished volumes in our library.

In the winter of 1855, Mr. Thackeray made his second and last visit to this country, and gave us the first-fruits of his new "The Georges." I lecture experiment, met him in New York and heard his "George IV."- to my mind the least agreeable of the course delivered before a literary society in Brooklyn. He thence came to Philadephia, and renewed his old intimacies and associations. His friends were glad to see him, and he them. The impression we all had was that two years had oldened him more than they should have done; but there was no change in other respects. "The Georges" were, if

LIVING AGE.

1209 VOL. XXVI.

"What preacher need moralize on this story; what words save the simplest are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Disposer of life, death, happiness, victory. O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue. O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together, as we stand by this royal corpse and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel. once, and who was cast lower than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; the darling of his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over her breathless lips and cries, Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little !'

6

'Vex not his ghost! Oh let him pass — He

hates him

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer!'

Hush! strife and quarrel, over the solemn
Sound, trumpets, a mournful
grave!
march Fall, dark curtain, upon his pa-
geant, his pride, his grief, his awful trage-
dy!"

Was it this, or was it the other passage about the Princess Amelia and the old King praying for returning reason, which Thackeray referred to in the following note, written to me from Baltimore, in answer to one sending an adverse criticism in a small newspaper of Philadelphia?

"BALTIMORE, Jan. 16, 1856. "MY DEAR REED, - Your letter of the 9th, with one from Boston of the 8th, was given to me last night when I came home. In what possible snow-drift have they been lying torpid? One hundred thanks for your goodness in the lecture, and all other matters; and if I can find the face to read those printed lectures over

Still the bar

again, I'll remember your good advice. That | turb him being his sympathy with the man splendid crowd on the last lecture night I knew of business. "I don't mind the empty would make our critical friend angry. I have benches, but I cannot bear to see that sad, not seen the last article, of course, and don't in- pale-faced young man as I come out, who tend to look for it. And as I was reading the is losing money on my account." This he George III. lecture here on Monday night, could used to say at my house when he came not help asking myself, What can the man home to a frugal and not very cheerful mean by saying that I am uncharitable, unkindly-that I sneer at virtue?' and so forth. My supper after the lectures. own conscience being pretty clear, I can receive gain had been fairly made, and was hontheBulletin's' displeasure with calmnessourably complied with; and the money rememberinr how I used to lay about me in my was paid and remitted, through my agency, own youthful days, and how I generally took a to him at New York. I received no acgood tall mark to hit at, knowledgment of the remittance, and recollect well that I felt not a little annoyed at this; the more so, when, on picking up a newspaper, I learned that Thackeray had sailed for home. The day after he had gone, when there could be no refusal, I reYork bankers for an amount quite sufficeived a certificate of deposit on his New cient to meet any loss incurred, as he thought, on his behalf. I give the accompanying note, merely suppressing the name of the gentleman in question. There are some little things in this note - its blanks and dates -to which a fac-simile alone would do justice:

"Wicked weather, and an opera company which performed on the two first lecture nights here, made the audiences rather thin; but they fetched up at the third lecture, and to-night is the last; after which I go to Richmond, then to

go further south, from Charleston to Havannah and New Orleans; perhaps to turn back and try westward, where I know there is a great crop of dollars to be reaped. But to be snow-bound in my infirm condition! I might never get out

of the snow alive.

"I go to Washington to-morrow for a night. I was there and dined with Crampton on Saturday. He was in good force and spirits, and I saw no signs of packing-up or portmanteaus in the hall.

"I send my best regards to Mrs. Reed and your sister-in-law, and Lewis and his kind folks, and to Mac's whisky-punch, which gave me no headache: I'm very sorry it treated you so unkindly. Always yours, dear Reed.

W. M. THACKERAY.”

Good-bye, my dear kind friend, and all kind friends in Philadelphia. I didn't think of going away when I left home this morning; but it's the best way.

"I think it is best to send back 25 per cent to poor Will you kindly give him the enclosed; and depend on it I shall go and see Mrs. Best when I go to London, and tell her all about you. My heart is uncommonly heavy: and I am yours gratefully and affectionately.

"W. M. T."

And thus, with an act and words of kindness, he left America, never to return!

The allusion in this letter to the printed lectures recalls a little incident which was very illustrative of his generous temper, and is not unlike "the pill-box with the guineas," which I have seen lately in some literary notices. It was this: On his return to Philadelphia, in the spring of 1856, from the south and west, a number of his friends I as much as any one urged him, unwisely as it turned out, to repeat his lectures on "The Humorists." He was very loath to do it, but finally yielded, be- It was during this visit to the United ing, I doubt not, somewhat influenced by States that, as he told me, the idea of his the pecuniary inducements accidentally American novel, "The Virginians," was held out to him. A young bookseller of conceived; and I have reason to think that this city offered him a round sum-not some of the details in the story were due very large, but, under the circumstances, as well to Mr. Prescott's" Crossed Swords" quite liberal-for the course, which he as to conversations with me at a time when accepted. The experiment was a failure. my mind was full of historical associations It was late in the season, with long days and suggestions, and when to think of my and shortening nights, and the course was country's story was matter of pride and a stale one, and the lectures had been pleasure. In the letter of November 1854, printed, and the audiences were thin, and on my brother's death, Mr. Thackeray the bargain was disastrous, not to him, but speaks of "The Memoirs of Hester Reed," to the young gentleman who had ventured which he had found on his study-table. it. We were all disappointed and morti- This was a little volume, privately printed fied; but Thackeray took it good-humour- a few years before, containing the biograedly the only thing that seemed to dis-phy of my paternal grandmother, Esther

with

de Berdt, a young English girl, who had the course of the peregrinations of this made the acquaintance of her American nobleman he visited North America, and, as lover when, in colony times, he was a stu- had been his custom in Europe, proceeded dent in the Temple. They married came straightway to fall in love. And curious to this country; he became a soldier of it is to contrast the elegant refinements the Revolution, and she, sharing her hus- of European society-where, according band's feelings and opinions and trials, to Monseigneur, he had but to lay siege to died, still a young woman, in the middle a woman in order to vanquish her of the war. As I have said, Esther Reed the simple lives and habits of the colwas my father's mother. Mr. Thackeray onial folks amongst whom the Euroseemed pleased with the genuineness of pean enslaver of hearts did not, it appears, the little book, and talked often of it. The make a single conquest. Had he done so, names "Hetty" and "Theodosia" (the he would as certainly have narrated his latter, I believe, in his family also), which victories in Pennsylvania and New Engappear in "The Virginians," are to be land as he described his successes in this found in my homely narrative of revolu- and his own country. Travellers in Amertionary times. One other suggestion I trace ica have cried quite loudly enough against in "The Virginians." I recollect in one the rudeness and barbarism of Transatof our rambles telling him of a book which lantic manners; let the present writer he did not seem to know; and I can hardly give the humble testimony of his experisay that it is to my credit that I did ence, that the conversation of American "The Memoirs of the Duke de Lauzun." gentlemen is generally modest, and to the We spoke of the dispute as to its genuine- best of his belief the lives of the women ness (its authenticity as a record of the in-pure." trigues of a courtier of Louis XV. there was no reason to doubt), and I called his attention to the fact, very creditable to my countrywomen of ancient days, that while Lauzun's life, not only in France, where it was natural enough, but in England, was a continuity of atrocious licentiousness, with his victim's names revealed as only a Frenchman of that day was capable of doing, the moment he lands in America, accompanying Rochambeau's army to Rhode Island, the wicked spirit seems rebuked by the purity and simplicity of American women; and though he mentions the names of several ladies whom he met, there is not a word of indecorum or whispered thought of impurity. This idea the reader will find stated in "The Virginians" thus:

"The Virginians " appeared in monthly numbers while I was absent on my mission to China in 1858, and there I read it. In the tone of, I hope pardonable, egotism in which I have thus far written, I transcribe an entry in the little diary I kept in the East for the amusement of my wife and family at home :

Read to

"Friday, July 23, Shanghae. day No. VII. of The Virginians.' I still like it, though I fear my friend Lord Chesterfield will fare badly. I don't care what is said about old Q., or any of the Selwyn party. In one of his letters (this I have lost or mislaid, or some felonious autograph-hunter has purloined it) to me long ago, Thackeray, when he was projecting The Virginians,' told me he should "There lived during the last century a use Esther de Berdt;' and now see his certain French duke and marquis who dis- heroines are Hetty' and Theodosia,' tinguished himself in Europe, and America and from the same rank of life - almost likewise, and has obliged posterity by the only pure one then- to which my leaving behind him a choice volume of Hetty' belonged. But what beautiful memoirs, which the gentle reader is spe- heart-stirring things one meets in his cially warned not to consult. Having books! I can't help copying one : 'Canst performed the part of Don Juan in his thou, O friendly reader, count upon the own country, in ours, and in other parts fidelity of an artless or tender heart or of Europe, he has kindly noted down the two, and reckon among the blessings names of many court beauties who fell which Heaven hath bestowed on thee the victims to his powers of fascination; and love of faithful woman? Purify thy own very pleasing, no doubt, it must be for heart, and try to make it worthy theirs. the grandsons and descendants of the On thy knees on thy knees, give thanks fashionable persons among whom our bril- for the blessings awarded thee! All the liant nobleman moved, to find the names blessings of life are nothing compared of their ancestresses adorning M. le Duc's with that one - all the rewards of ambisprightly pages, and their frailties recorded tion, pleasure, wealth, only vanity and disby the candid writer who caused them. In appointment, grasped at greedily, and