THE STORY OF LADY ELLENBOROUGH. Mrs. Isabel Burton writes under date Treiste, March 19, to the Pall Mall Gazette: Will you allow me to contradict, as the editor of the Triester Zeitung has done here, the correspondent at Beyrout, who writes to the German Gazette of Vienna concerning the late Lady Ellenborough ? I scarcely know where to begin, but I must do it to keep my last promise to her. I lived for two years at Damascus while my husband, Capt. Burton, was Consul there, and in daily intercourse with the subject of this paragraph.. Knowing that after her death all sorts of untruths would appear in the papers, very painful to her family-as, indeed, she was not spared while living-she wished me to write her biography, and gave me an hour a day until was accomplished. She did not spare herself, dictating the bad with the same frankness as the good. I was pledged not to publish this until after her death and that of certain near relatives; but I am in a position to state that there is a grain of truth to a ton of falsehood in the paragraph from Beyrout, and, inasmuch as Beyrout is only seventy-two miles from Damascus, the writer must know that as well as I do. It must have come from a very common source when such English as this is used: "Between Beyrout and Damascus she got pleased with the camel-driver !" It suggests a discharged lady's maid. I left Damascus just a year and a half ago, in the middle of the night, and she was the last friend to see me out of the city. As she wrung my hand these were her last words: "Do not forget your promise, if I die and we never meet again.' I replied: "Inshallah, I shall soon return." She rode a black thoroughbred Arab mare, and, as far as I could see anything in the moonlight, her large, sorrowful, blue eyes, glistening with tears, haunted me. I cannot meddle with the past without infringing on the biography confided to me, but I can say a few words concerning her life, dating from her arrival in the East, about sixteen years ago, as told me by herself and by those now living there, and I can add my testimony as to what I saw, which I believe will interest every one in England, from the highest downward, and be a gratification to those more nearly concerned. About sixteen years ago, tired of Europe, Lady Ellenborough conceived the idea of visiting the East, and of imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. (There is also a French lady, Mme. de la Tour d'Auvergne, who has built herself a temple on the top of Mount Olivet, and lives there still.) Lady Ellenborough arrived at Beyrout, and went to Damascus, where she arranged to go to Bagdad across the Desert. A Bedouin escort for this journey was necessary, and, as the Mezrab tribe occupied the ground, the duty of commanding the escort devolved upon Shaykh Mijwai, a young brother of Shaykh Mohammad, chief of this tribe,

which is a branch of the great Anazeh tribe. On the journey the young Shaykh fell in love with this beautiful woman, who possessed all the qualities that could fire the Arab imagination. Even two years ago she was more attractive than half the young girls of our time. It ended by his proposing to divorce his Moslem wives and to marry her; to pass half the year in Damascus (which to him was like what London or Paris would be to us), for her pleasure, and half in the desert, to lead his natural life. The romantic picture of becoming a queen of the desert and of the wild Bedouin tribes exactly suited her wild fancies, and was at once accepted, and she was married in spite of all opposition made by her friends and the British Consulate. She was married according to the Mohammedan law, changed her name to that of the Hon. Mrs. Digby El Mezrab, and was horrified when she found that she had lost her nationality by her marriage, and had become a Turkish subject. For fifteen years she lived, as she died, the faithful and affectionate wife of the Shaykh, to whom she was devotedly attached. Half the year was passed in a very pretty house she built at Damascus, just without the gates of the city, and the other six months were passed according to his nature in the desert, in the Bedouin tents of the tribe. In spite of this hard life, necessitated by accommodating herself to his habits-for they were never apart—she never lost anything of the English lady nor the softness of a woman. She was "grande dame au bout des doigts in sentiment, voice, manner and speech. She never said or did anything you could wish otherwise. She kept all his respect, and was the mother and queen of his tribe. In Damascus we were only nineteen Europeans, but we all flocked around her with affection and friendship. The natives the same. As to strangers, she only received those who brought a letter of introduction from a friend or relative, but this did not hinder every ill-conditioned passer-by from boasting of his intimacy with the House of Mezrab, and recounting the untruths which he invented, pour se faire valoir, or to sell his book or newspaper at a better profit. She understood friendship in its best and fullest sense, and for those who enjoyed her confidence it was a treat to pass the hours with her. She spoke French, Italian, German, Slav, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish and Greek as she spoke her native tongue. She had all the tastes of a country life, and occupied herself alternately with painting, sculpture, music, or with her garden flowers, or poultry, or with her thoroughbred Arab mares, or carrying out some improvement. She was thoroughly a connoisseur in each of her amusements or occupations. To the last she was fresh and young; beautiful, brave, refined and delicate. "Bon sang ne peut mentir." Her heart au fond was noble; she was charitable to the poor. She regularly attended the Protestant church, and often twice on Sundays. She fulfilled the duties of a good Christian lady and an English woman. She is dead. All those who knew her in her latter days will weep for her. She had but one fault (and who knows if it was hers), washed out by fifteen years of goodness and repentance. Let us hide it, and shame those who seek to drag up the adventures of her wild youth to tarnish so good a

memory.

OBITUARY.

Charles Knight, so widely known as an author, as well as a publisher, died on the 9th of March, in his eighty-second year. He was born in 1791, at Windsor, where his father carried on the business of a bookseller. Charles was brought up to the same profession, but early turned his attention to publishing. We believe his first attempt in this line was The Etonian, a periodical supported by the Eton boys, and which-in spite of its juvenility—obtained a considerable reputation. He soon removed to London, where he became a general publisher, and issued Knight's Quarterly Magazine, which contained many of the first literary attempts of Lord Macaulay, Chauncey Hare Townsend, and Praed. Mr. Knight discontinued the Magazine after its sixth number, and gradually extended his field of business as a publisher of miscellaneous books, gaining the support of many persons of high reputation and influence. Despite discouraging circumstances he steadily matured his plans for the establishment of a cheap and wholesome literature for the people." In 1827 he became connected with the newlyfounded Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," which suddenly started into being under the auspices of such men as Brougham, Tooke, Grote, Lubbock, Russell, Lefevre, Hobhouse and the rest of the leaders of free thought and liberal opinions. He now commenced the publication of the "British Almanac and Companion "-which has ever since annually proved a storehouse of ful" information on subjects connected with education, statistics, and other branches of social and political economy-and of his well-known "Library of Entertaining Knowledge." This "Library " Mr. Knight followed up by the "Penny Magazine and the "Penny Cyclopædia," on which last he spent for literature and engravings alone the large sum of £40,000, and in producing which he had to pay to the Excise, for paper duty, no less a sum than £16,500. For about twenty years this connection with the "Useful Knowledge Society continued, until, indeed, its leaders and Council thought that the time was come when individual enterprise would be able to carry out to a successful issue the various plans which they had inaugurated. Accordingly, other important works were now commenced by Mr. Knight on his own account. The Penny Magazine " had acted as a pioneer, and prepared the road for these, of which, as Mr. Knight tells us, the "Pictorial Bible" was the most successful as a permanent work, and the "pictorial edition of the "Arabian Knights" the most beautiful in artistic execution. These were followed by the "Pictorial Shakespeare," which he styles "the most congenial undertaking of his literary life;" the "Pictorial London," the most strictly antiquarian; and the "Pictorial History of England."

use

All these enterprises were pecuniarily successful, excepting the "Penny Cyclopædia." In 1848 Mr. Knight published "The Land We Live In In "-a work descriptive of Great Britain. 1855 he was induced, by a suggestion in the London Times, to begin the publication of a " Popular History of England," which was issued in numbers and completed in eight years. It is not too much to say that this is by far the best, widest, and wisest History of England ever issued. Not by any means the best written or the most brilliant, but a history of the people for the people, not a mere record of the lives of the sovereigns and the doings of the court. Pictorial He also published "Old England, a Museum of Natural Antiquities,' "Half Hours with the Best Authors," "Cyclopædia of the Industry of All Nations," a "Life of Caxton," "Knowledge is Power," and the "English Cyclopædia" (22 vols.), which is based on the "Penny Cyclopædia," but is a great advance even on that admirable work, and, in fact, forms the most complete and accurate cyclopædia in the world.

In 1863 Mr. Knight withdrew from active business life, and retired to pass the rest of his days in his native town. In his retirement, however, his indomitable energy and active mind would not allow him to rest, although his life had now extended beyond "three score years and ten;" he gave to the world "Shadows of the Old Booksellers," and

Few

Passages of a Working Life;" the first a genial, pleasant, gossiping book; the last, one of the most In his interesting autobiographies ever penned. private life he was an amiable, lovable man. men made less enemies; even the bitter-tongued Douglas Jerrold, who could plunge a stiletto-pointed jest into the bosom of a saint, so that he could make his mark, softened to Charles Knight. Ah, Douglas," said the publisher-author to his friend, as they parted towards the small hours, after a long sitting, "who'll write my epitaph, and what will it be?" "I'll give you one," said the wit, as he shook hands and parted, "Good (K)night." And so say we, good night, old friend; you have "fought a good fight;" Requiescat in pace.

The Hon. and Rev. Baptist Wriothesley Noel, the eminent preacher, died at Stanmore, on January 19, aged 74. He had been in declining health for some time. He was one of the younger sons, and sixteenth child, of Sir Gerard Noel-Noel, Bart., by his wife, Diana, Baroness Barham. Baptist Noel was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; and some years before his retirement, from ill-health, was regarded as one of the most popular preachers in London. On entering his 71st year in 1868, he resigned his chapel in John street, but still continued to preach occasionally. His secession from the Church of England, in 1849, during the litigation of the Gorham case, was followed by his adopting the principles of the sect on which Ben Jonson pours his utmost wealth of sarcasm. Mr. Baptist Noel's contributions to literature were numerous: "Notes of a Tour through Ireland, 1836,"

Christian Missions to Heathen Lands," sermons on various subjects, "Essay on Union of Church and State,' "Essay on Christian Baptism," "Letters on the Church of Rome," "A Tour in Piedmont," "Freedom and Slavery in America," &c.

THACKERAY.

The pure humorist is one of the rarest of literary characters. His nature is not content with detecting foibles, nor his pen with pointing them out for derision; his purpose is infinitely higher and nobler. The humorist must have emotions, nerves, sensibilities, and that marvellous sympathy with human nature which enables him to change places at will with other members of his species. Humor does not produce the sneer of Voltaire; it rather smiles through the tear of Montaigne. "True humor," it has been wisely said, "springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt, its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort of inverse sublimity; exalting as it were into our affections what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our affections what is above us. It is, in fact, the bloom and perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine and loving nature." Without humor society would exist in Icelandic snows; wit, like the winter sun, might glint upon the icebergs, but they would not be plastic in his glance-calm, lofty and cold they must remain. But humor is the summer heat that generates while it smiles-the power which touches dead things and revivifies them with its generous warmth and geniality. Wit engages and amuses the individual intellect; humor knits hearts together; is, in truth, in a broad sense, that "touch of nature which makes the whole world kin " Now the world may be regarded as being composed of three classes, namely, those of us who laugh, those with whom we laugh, and those at whom we laugh; and the tenderest solicitude is experienced by each unit of humanity lest, through some fortuitous circumstances, he should irretrievably find himself a denizen of the last-named class. To some of the first class is given the power of directing the laughter of others, and this power is current as wit; when to

What

the faculty of originating ridicule is added the power of concentrating pity or pathos upon the subject, this may be styled humor. But the irony must be subjugated to the feeling. The heart must love while the countenance may smile. It will, then, be perceived, in view of these distinctions, how the humorist may assert a claim in all great and essential things superior to that which can be advanced by the wit. Humorists are the salt of the national intellectual life. England, who occasionally claims a questionable superiority in some respects over other nations, may, in the growth of genuine humor, be allowed the preeminence, Germany approaching her perhaps in the nearest degree. other literature, since the days of Elizabeth, can show such a roll of humorists as that which is inscribed with the names (amongst others) of Richardson, Addison, Steele, Prior, Gay, Smollet, Fielding, Sterne and Goldsmith? Yet after the closing names of this galaxy a dearth was witnessed like that which immediately preceded their advent. It appears as though the soil of literature, having grown to its utmost capacity, the product of humor demanded time to recuperate its powers. During the past thirty or forty years another growth sprang up, and Hood, Lamb and other inheritors of the marvellous gift, have enriched the world with the perfume of their lives and works. Amongst the latest band of humorists, however, there is no name more remarkable or more

justly distinguished than that which is now

under consideration.

From the operation of various causes, the works of Thackeray have not hitherto enjoyed a circulation commensurate with their intrinsic merits. The sale of the best of his writings in his life-time fell far short of the popular demand for the works of Scott or Dickens. But their hold on

society, and the recognition of their permanent value and excellence, have gone on steadily increasing with each succeeding year, and very recently a new and complete edition of them has been issued, which is within the reach of all readers.* At this

The Kensington edition in 12 vols., to which the writer here alludes, is published in this country by Messrs. J. R. Osgood & Co.

period, then, it may be fitting to consider the life's work of this deepest and purest of modern English satirists.

It was in the pages of the Edinbugh Review that the first substantial recognition of the genius of the author of Vanity Fair " appeared; a quarter of a century has elapsed. since then; but in the short period between that epoch in his career and his death, a rapid

succession of brilliant works issued from his pen-a pen facile to charm, to instruct and to reprove. These works have fully justified the terms of praise in which we referred to his first great fiction. Yet it would be difficult to name a writer of fiction of equal excellence who had so little of the inventive and imaginative faculty. Keenness of observation and a nice appreciation of character supplied him with all the materials of his creations. He wrote from the experience of life, and the foibles of mankind which he satirized were those that had fallen under his notice in the vicissitudes of his own career, or might sometimes be traced in the recesses of his own disposition. The key, therefore, to Thackeray's works is to be found in his life, and few literary biographies would be more interesting, if it were written with a just and discriminating pen. We would venture to suggest to his accomplished daughter, who has shown by her own writings that some at least of his gifts have descended to her by inheritance, that she should undertake a task which no one else can fulfil with so natural and delicate a feeling of her father's genius. Probably it might already have been attempted, but for the extreme repug nance of Thackeray himself to allow his own person to be brought before the world, or to suffer the sanctity of private correspondence to be invaded. Nobody wrote more amusing letters; but he wrote them not for the public. As it is, even his birth and descent have not been correctly stated in the current works of the day. His great grandfather was in the Church, once master of Harrow, and afterwards an archdeacon. He had seven sons, one of whom, also named William Makepeace Thackeray, entered the Civil Service of India, became a Member of Council, and sat at the Board with Warren Hastings, some of whose minutes he signed. The son of this gentleman and the father of our novelist, was Richmond Thackeray, also a Civil servant,

who died in 1816, at the early age of thirty. Thackeray himself was born at Calcutta, in 1811, and was sent to England when he was seven years old. On the voyage home the vessel touched at St. Helena, where the child saw Napoleon Bonaparte. The black servant who attended him attributed to the ex-Emperor the most ravenous propensities. "He eats," said the sable exag gerator, "three sheep every day, and all The the children he can lay hands on.' joke figured years afterwards in one of Thackeray's sketches. This early connection with India left its mark in his memory, and the pleasant allusions to the great Ramchunder and the Bundelcund bank were suggested by the traditions of his own infancy. He inherited from his father (who died when he was five years old) a considerable fortune, part of which had fortunately been settled on his mother, who was remarried to Major Carmichael Smyth. The remainder was left at his own disposal, and rendered him an object of envy and admiration to his less fortunate contemporaries. The boy was sent to the Charter-house, where he remained for some years; and here again the reader familiar with his works may trace a multitude of allusions to his school-days under Dr. Russell, then the master of that school. About the year 1828, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was the friend and contemporary of Tennyson, Venables, John Mitchell Kemble, Charles and Arthur Buller, John Sterling, R. Moncton Milnes, and of that distinguished set of men, some of whom had preceded him by a year or two, who formed what was called the Society of the Apostles, though he was not himself a member of that society. It must be confessed that at Cambridge Thackeray gave no signs of distinguished ability. He was chiefly known for his inexhaustible drollery, his love of repartee, and for his humorous command of the pencil. But his habits were too desultory for him to enter the lists of academic competition, and, like Arthur Pendennis, he left the university without taking a degree.

At the age of twenty-one he entered upon London life; he visited Weimar, which he afterwards portrayed as the Court of Pumpernickel; and he was frequently in Paris, where his mother resided since her second marriage. His fortune and