Now I must say that I entirely sympa- | the conversation upon literary topics and thize with Thackeray on the occasion in upon persons and things which he had seen question, and regard his conduct as alto- or expected to see in this country. His regether natural and proper. If his tall fig- marks, with an occasional touch of satiric ure on horseback was "extraordinary"-and humor, were in their general spirit genial I can conceive his appearance to have been and benevolent; and it was easy to see that a little verging toward awkwardness-he, his disposition was charitable, however perhaps, was conscious of it, and did not shrewd and even caustic his expressions care to expose himself to the spoken com- may sometimes have been. I do not think ments of one who might take liberties, on he struck me as being what is technically the score of the freedom indulged in until called a conversationist—that is, one who four o'clock of the previous morning. Be- would be invited to dinner for the purpose sides, he was out for exercise and to seek of keeping up the round of talk-and there recovery from the effects of recent late sit- was not the least shadow of attempt to show ting, and the expectation of Jerrold's friend himself off; and though what he said was that he would haul up to the sidewalk to always sensible and to the point, it was the engage in conversation upon that or any language of a well-bred and accomplished other topic, when riding by himself for pur- gentleman, who assumed no sort of superiposes of change and refreshment, seems to ority, but seemed naturally and simply at me little better than impertinence. Very ease with his companions of the moment. likely, after so freely unbending on the In walking with him up the Beacon Street morning referred to, he may have felt like Mall, with the accustomed pride of a BosCharles X., when in England in exile, who, tonian in the Common and its surroundings, at the solicitation of the manager, had obli- I called his attention to the ancient elms on gingly attended upon some humorous rep- either side intermingling their branches in resentation in his neighborhood; but upon a spreading arch overhead, so as to form a being waited upon soon afterward for a rep- remarkably agreeable picture, and asked etition of his visit, bowed graciously and him if the view through the vista did not took snuff, as he replied, "Ver' good, ver' strike him as particularly beautiful. good; mosh obleeshe; but von sosh fon, it agreed that it was so, perhaps with less aris enough." dor than I had expressed, and remarked that it hardly compared with the "Long Walk," that at Windsor, I suppose; which seemed to me a modest way enough of pointing out the great disparity between the two ranges of natural scenery. But the private residences on Beacon and Park streets, by the

He

be surpassed, for elegance and the appearance of comfort, even in London.

In fact, Thackeray seemed to me a highbred, conscientious, and considerate man, a gentleman in sentiment and feeling, deeply thoughtful, introspective, as well as keenly and constantly observant of outward things; and any seeming "austerity" which I might have observed I attributed to the absorp-side of the Mall, he admitted could hardly ⚫tion of his mind in his literary pursuits and contemplations. This sort of abstraction, however, could hardly have been permitted Sometimes I invited him to accompany to him while in the United States, since, me to the north part of Boston, then a good with the true spirit of a gentleman, making deal dilapidated, though originally noted as it a point to write nothing about us or our the court end of the town. There was not concerns while accepting our hospitality much to be seen there worthy of special note; and making profit out of our attendance but there was more of the appearance of anupon his lectures, he was at leisure to en- tiquity than in other streets which he had joy himself in society as he saw fit. In-visited, and many of the old houses were of deed, I think he felt himself quite at home, solid brick, with some ambitious effort at and sometimes, in a festive mood, indulged ornamentation, exhibiting the former Bosin certain off-hand private remarks, not al-tonians of that quarter as a people of subways well taken by sensitive persons to stantial means, though it was now inhabitwhom they happened to be addressed. In this way offense was on some occasions given when certainly none could have been intended. They were examples of English bluntness, in cases where I think an American gentleman would have scarcely given way to a personal allusion, even if involving himself in the same category. An instance or two of this sort I might relate, were it not for the revival of trifling, but not the most agreeable, recollections to the parties concerned.

We took various walks together, in which he enjoyed the exercise, as I certainly did

ed by a very different class of persons. Not far from twenty years earlier, Governor Hutchinson's house, adorned with fluted pilasters outside and paneled with mahogany in the interior, was still standing, near Garden Court and Garden Court Streetnames suggestive of rural charms around ancient city dwellings-but had at length given way to the demands of modern improvement.

Of course I took the greatest delight in Thackeray's lectures, though not always disposed to assent to his critical judgment of the English humorists, but, with the en

tranced audience, yielded myself to the Mr. Green remarks: "But dull and petty as charm of his unaffected and spirited man- his temper was, he was clear as to his purner of delivery, to his close analysis of char-pose" (which purpose was to rule), "and obacter, to his humane and generous senti- stinate in his pursuit of it." Of the fourth ments, to his pathetic turns of thought, and, George, whom I believe Thackeray meant with profound relish, to his clear, sweet, and partly to satirize in Joseph Sedley, what simple English, in the use of which I can possible good could ever be said? scarcely think he has had his equal. It was When Thackeray finally left Boston to all so different in style and matter, to my fulfill his engagements in New York and taste, from the writings of another noted elsewhere, I heard nothing of him, except novelist of the day, whose popular readings by an occasional kind message, or through of his own stories I attended once or twice, the newspapers, until the intelligence came with little comparative interest. Indeed, I of his sudden departure for home. Some feel about Dickens's novels pretty much as time after I knew of his arrival in England, the exiled French king did about the merry as he had talked to me freely enough about exhibition, in the anecdote already related his own writings-that is, when I introduced -that they are all very well for once, with the subject, or it came up by some natural no little power of momentarily affecting our allusion, for he was the last man to obtrude sympathies, though with some mental reser- himself or his works-I sent him a story, vation, but feeling no more desire to see written by myself, descriptive of characters them again than I should wish to renew my and manners in a certain part of America, fictitious tears, when taken unawares, over and published during the interval between the exaggerated pictures of Uncle Tom's his first and second visits to the United Cabin. On the other hand, I experience an States. His comment upon the book was ever new delight in reading again and that it was extremely well written, which I again whatever Thackeray has written. | regarded as a valuable compliment from an Nor do I believe that Thackeray himself re-author and scholar of his literary accomgarded Dickens as in any sense a rival, plishments, and one so distinguished for the though he would naturally refrain from pure style of his compositions; but he rathgiving expression to any dissent from the er took me down by saying that "the charoverwhelming popular estimate of his con-acters introduced were too uniformly good." temporary's writings. But time has already Still, actual villains were at that time much settled, in part at least, the question between rarer in the region in question than at a the novels of these famous authors. It may later date, and my object had been to debe doubted whether any grave English judge scribe rather the ordinary run of society, would now think of taking a story of Dick-none the less correctly that it might be ens to the bench with him for perusal in thought a little tame, and so far in favor the intermission of business; while Thack-of its virtuous tendencies and conduct. eray's are books to recur to in the study and in moments of languor when nothing else seems fitted to furnish the longed-for entertainment. He has sometimes been severely commented upon by very loyal English critics for his ridicule and unsparing denunciation in his lectures upon the "Four Georges." But see how later history takes his part. Oxford, I suppose, is still loyal enough, though scarcely so much so as when it was a refuge for King Charles, and melted down its plate for his service. But Green, in the History of the English People, already quoted, says of the first two Georges: "But neither had any qualities which could make their honesty attractive to the people at large. The temper of the first was that of a gentleman usher, and his one care was to get money for his favorites and himself. The temper of the second was that of a drillsergeant, who believed himself master of his realm, while he repeated the lessons he had learned from his wife, and which his wife had learned from the minister." Of the third George, for whom I think there is still a sort of respect felt even in this country, on account of his domestic virtues, and especially because of his personal afflictions,

Besides, to compare small things with great, some of Thackeray's most fascinating works are not always diversified with personages of the exceptional character alluded to. Of course there are striking exceptions. I suppose that Dr. Firmin, in Philip, is the most finished and polished scoundrel ever exhibited in the pages of fiction. His cool, deliberate villainy is really almost incredible; and yet we do believe, subject to the author's wonderfully penetrative power of delineation, that such a character is possible. But I remember none exactly answering the requirements in question in The Newcomes, for instance, though mean and low enough some of them are. Even Florac is a good sort of Frenchman, after his way, and one can not help feeling an interest in the easygoing and unscrupulous gentleman, in spite of his foibles. Honeyman is a sanctimonious scamp, to be sure, whose religious profession, with its advantages, does not save him from what Milton calls, "low descents of mind;" but, in consideration, perhaps, of his sacred office, Thackeray satirizes his short-comings and excesses rather from a ludicrous than a criminal point of view, and relentingly at last sets him down in the re

sponsible chaplaincy of Bogley-Wallah, pro- | tion, he portrayed the basenesses of some, cured for him by the interest of his noble as he certainly did display the more generand much-injured relative, Colonel New-ous impulses and principles which governed come. Some of the ladies of that most admirable novel do, indeed, exhibit in a remarkable degree the baleful influence of merely worldly desires and ways-old Lady Kew, for instance, and the "Campaigner"while I might have retorted upon the author that the delightful, most generous, and spiritually minded Madame De Florac was almost too good

the conduct of many of his more conspicuous characters. I observe that the late Mr. William B. Reed, in his touching memorial of Thackeray, gives one of the stanzas of this ballad, describing the passage as "lines of tenderness, often quoted, which no one but he could have written." The ballad, for all its lively turns, is inexpressibly melancholy in its effect, in its regretful reminiscences of old, familiar, jovial times, with one peculiarly sweet touch of holier memoand the bright ethereal spirit of Ethel New-ry, combined with a sad and lonely effort to come, notwithstanding the influence of her drown it all in the solitary dispatch of a education and surroundings, was enough to meal so suggestive of a once more genial redeem from sweeping censure a whole pen-board. In manner, it reminds one of the itentiary of the less refined and less attract- style of Béranger; in sentiment, of Catullus, ive of her sex. in his

"For human nature's daily food;"

On Thackeray's second visit to the United States, in the winter of 1855, I saw him still more familiarly than on the occasion of his first lecturing tour. During the earlier period I happened to be too much engaged in professional pursuits to leave much leisure for friendly or social intercourse, except, as I have observed, at our frequent meetings at table. After dinner I sometimes went with him to his apartments, consisting of a parlor and bedroom, the most agreeable of any in the Tremont House, for a little social chat. On one of these occasions he recited to me his "Ballad of Bouillabaisse," afterward printed in a collection of his poems which was published in Boston. But he was certainly not a poet; that is, notwithstanding his power of writing such admirable prose, together with a knack of versifying, he did, after all, lack a certain mysterious qualification which goes to make up the complement of a poet-in a word, what a famous poet calls, in this relation,

"The vision and the faculty divine."

He gave those touching verses forth with emphatic expression and every manifestation of the tender feeling which must have inspired them. "But," said he, "they made no mark"-referring to the fact that they had formerly appeared in some London periodical. But the truth is, an author can not always tell what is the actual judgment in regard to his lighter productions, which may be very much admired, though the knowledge of it may never come to his

"O dulces comitum valete cœtus,

Longe quos simul a domo profectos
Diverse variæ viæ reportant."

But I think I must here copy some of the
stanzas-enough to preserve the connection
of the thought:

"A street there is in Paris famous,

For which no rhyme our language yields;
Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is-
The New Street of the Little Fields;
And here's an inn, not rich and splendid,
But still in comfortable case,
The which in youth I oft attended,
To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.
"This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is-

A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo:
Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffern,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace-
All these you eat, at Terré's tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

"We enter; nothing's changed or older.
'How's Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?'
The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder-
'Monsieur is dead this many a day.'

'It is the lot of saint and sinner.

So honest Terré's run his race?'
'What will monsieur require for dinner?'
'Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse ?'

“Oh, oui, monsieur,''s the waiter's answer;
'Quel vin monsieur désire-t-il ?'
'Tell me a good one.' 'That I can, Sir-
The Chambertin with yellow seal.'
'So Terré's gone,' I say, and sink in

My old accustomed corner place;
'He's done with feasting and with drinking,
With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse.'

A fair young form was nestled near me,
A dear, dear face looked fondly up,
And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me-
There's no one now to share my cup.

"I drink it as the Fates ordain it

Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes;
Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it
In memory of the dear old times.
Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is;
And sit you down and say your grace
With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is-
Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse !"

quence of their wearing pigtails, so called, the fashion of the time at the period of which Thackeray wrote, as it had been of the day of their predecessors. Naturally, at a classical school, they would seek for the desired designation in the ancient tongue. Hence the word coda, used by various Roman writers for cauda, a tail, might readily occur, and be contracted into Codd among the boys; or even its use may have been deduced, by diminution, from codicillus, in its sense of an appendage.

Tremont Temple, nearly opposite, to hear him deliver a lecture in behalf of some benevolent object, and I think the topic of the lecture was "Charity." "What in the world," said he, can possess these people to flock to hear me speak an essay which was printed in last month's Harper's Magazine, and doubtless has been read by so many of them?" I suggested that it was the way with numbers of our people to run after celebrities, and that after reading whatever he might have written, the impulse would

By-the-way, speaking of his great novel The Newcomes, there is in it a description of I remember once standing with Thackeray the celebration of Founder's-day at Grey- on the steps of the Tremont House, toward friars School, as he designates the Charter-evening, when crowds were pouring into the House, where he pursued his boyish studies. At this admirable institution, dating from the time of James I., provision is made for the comfortable support within its walls of fourscore decayed and aged men, pensioners of the hospital, as they were former pupils of the establishment, enjoying as a right, if duly qualified, the thoughtful bounty of the founder. What a blessing it would be if some such provision might be made by rich men in this country, in connection with our colleges and academies, so that respectable persons of a certain age, beaten in the bat-be only the stronger to see him face to face. tle of life, could retire to some such establishment, the scene of their youthful sports and studies, without loss of self-respect, and pass their declining years in requisite leisure and devout preparation for the end! There are individuals of vast wealth in America-richer, it is said, than any of the rich nobility of England-who, mindful of their own early advantages of education, or of that lack of them which has maybe been their social obstacle all their lives, might found dozens of such hospitable refuges for those who have not been so fortunate as themselves, who could readily spare the su- In the many sketches of Thackeray's life perfluous wealth thus benevolently bestow- and opinions, I do not remember to have obed, and perhaps save some accumulating served any special reference to the religious anxieties to their heirs. In Chapter LXXV. part of his character. To me he seemed of The Newcomes Thackeray writes: "Yonder a person of deeply religious convictions, sit forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking about though he certainly made no special prohome and holidays to-morrow. Yonder sit fessions of them, and of profound venerasome threescore old gentlemen, pensioners tion for things holy; in a word, I thought of the hospital, listening to the prayers and him actuated by a sincere Christian spirit, the psalms. You hear them coughing fee- as I think is manifest in all his writings, bly in the twilight-the old reverend black-whenever the circumstances warranted the gowns. Is Codd Ajax alive? you wonder-manifestation of his sober inward thought. the Cistercian boys called these old gentlemen Codds, I know not wherefore-but is old Codd Ajax alive? I wonder—or kind old Codd Gentleman? or has the grave closed over them?"

Besides, the price of admission to the prospective lecture was comparatively smallI think only twenty-five cents-and many would attend who might not feel able to afford the higher sum demanded for his full course. In fact, it was the opportunity for the multitude, who constituted a different class from those who had secured places at his readings upon the "English Humorists" and the "Four Georges." The audience, in fact, proved to be large, and doubtless the proceeds in behalf of the benevolent project correspondingly liberal.

I am sure, with all his dislike of hypocritical pretension and his disposition to hold it up to deserved obloquy, that he would have shrunk from the slightest trivial allusion by his companions to the awful relations But the explanation of the curious appel- between this world and that which is to lation, Codd, seems to me simple enough, come. In one of our many conversations I though it did not occur to Thackeray: at mentioned to him the objections urged by least, in the absence of any other gleam of an accomplished lady friend of mine to his light on this point, the theory I would ad- assignment of good, generous Colonel Newvance may be thought plausible. I believe come, at the close of his noble life, to the that the cant name in question was applied foundation of the hospital within the preto these old gentlemen by the boys in conse-cincts of which his boyish days had been

ners of some of the freer of our American girls, compared with the more staid demeanor of English young ladies with whom he was acquainted. Of course no imputations of a moral nature could arise, except so far as manners are in themselves the external indications of the inner moral sense. I know that one very pretty young lady actually followed him to Boston from a distant city, whose respectable father came and reclaimed her from this Quixotic undertaking. Her countenance was known to me, and one day, walking with Thackeray on Beacon Street, we met this infatuated young person coming from the opposite direction. He accosted her politely, and passed on without pause, remarking, as if to himself, with a sort of sigh of relief, "Well, thank Heaven, that pipe is smoked out." I was a good deal struck by the more than ordinary freedom of the expression from such a man and on such an occasion. Sure

passed, and where his solemn "Adsum" at the last ushered his brave spirit to the good man's home of eternal rest. I write of it as if it were all real, as it truly seems to be. The lady thought it a shame to bring such a man to what she thought a sort of degradation. "Then," said Thackeray, with more than usual earnestness of manner- "then she is not a Christian!" This was in itself as much a profession of faith as if he had written volumes in defense of it. I suppose the excellent lady only meant to say that, in a worldly point of view, it shocked the "offending Adam" in her, that so grand and simple a life as that of the beloved colonel should not have been crowned with "all that should accompany old age." But as Scott justly observes, in effect, in the introduction to one of his novels, in answer to the complaint of a tender-hearted critic who objected to the melancholy fate of one of his most interesting characters:-This life is a scene of discipline, trial, and vicissi-ly it was not in the best taste; but I am tude. If virtue always obtained an earthly reward in worldly riches and honors, it would be but a mechanical sort of world, its problems to be worked out to mathematical precision and demonstration, with only a selfish motive for action, altogether inconsistent with real virtue, and by no means conformable with the wiser designs of Divine Providence. In fact, it would operate to the obliteration of the eternal distinction between humble virtue and triumphant vice. I once asked Thackeray which he considered his best novel, and he said, without hesitation, he thought Esmond superior | to either of the others. I was a little surprised at his opinion at the time, in fact being then less familiar with Esmond than with several of the rest; but repeated perusal of it subsequently has confirmed to me the justness of his judgment.

not attempting to describe Thackeray as other than he was, according to his several moods of mind; and I imputed this odd sort of outburst to a sense of weariness and annoyance experienced, and perhaps to his having made, at the moment, a resolute effort to free himself from an uncomfortable acquaintance in the future. I never heard of the young lady afterward; but have no reason to doubt that her childish escapade, as in the case of other young persons carried away by a temporary flight of fancy, ended in her settling down into a sober, domestic American matron, than whom I am sure there are none more virtuous and wellconditioned in the whole range of the wide world.

Mr. Thackeray was an admirer-as what man of taste and true sentiment is not?-of female beauty. Certainly he saw in BosIt seems to be the fortune of those who ton many cultivated and attractive ladies; are prominently before the public, in cer- but I think he admired, more than others, tain relations with it, to have a class of fol- one married lady whom he knew in private lowers the motives of whose pursuit are not life rather than in general society, and in always altogether intelligible. Probably whose parlor I often met him. It was a dothe idea of some reflected distinction is oft-mestic scene in which he seemed completely en at the bottom of it. Actors and opera- at home, and where he conversed freely of singers of the male sex, however deficient in any remarkable personal advantages, have often been the objects of this sort of demonstrative admiration on the part of enthusiastic young ladies, until notes and bouquets became too common to command any special value. It was a subject of amusement with Thackeray, that he, a grave gentleman past middle life, a philosopher and a moralist, not beautiful certainly, with white hair and in spectacles, dignified and somewhat reserved in manner, should be exposed to this species of personal adulation. I am afraid he had occasion sometimes to set down the demonstrations in question to the disadvantage of the man

his own household ties in England, which he so sorely missed in another land. Of this lady, distinguished for her personal attractions and her unpretending good sense, he used to say, "She would be a countess any where;" which was taken as a remark of no little significance from one who had the entrée into aristocratic English society, and was sufficiently well acquainted with countesses and duchesses at home.

Of course Thackeray studied character wherever he observed any of its eccentricities. There were idiosyncrasies enough in Boston, if he had had the leisure to look them up; but his associations there and in other American cities, I imagine, were with