LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
[William Makepeace Thackeray, circa 1853][Frontispiece]
[W. M. Thackeray (from a drawing by Daniel Maclise about 1840)][1]
[Larkbeare, the Home of Thackeray’s Mother][2]
[The Charterhouse in the time of Thackeray][2]
[Richmond Thackeray, Father of the Novelist][3]
[W. M. Thackeray in 1822][4]
[Thackeray at the Age of Three, with his Father and Mother][5]
[Thackeray among the Fraserians][6]
[Rue Neuve St. Augustin, Paris, 1836][7]
[W. M. Thackeray (by Frank Stone, 1836)][9]
[No. 18, Albion Street, Hyde Park][10]
[No. 13, Great Coram Street, Brunswick Square][11]
[Drawing from Punch: Authors’ Miseries, No. 6][12]
[“Comic Tales and Sketches”][13]
[Bust of Thackeray (after Joseph Durham)][14]
[William Makepeace Thackeray][15]
[The Strangers’ Room, Reform Club][17]
[No. 13 (now 16), Young Street, Kensington][18]
[No. 36, Onslow Square, Brompton][19]
[Chaeau de Brequerecque, Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1854][20]
[Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh][21]
[W. M. Thackeray (from a sketch by Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A.)][23]
[W. M. Thackeray (from the painting by Samuel Laurence in the National Portrait Gallery)][24]
[W. M. Thackeray (from a photograph)][25]
[The Writing Table and Chair used by Thackeray at Young Street, Onslow Square, and Palace Green][27]
[W. M. Thackeray (from a pencil drawing by Richard Doyle in the British Museum)][28]
[A Posthumous Portrait of Thackeray (by Sir John Gilbert, R.A.)][29]
[W. M. Thackeray (from a photograph)][30]
[A Page of Thackeray’s Manuscript][31]
[The House at No. 2, Palace Green, Kensington, in which Thackeray Died][32]
[Thackeray’s Grave in Kensal Green Cemetery][33]
[W. M. Thackeray (from the statuette by Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A.)][34]

THACKERAY

From a drawing by Daniel Maclise about 1840

W. M. THACKERAY

(Reproduced from the Biographical Edition of Thackeray’s Works, by kind permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.)

AMID all the eulogies and all the slanders that are lavished upon the English character, very few people would appear to take any real trouble to obtain a sincere view of it. Rhetorical phrases about its inarticulate strength and nobility do not commonly bring us very much further, for it may be questioned whether it is good for a people excitedly to articulate their own inarticulate disposition. But, when all is said and done, it may truly be said that among all the national temperaments the English is pre-eminently simple and profoundly well-meaning. This well-meaningness combined with this simplicity is responsible for every one of its crimes, and it is the basis of its real and indestructible magnificence. But this union of moral soundness with mental innocence is responsible also for a certain tendency noticeable in all English life and character: the tendency to get hold of the truth, but to get hold of it falsely; to grasp the fact, but to grasp it somehow by the wrong end. A hundred instances might be given of this.