Some of us may have seen, though very few of us can possess, a very rare pamphlet, which was sold for as much as £39 on one of its infrequent appearances in the auction-rooms, entitled Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club. In it was published a never-sent reply to a letter written by Thackeray remonstrating with Yates on the contents of a “pen-and-ink” sketch published by the latter in No. 6 of a periodical called Town {9} Talk, which resulted in Yates’s expulsion from the Garrick Club.
In this unsent letter he charged Thackeray with having unjustifiably introduced portraits both in his letterpress and illustrations. Mr. Stephen Price appeared as Captain Shindy in the Book of Snobs. In the same book Thackeray drew on a wood block what was practically a portrait of Wyndham Smith, a fellow-clubman. This appeared amongst “Sporting Snobs,” Mr. Smith being a well-known sporting man. In Pendennis he made a sketch of a former member of the Garrick Club, Captain Granby Calcraft, under the name of Captain Granby Tiptoff. In the same book, under the transparent guise of the unforgettable Foker, he reproduced every characteristic, both in language, manner, and gesture, of Mr. Andrew Arcedeckne, and even went so far as to give an unmistakable portrait of him, to that gentleman’s great annoyance.
Besides the examples given by Yates, who was himself recognisable as George Garbage in The Virginians, we know, too, that in the same novel Theodore Hook appeared as Wagg, just as he did {10} as Stanislaus Hoax in Disraeli’s Vivian Grey, and that Alfred Bunn was the prototype of Mr. Dolphin. Archdeacon Allen was the original of Dobbin, Lady Langford of Lady Kew; and last, but not least, we have lately learned from Mrs. Ritchie that the inimitable Becky had undoubtedly her incarnation.
So we see that the antecedent improbability is as the snakes in Iceland; for the above examples, which no doubt could be largely added to, prove that Thackeray did not hesitate to draw direct from the model when it suited his purpose.
So far so good. Let us now proceed to inquire into the identity of the “Marquis of Steyne.”
That his prototype was a Marquis of Hertford is axiomatic with all those who have ever taken any interest in the subject; but when we come to inquire which marquis we find that opinions are astonishingly at variance. It would seem almost as though any Marquis of Hertford would serve, whereas in point of fact the portrait would be the grossest libel upon each of that noble line save one; and so incidentally we shall, by making the matter clear, rescue from calumny an honourable {11} race, which has hitherto through heedlessness been tarred with the same brush as its least honourable representative.
To show that this is not a reckless charge of inaccuracy, I quote from four letters in my possession written by four persons most likely to have special knowledge upon the subject.
The first, which is from a well-known printseller, informs me “that the Marquis of Steyne in Vanity Fair was Francis, second Marquis of Hertford, who died in 1822.”
The second, which is from one more intimately acquainted with the family than any other living person, says, “Unquestionably Francis, third Marquis of Hertford, the intimate friend of George IV., was the prototype of the Marquis of Steyne in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.”
The third letter, which is from a well-known London editor, in general the best-informed man I have ever met, says, “It was the fourth Lord, who died in 1870.”