The last of the four letters supports this view and says: “It was the fourth, not the third, Marquis of Hertford who was supposed to be the prototype {12} of Thackeray’s Marquis of Steyne. . . . He was Richard Seymour Conway, who was born in 1800 and died in 1870.”[3]
Now, considering that these are the only opinions for which I have asked, and that they are so curiously divergent, it will, I think, be clear that it is time an authoritative declaration were forthcoming, based upon independent inquiries.
It may as well, then, be stated once for all that no one who has taken the trouble to investigate the lives of the three marquises above mentioned can hesitate for a moment in identifying the “Marquis of Steyne” with the third Marquis of Hertford. To those who are curious to know very full particulars about these noblemen I would recommend the perusal of an interesting article entitled “Two Marquises” in Lippincott’s Magazine for February 1874. Nor should they fail to read Disraeli’s Coningsby, and compare “Lord Monmouth” and his creature “Rigby,” whose prototypes were the same Marquis of Hertford and his creature Croker, with the {13} “Marquis of Steyne” and his managing man “Wenham.”
And, whilst we are identifying the third Marquis in Coningsby and Vanity Fair, reference may be made to another most unflattering portrait of that notorious nobleman in a book published anonymously in 1844, which was immediately suppressed, but is now not infrequently to be found in second-hand book catalogues. The book was (I believe) written by John Mills, and had ten clever etched plates by George Standfast (probably a nom de plume). Copies in the parts as published are excessively rare. The title of the book is D’Horsay; or the Follies of the Day, by a Man of Fashion.[4] It dealt with the escapades, vices, and adventures of well-known men of the day under the following transparent pseudonyms: Count d’Horsay, the Marquis of Hereford, the Earl of Chesterlane, Mr. Pelham, General Reel, Lord George Bentick, Mr. George Robbins, auctioneer, the Earl of Raspberry Hill, Benjamin D——i, Lord Hunting-Castle, and others. The {14} account of the “closing scene in the life of the greatest debauchee the world has ever seen, the Marquis of Hereford,” is too horrible to repeat.
[3] As I write, a great daily newspaper informs the world that it was the first Marquis.
[4] This scurrilous and poorly written book has lately been thought worthy of resurrection and republication.
So much for the identity of the “Marquis of Steyne” as described in Thackeray’s letterpress, which need not be dwelt upon here at greater length, seeing that the immediate object of this chapter is to deal with the accompanying engraving and its history. And in proceeding to this examination it should not be forgotten, in fairness to the novelist, that Thackeray has explained that his characters were made up of little bits of various persons. This is no doubt true enough. At the same time, we cannot but be aware that, although the details may have been gathered, the outline has been drawn direct from the life.
The Suppressed Portrait of the Marquis of Steyne
Vanity Fair was issued originally in monthly parts. Its first title was Vanity Fair: Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society. Its first number was dated “January 1847,” and had “illustrations on steel and wood by the Author.” On p. 336 of the earliest issue of this first edition appeared the wood engraving of the Marquis of Steyne, wanting which a first edition is, to the {15} bibliomaniac, Hamlet with Hamlet left out. In the later issues, the engraving (which I here reproduce) was omitted, as also was the “rustic type” in which the title appeared on the first page.[5] The publishers were Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, {16} as was natural, Thackeray being at this time on the staff of Punch. In later editions of the novel, published by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., the engraving reappears—viz. on p. 22 of vol. ii. in the standard edition, and on p. 158, vol. ii., of the twenty-six-volume edition.[6]