Thackeray, whose father was in the Indian Civil Service, was born at Calcutta and educated at the Charterhouse and Cambridge. He studied in Paris as an artist, but took to literature and wrote for Fraser’s Magazine and (from 1842) for Punch. It was not until 1847 that, with the publication of “Vanity Fair,” he became a serious competitor for popular favour with Dickens. In 1859 he became the first editor of the Cornhill Magazine.
Sir W. Gordon.] [From an Engraving.
LORD MACAULAY,
1800–1859.
Thomas Babington Macaulay was the son of Zachary Macaulay the philanthropist. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the Bar in 1826. In 1834 he went to Calcutta as a member of the Supreme Council; on his return he became Secretary at War, and, in 1846, Paymaster to the Forces. His “Essays” began to appear in the Edinburgh Review in 1825; his “Lays of Ancient Rome” were published in 1842. He was engaged on the final chapters of his “History of England” when he died, in 1859. He was raised to the peerage in 1857.
|The Orsini Plot.|
KANDY LAKE, CEYLON.
The Island of Ceylon has a population exceeding 3,000,000. Its principal product is tea, of which in 1896 over 100,000,000 lbs. were exported. The chief town is Colombo. Kandy, situated on a beautiful lake in the interior, was the capital of the native kingdom before its annexation by the British in 1815.
But the squall that was to overturn the Ministry came from a quarter which nobody could have foreseen. On January 14 a murderous attack was made on the Emperor and Empress of the French in Paris. An Italian refugee, Felice Orsini, well known in England, waited, with a number of fellow-ruffians, at the door of the Opera House in the Rue Lepelletier, and threw three bombs, charged with a powerful explosive, at the Imperial carriage as it drew up. The effect was appalling: the intended victims escaped unhurt, but ten persons were blown to death among the bystanders, and no less than 156 were wounded, of whom Orsini himself was one. All this was dreadful enough, and yet the connection thereof with the stability of Palmerston’s Administration might seem exceedingly remote. It was established in the following way. Orsini, a man of good birth and attractive exterior, had been very well received in English society, and his appeals on behalf of the Italian provinces of Austria had received polite attention, and, among enthusiastic advocates of freedom, a great deal of sympathy. London was then, as it remains to this day, a sanctuary for political refugees from all the ends of the earth. Palmerston, however, had enough common-sense and honesty to recognise that it was one thing to allow fugitives to shelter in England, and quite another to take no precautions as to their good behaviour, and he prepared and introduced a Bill to strengthen the law dealing with conspiracy to murder. This was vehemently opposed on the first reading by Lord John Russell, but Disraeli and the Conservatives helped to carry that stage by a large majority. In the interval, however, before the second reading, public opinion had undergone a marked change. The tone of the French Press had become intensely insulting towards Great Britain; people in London had got it in their heads that the Conspiracy to Murder Bill had been prepared at the dictation of the French Ambassador, and Palmerston was suspected of being at his old game of truckling to Louis Napoleon. |Government Defeat and Resignation.| The suspicion was fatal to him. An amendment to the second reading, moved by Mr. Milner Gibson, was supported by Disraeli and 146 Conservatives, and carried against the Government by a majority of nineteen. Palmerston resigned at once, and Lord Derby began his second administration with his eldest son, Lord Stanley, at the Colonial Office, Lord Malmesbury at the Foreign Office, and Disraeli leading the House of Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer.