CHAPTER XV.
THACKERAY'S FAMILIARITY WITH THE WRITINGS OF THE SATIRICAL ESSAYISTS—Continued.
Characteristic Passages from the compositions of the 'Early Humourists,' from Thackeray's Library, illustrated by the Author's hand with original Marginal Sketches suggested by the Text—The 'Connoisseur,' 1754—Introduction—Review of Contributors—Paragraphs and Pencillings.
Preface to the 'Connoisseur.'
The 'Connoisseur' was undertaken by a brace of congenial wits, George Colman the elder, well known as a humourist and dramatic writer, and Bonnel Thornton, both of whom at the time they obliged the public with this publication were very young men, still pursuing their studies at Oxford University. They appear to have entered into a partnership, of which the following account is given in their last paper:—'We have not only joined in the work taken altogether,' says the writer of No. 140, 'but almost every single paper is the product of both; and, as we have laboured equally in erecting the fabric, we cannot pretend that any one particular part is the sole workmanship of either. A hint has perhaps been started by one of us, improved by the other, and still further heightened by a happy coalition of sentiment in both, as fire is struck out by a mutual collision of flint and steel. Sometimes, like Strada's lovers conversing with the sympathetic needles, we have written papers together at fifty miles' distance from each other. The first rough draft or loose minutes of an essay have often travelled in the stage-coach from town to country and from country to town; and we have frequently waited for the postman (whom we expected to bring us the precious remainder of a "Connoisseur") with the same anxiety we should wait for the half of a bank note, without which the other half would be of no value.'
Such, indeed, was the similarity of manner, that, after some years, the survivor, George Colman, was unable to distinguish his share from that of his colleague in the case of those papers which were written conjointly. Neither had an individuality of style by which conjecture might be assisted. The prose compositions of both were of the light and easy kind, sometimes with a dramatic turn, and sometimes with an air of parody or imitation; and their objects were generally the same, the existing follies and absurdities of the day, which they chastised with ironical severity.
George Colman, by whom it is probable the 'Connoisseur' was projected, was the son of Thomas Colman, British Resident at the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Pisa, by a sister of the Countess of Bath. He was born at Florence about the year 1733, and placed at a very early age at Westminster School, where his talents soon became conspicuous, and where he contracted an acquaintance with Lloyd, Churchill, Thornton, and others, who were afterwards the reigning wits of the day, but unfortunately only employed their genius on the perishable beings and events of the passing hour. Colman was elected to Christ's Church in 1751, and received the degree of M.A. in the month of March, 1758.
It was at that college he projected the 'Connoisseur,' which was printed at Oxford by Jackson, and sent to London for publication; it afforded the coadjutors a very desirable relaxation from their classical studies, to which, however, Colman was particularly attached, and which he continued to cultivate at a more advanced period of life, his last publication being a translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry.'
Bonnel Thornton, the colleague of George Colman in many of his literary labours, was the son of an apothecary, and born in Maiden Lane, London, in the year 1724. After the usual course of education at Westminster School, he was elected to Christ's Church, Oxford, in 1743. The first publication in which he was concerned was the 'Student, or the Oxford Monthly Miscellany,' afterwards altered to the 'Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany.' This entertaining medley appeared in monthly numbers, printed at Oxford, for Newbery, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Smart was the principal conductor, but Thornton and other writers of both Universities occasionally assisted.
Our author, in 1752, began a periodical work, entitled 'Have at ye All, or the Drury Lane Journal,' in opposition to Fielding's 'Covent Garden Journal.' It contains humorous remarks on reigning follies, but indulges somewhat too freely in personal ridicule.