In Thackeray's schooldays the Charterhouse enjoyed considerable reputation under the head-mastership of Dr. Russell, whose death happened in the same year as that of his illustrious pupil. No one who has read Thackeray's novels can fail to know the kind of life he led here. He has continually described his experiences at this celebrated school—with the venerable archway into Charterhouse Square, which still preserves an interesting token of the old monkish character of the neighbourhood. Only a fortnight before his death he was there again, as was his custom, on the anniversary of the death of Thomas Sutton, the munificent founder of the school. 'He was there,' says one who has described the scene, 'in his usual back seat in the quaint old chapel. He went thence to the oration in the Governor's room; and as he walked up to the orator with his contribution, was received with such hearty applause as only Carthusians can give to one who has immortalised their school. At the banquet afterwards he sat at the side of his old friend and artist-associate in "Punch," John Leech; and in a humorous speech proposed, as a toast, the noble foundation which he had adorned by his literary fame, and made popular in his works.' 'Divine service,' says another describer of this scene, for ever memorable as the last appearance of Thackeray in public life, 'took place at four o'clock, in the quaint old chapel; and the appearance of the brethren in their black gowns, of the old stained glass and carving in the chapel, of the tomb of Sutton, could hardly fail to give a peculiar and interesting character to the service. Prayers were said by the Rev. J. J. Halcombe, the reader of the house. There was only the usual parochial chanting of the Nunc Dimittis; the familiar Commemoration-day psalms, cxxii. and c., were sung after the third collect and before the sermon; and before the general thanksgiving the old prayer was offered up expressive of thankfulness to God for the bounty of Thomas Sutton, and of hope that all who enjoy it might make a right use of it. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Henry Earle Tweed, late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who prefaced it with the "Bidding Prayer," in which he desired the congregation to pray generally for all public schools and colleges, and particularly for the welfare of the house "founded by Thomas Sutton for the support of age and the education of youth."'
First Term
Second Term
'O crikey, father, there's a jolly great what's-a-name!'
From Charterhouse School Thackeray went to Trinity College, Cambridge, about 1828, the year of his leaving the Charterhouse, and among his fellow-students there had Mr. John Mitchell Kemble, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar, and Mr. Tennyson. With the latter—then unknown as a poet—he formed an acquaintance which he maintained to the last, and no reader of the Poet Laureate had a more earnest admiration for his productions than his old Cambridge associate, Thackeray. At college, Thackeray kept seven or eight terms, but took no degree; though he was studious, and his love of classical literature is apparent in most of his writings, either in his occasional apt two words from Horace, or in the quaint and humorous adoption of Latin idioms in which, in his sportive moods, he sometimes indulged. A recent writer tells us that his knowledge of the classics—of Horace at least—was amply sufficient to procure him an honourable place in the 'previous examination.'
A University Tradesman