Thackeray returned to London in March 1836, and resided for a few months in the house of his step-father, Major Henry Carmichael Smyth. The principal object of his return was to concert with the Major, who was a gentleman of some literary attainments, a project for starting a daily newspaper. The time was believed to be remarkably opportune for the new journal; the old oppressive newspaper stamp being about to be repealed, and a penny stamp, giving the privilege of a free transmission through the post, to be substituted. Their project was to form a small joint-stock company, to be called the Metropolitan Newspaper Company, with a capital of 60,000l., in shares of 10l. each. The Major, as chief proprietor, became chairman of the new company; Laman Blanchard was appointed editor, Douglas Jerrold the dramatic critic, and Thackeray the Paris correspondent. An old and respectable, though decaying journal, entitled the 'Public Ledger,' was purchased by the company; and on September 15, the first day of the reduced stamp duty, the newspaper was started with the title of the 'Constitutional and Public Ledger.' The politics of the paper were ultra-liberal. Its programme was entire freedom of the press, extension of popular suffrage, vote by ballot, shortening of duration of parliaments, equality of civil rights and religious liberty. A number of the most eminent of the advanced party, including Mr. Grote, Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Joseph Hume, and Colonel Thompson, publicly advertised their intention to support the new journal, and to promote its circulation. Thackeray's Paris letters, signed 'T. T.,' commenced on September 24, and were continued at intervals until the spring of the following year. They present little worth notice. At that time the chatty correspondent who discourses upon all things save the subject of his letter was a thing unknown. Bare facts, such as the telegraph-wire now brings us, with here and there a soupçon of philosophical reflection, were the utmost that the readers of newspapers in those days demanded of the useful individual who kept watch in the capital of civilisation for events of interest. Generally, however, the letters are characterised by a strong distaste for the Government of July, and by an ardent liberalism which had but slightly cooled down when, at the Oxford election in 1857, he declared himself an uncompromising advocate of vote by ballot. Writing from Paris on October 8, he says: 'We are luckily too strong to dread much from open hostility, or to be bullied back into Toryism by our neighbours; but if Radicalism be a sin in their eyes, it exists, thank God! not merely across the Alps, but across the Channel.' The new journal, however, was far from prosperous. After enlarging its size and raising its price from fourpence-halfpenny to fivepence, it gradually declined in circulation. The last number appeared on July 1, 1837, bearing black borders for the death of the king. 'We can estimate, therefore,' says the dying speech of the 'Constitutional,' 'the feelings of the gentleman who once walked at his own funeral,' and the editor, or perhaps his late Paris correspondent, adds: 'The adverse circumstances have been various. In the philosophy of ill-luck it may be laid down as a principle that every point of discouragement tends to one common centre of defeat. When the Fates do concur in one discomfiture their unanimity is wonderful. So has it happened in the case of the "Constitutional." In the first place, a delay of some months, consequent upon the postponement of the newspaper stamp reduction, operated on the minds of many who were originally parties to the enterprise; in the next, the majority of those who remained faithful were wholly inexperienced in the art and mystery of the practical working of an important daily journal; in the third, and consequent upon the other two, there was the want of those abundant means, and of that wise application of resources, without which no efficient organ of the interests of any class of men—to say nothing of the interests of that first and greatest class whose welfare has been our dearest aim and most constant object—can be successfully established. Then came further misgivings on the part of friends, and the delusive undertakings of friends in disguise.' The venture proved in every way a disastrous one. Although nominally supported by a joint-stock company, the burden of the undertaking really rested upon the original promoters, of whom Major Smyth was the principal, while his step-son, Thackeray, also lost nearly all that remained of his fortune.
It was shortly after the failure of the 'Constitutional' that Thackeray married in Paris a Miss Shaw, sister of the Captain Shaw, an Indian officer, who was one of the mourners at his funeral, an Irish lady of good family, who bore him two daughters, the elder of whom first gave, during her illustrious father's life-time, indications of inheriting his talents, in the remarkable story of 'Elizabeth,' written by her, and published in the 'Cornhill Magazine.' In 1837 he left Paris with his family, and resided for two years in Great Coram Street, London, when he began to devote himself seriously to literary labour, adding, we believe, occasional work as an illustrator. We are told that he contributed some papers to the 'Times' during the late Mr. Barnes's editorship—an article on 'Fielding' among them. He is believed to have been connected with two literary papers of his time—the 'Torch,' edited by Felix Fax, Esq., and the 'Parthenon,' which must not be confounded with a literary journal with the same name recently existing. The 'Torch,' which was started on August 26, 1837, ran only for six months, and was immediately succeeded by the 'Parthenon,' which had a longer existence. In neither paper, however, is it possible to trace any sign of that shrewd criticism and that overflowing humour which distinguish the papers in 'Fraser.' For the latter publication he laboured assiduously, and it was at this time that the 'Yellowplush Papers' appeared, with occasional notices of the Exhibitions of Paintings in London. Among his writings of this period (1837-1840) we also find 'Stubbs's Calendar, or the Fatal Boots,' contributed to his friend Cruikshank's 'Comic Almanack' for 1839, and since included in the 'Miscellanies;' 'Catherine, by Ikey Solomons, jun.,' a long continuous story, founded on the crime of Catherine Hayes, the celebrated murderess of the last century, and intended to ridicule the novels of the school of Jack Sheppard, and illustrated with outline cartoons by the author; 'Cartouche' and 'Poinsonnet,' two stories, and 'Epistles to the Literati.' In 1839 he visited Paris again, at the request of the proprietor of 'Fraser,' in order to write an account of the French Exhibition of Paintings, which appeared in the December number.
On his return he devoted himself to writing the 'Shabby Genteel Story,' which was begun in 'Fraser' for June, and continued in the numbers for July, August, and October, when it stopped unfinished at the ninth chapter. The story of this strange failure is a mournful one. While busily engaged in working out this affecting story, a dark shadow descended upon his household, making all the associations of that time painful to him for ever. The terrible truth, long suspected, that the chosen partner of his good and evil fortunes could never participate in the success for which he had toiled, became confirmed. The mental disease which had attacked his wife rapidly developed itself, until the hopes which had sustained those to whom she was most dear were wholly extinguished. Thackeray was not one of those who love to parade their domestic sorrows before the world. No explanation of his omission to complete his story was given to his readers; but, years afterwards, in reprinting it in his 'Miscellanies,' he hinted at the circumstances which had paralyzed his hand, and rendered him incapable of ever resuming the thread of his story, with a touching suggestiveness for those who knew the facts. The tale was interrupted, he said, 'at a sad period of the writer's own life.' When the republication of the 'Miscellanies' was announced, it was his intention to complete the little story—but the colours were long since dry, the artist's hand had changed. It 'was best,' he said, 'to leave the sketch as it was when first designed seventeen years ago. The memory of the past is renewed as he looks at it.'[9]
It was in 1840 that Thackeray contributed to the 'Westminster' a kindly and appreciative article upon the productions of his friend George Cruikshank, illustrated—an unusual thing for the great organ of the philosophers of the school of Bentham, J. Mill, and Sir W. Molesworth—with numerous specimens of the comic sketches of the subject of the paper. His defence of Cruikshank from the cavils of those who loved to dwell upon his defects as a draughtsman is full of sound criticism, and his claim for his friend as something far greater, a man endowed with that rarest of all faculties, the power to create, is inspired by a generous enthusiasm which lends a life and spirit to the paper not often found in a critical review. This long paper, signed with the Greek letter Theta, is little known, but Thackeray frequently referred to it as a labour in which he had felt a peculiar pleasure.
In the summer of 1840 Thackeray collected some of his original sketches inserted in 'Fraser' and other periodicals, English and foreign, and republished them under the title of the 'Paris Sketch Book.' This work is interesting as the first independent publication of the author, but of its contents few things are now remembered. The dedicatory letter prefixed, however, is peculiarly characteristic of the writer. It relates to a circumstance which had occurred to him some time previously in Paris. The old days when money was abundant, and loitering among the pictures of the Paris galleries could be indulged in without remorse, had gone. The res angusta domi with which genius has so often been disturbed in its day-dreams began to be familiar to him. The unfortunate failure of the 'Constitutional'—a loss which he, years afterwards, occasionally referred to as a foolish commercial speculation on which he had ventured in his youth—had absorbed the whole of his patrimony. At such a time a temporary difficulty in meeting a creditor's demand was not uncommon. On one such occasion, a M. Aretz, a tailor in the Rue Richelieu, who had for some time supplied him with coats and trousers, presented him with a small account for those articles, and was met with a statement from his debtor that an immediate settlement of the bill would be extremely inconvenient to him. To Titmarsh's astonishment the reply of his creditor was, 'Mon Dieu, sir, let not that annoy you. If you want money, as a gentleman often does in a strange country, I have a thousand-franc note at my house which is quite at your service.' The generous offer was accepted. The coin which, in proof of the tailor's esteem for his customer, was advanced without any interest, was duly repaid together with the account; but the circumstance could not be forgotten. The person obliged felt how becoming it was to acknowledge and praise virtue, as he slily said, wherever he might find it, and to point it out for the admiration and example of his fellow-men. Accordingly, he determined to dedicate his first book to the generous tailor, giving at full length his name and address. In the dedicatory letter, he accordingly alludes to this anecdote, adding—
'History or experience, sir, makes us acquainted with so few actions that can be compared to yours; a kindness like yours, from a stranger and a tailor, seems to me so astonishing, that you must pardon me for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, sir, that you live on the first floor; that your clothes and fit are excellent, and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay these volumes at your feet.
'Your obliged, faithful servant,
'M. A. Titmarsh.'
General Bonaparte
A second edition of the 'Paris Sketch Book' was announced by the publisher, Macrone—the same publisher who had a few years before given to the world the 'Sketches by Boz,' the first of Dickens' publications; but the second edition was probably only one of those conventional fictions with which the spirits of young authors are sustained. Though containing many flashes of the Titmarsh humour, many eloquent passages, and much interesting reading of a light kind, the public took but a passing interest in it. Years after, in quoting its title, the author good-humouredly remarked, in a parenthesis, that some copies, he believed, might still be found unsold at the publisher's; but the book was forgotten and most of its contents were rejected by the writer when preparing his selected miscellanies for the press. A similar couple of volumes, published by Cunningham in 1841, under the title of 'Comic Tales and Sketches, edited and illustrated by Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh,' and an independent republication, also in two volumes, of the 'Yellowplush Papers,' from 'Fraser,' were somewhat more successful. The former contained 'Major Gahagan' and the 'Bedford-row Conspiracy,' reprinted from the 'New Monthly;' 'Stubbs's Calendar, or the Fatal Boots,' from Cruikshank's 'Comic Almanack;' some amusing criticisms on the 'Sea Captain,' and 'Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary,' and other papers from 'Fraser.' The illustrations to the volumes were tinted etchings of a somewhat more careful character than those unfinished artistic drolleries in which he generally indulged. A brace of portraits of Dr. Lardner and Bulwer may be reckoned in the great humourist's happiest caricature vein.