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The year 1858 was marked by an unfortunate episode the facts of which cannot be omitted from this narrative, because though trifling in their origin, they finally led to a temporary estrangement between Mr. Thackeray and his great brother novelist Mr. Dickens, with whom he had hitherto had only relations of the most friendly character. On the 12th of June in that year an article had appeared in a periodical called "Town Talk,” which professed to give an account of Mr. Thackeray his appearance, his career, and his success. The article was coarse and offensive in tone, but it was notorious that the periodical was edited by a clever writer of the day, well known to Mr. Thackeray as a brother member of a club to which he belonged. As such, the subject of the attack felt himself compelled to take notice of it. In order to understand the resentment displayed by the latter at this unprovoked attack, it is necessary to quote the following passage from the article :

HIS APPEARANCE.

“Mr. Thackeray is forty-six years old, though from the silvery whiteness of his hair he appears somewhat older. He is very tall, standing upwards of six feet two inches; and as he walks erect, his height makes him conspicuous in every assembly. His face is bloodless, and not particularly expressive, but remarkable for the fracture of the bridge of the nose, the result of an accident in youth. He wears a small gray whisker, but otherwise is clean shaven. No one meeting him could fail to recognize in him a gentleman: his bearing is cold and uninviting, his style of conversation either openly cynical, or affectedly good-natured and benevolent; his bonhommie is forced, his wit biting, his pride easily touched but his appearance is invariably that of the cool, suave, wellbred gentleman, who, whatever may be rankling within, suffers no surface display of his emotion.

HIS SUCCESS,

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"Commencing with 'Vanity Fair,' culminated with his 'Lectures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century,' which were attended by all the court and fashion of London. The prices were extravagant, the lecturer's adulation of birth and position was extravagant, the success was extravagant. No one succeeds better than Mr. Thackeray in cutting his coat according to his cloth: here he flattered the aristocracy, but when he crossed the Atlantic, George Washington became the idol of his worship, the Four Georges' the objects of his bitterest attacks. These last-named lectures have been dead failures in England, though as literary compositions they are most excellent. Our own opinion is, that his success is on the wane; his writings never were understood or appreciated even by the middle classes; the aristocracy have been alienated by his American onslaught on their body, and the educated and refined are not sufficiently numerous to constitute an audience; moreover, there is a want of heart in all he writes, which is not to be balanced by the most brilliant sarcasm, and the most perfect knowledge of the workings of the human heart."

Two days later Mr. Thackeray addressed the assumed writer of this article, in the following letter :

36 ONSLOW Square, S. W., June 14. SIR, I have received two numbers of a little paper called 'Town Talk,' containing notices respecting myself, of which, as I learn from the best authority, you are the writer.

"In the first article of 'Literary Talk' you think fit to publish an incorrect account of my private dealings with my publishers.

"In this week's number appears a so-called ‘Sketch ' containing a description of my manners, person, and conversation, and an account of my literary works, which of course you are at liberty to praise or condemn as a literary critic.

"But you state, with regard to my conversation, that it is

either frankly cynical or affectedly benevolent and goodnatured;' and of my works (Lectures), that in some I showed 'an extravagant adulation of rank and position,' which in other lectures ('as I know how to cut my coat according to my cloth') became the object of my bitterest attack.

"As I understand your phrases, you impute insincerity to me when I speak good-naturedly in private; assign dishonorable motives to me for sentiments which I have delivered in public, and charge me with advancing statements which I have never delivered at all.

"Had your remarks been written by a person unknown to me, I should have noticed them no more than other calumnies; but as we have shaken hands more than once, and met hitherto on friendly terms (you may ask one of your employers, Mr. whether I did not speak of you very lately in the most friendly manner), I am obliged to take notice of articles which I consider to be not offensive and unfriendly merely, but slanderous and untrue.

of

"We meet at a club, where, before you were born, I believe, I and other gentleman have been in the habit of talking without any idea that our conversation would supply paragraphs for professional vendors of 'Literary Talk;' and I don't remember that out of that club I have ever exchanged six words with you. Allow me to inform you that the talk which you have heard there is not intended for newspaper remark; and to beg- as I have a right to do that you will refrain from printing comments upon my private conversations; that you will forego discussions, however blundering, upon my private affairs; and that you will henceforth please to consider any question of my personal truth and sincerity as quite out of the province of your criticism. I am, etc.,

W. M. THACKERAY.”

Subsequently Mr. Thackeray "rather (he said) than have any further correspondence with the writer of the character," determined to submit the letters which had passed between them to the committee of the club, for that body to decide

whether the practice of publishing such articles would not be "fatal to the comfort of the club," and "intolerable in a society of gentlemen." The committee accordingly met, and decided that the writer of the attack complained of was bound to make an ample apology, or to retire from the club. The latter contested the right of the committee to interfere. Suits at law and proceedings in chancery against the committee were threatened, when Mr. Dickens, who was also a member of the club, interfered with the following letter:

"TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W. C. "Wednesday, 24th November, 1858.

"MY DEAR THACKERAY, Without a word of prelude, I wish this note to revert to a subject on which I said six words to you at the Athenæum when I last saw you.

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Coming home from my country work, I find Mr. Edwin James's opinion taken on this painful question of the Garrick and Mr. Edmund Yates. I find it strong on the illegality of the Garrick proceeding. Not to complicate this note or give it a formal appearance, I forbear from copying the opinion; but I have asked to see it, and I have it, and I want to make no secret from you of a word of it.

"I find Mr. Edwin James retained on the one side; I hear and read of the Attorney-general being retained on the other. Let me, in this state of things, ask you a plain question.

"Can any conference be held between me, as representing Mr. Yates, and an appointed friend of yours, as representing you, with the hope and purpose of some quiet accommodation of this deplorable matter, which will satisfy the feelings of all concerned?

"It is right that, in putting this to you, I should tell you that Mr. Yates, when you first wrote to him, brought your letter to me. He had recently done me a manly service I can never forget, in some private distress of mine (generally within your knowledge), and he naturally thought of me as his friend in an emergency. I told him that his article was not to be defended; but I confirmed him in his opinion that it was not reasonably possible for him to set right what was amiss, on

the receipt of a letter couched in the very strong terms you had employed. When you appealed to the Garrick committee and they called their General Meeting, I said at that meeting that you and I had been on good terms for many years, and that I was very sorry to find myself opposed to you; but that I was clear that the committee had nothing on earth to do with it, and that in the strength of my conviction I should go against them.

"If this mediation that I have suggested can take place, I shall be heartily glad to do my best in it- and God knows in no hostile spirit towards any one, least of all to you. If it cannot take place, the thing is at least no worse than it was ; and you will burn this letter, and I will burn your answer. “Yours faithfully, CHARLES DICKENS.

"W. M. Thackeray, Esq."

To this Mr. Thackeray replied:

36 ONSLOW SQUARE, 26th November, 1858

"DEAR DICKENS, I grieve to gather from your letter that you were Mr. Yates's adviser in the dispute between me and him. His letter was the cause of my appeal to the Garrick Club for protection from insults against which I had no other remedy.

"I placed my grievance before the committee of the club as the only place where I have been accustomed to meet Mr. Yates. They gave their opinion of his conduct and of the reparation which lay in his power. Not satisfied with their sentence, Mr. Yates called for a General Meeting; and, the meeting which he had called having declared against him, he declines the jurisdiction which he had asked for, and says he will have recourse to lawyers.

"You say that Mr. Edwin James is strongly of opinion that the conduct of the club is illegal. On this point I can give no sort of judgment: nor can I conceive that the club will be frightened, by the opinion of any lawyer, out of their own sense of the justice and honor which ought to obtain among gentlemen.