YANKEE LIONIZING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 149, 12 November 1853, Page 5

YANKEE LIONIZING.

The "Broadway Delineator" publishes the following sketch of Mr. Thackeray, when on a visit to the States.

" One of his most singular habits is that of making rough sketches for caricatures on his finger nails. The phosphoretic ink he originally used, has destroyed the entire nails, so his fingers are now tipped with horn, on which he draws his portraits. The Duke of Marlboro' (under Queen Anne), General O'Gahagan (under Lord Lake), together with Ibrahim Pasha (at the Turkish Ambassador's), were thus taken. The celebrated engravings in the " Paris Sketch Book, Esmond," &c, were made from these sketches. He has an insatiable passion for snuff, which he carries loose in his pockets. At a ball at the Duke of Northumberland's, he set a whole party sneezing, in a polka, in so convulsive a manner, that they were obliged to break up in confusion. His pockets are all lined with tea-lead, after a fashion introduced by the late Lord Dartmouth.

" Mr. T. has a passion for daguerreotypes, of which he has a collection of many thousands. Most of these he took unobserved from the outer gallery of S. Paul's. He generally carries his apparatus in one of Sangster's Alpaca umbrellas surmounted with a head of Doctor Syntax. He has been known to collar a beggar boy in the streets, drag him off to the nearest pastry-cook's, and exercise his photographic art without ceremony. In London he had a tame laughing hyena, presented to him, on the breaking up of the Tower menagerie, which followed him like a dog, and was much attached to his master, though totally blind from confinement, deaf, and going on three legs and a wooden one. He was always surrounded by pets and domestic animals in his house ; two owls live in the ivy-tod of the summer-house in his gardeu. His backsitting room has an aviary. Monkeys, dogs, parrots, cats, and guinea-pigs swarm in the chambers. The correspondent of the Buffalo Revolver, who stayed three weeks with Mr. Thackeray during the Great Exhibition, gave us these particulars.

" His papers on the Greater Petty Chaps, or Garden Warbler, (Sylva Hortensis,) ' The Fauvette,' created an immense sensation when Madame Otto Goldschmidt was last in London. The Study is at the end of the garden. The outside is richly covered with honey-suckle, jasmine, and Virginian creepers. Here Mr. T. sits fn perfect solitude,' chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.' Being an early riser, he is generally to he found there in the morning, whence he can watch the birds. His daily costume is a hanging chlamys, or frock-coat, which he closely buttons, to avoid the incumbrance of a waistcoat. Hence the multiplicity of his coat pockets, whose extreme utility to him during his lectures has been remarked elsewhere. He wears no braces, but his nether garments are sustained by a suspensory belt or bandage of hemp, round his loins. Socks or stockings he despises as effeminate, and h&s been heard to sigh for the days of the Solea or cravb6\iov- A hair-shirt, close to the skin, as Dejanira's robe, with a changeable linen front of the finest texture; a mortification, or penance, according to his cynical contempt and vet respect for human vanity, is a part of his ordinary apparel. A gibus hat, and a pair of bluchers, complete his attire. By a contrivance borrowed from the disguises of pantominists, he undresses himself in the twinkling of a bedpost; and can slip into bed while an ordinary man is pulling off his coat. He is awaked from his sleep (lying always on his back in a sort of mesmeric trance) by a black servant, (Jos's domestic in Vanity Fair,) who enters his bedroom at four o'clock precisely every morning, winter or summer, tears down the bed-clothes, and literally saturates his master with a can of cold water drawn from the nearest spring. As he has no whiskers, he never needs to shave, and he is used to clean his teeth with the feather end of the quill with which he writes in bed. (In this free and enlightened country he will find he need not waste his time in cleaning his teeth at all.) With all his excessive simplicity, he is as elaborate in the arrangement of his" dress as Count D'Orsay, or Mr. Brummell. His toilet occupies him after matin studies, till -midday He then._sits_do\vn to a substantial 'bever,' or luncheon ortea/cbffeeVbreadjbutteT; salmon shad, Jiver. steak,potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings and sausages. At .the' top of this he deposits two glasses of Ratafia,

and three-fourths of a glass of rum-shrub. Immediately after the weal, his horses are brought to the door; he starts at once into a mad gallop, or coolly commences a gentle amble, according to the character of the work, fast or slow, that he is engaged upon. . " He pays no visits, and being a solitudinarian, frequents not even a single club in London. He dresses punctiliously for dinner every day. He is but a sorry eater, aud avoids all vegetable diet, as he thinks it dims the animal spirits. Only when engaged on pathetic subjects does he make a hearty meal; for the body macerated by long fasting, he says, cannot unaided, contribute the tears he would shed over what he writes. Wine he abhors, as a true Mussulman. Mr. T's favourite drink is gin and toast and water, or cider and bitters, cream and cayenne. " In religion a Parsee, (he was born in Calcutta), in morals a Stagyrite, in philosophy an Epicurean ; though nothing in his conversation or manners would lead one to surmise that he belonged to either or any of these sects. In politics an unflinching Tory ; fond of the throne, admiring the court, attached to the peerage, proud of the army and navy, a thick and thin upholder of Church and State, he is for tithes and taxes as in Pitt's time. He wears hairpowder to this day, from his entire reliance on the wisdom of his forefathers. Besides his novels, he is the author of the Vestiges of the Creation, the Errors of Numismatics, Junius's Letters, and Ivanhoe. The sequel to this last he published three or four years ago. He wrote all Louis Napoleon's works, and Madame H.s exquisite love-letters ; and, whilst secretary to that prince in confinement at Ham, assisted him in his escape by knocking down the sentry, with a ruler with which he had been ruling his accounts. Mr. T. is very fond of boxing, and used to have an occasional set-to with Ben Caunt, the Tipton Slasher, and Young Sambo. He fences admirably, and ran the celebrated Bertrand through the lungs twice, at an assaut d'armes in Paris. He is an exquisite dancer, he founded Laurent's Casino, (was a pupil of Old Grimaldi, surnamed Iron Legs,) and played Harlequin in the Mother Goose pan tomine once, when Ella, the regular performer, was taken ill, and unable'to appear. " He has no voice, ear, or fancy even, for music, and the only instruments he cares to listen to are, the Jews-harp, the bag-pipes, and the ' Indian drum.'

" He is disputatious and loquacious to a degree in company: and, at a dinner at the Bishop of Oxford's, the discussion with Mr. Macaulay, respecting the death of Mausolus, the husband of Zenobia, occupied the disputants for thirteen hours ere either rose to retire. Mr. Macaulay was found exhausted under the table. He has no acquaintance with the modern languages, and his French, which he freely uses throughout his writings, is furnished by the Parisian Governess in the Baron de B.s establishment. In the Classics he is superior to either Professor Sedgwick or Blackie (vide his Colloquies on Straho, and the Curtian Earthquake.) He was twice Senior Opt. at Magdalen College, and three times running carried off Barnes's prize for Greek theses and Cantata."