DEATH OF MR. THACKERAY.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 47, 24 February 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

DEATH OF MR. THACKERAY.

Il (From the Times, Decomber 20.V ."y 1 Suddenly one: >of our greatest lite--1 rary men has departed. : Never more shall tho fine head' of Mr. Thackeray, •with its mass of silvery hair, be seen towering among us. It was but two (Jays ago that he 'might be-seen^at 'his club, radiant and. buoyant with glee, | yeste^&y. h© ,was f found dead j jn hfa'bed. 1 'spirits he did not seem well ; he complained of illness; but he was often; ill, and he laughed : bffYKis "Resent 'attack.' y - He iaia' i Tie' i *was''- r ab , o'ut "to- 'undergo, some' treatment which \vouldYwork a'perfect cure in f his •■ system, and bo he; made light of his malady. He ,was ; suffering., from two distinct complaints, one of which has now wrought 'his death. More than a' fdozen years : ago; rwhile. heV waa writing "Pendennis," it will be remembered that the publication of that ftork was stopped, by his. s.erious illness.' 'Se was brought to*'deatKV I door, and he was,, saved from death by I - Dr. EUiotson,, to. whom, in gratitude, 1 he'dedicated the novel when ; K© ; lived? I to.finisjh it.. But, ever since that ailI ment* He Has been, 'subject every month I " or'six weeks*' .to 'attack's of sickness, I attended :i '.with j 'violent -retching. I He was ..congratulating,, .himself I the other day.., on v the ; r failure.," of |- his old enemy to " return,, arid 1 tli en 1 he checked himself, "a"3 if he ought' not 3 to be too sure of a 'release from his | plague. On Wednesday morning the I complaint . returned, : -and die,-- was „' in i great suffering? all -..day.:,. He was better in the , evening,- and . his servant, about the.time for leaving him for the night, prbposed'td sit'up with him. This he declined. He was heard'inbvihg about I midnight, and he -must have died I between two and three in the morning I of yesterday.^ --His medical attendants I attribute, -his deaths to. effusion on the brain. - r -They add • that ; he had a very ; large, . brain, weighing mo, less than I fifty-eight and a half ounces. He thus | died bf the' complaint which seemed to trouble him least. He died full of V strength and rejoicing, full of plans 'and hopes; : On Monday' last he was congratulating himself on having finished four numbers of a new novel; he had the manuscript in his pocket, and with a .boyish frankness showed the last pages to a friend, asking him to read them and see what he could make of them. Wli en he had completed four numbers more, he said he would subject himself to the skill of a - very clever surgeon, and be no more j an invalid. In the fulness of his i powers he 'has fallen before a com- ! plaint which gave him no alarm. | . of .a literary | .man's life are not numerous, and there have been published so many memories of Mr. Thackeray in biographical dictionaries and other works, that we need not-' go much into detail in recording dates. He belonged to a Yorkshire family, aiid he was descended from that Dr. Thackeray who was for some time head master at Harrow, and who introduced there the Eton system. His father was in . the Cml Service of ' the East India Company, and he was born at Calcutta..in. 1811. . He was educated at the "Charterhouse, which he loved to describe in his novels. Then he went \ to Cambridge, but he left the univer- I sity without taking a degree, and went to -the" Continent with a view of studying art. He might in those days be seen at Soine, at Weimar, and at Paris, "enjoying every kind of society, chiefly that of the : artists. He has described this sort of life abundantly in his tales. It was some years after 1 this that he turned his attention to literature. He had begun life with ; what might be considered a good fortune, but he lost his money and had to work. He began as a writer in Eraser's Magazine, in the days when Maginn was its- rilling, spirit, and under the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh "wrote scores. _of essays, reviews, tales, :• poems ; of, very unequal merit, which'* brought ;him. . little -renown and not much emolument. He contributed •;'- ;'tq other periodicals, <> wrote '- various 'books Jof 'travel, and worked for the publishersj'any that came to him, as a . /barrister 1 takes his' brief from any re- ' respectable attorney.- -The mass of work Vvhich'he gotthrbugh in this way was - v ? rv great, but,muelf6f it is interest- ' r ing ohly 'as the early practice of one master of „ , English. 4 On pie whole, as we TopkTbaek y; / 'lijtoii' -these 2 * :: writmgs,%e-Hi6 r -not"' -think (jVthat i if his .fame, at that, time was Unequal "(to 'Hs merits, the public were much to blame. The very high opinion „,whichhis friends entertained of him J^Ymustpiave been \ due; more to personal. ' intercourse^tKwVtbY,, his ' published works.' 'It ■' was noti until 1846 that Mr. Thackeray- fairly showed to the world what ...was „, in him. Then . began to be" published, in monthly numbers, the story of . " Vanity Eair. ' ' It took, London ..by surpriSe^the pic'tur.e' J was so irUe, the satire was" so Vj^ehchant, the style was so finished. ,»It. js. difficult to say wbich, of these three' l works ' is l the " - bestVi" Vanity ■Ai /Pair// . :<' Henrys iEsmond^ oor i " 'The Newcomes.'-'i ;f:Men of letters, may • ''give their preference to the second of these, wMeh;is'indeed the most finished of all hisworks". ' "But there is a Vigor . ; , : v,in^the^.&st^entipned, and a; matured 3j xpeautyl in-^fchelast,' whict'to the^hrong of readers : fwi]l be more attractive. ■ At first reading,,- ".rVanity Eair," has given •s : :- to, many an impression that the author ?^iß-*toovcynieah ?^ yr: ill-natured than Mr. Thackery, and, it '■"■ 'i>.* anybody doubts this, we* refer 'him tb f^;'" The ; NewComes," '^^and ask "whether ' that bdolC^buH/b^ written by aiiy- but — -a-most kindhearted man. Stffe ."believe that" 'due) of ithe ?greatest;miseries which Mr. Thackeray-had to endure grew oui •- j <; ; of -the sense that hey onie-'pf -%he'kindesl '• of 'mciiy i was, : regarded:'as. an ill-natur.ec eynicy""^^^ 7 "^"'" :ii "'- "A" a \ SzA: . -ity v.A \-yzAA-,ZA.AA zyrzyA -,\ -,

those which we have mentioned, aiid among theihy Yperhaps, "'Pendennis ' ' 1 ought to be named as standing on a nearly equal level. -Over' and above L thib, some of his minor works are 1 perfect in their- way. yThereis; alitfcle 1 .tale of his— ■" Barry Lyndon" — which > the more ardent lovers of Thackeray's \ writingo regard as. • >his ■■ masterpiece. ; 1 W;e have mentioned^ eiiough,, .however, I- to j ustify the opinion' that, except M>. > .pickens, no modern -English novelist ' jthan ."^illian, Makepeacp ! ' Thackeray. As* ' studied of human 1 nature, and as specimens of pure ! idiomatic English,* .perhaps.- nothing [y better has been written than that, l which we have under Thackeray's • name. . There & airich humbr,' toO, in '•' his Avriting, which is;, very amusing. Eor humor and play oi 1 fancy what can lbe better than -his poem3f? ■ -Theytaite! among the cleverest in the language. . Highly polished as his style was' ?i ; he c wrote, at J lea , 3t ' ih his | i latter days, "wiM great 'ease.*" He wrote- ■•'' like print,/ and -maide -veryi-few'Cbr- ■ reetions. Whfrt he had, to ..say came naturally to him; he never made an effprt'Yin his writing ; and lie rather despised ■ writing which is. the "result of effort. This naturalness he carried : into his ,, daily life. , I^e had in L him the... simplicity of the child with the experience of the man. It 1 was curious to see how warmly his friends loved him, and how fervently his enemies hated him.- The hate which he excited. among those who but half kne;w him will soon be forgotten ; the warmth of affection by which he was endeared to many friend will long be remembered. He had his foiblos, aud so have we" all: Some of the foibles, - such as his sensitiveness to criticism, always excited the goodhumored mirth of his friends. But these foibles were as nothing beside the true greatness and goodness ofthe man. It was impossible to be long with him without seeing his truthfulness, his gentleness, his humility, his sympathy with all suffering, his tender sense of honor! and one felt these moral qualities all the more when one came to see how clear was his insight into human nature, how wide was his experience of life, how large his acquaintance with books, how well he had thought upon all he had seen, and how clearly ancl gracefully he expressed himself. A man in all qualities of intellect, he was a child iv all the qualities of heart ; and when his life comes to be laid before the public in a biography, we have no doubt that, whatever intellectual rank may be assigned to him, no man of letters with anything like the same power of mind will be regarded as nobler, purer, better, kinder than he.