the follies of the railway mania, exposing the hollow foundation upon which railway fortunes and reputations were made.  His Snob Papers, published in the same manner, have since been collected and reprinted with great success.  His satire is as keen as that of Fielding.  His Paris Sketch-Book appeared in 1840.  His Irish Sketch-Book, with numerous engravings drawn by the author, was published in 1845.  In the next year, appeared his Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo; and in 1847, the first numbers of Vanity Fair appeared, in the proper name of their author.  This, Thackeray’s first fully-developed novel, has been followed by Arthur Pendennis, completed in 1851.  His Christmas-book, entitled The Kickleburies on the Rhine, was attacked by a writer in the Times; whereupon Mr Thackeray replied, in a very unmistakable way, in a preface to the second edition of the work.  The critic fared very badly in the contest.’  The charge made against Mr Thackeray is, that he abuses the characters of the literary class with a view apparently of catering to public prejudice.  We believe that any such imputation is entirely unfounded; and that Mr Thackeray’s observations on the infirmities of authors are due to an honest exposition of his subject.  Mr Thackeray has lately imparted much delight by delivering lectures on the literary personages of last century; and in this very act has gracefully raised the public estimation of living authorcraft.

We may extract the following passages respecting the early career of Mr Dickens:—­

’Dickens, Charles, the most popular writer of his time, was born in February 1812, at Landport, Portsmouth.  His father, the late Mr John Dickens, in the earlier part of his life, enjoyed a post in the Navy Pay Department, the duties of which required that he should reside from time to time in different seaports:  now at Plymouth, now at Portsmouth, and then at Sheerness.  “In the glorious days” of the war with France, these towns were full of life, bustle, and character; and the father of “Boz” was at times fond of dilating upon the strange scenes he had witnessed.  One of his stories described a sitting-room he once enjoyed at Blue-town, Sheerness, abutting on the theatre.  Of an evening, he used to sit in this room, and could hear what was passing on the stage, and join in the chorus of God save the King, and Britannia rules the Waves—­then the favourite songs of Englishmen.  The war being at an end, amongst those who left the public service with a pension was the father of our novelist.  Coming to London, he subsequently found lucrative employment for his talents on the press as a reporter of parliamentary debates.  Charles Dickens may, therefore, be said to have been in his youth familiarised with “copy;” and when his father, with parental anxiety for his future career, took the preliminary steps for making his son an attorney, the dreariness of the proposed