rather like our porter in the face.  What has become of that old vagabond?’ And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once when the Princess Angelica’s little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove; and another night, some larking young men tried to wrench him off, and put him to the most excruciating agony with a turnscrew.  And then the queen had a fancy to have the colour of the door altered, and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green.  I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick.”

As the years went on, Thackeray became ever more and more famous, his company more and more sought after.  “The kind, tall, amusing, grey-haired man"* was welcome in many a drawing-room.  Yet with all his success he never forgot his little girls.  They were his fast friends and companions, and very often they wrote while he dictated his story to them.  He worked with a lazy kind of diligence.  He could not, like Scott, sit down and write a certain number of pages every morning.  He was by nature indolent, yet he got through a great deal of work.

Lord Houghton.

Death found him still working steadily.  He had not been feeling well, and one evening he went to bed early.  Next morning, Christmas Eve of 1863, he was found dead in bed.

Deep and widespread was the grief of Thackeray’s death.  The news “saddened England’s Christmas.”  His friends mourned not only the loss of a great writer but “the cheerful companionship, the large heart, and open hand, the simple courteousness, and the endearing frankness of a brave, true, honest gentleman."*

In Punch.

Although he was buried in a private cemetery, a bust was almost at once placed in Westminster by his sorrowing friends.

The following verses were written by the editor of Punch* in his memory:—­

Shirley Brooks.

    “He was a cynic!  By his life all wrought
    Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways;
    His heart wide open to all kindly thought,
    His hand so great to give, his tongue to praise.

    “He was a cynic!  You might read it writ
    In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair,
    In those blue eyes, with childlike candour lit,
    In the sweet smile his lips were wont to wear.

“He was a cynic!  By the love that clung About him from his children, friends, and kin; By the sharp pain, light pen and gossip tongue Wrought in him chafing the soft heart within. . . . . . .  “He was a cynic?  Yes—­if ’tis the cynic’s part To track the serpent’s trail with saddened eye, To mark how good and ill divide the heart, How lives in chequered shade and sunshine lie: 

    “How e’en the best unto the worst is knit
    By brotherhood of weakness, sin and care;
    How even in the worst, sparks may be lit
    To show all is not utter darkness there.”