her children." Long before he put it into his lecture, I heard him say
in words to the same effect: "I should like to have been Shakespeare's
shoe-black, just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped
him, to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet, serene face." To
have heard Thackeray depict, in his own charming manner, and at
considerable length, the imaginary walks and talks of Shakespeare, when
he would return to his home from occasional visits to London, pouring
into the ready ears of his unsophisticated friends and neighbors the
gossip from town which he thought would be likely to interest them, is
something to remember all one's days.

The enormous circulation achieved by the Cornhill Magazine, when it was
first started with Thackeray for its editor in chief, is a matter of
literary history. The announcement by his publishers that a sale of a
hundred and ten thousand of the first number had been reached made the
editor half delirious with joy, and he ran away to Paris to be rid of
the excitement for a few days. I met him by appointment at his hotel in
the Rue de la Paix, and found him wild with exultation and full of
enthusiasm for excellent George Smith, his publisher. "London," he
exclaimed, "is not big enough to contain me now, and I am obliged to add
Paris to my residence! Great heavens," said he, throwing up his long
arms, "where will this tremendous circulation stop! Who knows but that I
shall have to add Vienna and Rome to my whereabouts? If the worst comes
to the worst, New York, also, may fall into my clutches, and only the
Rocky Mountains may be able to stop my progress!" Those days in Paris
with him were simply tremendous. We dined at all possible and impossible
places together. We walked round and round the glittering court of the
Palais Royal, gazing in at the windows of the jewellers' shops, and all
my efforts were necessary to restrain him from rushing in and ordering a
pocketful of diamonds and "other trifles," as he called them; "for,"