years, while his family,--his mother, that is, and his stepfather,--were
living in Devonshire. It was then the purport of his life to become an
artist, and he studied drawing at Paris, affecting especially
Bonnington, the young English artist who had himself painted at Paris
and who had died in 1828. He never learned to draw,--perhaps never could
have learned. That he was idle, and did not do his best, we may take for
granted. He was always idle, and only on some occasions, when the spirit
moved him thoroughly, did he do his best even in after life. But with
drawing,--or rather without it,--he did wonderfully well even when he
did his worst. He did illustrate his own books, and everyone knows how
incorrect were his delineations. But as illustrations they were
excellent. How often have I wished that characters of my own creating
might be sketched as faultily, if with the same appreciation of the
intended purpose. Let anyone look at the "plates," as they are called in
_Vanity Fair_, and compare each with the scenes and the characters
intended to be displayed, and there see whether the artist,--if we may
call him so,--has not managed to convey in the picture the exact feeling
which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in
which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an
aide-de-camp,--messenger I had perhaps better say, lest I might affront
military feelings,--who is kneeling on the field of battle and
delivering a despatch to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease
with which the duke receives the message though the messenger's head be
gone, and the soldier-like precision with which the headless hero
finishes his last effort of military obedience, may not have been
portrayed with well-drawn figures, but no finished illustration ever
told its story better. Dickens has informed us that he first met
Thackeray in 1835, on which occasion the young artist aspirant, looking
no doubt after profitable employment, "proposed to become the
illustrator of my earliest book." It is singular that such should have