books. It was excellent advice, but I found that the reading of good
books in solitude was not an occupation congenial to me. It was so, I
take it, with Thackeray. He did not like his lonely drawing-room, and
went back to his life among the clubs by no means with contentment.

In 1853, Thackeray having then his own two girls to provide for, added a
third to his family, and adopted Amy Crowe, the daughter of an old
friend, and sister of the well-known artist now among us. How it came to
pass that she wanted a home, or that this special home suited her, it
would be unnecessary here to tell even if I knew. But that he did give a
home to this young lady, making her in all respects the same as another
daughter, should be told of him. He was a man who liked to broaden his
back for the support of others, and to make himself easy under such
burdens. In 1862, she married a Thackeray cousin, a young officer with
the Victoria Cross, Edward Thackeray, and went out to India,--where she
died.

In 1854, the year in which _The Newcomes_ came out, Thackeray had broken
his close alliance with _Punch_. In December of that year there appeared
from his pen an article in _The Quarterly_ on _John Leech's Pictures of
Life and Character_. It is a rambling discourse on picture-illustration
in general, full of interest, but hardly good as a criticism,--a portion
of literary work for which he was not specially fitted. In it he tells
us how Richard Doyle, the artist, had given up his work for _Punch_, not
having been able, as a Roman Catholic, to endure the skits which, at
that time, were appearing in one number after another against what was
then called Papal aggression. The reviewer,--Thackeray himself,--then
tells us of the secession of himself from the board of brethren.
"Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of _Jeames_, the
author of _The Snob Papers_, resigned his functions, on account of Mr.