little, because no record of his life has been made public.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Calcutta, on July 18, 1811. His
father was Richmond Thackeray, son of W. M. Thackeray of Hadley, near
Barnet, in Middlesex. A relation of his, of the same name, a Rev. Mr.
Thackeray, I knew well as rector of Hadley, many years afterwards. Him I
believe to have been a second cousin of our Thackeray, but I think they
had never met each other. Another cousin was Provost of Kings at
Cambridge, fifty years ago, as Cambridge men will remember. Clergymen of
the family have been numerous in England during the century, and there
was one, a Rev. Elias Thackeray, whom I also knew in my youth, a
dignitary, if I remember right, in the diocese of Meath. The Thackerays
seem to have affected the Church; but such was not at any period of his
life the bias of our novelist's mind.

His father and grandfather were Indian civil servants. His mother was
Anne Becher, whose father was also in the Company's service. She married
early in India, and was only nineteen when her son was born. She was
left a widow in 1816, with only one child, and was married a few years
afterwards to Major Henry Carmichael Smyth, with whom Thackeray lived on
terms of affectionate intercourse till the major died. All who knew
William Makepeace remember his mother well, a handsome, spare,
gray-haired lady, whom Thackeray treated with a courtly deference as
well as constant affection. There was, however, something of discrepancy
between them as to matters of religion. Mrs. Carmichael Smyth was
disposed to the somewhat austere observance of the evangelical section
of the Church. Such, certainly, never became the case with her son.
There was disagreement on the subject, and probably unhappiness at
intervals, but never, I think, quarrelling. Thackeray's house was his
mother's home whenever she pleased it, and the home also of his