John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character
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William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in 1811. He was sent to England in 1817 and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Following a period of gambling, unsuccessful investments and a brief career as a lawyer, he turned to writing and drawing. In 1836 he married Isabella Shawe; following the birth of their second daughter, her mental health deteriorated and she had to be permanently supervised by a private nurse. Thackeray's first novel, Catherine, was published in 1839-40. Following the success of Vanity Fair (1847-8) he was able to devote himself to fiction, and his other notable works include Pendennis (1849), The History of Henry Esmond (1852) and The Newcomes (1855). He also edited the commercially successful Cornhill Magazine, which published writers such as Tennyson, George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Thackeray died suddenly on Christmas Eve, 1863.
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John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character - William Makepeace Thackeray
The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character, by
William Makepeace Thackeray
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2646]
Last Updated: December 17, 2012
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF ***
Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER
By William Makepeace Thackeray
* Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854,
by permission of Mr. John Murray.
We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had as children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers; there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the present day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and dancing before a black background,—a melancholy museum indeed. Smirke's delightful Seven Ages
only fitfully relieved its general gloom. We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and plenty of lights and company were in the room.
Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the children of the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is put out of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your grandmother or grandaunts took you there and said the pictures were admirable. You saw the Woodman
in worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the snow; the snow bitter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful: a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors with limbs strongly knitted; there was especially, at the end