ed editor, and among
contributors, Carlyle was one of the most notable. I imagine that the
battle of life was difficult enough with him even after he had become
one of the leading props of that magazine. All that he wrote was not
taken, and all that was taken was not approved. In 1837-38, the _History
of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond_ appeared in the
magazine. The _Great Hoggarty Diamond_ is now known to all readers of
Thackeray's works. It is not my purpose to speak specially of it here,
except to assert that it has been thought to be a great success. When it
was being brought out, the author told a friend of his,--and of
mine,--that it was not much thought of at Fraser's, and that he had been
called upon to shorten it. That is an incident disagreeable in its
nature to any literary gentleman, and likely to be specially so when he
knows that his provision of bread, certainly of improved bread and
butter, is at stake. The man who thus darkens his literary brow with the
frown of disapproval, has at his disposal all the loaves and all the
fishes that are going. If the writer be successful, there will come a
time when he will be above such frowns; but, when that opinion went
forth, Thackeray had not yet made his footing good, and the notice to
him respecting it must have been very bitter. It was in writing this
_Hoggarty Diamond_ that Thackeray first invented the name of Michael
Angelo Titmarsh. Samuel Titmarsh was the writer, whereas Michael Angelo
was an intending illustrator. Thackeray's nose had been broken in a
school fight, while he was quite a little boy, by another little boy, at
the Charter House; and there was probably some association intended to
be jocose with the name of the great artist, whose nose was broken by
his fellow-student Torrigiano, and who, as it happened, died exactly
three centuries before Thackeray.

I can understand all the disquietude of his heart when that warning, as
to the too great length of his story, was given to him. He was not a man
capable of feeling at any time quite assured in his position, and when
that occurred he was very far from assurance. I think that at no time
did he doubt the sufficiency of his own mental qualification for the
work he had taken in hand; but he doubted all else. He doubted the
appreciation of the world; he doubted his fitness for turning
his intellect to valuable account; he doubted his physical
capacity,--dreading his own lack of industry; h