t of Jerrold
himself--but a literary, and in no sense a political one. Jerrold, whose
influence was political quite as much as literary and dramatic,
undoubtedly did a good deal of unconscious service in spurring Thackeray
with the spirit of emulation. It has already been pointed out how little
love was lost between the two men at the weekly Dinner, and how Jerrold
sped his galling little shafts of clever personalities at Carlyle's
"half-monstrous Cornish giant;" how, in short, they were, and remained
to the end, the friendliest and most amiable of enemies.

Vizetelly has recorded how Thackeray would tear the postal-wrapper
nervously from the newly-delivered _Punch_ in order to "see what Master
Douglas has to say this week"--(there is a world of dislike and scorn in
that courtesy-title of "Master")--and how, when he gave a lunch in
honour of the French humorous draughtsman "Cham," he invited "Big"
Higgins, Tom Taylor, Richard Doyle, and Leech, all _Punch_ men, to meet
him, but neither Mark Lemon nor Jerrold, for "Young Douglas, if asked,
would most likely not come; but if he did, he'd take especial care that
his own effulgence should obscure all lesser lights." It was not
Arcedeckne, I am assured by Mr. Cuthbert Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede's"
son), but Jerrold, who, in Mark Lemon's hearing, crushingly criticised
Thackeray's first public reading to the lecturer's face, with the
laconic remark, "Wants a piano!" Thackeray, as we all know, was free
enough himself in his criticisms of his own features, and his many
sketches of his dear old broken nose are familiar enough to every lover
of the man. Yet he was not best pleased when he entered the _Punch_
dining-room a little late, apologising for his unpunctuality through
having been detained at a christening, at which he had stood sponsor to
his friend's boy, to be met with Jerrold's pungent exclamation--"Good
Lord, Thackeray! I hope you didn't present the child with your own mug!"
And still less was he flattered when he heard that, on its being
reported in the _Punch_ office that he was "turning Roman," simply
because he defended Doyle's secession, Jerrold tartly remarked that
"he'd best begin with his nose." (Jerrold, by the way, uses the same
conceit in a letter to Sir Charles Dilke when repeating a rumour of the
attempted conversion of the novelist by "Lady ----.") These and many more
sardonic thrusts would amply account for Thackeray's dislike; yet that
the men's relations w