Behind the curtain, and rarely appearing as an actor, was one who, to the literary reader versed in the periodical productions of thirty years ago, will be familiar under the name of Janus Weathercock; while to the student of our criminal annals, a name will be recalled which is only to be remembered as an omen of evil. The former will be reminded of the “London Magazine,” when Elia and Barry Cornwall were conspicuous in its pages, and where Hazlitt, with Allan Cunningham, added to its attractions. But with these names it will recall to them also the face and form of one with the craft and beauty of the serpent; of one too who, if he broke not into “the bloody house of life,” has been singularly wronged. The writings of this man in the above periodical were very characteristic of his nature; and under the _nom de guerre_ of Janus Weathercock, Thomas Griffith Wainwright wrote with a fluent pleasant egotistical coxcombry, which was then new to English literature, a series of papers on art and artists. An _habitué_ of the opera and a fastidious critic of the _ballet_, a mover among the most fashionable crowds into which he could make his way, a lounger in the parks and the foremost among the visitors at our pictorial exhibitions, the fine person and superfine manners of Wainwright were ever prominent. The articles which he penned for the “London,” were lovingly illustrative of self and its enjoyments. He adorned his writings with descriptions of his appearance, and--an artist of no mean ability himself--sketched boldly and graphically “drawings of female beauty, in which the voluptuous trembled on the borders of the indelicate;” and while he idolised his own, he depreciated the productions of others. This self-styled fashionist appears to have created a sensation in the circle where he adventured. His good-natured, though “pretentious” manner; his handsome, though sinister countenance; even his braided surtout, his gay attire, and semi-military aspect, made him a favourite. “Kind, light-hearted Janus Weathercock,” wrote Charles Lamb. No one knew anything of his previous life. He was said to have been in the army--it was whispered that he had spent more than one fortune; and an air of mystery, which he well knew how to assume, magnified him into a hero. About 1825, he ceased to contribute to the magazine; and from this period, the man whose writings were replete with an intense luxurious enjoyment--whose organisation was so exquisite, that his love of the beautiful became a passion, and whose mind was a significant union of the ideal with the voluptuous--was dogged in his footsteps by death. It was death to stand in his path--it was death to be his friend--it was death to occupy the very house with him. Well might his associates join in that portion of our litany which prays to be delivered “from battle, from murder, and from _sudden death_,” for sudden death was ever by his side.