The artistic sense--the vivid conception of things and persons in their external aspects and with a constant regard to their groupings and the effect upon the spectator--made itself peculiarly prominent in all that Thackeray wrote. It is not that he gives us elaborate descriptions: this, indeed, is the resource of writers who are lacking in the faculty mentioned, and are consequently obliged to reach the result, if at all, by inferior means. His power lay in the selection of traits which were strictly characteristic, in making every act or phrase indicative of individuality. An astute critic, therefore--one gifted with that keenness of vision to which the exercise of the office unhappily implies a claim--should have been able to infer Thackeray's dexterity with the pencil from the methods of his literary work. There was, however, no room for conjecture on this point, as the fact was early a matter of notoriety, and many of the illustrations in his books were known to be from his own sketches. Recently, too, a publication containing some of his earliest and slightest work in this way attracted considerable attention, with the fortunate result of calling out the volume before us, which embodies the best specimens of his skill reproduced by a method that renders every line an exact transcript, and accompanied by facsimiles of whatever written text or comment appeared on the same page. Many of them partake more or less of the nature of caricature, and if the execution alone be considered, they show that Thackeray might, in default of talents of a different order, have pursued this line with as much success as some of its cleverest cultivators. But what distinguishes the drolleries in this book is the inventiveness shown in the conception and the characteristic ingenuity of the details. The designs for "Playing Cards," in which the tray of spades is represented by the figures of Johnson, Boswell and Gibbon, and a scene at "Dr. Birch's School" does duty for the seven of hearts, are especially felicitous in this way; while a different but not less familiar trait is exhibited in some carefully-drawn "Initial Letters," embodying charming bits of child-life and quaint allusions to well-known scenes in history and romance. "Othello" in the form of "Dandy Jim of Souf Caroline," and "The Little Assessor of Tübingen"--a mysterious personage of whom the author refused to reveal the secret--are equally amusing and suggestive. There are some half hundred subjects of the same or other kinds in the volume, which, as a mere picture-book, is full of entertainment for readers of all ages, while for those with whom the name of Thackeray is a dear household word it will have a still higher charm, calling up as it does so many associations connected with the author and the man, and seeming like a fragment of the biography which has been vainly looked for. _BOOKS RECEIVED_.