“I have engaged a contributor to the ‘Corsair.’ Who do you think? The author of ‘Yellowplush’ and ‘Major Gahagan.’ I have mentioned it in my jottings, that our readers may know all about it. He has gone to Paris, and will write letters from there, and afterwards from London, for a guinea a _close column_ of the ‘Corsair’--cheaper than I ever did anything in my life. I will see that he is paid for a while to see how you like him. For myself, I think him the very best periodical writer alive. He is a royal, daring, fine creature, too. I take the responsibility of it. You will hear from him soon.” The mention in the jottings here referred to appeared in the “Corsair” of August 24th. “One of my first inquiries in London was touching the authorship of ‘The Yellowplush Papers’ and the ‘Reminiscences of Major Gahagan,’--the only things in periodical literature, except the ‘Pickwick Papers,’ for which I looked with any interest or eagerness. The author, Mr. Thackeray, breakfasted with me yesterday, and the ‘Corsair’ will be delighted, I am sure, to hear that I have engaged this cleverest and most gifted of the magazine-writers of London to become _a regular correspondent of the ‘Corsair.’_ He left London for Paris the day after, and having resided in that city for many years, his letters thence will be pictures of life in France, done with a bolder and more trenchant pen than has yet attempted the subject. He will present a long letter every week, and you will agree with me that he is no common acquisition. Thackeray is a tall, athletic man of about thirty-five, with a look of talent that could never be mistaken. He has taken to literature after having spent a very large inheritance; but in throwing away the gifts of fortune, he has cultivated his natural talents very highly, and is one of the most accomplished draftsmen in England, as well as the cleverest and most brilliant of periodical writers. He has been the principal critic for the ‘Times,’ and writes for ‘Fraser’ and ‘Blackwood.’ You will hear from him by the first steamer after his arrival in Paris, and thenceforward regularly.”