Once and once only did Thackeray make a serious effort to appear before the public as a playwright. In 1854 after he had established his fame by ‘Vanity Fair’ and consolidated it by ‘Pendennis’ and the ‘Newcomes,’ he composed a comedy in two acts, the ‘Wolves and the Lamb.’ He proffered the play to two managers in turn, first to Buckstone of the Haymarket Theater, and then to Alfred Wigan of the Olympic. They declined it, one after the other; and apparently Thackeray made no further effort to have it produced. In 1860 he utilized the plot of his play in a story, ‘Lovel the Widower,’ which was never one of his attractive novels, perhaps because it was more or less deprived of spontaneity by its enforced reliance upon a plot put together for another purpose. When he moved into his own home in Kensington in 1862, only a few months before his untimely death, he arranged an amateur performance of the ‘Wolves and the Lamb’ as a special attraction for his house-warming. He did not undertake any part in his own play; but he appeared in the character of Bonnington just before the final fall of the curtain, and spoke a rhymed epilog, by way of salutation to his guests: Our drama ends; Our Landlord gives a greeting to his friends; Some rich, some poor, some doubtful, some sincere, Some tried and loved for many a faithful year. He looks around and bids all welcome here. And as we players unanimously say A little speech should end a little play; Through me he tells the friendliest of pits He built this story with his little wits; These built the house from garret down to hall; These paid the bills,—at least, paid nearly all. * * * * * And though it seems quite large enough already, I here declare the Landlord’s purpose steady Before the novel-writing days are o’er To raise in this very house one or two stories more.