_A Collection of Thackeray's Letters_ (1847 to 1855. SMITH & ELDER).--It must have cost Mrs. BROOKFIELD a good deal of mental anxiety before she decided upon giving publicity to this correspondence. But she has undoubtedly done well and wisely, as everybody interested in the personal THACKERAY, outside and away from his works, will gratefully acknowledge. THACKERAY was always fond of alluding to himself as the Showman with the puppets, or portraying himself as taking off the cap-and-bells when, from behind the grinning mask, peep out the sad eyes and the rueful countenance. Now in these Letters we are sometimes admitted behind the scenes, as, for instance, when he is just going to work; but, as a rule, we see him in his leisure, out for a holiday, amusing himself and others, and enjoying himself like an overgrown schoolboy full of fun and frolic, not a bit of a cynic, and there are no sad eyes and rueful countenance when the mask is off. The peculiar charm of these Letters is that they are so evidently private; there is nothing of the _poseur_ about them. They were never intended to be addressed _urbi et orbi_. One favourite style of amusing himself in writing he had, which, by the way, rather calls to mind the way _Mr. Peter Magnus_ had of amusing his friends, and that was mis-spelling, and spelling in Cockney fashion. How he must have revelled in writing _Jeames's Diary!_ The burlesque element of humour was irrepressible in THACKERAY, and found vent through pen and pencil. Nearly all his sketches, with remarkable exceptions, are, more or less, grotesque. Many of his Vignettes, with which he illustrated his novels, cannot fail to suggest a kind of Dicky-Doyleian humour. Two characteristics of the man are brought out strongly in these letters; first, his humility as regards his own work (he was proud in other matters), and, secondly, his generosity as exhibited in his unaffected admiration for the work of CHARLES DICKENS.