He had little taste, in fact, for mediaevalism in any shape, and 'old Montaigne' was more to his liking. We are told, also, that he became absorbed in Cousin's _Philosophy_, noting upon it that 'the excitement of metaphysics must equal almost that of gambling'; and finding, perhaps, no great attraction in either. After his marriage in 1836 he settled down in London, devoting himself thenceforward to literature as a profession; the _Yellowplush Papers_, published in 1837 by _Fraser's Magazine_, being his earliest contribution of any length or significance. In the introductory chapter Mrs. Ritchie says: 'I hardly know--nor, if I knew, should I care to give here--the names and the details of the events which suggested some of the _Yellowplush Papers_. The history of Mr. Deuceace was written from life during a very early period of my father's career. Nor can one wonder that his views were somewhat grim at that particular time, and still bore the impress of an experience lately and very dearly bought.... As a boy he had lost money at cards to some cardsharpers who scraped acquaintance with him. He never blinked at the truth or spared himself; but neither did he blind himself to the real characters of the people in question, when once he had discovered them. His villains became curious studies in human nature; he turned them over in his mind, and he caused Deuceace, Barry Lyndon, and Ikey Solomons, Esq., to pay back some of their ill-gotten spoils, in an involuntary but very legitimate fashion, when he put them into print and made them the heroes of those grim early histories.'