To return again to the suppressed wood engraving itself, it is curious to notice that old “Lady Kew” of _The Newcomes_ was sister to Lord Steyne. Now the name “Kew” at once suggests {23} to those conversant with the early doings of the century the nickname of the notorious Duke of Queensberry, known to all and sundry as “Old Q,” and sets us considering why the name should suggest itself to Thackeray in connection with Lord Hertford. And what do we find? When the third Marquis was but twenty-one, he married a young lady named Marie Fagniani. She was believed to be the daughter of the Duke of Queensberry and an opera dancer of that name. Nothing would be more natural, therefore, than that Thackeray, having saturated himself with the surroundings of the prototypes of his characters, should, probably half unconsciously, have seized upon a capital name suggested to him in the course of preparing for his novel, and so adapted it to his requirements. This suggestion I only make for what it is worth. It may, of course, merely be that a search through the suburban directory suggested the name, as was no doubt the case in apportioning to her ladyship’s husband his second title of Lord Walham. At any rate, the coincidence seems worth recording. In conclusion, there can be no possible doubt {24} that so far as Thackeray’s letterpress is concerned, the prototype of the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder Closet, etc. etc.) was Francis Charles Seymour Conway (third Marquis of Hertford) of his branch; Earl of Hertford and Yarmouth, Viscount Beauchamp, Baron Conway, and Baron of Ragley in England; and Baron Conway and Kilultagh in the peerage of Ireland; and as regards the suppressed wood engraving, there will, I think, be little question that Thackeray the artist dotted his i’s by an intentional representation of the noble lord’s not altogether attractive features. [Illustration: The Third Marquis of Hertford when Lord Yarmouth. (_From the coloured caricature by Richard Dighton_)]