Before, however, proceeding to the consideration of the suppressed illustration itself, it will be as well to pause for a moment to consider what antecedent probability there was that Thackeray would pillory a well-known _roué_ of the period in terms that would make the likeness undoubted and undeniable. And in pointing out what the great {8} novelist’s practice was in this respect I would guard myself against the charge of presuming to censure one who is not here to answer for himself, and whose nobility of character was sufficient guarantee of good faith and honourable intention. Let it always be remembered that, if Thackeray flagellated others, he never hesitated to taste the quality of his own whip first. Even in his book illustrations, as I have pointed out elsewhere, he was as unsparing of his own feelings as he was in his writings. And, in using himself as a whipping-boy for our sins, he probably believed that he was making himself as despicable as a Rousseau. Hence he came to the like treatment of other real personages not with unclean hands. Some of us may have seen, though very few of us can possess, a very rare pamphlet, which was sold for as much as £39 on one of its infrequent appearances in the auction-rooms, entitled _Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club_. In it was published a never-sent reply to a letter written by Thackeray remonstrating with Yates on the contents of a “pen-and-ink” sketch published by the latter in No. 6 of a periodical called _Town {9} Talk_, which resulted in Yates’s expulsion from the Garrick Club. In this unsent letter he charged Thackeray with having unjustifiably introduced portraits both in his letterpress and illustrations. Mr. Stephen Price appeared as Captain Shindy in the _Book of Snobs_. In the same book Thackeray drew on a wood block what was practically a portrait of Wyndham Smith, a fellow-clubman. This appeared amongst “Sporting Snobs,” Mr. Smith being a well-known sporting man. In _Pendennis_ he made a sketch of a former member of the Garrick Club, Captain Granby Calcraft, under the name of Captain Granby Tiptoff. In the same book, under the transparent guise of the unforgettable Foker, he reproduced every characteristic, both in language, manner, and gesture, of Mr. Andrew Arcedeckne, and even went so far as to give an unmistakable portrait of him, to that gentleman’s great annoyance. Besides the examples given by Yates, who was himself recognisable as George Garbage in _The Virginians_, we know, too, that in the same novel Theodore Hook appeared as Wagg, just as he did {10} as Stanislaus Hoax in Disraeli’s _Vivian Grey_, and that Alfred Bunn was the prototype of Mr. Dolphin. Archdeacon Allen was the original of Dobbin, Lady Langford of Lady Kew; and last, but not least, we have lately learned from Mrs. Ritchie that the inimitable Becky had undoubtedly her incarnation.