went back to his life among the clubs by no means with contentment. In 1853, Thackeray having then his own two girls to provide for, added a third to his family, and adopted Amy Crowe, the daughter of an old friend, and sister of the well-known artist now among us. How it came to pass that she wanted a home, or that this special home suited her, it would be unnecessary here to tell even if I knew. But that he did give a home to this young lady, making her in all respects the same as another daughter, should be told of him. He was a man who liked to broaden his back for the support of others, and to make himself easy under such burdens. In 1862, she married a Thackeray cousin, a young officer with the Victoria Cross, Edward Thackeray, and went out to India,--where she died. In 1854, the year in which _The Newcomes_ came out, Thackeray had broken his close alliance with _Punch_. In December of that year there appeared from his pen an article in _The Quarterly_ on _John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character_. It is a rambling discourse on picture-illustration in general, full of interest, but hardly good as a criticism,--a portion of literary work for which he was not specially fitted. In it he tells us how Richard Doyle, the artist, had given up his work for _Punch_, not having been able, as a Roman Catholic, to endure the skits which, at that time, were appearing in one number after another against what was then called Papal aggression. The reviewer,--Thackeray himself,--then tells us of the secession of himself from the board of brethren. "Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of _Jeames_, the author of _The Snob Papers_, resigned his functions, on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse." How hard it must be for Cabinets to agree! This man or that is sure to have some pet conviction of his own, and the better the man the stronger the conviction! Then the reviewer went on in favour of the artist of whom he was specially speaking, making a comparison which must at the time have been odious enough to some of the brethren. "There can be no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's Cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of _Punch_ without Leech's pictures! What would you give for it?" Then he breaks out into strong admiration of that one friend,--perhaps with a little disregard as to the feelings of other friends.[3] This _Critical Review_, if it may properly be so called,--at any rate it is so named as now published,--is to be found in our author's collected works, in the same volume with _Catherine_. It is there preceded by another, from _The Westminster Review_, written fourteen years earlier, on _The Genius of Cruikshank_. This contains a descriptive catalogue of Cruikshank's works up to that period, and is interesting from the piquant style in which it is written. I fancy that