In February, 1829, when he was not as yet eighteen, Thackeray went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was, I think, removed in 1830. It may be presumed, therefore, that his studies there were not very serviceable to him. There are few, if any, records left of his doings at the university,--unless it be the fact that he did there commence the literary work of his life. The line about the cabbages, and the scheme of the school magazine, can hardly be said to have amounted even to a commencement. In 1829 a little periodical was brought out at Cambridge, called _The Snob_, with an assurance on the title that it was _not_ conducted by members of the university. It is presumed that Thackeray took a hand in editing this. He certainly wrote, and published in the little paper, some burlesque lines on the subject which was given for the Chancellor's prize poem of the year. This was _Timbuctoo_, and Tennyson was the victor on the occasion. There is some good fun in the four first and four last lines of Thackeray's production. In Africa,--a quarter of the world,-- Men's skins are black; their hair is crisped and curled; And somewhere there, unknown to public view A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo. * * * * * I see her tribes the hill of glory mount, And sell their sugars on their own account; While round her throne the prostrate nations come, Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum. I cannot find in _The Snob_ internal evidence of much literary merit beyond this. But then how many great writers have there been from whose early lucubrations no future literary excellence could be prognosticated? There is something at any rate in the name of the publication which tells of work that did come. Thackeray's mind was at all times peculiarly exercised with a sense of snobbishness. His appreciation of the vice grew abnormally, so that at last he had a morbid horror of a snob--a morbid fear lest this or the other man should turn snob on his hands. It is probable that the idea was taken from the early _Snob_ at Cambridge, either from his own participation in the work or from his remembrance of it. _The Snob_ lived, I think, but nine weeks, and was followed at an interval, in 1830, by _The Gownsman_, which lived to the seventeenth number, and at the opening of which Thackeray no doubt had a hand. It professed to be a continuation of _The Snob_. It contains a dedication to all proctors, which I should not be sorry to attribute to him. "To all Proctors, past, present, and future-- Whose taste it is our privilege to follow, Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate, Whose presence it is our interest to avoid." There is, however, nothing beyond fancy to induce me to believe that Thackeray was the author of the dedication, and I do not know that there is any evidence to show that he was connected with _The Snob_ beyond the writing of _Timbuctoo_.