The newspaper gossipers were no less busy in noting every personal characteristic of the author. One remarks: 'As for the man himself who has lectured us, he is a stout, healthful, broad-shouldered specimen of a man, with cropped greyish hair, and keenish grey eyes, peering very sharply through a pair of spectacles that have a very satiric focus. He seems to stand strongly on his own feet, as if he would not be easily blown about or upset, either by praise or pugilists; a man of good digestion, who takes the world easy, and scents all shams and humours (straightening them between his thumb and forefinger) as he would a pinch of snuff.' A London letter of the time says: 'The New York journalists preserve, on the whole, a delicate silence (very creditable to them) on the subject of Mr. Thackeray's nose; but they are eloquent about his legs; and when the last mail left a controversy was raging among them on this matter, one party maintaining that "he stands very firm on his legs," while the opposition asserted that his legs were decidedly "shaky."' [Illustration] These, however, were light matters compared with the notices in other newspapers, which unscrupulously raked together, for the amusement of their readers, details which were mostly untrue, and where true, were of too private a character for public discussion. This led to a humorous remonstrance, forwarded by Thackeray to 'Fraser's Magazine,' where it appeared with the signature of 'John Small.' In this he gave a droll parody of his newspaper biographers' style, which caused some resentment on the part of the writers attacked. One Transatlantic defender of the New York press said that 'the two most personal accounts of Thackeray published appeared in one of the Liverpool papers, and in the London "Spectator;"' adding, 'the London correspondents of some of the provincial papers spare nothing of fact or comment touching the private life of public characters. Nay, are there not journals expressly devoted to the contemporary biography of titled, wealthy, and consequential personages, which will tell you how, and in what company, they eat, drink, and travel; their itinerary from the country to London, and from the metropolis to the Continent; the probable marriages, alliances, &c.? No journal can be better acquainted with these conditions of English society than the classical and vivacious "Fraser." Why, then, does John Small address that London editor from New York, converting some paltry and innocent-enough penny-a-liner notice of the author of "Vanity Fair" into an enormous national sin and delinquency?' Among the lectures delivered at New York, before he quitted the gay circles of the 'Empire City' for Boston, was one in behalf of a charity; and the charity lecture was stated to be a _mélange_ of all the others, closing very appropriately with an animated tribute to the various literary, social, and humane qualities of Charles Dickens. 'Papa,' he described his daughter as