I never saw Thackeray. I was a boy of eight when he made his second visit to America, in the winter of 1855–56. But Arthur Hollister, who graduated at Yale in 1858, told me that he once saw Thackeray walking up Chapel Street, a colossal figure, six feet four inches in height, peering through his big glasses with that expression which is familiar to you in his portraits and in his charming caricatures of his own face. This seemed to bring him rather near. But I think the nearest that I ever felt to his bodily presence was once when Mr. Evarts showed me a copy of Horace, with inserted engravings, which Thackeray had given to Sam Ward and Ward had given to Evarts. It was a copy which Thackeray had used and which had his autograph on the flyleaf. And this mention of his Latin scholarship induces me to close with an anecdote that I find in Melville’s “Life.” He says himself that it is almost too good to be true, but it illustrates so delightfully certain academic attitudes, that I must give it, authentic or not. The novelist was to lecture at Oxford and had to obtain the license of the Vice-Chancellor. He called on him for the necessary permission and this was the dialogue that ensued: _V. C._ Pray, sir, what can I do for you? _T._ My name is Thackeray. _V. C._ So I see by this card. _T._ I seek permission to lecture within your precincts. _V. C._ Ah! You are a lecturer: what subjects do you undertake, religious or political? _T._ Neither. I am a literary man. _V. C._ Have you written anything? _T._ Yes, I am the author of “Vanity Fair.” _V. C._ I presume, a dissenter—has that anything to do with Jno. Bunyan’s book? _T._ Not exactly: I have also written “Pendennis.” _V. C._ Never heard of these works, but no doubt they are proper books. _T._ I have also contributed to “Punch.” _V. C._ “Punch.” I have heard of that. Is it not a ribald publication? ----- [3] Unquestionably Lady Jane pronounced it wīnds. RETROSPECTS AND PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA[4] THE English drama has been dead for nearly two hundred years. Mr. Gosse says that in 1700 the English had the most vivacious school of comedy in Europe. And, if their serious drama was greatly inferior, still the best tragedies of Dryden and Otway—and perhaps of Lee, Southerne, and Rowe—made not only a sounding success on the boards, but a fair bid for literary honors. Ten years later the drama was moribund, and in 1747 its epitaph was spoken by Garrick in the sonorous prologue written by Dr. Johnson for the opening of Drury Lane: