In dictating to his amanuensis during the composition of the lectures on the "Four Georges," he would light a cigar, pace the room for a few minutes, and then resume his work with increased cheerfulness, changing his position very frequently, so that he was sometimes sitting, standing, walking, or lying about. His enunciation was always clear and distinct, and his words and thoughts were so well weighed that the progress of writing was but seldom checked. He dictated with calm deliberation, and shewed no risible feeling even when he had made a humorous point. His whole literary career was one of unremitting industry; he wrote slowly, and like 'George Eliot,' gave forth his thoughts in such perfect form, that he rarely required to retouch his work. His handwriting was neat and plain, often very minute; which led to the remark, that if all trades failed, he would earn sixpences by writing the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in the size of one. Unlike many men of less talent, he looked upon caligraphy as one of the fine arts. When at the height of his fame he was satisfied when he wrote six pages a day, generally working during the day, seldom at night. An idea which would only be slightly developed in some of his shorter stories, he treasured up and expanded in some of his larger works. While Alfred Tennyson the future Laureate received the gold medal at Cambridge given by the Chancellor of the university for the best English poem, the subject being "Timbuctoo," we find Thackeray satirising the subject in a humorous paper called "The Snob." Here are a few lines from his clever skit on the prize poem: There stalks the tiger--there the lion roars, Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors; All that he leaves of them the monster throws To jackals, vultures, dogs, cats, kites and crows; His hunger thus the forest monster gluts, And then lies down 'neath trees called cocoa-nuts.