There is one gleam of light flickering about this intrinsically melancholy topic in connection with the name of Thackeray. I have read somewhere that it was a kindred calamity of a public speaker which led to Thackeray's first appearance in print. At a time when the century was young, and the author of "Vanity Fair" was a lad at Charterhouse, Richard Lalor Sheil, the Irish lawyer and orator, had promised to deliver a speech to a public meeting assembled on Penenden Heath. In those days there were no staffs of special reporters, no telegraphs, nor anything less costly than post-chaises wherewith to establish rapid communication between country platforms and London newspaper offices. Sheil, rising to the height of the occasion, wrote out his speech, and, before leaving town, sent copies to the leading journals, in which it, on the following morning, duly appeared. Alack! when the orator reached the Heath he found the platform in possession of the police, who prohibited the meeting and would have none of the speech. The incident was much talked of, and the boy Thackeray set to and wrote in verse a parody on the printed but unspoken oration: Here is the last verse, as I remember it:-- "What though these heretics heard me not?" Quoth he to his friend Canonical; "My speech is safe in the _Times_, I wot, And eke in the _Morning Chronicle_." * * * * * [_The original drawings of the illustrations in this Magazine are always on view, and on sale, in the Art Gallery at these offices, which is open to the public without charge._] _A Work of Accusation._ BY HARRY HOW. "Suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity." Such was the verdict of the coroner's jury, and they could scarcely have declared anything else--there was not a tittle of evidence implicating another as the perpetrator of the deed. The deceased was found lying in his studio at the foot of his easel, shot through the heart. The revolver--a six-chambered one--was tightly gripped in his hand. Four out of the six chambers remained undischarged. It must have been suicide, simple and premeditated! The inquiry into the death of the deceased revealed only one spark of anything approaching sensationalism. It was the evidence of the housekeeper--an old lady of distinctly nervous temperament--who wept bitterly. Previous to the sad occurrence she had heard the firing of a pistol some five or six times during a period of two days. On the first occasion she had hurried to the studio, and the alarmed state of her feelings was sufficient to cause her to overlook the formality of giving the customary tap at the door previous to entering. She entered the room, only to find the deceased artist holding a pistol--the one produced--and looking at its barrel, still smoking, earnestly. He burst into a hearty laugh when he saw her, and told her not to be frightened.