Between this and our next pair of facsimiles there is every possible difference. Thackeray's fondness of and facility in sketching, and his ungratified ambition to excel as an artist, are well known. Great numbers of his earlier sketches have been unearthed and published, but we have here some that have never before been printed--and some by no means of the worst. They exist in a sketch-book, and appear to have been made in the year 1832, when Thackeray was just of age. There are five sheets of sketches (of which we here present two), embodying a burlesque melodrama, entitled "The Bandit's Revenge; or, the Fatal Sword." In the beginning we see the hero, Vivaldi, escaping from the Bandit's castle. Next there is an exhibition of the consequent rage of the Bandit chief. The cask labelled "gunpowder" is provided with a suspicious-looking tap, and the carelessness with which the Bandit has placed his torch on the cask-head hints that perhaps he keeps something more internally grateful than gunpowder in that cask. But Vivaldi's escape is only temporary, for in the next sketch he is captured, and being dragged back to the robber's stronghold; and in the last sketch of the first sheet his pitiable and starved condition in the "deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat" is well set forth. This completes Act I. Act II. begins with contrition on the part of the gaoler, who assists his escape by the loan of a mule, mounted on which the emaciated hero is taken, by the country folk, for Death on his Pale Horse. The Bandit's anger at this second escape culminates in a pyramid of heads, with the traitorous gaoler's on top; while the liberated Vivaldi, forgetful of his changed appearance, essays to jump his mule in at his Bertha's window, sending that lady into a very excusable swoon. This concludes Act II. In the next sketch (for which, unfortunately, and for those succeeding it, we have not room) Vivaldi, under the benign influence of good living, has grown comparatively fat, and converses lovingly with his Bertha. But the Bandit chief is not done with yet, and he waits in ambush with his retainers, variously armed, to attack the marriage train, which is seen approaching in the distance, bishops, dancers, and all complete. Next we see the fatal effect of the Bandit's attack. Bridesmaids, croziers, and ecclesiastical functionaries lie in a heap on the ground, but Vivaldi stands unharmed and defies his foes, while Bertha swoons comfortably against his back. Then with a lunge of his mighty sword (which has suddenly lengthened out to about fifteen feet) Vivaldi transfixes the whole robber band of six as they stand in convenient single file, driving his point also through a stout tree standing behind. The drama finishes with an "emblematic vision," wherein Vivaldi and Bertha, some years older, take hands in the centre under the shelter of that interminable sword, while on each side stand half-a-dozen children of various ages.