THE THACKERAY CENTENARY.
(To Tim Eorros or TEN "Srzowroo."]
Sin,—Many doubtless of your readers were present at the delightful entertainment with which Lady Ritchie and the Editor of the Cornhill 3fagaeine celebrated on Tuesday last the centenary of William Makepeace Thackeray. Others may like to read a few words about it. It was held in the Middle Temple Gardens (the more westerly of the two). An
old friend—a Bencher of the other Society—told me that the garden was not so fine as his own ; to me it seemed more picturesque ; the buildings which eneompasa it rise up from its green expanse in a most effective fashion. And was it not the scene of the historic roses ? There was a most distin- guished company assembled. As I walked about I had a feeling that I was in a portrait gallery, so many of the faces were familiar, though I could not put names to them. If they would only have worn labels ! The " Thackera.y " features in the celebration were all that could be desired from the gracious greeting of the hostess at the entrance—could this, one thought, be the daughter of a man who was born a hundred years ago P—down to the end. The chief entertain- ment was, of course, the concert in the hall, in the first part • of which the Temple Choir gave us some admirable renderings of Thackeray ballads, "Little Billee" being one of them. For myself the most interesting was "Wapping Old Stairs," not Thackeray's parody—that would have been, perhaps, a little bard to understand—but the genuine song which Colonel Neweome gave on a memorable occasion at" Evans's." What a distant past it brought back to me! I heard it sung for the first and, I think, for the last time in my life sixty-six years ago at a miscellaneous, very miscellaneous, concert at Exeter Hall. Miss Poole, who died a few years ago, well on in her "eighties," was the singer. Among her fellow-performers were the younger Lablache, and Miss Dalby (Madame Sainton- Dalby). You see, Sir, I was a fairly well qualified guest for a
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