Thackeray's reviews that it has been possible to recover and
identify. The chief find of papers never before republished has been one of four contributed to the Times in November, 1838. Thackeray sent in his "little bill"—the sum total of copy was ten columns—and by some accident the paper was preserved. Another novelty is a review of N. P. Willis's "Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil " ; it appeared in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1845, a place where we certainly should not look for such a paper now. Many of the papers are eminently characteristic of the writer ; this is especially true where Thackeray is disposing of annuals, books of beauty, and such like. His severest language is used when he is criticising Bulwer's "Ernest Maltravers." All the " Pelham " stratum of Bulwer's novels was exactly the stuff which Thackeray hated above all things. One doubts whether on a purely literary question Thackeray had an infallible judgment. He prints, for instance, some blank verse from Southey's " Madoc," without, apparently, a suspicion that it is very poor. What do our readers say to the following P- " Fair blew the winds, and safely did the waves
Bear that beloved charge. It were a tale Would rouse adventurous courage in a boy, Making him long to be a mariner, That he might rove the main, if I should tell How pleasantly for many a summer day Over the sunny sea, with wind at will, Prince Madoc sailed, and of the happy isles Which he had seen."
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