NEW YORK WHEN of seeing Thackeray
I
WAS A YOUNG MAN
when he was
this country in 1852. distant view of the distingul Mr. Thackeray in Trinity Church. He is a rough, Mull-Ion kinman. The other evening at the M< -Indian Mr. James, the 'I
had
in
Sunday a
last
novelist, delivered a eulogy on the
Duke
of Wellington;
he made a most prodigious failure. There were ^on A little later he writes: 'We have had a nice present." treat in Mr. Thackeray's lectures. His pathos is fully i
equal to his humor, and his elocution so perfect- bring English! Our young lads and soi-disant orators, who 'saw the air with their hands' may learn from him that eloquence is not in paws and elbows but in the intonations
His recitation of Addison's 'Soon as shades evening prevail' was charming." Dickens made a great sensation when he tame
of the voice.
tin-
to
America in 1867. Of course, like everybody else, went to hear him read, but I do not remember being particularly impressed; he did not read well and was rather common When he made his first visit here in 1842 was looking. I
I
remember him, but there is an amusing paragraph in an old letter of my Aunt Margaret Salter's to tincommodore. too small to
'I
heard from George Elliot that Foster went to the There were 3000 persons delighted.
Boz Ball and was
He
was the chief topic of conversation everywhere beforehand and the result quite fulfilled their \\ hen It was repeated the next evening. expectations. Boz and his wife entered people filed ofT each side and let him walk up the middle of the room. They say that there.
says
it
28,000 stewed oysters were eaten that evening, and io,o..o pickled, 4000 kisses, 6000 mottoes, and 50 hams and -,<> tongues. scarce I"
I
am
afraid at this rate oysters will
129
become