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Thackeray . An attempt to elect him in 1850 had been defeated by the opposition of one member. Macaulay, Croker, Dean Milman, and Lord Mahon had supported his claims (Hayward Correspondence, i. 120). He was never, as has been said, 'blackballed.' He was henceforward a familiar figure at the club. The illness of 1849 appears to have left permanent effects. He was afterwards liable to attacks which caused much suffering. Meanwhile, although he was now making a good income, he was anxious to provide for his children and recover what he had lost in his youth. He resolved to try his hand at lecturing, following a precedent already set by such predecessors as Coleridge, Hazlitt, and Carlyle. He gave a course of six lectures upon the 'English Humorists' at Willis's Rooms from 22 May to 3 July 1851. The first (on Swift), though attended by many friends, including Carlyle, Kinglake, Hallam, Macaulay, and Milman, seemed to him to be a failure (ib. i. 119, where 1847 must be a misprint for 1851; C. Fox, Memories, &c., 1882, ii. 171). The lectures soon became popular, as they deserved to be. Thackeray was not given to minute research, and his facts and dates require some correction. But his delicate appreciation of the congenial writers and the finish of his style give the lectures a permanent place in criticism. His 'light-in-hand manner,' as Motley remarked of a later course, 'suits well the delicate hovering rather than superficial style of his composition.' Without the slightest attempt at rhetorical effect his delivery did full justice to the peculiar merits of his own writing. The lectures had apparently been prepared with a view to an engagement in America (Brookfield Correspondence, p. 113, where the date should be early in 1851, not 1850). Before starting he published 'Esmond,' of which FitzGerald says (2 June 1852) that 'it was finished last Saturday.' The book shows even more than the lectures how thoroughly he had imbibed the spirit of the Queen Anne writers. His style had reached its highest perfection, and the tenderness of the feeling has won perhaps more admirers for this book than for the more powerful and sterner performances of the earlier period. The manuscript, now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, shows that it was written with very few corrections, and in great part dictated to his eldest daughter and Mr. Crowe. Earlier manuscripts show much more alteration, and he clearly obtained a completer mastery of his tools by long practice. He took, however, much pains to get correct statements of fact, and read for that purpose at the libraries of the British Museum and the Athenæum (With Thackeray in America, pp. 1-0). The book had a good sale from the first, although the contrary has been stated. For the first edition of 'Esmond' Thackeray received 1,200l. It was published by Messrs. Smith & Elder, and the arrangement was made with him by Mr. George Smith of that firm, who became a warm friend for the rest of his life (, Chapters, p. 30).

On 30 Oct. 1852 Thackeray sailed for Boston, U.S.A., in company with Clough and J. R. Lowell. He lectured at Boston, New York, Philadelphia (where he formed a friendship with W. B. Reed, who has described their intercourse), Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah. He was received with the characteristic hospitality of Americans, and was thoroughly pleased with the people, making many friends in the southern as well as in the northern states—a circumstance which probably affected his sympathies during the subsequent civil war. He returned in the spring of 1853 with about 2,500l. Soon after his return he stayed three weeks in London, and, after spending a month with the Smyths, went with his children to Switzerland. There, as he says (The Newcomes, last chapter), he strayed into a wood near Berne, where the story of 'The Newcomes' was 'revealed to him somehow.' The story, like those of his other longer novels, is rather a wide section of family history than a definite 'plot.' The rather  complicated action gives room for a good deal of autobiographical matter; and Colonel Newcome is undoubtedly drawn to a great degree from his stepfather. For 'The Newcomes' he apparently received 4,000l. It was again published in numbers, and was illustrated by his friend Richard Doyle [q. v.], who had also illustrated 'Rebecca and Rowena' (1850). Thackeray was now living at 36 Onslow Square, to which he had moved from Young Street in 1853. At Christmas 1853 Thackeray went with his daughters to Rome. There, to amuse some children, he made the drawings which gradually expanded into the delightful burlesque of 'The Rose and the Ring,' published with great success in 1854. lie suffered also from a Roman fever, from which, if not from the previous illness of 1849, dated a series of attacks causing much suffering and depression. The last number of 'The Newcomes' appeared in August 1855, and in October Thackeray started for a second lecturing tour in the United States. Sixty of his friends gave him a farewell dinner (11 Oct.), at which Dickens took the chair. The subject of this new series was 'The Four