In speaking of Thackeray's life I have said why and how it was that he took upon himself to lecture, and have also told the reader that he was altogether successful in carrying out the views proposed to himself. Of his peculiar¹ manner of lecturing I have said but little, never having heard him. "He pounded along,—very clearly," I have been told; from which I surmise² that there was no special grace of eloquence³, but that he was always audible. I cannot imagine that he should have been ever eloquent⁴. He could not have taken the trouble necessary with his voice, with his cadences⁵, or with his outward appearance. I imagine that they who seem so naturally to fall into the proprieties⁶ of elocution have generally taken a great deal of trouble beyond that which the mere⁷ finding of their words has cost them. It is clearly to the matter of what he then gave the world, and not to the manner, that we must look for what interest is to be found in the lectures.

Those on The English Humorists were given first. The second set was on The Four Georges. In the volume now before us The Georges are printed first, and the whole is produced simply as a part of Thackeray's literary work. Looked at, however, in that light the merit of the [Pg 155]two sets of biographical essays is very different. In the one we have all the anecdotes⁸ which could be brought together respecting four of our kings,—who as men were not peculiar, though their reigns⁹ were, and will always be, famous, because the country during the period was increasing greatly in prosperity and was ever strengthening the hold it had upon its liberties. In the other set the lecturer was a man of letters

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