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in he could do nothing; the catarrh, which was little or nothing in itself, was too strong for organs enfeebled by palsy. On Tuesday, the 1st of March 1842, the week to the day after his last orgie at Richmond, he died peacefully among his own relations and friends, as he lay in a chaise longue in his library while they were making his bed in his bedroom.' His will was necessarily curious' with its codicils and its legacies. His own family was ' mentioned rather unkindly and little benefited,' his son, the fourth marquess, was residuary legatee, but the bulk of the estate went in legacies, which were disputed, to the Strachan family, while in seven different codicils separate sums were left to Nicholas Suisse, who altogether was to receive upwards of £20,000. Mr. Croker, as one of the executors of the will, incurred many calumnies for his prosecution of Suisse as the thief of a missing package containing a hundred thousand francs. Suisse was acquitted, but being put on trial on a second charge was found guilty, and ordered to pay the costs.

'In height, about the middle size, but somewhat portly and corpulent. His countenance was strongly marked; sagacity on the brow, sensuality in the mouth and jaw. His head was bald, but there were the remains of the rich brown locks, on which he had once prided himself. His large, deep-blue eye, morbid and yet piercing, showed that the secretions of his brain were apportioned, half to voluptuousness, half to commonsense. But his general mien

was truly grand; full of a natural nobility, of which no one was more sensible than himself.' Such is Disraeli's description of the person of the Marquess of Hertford in his description of that of Lord Monmouth. In contrast, comes Thackeray's less dignified portrait of the 'Marquis of Steyne.' 'The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire, sipping coffee. . . . The candles lighted up his shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair. He

had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was under hung, and when he laughed, two white buck teeth protruded themselves, and glistened savagely, in the midst of the grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbons. A short man was his lordship, broad-chested, and bow-legged, but proud of the firmness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee. For the rest, the Lord Steyne of Vanity Fair is too familiar a character to need any further description. He is to us, as he was to little Rawdon, that bald-headed man, with the large teeth,' and more; and worse. But as for identifying Lord Steyne, whole heartedly, with the third Marquess of Hertford, that is an impossibility.

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The facts of that veracious history of Vanity Fair puzzle us at every turn, if we slavishly pursue the idea, that Thackeray was intending a portraiture of the third marquess. If he was intending a portraiture at all, it was a composite photograph, for some of the facts and events of the career of Lord Steyne might belong to the second marquess, some to the third. But the most important thing to remember is that Thackeray was writing a novel, and he could play with his facts and his characters as he pleased. At the most, he singled out the Marquesses of Hertford, one or both, and clothed in stories of their lives the puppet of his own making, the richly dressed figure of the wicked nobleman . . . which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of the singular performance.'

Gaunt House is of course Hertford House, as Gaunt Square is Manchester Square. The mansions round are still in the comatose state of dowagerism. The famous petits apartements of Lord Steyne-one, Sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony and black velvet,' 1 velvet,' are unrecognisable in the elaborate

1 The notorious Harriet Wilson describes these in her Memoirs.

alterations that necessarily took place before even Hertford House could become extensive enough to hold the vast treasury of art collected by the Marquesses of Hertford.

Maria Fagniani is hardly recognisable as the Marchioness of Steyne. At the same time, if Thackeray had been picturing Lady Hertford, the Regent's favourite, he would have chosen different facts to tell about her. Moreover we may, without stretching probability, assume that the Count de la Marche, otherwise the Abbé de la Marche, with whom Lord Steyne, when Lord Gaunt (the third marquess when Lord Yarmouth), fought a duel in '86, is none other than the Marshal Androche, on whose protection Maria Fagniani relied. The two sons of Lord Steyne, Lord Gaunt and Lord George Gaunt, are undoubtedly Lord Yarmouth (fourth marquess) and Lord Henry Seymour. Here again, in his account of their lives, Thackeray juggles with facts, and yet gives a distinct impression of the prototypes of his creations. Wenham, again, who puts his hand on his waistcoat, with a parliamentary air'; the smooth-tongued Wenham, of 'the fluent oratory which, in his place in Parliament, he had so often practised,' is unmistakably Mr. Croker; while Mr. Fiche, his lordship's confidential man,' who, after his lordship's death, returned to his native country, where he lived, much respected, and became Baron Ficci, can be none other than our fox-faced friend, Nicholas Suisse. And Becky? We may suggest many prototypes for Becky; we may suppose her career was suggested by the seduction of Mrs. Massey by the second marquess; we may suppose she found her origin in Fanny Wilson, or Amy Wilson, sisters of the more notorious Harriet, and once the reigning favourites of the third marquess; we may suppose she was one of the many unknown admirations, of theworn-out, wicked old man.' But we had far better not suppose at all. She is Thackeray's own creation, the 1 A most improbable suggestion.