V., "Modern Painters." His reputation as a writer and philanthropist, together with the friendliness of editor and publisher, secured the insertion of the first three,--from August to October.

The editor then wrote to say that they were so unanimously condemned and disliked, that, with all apologies, he could only admit one more.

The series was brought hastily to a conclusion in November: and the author, beaten back as he had never been beaten before, dropped the subject, and "sulked," so he called it, all the winter.
It is pleasant to notice that neither Thackeray, the editor nor Smith, the publisher quarrelled with the author who had laid them open to the censure of their public,--nor he with them.

On December 21st, he wrote to Thackeray, in answer apparently, to a letter about lecturing for a charitable purpose: and continued: "The mode in which you direct your charity puts me in mind of a matter that has lain long on my mind, though I never have had the time or face to talk to you of it.

In somebody's drawing-room, ages ago, you were speaking accidentally of M.de Marvy.[8] I expressed my great obligation to him; on which you said that I could prove my gratitude, if I chose, to his widow,--which choice I then not accepting, have ever since remembered the circumstance as one peculiarly likely to add, so far as it went, to the general impression on your mind of the hollowness of people's sayings and hardness of their hearts.