In the January number of 1848 the _Edinburgh Review_ had an article on Thackeray's works generally as they were then known.

It purports to combine the _Irish Sketch Book_, the _Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, and _Vanity Fair_ as far as it had then gone; but it does in truth deal chiefly with the literary merits of the latter.

I will quote a passage from the article, as proving in regard to Thackeray's work an opinion which was well founded, and as telling the story of his life as far as it was then known; "Full many a valuable truth," says the reviewer, "has been sent undulating through the air by men who have lived and died unknown.

At this moment the rising generation are supplied with the best of their mental aliment by writers whose names are a dead letter to the mass; and among the most remarkable of these is Michael Angelo Titmarsh, alias William Makepeace Thackeray, author of the _Irish Sketch Book_, of _A Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, of _Jeames's Diary_, of _The Snob Papers_ in _Punch_, of _Vanity Fair_, etc.

etc.
"Mr.Thackeray is now about thirty-seven years of age, of a good family, and originally intended for the bar.