I don't disguise that I feel somehow on my trial here for loyalty,--for honest English feeling." This was said by Thackeray at a dinner at Edinburgh, in 1857, and shows how the matter rested on his mind.

Thackeray's loyalty was no doubt true enough, but was mixed with but little of reverence.

He was one who revered modesty and innocence rather than power, against which he had in the bottom of his heart something of republican tendency.

His leaning was no doubt of the more manly kind.

But in what he said at Edinburgh he hardly hit the nail on the head.