There had been published a volume called _My Book, or the Anatomy of Conduct_, by John Skelton, and a very absurd book no doubt it was.

We may presume that it contained maxims on etiquette, and that it was intended to convey in print those invaluable lessons on deportment which, as Dickens has told us, were subsequently given by Mr.Turveydrop, in the academy kept by him for that purpose.
Thackeray took this as his foundation for the _Fashionable Fax and Polite Annygoats_, by Jeames Yellowplush, with which he commenced those repeated attacks against snobbism which he delighted to make through a considerable portion of his literary life.

Oliver Yorke has himself added four or five pages of his own to Thackeray's lucubrations; and with the second, and some future numbers, there appeared illustrations by Thackeray himself, illustrations at this time not having been common with the magazine.

From all this I gather that the author was already held in estimation by _Fraser's_ confraternity.

I remember well my own delight with _Yellowplush_ at the time, and how I inquired who was the author.