mous quarrel, he has as little; his remi- at a club, where, before you were born, I beniscences of Cockburn, Hill, Lord West-lieve, I and other gentlemen have been in the bury, Charles Reade, Grenville Murray, habit of talking without any idea that our conand General Grant are mainly anecdotic; the latter half of his second volume is little more than a slight and rapid chronicle of his doings as a lecturer, a special correspondent, and a "society "editor. Nowhere does he write with such gusto as at the beginning, and nowhere is his book so readable and useful. In the past he is most at home, and it is in treating of the past that he is most agreeable to

his readers.

It is fair to him to note, in telling his quarrel with Thackeray, that he extenuates nothing of his own conduct, nor sets down aught in malice concerning his opponent. The facts are clear. Mr. Yates was wrong in the beginning, and Thackeray was wrong in the end. Mr. Yates led off with an extremely impudent article on the great writer in a print called Town Talk, and the great writer retaliated in a letter which, if only as a specimen of straight and brutal writing, we cannot do better than quote:

versation would supply paragraphs for professional vendors of "Literary Talk;" and I don't remember that out of that club I have ever exchanged six words with you. Allow me to inform you that the talk which you have heard there is not intended for newspaper remark; and to beg-as I have a right to do that you will refrain from printing comments upon my private conversations; that you will forego discussions, however blundering, upon my private affairs; and that you will henceforth please to consider any question of my personal truth and sincerity as quite out of the province of your criticism.

E. Yates, Esq.

W. M. THACKERAY.

a

Mr. Yates confesses that this epistle came upon him with a sense of amazeFeeling that it afforded him " ment." legitimate opportunity for a tolerably effective retort," he at once prepared a document reminding Thackeray of certain among his own intrusions on the privacy of his friends of Arcedeckne exposed as Foker, the Athanasius Lardner and the Lytton Bulwig of the "Yellowplush Papers," and so on. This Mr. Yates determined to show to Albert Smith; but reflecting that Albert Smith had likewise to complain of Thackeray, he elected to communicate it to Dickens, under whose direction he suppressed his letter - it was "too violent and too flippant," Dickens thought- and wrote as follows:

June 15th, 1858.

36 Onslow Square, S.W., June 14. SIR,-I have received two numbers of a little paper called Town Talk, containing notices respecting myself, of which, as I learn from the best authority, you are the writer. In the first article of "Literary talk" you think fit to publish an incorrect account of my private dealings with my publishers. In this week's number appears a so-called "Sketch," containing a description of my manners, person, and conversation, and an account of my literary SIR, works, which of course you are at liberty to I have to acknowledge the receipt of praise or condemn as a literary critic. But your letter of this day's date, referring to two You will you state, with regard to my conversation, that articles of which I am the writer. it is either "frankly cynical or affectionately excuse my pointing out to you that it is absurd benevolent and good-natured; " and of my to suppose me bound to accept your angry works (lectures) that in some I showed "an "understanding" of my " phrases." I do not extravagant adulation of rank and position," accept it in the least: I altogether reject it. I which in other lectures (" as I know how to cannot characterize your letter in any other cut my coat according to my cloth") became terms than those in which you characterized the object of my bitterest attack. As I un- the article which has given you so much derstand your phrases, you impute insincerity offence. If your letter to me were not both to me when I speak good-naturedly in private, “slanderous and untrue," I should readily have assign dishonorable motives to me for senti- discussed its subject with you, and avowed my ments which I have delivered in public, and earnest and frank desire to set right anything charge me with advancing statements which II may have left wrong. Your letter being have never delivered at all. Had your re- what it is, I have nothing to add to my present marks been written by a person unknown to reply. me, I should have noticed them no more than EDMUND YATES. other calumnies; but as we have shaken hands more than once, and met hitherto on friendly terms (you may ask one of your employers, Mr. of , whether I did not speak of you very lately in the most friendly manner), I am obliged to take notice of articles which I consider to be not offensive and unfriendly merely, but slanderous and untrue. We meet

What followed need only be sketched in the briefest possible terms. Thackeray instantly put Mr. Yates into "The Virginians," as Tom Garbage, and laid the affair before the Garrick committee; Mr. Yates, called upon to apologize or retire from the club, denied the competence of the

2

-1

good.

It was in connection with this business that Dickens saw Edwin James; and it is thus that Edwin James is now going down to posterity as the Mr. Stryver of "A Tale of Two Cities."

committee, declined to do either the one |
thing or the other, and by the action of a
general meeting, in spite of the support of
Dickens, Lover, Wilkie Collins, Robert
Bell, and Palgrave Simpson, was made
liable to expulsion. As he still refused to There are some good stories in Mr.
apologize, his name was removed from the Yates's book. One of the best is Foker-
books, and he resolved upon his action of Arcedeckne's reception of Thackeray's
battery. He went to the club; was "sat- lecture on the "Humorists." 66 How are
isfactorily trespassed upon;" brought his you, Thack?" he said, at the Cider Cel-
action, not against the trustees, but lars Club, where "the great cynic was
against the secretary; lost it on a kind of preening himself under a mass of congrat
quibble; was advised to apply to the Courtulations" (this, it must be owned, is a bad
of Chancery; and, finding that it would specimen of Mr. Yates's style) -
cost him at the least some hundreds to

"How are you, Thack? I was at your show to-day at Willis's. What a lot of swells you had there- yes! But I thought it was dull devilish dull! I tell you what it is, Thack you want a piano!"

Of the terrible O. Smith-vampire, demon, pirate, desperado; so often "in the midst of fire" and "going up and down traps "that "the life insurance companies would only accept him at a hazardous' premium Mr. Yates records that in private life he was "wellread and well-informed, a clever watercolor artist, with an air of old-fashioned courtesy not detracted from by a slight deafness; "" it stands to reason, though it is not here recorded, that he must inevitably have played the flute and collected butterflies.

From Chambers' Journal.

get heard, was wise enough to let the
matter drop. At the time, says Mr. Yates,
the dispute was regarded not as between
himself and Thackeray, but as between
Thackeray and Dickens. If this were so,
there can be no doubt that Thackeray was
the victor. Dickens resigned his seat on
the Garrick committee, and afterwards
wrote to "My dear Thackeray " a private
letter in which he acknowledged his part
as Mr. Yates's adviser, and suggested
compromise and mediation. To this
communication Thackeray not only re-
turned a curt and rather unpleasant re-
fusal ("Yours, etc., W. M. Thackeray is
the signature), but actually wrote about it
and the proposal it embodied to the Gar-
rick committee, to the effect that even if
he would he could not "make the dispute
once more personal, or remove it out of
the court to which he submitted it for ar-
bitration." This, as far as Mr. Yates was
concerned, was the end of the affair.
With Dickens and Thackeray it was oth-
erwise. They had never been the great-
est friends imaginable, says Mr. Yates;
and though John Forster (who was ex.
ceeding wroth with Thackeray at the time)
refers to the estrangement as "small"
and " 'hardly worth mention, even in a
note," our author declares it to have been
"complete and continuous," and notes
that Dickens and Thackeray "never ex-
changed but the most casual conversation
afterwards." At this distance of time it
is impossible not to wish that Mr. Yates
had never been impudent to Thackeray,
that Thackeray had never bullied Mr.
Yates, and that Dickens had never atology of this secluded islet, Mr. Tho-
tempted to intervene between the comba.
tants at all, whether as Mr. Yates's ad-
viser or as Thackeray's rival, whether as
Mr. Yates's champion before the com-
mittee or as his advocate with Thackeray
before Thackeray's better judgment.
Still, it's an ill wind that blows nobody

A SOLITARY ISLAND.

THE government of Iceland has commissioned Mr. Thoroddsen to undertake systematic explorations of that island, with a view to investigating its physical features and describing its natural history. While on a visit to Grimsey, a small island twenty-two miles due north of Iceland, he found it inhabited by eighty-eight human beings, debarred from all commu. nication with the mainland, excepting once or twice every year, when, at great risk, the natives contrived to visit the mainland in their small open boats.

After describing the flora and meteor

roddsen informs us that the "pastor of the island, M. Pjetur Gudmundsson, has for many years been engaged in exceedingly careful meteorological observations on behalf of the Meteorological Institute of Copenhagen. This most worthy gentleman, living here in conspicuous poverty,

like a hermit divorced from the world, though he has the comfort of a good wife to be thankful for, is not only regarded as a father by his primitive congregation, but enjoys, moreover, the reputation of being in the front rank among sacred poets in modern Iceland.

his comrades. This, as may readily be imagined, is a most dangerous undertaking, and many a life has been lost over it in Grimsey from accidents occurring to the rope.

"For the pursuit of the fishery, the island possesses fourteen small open boats, in which the men will venture out

"Now and then the monotony of the life of the inhabitants is broken by visits from foreigners, mostly Icelandic sharkfishers, or English or French fishermen,

"The inhabitants derive their livelihood for the most part from bird-catching, nest-as far as four to six miles cod-fishing; but robbing, and deep-sea fisheries. The this is a most hazardous industry, owing precipices that form the eastern face of both to the sudden manner in which the the island are crowded with myriads of sea will rise, sometimes even a long time various kinds of sea-fowl. On every ledge in advance of travelling storms, and to the the birds are seen thickly packed together; difficulty of effecting a landing on the the rocks are white with guano, or green- | harborless island. tufted with scurvy-grass; here everything is in ceaseless movement, stir, and Autter, accompanied by a myriad-voiced concert from screamers on the wing, from chat terers on domestic affairs in the rockledges, and from brawlers at the parliament of love out at sea, the surface of which beneath the rocks is literally thatched at this time of the year with the wooing multitudes of this happy commonwealth. If the peace is broken by a stone rolled over the precipice or by the report of a gunshot, the air is suddenly darkened by the rising clouds of the disturbed birds, which, viewed from the rocks, resemble what might be taken for gigantic swarms of bees or midges.

"Of domestic animals the islanders now possess only a few sheep. Formerly there were five cows in the island; but the hard winter of 1860 necessitated their extermination, and since that time, for twentyfour years, the people have had to do without a cow. Of horses there are only two at present (1884) in the island. Strange to say, the health of the people seems on the whole to bear a fair comparison with more favored localities. Scurvy, which formerly was very prevalent, has now almost disappeared, as has also a disease peculiar to children, which, in the form of spasm or convulsive fit, used to be very fatal to infant life in former years.

"The method adopted for collecting eggs is the following: Provided with a strong rope, some nine or ten stalwart men go to the precipice, where it is some "Inexpressibly solitary must be the three hundred feet high, and one of the life of these people in winter, shut out number volunteers or is singled out by from all communication with the outer the rest for the perilous sig, that is, "sink" world, and having in view, as far as the or "drop," over the edge of the rocks. eye can reach, nothing but arctic ice. The Round his thighs and waist, thickly padded existence of generation after generation generally with bags stuffed with feathers here seems to be spent in one continuous or hay, the sigamadr, “sinkman " or and unavailing arctic expedition. The "dropman," adjusts the rope in such a only diversion afforded by nature consists manner that he may hang, when dropped, in the shifting colors of the flickering in a sitting posture. He is also dressed aurora borealis, in the twinkling of the in a wide smock or sack of coarse calico, stars in the heavens, and the fantastic open at the breast, and tied round the forms of wandering icebergs. No wonder waist with belt, in the ample folds of that such surroundings should serve to which he slips the eggs he gathers, the produce a quiet, serious, devout, and capacity of the smock affording accommo-down-hearted race, in which respect the dation to from one hundred to one hundred and fifty eggs at a time. In one hand the sinkman holds a pole, sixteen feet long, with a ladle tied to one end, and by this means scoops the eggs out of nests which are beyond the reach of his own hands. When the purpose of this "breath-fetching" sink is accomplished, on a given sign the dropman is hauled up again by

Grimsey men may perhaps be said to constitute a typical group among their compatriots. However, to dispel the heavy tedium of the long winter days, they seek their amusements in the reading of the Sagas, in chess-playing, and in such mild dissipations at mutual entertainments at Christmas-time as their splendid poverty will allow."

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