bread.'

* * * * *

"Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings
somewhere, waited upon by a charity girl in pattens."

The visit to Castle Carabas, and the housekeeper's description of the
wonders of the family mansion, is as good. "'The Side Entrance and
'All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator hover the mantelpiece was
brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a capting with Lord Hanson.
The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas family. The great
'all is seventy feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and thirty-eight
feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the buth of Venus
and 'Ercules and 'Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpture
of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, represents Painting,
Harchitecture, and Music,--the naked female figure with the
barrel-organ,--introducing George, first Lord Carabas, to the Temple of
the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is
Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to
Lionel, second marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff
in the French Revolution. We now henter the South Gallery," etc. etc.
All of which is very good fun, with a dash of truth in it also as to the
snobbery;--only in this it will be necessary to be quite sure where the
snobbery lies. If my Lord Carabas has a "buth of Venus," beautiful for
all eyes to see, there is no snobbery, only good-nature, in the showing
it; nor is there snobbery in going to see it, if a beautiful "buth of
Venus" has charms for you. If you merely want to see the inside of a
lord's house, and the lord is puffed up with the pride of showing his,
then there will be two snobs.

Of all those papers it may be said that each has that quality of a pearl
about it which in the previous chapter I endeavoured to explain. In each
some little point is made in excellent language, so as to charm by its
neatness, incision, and drollery. But _The Snob Papers_ had better be
read separately, and not taken in the lump.

Thackeray ceased to write for _Punch_ in 1852, either entirely or almost
so.

CHAPTER III.

VANITY FAIR.

Something has been said, in the biographical chapter, of the way in
which _Vanity Fair_ was produced, and of the period in the author's life
in which it was written. He had become famous,--to a limited extent,--by
the exquisite nature of his contributions to pe