ABSTRACT
In Thackeray the Humourist and the Man of Letters, which Was published in 1864 by the late Mr. John Camden Hotten, and was in all probability written by him, though the, title-page gives the author’s name as ‘Theodore Taylor, Esq.,’ it is recorded (pp. i88-Igo) on the authority of Dr. Cornish, then vicar of Ottery St. Mary, near Exeter, that when Thackeray was staying there as a boy, he wrote and brought to Dr. Cornish some verses, which duly appeared in ‘an Exeter paper.’ Unfortunately no more information was given, and a diligent search among the files of the Exeter papers of the period has failed to bring the verses to light. They are however, quoted in Mr. Hotten’s book, and as they were in all probability the first writings of Thackeray to be published, they are worth repeating here:
