Thackeray and Sir Martin Archer Shee

Extract

Thackeray, Dickens, Disraeli, and others of the Victorian novelists frequently gave their imaginative faculties a temporary leave of absence, and proceeded for the time being with characters picked up ready made from their own acquaintance, or from other folk who happened to be prominent enough at the time to attract their attention. The Thackeray Dictionary lists 89 such originals, and a few others have been pointed out since that volume was issued. It is my purpose here to offer some evidence to show that to this list there may now be added the name of Sir Martin Archer Shee, sometime president of the Royal Academy, whom, I think, the author introduces in the forty-second chapter of Vanity Fair, as a Mr. Smee, a struggling young drawing master, who, engaged to give lessons to Miss Jane Osborne, falls in love with her, and is eventually driven from the house by her angry father, who threatens to “break every bone in his skin.”