William Makepeace Thackeray: The Writer and His Work (Essential English Library)

An excerpt from the book:

At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after
a deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising,
restoring, re-restoring, play-writing, sermon-writing,
Oliver-Cromwellising, Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk
into its grave, giving place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr. Isaac
Newton was a tutor of Trinity, and Mr. Joseph Addison Commissioner of
Appeals; when the presiding genius that watched over the destinies of
the French nation had played out all the best cards in his hand, and his
adversaries began to pour in their trumps; when there were two kings in
Spain employed perpetually in running away from one another; when there
was a queen in England, with such rogues for Ministers as have never
been seen, no, not in our own day; and a General, of whom it may be
severely argued, whether he was the meanest miser or the greatest hero
in the world; when Mrs. Masham had not yet put Madam Marlborough's nose
out of joint; when people had their ears cut off for writing very
meek political pamphlets; and very large full-bottomed wigs were just
beginning to be worn with powder; and the face of Louis the Great, as
his was handed in to him behind the bed-curtains, was, when issuing
thence, observed to look longer, older, and more dismal daily....

About the year One thousand seven hundred and five, that is, in the
glorious reign of Queen Anne, there existed certain characters, and
befell a series of adventures, which, since they are strictly in
accordance with the present fashionable style and taste; since they have
been already partly described in the "Newgate Calendar;" since they are
(as shall be seen anon) agreeably low, delightfully disgusting, and at
the same time eminently pleasing and pathetic, may properly be set down
here.