OW steadily the young author worked, and how calmly he bore the praise which a delighted public showered upon his story before it was half finished, he has himself told us in one of the autobiographical passages in " David Copperfield":

"I labored hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties, and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my years, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself

The leisure thus gained enabled him to scatter his talents in a new direction. His dramatic inclinations, which a few years previously had led him to apply for employment on the stage of Covent Garden, now induced him to turn his attention to play-writing. The musical attainments and connections of his elder sister Fanny had brought him into contact, Forster tells us, with many professors of music and the drama, and in aid of Mr. Braham's enterprise at the St. James's Theatre, he wrote "The Strange Gentleman," a "Comic Burletta" in two parts, which was acted on September 29th, and the story and songs of "The Village Coquette," a comic opera composed by his friend, Mr. Hullah, and produced on December 6th. "Both pieces," says Forster, "had a good success." In January, 1837, while still turning out the monthly parts of "Pickwick," he began to edit "Bentley's Miscellany," and to write "Oliver Twist" for that magazine. At the beginning of March he went again to the lodgings at Chalk, where he had spent his honeymoon. The birth of his son, Charles, . on January 6th, an incident already referred to more than once, had, no doubt, crowded the three rooms in Furnival's Inn beyond endurance, and his means and prospects justified the taking of more spacious quarters. Accordingly, on their return from Chalk, the little family moved to 48 Doughty Street, a house to whose surpassing ugliness the photograph does imperfect justice. The back room on the ground floor is said to have been that in which the concluding chapters of "Pickwick" and nearly all of "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas Nickleby" were written.

On Saturday night, April 1st, Messrs. Chapman and Hall entertained the young author to dinner in celebration of the anniversary of the issue of the first number of "Pickwick." The book, which was more than half finished, was the talk of

all England, and "Oliver Twist," though scarce begun, was commanding a measure of popularity alone sufficient to have turned the head of an author less earnest than Dickens. The neglected paster of bottle-labels of fourteen years before was now well-to-do and famous. His income had increased in twelve months from £400 to about £2,000 a year. The idol of the little fireside circle, wherein he was enjoying home comforts and human sympathies unknown to his earlier years, his acquaintance was sought in the outer world by the leading men of letters of the day. Youth, health, vigor and boundless hope were his; and while he had escaped from the hardships of his childhood without grasping the wholesome but prickly truth that two and two make four, he was nevertheless the possessor of a stronger common sense than is often given to twenty-five years. Although his price, his fame and his influence among his fellow-men were to go on increasing to the end of his days, it may be doubted whether he was ever better off than now; whether he ever again enjoyed such an overflowing fulness of simple pleasure. He was not for long to be allowed to forget that there is a bottom to every man's measure of happiness, for the greatest sorrow of his life was at hand. On May 7th, five weeks after the "Pickwick " dinner, "his wife's next youngest sister, Mary, who lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for the time completely bore him down" (Forster). "Young, beautiful and good," says the epitaph which Dickens wrote upon her gravestone at Kensal Green, "God, in His mercy, numbered her among His angels at the early age of seventeen."* Some

* Dexter says: "I have heard it stated that the young lady was engaged to be married to D. Maclise, that they were all at the theatre together one night, and that she died two hours after reaching home."

ance with her desire was buried beside her grandchild. She was soon followed by her grandson George, who fell with the same unexpected suddenness as that which had attended his sister's death, and Dickens, with a fortitude and self-denial which did him infinite credit, gave up to the brother the burial-place which he had reserved for himself. How painful was the sacrifice is shown by the letter which he wrote to Forster:

"It is a great trial to me to give up Mary's grave; greater than I can possibly express. I thought of moving her to the catacombs, and saying nothing about it; but then I remembered that the poor old lady is buried next her at her own desire, and could not find it in my heart, directly she is laid in the earth, to take her grandchild away. The desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me now as it was five years ago; and I know (for I don't think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it will never diminish. I fear I can do nothing. Do you think I can? They would move her on Wednesday if I resolved to have it done. I cannot bear the thought of being excluded from her dust; and yet I feel that her brothers and sisters and her mother have a better right than I to be placed beside her. It is but an idea. I neither think nor hope (God forbid!) that our spirits would ever mingle there. I ought to get the better of it, but it is very hard. I never contemplated this-and coming so suddenly, and after being ill, it disturbs me more than it ought. It seems like losing her a second time . . . No; there is no ground on either side to be had. I must give it up. I shall drive over there, please God, on Thursday morning, before they get there; and look at her coffin."

To Mrs. Hogarth he wrote:

"I had always intended to keep poor Mary's grave for us and our dear children, and for you. But if it will be any comfort to you to have poor George buried there, I will cheerfully arrange to place the ground at your entire disposal. Do not consider me in any way. Consult only your own heart. Mine [seems to tell me that as they both died so young and so suddenly they ought both to be buried together."

It will be seen from the inscription shown in the photograph that room was afterwards found in the grave for two

NO. 15 FURNIVAL'S INN, NOW PULLED DOWN, WHERE THE WRITING OF PICK WICK "WAS BEGUN

"I shall never be so happy again as in those chambers three stories high-never, if I roll in wealth and fame. I would hire them to keep empty if I could afford it." -Dickens's Diary, January 6, 1838.

more bodies-those of the father and mother. Dickens's remains were to find a tomb more fitting the pride of the nation which claimed them as its own, though less in accordance with his own desire, than the humble corner at Kensal Green or the quiet seclusion of the Kentish churchyard" where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the Garden of England."

The only existing portrait of Mary Hogarth is one which was painted by Hablot K. Browne from memory after her death. There was a second portrait, a copy of which was given to Dickens by his motherin-law on the sixth anniversary of Mary's death. In acknowledging the gift he

wrote:

"The best portrait that was ever painted would be of little value to you and me in comparison with