"Now, if I don't make
The completest mistake

That ever put man in a rage,
This bird of two weathers

Has moulted his feathers,

And left them in some other cage."-Boz.

When these last lines first appeared in the Art Fournal, a friend of Southey's, resenting Boz's remark, retaliated by "good-humouredly referring" to the change of style between "Pickwick" and "Our Mutual Friend," and wrote in the margin of the periodical

"Put his first work and last work together,

And learn from the groans of all men,
That if he's not alter'd his feather,

He's certainly alter'd his pen."

"Our Mutual Friend" was dramatized as "The Golden Dustman," and was acted on June 16th, 1866, with great ability, at the Sadler's Wells, and afterwards at Astley's and the Britannia Theatres.

Dickens, on the 11th of May, 1864, presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at a public meeting for the purpose of founding the Shakspeare Foundation Schools, in connection with the Royal Dramatic College. On this occasion he made-as usual-an admirable speech, and a large sum of money was collected.

During the summer of this year, and whilst on a trip to Paris, Mr. Dickens met with a sunstroke, which greatly alarmed his friends. For many hours

he was in a state of complete insensibility, but at length recovered, and in due course returned home.

The interest taken in "Mrs. Lirriper and her Lodgings," the preceding Christmas, induced Dickens to give a sequel to the old lady's experiences. Accordingly, in the Christmas of 1864, we had "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy." This narrated the death, in France, of Mr. Edson, the father of Jemmy; the journey of Mrs. Lirriper, the Major, and Master Jem, to the deathbed of the repentant man; their adventures going and returning; the revelations of the extraordinary conduct of her brother-in-law, Doctor Joshua Lirriper; the vagaries of Mr. Buffle, the collector of the assessed taxes; her meritorious conduct towards him and his family on the night. of the fire, and also, when Miss Wozenham was in danger of being sold up, lending her money to pay the execution out, and becoming intimate friends; —are all very charmingly and amusingly described.

A little matter occurred in the following March, to which we may just allude in passing. Mr. Dickens had nominated, and Mr. Wilkie Collins seconded, a very intimate friend as a member of the Garrick Club, to which they both belonged. The committee, for some unaccountable reason, blackballed the gentleman; Dickens and Collins, disgusted at this treatment, resigned their membership, and the affair for the moment created some considerable stir in the literary world.

On the 9th May he presided at the annual festival

of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Association, and delivered another admirable speech.

Ten days afterwards, on the 20th of the same month, he fulfilled a similar post at the second anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund (being a vicepresident of that useful association). His speech was that well known one in which he gave us his early reporting experiences. In defending the profession he said: "I would venture to remind you, if I delicately may, in the august presence of members of Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to the reporters, if it were only for their skill in the two great sciences of condensation and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings under an Imperial Parliament, however popularly constituted, under however glorious a constitution, would be, if the reporters could not skip!" And it was on this occasion that he exclaimed, in the midst of the warmest applause, "I am not here advocating the case of a mere ordinary client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold a brief to-night for my brothers!" Since his death this passage has been often quoted in proof of the love he bore to the literary profession and all connected with it.

We come now to a very sad occurrence, from the effects of which Mr. Dickens never entirely recovered. On the 9th of June he was unfortunate. enough to be a passenger in the train that met with the lamentable accident at Staplehurst, in consequence of the plate-layer's negligence. The carriage

in which he was sitting toppled over the edge of the precipice, and hung suspended sufficiently long to allow him to escape by scrambling out of the window, uninjured in body, and without even a bruise, but his nerves receiving a shock from which he often afterwards complained. The Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution, at a special meeting, a few days after, passed a resolution congratulating him on his miraculous and providential escape, and concluded by expressing "their sincere. hope that a life so publicly and privately valuable may be spared for many, many years, further to adorn English literature with imperishable works, and to grace with apt eloquence, and promote by strenuous practical example and advocacy, efforts made to ameliorate distress and provide for the sad contingencies of sickness and old age."

Dickens always considered the regular contributors to Household Words and to All the Year Round as connected with him in a manner much more closely than as ordinary professional or purely business connections. My brothers " was his favourite phrase; and when Miss Adelaide Anne Procter died he wrote for the beautiful "Legends and Lyrics," which her family published as an In Memoriam volume, a most touching preface. This passage explains how he came to know the daughter of "Barry Cornwall:"

"

* It was published by Messrs, Bell and Daldy as a Christmas gift-book,

"In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as Conductor of the weekly journal Household Words, a short poem among the proffered contributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually passing through the office of such a periodical, and possessing much more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a circulating library in the western district of London. Through this channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, and became

Many letters

How we came

a regular and frequent contributor. passed between the journal and Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen. gradually to establish, at the office of Household Words, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. But we settled, somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned; and that she had long been in the same family. We really knew nothing whatever of her, except that she that she was remarkably business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a more real personage to me than Miss Berwick the governess became. This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas Number, en