would leave his name, to be sent over to the office, whereupon young Dickens wrote,

"CHARLES DICKENS,

"Resurrectionist,

"In search of a subject."

Some recent cases of body-snatching had then made the matter a general topic for public discussion, and Goodwin pasted up the strange addresscard for the amusement of the medical students who patronized his oysters. It was still upon his wall when "Pickwick" had made Dickens famous, and the old man was never tired of pointing it out to those whom he was pleased to call his "bivalve demolishers!"

We may just mention that it was Dowling who rushed down from the reporters' gallery and seized Bellingham, after his assassination of Spencer Perceval.

The late Mr. Jerdan used to describe how he caught the Prime Minister in his arms.

E have thought it right to give Mr. Grant's personal account of Dickens's early career

entire, but it is only fair to other friends of the deceased novelist, who have favoured us with particulars, that their recollections should find a place in these pages. From them we learn that in the year 1835 our author made his début as a writer, "with the exception of certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, and represented with great applause to overflowing nurseries." His first sketch, entitled "Mrs. Joseph Porter," was inserted in the Old Monthly Magazine. In the preface to the "Pickwick Papers," mention is made of the effect its publication had on him :

My first effusion-dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street-appeared in all the glory of print; on which occasion, by the bye-how well I recollect it!I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed

with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there." A number of other papers were sent to the same magazine, and subsequently he contributed a similar series to the evening edition of the Morning Chronicle.

The pseudonym adopted was "BOZ,” which quaint signature subsequently gave rise to the epigram,— "Who the dickens' Boz' could be

Puzzled many a curious elf;

'Till time unveil'd the mystery,

And 'Boz' appear'd as Dickens' self."

And Tom Hood, in the character of an "uneducated poet," says,

"Arn't that 'ere Boz' a tip-top feller!

Lots writes well, but he writes Weller!"

The reason for such a singular nom de plume is thus told by the author himself:-" Boz was the nickname of a pet child, a younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honour of 'The Vicar of Wakefield;' which being facetiously pronounced through the nose became Boses, and being shortened became Boz. Boz was a very familiar household word to me long before I was an author, and so I came to adopt it."

The reception the "Sketches" met with was, we are assured, immense; and it has been truly said "They were the first of their class. Dickens was the first to unite the delicately playful thread of Charles Lamb's street musings-half experiences, half bookish phantasies-with the vigorous wit, and humour, and ob

servation of Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World,' his 'Indigent Philosopher,' and 'Man in Black,' and twine them together in that golden cord of Essay, which combines literature with philosophy, humour with morality, amusement with instruction." The wonderful fund of humour and picturesque word-painting contained in them surprises, even in these days, most persons who read them for the first time. They are, as Pope wrote

"From grave to gay, from lively to severe."

The most thrilling and impressive are, undoubtedly, "A Visit to Newgate" and "The Drunkard's Death," while, perhaps, the best comic ones are the celebrated "Election for Beadle," "Greenwich Fair," and "Miss Evans at the Eagle."

In February, 1836, the first series, in two volumes, illustrated by George Cruikshank, was published in a collected form by Macrone, of St. James's Square, and in the December following the second series was issued. Macrone, shortly afterwards, being in distressed circumstances, sold the copyright to Messrs. Chapman and Hall for £1,100. At the present day, their popularity still remains unabated, and it is seldom, at a Penny Reading or entertainment by an Elocution Class, that one or more of them is not selected as a staple attraction in the programme.

To show how persons, at times, may take a mistaken and bigoted view of things in general, and how apt they are to look with jaundiced eyes on humor

ous writing, we may be pardoned for mentioning that, at one of the Penny Readings at Stowmarket, Suffolk, some nine years since, on the announcement of a Mr. Gudgeon's intention to read "The Bloomsbury Christening," he received this epistle from the horrified Rector :

"Sir,

"Stowmarket Vicarage, Feb. 25, 1861.

"My attention has been directed to a piece called 'The Bloomsbury Christening,' which you propose to read this evening. Without presuming to claim any interference in the arrangement of the Readings, I would suggest to you, whether you have, on this occasion, sufficiently considered the character of the composition you have selected. I quite appreciate the laudable motive of the promoters of the Readings, to raise the moral tone and direct this taste in a familiar and pleasant manner. "The Bloomsbury Christening' cannot possibly do this. It trifles with a sacred ordinance, and the language and style, instead of improving the taste, has a direct tendency to lower it.

"I appeal to your right feeling whether it be desirable to give publicity to that which must shock several of your audience, and create a smile amongst others, to be indulged in only by violating the conscientious scruples of their neighbours.

"The ordinance which is here exposed to ridicule is one which is much misunderstood and neglected, amongst many families belonging to the Church of England, and the mode in which it is treated in this chapter cannot fail to appear as giving a sanction to, or at least excusing, such neglect.

"Although you are pledged to the public to give this subject, yet I cannot but believe that they would fully justify your substitution of it by another, did they know the circumstances.