that horrid-horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with grief then when I saw you. And I know now-they have told me. That wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor child but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear lord should fall.'

'He gave me his blessing on his death-bed,' Esmond said. Thank God for that legacy!'

'Amen, amen! dear Henry,' said the lady, pressing his arm. 'I knew it. Mr Atterbury of St Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it.'

'You had spared me many a bitter night had you told me sooner,' Mr Esmond said.

'I know it, I know it,' she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. 'I know how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. I confessed to Mr Atterbury-I must not tell any more. He-I said I would not write to you or go to you-and it was better even that, having parted, we should part. But I knew you would come back-I own that. That is no one's fault. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, "When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream," I thought yes, like them that dream-them that dream. And then it went, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth forth and weepeth shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him;" I looked up from the book and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head.'

She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could see, for the first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face.

'Do you know what day it is?' she continued. 'It is the 29th of December-it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it-no, no. My lord was cold,

and my Harry was likely to die: and my brain was in a fever; and we had no wine. But now-now you are come again, bringing your sheaves with you, my dear.' She burst into a wild flood of weeping as she spoke : she laughed and sobbed on the young man's heart, crying out wildly, 'bringing your sheaves with you-your sheaves with you!'

As he had sometimes felt, gazing up from the deck at midnight into the boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at that endless brightness and beauty-in some such a way now, the depth of this pure devotion (which was, for the first time, revealed to him) quite smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out upon him? Not in vain-not in vain has he livedhard and thankless should he be to think so that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous? What do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ground, along with idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you-follows your memory with secret blessing-or precedes you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar-if dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless

living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.

'If-if 'tis so, dear lady,' Mr Esmond said, 'why should I ever leave you? If God hath given me this great boon--and near or far from me, as I know now, the heart of my dearest mistress follows me, let me have that blessing near me, nor ever part with it till death separate us. Come away-leave this Europe, this place which has so many sad recollections for you. Begin a new life in a new world. My good lord often talked of visiting that land in Virginia which King Charles gave us-gave his ancestor. Frank will give us that. No man there will ask if there is a blot on my name, or inquire in the woods what my title is.'

'And my children—and my duty—and my good father, Henry?' she broke out. 'He has none but me now! for soon my sister will leave him, and the old man will be alone. He has conformed since the new Queen's reign; and here in Winchester, where they love him, they have found a church for him. When the children leave me, I will stay with him. I cannot follow them into the great world, where their way lies-it scares me. They will come and visit me; and you will, sometimes, Henry-yes, sometimes, as now, in the Holy Advent season, when I have seen and blessed you once more.'

'I would leave all to follow you,' said Mr Esmond; ' and can you not be as generous for me, dear lady?'

'Hush, boy!' she said, and it was with a mother's sweet plaintive tone and look that she spoke. 'The world is beginning for you. For me, I have been so weak and sinful that I must leave it, and pray out an expiation, dear Henry. Had we houses of religion as there were once, and many divines of our Church would have them again, I often think I would retire to one and pass my life in penance. But I would love you still -yes, there is no sin in such a love as mine now; and my dear lord in heaven may see my heart; and knows the tears that have washed my sin away-and now-now my duty is here, by my children whilst they need me, and by my poor old father, and '

'And not by me?' Henry said.

'Hush!' she said again, and raised her hand up to

his lip. 'I have been your nurse. You could not see me, Harry, when you were in the smallpox, and I came and sat by you. Ah! I prayed that I might die, but it would have been in sin, Henry. Oh! it is horrid to look back to that time. It is over now and past, and it has been forgiven me. When you need me again, I will come ever so far. When your heart is wounded, then come to me, my dear. Be silent let me say all. You never loved me, dear Henry-no, you do not now, and I thank heaven for it. I used to watch you, and knew by a thousand signs that it was so. Do you remember how glad you were to go away to college? "Twas I sent I told my papa that, and Mr Atterbury too, when I spoke to him in London. And they both gave me absolution-both-and they are godly men, having authority to bind and to loose. And they forgave me, as my dear lord forgave me before he went to heaven.' 'I think the angels are not all in heaven,' Mr Esmond said. And as a brother folds a sister to his heart, and as a mother cleaves to her son's breast, so for a few moments Esmond's beloved mistress came to him and blessed him. (From Esmond.)

you.

Beatrix Esmond welcomes Captain Henry

Esmond.

Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common height, and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and melting that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an attraction irresistible: and that night the great Duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at the same moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark: her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace -agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen-now melting, now imperious, now sarcastic-there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels young again, and remembers a paragon.

So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond.

'She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes,' says my lord, still laughing, 'Oh, my fine mistress! is this the way you set your cap at the Captain?' She approached, shining smiles upon Esmond, who could look at nothing but her eyes. She advanced holding forward her head, as if she would have him kiss her as he used to do when she was a child.

'Stop,' she said, 'I am grown too big! Welcome, cousin Harry,' and she made him an arch curtsey, sweeping down to the ground almost, with the most gracious bend, looking up the while with the brightest eyes and sweetest smile. Love seemed to radiate from her. Harry eyed her with such a rapture as the first lover is described as having by Milton.

'N'est-ce pas?' says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging on his arm.

Esmond turned round with a start and a blush, as he met his mistress's clear eyes. He had forgotten her, rapt in admiration of the filia pulcrior.

'Right foot forward, toe turned out, so: the curtsey, and show the red stockings, Trix. silver clocks, Harry. The Dowager sent 'em. to put 'em on,' cries my lord.

now drop They've She went

'Hush, you stupid child!' says Miss, smothering her brother with kisses; and then she must come and kiss her mamma, looking all the while at Harry, over his mistress's shoulder. And if she did not kiss him, she gave him both her hands, and then took one of his in both hands, and said, 'Oh, Harry, we 're so, so glad you're come !' (From Esmond.)

The Death of Colonel Newcome. Clive, and the boy sometimes with him, used to go daily to Grey Friars, where the Colonel still lay ill.

season

After some days the fever which had attacked him left him; but left him so weak and enfeebled that he could only go from his bed to the chair by his fireside. The was extremely bitter, the chamber which he inhabited was warm and spacious; it was considered unadvisable to move him until he had attained greater strength, and till warmer weather. The medical men of the House hoped he might rally in spring. My friend, Dr Goodenough, came to him; he hoped too: but not with a hopeful face. A chamber, luckily vacant, hard by the Colonel's, was assigned to his friends, where we sat when we were too many for him. Besides his customary attendant, he had two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always with him-Ethel and Madame de Florac, who had passed many a faithful year by an old man's bedside; who would have come, as to a work of religion, to any sick couch, much more to this one, where he lay for whose life she would once gladly have given her own.

But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no more our friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good to every one round him, as his wont was; especially when Boy came, his old eyes lighted up with simple happiness, and, with eager trembling hands, he would seek under his bedclothes, or the pockets of his dressing-gown, for toys or cakes, which he had caused to be purchased for his grandson. There was a little laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways; and who, to the old gentleman's unfailing delight, used to call him, 'Codd Colonel.' 'Tell little F― that Codd Colonel wants to see him;' and the little gownboy was brought to him; and the Colonel would listen to him for hours; and hear all about his lessons and his play; and prattle, almost as childishly, about Dr Raine and his own early school-days. The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old gentleman's touching history, and had all got to know and love him. They came every day to hear news of him; sent him in books and papers to amuse him; and some benevolent young souls-God's blessing on all honest boys, say I— painted theatrical characters, and sent them in to Codd Colonel's grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown-boys, and once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a little gown-boy; and I make no doubt, when he is old enough, his father will get him that post, and put him under the tuition of my friend Dr Senior.

...

The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to flicker and fail. One evening the Colonel left his chair for his bed in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next morning was too weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed, and his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sat by the bed with a very awe-stricken face: and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the St Peter's boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The Colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he had played many a game on that green when he was a

boy. He grew excited; Clive dismissed his father's little friend, and put a sovereign into his hand; and away he ran to say that Codd Colonel had come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, and to see the match out. I, curre, little white-haired gown-boy! Heaven speed you, little friend.

After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander more and more. He talked louder; he gave the word of command, spoke Hindustanee as if to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that was near him, and crying, 'Toujours, toujours!' But it was Ethel's hand which he took. Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him; the nurse came to us, who were sitting in the adjoining apartment; Madame de Florac was there, with my wife and Bayham.

At the look in the woman's countenance Madame de Florac started up. He is very bad; he wanders a great deal,' the nurse whispered. The French lady fell instantly on her knees, and remained rigid in prayer.

Some time afterwards Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale group. He is calling for you again, dear lady,' she said, going up to Madame de Florac, who was still kneeling; and just now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He will not know you.' She hid her tears as she spoke.

She went into the room where Clive was at the bed's foot; the old man within it talked on rapidly for a while then again he would sigh and be still: once more I heard him say hurriedly, 'Take care of him when I'm in India;' and then with a heart-rending voice he called out, 'Léonore, Léonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient's voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep.

At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of The Master.

(From The Newcomes.)

At his own wish, Thackeray's family published no Life of the novelist. His daughter, Mrs Richmond Ritchie, contributed valuable material to the 'biographical' edition of his works (1898-99); her Chapters from some Memoirs (1894) give reminiscences of his later years. Mrs Ritchie also contributed to the article by Sir Leslie Stephen-the chief authority on the subject-in the Dictionary of National Biography. In the 'Great Writers' series there is a Life by Herman Merivale and F. T. Marzials. Another biography is by Anthony Trollope in the English Men of Letters'

series.

The Thackerays in India, by Sir William Hunter, and two books by Mr Eyre Crowe, the artist-With Thackeray in America and Thackeray's Haunts and Homes-contain interesting matter, the first-named volume with regard to Thackeray's progenitors. There are many references to the novelist in Forster's Life of Dickens, Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, Hayward's Correspondence, the Personal Recollections of Sir Frederick Pollock, and in many other works by contemporary writers.

Thackeray's works as published are: Flore et Zephyr (eight lithographs by E. Morton, after sketches by Thackeray; 1836); The Paris Sketch-Book (1840); Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank (1840); Comic Tales and Sketches, edited and illustrated by Mr Michael Angelo Titmarsh (1841); The Second Funeral of Napoleon and The Chronicles of the Drum (1841); The Irish Sketch-Book (1843): Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Cairo, &c. (1846); Mrs Perkins's Ball (1847); Vanity Fair (1848); The Book of Snobs (1848); Our Street (1848); The History of Pendennis (1849–50); Dr Birch and his Young Friends (1849); The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond

(1849); Rebecca and Rowena, illustrated by R. Doyle (1850): Sketches after English Landscape Painters, by S. Marvy, with short notices by W. M. Thackeray (1850); The Kickleburys on the Rhine (1850); The History of Henry Esmond (1852); The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century (1853); The Newcomes, illustrated by R. Doyle (1854-55); The Rose and the Ring (1855); Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (4 vols., comprising Barry Lyndon, &c.; 1855); The Virginians (1858-59); Lovel the Widower (1861); The Four Georges (1861); The Adventures of Philip on his Way through the World (1862); Roundabout Papers (1863); Denis Duval (1867); The Orphan of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings, edited by A. T. Thackeray (1876); Etchings by the late W. M. Thackeray while at Cambridge (1878); Letters-1847-1855, with Introduction by Mrs Brookfield (1887); Sultan Stork, and other Stories, with Bibliography by R. H. Shepherd (1887); Loose Sketches, An Eastern Adventure, &c. (1894). The first library edition of Thackeray appeared in 1867-69, in twenty-two volumes. Several other editions followed, until in 1883-85 the Standard' edition, in twenty-six volumes, came out. To this edition were added certain contributions to Fraser's Magazine, such as Catherine, some newly collected papers from Punch, and other miscellanea. The 'biographical' edition has been already mentioned. There have been many other editions which need no particular reference.

J. A. BLAIKIE.

Tom Taylor (1817-80), born at Sunderland, studied at Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge, came out third classic in 1840, and was elected to a fellowship. Professor of English for two years at University College, London, he was called to the Bar in 1845, and held the office of secretary to the Board of Health and the Local Government Board from 1854 till 1871, when he retired with a pension. It was computed that he produced about a hundred dramatic pieces, original and translated, many of them highly successful, such as Masks and Faces (with Charles Reade), Our American Cousin (in which Sothern created 'Lord Dundreary'), Still Waters Run Deep, The Ticket-of-Leave Man, Victims, An Unequal Match, The Contested Election, The Overland Route, The Fool's Revenge (from Victor Hugo), 'Twixt Axe and Crown (an adaptation from a German original), and Joan of Arc. The three last mentioned are historical dramas of a higher order than the others, and to Joan of Arc Mrs Tom Taylor (Laura Barker, a musical composer) contributed an original overture and entr'acte. At a Literary Fund banquet in June 1873 Tom Taylor said that, 'while serving literature as his mistress, he had served the State as his master-a jealous one, like the law, if not so jealous-and while contributing largely to literature grave and gay, by help of the invaluable three hours before breakfast, he had given the daily labour of twenty-two of his best years to the duties of a public office.' Besides creating-or manufacturing-his dramatic pieces, Tom Taylor was a steady contributor to Punch, and on the death of Shirley Brooks in 1874 succeeded him as editor. He gave to biographical literature the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon (1853), compiled and edited from the journals of that unfortunate artist; also the Autobiography and Correspondence of the late C. R. Leslie, R.A. (1859), and the Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1865)—the last commenced by Leslie shortly before his death.

Charles Dickens

was born on the 7th of February 1812 in Landport near Portsea, his father, John Dickens, being at that time a clerk in the Navy Pay-Office in Portsmouth at a salary of eighty pounds a year. His mother was Elizabeth Barrow, daughter of a lieutenant in the navy, and Charles was the second of the eight children whom she bore to her husband. He received the rudiments of education from his mother. Not being a very strong or healthy child, he was thrown back at a very early age on the companionship of books. Fielding, Smollett, Lesage, and Cervantes were his friends when his health forbade him to take part in the sports of childhood. Quite early, too, he visited theatres in company with James Lamert, a family connection, and thus began to acquire a taste for the stage which lasted throughout his life. At Chatham, whither the family had removed when Charles was four years old, they stayed till 1823, when John Dickens, whose salary had by that time been increased to £350 a year, was called to duty in London at Somerset House, taking lodgings with his wife and children in Bayham Street, Camden Town. Before this Charles had had a year or two at school under Mr Giles, a Baptist minister at Chatham. John Dickens, however-whose character has been drawn for us by Dickens himself in Mr Micawber -at this time became involved in money troubles. The boy's education was in consequence utterly neglected; he blacked the family boots and helped his mother with the younger children, but he still managed to get books and gratify his taste for reading. Eventually the patience of John Dickens's creditors was exhausted, and he was arrested for debt and lodged in the Marshal

sea.

Charles was provided for by being placed in a blacking warehouse, his chief occupation being the sticking of labels on bottles. On this period of his life he ever afterwards looked back with detestation and bitterness. The family later on followed the father to the Marshalsea and lodged there with him. Later again they moved to Camden Town, Charles, however, remaining, not in, but close to, the prison in another lodging.

Fortunately this period of misery and degradation was not a long one. John Dickens was able at last to pay his debts and to secure his release. In 1825 he left the public service on a pension, and eventually became employed as a reporter on the Morning Chronicle. Charles in the meantime had been sent to school, in his thirteenth year, at the Wellington House Academy, Hampstead Road, where he stayed two years. After a short interval spent at another school he became a clerk in an attorney's office, first in Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards, from 1827 to 1828, in Gray's Inn.

He was

now, and had been for some years past, in vigorous health, and he resolved to take every opportunity to improve his education and his prospects by his own efforts. He read in the British Museum, and

became a skilful writer of shorthand. He now obtained the post of reporter for the True Sun in the gallery of the House of Commons, and in 1835 transferred himself to the Morning Chronicle, the managers of which soon learned to appreciate his remarkable skill and quickness. By them he was sent to meetings all over the country, and in this way acquired that varied experience both of adventures and of people which was to serve him so well later on. From reporting he soon turned to original work. The first article of the series now known as Sketches by Boz appeared in the Monthly Magazine for December 1833, though it was not until the following August that he used the signature 'Boz,' the nickname of his youngest brother. Begun in the Monthly Magazine, the series was continued in the Evening Chronicle, an offshoot of the Morning Chronicle, to which Dickens was now attached at a weekly salary of seven guineas. In March 1836 the sketches appeared in book form, published by Macrone, who had paid Dickens £150 for the copyright. On 2nd April of the same year Dickens was married to Catherine Hogarth, the eldest daughter of his friend and colleague George Hogarth. At about this time, too, Dickens was writing in a small way for the stage. One piece, Is She His Wife? or Something Singular, a comic burletta, was produced at the St James's Theatre in March 1836; another, The Strange Gentleman, also a comic burletta, at the same theatre in the following September. Now came the crisis in Dickens's career. Chapman & Hall the publishers were negotiating with Seymour the artist for the publication of a series of plates illustrative of cockney sportsmen. Dickens was applied to by them to write the letterpress. At his suggestion the cockney sporting notion was abandoned, the Pickwick Club was adopted as a basis, and the publication of the monthly parts began in April 1836, Dickens receiving a payment of £15, 15s. a number. Shortly before the appearance of the second number Seymour had committed suicide, and, for one number (the third), R. W. Buss replaced him. Thackeray amongst others had applied for the vacant post, but eventually Hablot K. Brown ('Phiz') was chosen by Dickens to be his illustrator. The success of The Pickwick Papers was enormous. Of the first number four hundred copies were prepared; by the time the fifteenth had been reached the sale had increased a hundredfold, and Dickens's fortune was practically made. Oliver Twist began to appear (January 1837) in Bentley's Miscellany before Pickwick ended, and ran on to March 1839; and long before Oliver was finished Nicholas Nickleby began. After a short interval Master Humphrey's Clock began to appear once a week. Originally this series was to have consisted of detached papers, humorous and satirical, and stories; this plan and the title, however, were soon absorbed into The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. The last number of this series appeared on 27th November 1841. In January

1842 Dickens sailed for America, with a view to breaking new ground for his next book. He was received with unbounded enthusiasm. This feel

ing, however, gave way to resentment upon the appearance of American Notes, and resentment was followed by a storm of obloquy when Martin Chuzzlewit (January 1843 to August 1844) showed Dickens as a merciless satirist of a large number of American characteristics and institutions. The year 1843 saw the appearance of The Christmas Carol, the first of the Christmas books. There were four successors The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. From July 1844 to June 1845 Dickens spent the greater part of his time in Italy. In January 1846 he became the first editor of the Daily News, but resigned the post after less than three weeks. To the columns of the Daily News he contributed a series of 'Travelling Letters,' subsequently republished as Pictures from Italy. In June 1846 he settled at Lausanne, where he began Dombey and Son, which he finished in 1848. The book had an immense popularity, and its pecuniary results were very large. David Copperfield immediately followed (May 1849 to Novem

house, he made Gadshill his permanent home. In 1858 he gave his first public reading, and thenceforward he devoted a large part of his time and energy to this form of entertainment, which proved highly profitable to his finances, though it seriously impaired his health and strength. In the same year Dickens separated from his wife. One consequence of the controversy that arose about this matter was that Dickens quarrelled with Bradbury & Evans, who had been his publishers since

ber 1850). At this time, too, he carried out his plan for the establishment of a weekly magazine; Household Words was the title selected for it, and W. H. Wills became assistant editor. Bleak House ran in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853; Hard Times was published in Household Words from April to August 1854; and Little Dorrit followed in monthly parts from January 1856 to June 1857. This unceasing literary labour did not, however, entirely absorb his energies, for from 1847 to 1852 he occupied himself eagerly with theatrical performances in London and the great provincial towns as actor, stage-manager, and, occasionally, as playwright. During 1855 he spared time to interest himself in various political questions.

In 1856 Dickens bought Gadshill Place, near Rochester; and in 1860, when he sold his London

1844, and returned to Chapman & Hall. Household Words was given up, and All the Year Round took its place. The sale of his Christmas stories in All the Year Round reached three hundred thousand. In this journal, too, were published A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (December 1860 to August 1861). In Our Mutual Friend (1864-65) Dickens reverted to the plan of monthly numbers. In November 1867, after a run of extraordinary success as a public reader in England, he sailed for America. He was not in good health an inflammation of his left foot gave him very great trouble, and the strain of travel upon mind and body overtaxed his strength; but his reception in America

:

was triumphant, and his readings had a magnificent success wherever he gave them. The Americans had forgiven him his criticisms, and their attendance at his readings swelled his bank-balance by nearly £20,000. He returned to England in May 1868, and began another series of readings, which, however, he was eventually ordered by his doctors to abandon. In the autumn of 1869 he set to work on The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which appeared (first number April 1870) in monthly parts, and was immediately successful. On the 8th of June 1870, after working at his book all day, he had a sudden stroke, and died on the following day. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 14th of June 1870.

So ended, in his fifty-ninth year, the great and beneficent genius who through the course of a whole generation had held the minds of English-speaking