ces meant to be
given in London, so much was still thought necessary as might clear off
past liabilities, and enable one of the most genuine of writers better
to enjoy the easier future that had at last been opened to him.
Reserving therefore anything realized beyond a certain sum for a
dramatic author of merit, Mr. John Poole, to whom help had become also
important, it was proposed to give, on Leigh Hunt's behalf, two
representations of Ben Jonson's comedy, one at Manchester and the other
at Liverpool, to be varied by different farces in each place; and with a
prologue of Talfourd's which Dickens was to deliver in Manchester, while
a similar address by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton was to be spoken by me in
Liverpool. Among the artists and writers associated in the scheme were
Mr. Frank Stone, Mr. Augustus Egg, Mr. John Leech, and Mr. George
Cruikshank; Mr. Douglas Jerrold, Mr. Mark Lemon, Mr. Dudley Costello,
and Mr. George Henry Lewes; the general management and supreme control
being given to Dickens.

Leading men in both cities contributed largely to the design, and my
friend Mr. Alexander Ireland of Manchester has lately sent me some
letters not more characteristic of the energy of Dickens in regard to it
than of the eagerness of every one addressed to give what help they
could. Making personal mention of his fellow-sharers in the enterprise
he describes the troop, in one of those letters, as "the most easily
governable company of actors on earth;" and to this he had doubtless
brought them, but not very easily. One or two of his managerial troubles
at rehearsals remain on record in letters to myself, and may give
amusement still. Comedy and farces are referred to indiscriminately, but
the farces were the most recurring plague. "Good Heaven! I find that A.
hasn't twelve words, and I am in hourly expectation of rebellion!"--"You
were right about the green baize, that it would certainly muffle the
voices; and some of our actors, by Jove, haven't too much of that
commodity at the best."--"B. shocked me so much the other night by a
restless, stupid movement of his hands in his first scene with you, that
I took a turn of an hour with him yesterday morning, and I hope quieted
his nerves a little."--"I made a desperate effort to get C. to give up
his part. Yet in spite of all the trouble he gives me I am sorry for
him, he is so evidently hurt by his own sense of not doing well. He
clutched the part, however, tenaciously; and th