be shown by a small occurrence of
this time. It has been inferred, from the vividness of the
boy-impressions of Yarmouth in David's earliest experiences, that the
place must have been familiar to his own boyhood: but the truth was that
at the close of 1848 he first saw that celebrated sea-port. One of its
earlier months had been signalised by an adventure in which Leech,
Lemon, and myself took part with him, when, obtaining horses from
Salisbury, we passed the whole of a March day in riding over every part
of the Plain; visiting Stonehenge, and exploring Hazlitt's "hut" at
Winterslow, birthplace of some of his finest essays; altogether with so
brilliant a success that now (13th of November) he proposed to "repeat
the Salisbury Plain idea in a new direction in mid-winter, to wit,
Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight, with dark winter cliffs and
roaring oceans." But mid-winter brought with it too much dreariness of
its own, to render these stormy accompaniments to it very palatable; and
on the last day of the year he bethought him "it would be better to make
an outburst to some old cathedral city we don't know, and what do you
say to Norwich and Stanfield-hall?" Thither accordingly the three
friends went, illness at the last disabling me; and of the result I
heard (12th of January, 1849) that Stanfield-hall, the scene of a recent
frightful tragedy, had nothing attractive unless the term might be
applied to "a murderous look that seemed to invite such a crime. We
arrived," continued Dickens, "between the Hall and Potass farm, as the
search was going on for the pistol in a manner so consummately stupid,
that there was nothing on earth to prevent any of Rush's labourers from
accepting five pounds from Rush junior to find the weapon and give it to
him. Norwich, a disappointment" (one pleasant face "transformeth a
city," but he was unable yet to connect it with our delightful friend
Elwin); "all save its place of execution, which we found fit for a
gigantic scoundrel's exit. But the success of the trip, for me, was to
come. Yarmouth, sir, where we went afterwards, is the strangest place in
the wide world: one hundred and forty-six miles of hill-less marsh
between it and London. More when we meet. I shall certainly try my hand
at it." He made it the home of his "little Em'ly."

Everything now was taking that direction with him; and soon, to give his
own account of it, his mind was upon names "running like a high sea."
Four days