either
side that would render any detailed reference here other than gravely
out of place. The question into which the difference ultimately resolved
itself was that of the respective rights of the parties as proprietors
of _Household Words_; and this, upon a bill filed in Chancery, was
settled by a winding-up order, under which the property was sold. It was
bought by Dickens, who, even before the sale, exactly fulfilling a
previous announcement of the proposed discontinuance of the existing
periodical and establishment of another in its place, precisely similar
but under a different title, had started _All the Year Round_. It was to
be regretted perhaps that he should have thought it necessary to move at
all, but he moved strictly within his rights.

To the publishers first associated with his great success in literature,
Messrs. Chapman and Hall, he now returned for the issue of the remainder
of his books; of which he always in future reserved the copyrights,
making each the subject of such arrangement as for the time might seem
to him desirable. In this he was met by no difficulty; and indeed it
will be only proper to add, that, in any points affecting his relations
with those concerned in the production of his books, though his
resentments were easily and quickly roused, they were never very
lasting. The only fair rule therefore was, in a memoir of his life, to
confine the mention of such things to what was strictly necessary to
explain its narrative. This accordingly has been done; and, in the
several disagreements it has been necessary to advert to, I cannot
charge myself with having in a single instance overstepped the rule.
Objection has been made to my revival of the early differences with Mr.
Bentley. But silence respecting them was incompatible with what
absolutely required to be said, if the picture of Dickens in his most
interesting time, at the outset of his career in letters, was not to be
omitted altogether; and, suppressing everything of mere temper that
gathered round the dispute, use was made of those letters only
containing the young writer's urgent appeal to be absolved, rightly or
wrongly, from engagements he had too precipitately entered into.
Wrongly, some might say, because the law was undoubtedly on Mr.
Bentley's side; but all subsequent reflection has confirmed the view I
was led strongly to take at the time, that in the facts there had come
to be involved what the law could not afford to ove