e hopeless decadence of Dickens as a writer had set
in before his death. Among the lines last written by him, these are the
very last we can ever hope to receive; and they seem to me a delightful
specimen of the power possessed by him in his prime, and the rarest
which any novelist can have, of revealing a character by a touch. Here
are a couple of people, Kimber and Peartree, not known to us before,
whom we read off thoroughly in a dozen words; and as to Sapsea himself,
auctioneer and mayor of Cloisterham, we are face to face with what
before we only dimly realised, and we see the solemn jackass, in his
business pulpit, playing off the airs of Mr. Dean in his Cathedral
pulpit, with Cloisterham laughing at the impostor.

"HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB.

"TOLD BY HIMSELF.

"Wishing to take the air, I proceeded by a circuitous route to the Club,
it being our weekly night of meeting. I found that we mustered our full
strength. We were enrolled under the denomination of the Eight Club. We
were eight in number; we met at eight o'clock during eight months of the
year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence the
game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton chops,
eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones, with
eight toasts, and eight bottles of ale. There may, or may not, be a
certain harmony of colour in the ruling idea of this (to adopt a phrase
of our lively neighbours) reunion. It was a little idea of mine.

"A somewhat popular member of the Eight Club, was a member by the name
of Kimber. By profession, a dancing-master. A commonplace, hopeful sort
of man, wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world.

"As I entered the Club-room, Kimber was making the remark: 'And he still
half-believes him to be very high in the Church.'

"In the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, I caught
Kimber's visual ray. He lowered it, and passed a remark on the next
change of the moon. I did not take particular notice of this at the
moment, because the world was often pleased to be a little shy of
ecclesiastical topics in my presence. For I felt that I was picked out
(though perhaps only through a coincidence) to a certain extent to
represent what I call our glorious constitution in Church and State. The
phrase may be objected to by captious minds; but I own to it as mine. I
threw it off in argume