Repps Joddrell, and to the careful art of Mr. Robert Graves,
A.R.A., I owe the illustration at the opening of this volume, in which
the head is for the first time worthily expressed. In some sort to help
also the reader's fancy to a complete impression, Maclise having caught
as happily the figure as the face, a skillful outline of the painting
has been executed for the present page by Mr. Jeens. "As a likeness,"
said Mr. Thackeray of the work, and no higher praise could be given to
it, "it is perfectly amazing. A looking-glass could not render a better
fac-simile. We have here the real identical man Dickens, the inward as
well as the outward of him."

CHAPTER X.

DURING AND AFTER NICKLEBY.

1838-1839.

The Cottage at Twickenham--Daniel
Maclise--Ainsworth and other Friends--Mr.
Stanley of Alderley--Petersham
Cottage--Childish Enjoyments--Writes a Farce
for Covent Garden--Entered at the Middle
Temple--We see Wainewright in Newgate--_Oliver
Twist_ and the _Quarterly_--Hood's _Up the
Rhine_--Shakspeare Society--Birth of Second
Daughter--House-Hunting--_Barnaby_ at his Tenth
Page--Letter from Exeter--A Landlady and her
Friends--A Home for his Father and
Mother--Autobiographical--Visit to an
Upholsterer--Visit from the Same.

THE name of his old gallery-companion may carry me back from the days to
which the close of _Nickleby_ had led me to those when it was only
beginning. "This snow will take away the cold weather," he had written,
in that birthday letter of 1838 already quoted, "and then for
Twickenham." Here a cottage was taken, nearly all the summer was passed,
and a familiar face there was Mr. Beard's. There, with Talfourd and with
Thackeray and Jerrold, we had many friendly days, too; and the social
charm of Maclise was seldom wanting. Nor was there anything that
exercised a greater fascination over Dickens than the grand enjoyment of
idleness, the ready self-abandonment to the luxury of laziness, which we
both so laughed at in Maclise, under whose easy swing of indifference,
always the most amusing at the most aggravating events and times, we
knew that there was artist-work as eager, energy as unwearying, and
observation almost as penetrating as Dickens's own. A greater enjoyment
than the fellowship of Maclise at this period it would indeed be
difficult to imagine. Dickens hardly saw more than he di