at he didn't. The whole forming a complete key to the house
of Chuzzlewig." All which latter portion of the title was of course
dropped as the work became modified, in its progress, by changes at
first not contemplated; but as early as the third number he sent me the
plan of "old Martin's plot to degrade and punish Pecksniff," and the
difficulties he encountered in departing from other portions of his
scheme were such as to render him, in his subsequent stories, more bent
upon constructive care at the outset, and adherence as far as might be
to any design he had formed.

The first number, which appeared in January 1843, had not been quite
finished when he wrote to me on the 8th of December: "The Chuzzlewit
copy makes so much more than I supposed, that the number is nearly done.
Thank God!" Beginning so hurriedly as at last he did, altering his
course at the opening and seeing little as yet of the main track of his
design, perhaps no story was ever begun by him with stronger heart or
confidence. Illness kept me to my rooms for some days, and he was so
eager to try the effect of Pecksniff and Pinch that he came down with
the ink hardly dry on the last slip to read the manuscript to me. Well
did Sydney Smith, in writing to say how very much the number had pleased
him, foresee the promise there was in those characters. "Pecksniff and
his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable--quite first-rate painting, such
as no one but yourself can execute!" And let me here at once remark that
the notion of taking Pecksniff for a type of character was really the
origin of the book; the design being to show, more or less by every
person introduced, the number and variety of humours and vices that have
their root in selfishness.

Another piece of his writing that claims mention at the close of 1842
was a prologue contributed to the _Patrician's Daughter_, Mr. Westland
Marston's first dramatic effort, which had attracted him by the beauty
of its composition less than by the courage with which its subject had
been chosen from the actual life of the time.

"Not light its import, and not poor its mien;
Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene."

This was the date, too, of Mr. Browning's tragedy of the _Blot on the
'Scutcheon_, which I took upon myself, after reading it in the
manuscript, privately to impart to Dickens; and I was not mistaken in
the belief that it would profoundly touch him. "Browning's play," he
wrote