on their shoulders; and patent cabs to draw up with their doors
towards the grand entrance, for the convenience of loading."

[76] This might seem not very credible if I did not give the passage
literally, and I therefore quote it from the careful translation of
_Taine's History of English Literature_ by Mr. Van Laun, one of the
masters of the Edinburgh Academy, where I will venture to hope that
other authorities on English Literature are at the same time admitted.
"Jonas" (also in _Chuzzlewit_) "is on the verge of madness. There are
other characters quite mad. Dickens has drawn three or four portraits of
madmen, very agreeable at first sight, but so true that they are in
reality horrible. It needed an imagination like his, irregular,
excessive, capable of fixed ideas, to exhibit the derangements of
reason. Two especially there are, which make us laugh, and which make us
shudder. Augustus, the gloomy maniac, who is on the point of marrying
Miss Pecksniff; and poor Mr. Dick, half an idiot, half a monomaniac, who
lives with Miss Trotwood. . . . The play of these shattered reasons is like
the creaking of a dislocated door; it makes one sick to hear it." (Vol.
ii. p. 346.) The original was published before Dickens's death, but he
certainly never saw it.

[77] He wrote from Marseilles (17th Dec. 1844). "When poor Overs was
dying he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some paper, and made up a
little parcel for me which it was his last conscious act to direct. She
(his wife) told me this and gave it me. I opened it last night. It was a
copy of his little book in which he had written my name, 'With his
devotion.' I thought it simple and affecting of the poor fellow." From a
later letter a few lines may be added. "Mrs. Overs tells me" (Monte
Vacchi, 30th March, 1845) "that Miss Coutts has sent her, at different
times, sixteen pounds, has sent a doctor to her children, and has got
one of the girls into the Orphan School. When I wrote her a word in the
poor woman's behalf, she wrote me back to the effect that it was a
kindness to herself to have done so, 'for what is the use of my means
but to try and do some good with them?'"

CHAPTER V.

IDLENESS AT ALBARO: VILLA BAGNERELLO.

1844.

Arrival at Marseilles--A Character--Villa at
Genoa--Sirocco--Sunsets and Scenery--Address to
Maclise--French and Italian Skies--The
Mediterranean--The Cicala--French Consul of
Genoa--Learning It