y cut off--was a most interesting creature, one of three
sisters, daughters of Mr. George Hogarth, a Writer to the Signet, who is
a sort of link between Scott and Dickens. For he had acted as the
former's man of business in the Ballantyne disputes, and must have
prompted Dickens in the article that he wrote on that thorny subject. He
was a good musician and a writer in the magazines. We find his work in
the old "Monthly Magazine" where Dickens made his _debut_; and when Boz
was installed as editor of "Bentley's," we find him admitting much of his
father-in-law's writing. His "Memoirs of the Opera" are well-known.
There is a charming outline sketch of Maclise's, showing the profiles of
two of the sisters with Dickens, all three of the most refined and
interesting cast--but Boz's face is certainly the handsomest of the
three. He must have been a most attractive young man--something of the
pattern of his own Nicholas Nickleby.

One of the most interesting features of the episode is the reference the
author was constantly making to this bereavement. In the rollicking
"Pickwick," any serious introduction of such a topic would have been out
of place: though I fancy a little paragraph in the account of the Manor
Farm Christmas festivities is connected with it. But about the same
time, or rather, some six months later, he was busy with his "Oliver
Twist," and it seems certain that Rose Maylie was drawn from this
sympathetic creature, for there is a feeling and a passionate grief
displayed that could only be caused by the loss of a person that he had
known and loved. Here is his description of Rose:--"The younger lady was
in the lovely bloom and springtime of womanhood, at that age when, if
ever angels be for God's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they
may be without impiety supposed to abide in such forms as hers. She was
not _past seventeen_. Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould; so mild
and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her element, nor
its rough creatures her fit companions."

We may compare with this the touching inscription placed by Dickens on
her tomb in Kensal Green: "Young, beautiful and good, God, in His mercy,
numbered her among His angels at the early age of seventeen." He had
long planned that he should be laid beside her, but on Mrs. Hogarth's
death, some five years later, he had to resign his place to her. This
was a renewal of the old grief. The epitaph nearly seems