Holly Tree Inn," and "Mrs. Gamp." Whatever the subject of
the Reading, whatever the state of the weather, the hall was crowded
in every part, from the stalls to the galleries. Eleven days after the
London season closed, the Reader and his business manager began their
enormous round of the provinces.

As many as Eighty-Seven Readings were given in the course of this one
provincial excursion. The first took place on Monday, the 2nd of August,
at Clifton; the last on Saturday, the 13th of November, at Brighton.
The places visited in Ireland included Dublin and Belfast, Cork and
Limerick. Those traversed in Scotland comprised Edinburgh and Dundee,
Aberdeen, Perth, and Glasgow. As for England, besides the towns already
named, others of the first importance were taken in quick succession, an
extraordinary amount of rapid railway travelling being involved in the
punctual carrying out of the prescribed programme. However different in
their general character the localities might be, the Readings somehow
appeared to have some especial attraction for each, whether they were
given in great manufacturing towns, like Manchester or Birmingham; in
fashionable watering-places, like Leamington or Scarborough; in busy
outports, like Liverpool or Southampton; in ancient cathedral towns,
like York or Durham, or in seaports as removed from each other, as
Plymouth and Portsmouth. Localities as widely separated as Exeter from
Harrogate, as Oxford from Halifax, or as Worcester from Sunderland,
were visited, turn by turn, at the particular time appointed. In a
comprehensive round, embracing within it Wakefield and Shrewsbury,
Nottingham and Leicester, Derby and Ruddersfield, the principal great
towns were taken one after another. At Hull and Leeds, no less than at
Chester and Bradford, as large and enthusiastic audiences were gathered
together as, in their appointed times also were attracted to the
Readings, in places as entirely dissimilar as Newcastle and Darlington,
or as Sheffield and Wolverhampton.

The enterprise was, in its way, wholly unexampled. It extended over
a period of more than three months altogether. It brought the popular
author for the first time face to face with a multitude of his readers
in various parts of the three kingdoms. And at every place, without
exception throughout the tour, the adventure was more than justified, as
a source of artistic gratification alike to himself and to his hearers,
no less than as a purely c