e
given up, and to give up my _History_ would be to give up much more
than the emoluments of the professorship--if emolument were my chief
object, which it is not now, nor ever was. The prince, when he found
me determined, asked me about the other candidates."

XXIV

DICKENS WRITES THE PICKWICK PAPERS

We are always interested in the beginnings of a successful career, for
humanity with all its selfishness takes a generous pleasure in the
advancement of those who have made an honest fight for fame or wealth.
The first success of Dickens came with the publication of the
_Pickwick Papers_, by the publication of which the publishers, it is
said, made $100,000,--much to their astonishment.

We all know the early career of the famous novelist: How he passed a
boyhood of poverty; how he became a stenographer, a good one, for said
a Mr. Beard, "There never was such a shorthand writer," at the time
Dickens entered the gallery as a Parliament reporter; how he later
became a reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_. In the December number
of the _Old Monthly Magazine_ his first published story saw the light.
This was in 1833, when Dickens was twenty-one. The story first went
under the name of _A Dinner at Poplar Walk_, but it afterwards was
changed to _Mr. Mims and his Cousin_. Then came _Sketches by Boz_ in
1835, and in 1836 _Pickwick_ appeared in serial form, the book coming
out a year later.

An amusing and striking illustration of the widespread interest in
the story of _Pickwick_, if we may call so rambling an account as
_Pickwick_ a story, is related by Carlyle: "An archdeacon with his own
venerable lips repeated to me the other night a strange profane story:
of a solemn clergyman who had been administering ghostly consolation
to a sick person; having finished, satisfactorily as he thought, and
got out of the room, he heard the sick person ejaculate, 'Well, thank
God, _Pickwick_ will be out in ten days any way!'--this is dreadful."

We are always interested in knowing whether the author received
adequate remuneration for his work. Literature is not a commercial
venture. The man who says, "Go to, now I shall make money by my pen!"
is not the one who achieves a masterpiece. Nevertheless we are glad to
know that genius is rewarded. It is more comforting to learn that Pope
received $45,000 for his translations of Homer than that Milton got
$25 for his _Paradise Lost_; that Scott received over $40,000 for
_Woodstock_,