_.

In 1851 Macready appeared on the stage for the last time in public.
Dickens wrote (27th Feb. 1851):--"No light portion of my life arose
before me when the quiet vision to which I am beholden, in I don't know
how great a degree, or for how much--who does?--faded so nobly from my
bodily eyes last night."

There must have been a certain innocence in Macready or the following
letter (May 24, 1851) would not have been appropriate: "Always go into
some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his
being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of
his hat being made of sticking plaster. . . . I would recommend you to
see X at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It
is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at
any of the doors. Cab fares are eighteen-pence a mile. A mile London
measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is two pence per
pint. . . . The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park and the
price of admission is one shilling."

Another artist who became a close friend of Dickens was Stanfield, of
whom we first hear as making one of a trip to Cornwall in 1842. His
friendship with Cattermole, the painter, began in 1839 and suffered no
diminution. His early letters to this correspondent are on the
illustrations for the _Old Curiosity Shop_, where we find minute
instruction about the drawing of Mrs Jarley's Wax Work cart and other
detailed points.

Dickens speaks of being nearly dead with grief at the loss of little
Nell. He says he looks at Cattermole's beautiful illustrations with a
pleasure he cannot describe in words.

He seems, too, to have been in 1840 on familiar terms with Daniel
Maclise. Only two letters to this friend exist, whom Miss Dickens
describes as a "much-loved friend and most intimate companion" of her
father.

In January 1842 Dickens started for America, and on 31st January he
writes--"I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There never
was a king or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds."

Reference to Miss Martineau meets with showers of abuse. "She told us of
some of our faults, and Americans can't bear to be told of their faults."

"In respect of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by
tobacco-chewing and tobacco spittle, I have suffered considerably" (i.,
p. 67).

"In every town where we stay, though it be only for a d