after years, while living at a
hotel, I became well acquainted with Thalberg, and especially with Ole
Bull, the violinist, who told me much about Heine.

So time rolled on for three years. I passed my examination and took an
office in Third Street, with a sign proclaiming that I was attorney-at-
law and _Avokat_. During six months I had two clients and made exactly
three pounds. Then, the house being wanted, I left and gave up law. This
was a very disheartening time for me. I had a great many friends who
could easily have put collecting and other business in my hands, but none
of them did it. I felt this very keenly. Quite apart from a young man's
pushing himself, despite every obstacle, there is the great truth that
sometimes the obstacles or bad luck become insuperable. Mine did at this
time.

The author of "Gossip of the Century" has well remarked that "it has been
said that however quickly a clever lad may have run up the ladder,
whether of fame or fortune, it will always be found that he was lucky
enough to find some one who put his foot on the first rung." Which is
perfectly true, as I soon found, if not in law, at least in literature.

I went more than once to New York, hoping to obtain literary employment.
One day Dr. Rufus Griswold came to me in great excitement. Mr.
Barnum--the great showman--and the Brothers Beech were about to establish
a great illustrated weekly newspaper, and he was to be the editor and I
the assistant. It is quite true that he had actually taken the post, for
which he did not care twopence, only to provide a place for me, and he
had tramped all over New York for hours in a fearful storm to find me and
to announce the good news.

Then work began for me in tremendous earnest. Let the reader imagine
such a paper as the London _Illustrated News_ with one editor and one
assistant! Three men could not have read our exchanges, and I was
expected to do that and all the minor casual writing for cuts, or cutting
down and occasional outside work. And yet even Mr. Barnum, who should
have had more sense, one day, on coming in, expressed his amazement on
seeing about a cartload of country exchanges which I had not opened. But
there was something in Philadelphia which made all work seem play to me,
and I long laboured from ten in the morning till midnight. My assiduity
attracted attention.

Dr. Griswold was always a little "queer," and I used to scold and reprove
him for it. He ha