there had been trips to Belgium, Broadstairs,
Brighton; in 1838 to Yorkshire, Broadstairs, North Wales, and a fairly
long stay at Twickenham; in 1839 a similar stay at Petersham--where,
as at Twickenham, frolic, gaiety and athletics had prevailed,--and
trips to Broadstairs and Devonshire; in 1840 trips again to Bath,
Birmingham, Shakespeare's country, Broadstairs, Devonshire; in 1841
more trips, and a very notable visit to Edinburgh, with which Little
Nell had a great deal to do. For Lord Jeffrey was enamoured of that
young lady, declaring to whomsoever would hear that there had been
"nothing so good ... since Cordelia;" and inoculating the citizens of
the northern capital with his enthusiasm, he had induced them to offer
to Dickens a right royal banquet, and the freedom of their city.
Accordingly to Edinburgh he repaired, and the dinner took place on the
26th of June, with three hundred of the chief notabilities for
entertainers, and a reception such as kings might have envied. Jeffrey
himself was ill and unable to take the chair, but Wilson, the leonine
"Christopher North," editor of _Blackwood_, and author of those
"Noctes Ambrosianae" which were read so eagerly as they came out, and
which some of us find so difficult to read now--Wilson presided most
worthily. Of speechifying there was of course much, and compliments
abounded. But the banquet itself, the whole reception at Edinburgh was
the most magnificent of compliments. Never, I imagine, can such
efforts have been made to turn any young man's brain, as were made,
during this and the following year, to turn the head of Dickens, who
was still, be it remembered, under thirty. Nevertheless he came
unscathed through the ordeal. A kind of manly genuineness bore him
through. Amid all the adulation and excitement, the public and private
hospitalities, the semi-regal state appearance at the theatre, he
could write, and write truly, to his friend Forster: "The moral of
this is, that there is no place like home; and that I thank God most
heartily for having given me a quiet spirit and a heart that won't
hold many people. I sigh for Devonshire Terrace and Broadstairs, for
battledore and shuttlecock; I want to dine in a blouse with you and
Mac (Maclise).... On Sunday evening, the 17th July, I shall revisit
my household gods, please heaven. I wish the day were here."

Yes, except during the few years when he and his wife lived unhappily
together, he was greatly attached to hi