nters Dyce,
Maclise, and Stanfield; and Byron's friend and school companion, the
clergyman Harness, who, like Dyce, pays to the story the tribute of
his tears.

Dickens can have been in London but the fewest of few days, for on the
13th of December he was leaving Paris for Genoa, and that after going
to the theatre more than once. From Genoa he started again, on the
20th of January, 1845, with Mrs. Dickens, to see the Carnival at Rome.
Thence he went to Naples, returning to Rome for the Holy Week; and
thence again by Florence to Genoa. He finally left Italy in the
beginning of June, and was back with his family in Devonshire Terrace
at the end of that month.

To what use of a literary kind should he turn his Italian observations
and experiences? In what form should he publish the notes made by the
way? Events soon answered that question. The year 1845 stands in the
history of Queen Victoria's reign as a time of intense political
excitement. The Corn Law agitation raged somewhat furiously. Dickens
felt strongly impelled to throw himself into the strife. Why should he
not influence his fellow-men, and "battle for the true, the just," as
the able editor of a daily newspaper? Accordingly, after all the
negotiations which enterprises of this kind necessitate, he made the
due arrangements for starting a new paper, _The Daily News_. It was to
be edited by himself, to "be kept free," the prospectus said, "from
personal influence or party bias," and to be "devoted to the advocacy
of all rational and honest means by which wrong may be redressed, just
rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted."
His salary, so I have seen it stated, was to be L2,000 a year; and the
first number came out on the morning of the 21st of January, 1846. He
held the post of editor three weeks.

The world may, I think, on the whole, be congratulated that he did not
hold it longer. Able editors are more easily found than such writers
as Dickens. There were higher claims upon his time. But to return to
the Italian Notes: it was in the columns of _The Daily News_ that they
first saw the light. They were among the baby attractions and charms,
if I may so speak, of the nascent paper, which is now, as I need not
remind my readers, enjoying a hale and vigorous manhood. And admirable
sketches they are. Much, very much has been written about Italy. The
subject has been done to death by every variety of pen, and in every
civilized tong