nd
general breakages and damages; that there is independent testimony to
his exceptional quickness in reporting and transcribing, and to his
intelligence in condensing; that to an observer so keen and apt, the
experiences of his business journeys in those more picturesque and
eventful ante-railway days must have been invaluable; and, finally,
that his connection with journalism lasted far into 1836, and so did
not cease till some months after "Pickwick" had begun to add to the
world's store of merriment and laughter.

But I have not really reached "Pickwick" yet, nor anything like it.
That master-work was not also a first work. With all Dickens' genius,
he had to go through some apprenticeship in the writer's art before
coming upon the public as the most popular novelist of his time. Let
us go back for a little to the twilight before the full sunrise, nay,
to the earliest streak upon the greyness of night, to his first
original published composition. Dickens himself, and in his preface to
"Pickwick" too, has told us somewhat about that first paper of his;
how it was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and
trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court
in Fleet Street;" how it was accepted, and "appeared in all the glory
of print;" and how he was so filled with pleasure and pride on
purchasing a copy of the magazine in which it was published, that he
went into Westminster Hall to hide the tears of joy that would come
into his eyes. The paper thus joyfully wept over was originally
entitled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," and now bears, among the "Sketches
by Boz," the name of "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"; the periodical in
which it was published was _The Old Monthly Magazine_, and the date of
publication was January 1, 1834.

"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" may be pronounced a very fairly told tale.
It is, no doubt, always easy to be wise after the event, in criticism
particularly easy, and when once a writer has achieved success, there
is but too little difficulty in showing that his earlier productions
were prophetic of his future greatness. At the risk, however, of
incurring a charge of this kind, I repeat that Dickens' first story is
well told, and that the editor of _The Old Monthly Magazine_ showed
due discernment in accepting it and encouraging his unknown
contributor to further efforts. Quite apart from the fact that the
author was only a young fellow of some two or three and twenty,