year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at 48,
Doughty Street, where he remained till the end of 1839, when still
increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at 1,
Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. But the house in Doughty Street
must have been endeared to him by many memories. It was there, on the
7th of May, 1837, that he lost, at the early age of seventeen, and
quite suddenly, a sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was greatly
attached. The blow fell so heavily at the time as to incapacitate him
from all work, and delayed the publication of one of the numbers of
"Pickwick." Nor was the sorrow only sharp and transient. He speaks of
her in the preface to the first edition of that book. Her spirit
seemed to be hovering near as he stood looking at Niagara. He felt her
hallowing influence when in danger of growing too much elated by his
first reception in America. She came back to him in dreams in Italy.
Her image remained in his heart, unchanged by time, as he declared, to
the very end. She represented to his mind all that was pure and lovely
in opening womanhood, and lives, in the world created by his art, as
the Little Nell of "The Old Curiosity Shop." It was in Doughty Street,
too, that he began to gather round him the circle of friends whose
names seem almost like a muster-roll of the famous men and women in
the first thirty years of Queen Victoria's reign. I shall not
enumerate them. The list of writers, artists, actors, would be too
long. But this at least it would be unjust not to note, that among his
friends were included nearly all those who by any stretch of fancy
could be regarded as his rivals in the fields of humour and fiction.
With Washington Irving, Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Lord Lytton, Harrison
Ainsworth, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, and, save for a passing
foolish quarrel, with Thackeray, the novelist who really was his peer,
he maintained the kindliest and most cordial relations. Nor when
George Eliot published her first books, "The Scenes of Clerical Life"
and "Adam Bede," did any one acknowledge their excellence more freely.
Petty jealousies found no place in the nature of this great writer.

It was also while living at Doughty Street that he seems, in great
measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which
every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and
idiosyncrasies. His favourite time for work was the morning, between
the hours of breakfa