hurry, overwork, and excitement, inci8." physician's opinion in his own words; g it one is almost justified in saying lay at his own door; that to a very no doubt hastened, if not, caused, by ersistence in self-sacrifice. It is imbelieve that he did not comprehend and what result all that he did was What would he have thought, e said, of any other man who could › letters of the names over the shopimself extremely giddy and extremesense of touch, both in the left leg ›ut. arm," and who ascribed those sympof medicine ?" With what caustic ave described a man who, suffering ptoms, and under many others equally worn out, yet travels and reads and dead on the roadside! ked by the generations to come-or, nt generation; for one is apt to forourteen years have passed since Dickpurpose, to what end, were these fatal hese desperate exertions made? re purchased by Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co., ed by them in Every Saturday. Not the acquisition of fame. For thirty years Charles Dickens had enjoyed the utmost renown that literary genius could possibly earn. His books were read, his name was loved and honored, wherever the English language was spoken. His Sovereign had sent for him to visit her, and working-men, passing along the streets and recognizing him by his photograph, would pull off their hats and give him kindly greeting. The sentiments of the entire civilized world find expression in the lady who stopped him in the streets of York, and said, "Mr. Dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled my house with many friends?" in the warm-hearted Irishman, who ran after him as he hurried to the Belfast hotel, and asked him to "Do me the honor to shake hands, Mr. Dickens; and God bless you, sir, not only for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been in my house, sir (and God love your face!), this many a year!" To what mortal man has been meted out fame and honor and personal affectionate regard in greater measure than this? Not for the acquisition of money; at least one would think not, when one learns from Mr. Forster that Dickens's real and personal estates amounted, as nearly as may be calculated, to £93,000! Of this, £20,000 were made in America, and the odd £13,000 derived from the sale of his house, pictures, etc.; so that we may take it he was worth, before his visit to America, some £60,000. This, in round numbers, would bring in £2500 a year; his periodical must have been worth another £2500; while a new book must have earned him something like £10,000.* With such an income and an expenditure which was generous but not lavish, there was, so far as an outsider * The price paid down by Mr. Chapman for "Edwin Drood," calculated on a sale of 25,000 copies, was £7500, publisher and author sharing equally in the profit of all sales beyond that impression; and the number reached, while the author yet lived, was 50,000. Messrs. Fields & Osgood paid £1000 for the early sheets for America, and, in addition, there was Baron Tauchnitz's check, amount unknown, but sure to be liberal, for his Leipsic edition. could see, every means for providing comfort and luxury, no occasion for alarm even when the bread-winner should have ceased to exist; certainly no occasion for the daily and nightly labor, the constant travel, the superhuman exertions, the frightful wear and tear which brought his existence to a premature close. Though I have raised the question, I believe the answer to be comparatively simple and the explanation commonplace. It may be that if Dickens had not exerted himself-had not, to use a common expression, taken so much out of himself—as he did during the last few years of his life, he might, at the present moment, have been a hale and hearty man—indeed, a young man, as youth is judged nowadays of seventy-two years. But the conditions of existence are prescribed by that constitutional fatalism known as temperament. Dickens was not only a genius, but he had the volcanic activity, the perturbed restlessness, the feverish excitability of genius. What he created that he was. His personages were, as readers of his letters know, an integral part of his life. Nor were the enthusiasm and intensity which he experienced in his daily business less remarkable. The meditative life, the faculty of a judicious resting, the power of self-detachment from contemporary events which enables so many of our octogenarians to be comparatively juvenile, had no charm for him. To him old age would never have brought tranquillity, and therefore it may be said that old age would never have arrived. It was a law of his existence that his foot should be always in the stirrup and his sword always unsheathed. He had, moreover, as I have above explained, a chivalrous regard to the public. He was their devoted servant, and he was anxious to spend his life-blood in their cause. Consequently, even when he knew his power as a novelist was on the wane-according to Forster it had, indeed, been on the wane so far back as the days of "Bleak House"-he determined to seek a new sphere, and one which to his histrionic temperament was singularly congenial, in his readings. This I believe to be the true account of the reasons which weighed with him in selecting that arduous ordeal which brought his life to its prema ture close. Other reasons of a more melodramatic and sensational character might be cited, but it is my conviction that they would be less to be trusted. One word more. In regard to the friendship which Dickens vouchsafed me, I have been frequently asked, “Did he come up to the expectations you had formed of him? Was Dickens the man as lovable as Dickens the author?" And I have always replied, "Yes; wholly." All the kindness of heart, geniality, generosity, appreciation of whatever could be appreciated in others, manly independence, hatred of humbug, all the leading qualities of his books were component parts of his nature. For one holding a position so unique in the world he was wonderfully modest; and while he always quietly and unostentatiously asserted his own dignity, I never saw the smallest appearance of "putting on airs." His expressed dislike to allow his daughters to play before the Court as amateur actresses, his repeated refusal of the Queen's requests that he would come round after an amateur performance and be presented to her, he being in his theatrical costume, were evidences of this self-respect; and his belief in, and assertion of, the dignity of his calling were just as marked. Any foothold on the literary ladder, no matter how low, had its interest for him. "I do not plead as a stranger," he said, at the Newspaper Press Fund; "I hold a brief for my brothers ;" and then plunged into some delightful stories of his reporting days. What he was to the world the world knows; to me he was the most charming of companions, the kindest of friends. "I weep a loss forever new, A void where heart on heart reposed; And where warm hands have pressed and closed "I weep the comrade of my choice, nagined: matter and manner were both lived so long, so much, and with such periences were as unique as the way in .. at Lady Fife's in Cavendish Square, in y great delight; for I had heard much ens, and had long admired him from a xt week I dined with him at his house with a small party. His dinners were not elaborate, and be the rest of the t, a joint of cold roast-beef always promerein; he drank little wine himself, but od to his friends, and as a host he shone Mr. Disraeli said in the course of his Dr. Kenealy in the House of Commons, -justice is not a man who enters our h an air of adamantine gravity." Nor h an air as he sat at the head of his del of a host in his mien and bearing, eity of youth tempered by the wisdom r guests left, Sir Alexander, to my deo remain for a cigar and a chat. We library, a cosy room lined with books floor to ceiling, where his home-work occasion to refer to the great Palmer d conducted the prosecution, and of |