occupation fell so heavily upon the mind of the future author, that he induced his father to permit him to resign the law, and join the parliamentary corps of a daily newspaper.  His first engagement was on the True Sun, an ultra-liberal paper, then carrying on a fierce struggle for existence, from the staff of which he afterwards passed into the reporting ranks of the Morning Chronicle.  On that paper, he obtained reputation as a first-rate man—­his reports being exceedingly rapid, and no less correct.  In the columns of the Chronicle he soon gave proofs of other talents than those of a reporter; for in the evening edition of that journal appeared the Sketches of English Life and Character, afterwards collected to form the two well-known volumes of Sketches by Boz, published respectively in 1836 and 1837.  These at once attracted considerable notice, and obtained great success; and the publisher of the collected edition, anxious to make the most of the prize which had fallen to his lot, gladly came to an arrangement with Mr Dickens and Seymour, the comic draughtsman—­the one to write, and the other to illustrate a book which should exhibit the adventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen.  Hence the appearance of Pickwick, a book which made its author’s reputation and the publishers’ fortune.  After the work had commenced, poor Seymour committed suicide, and Mr Hablot K. Browne was selected to continue the illustrations, which he did under the signature of “Phiz.”  Meanwhile, Mr Dickens had courted and married the daughter of Mr George Hogarth, then, and now, a musical writer; a man of considerable attainments, and who, in his earlier days, whilst a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, enjoyed the intimate friendship of Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and the other literary notables at that day adorning the Modern Athens.  The great success of Pickwick brought down upon its author demands from all sides for another work, and “Boz” agreed to write Nicholas Nickleby, to be published in monthly parts.  In the prefatory notices, which give additional value to the cheap and elegant reprint of the works of Dickens, we are indulged with slight glimpses of his own recollections, personal and literary.’  It is unnecessary to note the titles of Mr Dickens’s subsequent works, all of which have justly obtained popularity.  He has latterly entered on a path not dissimilar to our own, and in this he has our very best wishes.  The cause of social melioration needs a union of hearts and hands.

FOOTNOTES: 

[2] Bogue, London:  1852.

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY’S BOOK OF SYNONYMS.