you that no circumstance of my life has given me onehundredth part of the gratification I have derived from this source. I was wavering at the time, whether or not to wind up my clock, and come and see this country; and this decided me. I feel as if it were a positive duty; as if I were bound to pack up my clothes, and come and see my friends; and even now I have such an odd sensation in connection with these things, that you have no chance of spoiling me. I feel as though we were agreeing-as indeed we are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the classes from which they are drawn - about third parties in whom we had a common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, I say it to myself, That's for Oliver; I should not wonder if that was meant for Smike; I have no doubt that it was intended for Nell;' and so become a much happier, certainly, but a more sober and retiring man, than ever I was before.'

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Every reader of Dickens feels as if Little Nell was almost a reality, and takes, therefore, a sad interest in recalling the final scene of her life. Thus pathetically does the author of that sweet character depict the death of Little Nell:

"She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and

waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived, and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.' These were her words.

"She was dead! dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird, a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed, was stirring nimbly in his cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever! Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead, indeed, in her; but peace and perfect happiness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

"And still her former self lay there, unaltered in its change. Yes, the old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face. It had passed like a dream through the haunts of misery and care. At the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening; before the furnace-fire upon the cold, wet night; at the still bedside of the dying boy, — there had been the same mild and lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty after death.

"The old man held one languid arm in his, and the small, tight hand folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile, the hand that had led him on through all their

wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now: and, as he said it, he looked in agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

"She was dead, and past all help, or need of help. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast; the garden she had tended; the eyes she had gladdened; the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtless hour; the paths she had trodden, as it were, but yesterday, could know her

no more.

"It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent,

it is not in this world that Heaven's justice ends. Think what it is, compared with the world to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one deliberate wish, expressed in solemn tones above this bed, could call her back to life, which of us would utter it?'

They were all about end was drawing on.

They had read and

"She had been dead two days. her at the time, knowing that the She died soon after daybreak. talked to her in the earlier portion of the night; but, as the hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man. They were of no painful scenes, but of those who had helped them,

and used them kindly; for she often said, 'God bless you!' with great fervor.

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Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once; and that was at beautiful music, which, she said, was in the air. God knows. It may have been. Opening her eyes at last from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man, with a lovely smile upon her face, such, they said, as they had never seen, and could never forget, and clung with both arms about his neck. had never murmured or complained, but with a quiet mind, and a manner quite unaltered, save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them, faded like the light upon the summer's evening."

She

In its most pathetic and beautiful passages, the prose of Dickens runs easily and naturally into rhyme and metre, and shows him to be a poet, no less than a novelist, of a high order. This tendency of his writing is very vividly illustrated by the account of the funeral of Little Nell in "The Old Curiosity Shop; " which is appended exactly as it stands in the book, with the exception of three slight verbal alterations:

"And now the bell- the bell

She had so often heard by night and day,
And listened to with solemn pleasure,

E'en as a living voice

Rung its remorseless toll for her,

So young, so beautiful, so good.

Grandames, who might have died ten years ago,
And still been old; the deaf, the blind, the lame,
The palsied, -

The living dead in many shapes and forms,
To see the closing of this early grave.

What was the death it would shut in

To that which still could crawl and keep above it!
Along the crowded path they bore her now,

Pure as the new-fallen snow

That covered it, whose day on earth

Had been as fleeting.

Under that porch where she had sat when Heaven
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,
She passed again; and the old church

Received her in its quiet shade."

In Forster's "Life of Landor," light is thrown on the manner in which the fancy which gave us Little Nell took form in the mind of Mr. Dickens. This is the testimony of that biographer:

"When I first visited Landor in Bath, the city was only accessible by coach; and no coach left after eight o'clock in the morning. But these difficulties in the