of
such early associations. In this, however, I have since discovered my
own mistake: the truth being that it was this gentleman's connection,
not with the Wellington Academy, but with a school kept by Mr. Dawson in
Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, where the brothers of Dickens were
subsequently placed, which led to their early knowledge of each other. I
fancy that they were together also, for a short time, at Mr. Molloy's in
New Square, Lincoln's Inn; but, whether or not this was so, Dickens
certainly had not quitted school many months before his father had made
sufficient interest with an attorney of Gray's Inn, Mr. Edward
Blackmore, to obtain him regular employment in his office. In this
capacity of clerk, our only trustworthy glimpse of him we owe to the
last-named gentleman, who has described briefly, and I do not doubt
authentically, the services so rendered by him to the law. It cannot be
said that they were noteworthy, though it might be difficult to find a
more distinguished person who has borne the title, unless we make
exception for the very father of literature himself, whom Chaucer, with
amusing illustration of the way in which words change their meanings,
calls "that conceited clerke Homere."

"I was well acquainted," writes Mr. Edward Blackmore of Alresford, "with
his parents, and, being then in practice in Gray's Inn, they asked me if
I could find employment for him. He was a bright, clever-looking youth,
and I took him as a clerk. He came to me in May, 1827, and left in
November, 1828; and I have now an account-book which he used to keep of
petty disbursements in the office, in which he charged himself with the
modest salary first of thirteen shillings and sixpence, and afterwards
of fifteen shillings, a week. Several incidents took place in the office
of which he must have been a keen observer, as I recognized some of them
in his _Pickwick_ and _Nickleby_; and I am much mistaken if some of his
characters had not their originals in persons I well remember. His taste
for theatricals was much promoted by a fellow-clerk named Potter, since
dead, with whom he chiefly associated. They took every opportunity, then
unknown to me, of going together to a minor theatre, where (I afterwards
heard) they not unfrequently engaged in parts. After he left me I saw
him at times in the lord chancellor's court, taking notes of cases as a
reporter. I then lost sight of him until his _Pickwick_ made its
appearance." This l