old mirth-loving man which
had started him joyfully on his career of letters. "It was John Black
that flung the slipper after me," he would often say. "Dear old Black!
my first hearty out-and-out appreciator," is an expression in one of his
letters written to me in the year he died.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST BOOK, AND ORIGIN OF PICKWICK.

1836.

_Sketches by Boz_--Fancy-piece by N. P. Willis:
a Poor English Author--Start of
_Pickwick_--Marriage to Miss Hogarth--First
Connection with Chapman & Hall--Mr. Seymour's
Part in _Pickwick_--Letters relating
thereto--C. D.'s own Account--False Claims
refuted--Pickwick's Original, his Figure and
his Name--First Sprightly Runnings of
Genius--The _Sketches_ characterized--Mr.
Seymour's Death--New Illustrator chosen--Mr.
Hablot K. Browne--C. D. leaves the
Gallery--_Strange Gentleman_ and _Village
Coquettes_.

THE opening of 1836 found him collecting into two volumes the first
series of _Sketches by Boz_, of which he had sold the copyright for a
conditional payment of (I think) a hundred and fifty pounds to a young
publisher named Macrone, whose acquaintance he had made through Mr.
Ainsworth a few weeks before.[7] At this time also, we are told in a
letter before quoted, the editorship of the _Monthly Magazine_ having
come into Mr. James Grant's hands, this gentleman, applying to him
through its previous editor to know if he would again contribute to it,
learned two things: the first, that he was going to be married; and the
second, that, having entered into an arrangement to write a monthly
serial, his duties in future would leave him small spare time. Both
pieces of news were soon confirmed. The _Times_ of the 26th of March,
1836, gave notice that on the 31st would be published the first shilling
number of the _Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, edited by Boz_;
and the same journal of a few days later announced that on the 2d of
April Mr. Charles Dickens had married Catherine, the eldest daughter of
Mr. George Hogarth, whom already we have met as his fellow-worker on the
_Chronicle_. The honeymoon was passed in the neighborhood to which at
all times of interest in his life he turned with a strange recurring
fondness; and while the young couple are at the quiet little village of
Chalk, on the road between Gravesend and Rochester, I will relate
exactly the origin of