and with "Boz" was "Phiz"
long associated in other prosperous ventures. Mr. Pickwick is a
benevolent, tender-hearted elderly gentleman, who, as the president of a
club organized "for the purpose of investigating the source of the
Hampstead ponds," journeys about England in all directions with three
companions, to whom he acts as guide, philosopher, and friend. He is an
amiable old goose, and his companions are equally verdant and
unsophisticated; but since 1837 they have been as famous as any men in
fiction. The story is a long one, the pages are crowded with incidents
and with characters. It is disconnected, often exaggerated, much of it
is as improbable as it is impossible, but it has made the world laugh
for sixty years now; and it still holds its own unique place in the
hearts of men.

From this period the pen of Dickens was never idle for thirty-three
years. 'Pickwick' was succeeded by 'Oliver Twist,' begun in Bentley's
Magazine in January, 1837, and printed in book form in 1838. It is the
story of the progress of a parish boy, and it is sad and serious in its
character. The hero was born and brought up in a workhouse. He was
starved and ill-treated; but he always retained his innocence and his
purity of mind. He fell among thieves,--Bill and Nancy Sykes, Fagin and
the Artful Dodger, to whom much powerful description is devoted,--but he
triumphed in the end. The life of the very poor and of the very degraded
among the people of England during the latter end of the first half of
the nineteenth century is admirably portrayed; and for the first time in
their existence the British blackguards of both sexes were exhibited in
fiction, clad in all their instincts of low brutality, and without that
glamour of attractive romance which the earlier writers had given to
Jack Sheppard, to Jonathan Wild, or to Moll Flanders.

Two dramatic compositions by Dickens, neither of them adding very much
to his reputation, appeared in 1836, to wit:--'The Stranger Gentleman, A
Comic Burletta in Three Acts'; and 'The Village Coquette,' a comic opera
in two acts. They were presented upon the stage towards the close of
that year, with fair success.

In 1838 Dickens edited the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a celebrated
clown. His share in the composition of this work was comparatively
small, and consisted of a Preface, dated February of that year. It was
followed by 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' and by 'The Life and
Adventures of Nicholas N