me customer, "a harbitrary cove," and
not to be put off, except for a time. It was an excellent business
appointment, and he was admitted to be an admirable official.

In one of Dickens' letters, published by his children, there is a
grotesque outburst at some astounding piece of news: an event
impending, which seemed to have taken his breath away. It clearly
refers to his friend's marriage. Boz was so tickled at this wonderful
news that he wrote: "Tell Catherine that I have the most prodigious,
overwhelming, crushing, astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising,
scarifying, secret of which Forster is the hero, imaginable, by the
whole efforts of the whole British population. It is a thing of the
kind that, after I knew it (from himself) this morning, I lay down
flat as if an engine and tender had fallen upon me." This pleasantly
boisterous humour is in no wise exaggerated. I fancy it affected all
Forster's friends much in the same way, and as an exquisitely funny
and expected thing. How many pictures did Boz see before him--Forster
proposing to the widow in his sweetest accents, his deportment at the
church, &c. There was not much sentiment in the business, though the
bride was a sweet, charming woman, as will be seen, too gentle for
that tempestuous spirit. She was a widow--"Yes, gentlemen, the
plaintiff is a widow," widow of Colburn, the publisher, a quiet little
man, who worshipped her. She was well endowed, inheriting much of his
property, even to his papers, etc. She had also a most comfortable
house in Montague Square, where, as the saying is, Forster had only to
move in and "hang up his hat."

With all his roughness and bluntness, Forster had a very soft heart,
and was a great appreciator of the sex. He had some little "affairs of
the heart," which, however, led to no result. He was actually engaged
to the interesting L. E. L. (Letitia Landon), whom he had no doubt
pushed well forward in the _Examiner_; for the fair poetess generally
contrived to enlist the affections of her editors, as she did those of
Jerdan, director of the once powerful _Literary Gazette_. We can see
from his Memoirs how attracted he was by her. The engagement was
broken off, it is believed, through the arts of Dr. Maginn, and it is
said that Forster behaved exceedingly well in the transaction. Later
he became attached to another lady, who had several suitors of
distinction, but she was not disposed to entrust herself to him.

No one so