elly's theatre in Dean Street, under the
management of Charles Dickens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John
Leech, Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others as his
fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his
Humour," in which Charles Dickens acted Captain Bobadil. The first
performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors
and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repetition of the
same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public
and charitable objects. "Every Man in his Humour" was shortly after
repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed
help; and later in the year Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Elder
Brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the
benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the comedy on each
occasion--not always the same one--in which Charles Dickens and Mark
Lemon were the principal actors.

The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few
exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation.

He was at work at the end of this year on another Christmas book, "The
Cricket on the Hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of
_The Daily News_ paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its
starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, 1846.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ROME, _Tuesday, February 4th, 1845._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

This is a very short note, but time is still shorter. Come by the first
boat by all means. If there be a good one a day or two before it, come
by that. Don't delay on any account. I am very sorry you are not here.
The Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have been
regretting the having left you at home all the way here.

Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about colour (I put in
my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made
at once, by the same artist as before? Kate would have written, but is
gone with Black to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.
At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large
sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt
people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the
latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I
wish you could have