e opportunity should ever arrive, my
ardour will only be increased--not damped--by the result of this
experiment.

Believe me always, my dear Macready,
Faithfully yours.

1839.

NARRATIVE.

Charles Dickens was still living in Doughty Street, but he removed at
the end of this year to 1, Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. He hired a
cottage at Petersham for the summer months, and in the autumn took
lodgings at Broadstairs.

The cottage at Alphington, near Exeter, mentioned in the letter to Mr.
Mitton, was hired by Charles Dickens for his parents.

He was at work all through this year on "Nicholas Nickleby."

We have now the commencement of his correspondence with Mr. George
Cattermole. His first letter was written immediately after Mr.
Cattermole's marriage with Miss Elderton, a distant connection of
Charles Dickens; hence the allusions to "cousin," which will be found
in many of his letters to Mr. Cattermole. The bride and bridegroom were
passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood of Petersham, and the
letter refers to a request from them for the loan of some books, and
also to his having lent them his pony carriage and groom, during their
stay in this neighbourhood.

The first letter in this year to Mr. Macready is in answer to one from
him, announcing his retirement from the management of Covent Garden
Theatre.

The portrait by Mr. Maclise, mentioned to Mr. Harley, was the, now,
well-known one, which appeared as a frontispiece to "Nicholas Nickleby."

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

DOUGHTY STREET, _Sunday._

MY DEAR MACREADY,

I will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary champagne;
and I am much obliged to you for recollecting me.

I ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, but I am,
notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and
the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre--at
least, such a theatre as you gave them; and I do now in my heart believe
that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away.
If I may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the Portsmouth critic of
Mr. Crummles's company, I say that: "As an exquisite embodiment of the
poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with
refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic
wor