o; but on the "Address to the Ocean," or on "The Dying
Gladiator," "time has writ no wrinkle."

"'Tis the morn, but dim and dark,
Whither flies the silent lark?"--

does the reader recall the moment when his eye first fell upon these
lines in the Fourth Reader; and "surprised with joy, impatient as the
wind," he plunged into the sequel? And there was another piece, this
time in prose, which none can have forgotten; many like me must have
searched Dickens with zeal to find it again, and in its proper context,
and have perhaps been conscious of some inconsiderable measure of
disappointment, that it was only Tom Pinch who drove, in such a pomp of
poetry, to London.

But in the Reader we are still under guides. What a boy turns out for
himself, as he rummages the bookshelves, is the real test and pleasure. My
father's library was a spot of some austerity: the proceedings of learned
societies, some Latin divinity, cyclopaedias, physical science, and, above
all, optics, held the chief place upon the shelves, and it was only in
holes and corners that anything really legible existed as by accident. The
"Parent's Assistant," "Rob Roy," "Waverley," and "Guy Mannering," the
"Voyages of Captain Woods Rogers," Fuller's and Bunyan's "Holy Wars," "The
Reflections of Robinson Crusoe," "The Female Bluebeard," G. Sand's "Mare
au Diable"--(how came it in that grave assembly!), Ainsworth's "Tower of
London," and four old volumes of _Punch_--these were the chief exceptions.
In these latter, which made for years the chief of my diet, I very early
fell in love (almost as soon as I could spell) with the Snob Papers. I
knew them almost by heart, particularly the visit to the Pontos; and I
remember my surprise when I found, long afterwards, that they were famous,
and signed with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired them, they
were the works of Mr. Punch. Time and again I tried to read "Rob Roy,"
with whom of course I was acquainted from the "Tales of a Grandfather";
time and again the early part, with Rashleigh and (think of it!) the
adorable Diana, choked me off; and I shall never forget the pleasure and
surprise with which, lying on the floor one summer evening, I struck of a
sudden into the first scene with Andrew Fairservice. "The worthy Dr.
Lightfoot"--"mistrysted with a bogle"--"a wheen green trash"--"Jenny,
lass, I think I ha'e her": from that day to this the phrases have been
unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I cam