MRS. GAMP.

A whimsical and delightful recollection comes back to the writer of
these pages at the moment of inscribing as the title of this Reading
the name of the preposterous old lady who is the real heroine of "Martin
Chuzzlewit." It is the remembrance of Charles Dickens's hilarious
enjoyment of a casual jest thrown out, upon his having incidentally
mentioned--as conspicuous among the shortcomings of the first acting
version of that story upon the boards of the Lyceum--the certainly
surprising fact that Mrs. Gamp's part, as originally set down for
Keeley, had not a single "which" in it. "Why, it ought actually to
have begun with one!" was the natural exclamation of the person he was
addressing, who added instantly, with affected indignation, "Not one?
Why, next they'll be playing Macbeth without the Witches!" The joyous
laugh with which this ludicrous conceit was greeted by the Humorist,
still rings freshly and musically in our remembrance. And the
recollection of it is doubtless all the more vivid because of the
mirthful retrospect having relation to one of the most recent of
Dickens's blithe home dinners in his last town residence immediately
before his hurried return to Gad's Hill in the summer of 1870. Although
we were happily with him afterwards, immediately before the time came
when we could commune with him no more, the occasion referred to is one
in which we recall him to mind as he was when we saw him last at his
very gayest, radiant with that sense of enjoyment which it was
his especial delight to diffuse around him throughout his life so
abundantly.

Among all his humorous creations, Mrs. Gamp is perhaps the most
intensely original and the most thoroughly individualised. She is not
only a creation of character, she is in herself a creator of character.
To the Novelist we are indebted for Mrs. Gamp, but to Mrs. Gamp herself
we are indebted for Mrs. Harris. That most mythical of all imaginary
beings is certainly quite unique; she is strictly, as one may say, _sui
generis_ in the whole world of fiction. A figment born from a figment;
one fancy evolved from another; the shadow of a shadow. If only in
remembrance of that one daring adumbration from Mrs. Gamp'sinner
consciousness, that purely supposititious entity "which her name,
I'll not deceive you, is Harris," one would say that Mr. Mould, the
undertaker, has full reason for exclaiming, in regard to Mrs. Gamp,
"I'll tell you what, that's a woman who