emarked, in
regard to those who watched his whole course as a Reader, that so facile
and so pleasureable to himself, as well as to them, appeared to be the
novel avocation which had come of late years to be alternated with
his more accustomed toil as an author, that it rendered even the most
observant amongst them unconscious in their turn of the disastrously
exhausting influence of this unnatural blending together of two
professions. A remorseful sense of this comes back upon us now, when it
is all too late, in our remembrance of that remark made by the Novelist
immediately after the Private Reading of "Doctor Marigold," a remark
then regarded as simply curious and interesting, but now having about it
an almost painful significance. Never was work more thoroughly or more
conscientiously done, from first to last, than in the instance of these
Readings.

In the minute elaboration of the care with which they were prepared, in
the vivacity with which they were one and all of them delivered, in the
punctuality with which, whirled like a shuttle in a loom, to and fro,
hither and thither, through all parts of the United Kingdom and of the
United States, the Reader kept, link by link, an immensely-lengthened
chain of appointments, until the first link was broken suddenly at
Preston--one can recognise at length the full force of those simple
words uttered by him upon the occasion of his Farewell Reading, where
he spoke of himself as "a faithful servant of the public, always imbued
with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best."
Among the many radiant illustrations that have been preserved of how
thoroughly he did his best, not the least brilliant in its way was this
eminently characteristic Reading of "Doctor Mari-gold."

All through it, from the very beginning down to the very end of
his Confidences, the Cheap Jack, in his belcher neckcloth and his
sleeved-waistcoat with the mother-o'-pearl buttons, was there talking
to us, as only he could talk to us, from the foot-board of his cart. He
remained thus before us from his first mention of his own father having
always consistently called himself Willum to the moment when little
Sophy--the third little Sophy--comes clambering up the steps, and
reveals that she at least is not deaf and dumb by crying out to him,
"Grandfather!" As for the patter of Doctor Marigold, it is among the
humorous revelations of imaginative literature. Hear him when he is
perhaps the be