sentences, in which Jacob Marley's demise is insisted upon with such
ludicrous particularity. The momentary sense of incongruity here
referred to was lost, however, directly afterwards, as everyone's
attention became absorbed in the author's own relation to us of his
world-famous ghost-story of Christmas.

Whereas the First Reading of the tale down in the provinces had occupied
three hours in its delivery, the First Reading of it in the metropolis
had been; diminished by half an hour. Beginning at 8 p.m., and ending
at very nearly 10.30 p. m., with merely five minutes' interruption
about midway, the entertainment so enthralled and delighted the audience
throughout, that its close, after two hours and a half of the keenest
attention, was the signal for a long outburst of cheers, mingled with
the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. The description of the scene
there witnessed is in noway exaggerated. It is the record of our own
remembrance.

And the enthusiasm thus awakened among Charles Dickens's first London
audience can hardly be wondered at, when we recall to mind Thackeray's
expression of opinion in regard to that very same story of the Christmas
Carol immediately after its publication, when he wrote in _Fraser_,
July, 1844, under his pseudonym of M. A. Titmarsh: "It seems to me a
national benefit, and to every man and woman who-reads it a personal
kindness;" adding, "The last two people I heard speak of it were
women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of
criticism, 'God bless him!'" Precisely in the same way, it may here be
said, in regard to that first night of his own public reading of it in
St. Martin's Hall, that there was a genial grasp of the hand in the look
of every kind face then turned towards the platform, and a "God bless
him" in every one of the ringing cheers that accompanied his departure.

A Reading of the "Carol" was given by its author in the following
December down at Coventry, in aid of the funds of the local institute.
And about a twelvemonth afterwards, on the 4th of December, 1858, in
grateful acknowledgment of what was regarded in those cases always as a
double benefaction (meaning the Reading itself and its golden proceeds),
the novelist was entertained at a public banquet, at the Castle Hotel,
Coventry, when a gold watch was presented to him as a testimonial of
admiration from the leading inhabitants.

Finally, as the last of all these non-professional readings b