m inviting Forster "to join him at 11
A.M. in a fifteen-mile ride out and ditto in, lunch on the road, with a
six o'clock dinner in Doughty Street."

Charles Dickens's residence in Doughty Street was but of short
duration--from 1837 to 1840 only; but there he completed _Pickwick_, and
wrote _Oliver Twist_, _Memoirs of Grimaldi_, _Sketches of Young
Gentlemen_, _Sketches of Young Couples_, and _The Life and Adventures of
Nicholas Nickleby_. His eldest daughter Mary was born here.

In proper sequence we ought to proceed to Dickens's third London
residence, No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, but it will be more convenient to
take his fourth residence on our way. We therefore retrace our steps
into Theobald's Road, pass through Red Lion and Bloomsbury Squares, and
along Great Russell Street as far as the British Museum, where Dickens
is still remembered as "a reader" (merely remarking that it of course
contains a splendid collection of the original impressions of the
novelist's works, and "Dickensiana," as is evidenced by the
comprehensive Bibliography furnished by Mr. John P. Anderson, one of the
librarians, to Mr. Marzials' _Life of Dickens_), which we leave on our
left, and turn up Montague Street, go along Upper Montague Street,
Woburn Square, Gordon Square, and reach Tavistock Square, at the upper
end of which, on the east side, Gordon Place leads us into a retired
spot cut off as it were from communication with the rest of this quiet
neighbourhood. Three houses adjoin each other--handsome commodious
houses, having stone porticos at entrance--and in the first of these,
Tavistock House, Dickens lived from 1851 until 1860, with intervals at
Gad's Hill Place. This beautiful house, which has eighteen rooms in it,
is now the Jews' College. The drawing-room on the first floor still
contains a dais at one end, and it is said that at a recent public
meeting held here, three hundred and fifty people were accommodated in
it, which serves to show what ample quarters Dickens had to entertain
his friends.

Hans Christian Andersen, who visited Dickens here in 1857, thus
describes this fine mansion:--

"In Tavistock Square stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of
garden in front are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. A
large garden with a grass-plat and high trees stretches behind the
house, and gives it a countrified look, in the midst of this coal and
gas steaming London. In the passage from street to garden hung pi