e
had the long memory which the proverb recommends to liars, and he was
so circumspect that few of his claims and pretensions lacked solid basis
enough to make them pass current in a hurrying and heedless world. Now,
however, in his age, he was wellnigh at the end of his tether; what we
should call his "pull" was losing its efficiency; he was lapsing to the
condition where he would offer to introduce a man to the Prince of Wales
or to Baron Rothschild, and then ask him for the loan of five pounds--or
half a crown, as the case might be. He was a character for Thackeray. He
haunted my father for a year or two more, and then vanished I know not
where.

Poor, dingy old Jerdan purported to be himself a literary man,
though the only thing of his that I ever heard of was a work in
four pretentious volumes of "wretched twaddle"--as my father called
them--which he published under the title of My Autobiography. It
contained a long array of renowned names, with passages appended of
perfectly empty and conventional comment.

But other men crossed our path who had much sounder claims to renown in
literature; among them Samuel Warren, author of half a dozen books, two
of which are still sometimes heard of--_The Diary of a Late Physician_
and _Ten Thousand a Year_. He lived upon the reputation which these
brought him, though they were published, the first as long ago as 1830
and the other only ten years later. Like many other authors, he fancied
himself capable of things far better than belonged to his true metier;
and among the books in my father's library is one called _The Moral and
Intellectual Development of the Present Age_--a thin volume, despite
its portentous and thundering title--it carries the gloss, in Warren's
handwriting, "the fruit of many a long year's reflection." So does every
light comedian imagine that he can play Hamlet. Of Warren himself I
barely recall a slight, light figure with a sharp nose and a manner
lacking in repose; indeed, he was very much like a light comedian in
light comedy, eager to hold the centre of the stage, full of small
movements and remarks, and--which more interested us children--with
a gift for turning himself into other people by slight contortions
of countenance and alterations of voice. The histrionic abilities of
Dickens probably affected the social antics of many writers at this
epoch. Warren also told stories in a vivacious and engaging manner,
though, as they were about things and