1 88 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 



Sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, some- 

 times both. . . . Heavens ! If you could have seen the 

 necks of bottles, distracting in their immense varieties of shape, 

 peering out of the carriage pockets ! If you could have 

 witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attach- 

 ment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters ! If you 

 could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, 

 and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea shore, and 

 down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy 

 heights, where the unspeakably green water was roaring I 

 don't know how many hundred feet below ! If you could 

 have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in 

 the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the 

 small hours had come and gone ! . . . I never laughed in my 

 Hfe as I did on this jonrney. It would have done you good 

 to hear me. I was choking and gasping and bursting the 

 buckle off the back of my stock all the way. And Stanfield 

 got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often 

 obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we 

 could recover him. Seriously, I do believe there never was 

 such a trip. And they made such sketches, those two men, in 

 the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have 

 sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit 

 of fun.' By the 12th of November 1842, after a good deal of 

 thinking and alteration, Dickens had decided on Martin 

 Chuzzlewit as the title of his new novel, the first joart of 

 which appeared on January i, 1843. The American portions 

 of the book were considered violent exaggerations, but its chief 

 intention was to call attention to the system of ship hospitals 

 and to workhouse nurses. The book, when issued in a com- 

 plete form, was dedicated to Miss Burdett Coutts. Sydney 



