Maclise on hearing the news sent to Forster a letter, and a pen-and-ink sketch, being the famous "Apotheosis." The second raven died in 1845, probably from "having indulged the same illicit taste for putty and paint, which had been fatal to his predecessor." Dickens says:-- "Voracity killed him, as it did Scott's; he died unexpectedly by the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of '_Cuckoo!_'" These ravens were of course the two "great originals" of which Grip in _Barnaby Rudge_ was the "compound." There was a third raven at Gad's Hill, but he "gave no evidence of ever cultivating his mind." The novelist's remarkable partiality for ravens called forth at the time the preposterous rumour that "Dickens had gone raving (raven) mad." Here Longfellow visited Dickens in 1841, and thus referred to his visit:--"I write this from Dickens's study, the focus from which so many luminous things have radiated. The raven croaks in the garden, and the ceaseless roar of London fills my ears." [Illustration: Apotheosis of "Grip" the Raven. Drawn by D. Maclise, R.A.] Dickens lived longer at Devonshire Terrace than he did at any other of his London homes, and a great deal of his best work was done here, including _Master Humphrey's Clock_ (I. _The Old Curiosity Shop_, II. _Barnaby Rudge_), _American Notes_, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, _A Christmas Carol_, _The Cricket on the Hearth_, _Dombey and Son_, _The Haunted Man_, and _David Copperfield_. _The Battle of Life_ was written at Geneva in 1846. All these were published from his twenty-eighth to his thirty-eighth year; and _Household Words_, his famous weekly popular serial of varied high-class literature, was determined upon here, the first number being issued on 30th March, 1850. From Devonshire Terrace we pass along High Street, and turn into Devonshire Street, which leads into Harley Street, minutely described in _Little Dorrit_ as the street wherein resided the great financier and "master-spirit" Mr. Merdle, who entertained "Bar, Bishop, and the Barnacle family" at the "Patriotic conference" recorded in the same work, in his noble mansion there, and he subsequently perishes "in the warm baths, in the neighbouring street"--as one may say--in the luxuriant style in which he had always lived.