Cooper's best work in Stafford jail was the composition of the well-known poem, "The Purgatory of Suicides." This poem, he tells us, was the working out of a thought which occurred to him ten years before, when he was sitting as a reporter in the assize court at Lincoln. The historical romance, the first part of which he had carried to London in 1839, was also completed during his imprisonment, and he wrote during the same period a volume of tales, afterward published under the title, "Wise Saws and Modern Instances." "These," he says, "I took out of prison with me as my keys for unlocking the gates of fortune." On his liberation, May 4th, 1845, he went up to London, shedding tears of gladness and gratitude on the way as he looked once more on the green fields and hedgerows of the Midland Counties. His first care was to find a publisher for his prison rhyme and tales. As soon as he was able he sought out Mr. Duncombe, to thank him for his generous help in the matter of the petition to the House of Commons, and to ask for counsel in seeking a publisher. Duncombe sent him to Mr. D'Israeli, with the following note: "MY DEAR D'ISRAELI,--I send you Mr. Cooper, a Chartist, red-hot from Stafford jail. But don't be frightened; he won't bite you. He has written a poem and a romance, and thinks he can cut out 'Coningsby' and 'Sybil.' Help him if you can, and oblige yours, T. S. DUNCOMBE." It is gratifying to read of the kindness with which the shrewd statesman, then a Tory of the Tories, received the "red-hot radical." "I wish I had seen you before I finished my last novel," said he; "my heroine Sybil is a Chartist." With the kindly help of Douglas Jerrold the "Purgatory" was at length published by Jeremiah How, Fleet Street, who undertook to bear the cost and risk of printing. It came out in September, 1845, and the five hundred copies of the first edition were sold off before Christmas. Cooper now began to write for Douglas Jerrold's "Shilling Magazine." The volume of tales called "Wise Saws," etc., and a short poem, "The Baron's Yule Feast," were issued about the same time. The "Purgatory of Suicides" had been dedicated, without leave asked, to Thomas Carlyle, to whom the author sent a copy, and from whom he received in acknowledgment a characteristic letter, in which, among other kind and wise things, that greatest of all the literary men of his age said, "I have looked into your poem, and find indisputable traces of genius in it--a dark Titanic energy struggling there, for which we hope there will be clearer daylight by and by;" and along with the letter came a copy of "Past and Present," with Carlyle's autograph. In 1846 Cooper was at work on Douglas Jerrold's weekly paper, visiting the Midland and Northern Counties as a sort of commissioner, and writing articles on the "Condition of the People of England." Passing through the Lake District, he called on Wordsworth, and was most kindly received