At this period of his life, the fertility of his mental resources showed itself most conspicuously. While he was working for Punch, he was also editing and largely contributing to the Illuminated Magazine. In this publication appeared, among a host of shorter papers, the series called The Chronicles of Clovernook, which he himself always considered to be one of his happiest efforts, and which does indeed contain, in detached passages, some of the best things that ever fell from his pen. On the cessation of The Illuminated Magazine, he started The Shilling Magazine, and contributed to it his well-known novel, Saint Giles and Saint James. These accumulated literary occupations and responsibilities would have been enough for most men; but Jerrold's inexhaustible energy and variety carried him on through more work still. Theatrical audiences now found their old favourite addressing them again, and occupying new ground as a writer of five act and three act comedies. Bubbles of the Day, Time Works Wonders, The Catspaw, Retired from Business, Saint Cupid, were all produced, with other plays, after the period when he became a regular writer in Punch. Judged from the literary point of view these comedies were all original and striking contributions to the library of the stage. From the dramatic point of view, however, it must not be concealed that they were less satisfactory; and that some of them were scarcely so successful with audiences as their author's earlier and humbler efforts. The one solid critical reason which it is possible to assign for this, implies in itself a compliment which could be paid to no other dramatist of modern times. The perpetual glitter of Jerrold's wit seems to have blinded him to some of the more sober requirements of the Dramatic art. When Charles Kemble said, and said truly, that there was wit enough for three comedies in Bubbles of the Day, he implied that this brilliant overflow left little or no room for the indispensable resources of story and situation to display themselves fairly on the stage. The comedies themselves, examined with reference to their success in representation, as well as to their intrinsic merits, help to support this view. Time Works Wonders was the most prosperous of all, and it is that comedy precisely which has the most story and the most situation in it. The idea and the management of the charming love-tale out of which the events of this play spring, show what Jerrold might have achieved in the construction of other plots, if his own superabundant wit had not dazzled him and led him astray. As it is, the readers of these comedies, who can appreciate the rich fancy, the delicate subtleties of thought, the masterly terseness of expression, and the exquisite play and sparkle of wit scattered over every page, may rest assured that they rather gain than lose--especially in the present condition of theatrical companies--by not seeing the last dramatic works