Latterly it is becoming a pleasant hobby, notably in the case of the Americans, to diligently follow in the footsteps of Dickens, and visit and identify all the scenes he placed in his novels. Year by year these are disappearing. Numerous pleasant articles have appeared in American magazines, with pretty illustrations, and carried out in a very fond and tender spirit. Indeed, this _culte_ of Dickens is growing every day; but it will be a serious loss when all his houses and haunts have been pulled down. There will be a link lost then between him and us.[9] We have only to walk to the Marble Arch, and there we see his last town residence, No. 5, Hyde Park Place, a solemnly genteel, if not monotonous, residence, that belonged to Mr. Gibson. It is astonishing, indeed, how every step, turn, and corner in London is somehow associated with this great master of fiction--chambers, old streets, slums, etc. The secret is, he delighted himself to associate his fancies with some particular locality, and this feeling inspired him. There is a remarkable passage in his life where he deplores the difficulty of writing, when far away from the bustle and motion of London streets. It will be remembered how he set off to “choose a house” for Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks. It is impossible to look at Bevis Marks now without calling up that strange character. You feel he _must_ have lived there. So with Lant Street, Borough, the residence of Mr. Sawyer, and which has the suitable dinginess: all this is pleasant to the pedestrian, the scenery being so much in keeping. In a few years, when everything is altered and pulled down, we shall have only the _site_ left by which to recall old associations.