The influence of his father, who on settling in the metropolis, had become connected with the London press, procured for Charles Dickens an appointment as short-hand reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_. To this period of his life he has made some graceful and interesting allusions in a speech delivered at the Second Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, about five years ago. It was in _The Monthly Magazine_ of January, 1834, before he had quite attained his twenty-second year, that Charles Dickens made his first appearance in print as a story-teller. {7} Neither the editor of the magazine, nor the readers, nor even the ardent and gratified young author himself (who has described in the preface to the “Pickwick Papers” his sensations on finding his little contribution accepted), then dreamt that he would become in five short years from that time one of the most popular and widely-read of English authors, that his name would shortly become familiar as a household word, and that his praise would be on every tongue on both sides of the Atlantic. Encouraged by his success, Charles Dickens continued to send sketches in the same vein, and for the next twelve months was a tolerably constant contributor to the _Magazine_. All, or nearly all, of these little papers were reprinted in the collection of _Sketches by Boz_; but as it will perhaps be interesting to some of our readers to trace their original appearance in the magazine, we give a list of them here:— February, 1834, Horatio Sparkins. Marriage a-la-Mode. April „ The Bloomsbury Christening. May „ The Boarding-House. August „ _Ibid._ (No II.) {8a} September „ The Goings-on at Bramsby Hall. October „ The Steam Excursion. January, 1835. Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. February „ _Ib._ Chapter Second. A similar series was afterwards contributed to the evening edition of _The Morning Chronicle_, {8b} then edited by Mr. John Black, and on which Dickens was engaged as parliamentary reporter.