We have been able to procure so few early letters of any general interest that we put these first years together. Charles Dickens was then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's Inn, and was engaged as a parliamentary reporter on _The Morning Chronicle_. The "Sketches by Boz" were written during these years, published first in "The Monthly Magazine" and continued in _The Evening Chronicle_. He was engaged to be married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835--the marriage took place on the 2nd April, 1836; and he continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife for more than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer months of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend, in the neighbourhood associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. The two letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no date, but were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the offer made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly periodical, the emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen pounds a month. The bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of "The Pickwick Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836. The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had completed three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided hit" is "Jingle." The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry Austin, a friend from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister Letitia. It bears no date, but must have been written in 1833 or 1834, during the early days of his reporting for _The Morning Chronicle_; the journey on which he was "ordered" being for that paper. [Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.] FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Night, past 12._ DEAR HENRY, I have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present uncertain. I may be back on Sunday very probably, and start again on the following day. Should this be the case, you shall hear from me before. Don't laugh. I am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent inducement which the proprietors of Hampstead _chays_ hold out to Sunday riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." I am going into Essex and Suffolk. It strikes me I shall be spilt before I pay a turnpike. I have a presentiment I shall run over an only child before I reach Chelmsford, my first stage. Let the evident haste of this specimen of "The Polite Letter Writer" be its excuse, and Believe me, dear Henry, most sincerely yours, [HW: Charles Dickens]