From the introductory note. The papers contained in this little volume were written by Charles Dickens for the early numbers of "Bentley's Miscellany." The manuscripts of the two meetings of the Mudfog Association, and of "Mr. Robert Bolton, the gentleman connected with the Press," in my possession, are covered with corrections, erasures, and additions. At that time Charles Dickens wrote a freer and bolder hand than he came to write in later years, and these manuscripts are easily decipherable. Something perhaps of the comparative freedom 'of the handwriting of these sketches, when set the side of the manuscript of "Our Mutual Friend," may be owing to the quill pen, with whose exit has gone out much of that free and graceful penmanship of which Mr. Lupton reminds us that Thomas Tomkins, of St. Paul's School, was so unrivalled a teacher. -GEORGE BENTLEY.