, it will seldom admit a very strongly-marked character, either good or
bad, in a fictitious narrative, to be within the limits of probability. But
those who take an interest in this tale, will be glad to learn that the BROTHERS
CHEERYBLE live; that their liberal charity, their singleness of heart, their
noble nature, and their unbounded benevolence, are no creations of the Author's
brain; but are prompting every day (and oftenest by stealth) some munificent and
generous deed in that town of which they are the pride and honour.«
    If I were to attempt to sum up the thousands of letters, from all sorts of
people in all sorts of latitudes and climates, which this unlucky paragraph
brought down upon me, I should get into an arithmetical difficulty from which I
could not easily extricate myself. Suffice it to say, that I believe the
applications for loans, gifts, and offices of profit, that I have been requested
to forward to the originals of the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE (with whom I never
interchanged any communication in my life), would have exhausted the combined
patronage of all the Lord Chancellors since the accession of the House of
Brunswick, and would have broken the Rest of the Bank of England.
    The Brothers are now dead.
    There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a remark. If
Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or agreeable, he is not always
intended to appear so. He is a young man of an impetuous temper and of little or
no experience; and I saw no reason why such a hero should be lifted out of
nature.

                                   Chapter I

 

                            Introduces All the Rest.

There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr.
Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late
in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to
aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere
attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people
who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game
for love.
    Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, may perhaps
suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better likened to two
principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune is low and backers scarce,
will chivalrously set to, for the mere pleasure of the buffeting; and in one
respect indeed this comparison would hold good: for, as
