would have broken the rest of the Bank of England.”
Porster, in his “Life of Charles Dickens,” referring to the year 1838, says:—
“A friend now specially welcome, too, was the novelist Mr. Ainsworth, who shared with us incessantly for the three following years in the companionship which began at his house; with whom we visited, during two of those years, friends of art and letters in his native Manchester, from among whom Dickens brought away his Brothers Cheeryble.” Vol. i., page 158.
The Manchester Guardian of 12th May, 1884, referring to Stocks House, Cheetham, the residence of the late Mr. James Crossley, F.S.A.,[1] President of the Chetham Society, said:—
“Here it was, in the cosy dining-room at the back of the house, that Dickens first made the acquaintance of the subsequently celebrated originals of the ‘Cheeryble Brothers’ in ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ in the persons of Daniel and William Grant.”
Referring to this statement in 1893[2] I said: “By report — by many characteristic stories told with graphic glee to the distinguished
