struggle of Waterloo was at hand; and
Douglas's first cruise was across the Channel
to Ostend, at the head of a fleet of transports
carrying troops and stores to the battle-field.
Singularly enough, his last cruise connected
him with the results of the great fight, as his
first had connected him with the preparations
for it. In the July of the Waterloo
year, the Ernest brought her share of the
wounded back to Sheerness. On the deck of
that brig, Jerrold first stood face to face with
the horror of war. In after life, when other
pens were writing glibly enough of the glory
of war, his pen traced the dark reverse of
the picture, and set the terrible consequences
of all victories, righteous as well as wicked, in
their true light.

The great peace was proclaimed, and the
nations rested at last. In October, eighteen
hundred and fifteen, the Ernest was "paid
off." Jerrold stepped on shore, and never
returned to the service. He was without
interest; and the peace virtually closed his
professional prospects. To the last day of his
life he had a genuinely English love for the
sea and sailors; and, short as his naval experience
had been, neither he nor his countrymen
were altogether losers by it. If the Midshipman
of the Ernest had risen to be an
Admiral, what would have become then of
the author of Black-Eyed Susan?

Douglas's prospects were far from cheering
when he returned to his home on shore. The
affairs of Samuel Jerrold (through no fault of
his own) had fallen into sad confusion. In his
old age, his vocation of manager sank from
under him; his theatre was sold; and, at the
end of the Waterloo year, he and his family
found themselves compelled to leave Sheerness.
On the first day of eighteen hundred
and sixteen they sailed away in the Chatham,
boat to try their fortune in London.

The first refuge of the Jerrolds was at
Broad Court, Bow Street. Poor old Samuel
was now past his work; and the chief
dependence of the ruined family rested on
Douglas and his mother. Mrs. Samuel
contrived to get some theatrical employment in
London; and Douglas, after beginning life
as an officer in the navy, was apprenticed
to a printer, in Northumberland Street,
Strand.

He accepted his new position with admirable
cheerfulness and resolution; honestly
earning his money, and affectionately devoting
it to the necessities of his parents. A delightful
anecdote of him, at this time of his life, is told
by his son. On one of the occasions when his
mother and sister were absent in the country,
the little domestic responsibility of comforting
the poor worn-out old father with a good
dinner, rested on Douglas's shoulders. With
the small proceeds of his work, he bought all
the necessary materials for a good beefsteak-pie
—made the pie himself, succeeding
brilliantly with the crust—himself took it to the
bake-house—and himself brought it back,
with one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, which
the dinner left him just money enough to
hire from a library, for the purpose of reading
a story to his father in the evening, by way
of dessert. For our own parts, we shall
henceforth always rank that beefsteak-pie as
one among the many other works of Douglas
Jerrold which have established his claim to
remembrance and to regard. The clue to the
bright, affectionate nature of the man—sometimes
lost by those who knew him imperfectly,
in after life—could hardly be found in
any pleasanter or better place, now that he is
gone from among us, than on the poor dinner-table
in Broad Court.

Although he was occupied for twelve hours
out of the twenty-four at the printing-office,
he contrived to steal time enough from the
few idle intervals allowed for rest and meals,
to store his mind with all the reading that
lay within his reach. As early as at the age
of fourteen, the literary faculty that was in
him seems to have struggled to develop itself
in short papers and scraps of verse. Only a
year later, he made his first effort at dramatic
composition, producing a little farce, with a
part in it for an old friend of the family,
the late Mr. Wilkinson, the comedian. Although
Samuel Jerrold was well remembered
among many London actors as an honest
country manager; and although Douglas
could easily secure, from his father's friends,
his admission to the theatre whenever he
was able to go to it, he does not appear to
have possessed interest enough to gain a
reading for his piece when it was first sent in
to the English Opera House. After three
years had elapsed, however, Mr. Wilkinson
contrived to get the lad's farce produced at
Sadler's Wells, under the title of More
Frightened than Hurt. It was not only
successful on its first representation, but it also
won the rare honour of being translated for
the French stage. More than this, it was
afterwards translated back again, by a
dramatist who was ignorant of its original
history, for the stage of the Olympic Theatre;
where it figured in the bills under the new
title of Fighting by Proxy, with Liston in
the part of the hero. Such is the history of
Douglas Jerrold's first contribution to the
English drama. When it was produced on
the boards of Sadler's Wells, its author's age
was eighteen years.

He had appeared in public, however, as an
author, before this time; having composed
some verses which were printed in a
forgotten periodical called Arliss's Magazine.
The loss of his first situation, through the
bankruptcy of his master, obliged him to
seek employment anew in the printing-office
of one Mr. Bigg, who was also the editor of a
newspaper called the Sunday Monitor. In
this journal appeared his first article—a
critical paper on Der Freischutz. He had
gone to the theatre with an order to see the
opera; and had been so struck by the supernatural