Note 13 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
The allusion was to the supposed author of a paper in the Quarterly Review (Oct. 1837), in the course of which there was much high praise, but where the writer said at the close, "Indications are not wanting that the particular vein of humor which has hitherto yielded so much attractive metal is worked out. . . . The fact is, Mr. Dickens writes too often and too fast. . . . If he persists much longer in this course, it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell his fate:—he has risen like a rocket, and he will come down like the stick."