The Speeches of Charles Dickens (2023)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words: International Copyright. I use them in no sordid sense, believe me, and those who know me best, best know that."--The Speeches of Charles Dickens

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop

Featured:

Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The Speeches of Charles Dickens

[edit]

Full text

INTRODUCTION.HARLES DICKENS, the eldest son and thesecond child of a family of eight children, *was born at Landport, Portsea, on Friday,February 7, 1812. His father, John Dickens, was aclerk in the Navy Pay Office, then stationed in Portsmouth Dockyard. His mother, Elizabeth Barrow,was the younger sister of a fellow-clerk of his father'sat Somerset House.

1. Fanny (born 1810) , married a Mr. Burnett; died in the

summer of 1848.2. CHARLES (christened Charles John Hougham, Huffham , orHuffam ).3. Alfred (died in childhood).4 Letitia (born 1816) .37143875. Harriet (died in childhood).6. Frederick (born 1820; died at Darlington, October, 1868).7. Alfred Lamert (born 1822; died at Manchester, end ofJuly, 1860).8. Augustus (born 1827; died in America?).DEC - 1902 169815Iii INTRODUCTION.Dickens , often told his friend and biographer, Mr.John Forster, that he remembered the small, frontgarden to the house at Portsea, from which he wastaken away when two years old. Here, watched bya nurse through a low kitchen-window almost levelwith the gravel-walk, he and his sister Fanny wouldtrot about with something to eat. One day he wascarried from the garden to see the soldiers exercise, and Mr. Forster relates that being at Portsmouthwith him in 1839, Dickens recognised the exactshape of the military parade seen by him, as aninfant, on the same spot a quarter of a centurybefore.In 1814 Mr. John Dickens was recalled by his dutiesto London, and the family went into lodgings in Norfolk-street, Middlesex Hospital. In 1816 he wasplaced upon duty in Chatham Dockyard, and theirhome was again changed. The house where theylived in Chatham was in St. Mary's-place, otherwisecalled " The Brook,"* and next door to a Baptistmeeting-house, of which a Mr. Giles was minister.His mother taught him the alphabet; taught him thefirst rudiments of English, and also, a little later, ofLatin. She taught him regularly every day for a long

66 Ordnance-place," or “ Ordnance-row " (he seems to be

uncertain which) , says Mr. Ward (pp. 2, 3), correcting Mr.Forster's account on the authority of what he considersimpeachable first-hand evidence," derived from Mr. John Evans.66 unCHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS. tiftime, and taught him, he was convinced, thoroughlywell.Then followed the preparatory day- school, in Romelane (long since demolished) , where he went with hissister Fanny. All Dickens could remember afterwards, when revisiting Chatham in his manhood, wasthat it had been over a dyer's shop; that in goingup the steps to it, he would often graze his knees;and that in trying to scrape the mud off a veryunsteady little shoe, he generally got his leg over thescraper.During the last two years of their life at Chatham,Charles Dickens was sent to a school in Clover- lane(now Clover-street)* kept by Mr. William Giles, theBaptist minister, who seems even then to have beenattracted to his pupil, and to have pronouncedhim a boy of capacity; and who, during the publication of “ Pickwick " in numbers, sent a silver snuffbox to his old pupil with an admiring inscription to"the inimitable Boz," a phrase playfully adoptedby Dickens, and retained for the rest of his life inhis correspondence and intercourse with intimatefriends.It was in 1821 that these happy days of childhood

" In Gibraltar-place, New-road," says Mr. Ward (p. 3), who describes Mr. William Giles as "the eldest son and namesake

of a worthy Baptist minister." Mr. Ward ignores the Romelane preparatory school altogether, and asserts that it was tothis school in Gibraltar-place that Charles Dickens and hiselder sister Fanny were sent.iv INTRODUCTION.were to terminate. Charles Dickens was not muchover nine years old when his father was recalled fromChatham to Somerset House. The earliest impressions received and retained by him in London, wereof his father's pecuniary difficulties. A compositionhad to be made with his creditors, and the familywere compelled to take up their abode in a house inBayham-street, Camden Town-a mean small tenement, with a wretched little back-garden abutting ona squalid court, in what was then about the poorest ofthe London suburbs. Mr. Forster is of opinion thathe derived from this miserable home " his first impression of that struggling poverty which is nowhere morevividly shown than in the commoner streets of theordinary London suburb, and which enriched hisearliest writings with a freshness of original humourand unstudied pathos that gave them much of theirsudden popularity."Of his boyish struggles and sufferings the historyhas been graphically told by his friend and biographer. We proceed to his first actual start in life,to what laid the foundation of his future fortunes.Dickens began his career in " the gallery," as areporter on the True Sun; and from the firstmade himself distinguished and distinguishableamong " the corps," for his ability, promptness, andpunctuality.Remaining for a short term on the staff of thisperiodical, he seceded to the Mirror of Parliament,which was started with the express object of furnishDICKENS'S EARLIEST WRITINGS.ing verbatim reports of the debates. It only lived,however, for two sessions.The influence of his father, who on settling in themetropolis had become connected wtth the Londonpress, procured for Charles Dickens an appointmentas short-hand reporter on the Morning Chronicle. Tothis period of his life he has made some graceful andinteresting allusions in a speech delivered at theSecond Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund,in May, 1865.It was in the Monthly Magazine of December, 1833,before he had yet attained his twenty- second year,that Charles Dickens made his first appearance inprint as a story- teller. * Neither the editor nor thereaders of the magazine, nor even the ardent andgratified young author himself (who has described inthe preface to the " Pickwick Papers " his sensationson finding his little contribution accepted) , then dreamtthat he would become in four brief years from thattime, one of the most popular and widely- read ofEnglish authors; that his name would have grownfamiliar as a household word, and that his praisewould be on every tongue on both sides of theAtlantic.Encouraged by his success, Charles Dickens continued to send sketches in the same vein, and for a

This first sketch was entitled " A Dinner at Poplar Walk,"

rechristened in the collected Sketches by Boz, " Mr. Minns and his Cousin."vi INTRODUCTION.year or more he was a tolerably constant contributorto the magazine. With slight alterations all thesepapers were reprinted in the collection of " Sketches byBoz;" but as it will, perhaps, be interesting to someof our readers to trace their original appearance in themagazine, we give a list of them here:AprilMayJanuary, 1834. Mrs. Joseph Porter, " over the way."February ""Horatio Sparkins.29"

99The Bloomsbury Christening.The Boarding- House.Ibid. (No. II.)*The Steam Excursion.Passage in the Life of Mr. WatkinsTottle.Ibid. Chapter Second.AugustOctoberJanuary, 1835.99.February»A similar series was afterwards contributed tothe Evening Chronicle, † and another to Bell's Life inLondon ( 1835-36).While writing the " Sketches," a strong inclinationtowards the stage induced Charles Dickens to testhis powers as a dramatist, and his first piece, a farcecalled The Strange Gentleman, was produced at theSt. James's Theatre on the opening night of the

This was the first paper in which Dickens assumed the

pseudonym of " Boz." The previous sketches appeared anonymously.+Ofthese "Sketches" two volumes were collected and publishedby Macrone (with illustrations by George Cruikshank) , in February, 1836, and a third in the December following.DICKENS AS A DRAMATIST. vii 1season, September 29, 1836. John Pritt Harleywas the hero of the farce, which was received withgreat favour. This was followed by an opera, calledThe Village Coquettes, for which Mr. John Hullahcomposed the music, and which was brought out atthe same house, on Tuesday, December 6, 1836. Thequaint humour, unaffected pathos, and graceful lyricsof this production found prompt recognition, and thepiece enjoyed a prosperous run. The Village Coquettestook its title from two village girls, Lucy and Rose,led away by vanity, coquetting with men above themin station, and discarding their humble, though worthyrustic lovers. Before, however, it is too late they seetheir error, and the piece terminates happily. MissRainforth and Miss Julia Smith were the heroines, andMr. Bennett and Mr. Gardner were their betrothedlovers. Braham was the Lord of the Manor, who wouldhave led astray the fair Lucy. There was a capitalscene, where he was detected by Lucy's father, playedby Strickland, urging an elopement. Harley had atrifling part in the piece, rendered highly amusing byhis admirable acting.On March 6, 1837, was brought out at the St.James's Theatre a farce, called Is She His Wife? orSomething Singular, in which Harley played the principal character, Felix Tapkins, a flirting bachelor.These three little dramatic pieces were all publishedat the time, and all had a fair run.Under the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks, Charles.Dickens published about this time a wholesome,viii INTRODUCTION.wise, and cleverly-written little pamphlet againstSabbatarianism, in which he cogently and forcibly advocated more liberal views respecting theobservance of Sunday than generally obtain in thiscountry.*In April, 1836, appeared the first number of " Pickwick," with illustrations by Seymour. It was continued in monthly shilling numbers until its completion, and this became Dickens's favourite andusual form of publication ever after. The successand popularity of the work-which, in freshness andvigour, he never surpassed in his later and maturerwritings-were unmistakable. Several playwrightsdramatized it, with more or less success; and a swarmof obscure scribblers flooded the town with imitationsand sequels, which, like Avanelleda's second part of"Don Quixote," came mostly to grief, and were quicklyforgotten, as they deserved to be.Before the work had reached its third number, thetalented artist who had undertaken the lustrations,and who has immortalized the features of Mr. Pickwick, was unfortunately removed by death. The lateHablot Browne (the well-known Phiz) was chosento replace him, and continued to illustrate most ofDickens's novels for many years after. During the

The pamphlet was entitled Sunday under Three Heads:

As it is; as Sabbath Bills would make it; as it might bemade. By Timothy Sparks. London, Chapman and Hall,1836, pp. 49 (with illustrations by Hablot K. Browne).MEMOIRS OF GRIMALDI. ixyears 1837-38, Dickens carried on the editorshipof Bentley's Miscellany, where his novel of " OliverTwist " (illustrated by George Cruikshank) first appeared. To this magazine, during the time that heconducted it, he also contributed some humorouspapers, entitled " Full Report of the Meetings of theMudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything." But, finding his editorial office irksome, heresigned it early in 1839.During his engagement with Mr. Bentley, he editedand partly wrote the " Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, *a book now almost forgotten, though not withoutpassages of pathos and humour. Dickens, in the introductory chapter (dated February, 1838), gives thefollowing account of his share in the work:"For about a year before his death, Grimaldi wasemployed in writing a full account of his life andadventures, and as people who write their own lives.often find time to extend them to a most inordinatelength, it is no wonder that his account of himselfwas exceedingly voluminous."This manuscript was confided to Mr. ThomasEgerton Wilks, to alter and revise, with a view to itspublication. While he was thus engaged, Grimaldidied; and Mr. Wilks having, by the commencementof September ( 1837), concluded his labours, offered

" Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi," edited by Boz. With

illustrations by George Cruikshank. Intwo volumes. London,R. Bentley. 1838.•X INTRODUCTION.the manuscript to Mr. Bentley, by whom it was shortlyafterwards purchased."The present editor of these volumes has felt itnecessary to say thus much in explanation of theirorigin. His own share in them is stated in a fewwords. Being much struck by several incidents inthe manuscript—such as the description of Grimaldi'sinfancy, the burglary, the brother's return from sea,and many other passages-and thinking that theymight be related in a more attractive manner, heaccepted a proposal from the publisher to edit thebook, and has edited it to the best of his ability,altering its form throughout, and making such otheralterations as he conceived would improve the narration of the facts, without any departure from thefacts themselves."His next work was " Nicholas Nickleby," publishedin monthly numbers. The following passage fromthe original preface, which is only to be found in theold editions, alludes to the great success that attendedthis story:" It only now remains for the writer of these pages,with that feeling of regret with which we leave almostany pursuit that has for a long time occupied us andengaged our thoughts, and which is naturally augmented in such a case as this, when that pursuit hasbeen surrounded by all that could animate and cheerhim on it only now remains for him, before abandoning his task, to bid his readers farewell."MR. WELLER ON RAILWAYS.This was followed by "Master Humphrey's Clock,"the publication of which, in weekly numbers, withillustrations by Cattermole and Hablot Browne, wascommenced in April, 1840. " Master Humphrey'sClock" comprised the two novels of " The OldCuriosity Shop " and " Barnaby Rudge," which arenow published in a separate form, stripped of the introductory portion relating to Master Humphrey, andof the intercalary chapters in which Mr. Pickwick andthe two Wellers appear again on the scene.It waspleasant to meet once more these familiar humorouscreations, and it may be a matter for regret that thisportion of the book has been consigned to oblivion.But the author considered that these passages servedonly to interrupt the continuity of the main story,and they were consequently eliminated.These three characters (the Wellers and Mr. Pickwick) have all the same raciness and inexhaustiblehumour in this sequel as in the book in which we werefirst introduced to them. As the original edition of"Master Humphrey's Clock " is now somewhat rare,the reader may not be displeased to have a few specimens laid before him. Here is Mr. Weller's senior'sopinion of railways:"I con-sider," said Mr. Weller, "that the rail isunconstitootional and an inwaser o' priwileges, and Ishould wery much like to know what that ' ere oldCarter as once stood up for our liberties and wun ' emtoo-I should like to know wot he vould say if hewos alive now, to Englishmen being locked up withxixiiINTRODUCTION.widders, or with anybody, again their wills. Wot aold Carter would have said, a old Coachman may say,and I as-sert that in that pint o' view alone, the railis an inwaser. As to the comfort, vere's the comforto' sittin' in a harm cheer lookin' at brick walls or heapso' mud, never comin' to a public house, never seein' aglass o' ale, never goin' through a pike, never meetin'a change o' no kind (horses or othervise), but alvayscomin' to a place, ven you come to one at all, thewery picter o' the last, vith the same p'leesemenstanding about, the same blessed old bell a ringin',the same unfort'nate people standing behind the bars,a waitin' to be let in; and everythin' the same exceptthe name, vich is wrote up in the same sized lettersas the last name and vith the same colors. As to thehonour and dignity o' travellin', vere can that bevithout a coachman; and wot's the rail to sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it,but a outrage and a insult? As to the pace, wot sorto' pace do you think I, Tony Veller, could have kepta coach goin' at, for five hundred thousand pound amile, paid in adwance afore the coach was on theroad? And as to the ingein — a nasty wheezin',creaking, gasping, puffin, bustin' monster, alvays outo' breath, vith a shiny green and gold back, like a unpleasant beetle in that ' ere gas magnifier—as to theingein as is alvays a pourin' out red hot coals atnight, and black smoke in the day, the sensiblestthing it does in my opinion, is, ven there's somethin'in the vay and it sets up that ' ere frightful screamSAM WELLER'S STORY. xiiivich seems to say, ' Now here's two hundred and fortypassengers in the wery greatest extremity o' danger,and here's their two hundred and forty screams invun!' "*While Mr. Pickwick is listening to Master Humphrey's story above, the Wellers are entertained bythe housekeeper in the kitchen, where they find Mr.Slithers, the barber, to whom Sam Weller, drawingextensively we may suppose upon his lively imagination, relates the following anecdote:"I never knew," said Sam, fixing his eyes in aruminative manner upon the blushing barber, " I neverknew but von o' your trade, but he wos worth a dozen,and wos indeed dewoted to his callin'!""Was he in the easy shaving way, sir," inquiredMr. Slithers; " or in the cutting and curling line?”"Both," replied Sam; " easy shavin' was his natur,and cuttin' and curlin' was his pride and glory. Hiswhole delight wos in his trade. He spent all hismoney in bears and run in debt for ' em besides, andthere they wos a growling avay down in the frontcellar all day long, and ineffectooally gnashing theirteeth, vile the grease o' their relations and friends wosbeing re-tailed in gallipots in the shop above, and thefirst-floor winder wos ornamented vith their heads;not to speak o' the dreadful aggrawation it must havebeen to ' em to see a man alvays a walkin' up anddown the pavement outside, vith the portrait of a"Master Humphrey's Clock," Vol. I. p. 72.xiv INTRODUCTION.bear in his last agonies, and underneath in large letters, ' Another fine animal wos slaughtered yesterdayat Jinkinson's!' Hows'ever, there they wos, and thereJinkinson wos, till he wos took wery ill with someinn'ard disorder, lost the use of his legs, and wosconfined to his bed, vere he laid a wery long time,but sich wos his pride in his profession even then,that wenever he wos worse than usual, the doctorused to go down stairs and say, ' Jinkinson's wery lowthis mornin'; we must give the bears a stir;' and assure as ever they stirred ' em up a bit, and made ' emroar, Jinkinson opens his eyes if he wos ever so bad,calls out, ' There's the bears!' and rewives agin. Vunday the doctor happenin' to say, ' I shall look in asusual to-morrow mornin',' Jinkinson catches hold ofhis hand and says, ' Doctor,' he says, ' will you grantme one favor?' ' I will, Jinkinson,' says the doctor.' Then, doctor,' says Jinkinson, ' vill you come unshaved, and let me shave you?' ' I will,' says thedoctor. ' God bless you,' says Jinkinson. Next daythe doctor came, and arter he'd been shaved all skilfuland reg'lar, he says, ' Jinkinson, ' he says, ' it's weryplain this does you good. Now,' he says, ' I've got acoachman as has got a beard that it ' d warm yourheart to work on, and though the footman,' he says,' hasn't got much of a beard, still he's a trying it onvith a pair o' viskers to that extent, that razors ischristian charity. If they take it in turns to mindthe carriage wen it's a waitin' below,' he says, ' wot'sto hinder you from operatin' on both of ' em ev'ry daySAM WELLER'S STORY.as well as upon me? you've got six children,' he says,' wot's to hinder you from shavin' all their heads, andkeepin' ' em shaved? You've got two assistants inthe shop down-stairs, wot's to hinder you from cuttin'and curlin' them as often as you like? Do this,' hesays, ' and you're a man agin.' Jinkinson squeedgedthe doctor's hand, and begun that wery day; he kepthis tools upon the bed, and wenever he felt his- selfgettin' worse, he turned to at vun o' the children, whowos a runnin' about the house vith heads like cleanDutch cheeses, and shaved him agin. Vun day thelawyer come to make his vill; all the time he wos atakin' it down, Jinkinson was secretly a clippin' avayat his hair vith a large pair of scissors. ' Wot's that'ere snippin' noise?' says the lawyer every now andthen, ' it's like a man havin' his hair cut.' ' It is werylike a man havin' his hair cut,' says poor Jinkinson,hidin' the scissors and lookin' quite innocent. By thetime the lawyer found it out, he was wery nearly bald.Jinkinson was kept alive in this vay for a long time,but at last vun day he has in all the children, vunarter another, shaves each on ' em wery clean, andgives him vun kiss on the crown of his head; then hehas in the two assistants, and arter cuttin' and curlin'of ' em in the first style of elegance, says he shouldlike to hear the woice o' the greasiest bear, vichrekvest is immedetly complied with; then he saysthat he feels wery happy in his mind, and vishes tobe left alone; and then he dies, prevously cuttin' hisXVxvi INTRODUCTION.own hair, and makin' one flat curl in the wery middleof his forehead."There is a great deal more in the same vein, notunworthy of the " Pickwick Papers." We must leavethe curious reader to find it out, however, for himself.During the progress of this publication, it seemsthat certain officious persons, mistaking it for a kindof omnium gatherum, by "several hands," tenderedcontributions to its pages, and the author was compelled to issue the following advertisement:MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.MR. DICKENS begs to inform all those Ladies and Gentlemenwho have tendered him contributions for this work, and allthose who may now or at any future time have it in contemplation to do so, that he cannot avail himself of their obligingoffers, as it is written solely by himself, and cannot possibly include any productions from other hands.This announcement will serve for a final answer to all correspondents, and will render any private communications unnecessary.After "winding up his Clock," as he termed it,Dickens resolved to make a tour in the UnitedStates. Before he went away, however, some of themost distinguished citizens of Edinburgh gave him afarewell banquet. † He was then only twenty- nineyears of age, and this was the first great public recog<nition of his genius, and the first occasion that wasafforded him of displaying his powers as a public"Master Humphrey's Clock," Vol. I., PP. 98, 99.June 25, 1841.CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON DICKENS. xviispeaker. Professor Wilson (Christopher North) presided, and spoke of the young author in the followingterms:"Our friend has dealt with the common feelingsand passions of ordinary men in the common andordinary paths of life. He has not sought-at leasthe has not yet sought-to deal with those thoughtsand passions that are made conspicuous from afar bythe elevated stations of those who experience them.He has mingled in the common walks of life; he hasmade himself familiar with the lower orders of society.He has not been deterred by the aspect of vice andwickedness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spiritof good in things evil, but has endeavoured by themight of genius to transmute what was base intowhat is precious as the beaten gold. . . . But I shallbe betrayed, if I go on much longer,-which it wouldbe improper for me to do-into something like a critical delineation of the genius of our illustrious guest.I shall not attempt that; but I cannot but express ina few ineffectual words, the delight which everyhuman bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades all his creations. How kind and good a manhe is, I need not say; nor what strength of genius hehas acquired by that profound sympathy with hisfellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happiness,or overwhelmed with unfortunate circumstances, butwho do not yet sink under their miseries, but trust totheir own strength of endurance, to that principle oftruth and honour and integrity which is no stranger2xviii INTRODUCTION.to the uncultivated bosom, which is found in thelowest abodes in as great strength as in the halls ofnobles and the palaces of kings."Mr. Dickens is also a satirist. He satirises humanlife, but he does not satirise it to degrade it. Hedoes not wish to pull down what is high into theneighbourhood of what is low. He does not seek torepresent all virtue as a hollow thing, in which noconfidence can be placed. He satirises only the selfish, and the hard- hearted, and the cruel; he exposesin a hideous light that principle which, when actedupon, gives a power to men in the lowest grades tocarry on a more terrific tyranny than if placed uponthrones. I shall not say—for I do not feel—that ourdistinguished guest has done full and entire justice toone subject that he has entirely succeeded where Ihave no doubt he would be most anxious to succeed-in a full and complete delineation of the femalecharacter. But this he has done: he has not endeavoured to represent women as charming merely bythe aid of accomplishments, however elegant andgraceful. He has not depicted those accomplishmentsas the essentials of their character, but has spoken ofthem rather as always inspired by a love of domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by charity,and by hope, which makes them discharge, under themost difficult circumstances, their duties; and whichbrings over their path in this world some glimpses ofthe light of heaven. Mr. Dickens may be assuredthat there is felt for him all over Scotland a sentimentFIRST VISIT TO AMERICA. xixof kindness, affection, admiration and love; and Iknow for certain that the knowledge of these sentiments must make him happy."Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across theAtlantic, in the " Britannia " steam-packet, CaptainHewett, on the 3rd of January, 1842. At Boston,Hartford, and New York, he was received with ovations (Washington Irving on one occasion presidingat a banquet held in his honour), until he was obligedto decline any further appearance in public. Duringthis first visit to America, he made three long andeloquent speeches, which are all given in this volumein extenso. In each of these he referred in an earnestway to the great question of International Copyright,urging upon his Transatlantic friends the necessity ofdoing right and justice in this matter. He returnedto England in the month of June, and a few weeksafterwards addressed the following circular letter toall the principal English authors:-66' I, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, York Gate, Regent's Park,"7th July, 1842."You may perhaps be aware that, during my stay inAmerica, I lost no opportunity of endeavouring to awaken thepublic mind to a sense of the unjust and iniquitous state of thelaw in that country, in reference to the wholesale piracy ofBritish works. Having been successful in making the subjectone of general discussion in the United States, I carried toWashington, for presentation to Congress by Mr. Clay, a petixx INTRODUCTION.tion from the whole body of American authors, earnestly prayingfor the enactment of an International Copyright Law. It wassigned by Mr. Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Cooper,and every man who has distinguished himself in the literatureof America; and has since been referred to a Select Committeeof the House of Representatives. To counteract any effectwhich might be produced by that petition, a meeting was heldin Boston -which, you will remember, is the seat and stronghold of Learning and Letters in the United States-at which amemorial against any change in the existing state of things in this respect was agreed to, with but one dissentient voice. Thisdocument, which, incredible as it may appear to you, wasactually forwarded to Congress and received, deliberately statedthat if English authors were invested with any control over there-publication of their own books, it would be no longer possiblefor American editors to alter and adapt them (as they do now)to the American taste! This memorial was, without loss oftime, replied to by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with thenatural indignation of a gentleman, and a man of letters, upon its extraordinary dishonesty. I am satisfied that this briefmention of its tone and spirit is sufficient to impress you with the conviction that it becomes all those who are in any way connected with the literature of England, to take that high stand,to which the nature of their pursuits, and the extent of theirsphere of usefulness, justly entitle them, to discourage the upholders of such doctrines by every means in their power, and tohold themselves aloof from the remotest participation in asystem, from which the moral sense and honourable feeling ofall just men must instinctively recoil.66 For myself, I have resolved that I will never from this timeenter into any negotiation with any person for the transmissionacross the Atlantic of early proofs of anything I may write, andthat I will forego all profit derivable from such a source. I donot venture to urge this line of proceeding upon you, but Iwould beg to suggest, and to lay great stress upon the necessityINTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. xxiof observing one other course of action, to which I cannot tooemphatically call your attention. The persons who exert themselves to mislead the American public on this question, to putdown its discussion, and to suppress and distort the truth inreference to it in every possible way, are (as you may easily suppose) those who have a strong interest in the existing system ofpiracy and plunder: inasmuch as, so long as it continues, theycan gain a very comfortable living out of the brains of othermen, while they would find it very difficult to earn bread by the exercise of their own. These are the editors and proprietors ofnewspapers almost exclusively devoted to the re-publication ofpopular English works. They are, for the most part, men ofvery low attainments, and of more than indifferent reputation;and I have frequently seen them, in the same sheet in whichthey boast of the rapid sale of many thousand copies of anEnglish reprint, coarsely and insolently attacking the author ofthat very book, and heaping scurrility and slander upon hishead. I would therefore entreat you, in the name of the honourable pursuit with which you are so intimately connected, neverto hold correspondence with any of these men, and never tonegotiate with them for the sale of early proofs of any work overwhich you have control, but to treat on all occasions with somerespectable American publishing house, and with such an establishment only. Our common interest in this subject, and myadvocacy of it, single-handed, on every occasion that has presented itself during my absence from Europe, form my excusefor addressing you.66 Iam, &c. ," CHARLES DICKENS."By his " American Notes, " and by some of thescenes in " Martin Chuzzlewit," Dickens gave for atime great offence to the Americans, though he onlysatirised some of their foibles (with just a spice ofpiquante exaggeration), as he had ours at home. Letxxii INTRODUCTION.the reader hear what two candid Americans havewritten on this subject:""The American Notes' are weak, and unworthyof their author; but the American sketches in 'MartinChuzzlewit ' are among the cleverest and truest thingshe has ever written. The satire was richly deserved,well applied, and has done a great deal of good. Toclaim that it was mere burlesque and exaggeration, issheer nonsense, and it is highly disingenuous to denythe existence of the absurdities upon which it wasfounded. Moreover, the popular implication thatthere is really nothing now in the country justly toprovoke a smile-to urge with so much complacencythat we have changed all that-argues the continuedexistence of not a little of the same thin- skinnedtetchiness, the same inability to see ourselves asothers see us,' which made us so legitimate a targetbefore.""As for certain American portraits painted inMartin Chuzzlewit, " says an American lady, * “ Ishould as soon think of objecting to them as I shouldthink of objecting to any other discovery in naturalhistory. To deny the existence of Elijah Pogram,Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Mrs. Hominy, and MissCodger, is to deny facts somewhat exaggerated, thatare patent to any keen observer who has ever travelledthrough the United States. The character of ElijahPogram is so well known as to constantly figure in

Kate Field.

MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. xxiiithe world of illustration; and we can well afford tolaugh at foibles of native growth when Dickensdevotes the greater part of this same novel to theexposition of English vice and selfishness. "The following letter, referring to Martin Chuzzlewit, then in course of publication, was addressed byDickens to a friend, in January, 1844:—" DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,"January 2d, 1844.MY DEAR SIR,9"THAT is a very horrible case you tell me of. I would toGod I could get at the parental heart of — in which eventI would so scarify it, that he should writhe again. But if I wereto put such a father as he into a book, all the fathers going (andespecially the bad ones) would hold up their hands and protestagainst the unnatural caricature. I find that a great manypeople (particularly those who might have sat for the character)consider even Mr. Pecksniff a grotesque impossibility, andMrs. Nickleby herself, sitting bodily before me in a solid chair,once asked me whether I really believed there ever was such awoman." So2reviewing his own case, would not believe inJonas Chuzzlewit. ' I like Oliver Twist,' says ' for Iam fond of children. But the book is unnatural, for who wouldthink of being cruel to poor little Oliver Twist!'"Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my mind, and if I canhit him between the eyes so that he shall stagger more than youor I have done this Christmas under the combined effects ofpunch and turkey, I will." Thank you cordially for your note. Excuse this scrap ofpaper. I thought it was a whole sheet until I turned it over."My dear Sir," Faithfully yours,"CHARLES DICKENS"xxiv INTRODUCTION.To a collection of Sketches and Tales by a Working Man, published in 1844,* Charles Dickens wasinduced to contribute a preface, from which we selectthe following passages:"I do not recommend it as a book of surpassingoriginality or transcendent merit. I do notclaim to have discovered, in humble life, an extraordinary and brilliant genius. I cannot charge mankindin general with having entered into a conspiracy toneglect the author of this volume, or to leave him.pining in obscurity. I have not the smallest intentionof comparing him with Burns, the exciseman; or withBloomfield, the shoemaker; or with Ebenezer Elliott,the worker in iron; or with James Hogg, the shepherd. I see no reason to be hot, or bitter, or lowering, or sarcastic, or indignant, or fierce, or sour, orsharp, in his behalf. I have nothing to rail at;nothing to exalt; nothing to flourish in the face of astony-hearted world; and have but a very short andsimple story to tell."John Overs is, as is set forth in the title-page, aworking man. A man who earns his weekly wages(or who did when he was strong enough) by plying ofthe hammer, plane, and chisel. He became known tome nearly six years ago, when he sent me some songs,appropriate to the different months of the year, witha letter, stating under what circumstances they had· •

(Video) Charles Dickens | Biography in English

Evenings ofa Working Man, by John Overs, with a Pre

face relative to the Author, by Charles Dickens. London:Newby, 1844ACCOUNT OF JOHN OVERS.been composed, and in what manner he was occupiedfrom morning until night. I was just then relinquishing the conduct of a monthly periodical, * or I wouldgladly have published them. As it was, I returnedthem to him, with a private expression of the interestI felt in such productions. They were afterwardsaccepted, with much readiness and consideration, byMr. Tait, of Edinburgh, and were printed in hisMagazine.XXV"Finding, after some further correspondence withmy new friend, that his authorship had not ceasedwith his verses, but that he still occupied his leisuremoments in writing, I took occasion to remonstratewith him seriously against his pursuing that course.I told him, his persistence in his new calling made meuneasy; and I advised him to abandon it as stronglyas I could."In answer to this dissuasion of mine, he wrote meas manly and straightforward, but withal, as modesta letter, as ever I read in my life. He explained tome how limited his ambition was: soaring no higherthan the establishment of his wife in some light business, and the better education of his children. He setbefore me the difference between his evening and holiday studies, such as they were; and the having nobetter resource than an ale-house or a skittle- ground.He told me how every small addition to his stock ofknowledge made his Sunday walks the pleasanter,

Bentley's Miscellany, edited by Charles Dickens during the

years 1837-38.xxvi INTRODUCTION.the hedge- flowers sweeter, everything more full ofinterest and meaning to him."He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the manwho came into my little study for the first time, halfa-dozen years ago, after the correspondence I havementioned. He has been very ill for a long period;his disease is a severe and wasting affection of thelungs, which has incapacitated him these many monthsfor every kind of occupation. ' If I could only do ahard day's work, ' he said to me the other day, ' howhappy I should be.'"Having these papers by him, amongst others, hebethought himself that, if he could get a bookseller topurchase them for publication in a volume, theywouldenable him to make some temporary provision for hissick wife, and very young family. We talked thematter over together, and that it might be easier ofaccomplishment I promised him that I would write anintroduction to his book."I would to Heaven that I could do him better service! I would to Heaven it were an introduction toa long, and vigorous, and useful life! But Hope willnot trim his lamp the less brightly for him and his,because of this impulse to their struggling fortunes,and trust me, reader, they deserve her light, and needit sorely." He has inscribed this book to one * whose skill

Dr. Elliotson.

THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. xxviiwill help him, under Providence, in all that humanskill can do. To one who never could have recognised in any potentate on earth a higher claim to constant kindness and attention than he has recognizedin him. * * * ",The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with whichall his readers, young and old, gentle and simple,are so familiar, was commenced by Dickens inDecember, 1843, with A Christmas Carol in Prose,illustrated by John Leech. What Jeffrey, whatSydney Smith, what Jerrold, what Thackeraythought and wrote about this little story is wellknown. " Blessings on your kind heart, my dearDickens," wrote Jeffrey, "and may it always be asfull and as light as it is kind, and a fountain of goodness to all within reach of its beatings. We are allcharmed with your Carol; chiefly, I think, for thegenuine goodness which breathes all through it, andis the true inspiring angel by which its genius hasbeen awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits islike the dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of itsbroad reality, and little Tiny Tim in life and in deathalmost as sweet and touching as Nelly. You may besure you have done more good, and not only fastenedmore kindly feelings, but prompted more positive actsof benevolence by this little publication than can be66 * Weare told that Overs did not live long after the publicationof his little book: the malady under which he was labouring,terminated fatally the following October."xxviii INTRODUCTION.traced to all the pulpits and confessionals sinceChristmas, 1842.""It is the work," writes Thackeray,* " of the masterof all the English humourists now alive; the youngman who came and took his place calmly at the headof the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of allwe owe Mr. Dickens since those half- dozen years, thestore of happy hours that he has made us pass, thekindly and pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless laughter, the generous wit,the frank, manly, human love which he has taught usto feel! Every month of those years has brought ussome kind token from this delightful genius. Hisbooks may have lost in art, perhaps, but could weafford to wait? Since the days when the Spectatorwas produced by a man of kindred mind and temper,what books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as these?"Who can listen to objections regarding such a bookas this? It seems to me a national benefit, and toevery man or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it werewomen; neither knew the other, or the author, andboth said by way of criticism, ' God bless him!' * * *As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in thebook regarding that young gentleman about which aman should hardly venture to speak in print or inpublic, any more than he would of any other affectionsof his private heart. There is not a reader in England

Fraser's Magazine, July, 1844.

CHRISTMAS STORIES.but that little creature will be a bond of union betweenthe author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ' God bless him! Whata feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap."xxixDuring five seasons did Dickens continue to issueat Christmas these little volumes: " A ChristmasCarol (December, 1843); " The Chimes " (December, 1844); " The Cricket on the Hearth " (December,1845); " The Battle of Life " (December, 1846); " TheHaunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain " (December,1848).*"Christmas stories are now grown so much thefashion that, whenever the season of holly and mistletoe comes round they greet us at every turn, forcingthemselves upon our notice through every species ofwhimsical and enticing embellishment. Why is itthat, amidst such a satiety of novelties we turn againand again, with an interest as keen as ever, to a perusal of the pages where little Dot Peerybingle chirpsas brightly as the cricket on her own hearth, whereTrotty Veck listens to the voices of the chimes,striving to comprehend what it is they say to him,and where old Scrooge's heart is softened by hisghostly visitants? It is because Charles Dickens hasmade such a study of that human nature we all pos❤ These five volumes were all gracefully illustrated by JohnLeech, Daniel Maclise, Clarkson Stanfield, Sir Edwin Landseer,Richard Doyle, and others; and a set of the original issue isnow much sought after, and not easily met with.XXX INTRODUCTION.sess in common that he is able to strike with a practised hand upon the chords of our hearts, and drawforth harmony that vibrates from soul to soul.It is not, however, our intention here to pursueDickens through the whole of his long and honourable literary career, far less to undertake the superfluous task of extolling the numerous and brilliantlist of writings that followed each other in rapidand welcome succession from his indefatigable pen.All that remains for us to do now, is to notice brieflytwo very grave charges that have been made againstthe general tendency of his writings, and to bringforward some evidence in refutation of them.These two charges are, I, a wilful perversion of factsin describing the political and social condition of ourtime; 2, an irreverence for and ridicule of sacredthings and persons, which (say the objectors) infusesa subtle poison through the whole of his works, andunsettles the belief of the young. We shall take thesecharges one at a time.In some of his later novels, such as " Bleak House,"and "Little Dorrit, " in which he has endeavoured tograpple with the great social and political problemsof the age, certain critics have accused him of exaggeration, and even of a wilful perversion of facts.Against their opinion we are pleased to be able to setthat of so high an authority as the author of " Modern Painters:""The essential value and truth of Dickens'swritings," says Mr. Ruskin, “ have been unwisely lostMR. RUSKIN ON DICKENS.sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely becausehe presents his truth with some colour of caricature.Unwisely, because Dickens's caricature, though oftengross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner oftelling them, the things he tells us are always true.I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for publicamusement; and when he takes up a subject of highnational importance, such as that which he handled in' Hard Times,' that he would use severer and moreaccurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (tomy mind, in several respects the greatest he has written, ) is with many persons seriously diminished,because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, insteadof a characteristic example of a worldly master; andStephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of acharacteristic example of an honest workman. Butlet us not lose the use of Dickens's wit and insightbecause he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire.He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose inevery book he has written; and all of them, butespecially Hard Times, ' should be studied with closeand earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and,because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, whichDickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after alltheir trouble, that his view was the finally right one,grossly and sharply told. "*6"Unto this Last. " Chap. I.xxxi•xxxii INTRODUCTION.Secondly, Dickens is accused of an irreverence for,and unseemly ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive reader of Dickens will have observed that he isnot much in the habit of quoting from, or alluding tothe writings of others; but that when he does quoteor allude, it is in the great majority of cases from orto the Holy Scriptures. * Occasionally we come upona reference to Shakespeare; now and then we meetwith one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but theseoccur so seldom, that it may be said, once for all, thatthe source from which Dickens is usually in thehabit of making quotations, is the Bible only. It isvery interesting to find that so many of Dickens'scharacters are represented as being in the habit eitherof regularly reading and studying the Bible, or ofhaving it read to them by some one else." I ain't much of a hand at reading writing-hand,"said Betty Higden, " though I can read my Bible andmost print. " Little Nell was in the constant habit oftaking the Bible with her to read while in her quietand lonely retreat in the old church, after all her longand weary wanderings were past. In the happy timewhich Oliver Twist spent with Mrs. Maylie and Rose,he used to read, in the evenings, a chapter or twofrom the Bible, which he had been studying all theweek, and in the performance of which duty he feltmore proud and pleased than if he had been the cler

The following instances are, by kind permission, selected from an ad mirable article upon this subject, which appeared in the " Temple Bar "

Magazine for September, 1869.DICKENS'S USE OF THE BIBLE.gyman himself. There was Sarah, in the " Sketchesby Boz," who regularly read the Bible to her oldmistress; and in the touching sketch of " Our Nextdoor Neighbour " in the same book, we find themother of the sick boy engaged in reading the Bibleto him when the visitor called and interrupted her.This incident reminds us of the poor Chancery prisoner in the Fleet, who, when on his death- bed calmlywaiting the release which would set him free for ever,had the Bible read to him by an old man in a cobbler's apron. One of David Copperfield's earliestrecollections was of a certain Sunday evening, whenhis mother read aloud to him and Peggotty the storyof Our Saviour raising Lazarus from the dead. So deepan impression did the story make upon the boy, takenin connexion with all that had been lately told himabout his father's funeral, that he requested to becarried up to his bed-room, from the windows ofwhich he could see the quiet churchyard with thedead all lying in their graves at rest below the solemnmoon. Pip, too, in " Great Expectations," was notonly in the habit of reading the Bible to the convictunder sentence of death, but of praying with him aswell; and Esther Summerson tells us how she usedto come downstairs every evening at nine o'clock toread the Bible to her god-mother.Not a few ofthe dwellings into which Dickens conducts us in the course of some of his best- known stories,have their walls decorated with prints illustrative offamiliar scenes from sacred history. Thus when MarxxxiiiHO3xxxiv INTRODUCTION.tin Chuzzlewit went away from Pecksniff's, and wasten good miles on his way to London, he stopped tobreakfast in the parlour of a little roadside inn, onthe walls of which were two or three highly- colouredpictures, representing the Wise Men at the Manger,and the Prodigal Son returning to his Father. Onthe walls of Peggotty's charming boat-cottage therewere prints, showing the Sacrifice of Isaac, and theCasting of Daniel into the Den of Lions. WhenArthur Clennam came home after his long absencein the East, he found the Plagues of Egypt still hanging, framed and glazed, on the same old place in hismother's parlour. And who has forgotten the fireplace in old Scrooge's house, which " was paved allround with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustratethe Scriptures?"Here are a few comparisons. Mr. Larry, in bestowing a bachelor's blessing on Miss Cross, before"somebody" came to claim her for his own, " heldthe fair face from him to look at the well- rememberedexpression on the forehead, and then laid the brightgolden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuinetenderness and delicacy which, if such things be oldfashioned, were as old as Adam." As old as Adamhere means so long ago as Adam's time; whileMethuselah suggests great age. Thus Miss Jellybyrelieved her mind to Miss Summerson on the subjectof Mr. Quale, in the following energetic language:"If he were to come with his great shining, lumpyforehead, night after night, till he was as old as--DICKENS'S USE OF THE BIBLE.Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him.”And Mr. Filer, in his eminently practical remarks onthe lamentable ignorance of political economy on thepart of working people in connexion with marriage,observed to Alderman Cute that a man may live tobe as old as Methuselah, and may labour all his lifefor the benefit of such people; but there could be nomore hope of persuading them that they had no rightor business to be married, than he could hope to persuade them that they had no earthly right or businessto be born. Miss Betsy Trotwood declared to Mr.Dick that the natural consequence of David Copperfield's mother having married a murderer-or a manwith a name very like it was to set the boy a-prowlingand wandering about the country, " like Cain beforehe was grown up." Joe Gargery's journeyman, ongoing away from his work at night, used to slouchout of the shop like Cain, or the Wandering Jew, asif he had no idea where he was going, and had nointention of ever coming back. Describing the stateof "the thriving City of Eden," when Martin andMark arrived there, the author of " Martin Chuzzlewit" says "The waters of the Deluge might haveleft it but a week before, so choked with slime andmatted growth was the hideous swamp which borethat name." The Deluge suggests Noah's ark. Thefollowing reference to it is from " Little Dorrit,"descriptive of the gradual approach of darkness upamong the highest ridges of the Alps:-"The ascending night came up the mountains like a risingXXXVxxxvi INTRODUCTION.water. When at last it rose to the walls of the convent of the great St. Bernard, it was as if thatweather-beaten structure were another ark, andfloated on the shadowy waves." Here is somethingfrom the Tower of Babel:-" Looming heavy in theblack wet night, the tall chimneys of the Coketownfactories rose high into the air, and looked as if theywere so many " competing towers of Babel." WhenMortimer Lightwood inquired of Charley Hexam,with reference to the body of the man found in theriver, whether or not any means had been employedto restore life, he received this reply:-" You wouldn'task, sir, if you knew his state. Pharoah's multitudethat were drowned in the Red Sea ain't more beyondrestoring to life." The boy added, further, " that ifLazarus were only half as far gone, that was thegreatest of all the miracles." When the Scotch surgeon was called in professionally to see Mr. Krook'sunfortunate lodger, the Scotch tongue pronouncedhim to be "just as dead as Chairy." Job's poverty isnot likely to be forgotten among the comparisons.No, Mr. Mell's mother was as poor as Job. NorSamson's strength: Dot's mother had so many infallible recipes for the preservation of the baby'shealth, that had they all been administered, the saidbaby must have been done for, though strong as aninfant Samson. Nor Goliath's importance: JohnChivery's chivalrous feeling towards all that belongedto Little Dorrit, made him so very respectable, inspite of his small stature, his weak legs, and hisDICKENS'S USE OF THe bible. xxxviigenuine poetic temperament, that a Goliath mighthave sat in his place demanding less consideration atArthur Clennam's hands. Nor Solomon's wisdom:Trotty Veck was so delighted when the child kissedhim that he couldn't help saying, " She's as sensibleas Solomon." Miss Wade having said farewell to herfellow-travellers in the public room of the hotel atMarseilles, sought her own apartment. As she passedalong the gallery, she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and, looking.into the room, she saw therein Pet's attendant, themaid with the curious name of Tattycoram. MissWade asked what was the matter, and received inreply a few short and angry words in a deeply-injured,ill-used tone. Then again commenced the sobs andtears and pinching, tearing fingers, making altogethersuch a scene as if she were being " rent by the demonsof old." Let us close these comparisons by quotinganother from the same book, " Little Dorrit," descriptive of the evening stillness after a day of terrificglare and heat at Marseilles:- "The sun went downin a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out inthe heavens, and the fire-flies mimicked them in thelower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness ofa better order of beings; the long, dusty roads andthe interminable plains were in repose, and so deep ahush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of thetime when it shall give up its dead."-Looking over the familiar pages of " NicholasNickleby," our eye lights upon a passage, almost atXxxvii INTRODUCTION.opening, which refers to God's goodness and mercy.As Nickleby's father lay on his death-bed, he embraced his wife and children, and then " solemnlycommended them to One who never deserted thewidow or her fatherless children." Towards the closeof Esther Summerson's narrative in " Bleak House "we read these touching, tender words regarding Ada's 'baby:-" The little child who was to have done somuch was born before the turf was planted on itsfather's grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband,and my guardian gave him his father's name. Thehelp that my dear counted on did come to her;though it came in the Eternal Wisdom for anotherpurpose. Though to bless and restore his mother,not his father, was the errand of this baby, its powerwas mighty to do it. When I saw the strength ofthe weak little hand, and how its touch could heal mydarling's heart and raise up hopes within her, I felt anew sense of the goodness and tenderness of God."After these illustrations of the great lessons of thegoodness of God, and that there is mercy in even ourhardest trials, we come next upon one which teachesthe duty of patience and resignation to God's will.Mrs. Maylie observed to Oliver Twist, with referenceto the dangerous illness of Rose, that she had seenand experienced enough to " knowthat it is not alwaysthe youngest and best who are spared to those thatlove them; but this should give us comfort in oursorrow, for Heaven is just, and such things teach usimpressively that there is a brighter world than this,DICKENS'S USE OF THE BIBLE. xxxixand that the passage to it is speedy. God's will bedone!"Our Saviour's life and teaching afford so many interesting illustrations to Charles Dickens that ourgreat difficulty, in the limited space to which we arenow confined, is to make a good selection. Here is asketch entitled " A Christmas Tree," from one of hisreprinted pieces, which contains this simple and beautiful summary of our Lord's life on earth:-" Thewaits are playing, and they break my childish sleep!What images do I associate with the Christmas musicas I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree?Known before all the others, keeping far apart fromall the others, they gather round my little bed. Anangel speaking to a group of shepherds in a field;some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star;a Baby in a manger; a Child in a spacious templetalking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mildand beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand;again, near a city gate, calling back the son of awidow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people lookingthrough the opened roof of a chamber where He sits,and letting down a sick person on a bed with ropes;the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to aship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon His knee, and otherchildren round; again, restoring sight to the blind,speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to thesick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant;again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers,xl INTRODUCTION.a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning toshake, and only one voice heard, ' Forgive them, forthey know not what they do.These passages, which are only a few out of a verymuch longer list that might be made, will be sufficient, we trust, to show how much our greatest livingnovelist is in the habit of going to the sacred narrative for illustrations to many of his most touching incidents, and how reverent and respectful always isthe spirit in which every such illustration is employed.To think of Charles Dickens's writings as containingno religious teaching, is to do them a great injustice.The first of Charles Dickens's famous public Readings was given at Birmingham during the Christmasweek of 1853. At a meeting held on Monday, January10, 1853, in the theatre of the Philosophical Institution,"for the purpose of considering the desirableness ofestablishing in Birmingham a Scientific and LiterarySociety, upon a comprehensive plan, having for itsobject the diffusion," etc., Mr. Arthur Ryland read aletter from Charles Dickens, received by him theday after the Literary and Artistic Banquet, containing an offer to visit Birmingham next Christmas, andread his Christmas Carol, in the Town Hall, for thebenefit of the proposed Institution, with the proviso,however, that as many as possible of the workingclass should be admitted free. " It would," saidDickens, " take about two hours, with a pause oftenminutes half-way through. There would be someCHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS. xlinovelty in the thing, as I have never done it in public,though I have in private, and (if I may say so) witha great effect on the hearers. I was so inexpressiblygratified last night by the warmth and enthusiasm ofmy Birmingham friends, that I feel half ashamed thismorning of so poor an offer. But as I had decidedon making it to you before I came down yesterday, Ipropose it nevertheless."The readings-three in number-came off withgreat éclat during the last week of the year, andbrought in a net sum of £400 to the Institute.Dickens continued from this time to give similarreadings, for charitable purposes, both in the provincesand in London; but it was not till five years later( 1858) that he began to read on his own account.On March 15, 1870, that long series of readingscontinued through sixteen years, in both hemispheres-was brought to a close, and the voice and figure ofCharles Dickens, formerly so familiar to us all, willdwell henceforth in the memory alone, but in one ofits most honoured niches.We ought not to omit to mention, what any readermaywell surmise, that Charles Dickens was inimitablein enlivening correspondence or table-talk with humorous anecdote, appropriate to the occasion. Wesubjoin a few specimens. The first is from one of hisletters to Douglas Jerrold, and is dated Paris, 14thFebruary, 1847:-"I am somehow reminded of agood story I heard the other night from a man whowas a witness of it, and an actor in it. At a certain·xlii INTRODUCTION.German town last autumn there was a tremendousfurore about Jenny Lind, who, after driving the wholeplace mad, left it, on her travels, early one morning.The moment her carriage was outside the gates, aparty of rampant students, who had escorted it,rushed back to the inn, demanded to be shown to herbedroom, swept like a whirlwind upstairs into theroom indicated to them, tore up the sheets, and worethem in strips as decorations. An hour or two afterwards a bald old gentleman, of amiable appearance,an Englishman, who was staying in the hotel, came tobreakfast at the table d'hôte, and was observed to bemuch disturbed in his mind, and to show great terrorwhenever a student came near him. At last he said,in a low voice, to some people who were near him atthe table, 'You are English gentlemen, I observe.Most extraordinary people, these Germans! Students, as a body, raving mad, gentlemen!' ' Oh, no!'said somebody else; ' excitable, but very good fellows, and very sensible.' ' By God, sir!' returned theold gentleman, still more disturbed, ' then there'ssomething political in it, and I am a marked man. Iwent out for a little walk this morning after shaving,and while I was gone ' -he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told it ' they burst into my bedroom, toreup my sheets, and are now patrolling the town in alldirections with bits of ' em in their button-holes!' Ineedn't wind up by adding that they had gone to thewrong chamber."Dickens now and then administered a little gentleDICKENS ON THE EARTHQUAKE.rebuke to affectation, in a pleasant but unmistakablemanner. Here is an instance of how he silenced abilious young writer, who was inveighing against theworld in a very " forcible feeble manner." During apause in this philippic against the human race, Dickenssaid across the table, in the most self-congratulatoryof tones:-"I say what a lucky thing it is you andI don't belong to it? It reminds me," continued theauthor of Pickwick, " of the two men, who on a raisedscaffold were awaiting the final delicate attention ofthe hangman; the notice of one was aroused by observing that a bull had got into the crowd of spectators, and was busily employed in tossing one here,and another there; whereupon one of the criminalssaid to the other—‘ I say, Bill, how lucky it is for usthat we are up here. "xliiiHere is a humorous and graphic account whichDickens sent to the leading newspaper ofhis sensationsduring the shock of earthquake that was felt all overEngland in October, 1863. It is doubly interesting,as giving a description of his country house at Gad'shill, near Rochester:" I was awakened by a violent swaying of my bedstead from side to side, accompanied by a singularheaving motion. It was exactly as if some greatbeast had been crouching asleep under the bedstead,and were now shaking itself and trying to rise. Thetime by my watch was twenty minutes past three,xliv INTRODUCTION.and I suppose the shock to have lasted nearly aminute. The bedstead, a large iron one, standingnearly north and south, appeared to me to be theonly piece of furniture in the room that was heavilyshaken. Neither the doors nor the windows rattled,though they rattle enough in windy weather, thishouse standing alone, on high ground, in the neighbourhood of two great rivers. There was no noise.The air was very still, and much warmer than it hadbeen in the earlier part of the night. Although theprevious afternoon had been wet, the glass had notfallen. I had mentioned my surprise at its standingnear the letter ' i ' in ' Fair,' and having a tendency torise."" #But the thing which, above all others, characterisedDickens throughout his career, that made his worldwide fame, and rendered his name a household word,was his broad, genial sympathy with life in all itsphases, and with those most who were manfully toilingtowards a better day. To this " enthusiasm ofhumanity " his biographer, the late John Forster,alluded in the Dedicatory Sonnet to Charles Dickens,prefixed to his " Life of Goldsmith " (March, 1848) ,in which he exclaims:"Come with me and behold,O friend with heart as gentle for distress,As resolute with wise true thoughts to bindThe happiest to the unhappiest of our kind,That there is fiercer crowded miseryIn garret-toil and London lonelinessThan in cruel islands 'mid the far-off sea. "

MARCH 15

, 1870LONDON

APRIL

5, 1870LONDON MAY2, 1875LV.LVI.··········-······195197200202203 208211221223 226230236 242250252259 262265271273277279285287292297310 314316332MODTHE.......SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS.I.EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.(At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided over bythe late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his health ina long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as follows:-]F I felt your warm and generous welcome less, Ishould be better able to thank you. If I couldhave listened as you have listened to the glowinglanguage of your distinguished Chairman, and if I couldhave heard as you heard the " thoughts that breathe andwords that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gonehard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word whichfell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy andapprobation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, andleaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to respondas I would do to your cordial greeting-possessing, heavenknows, the will, and desiring only to find the way.450 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 25The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, hasbeen to me very pleasing—a path strewn with flowers andcheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst oldfriends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued.I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in whichyou have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendshipsin actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whosefortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion,and that I had never known them apart from you.It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or ofhis works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, withoutimpropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in whichmine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire,and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmlesscheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to bedespised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons.I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could,in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator hasput in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may befound in the bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keepsteadily through life the motto, expressed in the burningwords of your Northern poet" The rank is but the guinea stamp,The man's the gowd for a' that."And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have strongerassurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this tome memorable night?I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity o. sayinga word in reference to one incident in which I am happy toknow you were interested, and still more happy to know,·1841.though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed-I mean the death of the little heroine. When Ifirst conceived the idea of conducting that simple story toits termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, andnever to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in theschool of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thoughtwhat a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowersfor the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If Ihave put into my book anything which can fill the youngmind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief ofolder hearts; if I have written one word which can affordpleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, Ishall consider it as something achieved-something which Ishall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kepttomy purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion ofthe story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especiallyfrom the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies!The Professor was quite right when he said that I had notreached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and Ifear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were,however, combined with others from the sterner sex, andsome of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and Iam happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation.If I have made a mistake in detaining you with thislittle incident, I do not regret having done so; for yourkindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thankyou, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinctionyou have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for..LITTLE Nell 514-252 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. June 25.and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one whichI shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proudof its remembrance, you must well know. I believe Ishall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while Ihave life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even thevery stones of her streets. And if in the future works whichmay lie before me you should discern—God grant you may!-a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer itback to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passagefor evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energyof a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you witha heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I doassure you.Later in the evening, in proposing the health of ProfessorWilson, Mr. Dickens said:I HAVE the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the verymention of which will recommend itself to you, I know, asone possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy andapprobation, and the proposing of which is as congenial tomy wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours.It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his nameI have to propose the literature of Scotland—a literaturewhich he has done much to render famous through theworld, and of which he has been for many years--as I hopeand believe he will be for many more—a most brilliant anddistinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literatureof the land of Scott and of Burns without having directlyin his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost inthe picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart andsceptred crutch- Christopher North. I am glad to re1841.DAVID WILKIE,member the time when I believed him to be a real, actual,veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eyebut that is no fiction-and the greyest hair in all the world-who wrote not because he cared to write, not because hecared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, butwho wrote because he could not help it, because there wasalways springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling streamof poetry which must have vent, and like the glitteringfountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was everat the full, and never languished even by a single drop orbubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I sawthe Professor two days ago, striding along the ParliamentHouse, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence-Iwas vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to seetwenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottishlife was all light and no shadows, and I began to doubt thatbeautiful book to which I have turned again and again,always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest.53In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie,Mr. Dickens said:LESS fortunate than the two gentlemen who have precededme, it is confided to me to mention a name which cannotbe pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotlandhad a great triumph, and which England delighted to honour.One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were,yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art wasnature-I mean David Wilkie.* He was one who made thecottage hearth a graceful thing-of whom it might truly be

Sir David Wilkie died at sea, on board the Oriental, off Gibraltar, on

the 1st ofJune, 1841, while on his way back to England. During the even ing of the same day his body was committed to the deep.-ED.54 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 25, 1841.said that he found " books in the running brooks," andwho has left in all he did some breathing of the air whichstirs the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on hisgenius as an artist, I would rather speak of him now as afriend who has gone from amongst us. There is his desertedstudio-the empty easel lying idly by the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which deathcannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as thebright sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure asthe blue waves which roll over him. Let us hope that shewho more than all others mourns his loss, may learn, toreflect that he died in the fulness of his fame, before age orsickness had dimmed his powers-and that she may yetassociate with feelings as calm and pleasant as we do nowthe memory of Wilkie.HOSBBJ0Il.JANUARY, 1842 .[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the Britannia, with a service of plateon behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as follows:]APTAIN HEWETT, -I amvery proud and happy tohave been selected as the instrument of conveyingto you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengerson board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreatingyour acceptance of this trifling present. The ingeniousartists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep theirpromises, even in Boston. I regret that, instead of twogoblets, which there should be here, there is, at present, onlyThe deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and,when it is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete.one.You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense ofthe word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, Godbless them, is a sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge uponthe honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presencehere. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigilsupon the ocean for a long time to come.

The Britannia was the vessel that conveyed Mr. Dickens across the

Atlantic, on his first visit to America-- ED.56 CHARLES DICKENS'S January, 1842 SPEECHES,In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea,I hope you will have a thought for those who wish to livein your memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasure of those homes and firesides from which they once wandered, and which, but foryou, they might never have regained, so they trust that youwill sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, when you drink from these cups, youwill feel that the draught is commended to your lips byfriends whose best wishes you have; and who earnestly andtruly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in allthe undertakings of your life.I$3III.FEBRUARY 1, 1842.[At a dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were George Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast of"Health, happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens, " havingbeen proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy, and received with great applause, Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:]ENTLEMEN, -If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone else in the whole wide world—if I were to-night to exult in the triumph of mydearest friend-if I stood here upon my defence, to repel anyunjust attack-to appeal as a stranger to your generosity andkindness as the freest people on the earth-I could, puttingsome restraint upon myself, stand among you as self-possessed and unmoved as I should be alone in my own roomin England. But when I have the echoes of your cordialgreeting ringing in my ears; when I see your kind facesbeaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never man had—I feel, it is my nature, so vanquished and subdued, that Ihave hardly fortitude enough to thank you. If your President, instead of pouring forth that delightful mixture of hu53 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. I,mour and pathos which you have just heard with so muchdelight had been but a caustic, ill-natured man-if he had onlybeen a dull one-if I could only have doubted or distrustedhim or you, I should have had my wits at my fingers' ends, and,using them, could have held you at arm's length. But you havegiven me no such opportunity; you take advantage of meinthe tenderest point; you give me no chance of playing at company, or holding you at a distance, but flock about me like ahost of brothers, and make this place like home. Indeed,gentlemen, indeed, if it be natural and allowable for each ofus, on his own hearth, to express his thoughts in the mosthomely fashion, and to appear in his plainest garb, I havea fair claim upon you to let me do so to-night, for you havemade my house an Aladdin's Palace. You fold so tenderlywithin your breasts that common household lamp in whichmy feeble fire is all enshrined, and at which my flickeringtorch is lighted up, that straight my household gods takewing, and are transported there. And whereas it is writtenof that fairy structure that it never moved without two shocks-one when it rose, and one when it settled down-I cansay of mine that, however sharp a tug it took to pluck itfrom its native ground, it struck at once an easy, and a deep .and lasting root into this soil; and loved it as its own. Ican say more of it, and say with truth, that long before itmoved, or had a chance of moving, its master-perhaps fromsome secret sympathy between its timbers, and a certainstately tree that has its being hereabout, and spreads itsbroad branches far and wide-dreamed by day and night,for years, of setting foot upon this shore, and breathing thispure air. And, trust me, gentlemen, that, if I had wanderedhere, unknowing and unknown, I would-if I know my ownheart-have come with all my sympathies clustering as richlyabout this land and people-with all my sense of justice as1842. VIRTUE AND POVERTY. 59keenly alive to their high claims on every man who lovesGod's image-with all my energies as fully bent on judgingfor myself, and speaking out, and telling in my sphere thetruth, as I do now, when you rain down your welcomes on my head.Your President has alluded to those writings which havebeen my occupation for some years past; and you have reIceived his allusions in a manner which assures me—if Ineeded any such assurance-that we are old friends in thespirit, and have been in close communion for a long time.It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. Idaresay that few persons have been more interested in minethan I, and if it be a general principle in nature that a lover'slove is blind, and that a mother's love is blind, I believe itmay be said of an author's attachment to the creatures ofhis own imagination, that it is a perfect model of constancyand devotion, and is the blindest of all. But the objectsand purposes I have had in view are very plain and simple,and may be easily told. I have always had, and always shallhave, an earnest and true desire to contribute, as far as inme lies, to the common stock of healthful cheerfulness andenjoyment. I have always had, and always shall have, aninvincible repugnance to that mole-eyed philosophy whichloves the darkness, and winks and scowls in the light. Ibelieve that Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches,as she does in purple and fine linen. I believe that sheand every beautiful object in external nature, claim somesympathy in the breast of the poorest man who breaks hisscanty loaf of daily bread. I believe that she goes barefootas well as shod. I believe that she dwells rather oftener inalleys and by-ways than she does in courts and palaces, andthat it is good, and pleasant, and profitable to track her out,and follow her. I believe that to lay one's hand upon some60 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. Feb. 1,of those rejected ones whom the world has too long forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudestand most thoughtless-" These creatures have the same elements and capacities of goodness as yourselves, they aremoulded in the same form, and made of the same clay; andthough ten times worse than you, may, in having retainedanything of their original nature amidst the trials and distresses of their condition, be really ten times better;" Ibelieve that to do this is to pursue a worthy and not uselessvocation. Gentlemen, that you think so too, your ferventgreeting sufficiently assures me. That this feeling is alive inthe Old World as well as in the New, no man should knowbetter than I-I, who have found such wide and ready sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing it, we arebut treading in the steps of those great master-spirits whohave gone before, we know by reference to all the brightexamples in our literature, from Shakespeare downward.There is one other point connected with the labours (if Imay call them so) that you hold in such generous esteem,to which I cannot help adverting. I cannot help expressingthe delight, the more than happiness it was to me to find sostrong an interest awakened on this side of the water, irfavour of that little heroine of mine, to whom your Presidenthas made allusion, who died in her youth. I had lettersabout that child, in England, from the dwellers in log-housesamong the morasses, and swamps, and densest forests, anddeepest solitudes of the Far West. Many a sturdy hand, hardwith the axe and spade, and browned by the summer's sun,has taken up the pen, and written to me a little history ofdomestic joy or sorrow, always coupled, I am proud tosay, with something of interest in that little tale, or somecomfort or happiness derived from it, and my correspondenthas always addressed me, not as a writer of books for sale,1842.61resident some four or five thousand miles away, but as afriend to whom he might freely impart the joys and sorrowsof his own fireside. Many a mother-I could reckon themnow by dozens, not by units-has done the like, and hastold me how she lost such a child at such a time, and whereshe lay buried, and how good she was, and how, in this orthat respect, she resembled Nell. I do assure you that nocircumstance of my life has given me one hundredth part ofthe gratification I have derived from this source.I waswavering at the time whether or not to wind up my Clock, *and come and see this country, and this decided me. I feltas if it were a positive duty, as if I were bound to pack npmy clothes, and come and see my friends; and even now Ihave such an odd sensation in connexion with these things,that you have no chance of spoiling me. I feel as thoughwe were agreeing-as indeed we are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the classes from which they are drawnabout third parties, in whom we had a common interest.At every new act of kindness on your part, I say to myself"That's for Oliver; I should not wonder if that were meantfor Smike; I have no doubt that is intended for Nell;" andso I become a much happier, certainly, but a more soberand retiring man than ever I was before.Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings meback, naturally and of course, to you. Coming back to you,and being thereby reminded of the pleasure we have in storein hearing the gentlemen who sit about me, I arrive by theeasiest, though not by the shortest course in the world, atthe end of what I have to say. But before I sit down, thereis one topic on which I am desirous to lay particular stress.It has, or should have, a strong interest for us all, since toLITTLE NELL.

Master Humphrey's Clock, under which title the two novels of Barnaby

Rudge and The Old Curiosity Shop originally appeared. -ED.62 CHARLES Dickens's SPEECHES, Feb. 1, 1842.its literature every country must look for one great means ofrefining and improving its people, and one great source ofnational pride and honour. You have in America greatwriters-great writers-who will live in all time, and are asfamiliar to our lips as household words. Deriving (as theyall do in a greater or less degree, in their several walks)their inspiration from the stupendous country that gave thembirth, they diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higherlove for it, all over the civilized world. I take leave to say,in the presence of some of those gentleman, that I hope thetime is not far distant when they, in America, will receive ofright some substantial profit and return in England fromtheir labours; and when we, in England, shall receive somesubstantial profit and return in America for ours. Pray donot misunderstand me. Securing to myself from day to daythe means of an honourable subsistence, I would rather havethe affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I would haveheaps and mines of gold. But the two things do not seemto me incompatible. They cannot be, for nothing good isincompatible with justice. There must be an internationalarrangement in this respect: England has done her part, andI am confident that the time is not far distant when Americawill do hers. It becomes the character of a great country;firstly, because it is justice; secondly, because without it younever can have, and keep, a literature of your own.Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such asare not often awakened, and can never be expressed. As Iunderstand it to be the pleasant custom here to finish with atoast, I would beg to give you: AMERICA AND ENGLAND,and may they never have any division but the Atlanticbetween them.1OpasseIV.FEBRUARY 7, 1842.[ ENTLEMEN, -To say that I thank you for theearnest manner in which you have drunk the toastjust now so eloquently proposed to you-to say thatI give you back your kind wishes and good feelings withmore than compound interest; and that I feel how dumband powerless the best acknowledgments would be besidesuch genial hospitality as yours, is nothing. To say that inthis winter season, flowers have sprung up in every footstep'slength ofthe path which has brought me here; that no countryever smiled more pleasantly than yours has smiled on me,and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which lies before me now, * is nothing.But it is something to be no stranger in a strange placeto feel, sitting at a board for the first time, the ease and affection of an old guest, and to be at once on such intimateterms with the family as to have a homely, genuine interestin its every member-it is, I say, something to be in this

"I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection of

Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there, whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no little regret. "—Ameri•can Notes (Lond . 1842) . Vol. 1 , p. 162.}64 CHARLES dickens's speeches.Feb. 7.novel and happy frame of mind. And, as it is of yourcreation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance inurging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I should not somuch consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I shouldemploy that universal language of the heart, which you, andsuch as you, best teach, aud best can understand. Gentlemen, in that universal language-common to you in America,and to us in England, as that younger mother- tongue, which,by the means of, and through the happy union of our twogreat countries, shall be spoken ages hence, by land and sea,over the wide surface of the globe--I thank you.I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I havemore than once had occasion to remark before, that it is noteasy for an author to speak of his own books. If the taskbe a difficult one at any time, its difficulty, certainly, is notdiminished when a frequent recurrence to the same themehas left one nothing new to say. Still, I feel that, in a company like this, and especially after what has been said by thePresident, that I ought not to pass lightly over those laboursof love, which, if they had no other merit, have been thehappy means of bringing us together.It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of anauthor's personal character from his writings. It maybe thatyou cannot. I think it very likely, for many reasons, thatyou cannot. But, at least, a reader will rise from the pe rusal of a book with some defined and tangible idea of thewriter's moral creed and broad purposes, if he has any at all;and it is probable enough that he may like to have this ideaconfirmed from the author's lips, or dissipated by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed-which is a verywide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects andparties-is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wishto diffuse faith in the existence-yes, of beautiful things, even1842. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.in those conditions of society, which are so degenerate,degraded, and forlorn, that, at first sight, it would seem asthough they could not be described but by a strange andterrible reversal of the words of Scripture, " God said, Letthere be light, and there was none." I take it that we areborn, and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and energies,in trust for the many, and not for the few. That we cannothold in too strong a light of disgust and contempt, beforethe view of others, all meanness, falsehood, cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, that nothingis high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing islow, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson taughtus in the great book of nature. This is the lesson whichmay be read, alike in the bright track of the stars, and in thedusty course of the poorest thing that drags its tiny lengthupon the ground. This is the lesson ever uppermost in thethoughts ofthat inspired man, who tells us that there are' Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything. "6665Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I amat no loss to refer your favour and your generous hospitalityback to the right source. While I know, on the one hand,that if, instead of being what it is, this were a land of tyrannyand wrong, I should care very little for your smiles or frowns,so I am sure upon the other, that if, instead of being what Iam, I were the greatest genius that ever trod the earth, andhad diverted myself for the oppression and degradation ofmankind, you would despise and reject me. I hope you will,whenever, through such means, I give you the opportunity.Trust me, that, whenever you give me the like occasion, Iwill return the compliment with interest.Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of566 CHARLES DICKENSS Speeches. Feb. 7'confidence you have engendered between us, and as I havemade a kind of compact with myself that I never will, whileI remain in America, omit an opportunity of referring to atopic in which I and all others of my class on both sides ofthe water are equally interested-equally interested, there isno difference between us, I would beg leave to whisper inyour ear two words: International Copyright. I use themin no sordid sense, believe me, and those who know me best,best know that. For myself, I would rather that my children, coming after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by thegeneral feeling of society that their father was beloved, andhad been of some use, than I would have them ride in theircarriages, and know by their banker's books that he wasrich. But I do not see, I confess, why one should be obligedto make the choice, or why fame, besides playing that delightful reveil for which she is so justly celebrated, shouldnot blow out of her trumpet a few notes of a different kindfrom those with which she has hitherto contented herself.It was well observed the other night by abeautiful speaker,whose words went to the heart of every man who heard him,that, if there had existed any law in this respect, Scott mightnot have sunk beneath the mighty pressure on his brain, butmight have lived to add new creatures of his fancy to thecrowd which swarm about you in your summer walks, andgather round your winter evening hearths.As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh uponme, that touching scene in the great man's life, when helay upon his couch, surrounded by his family, and listened,for the last time, to the rippling of the river he had so wellloved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, faint,wan, dying, crushed both in mind and body by his honourable struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of hisown imagination-Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans,1843.67Rob Koy, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson-all thefamiliar throng-with cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highlandchiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fadingaway in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them, freshfrom traversing the world, and hanging down their heads inshame and sorrow, that, from all those lands into which theyhad carried gladness, instruction, and delight for millions,they brought him not one friendly hand to help to raise himfrom that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him from thatland in which his own language was spoken, and in everyhouse and hut of which his own books were read in his owntongue, one grateful dollar-piece to buy a garland for hisgrave. Oh! if every man who goes from here, as many do,to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and bring the recollection home!SIR WALTER SCOTT.Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and manytimes to that. You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already one of mark in my calendar,it being my birthday; and you have given those who arenearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollecting itwith pride and interest. Heaven knows that, although Ishould grow ever so gray, I shall need nothing to remind meof this epoch in my life. But I am glad to think that fromthis time you are inseparably connected with every recurrence of this day; and, that on its periodical return, I shallalways, in imagination, have the unfading pleasure of entertaining you as my guests, in return for the gratification youhave afforded me to-night.$350V.NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842 .At a dinner presided over by Washington Irving, when nearly eighthundred of the most distinguished citizens of New York were present,"Charles Dickens, the Literary Guest of the Nation, " having been proferred as a sentiment " by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens rose, and spoke as follows:]ENTLEMEN, -I don't know how to thank you-Ireally don't know how. You would naturally suppose that my former experience would have givenme this power, and that the difficulties in my way wouldhave been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactlythe reverse, and I have completely baulked the ancientproverb that " a rolling stone gathers no moss;" and in myprogress to this city I have collected such a weight of obligations and acknowledgment-I have picked up such anenormous mass of fresh moss at every point, and was sostruck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that Ithought I could never by any possibility grow any bigger. Ihave made, continually, new accumulations to such an extent that I am compelled to stand still, and can roll nomore!Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, whenfairy stones, or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of theirFeb. 18, 1842.69own accord as I do not-it presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent holds good in thiscase. When I have remembered the short time I have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and thepoor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of, and forming an acquaintance with it, I have felt italmost a duty to decline the honours you so generously heapupon me, and pass more quietly among you. For Argushimself, though he had but one mouth for his hundred eyes,would have found the reception of a public entertainmentonce a-week too much for his greatest activity; and, as Iwould lose no scrap of the rich instruction and the delightfulknowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already Ihave gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and commonjails), I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my wayrejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with America,not at parties but at home; and, therefore, gentlemen, I sayto-night, with a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, and shall ever bear, a deep sense ofyour kind, your affectionate and your noble greeting, which itis utterly impossible to convey in words. No European skywithout, and no cheerful home or well-warmed room withinshall ever shut out this land from my vision. I shall oftenhear your words of welcome in my quiet room, and oftenestwhen most quiet; and shall see your faces in the blazingfire. If I should live to grow old, the scenes of this andother evenings will shine as brightly to my dull eyes fiftyyears hence as now; and the honours you bestow upon meshall be well remembered and paid back in my undyinglove, and honest endeavours for the good of my race.Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this firstperson singular, and then I shall close. I came here in anopen, honest, and confiding spirit, if ever man did. and be-COPYRIGHT.CHARLES DICKENS'S speeches. Feb. 18,cause I felt a deep sympathy in your land; had I felt otherwise, I should have kept away. As I came here, and amhere, without the least admixture of one-hundredth part ofone grain of base alloy, without one feeling of unworthyreference to self in any respect, I claim, in regard to the past,for the last time, my right in reason, in truth, and in justice,to approach, as I have done on two former occasions, aquestion of literary interest. I claim that justice be done;and I prefer this claim as one who has a right to speak andbe heard. I have only to add that I shall be as true to youas you have been to me. I recognize in your enthusiasticapproval of the creatures of my fancy, your enlightened carefor the happiness of the many, your tender regard for theafflicted, your sympathy for the downcast, your plans forcorrecting and improving the bad, and for encouraging thegood; and to advance these great objects shall be, to theend of my life, my earnest endeavour, to the extent of myhumble ability. Having said thus much with reference tomyself, I shall have the pleasure of saying a few words withreference to somebody else.70 1There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception ofone of my books-I well remember it was the Old CuriosityShop-wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I had written the bookunder every circumstance of disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should havefound in the receipt of that letter my best and most happyreward. I answered him, * and he answered me, and so we

See the Life and Letters of Washington Irving (Lond. 1863), p. 644,

where Irving speaks of a letter he has received " from that glorious fellowDickens, in reply to the one I wrote, expressing my heartfelt delight with hiwritings, and my yearnings toward himself." -ED.1842. WASHINGTON IRVING.kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolledbetween us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and[laying his hand upon Irving's shoulder] here he sits! I neednot tell you how happy and delighted I am to see him hereto-night in this capacity.Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don't go up stairs to bed two nights out of the seven-as a very creditable witness near at hand can testify-I say I do not go tobed two nights out of the seven without taking WashingtonIrving under my arm; and, when I don't take him, I takehis own brother, Oliver Goldsmith. Washington Irving!Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day whenI came up by the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate,and all these places? Why, when, not long ago, I visitedShakespeare's birthplace, and went beneath the roof wherehe first saw light, whose name but his was pointed out tome uponthe wall? Washington Irving-Diedrich Knickerbocker-Geoffrey Crayon-why, where can you go thatthey have not been there before? Is there an English farm-is there an English stream, an English city, or an Englishcountry- seat, where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? Has it no ancient shades orquiet streets?71In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar'sHead, a little man with a red nose, and an oilskin hat.When I came away he was sitting there still!—not a manlike him, but the same man-with the nose of immortalredness and the hat of an undying glaze! Crayon, whilethere, was on terms of intimacy with a certain radical fellow,who used to go about, with a hatful of newspapers,fully out at elbows, and with a coat of great antiquity. Why,gentlemen, I know that man-Tibbles the elder, and he hasWOCHARLES DICKENS'S speeches. Feb. 18,72not changed a hair; and, when I came away, he chargedme to give his best respects to Washington Irving!Leaving the town and the rustic life of England-forgetting this man, if we can-putting out of mind the countrychurch-yard and the broken heart-let us cross the wateragain, and ask who has associated himself most closely withthe Italian peasantry and the bandits of the Pyrenees?When the traveller enters his little chamber beyond theAlps-listening to the dim echoes of the long passages andspacious corridors-damp, and gloomy, and cold-as hehears the tempest beating with fury against his window, andgazes at the curtains, dark, and heavy, and covered withmould and when all the ghost-stories that ever were toldcome up before him-amid all his thick-coming fancies,whom does he think of? Washington Irving.Go farther still: go to the Moorish fountains, sparklingfull in the moonlight-go among the water-carriers and thevillage gossips, living still as in days of old—and who hastravelled among them before you, and peopled the Alhambraand made eloquent its shadows? Who awakes there avoice from every hill and in every cavern, and bids legends,which for centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or watchedunwinkingly, start up and pass before you in all their lifeand glory?But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbusupon his gallant ship, traversed with him the dark andmighty ocean, leaped uponthe land and planted there the flagof Spain, but this same man, now sitting by my side? Andbeing here at home again, who is a more fit companion formoney-diggers? and what pen but his has made Rip VanWinkle, playing at nine-pins on that thundering afternoon,as much part and parcel of the Catskill Mountains as anytree or crag that they can boast?1842.WASHINGTON IRVING.73But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and whichI am apt to pursue; and lest I should be tempted now totalk too long about them, I will, in conclusion, give you asentiment, most appropriate, I am sure, in the presence ofsuch writers as Bryant, Halleck, and—but I suppose I mustnot mention the ladies hereTHE LITERATURE OF AMERICA:She well knows how to do honour to her own literature andto that of other lands, when she chooses Washington Irvingfor her representative in the country of CervantesSVI.MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5 , 1843.[This address was delivered at a soirée of the members of the Manchester Athenæum, at which Mr. Dickens presided. Among the other speakerson the occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-I am sure I needscarcely tell you that I am very proud and happy;and that I take it as a great distinction to be askedto come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when, evenwith the brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see beforeme, I can hail it as the most brilliant and beautiful circumstance of all, that we assemble together here, even here,upon neutral ground, where we have no more knowledge ofparty difficulties, or public animosities between side and side,or between man and man, than if we were a public meetingin the commonwealth of Utopia.Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundredother grounds, this assembly is not less interesting to me,believe me—although, personally, almost a stranger here—than it is interesting to you; and I take it, that it is not ofgreater importance to all of us than it is to every man whoOct. 5, 1843. THE MANCHESTER ATHENÆUM. 75has learned to know that he has an interest in the moral andsocial elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, happiness, and improvement, of the community at large. Noteven those who saw the first foundation of your Athenæumlaid , and watched its progress, as I know they did, almost astenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature, untilit reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town-not eventhey, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I ampersuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that itmay thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who—whether consciously or unconsciously, mattersnot--have, in the principle of its success and bright example,a deep and personal concern.It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town, this little world of labour, that she should standout foremost in the foremost rank in such a cause. It wellbecomes her, that, among her numerous and noble publicinstitutions, she should have a splendid temple sacred to theeducation and improvement of a large class of those who,in their various useful stations, assist in the production of ourwealth, and in rendering her name famous through the world.I think it is grand to know, that, while her factories re- echowith the clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl andrattle of machinery, the immortal mechanism of God's ownhand, the mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, butis lodged and tended in a palace of its own. That it is astructure deeply fixed and rooted in the public spirit of thisplace, and built to last, I have no more doubt, judging fromthe spectacle I see before me, and from what I know of itsbrief history, than I have of the reality of these walls thathem us in, and the pillars that spring up about us.You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the76 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Oct. 5.Athenæum was projected at a time when commerce was ina vigorous and flourishing condition, and when those classesof society to which it particularly addresses itself were fullyemployed, and in the receipt of regular incomes. A seasonof depression almost without a parallel ensued, and largenumbers of young men employed in warehouses and officessuddenly found their occupation gone, and themselves reduced to very straitened and penurious circumstances. Thisaltered state of things led, as I am told, to the compulsorywithdrawal of many of the members, to a proportionate decrease in the expected funds, and to the incurrence of a debtof £3,000. By the very great zeal and energy of all concerned, and by the liberality of those to whom they appliedfor help, that debt is now in rapid course of being discharged.A little more of the same indefatigable exertion on the onehand, and a little more of the same community of feelingupon the other, and there will be no such thing; the figureswill be blotted out for good and all, and, from that time, theAthenæum may be said to belong to you, and to your heirsfor ever.But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its mostthriving, and in its least flourishing condition- here, with itscheerful rooms, its pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library of 6,000 volumes, its classes for the study ofthe foreign languages, elocution, music; its opportunities ofdiscussion and debate, of healthful bodily exercise, and,though last not least-for by this I set great store, as a verynovel and excellent provision-its opportunities of blameless,rational enjoyment, here it is, open to every youth and manin this great town, accessible to every bee in this vast hive,who, for all these benefits, and the inestimable ends to whichthey lead, can set aside one sixpence weekly. I do lookupon the reduction ofthe subscription, and upon the fact thatA LITTLE LEARNING. 1843.the number of members has considerably more than doubledwithin the last twelve months, as strides in the path of thevery best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in thehistory of mankind.I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with sucha prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves very muchtorake up the ashes of the dead-and-gone objections that werewont to be urged by men of all parties against institutionssuch as this, whose interests we are met to promote; buttheir philosophy was always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short sentence. How often havewe heard from a large class of men wise in their generation,who would really seem to be born and bred for no otherpurpose than to pass into currency counterfeit and mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of someother criminals to utter base coin-howoften have we heardfrom them, as an all-convincing argument, that "a littlelearning is a dangerous thing?" Why, a little hanging wasconsidered a very dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, with this difference, that, because a little hanging wasdangerous, we had a great deal of it; and, because a littlelearning was dangerous, we were to have none at all. Why,when I hear such cruel absurdities gravely reiterated, I dosometimes begin to doubt whether the parrots of society arenot more pernicious to its interests than its birds of prey. Ishould be glad to hear such people's estimate of the comparative danger of " a little learning" and a vast amount ofignorance; I should be glad to know which they considerthe most prolific parent of misery and crime. Descendinga little lower in the social scale, I should be glad to assistthem in their calculations, by carrying them into certain gaolsand nightly refuges I know of, where my own heart dieswithin me, when I see thousands of immortal creatures con"78 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Oct. 5,demned, without alternative or choice, to tread, not whatour great poet calls the " primrose path" to the everlastingbonfire, but one of jagged flints and stones, laid down bybrutal ignorance, and held together, like the solid rocks, byyears ofthis most wicked axiom.Would we know from any honourable body of merchants,upright in deed and thought, whether they would ratherhave ignorant or enlightened persons in their own employment? Why, we have had their answer in this building;we have it in this company; we have it emphatically givenin the munificent generosity of your own merchants ofManchester, of all sects and kinds, when this establishmentwas first proposed. But are the advantages derivable bythe people from institutions such as this, only of a negativecharacter? If a little learning be an innocent thing, has itno distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon themind? The old doggerel rhyme, so often written in thebeginning of books, says that"When house and lands are gone and spent,Then learning is most excellent; "but I should be strongly disposed to reform the adage, andsay that"Though house and lands be never got,Learning can give what they cannot."And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earnedby every man who makes an effort to improve himself insuch a place as the Athenæum, is self-respect—an inwarddignity of character, which, once acquired and righteouslymaintained, nothing-no, not the hardest drudgery, nor thedirest poverty-can vanquish. Though he should find ithard for a season even to keep the wolf-hunger—from hisdoor, let him but once have chased the dragon -ignorance1843.BENEFITS OF CULTURE. 79-from his hearth, and self-respect and hope are left him.You could no more deprive him of those sustaining qualities by loss or destruction of his worldly goods, than youcould, by plucking out his eyes, take from him an internalconsciousness of the bright glory of the sun.The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercisein his sphere of hands or head, and seeks to improve himself in such a place as the Athenæum, acquires for himselfthat property of soul which has in all times upheld struggling men of every degree, but self-made men especially andalways. He secures to himself that faithful companionwhich, while it has ever lent the light of its countenance tomen of rank and eminence who have deserved it, has evershed its brightest consolations on men of low estate andalmost hopeless means. It took its patient seat beside SirWalter Raleigh in his dungeon-study in the Tower; it laidits head upon the block with More; but it did not disdainto watch the stars with Ferguson, the shepherd's boy; itwalked the streets in mean attire with Crabbe; it was a poorbarber here in Lancashire with Arkwright; it was a tallowchandler's son with Franklin; it worked at shoemakingwith Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the plough withBurns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, itwhispers courage even at this day in ears I could name inSheffield and in Manchester.The more the man who improves his leisure in such aplace learns, the better, gentler, kinder man he must become.When he knows how much great minds have suffered forthe truth in every age and time, and to what dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will become moretolerant of other men's belief in all matters, and will inclinemore leniently to their sentiments when they chance to differfrom his own. Understanding that the relations between80 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Oct. 5.himself and his employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility, he will discharge his part of the implied contract cheerfully, satisfactorily, and honourably; for the history of every useful life warns him to shape his course inthat direction.The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of aselfish kind, but extend themselves to his home, and to thosewhom it contains. Something of what he hears or reads.within such walls can scarcely fail to become at times atopic of discourse by his own fireside, nor can it ever failto lead to larger sympathies with man, and to a higherveneration for the great Creator of all the wonders of thisuniverse. It appeals to his home and his homely feeling inother ways; for at certain times he carries there his wife anddaughter, or his sister, or, possibly, some bright-eyed acquaintance of a more tender description. Judging fromwhat I see before me, I think it is very likely; I am sure Iwould if I could. He takes her there to enjoy a pleasantevening, to be gay and happy. Sometimes it may possiblyhappen that he dates his tenderness from the Athenæum.I think that is a very excellent thing, too, and not the leastamong the advantages of the institution. In any case, I amsure the number of bright eyes and beaming faces whichgrace this meeting to-night by their presence, will never beamong the least of its excellences in my recollection.Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene,the pleasing task your favour has devolved upon me, or thestrong and inspiring confirmation I have to-night, of all thehopes and reliances I have ever placed upon institutions ofthis nature. In the latter point of view-in their bearingupon this latter point-I regard them as of great importance, deeming that the more intelligent and reflective society in the mass becomes, and the more readers there are,1843.FULSOME DEDICATIONS.the more distinctly writers of all kinds will be able to throwthemselves upon the truthful feeling of the people, and themore honoured and the more useful literature must be. Atthe same time, I must confess that, if there had been anAthenæum, and if the people had been readers, years ago,some leaves of dedication in your library, of praise ofpatrons which was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold,and very marketably haggled for by the groat, would beblank leaves, and posterity might probably have lacked theinformation that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and wider scale, let mesay it once again—it is in the effect of such institutionsupon the great social system, and the peace and happinessof mankind, that I delight to contemplate them; and, inmy heart, I am quite certain that long after your institution,and others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, thenoble harvest of the seed sown in them will shine outbrightly in the wisdom, the mercy, and the forbearance ofanother race.8F4VII.LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844.[The following address was delivered at a soirée of the Liverpool Mechanics'Institution, at which Mr. Dickens presided. ]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-It was rather hardofyou to take away my breath before I spoke a word;but I would not thank you, even if I could, for thefavour which has set me in this place, or for the generouskindness which has greeted me so warmly, -because my firststrong impulse still would be, although I had that power, tolose sight of all personal considerations in the high intentand meaning of this numerous assemblage, in the contemplation of the noble objects to which this building is devoted,of its brilliant and inspiring history, of that rough, upwardtrack, so bravely trodden, which it leaves behind, and thatbright path of steadily-increasing usefulness which lies.stretched out before it. My first strong impulse still wouldbe to exchange congratulations with you, as the members ofone united family, on the thriving vigour of this strongestchild of a strong race. My first strong impulse still wouldbe, though everybody here had twice as many hundreds ofFeb. 26, 1844. LIVERPOOL INSTITUTION.hands as there are hundreds of persons present, to shakethem in the spirit, everyone, always, allow me to say, excepting those hands (and there are a few such here), which,with the constitutional infirmity of human nature, I wouldrather salute in some more tender fashion,When I first had the honour of communicating with yourCommittee with reference to this celebration, I had someselfish hopes that the visit proposed to me might turn out tobe one of congratulation, or, at least, of solicitous inquiry;for they who receive a visitor in any season of distress areeasily touched and moved by what he says, and I entertainedsome confident expectation of making a mighty strong impression on you. But, when I came to look over the printeddocuments which were forwarded to me at the same time,and with which you are all tolerably familiar, these anticipations very speedily vanished, and left me bereft of all consolation, but the triumphant feeling to which I have referred.For what do I find, on looking over those brief chronicles ofthis swift conquest over ignorance and prejudice, in whichno blood has been poured out, and no treaty signed but thatone sacred compact which recognises the just right of everyman, whatever his belief, or however humble his degree, toaspire, and to have some means of aspiring, to be a betterand a wiser man? I find that, in 1825, certain misguidedand turbulent persons proposed to erect in Liverpool an unpopular, dangerous, irreligious, and revolutionary establishment, called a Mechanics' Institution; that, in 1835, Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on pretty comfortablyin the meantime, in spite of it, the first stone of a new andspacious edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; that,it was afterwards, at different periods, considerably enlarged;that, in 1844, conspicuous amongst the public beauties of abeautiful town, here it stands triumphant, its enemies lived836- 284CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.down, its former students attesting, in their various usefulcallings and pursuits, the sound, practical information it afforded them; its members numbering considerably more thar3,000, and setting in rapidly for 6,000 at least; its librarycomprehending 11,000 volumes, and daily sending forth itshundreds of books into private homes; its staff of mastersand officers, amounting to half- a- hundred in themselves; itsschools, conveying every sort of instruction, high and low,adapted to the labour, means, exigencies, and convenienceof nearly every class and grade of persons. I was here thismorning, and in its spacious halls I found stores of thewonders worked by nature in the air, in the forest, in thecavern, and in the sea-stores of the surpassing enginesdevised by science for the better knowledge of other worlds,and the greater happiness of this-stores of those gentlerworks of art, which, though achieved in perishable stone, byyet more perishable hands of dust, are in their influenceimmortal. With such means at their command, so welldirected, so cheaply shared, and so extensively diffused,well may your Committee say, as they have done in one oftheir Reports, that the success of this establishment has farexceeded their most sanguine expectations.But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whosewords they quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the wonderful effects of little things and small beginnings, that the influence of the loadstone was first discovered in particles ofiron, and not in iron bars, so they may lay it to their hearts,that when they combined together to form the institutionwhich has risen to this majestic height, they issued on afield of enterprise, the glorious end of which they cannoteven now discern. Every man who has felt the advantagesof, or has received improvement in this place, carries itsbenefits into the society in which he moves, and puts them1844. MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS. 85out at compound interest; and what the blessed sum maybe at last, no man can tell. Ladies and gentlemen, withthat Christian prelate whose name appears on your list ofhonorary Members; that good and liberal man who onceaddressed you within these walls, in a spirit worthy of hiscalling, and of his High Master-I look forward from thisplace, as from a tower, to the time when high and low, andrich and poor, shall mutually assist, improve, and educateeach other.I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, withits 3,200 members, and at least 3,200 arguments in everyone, to enter on any advocacy of the principle of Mechanics'Institutions, or to discuss the subject with those who do orever did object to them. I should as soon think of arguingthe point with those untutored savages whose mode of lifeyou last year had the opportunity of witnessing; indeed, Iam strongly inclined to believe them by far the more rationalclass of the two. Moreover, if the institution itself be nota sufficient answer to all such objections, then there is nosuch thing in fact or reason, human or divine. Neither willI venture to enter into those details of the management ofthis place which struck me most on the perusal of its papers;but I cannot help saying how much impressed and gratifiedI was, as everybody must be who comes to their perusal forthe first time, by the extraordinary munificence with whichthis institution has been endowed by certain gentlemen.Amongst the peculiar features of management whichmade the greatest impression on me, I may observe thatthat regulation which empowers fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, to introduce their sons who areminors; and masters, on payment of the astoundingly smallsum of five shillings annually, in like manner their apprentices, is not the least valuable of its privileges; and, cer86 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 26,tainly not the one least valuable to society. And, ladiesand gentlemen, I cannot say to you what pleasure I derivedfrom the perusal of an apparently excellent report in yourlocal papers of a meeting held here, some short time since,in aid of the formation of a girls' school in connexion withthis institution. This is a new and striking chapter in thehistory of these institutions; it does equal credit to the gallantry and policy of this, and disposes one to say of it witha slight parody on the words of Burns, that"Its ' prentice han' it tried on man,And then it taught the lasses, O."That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessonsare oftenest heeded in after life, should be well taught themselves, is a proposition few reasonable men will gainsay;and, certainly, to breed up good husbands on the one hand,and good wives on the other, does appear as reasonable andstraightforward a plan as could well be devised for the improvement ofthe next generation.This, and what I see before me, naturally brings meto ourfairer members, in respect of whom I have no doubt you willagree with me, that they ought to be admitted to the widestpossible extent, and on the lowest possible terms; and,ladies, let me venture to say to you, that you never dida wiser thing in all your lives than when you turned yourfavourable regard on such an establishment as this -forwherever the light of knowledge is diffused, wherever thehumanizing influence of the arts and sciences extends itself,wherever there is the clearest perception of what is beautiful,and good, and most redeeming, amid all the faults and vicesof mankind, there your character, your virtues, your graces,your better nature, will be the best appreciated, and therehe truest homage will be proudly paid to you. You show1844.THE HIGHEST NOBILITY.£7best, trust me, in the clearest light; and every ray that fallsupon you at your own firesides, from any book or thoughtcommunicated within these walls, will raise you nearer tothe angels in the eyes you care for most.I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen,between you and the pleasure we all anticipate in hearingother gentlemen, and in enjoying those social pleasures withwhich it is a main part of the wisdom of this society to adornand relieve its graver pursuits. We all feel, I am sure, beinghere, that we are truly interested in the cause of human improvement and rational education, and that we pledge ourselves, everyone as far as in him lies, to extend the knowledge of the benefits afforded in this place, and to bearhonest witness in its favour. To those who yet remainwithout its walls, but have the means of purchasing itsadvantages, we make appeal, and in a friendly and forbearing spirit say, Come in, and be convinced— 66'Who enters here, leaves doubt behind. " "If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and aresuperior to its advantages, so much the more should youmake one in sympathy with those who are below you.Beneath this roof we breed the men who, in the time tocome, must be found working for good or evil, in everyquarter of society. If mutual respect and forbearanceamong various classes be not found here, where so manymen are trained up in so many grades, to enter on so manyroads of life , dating their entry from one common startingpoint, as they are all approaching, by various paths, onecommon end, where else can that great lesson be imbibed?Differences of wealth, of rank, of intellect, we know theremust be, and we respect them; but we would give to all themeans of taking out one patent of nobility, and we define it,88 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 26, 1844in the words of a great living poet, who is one of us, andwho uses his great gifts, as he holds them in trust, for thegeneral welfare" Howe'er it be, it seems to me'Tis only noble to be good:True hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood. "TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, then newly published in the collection of 1842.-ED.10:335-0%VIII.BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844.[The following speech was delivered at a Conversazione, in aid of thefunds of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution, at which Mr Dickens presided .]JOU will think it very unwise, or very self-denying inme, in such an assembly, in such a splendid scene,and after such a welcome, to congratulate myself onhaving nothing new to say to you: but I do so, notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I had thehonour of attending at Manchester, shortly before Christmas,and at Liverpool, only the night before last, for a purposesimilar to that which brings you together this evening; andlooking down a short perspective of similar engagements, Ifeel gratification at the thought that I shall very soon havenothing at all to say; in which case, I shall be content tostake my reputation, like the Spectator of Addison, and thatother great periodical speaker, the Speaker of the House ofCommons, on my powers of listening.This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with,are not the only reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial, andpeculiar interest in this night's proceedings. The Polytechnic Institution of Birmingham is in its infancy-strug.90 105CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.Feb.28,gling into life under all those adverse and disadvantageouscircumstances which, to a greater or less extent, naturallybeset all infancy; but I would much rather connect myselfwith it now, however humble, in its days of difficulty and ofdanger, than look back on its origin when it may have become strong, and rich, and powerful. I should prefer anintimate association with it now, in its early days and apparent struggles, to becoming its advocate and acquaintance,its fair-weather friend, in its high and palmy days. I wouldrather be able to say I knew it in its swaddling-clothes, thanin maturer age. Its two elder brothers have grown old anddied their chests were weak-about their cradles nursesshook their heads, and gossips groaned; but the presentinstitution shot up, amidst the ruin of those which havefallen, with an indomitable constitution, with vigorous andwith steady pulse; temperate, wise, and of good repute;and by perseverance it has become a very giant. Birminghamis, in my mind and in the minds of most men, associatedwith many giants; and I no more believe that this younginstitution will turn out sickly, dwarfish, or of stunted growth,than I do that when the glass-slipper of my chairmanshipshall fall off, and the clock strike twelve to-night, this hallwill be turned into a pumpkin. I found that strong beliefupon the splendid array of grace and beauty by which I amsurrounded, and which, if it only had one-hundredth part of the effect upon others it has upon me, could do anything itpleased with anything and anybody. I found my strongconviction, in the second place, upon the public spirit ofthe town of Birmingham-upon the name and fame of itscapitalists and working men; upon the greatness and importance of its merchants and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are constantly in progress; upon the skilland intelligence of its artisans, which are daily developed;1244and the increasing knowledge of all portions of the community. All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that yourinstitution will advance-that it will and must progress, andthat you will not be content with lingering leagues behind.I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with the object of this assembly; and it is, that theresolutions about to be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian or class nature; that they donot confine themselves to any one single institution, butassert the great and omnipotent principles of comprehensiveeducation everywhere and under every circumstance. I begleave to say that I concur, heart and hand, in those principles, and will do all in my power for their advancement;for I hold, in accordance with the imperfect knowledgewhich I possess, that it is impossible for any fabric of societyto go on day after day, and year after year, from father toson, and from grandfather to grandson, punishing men fornot engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice ofcrime, without showing them what virtue is, and where it best can be found-in justice, religion, and truth. Theonly reason that can possibly be adduced against it is onefounded on fiction-namely, the case where an obdurate oldgeni, in the " Arabian Nights," was bound upon taking thelife of a merchant, because he had struck out the eye ofhis invisible son. I recollect, likewise, a tale in the samebook of charming fancies, which I consider not inappropriate: it is a case where a powerful spirit has been imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, in a casket with a leadencover, and the seal of Solomon upon it; there he had lainneglected for many centuries, and during that period hadmade many different vows: at first, that he would rewardmagnificently those who should release him; and at last,that he would destroy them. Now, there is a spirit of greatBIRMINGHAM.9202 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 28,power-the Spirit of Ignorance—which is shut up in a vesselof leaden composition, and sealed with the seal of many,many Solomons, and which is effectually in the same position: release it in time, and it will bless, restore, and reanimate society; but let it lie under the rolling waves of years,and its blind revenge is sure to lead to certain destruction.That there are classes which, if rightly treated, constitutestrength, and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it impossible todeny-by these classes I mean industrious, intelligent, andhonourably independent men, in whom the higher classes ofBirmingham are especially interested, and bound to affordthem the means of instruction and improvement, and toameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be itfrom me (and I wish to be most particularly understood) toattempt to depreciate the excellent Church InstructionSocieties, or the worthy, sincere, and temperate zeal`ofthose reverend gentlemen by whom they are usually conducted; on the contrary, I believe that they have done, andare doing, much good, and are deserving of high praise;but I hope that, without offence, in a community such asBirmingham, there are other objects not unworthy in thesight of heaven, and objects of recognised utility which areworthy of support-principles which are practised in wordand deed in Polytechnic Institutions-principles for the diffusion of which honest men of all degrees and of every creedmight associate together, on an independent footing and onneutral ground, and at a small expense, for the better understanding and the greater consideration of each other, andfor the better cultivation of the happiness of all: for it surelycannot be allowed that those who labour day by day, surrounded bymachinery, shall be permitted to degenerate intomachines themselves, but, on the contrary, they should asserttheir common origin from their Creator, at the hands of1844. IGNORANCE. 93those who are responsible and thinking men. There is, indeed, no difference in the main with respect to the dangersof ignorance and the advantages of knowledge betweenthose who hold different opinions-for it is to be observed,that those who are most distrustful of the advantages ofeducation, are always the first to exclaim against the resultsof ignorance. This fact was pleasantly illustrated on therailway, as I came here. In the same carriage with methere sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in alludingto him, for I know that he is not in the room, having gotout far short of Birmingham), who expressed himself mostmournfully as to the ruinous effects and rapid spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the virtues of the slowgoing old stage coaches. Now I, entertaining some littlelingering kindness for the road, made shift to express myconcurrence with the old gentleman's opinion, withoutany great compromise of principle. Well, we got on tolerably comfortably together, and when the engine, with afrightful screech, dived into some dark abyss, like somestrange aquatic monster, the old gentleman said it wouldnever do, and I agreed with him. When it parted fromeach successive station , with a shock and a shriek as if ithad had a double-tooth drawn, the old gentleman shook hishead, and I shook mine. When he burst forth against suchnew-fangled notions, and said no good could come of them,I did not contest the point. But I found that when thespeed of the engine was abated, or there was a prolongedstay at any station, up the old gentleman was at arms, andhis watch was instantly out of his pocket, denouncing theslowness of our progress. Now I could not help comparingthis old gentleman to that ingenious class of persons whoare in the constant habit of declaiming against the vices andcrimes of society, and at the same time are the first andCHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 28,1foremost to assert that vice and crime have not their common origin in ignorance and discontent.The good work, however, in spite of all political andparty differences, has been well begun; we are all interestedin it; it is advancing, and cannot be stopped by any opposition, although it may be retarded in this place or in that,by the indifference of the middle classes, with whom its successful progress chiefly rests. Of this success I cannotentertain a doubt; for whenever the working classes haveenjoyed an opportunity of effectually rebutting accusationswhich falsehood or thoughtlessness have brought againstthem, they always avail themselves of it, and show themselves in their true characters; and it was this which madethe damage done to a single picture in the National Galleryof London, by some poor lunatic or cripple, a mere matterof newspaper notoriety and wonder for some few days.This, then, establishes a fact evident to the meanest comprehension—that any given number of thousands of individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this country, can passthrough the national galleries or museums in seasons ofholiday-making, without damaging, in the slightest degree,those choice and valuable collections. I do not myself believe that the working classes ever were the wanton or mischievous persons they were so often and so long representedto be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some mentake it into their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact,without being particular about the premises; and that theidle and the prejudiced, not wishing to have the trouble offorming opinions for themselves, take it for granted—untilthe people have an opportunity of disproving the stigma andvindicating themselves before the world.Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurredrespecting an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with9411844.respect to which a legend existed that the sculptor hangedhimself, because he had neglected to put a girth to thehorse. This story was currently believed for many years,until it was inspected for altogether a different purpose, andit was found to have had a girth all the time.But surely if, as is stated, the people are ill-disposed andmischievous, that is the best reason that can be offered forteaching them better; and if they are not, surely that is areason for giving them every opportunity of vindicating theirinjured reputation; and no better opportunity could possiblybeafforded than that of associating together voluntarilyfor suchhigh purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any case-nay, in every case-if we would reward honesty, if we wouldhold out encouragement to good, if we would eradicate thatwhich is evil or correct that which is bad, education-comprehensive, liberal education—is the one thing needful, andthe only effective end. If I might apply to my purpose, andturn into plain prose some words of Hamlet-not with reference to any government or party (for party being, for themost part, an irrational sort of thing, has no connexion withthe object we have in view)—if I might apply those wordsto education as Hamlet applied them to the skull of Yorick,I would say "Now hie thee to the council-chamber, andtell them, though they lay it on in sounding thoughts andlearned words an inch thick, to this complexion they mustcome at last. "THE WORKING CLASses. 95In answer to a vote of thanks, * Mr. Dickens said, at theclose of the meeting"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even--for every" That this meeting, while conveying its cordial thanks to CharlesDickens, Esq. , for his presence this evening, and for his able and courteous96CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES. Feb. 28, 1844effect which I may have made upon you, the complimenthas been amply returned to me; but at the same time I amas little disposed to say to you, ' go and sin no more, ' as Iam to promise for myself that ' I will never do so again.' Solong as I can make you laugh and cry, I will; and you willreadily believe me, when I tell you, you cannot do too mucion your parts to show that we are still cordial and lovingfriends. To you, ladies of the Institution , I am deeply andespecially indebted. I sometimes [pointing to the wordBoz, in front of the great gallery] think there is somesmall quantity of magic in that very short name, and that itmust consist in its containing as many letters as the threegraces, and they, every one of them, being of your fair sisterhood.6A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times,who, for an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man,sometimes bowstringing his dependants indiscriminately inhis moments of anger, but burying them in great splendourin his moments of penitence, that whenever intelligence wasbrought him of a new plot or turbulent conspiracy, his firstinquiry was, ' Who is she?' meaning that a woman was atthe bottom. Now, in my small way, I differ from thatpotentate; for when there is any good to be attained, theservices of any ministering angel required, my first inquiryis, ' Where is she?' and the answer invariably is, ‘ Here. 'Proud and happy am I indeed to thank you for your generosity'Athousand times, good night;A thousand times the worse to want your light. 'conduct as President, cannot separate without tendering the warmestexpression of its gratitude and admiration to one whose writings have soloyally inculcated the lessons ofbenevolence and virtue, and so richly contri buted to the stores of public pleasure and instruction. "IX.LONDON, APRIL 6, 1846 .[The first anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund Association was held on the evening of the above date at the London Tavern. Thechair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus proposed the principal toast:]| ENTLEMEN, -In offering to you a toast which hasnot as yet been publicly drunk in auy company, itbecomes incumbent on me to offer a few words inexplanation: in the first place, premising that the toast willbe "The General Theatrical Fund."The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate to-night,was founded seven years ago, for the purpose of grantingpermanent pensions to such of the corps dramatique as hadretired from the stage, either from a decline in their yearsor a decay of their powers. Collected within the scope ofits benevolence are all actors and actresses, singers, ordancers, of five years' standing in the profession. To relievetheir necessities and to protect them from want is the greatend of the Society, and it is good to know that for sevenyears the members of it have steadily, patiently, quietly, andperseveringly pursued this end, advancing by regular con798CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.April6,tribution, moneys which many of them could ill afford, andcheered by no external help or assistance of any kind whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, but Itrust that we shall establish to-night that its time is out, andthat henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and brilliant career.I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are,and were when this institution was founded, two other institutions existing of a similar nature-Covent Garden andDrury Lane-both of long standing, both richly endowed.It cannot, however, be too distinctly understood, that thepresent Institution is not in any way adverse to those. Howcan it be when it is only a wide and broad extension of allthat is most excellent in the principles on which they arefounded? That such an extension was absolutely necessarywas sufficiently proved by the fact that the great body ofthe dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by a membership of either of these institutions; forit was essential, in order to become a member of the DruryLane Society, that the applicant, either he or she, shouldhave been engaged for three consecutive seasons as a performer. This was afterwards reduced, in the case of CoventGarden, to a period of two years, but it really is as exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell you that CoventGarden is now but a vision of the past. You might playthe bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put themall into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heardwithin its walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. Inlike manner, Drury Lane is conducted now with almost asole view to the opera and ballet, insomuch that the statueof Shakespeare over the door serves as emphatically to pointout his grave as his bust did in the church of StratfordTHE THEATRICAL FUND.upon-Avon. How can the profession generally hope toqualify for the Drury Lane or Covent Garden institution,when the oldest and most distinguished members have beendriven from the boards on which they have earned theirreputations, to delight the town in theatres to which theGeneral Theatrical Fund alone extended?1846. 99I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to thoseother Funds, with which I have had the honour of beingconnected at different periods of mylife. At the time thoseAssociations were established, an engagement at one ofthose theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole life; but an engagementof two months' duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just now. It should neverbe forgotten that when those two funds were established,the two great theatres were protected by patent, and that atthat time the minor theatres were condemned by law to therepresentation of the most preposterous nonsense, and somegentlemen whom I see around me could no more belong tothe minor theatres of that day than they could now belongto St. Bartholomew fair.As I honour the two old funds for the great good whichthey have done, so I honour this for the much greater goodit is resolved to do. It is not because I love them less, butbecause I love this more-because it includes more in itsoperation.Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors whostand so much in need of a retiring fund as those who donot win the great prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, and by consequence beara part in contributing to our pleasures. We owe them adebt which we ought to pay. The beds of such men arenot of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed. Their100 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April 6,lives are lives of care and privation, and hard struggles withvery stern realities. It is from among the poor actors whodrink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously like toastand water, and who preside at Barmecide feasts with wonderful appetites for steaks, -it is from their ranks that themost triumphant favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, the greater the instruction and delight we derivefrom the rich English drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect the humblest of those votaries of the artwho add to our instruction and amusement.66Hazlitt has well said that " There is no class of society"whom so many persons regard with affection as actors."We greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in thestreets; they almost always recal to us pleasant associa"tions. " * When they have strutted and fretted their hourupon the stage, let them not be heard no more—but let thembe heard sometimes to say that they are happy in their oldage. When they have passed for the last time from behindthat glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, letthem not pass away into gloom and darkness, —but let thempass into cheerfulness and light-into a contented and happyhome.This is the object for which we have met; and I am tocfamiliar with the English character not to know that it willbe effected. When we come suddenly in a crowded streetupon the careworn features of a familiar face—crossing uslike the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten-let us notrecal those features with pain, in sad remembrance of whatthey once were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back apace or two to meet it once again, as that of a friend whohas beguiled us of a moment of care, who has taught us to

(Video) ENGLISH SPEECH | KING CHARLES III: First Speech as King (English Subtitles)

Hazlitt's Round Table ( Edinburgh, 1917, vol. ii . , p. 242) , § On Actors and Acting.

1346. THE THEATRICAL FUND.sympathize with virtuous grief, cheating us to teais for sorrows not our own-and we all know how pleasant are suchtears. Let such a face be ever remembered as that of ourbenefactor and our friend.ΙΟΥI tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had everbeen in any theatre in my life from which I had not broughtaway some pleasant association, however poor the theatre,and I protest, out of my varied experience, I could not remember even one from which I had not brought some favourable impression, and that, commencing with the period whenI believed the clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets, and ending with that in which I saw the othernight, outside one of the " Royal Saloons, " a playbill whichshowed me ships completely rigged, carrying men, andcareering over boundless and tempestuous oceans. Andnow, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatresand actors, I beg to propose that you drink as heartily andfreely as ever a toast was drunk in this toast-drinking city,"Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund."335X.LEEDS, DECEMBER 1, 1847.[On the above evening a Soirée of the Leeds Mechanics' Institution tookplace, at which about 1200 persons were present. The chair was takenby Mr. Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -Believe me, speaking to you with a most disastrous cold, which makesmy ownvoice sound very strangely in my ears--thatif I were not gratified and honoured beyond expression byyour cordial welcome, I should have considered the invitation to occupy my present position in this brilliant assemblage in itself a distinction not easy to be surpassed. Thecause in which we are assembled and the objects we aremet to promote, I take, and always have taken to be, thecause and the objects involving almost all others that , areessential to the welfare and happiness of mankind. And ina celebration like the present, commemorating the birth andprogress of a great educational establishment, I recognisea something, not limited to the spectacle of the moment,beautiful and radiant though it be—not limited even to thesuccess of the particular establishment in which we are moreimmediately interested—but extending from this place andthrough swarms of toiling men elsewhere, cheering andDec. 1, 1847. LEEDS MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 103stimulating them in the onward, upward path that lies beforeus all. Wherever hammers beat, or wherever factory chimneys smoke, wherever hands are busy, or the clanking ofmachinery resounds-wherever, in a word, there are massesof industrious human beings whom their wise Creator didnot see fit to constitute all body, but into each and everyone of whom He breathed a mind-there, I would fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is feltfrom our collective pulse now beating in this Hall.Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at thereport of your Institution for the present year sent to mebyyour respected President-whom I cannot help feeling it,by-the-bye, a kind of crime to depose, even thus peacefully,and for so short a time-I say, glancing over this report, Ifound one statement of fact in the very opening which gaveme an uncommon satisfaction. It is, that a great numberof the members and subscribers are among that class of persons for whose advantage Mechanics' Institutions wereoriginated, namely, persons receiving weekly wages. Thiscircumstance gives me the greatest delight. I am sure thatno better testimony could be borne to the merits and usefulness of this Institution, and that no better guarantee couldbe given for its continued prosperity and advancement.To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, theremay yet reappear now and then the spectral shadow of acertain dead and buried opposition; but before the light ofa steady trust in them on the part of the general people,bearing testimony to the virtuous influences of such Institutions by their own intelligence and conduct, the ghost willmelt away like early vapour from the ground. Fear of suchInstitutions as these! We have heard people sometimesspeak with jealousy of them, -with distrust of them! Imagine here, on either hand, two great towns like Leeds, full104 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.Dec. I,of busy men, all ofthem feeling necessarily, and some ofthemheavily, the burdens and inequalities inseparable from civilized society. In this town there is ignorance, dense anddark; in that town, education—the best of education; thatwhich the grown man from day to day and year to year furnishes for himself and maintains for himself, and in right ofwhich his education goes on all his life, instead of leavingoff, complacently, just when he begins to live in the socialsystem. Now, which of these two towns has a good man,or a good cause, reason to distrust and dread? "The educated one," does some timid politician, with a marvellouslyweak sight, say (as I have heard such politicians say), “ because knowledge is power, and because it won't do to havetoo much power abroad." Why, ladies and gentlemen, reflect whether ignorance be not power, and a very dreadfulpower. Look where we will, do we not find it powerful forevery kind of wrong and evil? Powerful to take its enemiesto its heart, and strike its best friends down-powerful tofill the prisons, the hospitals, and the graves-powerful forblind violence, prejudice, and error, in all their gloomy anddestructive shapes. Whereas the power of knowledge, if Iunderstand it, is, to bear and forbear; to learn the path ofduty and to tread it; to engender that self-respect whichdoes not stop at self, but cherishes the best respect for thebest objects--to turn an always enlarging acquaintance withthe joys and sorrows, capabilities and imperfections of ourrace to daily account in mildness of life and gentleness ofconstruction, and humble efforts for the improvement, stoneby stone, of the whole social fabric.I never heard but one tangible position taken againsteducational establishments for the people, and that was,that in this or that instance, or in these or those instances,education for the people has failed. And I have never1347. LEEDS MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 105traced even this to its source but I have found that the termeducation, so employed, meant anything but education—implied the mere imperfect application of old, ignorant, preposterous spelling-book lessons to the meanest purposes—as if you should teach a child that there is no higher end inelectricity, for example, than expressly to strike a muttonpie out of the hand of a greedy boy-and on which it is asunreasonable to found an objection to education in a comprehensive sense, as it would be to object altogether to thecombing of youthful hair, because in a certain charity schoolthey had a practice of combing it into the pupils' eyes.Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of thisInstitution, on whose behalf we are met; and I start withthe education given there, and I find that it really is an education that is deserving of the name. I find that there arepapers read and lectures delivered, on a variety of subjectsof interest and importance. I find that there are eveningclasses formed for the acquisition of sound, useful Englishinformation, and for the study of those two important languages, daily becoming more important in the business oflife, the French and German. I find that there is a classfor drawing, a chemical class, subdivided into the elementarybranch and the manufacturing branch, most important here.I find that there is a day- school at twelve shillings a quarter,which small cost, besides including instruction in all that isuseful to the merchant and the man of business, admits toall the advantages of the parent institution. I find thatthere is a School of Design established in connexion withthe Government School; and that there was in January thisyear, a library of between six and seven thousand books.Ladies and gentlemen, if any man would tell me that anything but good could come of such knowledge as this, all Ican say is, that I should consider him a new and most lament"105 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. I,able proof ofthe necessity of such institutions, and shouldregard him in his own person as a melancholy instance ofwhat a man may come to by never having belonged to oneor sympathized with one.There is one other paragraph in this report which struckmy eye in looking over it, and on which I cannot help offering a word of joyful notice. It is the steady increase thatappears to have taken place in the number of lady members-amongwhom I hope I may presume are included someof the bright fair faces that are clustered around me. Gentlemen, I hold that it is not good for man to be alone― evenin Mechanics' Institutions; and I rank it as very far fromamong the last or least of the merits of such places, that heneed not be alone there, and that he is not. I believe thatthe sympathy and society of those who are our best anddearest friends in infancy, in childhood, in manhood, and inold age, the most devoted and least selfish natures that weknow on earth, who turn to us always constant and unchanged, when others turn away, should greet us here, ifanywhere, and go on with us side by side.I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own propersenses at this moment, that there are charms and graces insuch greetings, such as no other greeting can possess. Iknow that in every beautiful work of the Almighty hand,which is illustrated in your lectures, and in every real orideal portraiture of fortitude and goodness that you find inyour books, there is something that must bring you homeagain to them for its brightest and best example. Andtherefore, gentlemen, I hope that you will never be withoutthem, or without an increasing number of them in yourstudies and your commemorations; and that an immensenumber of new marriages, and other domestic festivalsnaturally consequent upon those marriages, may be traced1847.back from time to time to the Leeds Mechanics' Institution.LEEDS MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. 107There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished bytheir public position and service, or endeared to you by frequent intercourse, or by their zealous efforts on behalf ofthecause which brings us together; and to them I shall beg leaveto refer you for further observations on this happy and interesting occasion; begging to congratulate you finally upon theoccasion itself; upon the prosperity and thriving prospectsof your institution; and upon our common and generalgood fortune in living in these times, when the means ofmental culture and improvement are presented cheaply,socially, and cheerfully, and not in dismal cells or lonelygarrets. And lastly, I congratulate myself, I assure youmost heartily, upon the part with which I am honoured onan occasion so congenial to my warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank you for such evidences of yourgood-will, as I never can coldly remember and neverforget.In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:—Ladies and Gentlemen, -It is a great satisfaction tome that this question has been put by the Mayor, inasmuchas I hope I may receive it as a token that he has forgivenme those extremely large letters, which I must say, from theglimpse I caught of them when I arrived in the town, lookedlike a leaf from the first primer of a very promising younggiant.I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of thisevening, that after what I have seen, and the excellentspeeches I have heard from gentlemen of so many different108 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 1 , 1847.callings and persuasions, meeting here as on neutral ground,I do more strongly and sincerely believe than I ever havein my life, and that is saying a great deal, -that institutions such as this will be the means of refining and improving that social edifice which has been so often mentionedto-night, until,-unlike that Babel tower that would havetaken heaven by storm, -it shall end in sweet accord andharmony amongst all classes of its builders.Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily Ibid you good night and good-bye, and I trust the next timewe meet it will be in even greater numbers, and in a largerroom, and that we often shall meet again, to recal thisevening, then of the past, and remember it as one ofa seriesof increasing triumphs of your excellent institution.XI.GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847.[The first Soirée, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow Athenæum took place on the above evening in the City Hall. Mr. CharlesDickens presided, and made the following speech:]ADIESAND GENTLEMEN-Letmebeginbyendeavouring to convey to you the assurance that not eventhe warmth of your reception can possibly exceed, insimple earnestness, the cordiality of the feeling with which Icome amongst you. This beautiful scene and your generousgreeting would naturally awaken, under any circumstances,no common feeling within me; but when I connect themwith the high purpose of this brilliant assembly—when Iregard it as an educational example and encouragement tothe rest of Scotland-when I regard it no less as a recognition on the part of everybody here of the right, indisputableand inalienable, of all those who are actively engaged in thework and business of life to elevate and improve themselvesso far as in them lies, by all good means-I feel as if Istand here to swear brotherhood to all the young men inGlasgow;-and I may say to all the young women in Glasgow; being unfortunately in no position to take any tenderer vows upon myself—and as if we were pledged from thistime henceforth to make common cause together in one ofthe most laudable and worthy of human objects.IΙΙΟ CHARLES Dickens's speeches. Dcc. 28,Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made insuch a design as that which brings us together this night; forwithout it, nothing can be done, but with it everything. Itis a common cause of right, God knows; for it is idle tosuppose that the advantages of such an institution as theGlasgow Athenæum will stop within its own walls or beconfined to its own members. Through all the society ofthis great and important city, upwards to the highest anddownwards to the lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good.Downward in a clearer perception of, and sympathy with,those social miseries which can be alleviated, and thosewide-open doors to vice and crime that can be shut andbarred; and upward in a greater intelligence, increasedefficiency, and higher knowledge, of all who partake of itsbenefits themselves, or who communicate, as all must do, ina greater or less degree, some portion to the circle of relatives or friends in which they move.Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man,however high his social position, or however great his attainments, that he might not find something to be learnteven from immediate contact with such institutions. Ifhe only saw the goddess Knowledge coming out of hersecluded palaces and high places to mingle with the throng,and to give them shining glimpses of the delights whichwere long kept hoarded up, he might learn something. Ifhe only saw the energy and the courage with which thosewho earn their daily bread by the labour of their handsor heads, come night after night, as to a recreation, to thatwhich was, perhaps, the whole absorbing business of hisyouth, there might still be something very wholesome forhim to learn. But when he could see in such places theirgenial and reviving influences, their substituting of the contemplation of the beauties of nature and art, and of the1847.THE GLASGOW ATHENÆUM.wisdom of great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupididleness at any rate he would learn this—that it is at oncethe duty and the interest of all good members of society toencourage and protect them.IIII took occasion to say at an Athenæum in Yorkshire afew weeks since, * and I think it a point most important to beborne in mind on such commemorations as these, that whensuch societies are objected to, or are decried on the groundthat in the views of the objectors, education among thepeople has not succeeded, the term education is used withnot the least reference to its real meaning, and is whollymisunderstood. Mere reading and writing is not education;it would be quite as reasonable to call bricks and mortararchitecture oils and colours art - reeds and cat-gutmusic-or the child's spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or Bacon-as to call the lowest rudimentsof education, education, and to visit on that most abusedand slandered word their failure in any instance; and precisely because they were not education; because, generallyspeaking, the word has been understood in that sense a greatdeal too long; because education for the business of life,and for the due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at leastas important from day to day to the grown person as to thechild; because real education, in the strife and contentionfor a livelihood, and the consequent necessity incumbenton a great number of young persons to go into the worldwhen they are very young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these things that I look upon mechanics' institutions and athenæums as vitally important to the well-beingof society. It is because the rudiments of education maythere be turned to good account in the acquisition of soundVide suprà, p. 105.―112 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dcc. 28,principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith, and charity,to which all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, Itake it, that you have met in education's name to-night.It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I doin behalf of an infant institution; a remarkably fine childenough, of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. Iesteem myself singularly fortunate in knowing it before itsprime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to its lustymaturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has alreadypassed through some of the disorders to which children areliable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a very meritoriouscharacter, but of rather a weak constitution, and which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded this elder brother, and has fought manfully througha sea of troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its pulse has been exceedingly low, beingonly 1250, when it was expected to have been 10,000;several relations and friends have even gone so far as towalk off once or twice in the melancholy belief that it wasdead. Through all that, assisted by the indomitable energyof one or two nurses, to whom it can never be sufficientlygrateful, it came triumphantly, and now, of all the youthfulmembers of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest attitude,the healthiest look, the brightest and most cheerful air. Ifind the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a readingroom, a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it withlectures given and in progress, in sound, useful and wellselected subjects; I find it with morning and eveningclasses for mathematics, logic, grammar, music, French,German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by upwards of fivehundred persons; but, best and first of all, and what is to1847. THE GLASGOW ATHENÆUM. 113me more satisfactory than anything else in the history of theinstitution, I find that all this has been mainly achieved bythe young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And, ladies and gentlemen, as the axiom,"Heaven helps those who help themselves, " is truer in nocase than it is in this, I look to the young men of Glasgow,from such a past and such a present, to a noble future.Everything that has been done in any other athenæum, Iconfidently expect to see done here; and when that shallbe the case, and when there shall be great cheap schools inconnexion with the institution, and when it has boundtogether for ever all its friends, and brought over to itselfall those who look upon it as an objectionable institution,—then, and not till then, I hope the young men of Glasgowwill rest from their labours, and think their study done.If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in this wise, they have one beside them in thepresence of their fair townswomen, which is irresistible. Itis a most delightful circumstance to me, and one fraughtwith inestimable benefits to institutions of this kind, that ata meeting of this nature those who in all things are our bestexamples, encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. Theabstract idea of the Graces was in ancient times associatedwith those arts which refine the human understanding; andit is pleasant to see now, in the rolling of the world, theGraces popularising the practice of those arts by their example, and adorning it with their presence.I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenæum thereis a peculiar bond of union between the institution and thefairest part of creation. I understand that the necessaryaddition to the small library of books being difficult andexpensive to make, the ladies have generally resolved tohold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the proceeds to this ad 8114 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dcc. 28.mirable purpose; and I learn with no less pleasure that herMajesty the Queen, in a graceful and womanly sense of theexcellence of this design, has consented that the bazaar shallbe held under her royal patronage. I can only say, that ifyou do not find something very noble in your books afterthis, you are much duller students than I take you to be.The ladies--the single ladies, at least-however disinterestedI know they are by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve tohave some of the advantages of these books, by never marry ing any but members of the Athenæum. It seems to me itought to be the pleasantest library in the world.Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fanciesof some familiar writer of fiction, " How long since I first"became acquainted with these characters; what old-fash❝ioned friends they seem; and yet I am not tired of them"like so many other friends, nor they of , me." In this casethe books will not only possess all the attractions of theirown friendships and charms, but also the manifold—I maysay womanfold-associations connected with their donors.I can imagine how, in fact, from these fanciful associations,some fair Glasgow widow may be taken for the remoter onewhom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; I can imagine how Sophia's muff may be seen and loved, but not byTom Jones, going down the High Street on any winter day;or I can imagine the student finding in every fair form theexact counterpart of the Glasgow Athenæum, and takinginto consideration the history of Europe without the consentof Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, in short, how through allthe facts and fictions of this library, these ladies will bealways active, and that64' Age will not wither them, nor custom staleTheir infinite variety. "It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy1847.THE GLASGOW ATHENEUM. 115chance, that this meeting has been held at this genial seasonof the year, when a new time is, as it were, opening beforeus, and when we celebrate the birth of that divine andblessed Teacher, who took the highest knowledge into thehumblest places, and whose great system comprehended allmankind. I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at thistime of the year, when many scattered friends and familiesare re-assembled, for the members of this institution to becalling men together from all quarters, with a brotherly viewto the general good, and a view to the general improvement; as I consider that such designs are practically worthyof the faith we hold, and a practical remembrance of thewords, "On earth peace, and good will toward men. " Ihope that every year which dawns on your Institution, willfind it richer in its means of usefulness, and grayer-headedin the honour and respect it has gained. ' It can hardlyspeak for itself more appropriately than in the words of anEnglish writer, when contemplating the English emblem ofthis period of the year, the holly- tree:[ Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of Southey's poem, The Holly Tree. ][In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then Mr.)Alison, Mr. Dickens said: ]Ladies and Gentlemen,-I am no stranger-and I say itwith the deepest gratitude-to the warmth of Scottishhearts; but the warmth of your present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of acknowledging it. I will not detain you any longer at this late hour; let it suffice to assureyou, that for taking the part with which I have been116 CHARLES Dickens's sPEECHES. Dec. 28, 1847honoured in this festival, I have been repaid a thousandfold by your abundant kindness, and by the unspeakablegratification it has afforded me. I hope that, before manyyears are past, we mayhave another meeting in public, whenwe shall rejoice at the immense progress your institution willhave made in the meantime, and look back upon this nightwith new pleasure and satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion, repeat most heartily and fervently the quotation ofDr. Ewing, the late Provost of Glasgow, which Bailie NicolJarvie, himself " a Glasgow body," observed was " elegantlyputten round the town's arms. ”BXII.MACREADY.LONDON, MARCH 1, 1851 .[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr. Macready entertained him at a public dinner. Upwards of six hundred gentlemenassembled to do honour to the great actor on his retirement from the stage.Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among the other speakers were BaronBunsen, Sir Charles Eastlake, Mr. Thackeray, Mr. John Forster, Mr.W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles Dickens, who proposed " The Health of the Chairman" in the following words:-]ENTLEMEN, -After all you have already heard, andso rapturously received, I assure you that not eventhe warmth of your kind welcome would emboldenme to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence inthe subject I have to offer to your notice. But my relianceon the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I amrather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of thetrack on which I have to throw my little shadow.Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three greatrequisites essential to the perfect realisation of a scene sounusual and so splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I must say very difficult requisite, is a118 CHARLES DICKENS'S speeches. March 1,man possessing the stronghold in the general remembrance,the indisputable claim on the general regard and esteem,which is possessed by my dear and much valued friend ourguest. The second requisite is the presence of a body ofentertainers,—a great multitude of hosts so cheerful andgood-humoured (under, I am sorry to say, some personalinconvenience), --so warm-hearted and so nobly in earnest,as those whom I have the privilege of addressing. Thethird, and certainly not the least of these requisites, is apresident who, less by his social position, which he mayclaim by inheritance, or by fortune, which may have beenadventitiously won, and may be again accidentally fost, thanby his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the bestpart of him to whom honour is done, and the best part ofthose who unite in the doing of it. Such a president Ithink we have found in our chairman of to-night, and I needscarcely add that our chairman's health is the toast I have topropose to you.Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay,at that memorable scene on Wednesday night last, * whenthe great vision which had been a delight and a lesson, —very often, I daresay, a support and a comfort to you, whichhad for many years improved and charmed us, and to whichwe had looked for an elevated relief from the labours of ourlives, faded from our sight for ever. I will not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remoteand distant time when he might possibly bear some far-offlikeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas onceserved. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in the audience of Wednesday to seize uponthe words

February 26th, 1851. Mr. Macready's Farewell Benefit at Drury Lane

Theatre, on which occasion he played the part of Macbeth. -ED.1851. MACREADY."And I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon-"*119but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressinghow in my mind I mainly connect that occasion with thepresent. When I looked round on the vast assemblage,and observed the huge pit hushed into stillness on the risingof the curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, where menin their shirt-sleeves had been striking out their arms likestrong swimmers-when I saw that boisterous human floodbecome still water in a moment, and remain so from theopening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the trustworthiness of an English crowd, andthe delusion under which those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it: it suggested to me that in meetinghere to-night we undertook to represent something of theall-pervading feeling of that crowd, through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, with her diamondssparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, to thehalf-undressed gentleman, who bides his time to take somerefreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placedin this chair could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so well give the crowning grace to ourfestivities, as one whose comprehensive genius has in hisvarious works embraced them all, and who has, in hisdramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them all at once.Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what youhave heard this night, what I have seen and known in thebygone times of Mr. Macready's management, of the strongfriendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of the association

Macbeth, Act I. , sc. 7.

120 CHARLES dickens's speeches. March Lof his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready'szealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted meto say what, in any public mention of him I can neverrepress, that in the path we both tread I have uniformlyfound him from the first the most generous of men; quickto encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert theorder of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms,as a Mussulman might leave his slippers outside a mosque.There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to theeffect that authors are not a particularly united body, thatthey are not invariably and inseparably attached to eachother. I am afraid I must concede half-a-grain or so of truthto that superstition; but this I know, that there can hardlybe-that there hardly can have been-among the followersof literature, a man of more high standing farther abovethese little grudging jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear mytestimony to his great consideration for those evils which aresometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though noton him.For, in conjunction with some other gentlemen now present,I have just embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, tosmoothe the rugged way of young labourers, both in literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynarymeans, the declining years of meritorious age. And if thatproject prosper as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, itwill one day be an honour to England where there is now areproach; originating in his sympathies, being brought intooperation by his activity, and endowed from its very cradleby his generosity. There are many among you who willhave each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman's health, resting his claim probably upon some of his1851.diversified successes. According to the nature of yourreading, some of you will connect him with prose, otherswill connect him with poetry. One will connect him withcomedy, and another with the romantic passions of thestage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earneststruggle againstMACREADY."those twin gaolers of the human heart,Low birth and iron fortune.”121Again, another's taste will lead him to the contemplation ofRienzi and the streets of Rome; another's to the rebuilt andrepeopled streets of Pompeii; another's to the touchinghistory of the fireside where the Caxton family learned howto discipline their natures and tame their wild hopes down.But, however various their feelings and reasons may be, Iam sure that with one accord each will help the other, andall will swell the greeting, with which I shall now propose toyou "The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward BulwerLytton. "XIII.LONDON, APRIL 14, 1851.[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held at theLondon Tavern on the above date. Mr. Charles Dickens occupied thechair, and in giving the toast of the evening said:-]HAVE so often had the satisfaction of bearing mytestimony, in this place, to the usefulness of the excellent Institution in whose behalfwe are assembled,that I should be really sensible of the disadvantage ofhaving now nothing to say in proposing the toast you allanticipate, if I were not well assured that there is reallynothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you onthe old grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could renderthose grounds of greater weight than they have hithertosuccessfully proved to you.Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other public societies and endowments, is represented by no building, whether of stone, or brick, or glass,like that astonishing evidence of the skill and energy of myfriend Mr. Paxton, which all the world is now called uponto admire, and the great merit of which, as you learn fromthe best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen downlong before it was built, and yet that it would by no meansconsent to doing so-although, I say, this Association possesses no architectural home, it is nevertheless as plain afact, rests on as solid a foundation, and carries as erect aApril 14, 1851.THE THEATRICAL fund. 123front, as any building in the world. And the best and theutmost that its exponent and its advocate can do, standinghere, is to point it out to those who gather round it, and tosay, " Judge for yourselves. "It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest tothat portion of the company whose previous acquaintancewith it may have been limited, what it is not. It is not atheatrical association whose benefits are confined to a smalland exclusive body of actors. It is a society whose claimsare always preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art.It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more suited topresent theatrical requirements than a string of pack-horseswould be suited to the conveyance of traffic between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentleman, withthe gout in his vitals, brushed and got-up once a year tolook as vigorous as possible, and brought out for a publicairing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews andnieces, who afterwards double-lock the street-door upon thepoor relations. It is not a theatrical association which insists that no actor can share its bounty who has not walkedso many years on those boards where the English tongue isnever heard-between the little bars of music in an aviaryof singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan of Avon isnever admitted-that bounty which was gathered in thename and for the elevation of an all-embracing art.No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind.This is a theatrical association, expressly adapted to thewants and to the means of the whole theatrical professionall over England. It is a society in which the word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which includesevery actor, whether he be Benedict or Hamlet, or theGhost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in the one124 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April 14.person, the whole King's army. He may do the "lightbusiness, " or the " heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric.He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whoseuncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in acostume one hundred years older than his time. Or he maybe the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to listento the female members of it whenever they sing, and toshake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or hemay be the baron who gives the fête, and who sits uneasilyon the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while thefête is going on. Or he may be the peasant at the fête whocomes on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, and who,it may be observed, always turns his glass upside down before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be the clownwho takes away the doorstep of the house where the evening party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman whoissues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she maybe the fairy who resides for ever in a revolving star with anoccasional visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor maybe the armed head of the witch's cauldron; or even thatextraordinary witch, concerning whom I have observed incountry places, that he is much less like the notion formedfrom the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm orDonalbain of the previous scenes. This society, in short,says, " Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, beyour path in your profession never so high, or never so low,never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you themeans of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good toyour brethren. "This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a class of men to take care of their own interests, and1851. THE THEATRICAL FUND.giving a continuous security only in return for a continuoussacrifice and effort. The actor by the means of this societyobtains his own right, to no man's wrong; and when, in oldage, or in disastrous times, he makes his claim on the institution, he is enabled to say, " I am neither a beggar, nor asuppliant. I am but reaping what I sowed long ago." Andtherefore it is that I cannot hold out to you that in assistingthis fund you are doing an act of charity in the commonacceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses of that muchabused term, none have more raised my indignation thanwhat I have heard in this room in past times, in referenceto this institution. I say, if you help this institution youwill be helping the wagoner who has resolutely put his ownshoulder to the wheel, and who has not stuck idle in themud. In giving this aid you will be doing an act of justice,and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this iswhat I solicit from you; but I will not so far wrong thosewho are struggling manfully for their own independence asto pretend to entreat from you an act of charity.I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask hisown heart, and confess if he have not some grateful acknowledgments for the actor's art? Not peculiarly because it isa profession often pursued, and as it were marked, bypoverty and misfortune for other callings, God knows,have their distresses-nor because the actor has sometimesto come from scenes of [ sickness, of suffering, ay, even ofdeath itself, to play his part before us-for all of us, in ourspheres, have as often to do violence to our feelings and tohide our hearts in fighting this great battle of life, and indischarging our duties and responsibilities. But the art ofthe actor excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful orhumorous, which we are all familiar with. If any manwere to tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the325126 CHARLES dickens's speeches. April 14, 1851.stage, I would simply put to him one question-whether heremembered his first play?Ifyou, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollectionto that great night, and call to mind the bright and harmlessworld which then opened to your view, we shall, I think,hear favourably of the effect upon your liberality on thisoccasion from our Secretary.This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind-the sixthtime we have had this fine child down after dinner. Hisnurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, whohas an excellent character from several places, will presentlyreport to you that his chest is perfectly sound, and that hisgeneral health is in the most thriving condition. Long mayit be so; long may it thrive and grow; long may we meet(it is my sincere wish) to exchange our congratulations onits prosperity; and longer than the line of Banquo may bethat line of figures which, as its patriotic share in the national debt, a century hence shall be stated by the Governorand Company ofthe Bank of England.XIV.SANITARY REFORM.-.00000LONDON, MAY 10, 1851.[The members and friends of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association dinedtogether on the above evening at Gore House, Kensington. The Earlof Carlisle occupied the chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was present, and inproposing " The Board of Health, " made the following speech:—]BHERE are very few words for me to say upon theneedfulness of sanitary reform, or the consequentusefulness of the Board of Health. That no mancan estimate the amount of mischief grown in dirt, —thatno man can say the evil stops here or stops there, either inits moral or physical effects, or can deny that it begins inthe cradle and is not at rest in the miserable grave, is ascertain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be carried byan easterly wind into Mayfair, or that the furious pestilenceraging in St. Giles's no mortal list of lady patronesses cankeep out of Almack's. Fifteen years ago some of thevaluable reports of Mr. Chadwick and Dr. SouthwoodSmith, strengthening and much enlarging my knowledge,128 CHARLES DICKENS'S speeches. May 10,made me earnest in this cause in my own sphere; and I canhonestly declare that the use I have since that time made ofmy eyes and nose have only strengthened the convictionthat certain sanitary reforms must precede all other socialremedies, and that neither education nor religion can doanything useful until the way has been paved for theirministrations by cleanliness and decency.I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heardthe speech of the right reverend prelate* this evening-aspeech which no sanitary reformer can have heard withoutemotion. Of what avail is it to send missionaries to themiserable man condemned to work in a fœtid court, withevery sense bestowed upon him for his health and happinessturned into a torment, with every month of his life addingto the heap of evils under which he is condemned to exist?What human sympathy within him is that instructor toaddress? what natural old chord within him is he to touch?Is it the remembrance of his children?-a memory ofdestitution, of sickness, of fever, and of scrofula? Is it hishopes, his latent hopes of immortality? Heis so surroundedby and embedded in material filth, that his soul cannot riseto the contemplation of the great truths of religion. Or ifthe case is that of a miserable child bred and nurtured insome noisome, loathsome place, and tempted, in thesebetter days, into the ragged school, what can a few hours'teaching effect against the ever-renewed lesson of a wholeexistence? But give them a glimpse of heaven through alittle of its light and air; give them water; help them to beclean; lighten that heavy atmosphere in which their spiritsflag and in which they become the callous things they are;take the body of the dead relative from the close room inwhich the living live with it, and where death, being

The Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Longley) .

SANITARY REFORM. 1851.familiar, loses its awe; and then they will be broughtwillingly to hear of Him whose thoughts were so much withthe poor, and who had compassion for all human suffering.The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health,is entitled to all the honour which can be conferred upon it.We have very near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very great thing can ever be accomplished without an immense amount of abuse being heaped upon it. Inconnexion with the Board of Health we are always hearinga very large word which is always pronounced with a verygreat relish the word centralization. Now I submit thatin the time of the cholera we had a pretty good opportunityof judging between this so called centralization and what Imay, I think, call " vestrylisation. " I dare say the companypresent have read the reports of the Cholera Board ofHealth, and I daresay they have also read reports of certainvestries. I have the honour of belonging to a constituencywhich elected that amazing body, the Marylebone vestry,and I think that if the company present will look to whatwas done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and thencontrast those proceedings with the wonderful clevernesswith which affairs were managed at the same period by myvestry, there will be very little difficulty in judging betweenthem. My vestry even took upon itself to deny the existence of cholera as a weak invention of the enemy, and thatdenial had little or no effect in staying the progress of thedisease. We can now contrast what centralization is asrepresented by a few noisy and interested gentlemen, andwhat centralization is when worked out by a body combining business habits, sound medical and social knowledge,and an earnest sympathy with the sufferings of the workingclasses.129Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in9130 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. May 10, 1851.a word not so large as the other, " Delay." I wouldsuggest, in respect to this, that it would be very unreasonable to complain that a first-rate chronometer didn't gowhen its master had not wound it up. The Board of Healthmay be excellently adapted for going and very willing andanxious to go, and yet may not be permitted to go byreasonof its lawful master having fallen into a gentle slumber andforgotten to set it a going. One of the speakers this evening has referred to Lord Castlereagh's caution "not tohalloo until they were out of the wood. " As regards theBoard of Trade I would suggest that they ought not tohalloo until they are out of the Woods and Forests. In thatleafy region the Board of Health suffers all sorts of delays,and this should always be borne in mind. With the toastof the Board of Health I will couple the name of a noblelord (Ashley), of whose earnestness in works of benevolenceno man can doubt, and who has the courage on all occasions to face the cant which is the worst and commonest ofall-the cant about the cant of philanthropy.XV.GARDENING.LONDON, JUNE 9, 1851.[At the anniversary dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, heldunder the presidency of Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton, Mr. Charles Dickens made the following speech:-]FEEL an unbounded and delightful interest in all thepurposes and associations of gardening. Probablythere is no feeling in the human mind stronger thanthe love of gardening. The prisoner will make a garden inhis prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in the chink of awall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet bean fromone side of his window to the other, and watch it and tendit with unceasing interest. It is a holy duty in foreign countries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, andhere, too, the resting-places of those who have passed awayfrom us will soon be gardens. From that old time when theLord walked in the garden inthe cool of the evening, downto the day when a Poet-Laureate sang132 June 9 CHARLES dickens's speeches."Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,From yon blue heaven above us bent The gardener Adam and his wifeSmile at the claims of long descent, "at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst theobjects of the greatest interest to mankind. There may bea few, but I believe they are but a few, who take no interestin the products of gardening, except perhaps in " LondonPride," or a certain degenerate kind of " Stock," which isapt to grow hereabouts, cultivated by a species offrozen-outgardeners whom no thaw can ever penetrate: except these,the gardeners' art has contributed to the delight of all menin their time. That there ought to be a Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners is in the fitness of things, andthat such an institution ought to flourish and does flourish isstill more so.I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentlemanwho is a great gardener, and not only a great gardener buta great man—the growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated upwith a power of intellect to a plant that is at this time thetalk of the civilized world-I allude, of course, to myfriendthe chairman of the day. I took occasion to say at a publicassembly hard-by, a month or two ago, in speaking of thatwonderful building Mr. Paxton has designed for the GreatExhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen down,but that it refused to do so. We were told that the glassought to have been all broken, the gutters all choked up,and the building flooded, and that the roof and sides oughtto have been blown away; in short that everything ought tohave done what everything obstinately persisted in not doing.Earth, air, fire, and water all appear to have conspired together in Mr. Paxton's favour-all have conspired togetherto one result, which, when the present generation is dust,1851.GARDENING.will be an enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy,the talent, and the resources of Englishmen.133"But," said a gentleman to me the other day, " no doubtMr. Paxton is a great man, but there is one objection to himthat you can never get over, that is, he is a gardener. " Nowthat is our case to-night, that he is a gardener, and we areextremely proud of it. This is a great age, with all itsfaults, when a man by the power of his own genius and goodsense can scale such a daring height as Mr. Paxton hasreached, and composedly place his form on the top. Thisis a great age, when a man impressed with a useful ideacan carry out his project without being imprisoned, orthumb-screwed, or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that you, to whom the genius, the intelligence,the industry, and the achievements of our friend are wellknown, should be anxious to do him honour by placinghim in the position he occupies to-night; and I assureyou, you have conferred great gratification on one of hisfriends, in permitting him to have the opportunity of proposing his health, which that friend now does most cordiallyand with all the honours.XVI.GARDENERS AND GARDENING.LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852.[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution was held on the above date at the London Tavern. The companynumbered more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the occasion, andan admirable effect was produced by a profuse display of natural flowers upon the tables and in the decoration of the room. The chair was takenby Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in proposing the toast of the evening,spoke as follows:—] ,OR three times three years the Gardeners' BenevolentInstitution has been stimulated and encouraged bymeetings such as this, and by three times threecheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous career. [ Thecheers were warmlygiven.]Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like acounsel for the plaintiff with nobody on the other side; buteven if I had been placed in that position ninety times nine,it would still be my duty to state a few facts from the veryshort brief with which I have been provided.This Institution was founded in the year 1838. Duringthe first five years of its existence, it was not particularlyrobust, and seemed to have been placed in rather a shadedposition, receiving somewhat more than its needful allowanceof cold water. In 1843 it was removed into a more favourJune 14, 1852.GARDENERS AND GARDENING.able position, and grafted on a nobler stock, and it has nowborne fruit, and become such a vigorous tree that at presentthirty-five old people daily sit within the shelter of itsbranches, and all the pensioners upon the list have beenveritable gardeners, or the wives of gardeners. It is managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the excellentrule that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteenyears, and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be placedupon the pensioners' list without election, without canvass,without solicitation, and as his independent right. I layvery great stress upon that honourable characteristic of thecharity, because the main principle of any such institution.should be to help those who help themselves. That theSociety's pensioners do not become such so long as theyare able to support themselves, is evinced by the significantfact that the average age of those now upon the list isseventy- seven; that they are not wasteful is proved bythefact that the whole sum expended on their relief is but £500a-year; that the Institution does not restrict itself to anynarrow confines, is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners come from all parts of England, whilst all the expenses are paid from the annual income and interest onstock, and therefore are not disproportionate to its means.Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me,as a most unworthy advocate, for sympathy and support, anInstitution which has for its President a nobleman whosewhole possessions are remarkable for taste and beauty, andwhose gardener's laurels are famous throughout the world.In the list of its vice-presidents there are the names of manynoblemen and gentlemen of great influence and station, andI have been struck in glancing through the list of its supporters, with the sums written against the names of the

The Duke of Devonshire.

105136 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES June 14,.numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein comprised . Ihope the day will come when every gardener in Englandwill be a member of the charity.The gardener particularly needs such a provision as thisInstitution affords. His gains are not great; he knows goldand silver more as being of the colour of fruits and flowersthan by its presence in his pockets; he is subjected to thatkind of labour which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when old age comes upon him, the gardener is ofall men perhaps best able to appreciate the merits of suchan institution.To all indeed, present and absent, who are descendedfrom the first"gardener Adam and his wife, "the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture offlowers there cannot, by their very nature, be anything solitary or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager'sporch, sweeps also over the grounds of the nobleman; andas the rain descends on the just and on the unjust, so itcommunicates to all gardeners, both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of therich man, in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or adelightful scent, is, in some sort, the gardener of everybodyelse.The love of gardening is associated with all conditions ofmen, and all periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace and men of war, have agreed in all agesto delight in gardens. The most ancient people of theearth had gardens where there is now nothing but solitaryheaps of earth. The poor man in crowded cities gardensstill in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; and even the prisoner is found gar.1852.GARDENERS AND GARDENING.dening in his lonely cell, after years and years of solitaryconfinement. Surely, then, the gardener who producesshapes and objects so lovely and so comforting, should havesome hold upon the world's remembrance when he himselfbecomes in need of comfort.137I will call upon you to drink " Prosperity to the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, " and I beg to couple withthat toast the name of its noble President, the Duke ofDevonshire, whose worth is written in all his deeds, and whohas communicated to his title and his riches a lustre whichno title and no riches could confer.[ Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens said:-]My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so oftenthat I could wish there were a closer parallel between myself and the American aloe. It is particularly agreeable andappropriate to know that the parents of this Institution areto be found in the seed and nursery trade; and the seedhaving yielded such good fruit, and the nursery havingproduced such a healthy child, I have the greatest pleasurein proposing the health of the parents of the Institution.[In proposing the health of the Treasurers, Mr. Dickens said:-]My observation of the signboards of this country hastaught me that its conventional gardeners are always jolly,and always three in number. Whether that conventionalityhas reference to the Three Graces, or to those very significant letters, L., S. , D. , I do not know. Those mystic lettersare, however, most important, and no society can haveofficers of more importance than its Treasurers, nor can itpossibly give them too much to do.SXVII.BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1853.[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, in Temple Row, Birmingham, a large company assembled to witness thepresentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of asilver-gilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged thetribute, and the address which accompanied it, in the following words:-]ENTLEMEN, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, totender myacknowledgments to you, and through you, tothose manyfriends ofminewhom you represent, for thishonour and distinction which you have conferred upon me.I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the power of nogreat representative of numbers of people to awaken suchhappiness in me as is inspired by this token of goodwill andremembrance, coming to me direct and fresh from the numbers themselves. I am truly sensible, gentlemen, that myfriends who have united in this address are partial in theirkindness, and regard what I have done with too great favour.But I may say, with reference to one class-some membersof which, I presume, are included there-that I should inmy own eyes be very unworthy both of the generous giftand the generous feeling which has been evinced, and thisoccasion, instead of pleasure, would give me nothing butpain, if I was unable to assure them, and those who are inJan. 6, 1953.LITERATURE OF ENGLAND.front of this assembly, that what the working people havefound me towards them in my books, I am throughout mylife. Gentlemen, whenever I have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience, gentleness, the reasonablenessof their nature, so accessible to persuasion, and their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have done sobecause I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself,and have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment whichI sought to communicate to others.139Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far aboveall price to me, as very valuable in themselves, and as beautiful specimens of the workmanship of this town, with greatemotion, I assure you, and with the liveliest gratitude. Youremember something, I daresay, of the old romantic storiesof those charmed rings which would lose their brilliancewhen their wearer was in danger, or would press his fingerreproachfully when he was going to do In the very wrong.improbable event of my being in the least danger of deserting the principles which have won me these tokens, I amsure the diamond in that ring would assume a cloudedaspect to my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze athrob of pain out of my treacherous heart. But I have notthe least misgiving on that point; and, in this confident expectation, I shall remove my own old diamond ring from myleft hand, and in future wear the Birmingham ring on myright, where its grasp will keep me in mind of the goodfriends I have here, and in vivid remembrance of this happyhour.Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and theSociety to whom these rooms belong, that the presentationhas taken place in an atmosphere so congenial to me, andin an apartment decorated with so many beautiful works ofart, among which I recognize before me the productions of140 CILARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES Jan. 6, .friends of mine, whose labours and triumphs will never besubjects of indifference to me. I thank those gentlemen forgiving me the opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some connexion with their own proceedings;and, though last not least, I tender my acknowledgmentsto that charming presence, without which nothing beautiful can be complete, and which is endearingly associated with rings of a plainer description, and which, I mustconfess, awakens in mymind at the present moment a feelingof regret that I am not in a condition to make an offer ofthese testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to commend mevery earnestly and gratefully to our absent friends, and toassure them of my affectionate and heartfelt respect.The company then adjourned to Dee's Hotel, where abanquet took place, at which about 220 persons were present, among whom were some of the most distinguished ofthe Royal Academicians. To the toast of " The Literatureof England," Mr. Dickens responded as follows:Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf ofmany labourers in that great field of literature to which youhave pledged the toast, to thank you for the tribute youhave paid to it. Such an honour, rendered by acclamationin such a place as this, seems to me, if I may follow on thesame side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford) wholately addressed you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never forget-such an honour, gentlemen,rendered here, seems to me a two-sided illustration of theposition that literature holds in these latter and, of course,"degenerate" days. To the great compact phalanx of thepeople, by whose industry, perseverance, and intelligence,and their result in money-wealth, such places as Birming1353.ham, and many others like it, have arisen-to that greatcentre of support, that comprehensive experience, and thatbeating heart, literature has turned happily from individualpatrons-sometimes munificent, often sordid, always few—and has there found at once its highest purpose, its naturalrange of action, and its best reward. Therefore it is rightalso, as it seems to me, not only that literature should receivehonour here, but that it should render honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to Birmingham,Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. Fromthe shame of the purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependentseat on sufferance at my Lord Duke's table to-day, andfrom the sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow-fromthat venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has degradedstatesmen even to a greater extent than authors, becausethe statesman entertained a low belief in the universality ofcorruption, while the author yielded only to the dire necessity of his calling—from all such evils the people have setliterature free. And my creed in the exercise of that profession is, that literature cannot be too faithful to the peoplein return—cannot too ardently advocate the cause of theiradvancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have heard itsometimes said-and what is worse, as expressing somethingmore cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written-thatliterature has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated by being made cheaper. I have not found that to bethe case: nor do I believe that you have made the discoveryeither. But let a good book in these " bad " times be madeaccessible, even upon an abstruse and difficult subject, sothat it be one of legitimate interest to mankind, —and my lifeon it, it shall be extensively bought, read, and well considered.LITERATUre of enGLAND. 141143 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Jan. 6,Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at this moment many working men infinitely better versed in Shakespeare and in Milton than the average offine gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold dedicationsand dear books. I ask anyone to consider for himself who,at this time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to thedissemination of such useful publications as " Macaulay'sHistory," " Layard's Researches," " Tennyson's Poems,"" The Duke of Wellington's published Despatches, " or theminutest truths (if any truth can be called minute ) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It iswith all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn,or a lecture upon art-if we had the good fortune to listento one to-morrow-by my distinguished friend the Presidentof the Royal Academy. However small the audience, lowever contracted the circle in the water, in the first instance,the people are nearer the wider range outside, and the SisterArts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage and improvement from their ready sympathy and cor dial response. I may instance the case of my friend Mr.Ward's magnificent picture; * and the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not now the province ofart in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that itcannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple,—on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of adrapery-but that it must be imbued with human passionsand action, informed with human right and wrong, and,being so informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its trial,like the criminal of old, to be judged by God and its country.Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to trouble you again. For this time I have only onceagain to repeat what I have already said. As I begun with

Charlotte Corday going to Execution.

1853.INSTITUTIONS OF BIRMINGHAM. 143literature, I shall end with it. I would simply say that Ibelieve no true man, with anything to tell, need have theleast misgiving, either for himself or his message, before alarge number of hearers--always supposing that he be notafflicted with the coxcombical idea of writing down to thepopular intelligence, instead of writing the popular intelligence up to himself, if, perchance, he be above it;—and,provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is inhim, which seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it beingsupposed that he has some dim design of making himselfunderstood. On behalf of that literature to which you havedone so much honour, I beg to thank you most cordially,and on my own behalf, for the most flattering reception youhave given to one whose claim is, that he has the distinctionof making it his profession.Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, "TheEducational Institutions of Birmingham," in the followingspeech:I am requested to propose—or, according to the hypothesisof my friend, Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary character ofa walking advertisement to advertise to you- the EducationalInstitutions of Birmingham; an advertisement to which Ihave the greatest pleasure in calling your attention. Gentlemen, it is right that I should, in so many words, mentionthe more prominent of these institutions, not because yourlocal memories require any prompting, but because theenumeration implies what has been done here, what you aredoing, and what you will yet do. I believe the first is theKing Edward's Grammar School, with its various branches,and prominent among them is that most admirable meansof training the wives of working men to be good wives andworking wives, the prime ornament of their homes, and the144 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Jan. 6,cause of happiness to others—I mean those excellent girls'schools in various parts of the town, which, under the excellent superintendence of the principal, I should most sincerely desire to see in every town in England. Next, Ibelieve, is the Spring Hill College, a learned institution belonging to the body of Independents, foremost amongwhose professors literature is proud to hail Mr. HenryRogers as one of the soundest and ablest contributors tothe Edinburgh Review. The next is the Queen's College,which, I may say, is only a newly-born child; but, in thehands of such an admirable Doctor, we may hope to see itarrive at a vigorous maturity. The next is the School ofDesign, which, as has been well observed by my friend SirCharles Eastlake, is invaluable in such a place as this; and,lastly, there is the Polytechnic Institution, with regard towhich I had long ago occasion to express my profound conviction that it was of unspeakable importance to such acommunity as this, when I had the honour to be present,under the auspices of your excellent representative, Mr.Scholefield. This is the last of what has been done in aneducational way. They are all admirable in their kind;but I am glad to find that more is yet doing. A few daysago I received a Birmingham newspaper, containing a mostinteresting account of a preliminary meeting for the formation of a Reformatory School for juvenile delinquents. Youare not exempt here from the honour of saving these poor,neglected, and wretched outcasts. I read of one infant,six years old, who has been twice as many times in thehands of the police as years have passed over his devotedhead. These are the eggs from which gaol-birds arehatched; if you wish to check that dreadful brood, youmust take the young and innocent, and have them rearedby Christian hands.1853.EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 145Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot ascheme for a new Literary and Scientific Institution, whichwould be worthy even of this place, if there was nothing ofthe kind in it—an institution, as I understand it, where thewords " exclusion" and " exclusiveness" shall be quite unknown-where all classes may assemble in common trust,respect, and confidence—where there shall be a great galleryof painting and statuary open to the inspection and admiration of all comers-where there shall be a museum ofmodels in which industry may observe its various sources ofmanufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, and arrive at new results-where the very minesunder the earth and under the sea shall not be forgotten,but presented in little to the inquiring eye-an institution,in short, where many and many of the obstacles which nowinevitably stand in the rugged way of the poor inventor shallbe smoothed away, and where, if he have anything in him,he will find encouragement and hope.I observe with unusual interest and gratification, thata body of gentlemen are going for a time to lay asidetheir individual prepossessions on other subjects, and,as good citizens, are to be engaged in a design as patrioticas well can be. They have the intention of meeting in afew days to advance this great object, and I call upon you,in drinking this toast, to drink success to their endeavour,and to make it the pledge by all good means to promote it.If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutionsin Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I intendto stop, merely observing that I have seen within a shortwalk of this place one of the most interesting and practicalInstitutions for the Deaf and Dumb that has ever comeunder my observation. I have seen in the factories andworkshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and regula10146 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Jan. 6, 1853.rity, and such great consideration for the workpeople provided, that they might justly be entitled to be considerededucational too. I have seen in your splendid Town Hall,when the cheap concerts are going on there, also an admirable educational institution. I have seen their results inthe demeanour of your working people, excellently balancedby a nice instinct, as free from servility on the one hand, asfrom self-conceit on the other. It is a perfect delight tohave need to ask a question, if only from the manner of thereply—a manner I never knew to pass unnoticed by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a greatmany more I have not touched upon, and weaving all intoone good fabric, remember how much is included under thegeneral head of the Educational Institutions of your town.XVIII.LONDON, APRIL 30, 1853.At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir Charles Eastlake, proposed as a toast, " The Interests of Literature, " and selectedfor the representatives of the world of letters, the Dean of St. Paul's andMr. Charles Dickens. Dean Milman having returned thanks, ]MR DICKENS then addressed the President, who, itshould be mentioned, occupied a large and handsome chair, the back covered with crimson velvet,placed just before Stanfield's picture of The Victory.Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of thetoast, and the honour done him in associating his name withit, said that those acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was unable to recognize in this toast thePresident's usual disinterestedness; since English literaturecould scarcely be remembered in any place, and, certainly,not in a school of art, without a very distinct remembranceof his own tasteful writings, to say nothing of that other andbetter part of himself, which, unfortunately, was not visibleupon these occasions.If, like the noble Lord, the Commander-in-Chief (ViscountHardinge), he ( Mr. Dickens) might venture to illustrate hisbriefthanks with one word of reference to the noble pictureT148 CHARLES Dickens's sPEECHES. April 30, 1853painted by a very dear friend of his, which was a little.eclipsed that evening by the radiant and rubicund chairwhich the President now so happily toned down, he wouldbeg leave to say that, as literature could nowhere be moreappropriately honoured than in that place, so he thoughtshe could nowhere feel a higher gratification in the ties thatbound her to the sister arts. He ever felt in that place thatliterature found, through their instrumentality, always a newexpression, and in a universal language.VEXIX.LONDON, MAY 1 , 1853 .64 [At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the abovedate, Mr. Justice Talfourd proposed as a toast Anglo-Saxon Literature, "and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction as a means ofawakening attention to the condition of the oppressed and suffering classes:-]66MR. DICKENS replied to this toast in a gracefuland playful strain. In the former part of theevening, in reply to a toast on the chancery department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absenceof the Lord Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Courtof Chancery, not distinctly alluding to Bleak House, butevidently not without reference to it. The amount of whathe said was, that the Court had received a great many morehard opinions than it merited; that they had been parsimoniously obliged to perform a great amount of business bya very inadequate number of judges; but that more recentlythe number of judges had been increased to seven, and therewas reason to hope that all business brought before it wouldnow be performed without unnecessary delay."Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence;said he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he trusted now150 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES May 1, 1853. .that a suit, in which he was greatly interested, would speedilycome to an end. I heard a little by-conversation betweenMr. Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, who sat oppositeme, in which the latter seemed to be reiterating the sameassertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not extraordinarily complicated might be got through with in threemonths. Mr. Dickens said he was very happy to hear it;but I fancied there was a little shade of incredulity in hismanner; however, the incident showed one thing, that is,that the chancery were not insensible to the representationsof Dickens; but the whole tone ofthe thing was quite goodnatured and agreeable. "*

The above is extracted from Mrs. Stowe's " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," a book in which her eaves-dropping propensities were already de veloped in a sufficiently ugly form.-ED.

XX.BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 30, 1853.[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens onbehalf of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, took place on Tuesdayevening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, where, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand personshad assembled. The work selected was the Christmas Carol. The highmimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate withremarkable force the various characters of the story, and with admirableskill to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to trusting andthankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of Scrooge's nephew, tothe hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe the Ragshop-keeper'sparlour. The reading occupied more than three hours, but so interestedwere the audience, that only one or two left the Hall previously to its termination, andthe loud and frequent bursts of applause attested the successfuldischarge ofthe reader's arduous task. On Thursday evening Mr. Dickensread The Cricket on the Hearth. The Hall was again well filled, and thetale, though deficient in the dramatic interest of the Carol, was listened towith attention, and rewarded with repeated applause. On Fridayevening,the Christmas Carol was read a second time to a large assemblage ofwork-people, for whom, at Mr. Dickens's special request, the major partof the vast edifice was reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. Dickensdelivered the following brief address, almost every sentence of which was received with loudly expressed applause. ]Y GOOD FRIENDS, -When I first imparted to thecommittee of the projected Institute my particularwish that on one of the evenings of my readingshere the main body of my audience should be composed ofworking men and their families, I was animated by two desires; first, by the wish to have the great pleasure of meet152 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.Dec. 30,ing you face to face at this Christmas time, and accompanyyou myself through one of my little Christmas books; andsecond, by the wish to have an opportunity of stating publicly in your presence, and in the presence of the committee,my earnest hope that the Institute will, from the beginning,recognise one great principle-strong in reason and justice-which I believe to be essential to the very life of such anInstitution. It is, that the working man shall, from the firstunto the last, have a share in the management of an Institution which is designed for his benefit, and which callsitself by his name.I have no fear here of being misunderstood-of beingsupposed to mean too much in this. If there ever was atime when any one class could of itself do much for itsown good, and for the welfare of society—which I greatlydoubt that time is unquestionably past. It is in the fusionof different classes, without confusion; in the bringing together of employers and employed; in the creating of abetter common understanding among those whose interestsare identical, who depend upon each other, who are vitallyessential to each other, and who never can be in unnaturalantagonism without deplorable results, that one of the chiefprinciples of a Mechanics' Institution should consist. Inthis world a great deal of the bitterness among us arisesfrom an imperfect understanding of one another. Erect inBirmingham a great Educational Institution, properly educational; educational of the feelings as well as of thereason; to which all orders of Birmingham men contribute;in which all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein allorders of Birmingham men are faithfully represented -andyou will erect a Temple of Concord here which will be amodel edifice to the whole of England.Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans'A TEMPLE OF CONCORD.Committee, which not long ago considered the establishmentof the Institute so sensibly, and supported it so heartily, Iearnestly entreat the gentlemen-earnest I know in thegood work, and who are now among us,-by all means toavoid the great shortcoming of similar institutions; and inasking the working man for his confidence, to set him thegreat example and give him theirs in return. You willjudge for yourselves if I promise too much for the workingman, when I say that he will stand by such an enterprisewith the utmost of his patience, his perseverance, sense,and support; that I am sure he will need no charitable aidor condescending patronage; but will readily and cheerfullypay for the advantages which it confers; that he will prepare himself in individual cases where he feels that theadverse circumstances around him have rendered it necessary; in a word, that he will feel his responsibility like anhonest man, and will most honestly and manfully dischargeit. I now proceed to the pleasant task to which I assureyou I have looked forward for a long time.1853.153At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, and "three cheers, with three times three." As soon as the enthusiasm of theaudience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens said:You have heard so much of my voice since we met tonight, that I will only say, in acknowledgment of this affecting mark of your regard, that I am truly and sincerelyinterested in you; that any little service I have rendered toyou I have freely rendered from my heart; that I hope tobecome an honorary member of your great Institution, andwill meet you often there when it becomes practicallyuseful; that I thank you most affectionately for this newmark of your sympathy and approval; and that I wishyou many happy returns of this great birthday-time, andmany prosperous years.SummeXXI.COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854.[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary Dinner in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial Travellers'Schools, held at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickenspresided on this occasion, and proposed the toasts. ]THINK it may be assumed that most of us hepresent knowsomething about travelling. I do notmean in distant regions or foreign countries, althoughI dare say some of us have had experience in that way, butat home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. Idare say most of us have had experience of the extinct "fastcoaches," the " Wonders," " Taglionis," and " Tallyhos," ofother days. I daresay most of us remember certain modestpostchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, throughslush and mud, to little country towns with no visible population, except half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozenwomen with umbrellas and pattens, and a washed- out dogor so shivering under the gables, to complete the desolatepicture. We can all discourse, I dare say, if so minded,about our recollections of the "Talbot," the " Queen'sHead," or the " Lion " of those days. We have all been tothat room on the ground floor on one side of the old innDec. 30, 1854.yard, not quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco,where the cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed bythe skirts of the box-coats that hung from the wall; whereawkward servants waylaid us at every turn, like so manyhuman man-traps; where county members, framed andglazed, were eternally presenting that petition which, somehow or other, had made their glory in the county, althoughnothing else had ever come of it. Where the books in thewindows always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves,and where the one man was always arriving at some unusualhour in the night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarlysingular period of the day. I have no doubt we could allbe very eloquent on the comforts of our favourite hotel,wherever it was-its beds, its stables, its vast amount ofposting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital dishes,its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, orour fraternal regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic once writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her the character ofbeingan " eminently gatherable-to-one's-arms sort ofperson. "Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat similartribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presidedat our hotels.COMMERCIAL TRAVEllers. 155With the travelling characteristics of later times, we areall, no doubt, equally familiar. We know all about thatstation to which we must take our ticket, although we neverget there; and the other one at which we arrive after dark,certain to find it half a mile from the town, where the oldroad is sure to have been abolished, and the new road is goingto be made where the old neighbourhood has been tumbleddown, and the new one is not half built up. We know allabout that party on the platform who, with the best inten156 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 30,tions, can do nothing for our luggage except pitch it into allsorts of unattainable places. We know all about that shortomnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminentdanger of the crown of one's hat; and about that fly, whoseleading peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted.We know, too, how instantaneously the lights of the stationdisappear when the train starts, and about that grope to thenew Railway Hotel, which will be an excellent house whenthe customers come, but which at present has nothing to offerbut a liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime.I record these little incidents of home travel mainly withthe object of increasing your interest in the purpose of thisnight's assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his own,and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.If he has no home, he learns the same lesson unselfishly byturning to the homes of other men. He may have his experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; buthome is the best, after all, and its pleasures are the mostheartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, every one must be prepared to learn that commercialtravellers, as a body, know how to prize those domestic relations from which their pursuits so frequently sever them; forno one could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing testimony to the fact than they themselves haveoffered in founding and maintaining a school for the children.of deceased or unfortunate members of their own body; thosechildren who now appeal to you in mute but eloquent termsfrom the gallery.It is to support that school, founded with such high andfriendly objects, so very honourable to your calling, and souseful in its solid and practical results, that we are here tonight. It is to roof that building which is to shelter the children of your deceased friends with one crowning ornament,1854 COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. 157the best that any building can have, namely, a receipt stampfor the full amount ofthe cost. It is for this that your activesympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your owngood work. You know how to put your hands to theplough in earnest as well as any men in existence, for thislittle book informs me that you raised last year no less asum than £8000, and while fully half of that sum consistedof new donations to the building fund, I find that the regularrevenue of the charity has only suffered to the extent of£30.After this, I most earnestly and sincerely say that were we allauthors together, I might boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same unity and steadfastness I find in yours.I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, orthe vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by thatbond of brotherhood which ought always to exist amongstmen who are united in a common pursuit. You have alreadyrecognized those claims so nobly, that I will not presume tolay them before you in any further detail. Suffice it to saythat I do not think it is in your nature to do things by halves.I do not think you could do so if you tried, and I have amoral certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemenpresent who are not members of the travellers' body, I willsay in the words of the French proverb, " Heaven helpsthose who help themselves. " The Commercial Travellershaving helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that thevisitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives oughtto bring that aid in their pockets which the precept teachesus to expect from them. With these few remarks, I beg togive you as a toast, " Success to the Commercial Travellers'School."[In proposing the health ofthe Army in the Crimea, Mr. Dickens said:—]T does not require any extraordinary sagacity in acommercial assembly to appreciate the dire153 CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES. Dcc. 30,evils of war. The great interests of trade enfeebled byit, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all thepeaceful arts bent down before it, too palpably indicate itscharacter and results, so that far less practical intelligencethan that by which I am surrounded would be sufficient toappreciate the horrors of war. But there are seasons whenthe evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, are immeasurably greater, and when a powerful nation, by admittingthe right of any autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds of its own ruin, and overshadows itself intime to come with that fatal influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to exercise over their weaker neighbours.Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree hasnot its root in English ground from which the yard wandcan be made that will measure-the mine has not its placein English soil that will supply the material of a pair ofscales to weigh the influence that may be at stake in thewar in which we are now straining all our energies. Thatwar is, at any time and in any shape, a most dreadful anddeplorable calamity, we need no proverb to tell us; but itis just because it is such a calamity, and because that calamity must not for ever be impending over us at the fancy ofone man against all mankind, that we must not allow thatman to darken from our view the figures of peace and justice between whom and us he now interposes.Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when thetrue spirits of two countries were really fighting in the causeof human advancement and freedom-no matter what diplomatic notes or other nameless botherations, from numberone to one hundred thousand and one, may have precededtheir taking the field-if ever there were a time when noblehearts were deserving well of mankind by exposing them1854 COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.selves to the obedient bayonets of a rash and barbariantyrant, it is now, when the faithful children of England andFrance are fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those faithful children are the admiration and wonder of the world, sogallantly are they discharging their duty; and therefore Ipropose to an assembly, emphatically representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink the health of the AlliedArmies of England and France, with all possible honours.159[In proposing the health of the Treasurer, Mr. Dickens said:---]If the President ofthis Institution had been here, I shouldpossibly have made one of the best speeches you everheard; but as he is not here, I shall turn to the next toaston my list:-" The health of your worthy Treasurer, Mr.George Moore," a name which is a synonym for integrity,enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence. He is one ofthemost zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears tome to have been doing nothing during the last week butrushing into and out of railway-carriages, and making eloquent speeches at all sorts of public dinners in favour ofthis charity. Last evening he was at Manchester, and thisevening he comes here, sacrificing his time and convenience,and exhausting in the meantime the contents of two vastleaden inkstands and no end of pens, with the energy offifty bankers' clerks rolled into one. But I clearly foreseethat the Treasurer will have so much to do to-night, suchgratifying sums to acknowledge and such large lines offigures to write in his books, that I feel the greatest consideration I can show him is to propose his health withoutfurther observation, leaving him to address you in his ownbehalf. I propose to you, therefore, the health of Mr.George Moore, the Treasurer of this charity, and I needhardly add that it is one which is to be drunk with all thehonours.160 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.Dcc. 30[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens rose and said: —]So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately,both in fact and in fiction, that I have heard recently of aproposal for the establishment of a Company to employ SirJoseph Paxton to take it down. Only one of those travellers, however, has been enabled to bring Mont Blanc toPiccadilly, and, by his own ability and good humour, so tothaw its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid ladymay ascend it twice a-day, " during the holidays," without thesmallest danger or fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us to- night, is undoubtedly "a traveller." Ido not know whether he takes many orders, but this I cantestify, on behalf of the children of his friends, that he givesthem in the most liberal manner.We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also a traveller, not only in right of his ableedition of Goldsmith's " Traveller," but in right of his admirable Handbook, which proves him to be a traveller in theright spirit through all the labyrinths of London. We havealso amongst us my friend Horace Mayhew, very well knownalso for his books, but especially for his genuine admirationof the company at that end of the room [Mr. Dickens herepointed to the ladies' gallery] , and who, whenever the fair sexis mentioned, will be found to have the liveliest personal interest in the conversation.Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you thehealth of these three distinguished visitors . They are alladmirable speakers, but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed tome, that on fairly balancing his own merits as a speaker anda singer, he rather thinks he excels in the latter art. Ihave, therefore, yielded to his estimate of himself, and Ihave now the pleasure of informing you that he will lead offthe speeches of the other two gentlemen with a song. Mr.1854.COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS.Albert Smith has just said to me in an earnest tone ofvoice,"What song would you recommend?" and I replied, “ Galignani's Messenger. " Ladies and gentlemen, I thereforebeg to propose the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, PeterCunningham, and Horace Mayhew, and call on the firstnamed gentleman for a song.161IIXXII.ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, WEDNESDAY,JUNE 27, 1855.JJSCANNOT, I am sure, better express my sense ofthe kind reception accorded to me by this greatassembly, than by promising to compress what Ishall address to it within the closest possible limits. It ismore than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a setof men who "thought they should be heard for their muchspeaking. " As they have propagated exceedingly since thattime, and as I observe that they flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my best to avoidadding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble lordat the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, didnot blush for having stated in this place what the wholecountry knows perfectly well to be true, and what no manin it can by possibility better know to be true than thosedisinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night,June 27, 1855.ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 163when he first became premier-I mean that he did officiallyand habitually joke, at a time when this country was plungedin deep disgrace and distress—I say, that noble lord, when hewondered so much that the man of this age, who has, by hisearnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguishhimself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity ofhaving so come between the wind and his nobility, turned anairy period with reference to the private theatricals at DruryLane Theatre. Now, I have some slight acquaintance withtheatricals, private and public, and I will accept that figure ofthe noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty's servants, I think I should know whereto put my hand on "the comic old gentleman;" nor, thatif I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should knowwhat establishment to go to for the tricks and changes; also,for a very considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip oneanother up in that contention with which many of us arefamiliar, both on these and on other boards, in which theprincipal objects thrown about are loaves and fishes. ButI will try to give the noble lord the reason for these privatetheatricals, and the reason why, however ardently he maydesire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is not thefaintest present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It isthis:-The public theatricals which the noble lord is so condescending as to manage are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts so ill-distributed, the companyso full of " walking gentlemen, " the managers have such largefamilies, and are so bent upon putting those families intowhat is theatrically called " first business "—not because oftheir aptitude for it, but because they are their families, thatwe find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. Wehave seen the Comedy of Errors played so dismally like atragedy that we really cannot bear it. We are, therefore,II -2164 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 27making bold to get up the School of Reform, and we hope,before the play is out, to improve that noble lord by ourperformance very considerably. If he object that we haveno right to improve him without his license, we venture toclaim that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a verypowerful piper, whom we always pay.Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended,and as my trade and calling is not associated with politics,perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I came to behere, because reasons similar to those which have influencedme may still be trembling in the balance in the minds ofothers. I want at all times, in full sincerity, to do my dutyby my countrymen. If I feel an attachment towards them,there is nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for Ican never too affectionately remember the confidence andfriendship that they have long reposed in me. My sphereof action-which I shall never change-I shall never overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do tonight. By literature I have lived, and through literature Ihave been content to serve my country; and I am perfectlywell aware that I cannot serve two masters. In my sphereof action I have tried to understand the heavier social grievances, and to help to set them right. When the Timesnewspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in referenceto the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplacedmen and misdirected things, which had made England unableto find on the face of the earth, an enemy one- twentieth partso potent to effect the misery and ruin of her noble defendersas she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy silence intowhich the country fell was by far the darkest aspect in whicha great people had been exhibited for many years. Withshame and indignation lowering among all classes of society,and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis1355.ADMINISTRAtive reform. 165of ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us--with little adequate expression of the general mind, orapparent understanding of the general mind, in Parliament--with the machinery of Government and the legislaturegoing round and round, and the people fallen from it andstanding aloof, as if they left it to its last remaining functionof destroying itself, when it had achieved the destructionof so much that was dear to them-I did and do believethat the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could possibly take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeakingof the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism andloyalty to effect a great peaceful constitutional change in theadministration of their own affairs. At such a crisis thisassociation arose; at such a crisis I joined it: consideringits further case to be-if further case could possibly beneeded that what is everybody's business is nobody'sbusiness, that men must be gregarious in good citizenship as well as in other things, and that it is a law in naturethat there must be a centre of attraction for particles tofly to, before any serviceable body with recognised functions can come into existence. This association has arisen,and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? Ihave heard in the main but three, which I will now brieflynotice. It is said that it is proposed by this associationto exercise an influence, through the constituencies, onthe House of Commons. I have not the least hesitation insaying that I have the smallest amount of faith in the Houseof Commons at present existing, and that I consider theexercise of such influence highly necessary to the welfareand honour of this country. I was reading no later thanyesterday the book of Mr. Pepys, which is rather a favouriteof mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, writing of the House of Commons, says:156 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 27,"My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust of being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can see, out ofany truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design. "Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years,and many years after a Reform Bill, the House of Commonsis so little changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will notask how it happens that bills which cramp and worry thepeople, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so easilypassed, and how it happens that measures for their real interests are so very difficult to be got through Parliament. I willnot analyse the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to theirprimitive gases its deadening influences on the memory ofthat Honourable Member who was once a candidate for thehonour of your-and my-independent vote and interest.I will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on itslips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare's Touchstone-the retort courteous—the quip modest-the reply churlish-the reproof valiant-the countercheckquarrelsome-the lie circumstantial and the lie direct-areof immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commonsthan the health, the taxation, and the education, of a wholepeople. I will not penetrate into the mysteries of that secretchamber in which the Bluebeard of Party keeps his strangledpublic questions, and with regard to which, when he givesthe key to his wife, the new comer, he strictly charges heron no account to open the door. I will merely put it to theexperience of everybody here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, a little dimof sight, a little slow of understanding, and whether, in short,it is not in a sufficiently invalided state to require close1855 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 167watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants;and whether it is not capable of considerable improvement?I believe that, in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, the people must be very watchfuland very jealous of it; and it must have its memory jogged;and be kept awake when it happens to have taken too muchMinisterial narcotic; it must be trotted about, and must behustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. I hold that no power can deprive us of theright to administer our functions as a body comprisingelectors from all parts of the country, associated togetherbecause their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle,unmeaning routine, or worn-out conventionalities.This brings me to objection number two. It is statedthat this Association sets class against class. Is this so?(Cries of "No.") No, it finds class set against class, andseeks to reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in opposition those two words-Aristocracy and People. I am onewho can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and wouldnot on any account deprive either of a single just rightbelonging to it. I will use, instead of these words, theterms, the governors and the governed. These two bodiesthe Association finds with a gulf between them, in whichare lying, newly- buried, thousands on thousands of thebravest and most devoted men that even England everbred. It is to prevent the recurrence of innumerablesmaller evils, of which, unchecked, that great calamity wasthe crowning height and the necessary consummation, andto bring together those two fronts looking now so strangelyat each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridgeover that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class againstclass! That is the very parrot prattle that we have so long158 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 27.heard: Try its justice by the following example:-A. respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a greatnumber of servants, who were good for nothing, who, whenhe asked them to give his children bread, gave them stones;who, when they were told to give those children fish, gavethem serpents. When they were ordered to send to theEast, they sent to the West; when they ought to have beenserving dinner in the North, they were consulting explodedcookery books in the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when required to do anything, andwere bringing everything to ruin. At last the respectablegentleman calls his house steward, and says, even then morein sorrow than in anger, "This is a terrible business; nofortune can stand it—no mortal equanimity can bear it! Imust change my system; I must obtain servants who willdo their duty." The house steward throws up his eyes inpious horror, ejaculates " Good God, master, you are settingclass against class!" and then rushes off into the servants'hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wickedfeeling.I now come to the third objection, which is commonamong young gentlemen who are not particularly fit foranything but spending money which they have not got. Itis usually comprised in the observation, " How very extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can'tmind their own business." I think it will occur to all thata very sufficient mode of disposing of this objection is tosay, that it is our own business we mind when we comeforward in this way, and it is to prevent it from being mismanaged by them. I observe from the Parliamentary debates-which have of late, by- the-bye, frequently suggestedto me that there is this difference between the bull of Spainand the bull of Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case,1855.ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 169the bull rushes at the scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull-I have observed from the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been agreat deal of the reproof valiant and the counter- checkquarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced,whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should have nodifficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which Iknow to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for,if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for AdministrativeReform, I think they never can be, and they never will be.There is, however, an old indisputable, very well knownstory, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it that Iwill substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I mayavoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St. Stephen's. Ages agoa savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks wasintroduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accountswere kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar onthe desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died;Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed infigures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers, and actuaries, were born, and died.Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as ifthey were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints ofelm wood called " tallies." In the reign of George III. aninquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whetherpens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence,this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to becontinued, and whether a change ought not to be effected170 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 27,All the red tape in the country grew redder at the baremention of this bold and original conception, and it tooktill 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it wasfound that there was a considerable accumulation of them;and the question then arose, what was to be done with suchworn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare saythere was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, anddespatch-boxing, on this mighty subject. The sticks werehoused at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to anyintelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allowthem to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserablepeople who live in that neighbourhood. However, theynever had been useful, and official routine required that theynever should be, and so the order went forth that they wereto be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass.that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. Thestove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire tothe panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords;the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons;the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were calledin to build others; we are now in the second million of thecost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over the stileyet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got hometo-night.Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion,that all obstinate adherence to rubbish which the time haslong outlived, is certain to have in the soul of it more orless that is pernicious and destructive; and that will someday set fire to something or other; which, if given boldlyto the winds would have been harmless; but which, obstinately retained, is ruinous. I believe myself that whenAdministrative Reform goes up it will be idle to hope to putit down, on this or that particular instance. The great,

1855. ADMINISTRATIVE Reform.broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behindour private progress, and that we are not more remarkablefor our private wisdom and success in matters of businessthan we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be asclearly established as the sun, moon, and stars. To set thisright, and to clear the way in the country for merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic ordemocratic, only asking whether it be honest or true, is, Itake it, the true object of this Association. This object itseeks to promote by uniting together large numbers of thepeople, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they maybetter comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves,and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also,of which there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eyeon the skirmishers thrown out from time to time by theParty of Generals, they may see that their feints andmanœuvres do not oppress the small defaulters and releasethe great, and that they do not gull the public with a merefield-day Review of Reform, instead of an earnest, hardfought Battle. I have had no consultation with any oneupon the subject, but I particularly wish that the directorsmay devise some means of enabling intelligent workingmen to join this body, on easier terms than subscriberswho have larger resources. I could wish to see great numbers ofthem belong to us, because I sincerely believe that itwould be good for the common weal.Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government,when Mr. Layard asked him for a day for his motion, " Letthe hon. gentleman find a day for himself. "171"Now, in the names of all the gods at once,Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed That he is grown so great?"If our Cæsar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of172 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 27, 1855.reversing that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say,"First Lord, your duty it is to see that no man is left tofind a day for himself. See you, who take the responsibilityof government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue for it,scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you canget it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself.In this old country, with its seething hard-worked millions,its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor,and its crowds of wicked, woe the day when the dangerousman shall find a day for himself, because the head of theGovernment failed in his duty in not anticipating it by abrighter and a better one! Name you the day, First Lord;make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, LordPalmerston, and History in return may then-not otherwise-find a day for you; a day equally associated with thecontentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted Englishpeople, and with the happiness of your Royal Mistress andher fair line of children. "CODODOMXXIII.SHEFFIELD, DECEMBER 22, 1855.[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol in the Mechanics' Hall in behalf of the funds of the Institute.After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few gentlemenin Sheffield to present to Mr. Dickens for his acceptance a very handsomeservice of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a pair of fish carvers, as somesubstantial manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens for his kindnessin coming to Sheffield . Henceforth the Christmas of 1855 would be asso ciated in his mind with the name of that gentleman. ]CHARLES DICKENS, in receiving the presentaMtion, said, he accepted with heartfelt delight andcordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of Sheffield workmanship; and he begged to assure them that thekind observations which had been made by the Mayor, andthe way in which they had been responded to by that assembly, would never be obliterated from his remembrance.The present testified not only to the work of Sheffield hands,but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. Itwas his earnest desire to do right by his readers, and to leaveimaginative and popular literature associated with the privatehomes and public rights of the people of England. The caseof cutlery with which he had been so kindly presented,174 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 22, 1855.should be retained as an heirloom in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to theprinciples which had earned for him their approval. Intaking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them manymerry Christmases, and many happy new years.XXIV.boomom .....00THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND.LONDON, MARCH 12, 1856.[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790, its object being to administer assistance to authors of genius and learning,who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities, or deprived, byenfeebled faculties or declining life, of the power of literary exertion . Atthe annual general meeting held at the house of the society on the abovedate, the following speech was made by Mr. Charles Dickens:}IR, —I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell,who, in the profession of literature, represents uponthis committee a separate and distinct branch of theprofession, that, like"The last rose of summerStands blooming alone,While all its companionsAre faded and gone, "into the very prickly bramble-bush with which he has ingeniously contrived to beset this question. In the remarks Ihave to make I shall confine myself to four points: —1. Thatthe committee find themselves in the painful condition ofnot spending enough money, and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending more. 2. Thatwith regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history,176 CHARLES dickensS SPEECHES. March 12,that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious wasto be applied to uses to which it never has been applied,and which the administrators of the fund decline to recognise. 3. That, in Mr. Bell's endeavours to remove theArtists' Fund from the ground of analogy it unquestionablyoccupies with reference to this fund, by reason of their continuing periodical relief to the same persons, I beg to tellMr. Bell what every gentleman at that table knows -that itis the business of this fund to relieve over and over againthe same people.MR. BELL: But fresh inquiry is always made first.MR. C. DICKENS: I can only oppose to that statementmy own experience when I sat on that committee, and whenI have known persons relieved on many consecutive occasions without further inquiry being made. As to the suggestion that we should select the items of expenditure thatwe complain of, I think it is according to all experience thatwe should first affirm the principle that the expenditure istoo large. If that be done by the meeting, then I will proceed to the selection of the separate items. Now, in risingto support this resolution, I may state at once that I havescarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happyto think it will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongestpoint ofthe resolution's case that it should not be carried,because it will show the determination ofthe fund's managers.Nothing can possibly be stronger in favour of the resolution.than that the statement should go forth to the world thattwice within twelve months the attention of the committeehas been called to this great expenditure, and twice thecommittee have considered that it was not unreasonable. Icannot conceive a stronger case for the resolution than thisstatement of fact as to the expenditure going forth to thepublic accompanied by the committee's assertion that it isz856. THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. 177reasonable. Now, to separate this question from details, letus remember what the committee and their supporters asserted last year, and, I hope, will re-assert this year. Itseems to be rather the model kind of thing than otherwisenow that if you get £100 you are to spend £40 in management; and if you get £1000, of course you may spend£400 in giving the rest away. Now, in case there shouldbe any ill-conditioned people here who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I will give youmy experience. I went last year to a highly respectableplace of resort, Willis's Rooms, in St. James's, to a meetingof this fund. My original intention was to hear all I could,and say as little as possible. Allowing for the absence ofthe younger and fairer portion of the creation, the generalappearance of the place was something like Almack's in themorning. A number of stately old dowagers sat in a row onone side, and old gentlemen on the other. The ball wasopened with due solemnity by a real marquis, who walked aminuet with the secretary, at which the audience were muchaffected. Then another party advanced, who, I am sorry tosay, was only a member of the House of Commons, and hetook possession of the floor. To him, however, succeededa lord, then a bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord,then one or two celebrities from the City and Stock Exchange, and at last a gentleman, who made a fortune by thesuccess of " Candide," sustained the part of Pangloss, andspoke much of what he evidently believed to be the verybest management of this best of all possible funds. Now it isin this fondness for being stupendously genteel, and keepingup fine appearances-this vulgar and common social vice ofhanging on to great connexions at any price, that the moneygoes. The last time you got a distinguished writer at apublic meeting, and he was called on to address you some12178 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. March 12,where amongst the small hours, he told you he felt like theman in plush who was permitted to sweep the stage downafter all the other people had gone. If the founder of thissociety were here, I should think he would feel like a sortof Rip van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years and woke up to find his fundstill lying under the feet of people who did nothing for itinstead of being emancipated and standing alone long ago.This Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desirefor show, and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course,in his official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respecthim. ) When one enters the house it appears to be hauntedby a series of mysterious-looking ghosts, who glide aboutengaged in some extraordinary occupation, and, after theapproved fashion of ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What are all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I say, as a writerby profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary toascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have afar better knowledge of the cases coming before the boardthan can ever be attained by that committee. Further, Isay openly and plainly, that this fund is pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of beingquietly administered at small expense; and that the secrecyto which it lays claim as its greatest attribute, is not kept;for through those " two respectable householders," to whomreference must be made, the names of the most deservingapplicants are to numbers of people perfectly well known.The members have now got before them a plain statement offact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whetherthey are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg mostearnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who1856. THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND.belong to this institution, that must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and whatit is not for. The question raised by the resolution is whether this is a public corporation for the relief of men ofgenius and learning, or whether it is a snug, traditional, andconventional party, bent upon maintaining its own usageswith a vast amount of pride; upon its own annual pufferyat costly dinner-tables, and upon a course of expensivetoadying to a number of distinguished individuals . This isthe question which you cannot this day escape.179XXV.LONDON, NOVEMBER 5, 1857.[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and ClerksSchools, which took place on Thursday evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at the London Tavern, and was very numerously attended, Mr. Charles Dickensoccupied the chair. On the subject which had brought the companytogether Mr. Dickens spoke as follows:-]AGMUST now solicit your attention for a few minutesto the cause ofyour assembling together-the mainand real object of this evening's gathering; for Isuppose we are all agreed that the motto ofthese tables is not" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" but, " Let useat and drink, for to-morrow we live. " It is because a greatand good work is to live to-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow, and to live a greater and better life with every succeeding to-morrow, that we eat and drink here at all. Conspicuous on the card of admission to this dinner is the word"Schools. " This set me thinking this morning what are thesorts of schools that I don't like. I found them on consideration, to be rather numerous. I don't like to beginwith, and to begin as charity does at home-1 don't like thesort of school to which I once went myself-the respectedproprietor of which was by far the most ignorant man Ihave ever had the pleasure to know; one of the worst-tempered men perhaps that ever lived, whose business it was tomake as much out of us and put as little into us as possible,and who sold us at a figure which I remember we used todelight to estimate, as amounting to exactly £2 45. 6d. per1857. WAREHOUSEMEN AND CLERKS' SCHOOLS.head. I don't like that sort of school, because I don't seewhat business the master had to be at the top of it insteadof the bottom, and because I never could understand thewholesomeness of the moral preached by the abject appearance and degraded condition of the teachers who plainlysaid to us by their looks every day of their lives, " Boys,never be learned; whatever you are, above all things bewarned from that in time by our sunken cheeks, by ourpoor pimply noses, by our meagre diet, by our acid-beer,and by our extraordinary suits of clothes, of which nohuman being can say whether they are snuff-coloured turnedblack, or black turned snuff-coloured, a point upon which weourselves are perfectly unable to offer any ray of enlightenment, it is so very long since they were undarned and new."I do not like that sort of school, because I have never yetlost my ancient suspicion touching that curious coincidencethat the boy with four brothers to come always got theprizes. In fact, and short, I do not like that sort of school,which is a pernicious and abominable humbug altogether.Again, ladies and gentlemen, I don't like that sort of schoola ladies' school-with which the other school used todance on Wednesdays, where the young ladies, as I lookback upon them now, seem to me always to have beenin new stays and disgrace—the latter concerning a place ofwhich I know nothing at this day, that bounds Timbuctooon the north-east-and where memory always depicts theyouthful enthraller of my first affection as for ever standingagainst a wall, in a curious machine of wood, which confinedher innocent feet in the first dancing position, while thosearms, which should have encircled my jacket, those preciousarms, I say, were pinioned behind her by an instrument oftorture called a backboard, fixed in the manner of a doubledirection post. Again, I don't like that sort of school, of181182 CHARLES Dickens's SPEECHES Nov. 5.which we have a notable example in Kent, which was established ages ago by worthy scholars and good men longdeceased, whose munificent endowments have been monstrously perverted from their original purpose, and which,in their distorted condition, are struggled for and fought overwith the most indecent pertinacity. Again, I don't like thatsort of school-and I have seen a great many such in theselatter times-where the bright childish imagination is utterlydiscouraged, and where those bright childish faces, which itis so very good for the wisest among us to remember in afterlife-when the world is too much with us, early and late*———are gloomily and grimly scared out of countenance; whereI have never seen among the pupils, whether boys or girls,anything but little parrots and small calculating machines.Again, I don't by any means like schools in leather breeches,and with mortified straw baskets for bonnets, which filealong the streets in long melancholy rows under the escortof that surprising British monster—a beadle, whose systemof instruction, I am afraid, too often presents that happyunion of sound with sense, of which a very remarkable instance is given in a grave report of a trustworthy schoolinspector, to the effect that a boy in great repute at schoolfor his learning, presented on his slate, as one of the tencommandments, the perplexing prohibition, " Thou shaltnot commit doldrum. " Ladies and gentlemen, I confess,also, that I don't like those schools, even though the instruction given in them be gratuitous, where those sweet littlevoices which ought to be heard speaking in very differentaccents, anathematise by rote any human being who doesnot hold what is taught there. Lastly, I do not like, andI did not like some years ago, cheap distant schools, where

An allusion to a well-known Sonnet of Wordsworth, beginning

"The world is too much with us-late and soon, " &c. - ED.€857. WAREHOUSemen and CLERKS' SCHOOLS. 183neglected children pine from year to year under an amountof neglect, want, and youthful misery far too sad even tobe glanced at in this cheerful assembly.And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permitme to sketch in a few words the sort of school that I dolike. It is a school established by the members of an industrious and useful order, which supplies the comforts andgraces of life at every familiar turning in the road of ourexistence; it is a school established by them for the Orphanand Necessitous Children of their own brethren and sisterhood; it is a place giving an education worthy of them-aneducation by them invented, by them conducted, by themwatched over; it is a place of education where, while thebeautiful history ofthe Christian religion is daily taught, andwhile the life of that Divine Teacher who Himself took littlechildren on His knees is daily studied, no sectarian ill-willnor narrow human dogma is permitted to darken the faceof the clear heaven which they disclose. It is a children'sschool, which is at the same time no less a children's home,a home not to be confided to the care of cold or ignorantstrangers, nor, by the nature of its foundation, in the courseof ages to pass into hands that have as much natural rightto deal with it as with the peaks of the highest mountains orwith the depths of the sea, but to be from generation togeneration administered by men living in precisely suchhomes as those poor children have lost; by men alwaysbent upon making that replacement, such a home as theirown dear children might find a happy refuge in if they themselves were taken early away. And I fearlessly ask you, isthis a design which has any claim to your sympathy? Isthis a sort of school which is deserving of your support?This is the design, this is the school, whose strong andsimple claim I have to lay before you to- night. I must par184 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Nov. 5.ticularly entreat you not to suppose that my fancy andunfortunate habit of fiction has anything to do with the picture I have just presented to you. It is sober matter offact. The Warehousemen and Clerks' Schools, establishedfor the maintaining, clothing, and educating of the Orphanand Necessitous Children of those employed in the wholesale trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom, are,in fact, what I have just described. These schools for bothsexes were originated only four years ago. In the first sixweeks of the undertaking the young men of themselves andquite unaided, subscribed the large sum of £3,000. Theschools have been opened only three years, they have nowon their foundation thirty-nine children, and in a few daysthey will have six more, making a total of forty- five . Theyhave been most munificently assisted by the heads of greatmercantile houses, numerously represented, I am happy tosay, around me, and they have a funded capital of almost£14,000. This is wonderful progress, but the aim muststill be upwards, the motto always " Excelsior. " You donot need to be told that five-and-forty children can form buta very small proportion of the Orphan and NecessitousChildren of those who have been entrusted with the wholesale trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom: youdo not require to be informed that the house at New-cross ,rented for a small term of years, in which the schools areat present established, can afford but most imperfect accommodation for such a breadth of design. To carry this goodwork through the two remaining degrees of better and bestthere must be more work, more co-operation, more friends,more money. Then bethe friends and give the money. BeforeI conclude, there is one other feature in these schools whichI would commend to your special attention and approval,1857. WAREHOUSEMEN AND CLERKS SCHOOLS.Their benefits are reserved for the children of subscribers;that is to say, it is an essential principle of the institutionthat it must help those whose parents have helped them, andthat the unfortunate children whose father has been so lax,or so criminal, as to withhold a subscription so exceedinglysmall that when divided by weeks it amounts to only threepence weekly, cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle outand shoulder away the happier children, whose father hashad that little forethought, or done that little kindness whichwas requisite to secure for them the benefits of the institution. I really cannot believe that there will long be anysuch defaulting parents.. I cannot believe that any ofthe intelligent young men who are engaged in the wholesalehouses will long neglect this obvious, this easy duty. Ifthey suppose that the objects of their love, born or unborn,will never want the benefits of the charity, that may be afatal and blind mistake-it can never be an excuse, for,supposing them to be right in their anticipation, they shoulddo what is asked for the sake oftheir friends and comradesaround them, assured that they will be the happier and thebetter for the deed.185not to hear me—ILadies and gentlemen, this little "labour of love" of mine isnow done. I most heartily wish that I could charm younow not to see me, not to think of me,most heartily wish that I could make you see in my steadthe multitude of innocent and bereaved children who arelooking towards these schools, and entreating with upliftedhands to be let in. A very famous advocate once said, inspeaking ofhis fears of failure when he had first to speak incourt, being very poor, that he felt his little children tuggingat his skirts, and that recovered him. Will you think ofthe number of little children who are tugging at my skirts,186 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Nov. 5, 1857.when I ask you, in their names, on their behalf, and in theirlittle persons, and in no strength of my own, to encourageand assist this work?At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposedthe health of the President of the Institution, Lord JohnRussell. He said he should do nothing so superfluous andso unnecessary as to descant upon his lordship's many faithful, long, and great public services, upon the honour andintegrity with which he had pursued his straightforwardpublic course through every difficulty, or upon the manly,gallant, and courageous character, which rendered him certain, in the eyes alike of friends and opponents, to rise withevery rising occasion, and which, like the seal of Solomon,in the old Arabian story, enclosed in a not very large casketthe soul of a giant. In answer to loud cheers, he said hehad felt perfectly certain, that that would be the response;for in no English assembly that he had ever seen was itnecessary to do more than mention the name of Lord JohnRussell to ensure a manifestation of personal respect andgrateful remembrance.Dα000000XXVI.LONDON, FEBRUARY 9 , 1858.At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on Tuesday,February the 9th, 1858, about one hundred and fifty gentlemen sat downto dinner, in the Freemasons' Hall. Later in the evening all the seats inthe gallery were filled with ladies interested in the success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other toasts, the Chairman, Mr. Dickens,proposed " Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children, " and said:-]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It is one of myrules in life not to believe a man who may happento tell me that he feels no interest in children. Ihold myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because I know, as we all must, that any heart whichcould really toughen its affections and sympathies againstthose dear little people must be wanting in so manyhumanising experiences of innocence and tenderness, as tobe quite an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I setthe assertion down, whenever I happen to meet with it—which is sometimes, though not often-as an idle word,originating possibly in the genteel languor of the hour, andmeaning about as much as that knowing social lassitude,which has used up the cardinal virtues and quite found out things in general, usually does mean. I suppose it may betaken for granted that we, who come together in the nameof children and for the sake of children, acknowledge thatx03 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. Feb. 9,we have an interest in them; indeed, I have observed sinceI sat down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether, representing an infant institution, and not even yet agrown-up company. A few years are necessary to the increase of our strength and the expansion of our figure; andthen these tables, which now have a few tucks in them, willbe let out, and then this hall, which now sits so easilyupon us, will be too tight and small for us. Nevertheless,it is likely that even we are not without our experience nowand then of spoilt children. I do not mean of our ownspoilt children, because nobody's own children ever werespoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our particularfriends. We know by experience what it is to have themdown after dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert to see, as in a black dose darkly, thefamily doctor looming in the distance. We know, I haveno doubt we all know, what it is to assist at those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated withimitations and descriptive dialogue which might not beinaptly called, after the manner of my friend Mr. AlbertSmith, the toilsome ascent of Miss Mary and the eruption(cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what it iswhen those children won't go to bed; we know how theyprop their eyelids open with their forefingers when they willsit up; how, when they become fractious, they say aloudthat they don't like us, and our nose is too long, and whydon't we go? And we are perfectly acquainted with thosekicking bundles which are carried off at last protesting. Aneminent eye-witness told me that he was one of a companyof learned pundits who assembled at the house of a verydistinguished philosopher of the last generation to hear himexpound his stringent views concerning infant education andearly mental development, and he told me that while the1953. SICK CHILDREN. 129philosopher did this in very beautiful and lucid language,the philosopher's little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by dabbling up to the elbows in an apple piewhich had been provided for their entertainment, havingpreviously anointed his hair with the syrup, combed it withhis fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable thatwe also have our similar experiences sometimes, of principles that are not quite practice, and that we know peopleclaiming to be very wise and profound about nations of menwho show themselves to be rather weak and shallow aboutunits of babies.But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom Ihave to present to you after this dinner of to-day are not ofthis class. I have glanced at these for the easier and lighterintroduction of another, a very different, a far more numerous, and a far more serious class. The spoilt childrenwhom I must show you are the spoilt children ofthe poorin this great city, the children who are, every year, for everand ever irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of oursby tens of thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you, assisting and not contravening the ways ofProvidence, will help to save them. The two grim nurses,Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children before you,preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, naildown their little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves.`Of the annual deaths in this great town, their unnaturaldeaths form more than one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to the other class-I shall not askyou on behalf of these children to observe how good theyare, how pretty they are, how clever they are, how promisingthey are, whose beauty they most resemble--I shall onlyask you to observe how weak they are, and how like deaththey are! And I shall ask you, by the remembrance of190 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 9,everything that lies between your own infancy and that somiscalled second childhood when the child's graces are gone,and nothing but its helplessness remains; I shall ask you toturn your thoughts to these spoilt children in the sacred.names of Pity and Compassion.Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one ofthe most humane members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some of the worst lodgedinhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In the closesand wynds of that picturesque place-I am sorry to remindyou what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus often are-we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than manypeople would believe in a life. Our way lay from one toanother ofthe most wretched dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out from the sky, shut out from the air,mere pits and dens. In a room in one of these places,where there was an empty porridge-pot on the cold hearth,with a ragged woman and some ragged children crouchingon the bare ground near it-where, I remember as I speak,that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained andtime-stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the feverwhich had shaken everything else there had shaken even it-there lay, in an old egg-box which the mother had beggedfrom a shop, a little feeble, wasted, wan, sick child . Withhis little wasted face, and his little hot, worn hands foldedover his breast, and his little bright, attentive eyes, I cansee him now, as I have seen him for several years, lookingsteadily at us. There he lay in his little frail box, whichwas not at all a bad emblem of the little body from whichhe was slowly parting-there he lay, quite quiet, quitepatient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the mothersaid; he seldom complained; " he lay there, seemin' towoonder what it was a' aboot." , God knows, I thought, as I1853.stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wonderingreasons for wondering how it could possibly come to bethat he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when heought to have been as bright and as brisk as the birds thatnever got near him-reasons for wondering how he came tobe left there, a little decrepid old man pining to death, quitea thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy andhappy children playing on the grass under the summer's sunwithin a stone's throw of him, as if there were no bright,moving sea on the other side of the great hill overhangingthe city; as if there were no great clouds rushing over it;as if there were no life, and movement, and vigour anywherein the world-nothing but stoppage and decay. There helay looking at us, saying, in his silence, more patheticallythan I have ever heard anything said by any orator in mylife, "Will you please to tell me what this means, strangeman? and if you can give me any good reason why I shouldbe so soon, so far advanced on my way to Him who saidthat children were to come into His presence, and were notto be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that theyshould come by this hard road by which I am travelling;pray give that reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly andwonder about it very much;" and to my mind he has beenwondering about it ever since. Many a poor child, sickand neglected, I have seen since that time in this London;many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately andkindly tended by poor people, in an unwholesome houseand under untoward circumstances, wherein its recovery wasquite impossible; but at all such times I have seen my poorlittle drooping friend in his egg-box, and he has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always foundhim wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of agracious God, such things should be!SICK CHILdren. 191192 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. aNow, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, andwill not be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-bloodof the great compassionate public heart, will only accept themeans of rescue and prevention which it is mine to offer.Within a quarter of a mile of this place where I speak,stands a courtly old house, where once, no doubt, bloomingchildren were born, and grew up to be men and women, andmarried, and brought their own blooming children back topatter up the old oak staircase which stood but the otherday, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimneypieces. In the airy wards into which the old state drawingrooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted are such little patients that the attendant nurses looklike reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitionerlike an amiable Christian ogre. Grouped about the littlelow tables in the centre of the rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having been ill. Onthe doll's beds are such diminutive creatures that each poorsufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round,you may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppledover half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or howone little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw myself)the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the walls of theserooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. Atthe beds' heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figureof Him who was once a child himself, and a poor one.Besides these little creatures on the beds, you may learn inthat place that the number of small Out-patients brought tothat house for relief is no fewer than ten thousand in thecompass of one single year. In the room in which theseare received, you may see against the wall a box, on whichit is written, that it has been calculated, that if every grate1853.SICK CHILDREN.ful mother who brings a child there will drop a penny intoit, the Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a yearby so large a sum as forty pounds. And you may read inthe Hospital Report, with a glow of pleasure, that thesepoor women are so respondent as to have made, even in atoiling year of difficulty and high prices, this estimated forty,fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same Hospital,you may read with what a generous earnestness the highestand wisest members of the medical profession testify to thegreat need ofit; to the immense difficulty of treating children in the same hospitals with grown-up people, by reasonof their different ailments and requirements, to the vastamount of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that willbe saved, through this Hospital; not only among the poor,observe, but among the prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of children's illnesses, which cannot failto arise from a more systematic mode of studying them.Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst of all—(forI must present no rose-coloured picture of this place to you-I must not deceive you; ) lastly, the visitor to this Children's Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, willfind himself perforce obliged to stop at very little overthirty; and will learn, with sorrow and surprise, that eventhat small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive,compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limitmyselfto saying better known, because I will not believethat in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, andbrothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to bewell and richly endowed.Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment-which I resolved when I got up not to allow myself-this is the simple case. This is the pathetic case which I19313194 CHARLES DICKENS'S speechesS. Feb. 9, 1858:have to put to you; not only on behalf ofthe thousands ofchildren who annually die in this great city, but also on behalfofthe thousands of children who live half developed,racked with preventible pain, shorn of their natural capacityfor health and enjoyment. If these innocent creatures cannot move you for themselves, how can I possibly hope tomove you in their name? The most delightful paper, themost charming essay, which the tender imagination of CharlesLamb conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside ona winter night telling stories to his own dear children, anddelighting in their society, until he suddenly comes to hisold, solitary, bachelor self, and finds that they were butdream-children who might have been, but never were. "Weare nothing," they say to him; " less than nothing, anddreams. We are only what' might have been, and we mustwaitupon the tedious shore of Lethe, millions of ages, beforewe have existence and a name." "And immediatelyawaking," he says, "I found myself in my arm chair." Thedream-children whom I would now raise, if I could, beforeevery one of you, according to your various circumstances,should be the dear child you love, the dearer child youhave lost, the child you might have had, the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream-children shouldhold in its powerful hand one of the little children nowlying in the Child's Hospital, or nowshut out of it to perish.Each of these dream-children should say to you, " O, helpthis little suppliant in my name; O, help it for my sake!"Well!-And immediately awaking, you should find yourselves in the Freemasons' Hall, happily arrived at the endof a rather long speech, drinking " Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children," and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.1XXVII.EDINBURGH, MARCH, 26, 1858.[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol inthe Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the PhilosophicalInstitution . At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of Edin Durgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickensacknowledged the tribute as follows: ]MY LORD PROVOST, ladies, and gentlemen, I begto assure you I am deeply sensible of your kind welcome, and of this beautiful and great surprise; andthat I thank you cordially with all my heart. I never haveforgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour tobe a burgess and guild-brother of the Corporation of Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the firstgreat public recognition and encouragement I ever received.was bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent cityin this city so distinguished in literature and so distinguishedin the arts. You will readily believe that I have carried intothe various countries I have since traversed, and throughall mysubsequent career, the proud and affectionate remembrance of that eventful epoch in my life; and that comingback to Edinburgh is to me like coming home.196 CHARLES Dickens's sPEECHES. March 26, 1858.Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of myvoice to-night, that I will not inflict on you the additionaltask of hearing any more. I am better reconciled to limitingmyselfto these very few words, because I know and feelfullwell that no amount of speech to which I could give utterancecould possibly express my sense of the honour and distinctionyou have conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification Iderive from this reception.1XXVIII.LONDON, MARCH 29, 1858.[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund, heldat the Freemasons' Tavern, at which Thackeray presided, Mr. Dickensmade the following speech:]IN our theatrical experience as playgoers we are allequally accustomed to predict by certain little signsand portents on the stage what is going to happenthere. When the young lady, an admiral's daughter, is leftalone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smartspirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath her feet, we foretell that a song is impending. Whentwo gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, twochairs, and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation,and that it will assume a retrospective biographical character.When any of the performers who belong to the sea-faring ormarauding professions are observed to arm themselves withvery small swords to which are attached very large hilts, wepredict that the affair will end in a combat. Carrying outthe association of ideas, it may have occurred to some that199 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. March 29when I asked my old friend in the chair to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and I have him now onmy lips.The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an officewhich I hold, are not so frequent or so great as its privileges.He is in fact a mere walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that he has no one to love. If this advantage could be added to his character it would be one of amore agreeable nature than it is, and his forlorn positionwould be greatly improved. His duty is to call every halfyear at the bankers' , when he signs his name in a large greasyinconvenient book, to certain documents of which he knowsnothing, and then he delivers it to the property man andexits anywhere.He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges to watch the steady growth of an institution in whichhe takes great interest; it is one of his privileges to bear histestimony to the prudence, the goodness, the self-denial, andthe excellence of a class of persons who have been too longdepreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied, out ofthe depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. Andlastly, it is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on topropose the health of the chairman at the annual dinners ofthe institution, when that chairman is one for whose geniushe entertains the warmest admiration, and whom he respectsas a friend, and as one who does honour to literature, and inwhom literature is honoured. I say when that is the case,he feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. Fromthe earliest days of this institution I have ventured to impresson its managers, that they would consult its credit and successby choosing its chairmen as often as possible within the circleof literature and the arts; and I will venture to say that nosimilar institution has been presided over by so many re1858. THACKERAY. 199markable and distinguished men. I am sure, however, thatit never has had, and that it never will have, simply becauseit cannot have, a greater lustre cast upon it than by the presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair to-night.It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take onmyself to flutter before you the well-thumbed pages of Mr.Thackeray's books, and to tell you to observe howfull theyare of wit and wisdom, how out- speaking, and how devoid offear or favour; but I will take leave to remark, in payingmy due homage and respect to them, that it is fitting thatsuch a writer and such an institution should be broughttogether. Every writer of fiction, although he may notadopt the dramatic form, writes in effect for the stage. Hemay never write plays; but the truth and passion which arein him must be more or less reflected in the great mirrorwhich he holds up to nature. Actors, managers, and authorsare all represented in this company, and it may be supposedthat they all have studied the deep wants of the human heartin many theatres; but none of them could have studied itsmysterious workings in any theatre to greater advantage thanin the bright and airy pages of Vanity Fair. To this skilfulshowman, who has so often delighted us, and who hascharmed us again to-night, we have now to wish God speed,and that he may continue for many years* to exercise hispotent art. To him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter,God bless him!

Alas! the " many years were to be barely six, when the speaker was

himself destined to write some memorial pages commemorative of his illustrious friend (Cornhill Magazine, February, 1864. ) -ED.19}SubXXIX.LONDON, APRIL 29, 1858..[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week of 1853.and on several subsequent occasions, Mr. Dickens had read the ChristmasCarol and the Chimes before public audiences, but always in aid of thefunds of some institution, or for other benevolent purposes. The first reading he ever gave for his own benefit took place on the above date, inSt. Martin's Hall, (now converted into the Queen's Theatre). This reading Mr. Dickens prefaced with the following speech:-]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -It may perhaps beknown to you that, for a few years past, I have beenaccustomed occasionally to read some of my shorterbooks, to various audiences, in aid of a variety of good objects, and at some charge to myself, both in time and money.It having at length become impossible in any reason tocomply with these always accumulating demands, I havehad definitively to choose between now and then reading onmy own account, as one of my recognised occupations, ornot reading at all. I have had little or no difficulty in deciding on the former course. The reasons that have led meto it-besides the consideration that it necessitates no departure whatever from the chosen pursuits of my life—arethreefold: firstly, I have satisfied myself that it can involveApril 29, 1858. PUBLIC Readings.no possible compromise of the credit and independence ofliterature; secondly, I have long held the opinion, and havelong acted on the opinion, that in these times whateverbrings a public man and his public face to face, on terms ofmutual confidence and respect, is a good thing; thirdly, Ihave had a pretty large experience ofthe interest my hearersare so generous as to take in these occasions, and of thedelight they give to me, as a tried means of strengtheningthose relations-I may almost say of personal friendshipwhich it is my great privilege and pride, as it is my greatresponsibility, to hold with a multitude of persons who willnever hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is that Icome, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time;and thus it is that I proceed to read this little book, quiteas composedly as I might proceed to write it, or to publishit in any other way.201XXX.LONDON, MAY 1 , 1858.[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal Academy,after the health of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Thackeray had been proposed bythe President, Sir Charles Eastlake:—]OLLOWING the order of your toast, I have to takethe first part in the duet to be performed in acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much aninterchange of compliments, as it were, between near relations, to enter into any lengthened expression of our thanksfor the honour you have done us. I feel that it would bechanging this splendid assembly into a sort of family party.I may, however, take leave to say that your sister, whom Irepresent, is strong and healthy; that she has a very greataffection for, and an undying interest in you, and that it isalways a very great gratification to her to see herself so wellremembered within these walls, and to know that she is anhonoured guest at your hospitable board.10: 33: 0XXXI.LONDON, MAY 8, 1858.[The forty-eighth Anniversary of the establishment ofthe Artists' BenevolentFund took place on the above date at the Freemasons' Tavern, Thechair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after having disposed ofthe preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, proceeded to advocate theclaims of the Institution in whose interest the company had assembled, inthe following terms:-]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -There is an absurdtheatrical story which was once told to me by adear and valued friend, who has now passed from thissublunary stage, and which is not without its moral as applied to myself, in my present presidential position. In acertain theatrical company was included a man, who onoccasions of emergency was capable of taking part in thewhole round of the British drama, provided he was allowedto use his own language in getting through the dialogue. Ithappened one night that Reginald, in the Castle Spectre, wastaken ill, and this veteran of a hundred characters was, ofcourse, called up for the vacant part. He responded withhis usual promptitude, although knowing nothing whateverof the character, but while they were getting him into thedress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish to know insome vague way what the part was about. He was not particular as to details, but in order that he might properly204 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 8,pourtray his sufferings, he thought he should have someslight inkling as to what really had happened to him. As,for example, what murders he had committed, whose fatherhe was, of what misfortunes he was the victim, —in short, ina general way to know why he was in that place at all.They said to him, " Here you are, chained in a dungeon, anunhappy father; you have been here for seventeen years,during which time you have never seen your daughter; youhave lived upon bread and water, and, in consequence, areextremely weak, and suffer from occasional lowness ofspirits."'—“ All right,” said the actor of universal capabilities, "ring up. " When he was discovered to the audience,he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was veryfavourably received, and gave every sign of going on well,until, through some mental confusion as to his instructions,he opened the business of the act by stating in patheticterms, that he had been confined in that dungeon seventeenyears, during which time he had not tasted a morsel of food,to which circumstance he was inclined to attribute the factof his being at that moment very much out of condition.The audience, thinking this statement exceedingly improbable, declined to receive it, and the weight of that speechhung round him until the end of his performance.Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I havethe honour of performing before you, and it behoves bothyou and me to profit by the terrible warning I have detailed,while I endeavour to make the part I have undertaken asplain and intelligible as I possibly can.As I am going to propose to you that we should nowbegin to connect the business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking prosperity to the Artists' Benevolent Fund,it becomes important that we should know what that fundis. It is an Association supported by the voluntary gifts ofARTISTS BENEVOLENT FUND. 1858.205those who entertain a critical and admiring estimation ofart, and has for its object the granting of annuities to thewidows and children of deceased artists-of artists whchave been unable in their lives to make any provision forthose dear objects of their love surviving themselves. Nowit is extremely important to observe that this institution ofan Artists' Benevolent Fund, which I now call on you topledge, has connected with it, and has arisen out of anotherartists' association, which does not ask you for a health,which never did, and never will ask you for a health, whichis self-supporting, and which is entirely maintained by theprudence and providence of its three hundred artist members. That fund, which is called the Artists' Annuity Fund,is, so to speak, a joint and mutual Assurance Companyagainst infirmity, sickness, and age. To the benefits itaffords every one of its members has an absolute right, aright, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and selfdenial, and not assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion of any human being. On that fund there are, if Iremember a right, some seventeen annuitants who are in thereceipt of eleven hundred a-year, the proceeds of their ownself-supporting Institution. In recommending to you thisbenevolent fund, which is not self- supporting, they addressyou, in effect, in these words:-"We ask you to help thesewidows and orphans, because we show you we have firsthelped ourselves. These widows and orphans may be oursor they may not be ours; but in any case we will prove toyou to a certainty that we are not so many wagoners callingupon Jupiter to do our work, because we do our own work;each has his shoulder to the wheel; each, from year to year,has had his shoulder set to the wheel; and the prayer wemake to Jupiter and all the gods is simply this—that thisfact may be remembered when the wagon has stopped for206 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES May 8,.ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies lifeless bythe roadside."Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress on you the strength of this appeal. I am a painter, asculptor, or an engraver, of average success. I study andwork here for no immense return, while life and health,while hand and eye are mine. I prudently belong to theAnnuity Fund, which in sickness, old age, and infirmity,preserves me from want. I do my duty to those who aredepending on me while life remains; but when the grassgrows above my grave there is no provision for them anylonger. "This is the case with the Artists' Benevolent Fund, and instating this I am only the mouthpiece of three hundred ofthe trade, who in truth stands as independent before you asif they were three hundred Cockers all regulated by theGospel according to themselves. There are in existencethree artists ' funds, which ought never to be mentionedwithout respect. I am an officer of one of them, and canspeak from knowledge; but on this occasion I address myself to a case for which there is no provision. I addressyou on behalf of those professors of the fine arts who havemade provision during life, and in submitting to you theirclaims I am only advocating principles which I myself havealways maintained.When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to gentility, squanders no treasure in keeping upappearances, that it considers that the money given for thewidow and the orphan, should really be held for the widowand the orphan, I think I have exhausted the case, which Idesire most strenuously to commend to you.Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I willnot consent to present to you the professors of Art as a set1858. ARTISTS BENEVOLENT FUND. 207of helpless babies, who are to be held up by the chin; Ipresent them as an energetic and persevering class of men,whose incomes depend on their own faculties and personalexertions; and I also make so bold as to present them asmen who in their vocation render good service to the community. I am strongly disposed to believe there are veryfew debates in Parliament so important to the public welfare as a really good picture. I have also a notion that anynumber of bundles of the driest legal chaff that ever waschopped would be cheaply ( expended for one really meritorious engraving. At a highly interesting annual festival atwhich I have the honour to assist, and which takes placebehind two fountains, I sometimes observe that great ministers of state and other such exalted characters have a strangedelight in rather ostentatiously declaring that they have noknowledge whatever of art, and particularly of impressing onthe company that they have passed their lives in severestudies. It strikes me when I hear these things as if thesegreat men looked upon the arts as a sort of dancing dogs,or Punch's show, to be turned to for amusement when onehas nothing else to do. Now I always take the opportunityon these occasions of entertaining my humble opinion that allthis is complete " bosh;" and of asserting to myself mystrongbelief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar Square, or SuffolkStreet, rightly understood, are quite as important to thewelfare ofthe empire as those of Downing Street or West<minster Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds,and backed by the recommendation of three hundred artistsin favour of the Benevolent Fund, I beg to propose itsprosperity as a toast for your adoption.ExmusXXXII.LONDON, JULY 21, 1858.[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess's Theatre, for the purpose of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic College. Mr.Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered the following speech: ]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, —I think I may venture to congratulate you beforehand on the pleasantcircumstance that the movers and seconders of theresolutions which will be submitted to you will, probably,have very little to say. Through the Report which youhave heard read, and through the comprehensive address ofthe chairman, the cause which brings us together has been sovery clearly stated to you, that it can stand in need of verylittle, if ofany further exposition. But, as I have the honourto move the first resolution which this handsome gift, and thevigorous action that must be taken upon it, necessitate, Ithink I shall only give expression to what is uppermost in thegeneral mind here, if I venture to remark that, many as theparts are in which Mr. Kean has distinguished himself onthese boards, he has never appeared in one in which thelarge spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, and the graceof a gentleman, have been more admirably blended than inJuly 21 , 1858.this day's faithful adherence to the calling of which he is aprosperous ornament, and in this day's manly advocacy ofits cause.DRAMATIC COLLEGE 209Ladies and gentlemen, the resolution entrusted to me is:"That the Report of the provisional committee beadopted, and that this meeting joyfully accepts, and gratefully acknowledges, the gift of five acres of land referred toin the said Report."*It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon thisacceptance and acknowledgment, and that we all know verywell that this generous gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of every lover of the dramatic art. As it is far toooften forgotten by those who are indebted to it for many arestorative flight out of this working- day world, that thesilks, and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professorsmust be every night exchanged for the hideous coats andwaistcoats of the present day, in which we have now thehonour and the misfortune of appearing before you, so whenwe do meet with a nature so considerably generous as thisdonor's, and do find an interest in the real life and strugglesof the people who have delighted it, so very spontaneous andso very liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and toadmire, we have no duty left but to " take the goods thegods provide us," and to make the best and the most ofthem. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to remark, that inthis mode of turning a good gift to the highest account, liesthe truest gratitude.In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr.Kean was speaking, that in an hour or two from this time,

Mr. Henry Dodd had proposed to give five acres of land in Berkshire,

but, in consequence of his desiring to attach certain restrictions, after a longand unsatisfactory correspondence, the Committee, on 13th January following,rejected the offer. (Communicated. )14210 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. July 21, 1858.the spot upon which we are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty and a cruel bond. I knowthat, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice willflow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot where I nowstand dryshod, and that " the quality of mercy" will be beautifully stated to the Venetian Council by a learned youngdoctor from Padua, on these very boards on which we nowenlarge upon the quality of charity and sympathy. Knowingthis, it came into my mind to consider how different the realbond of to-day from the ideal bond of to-night. Now, allgenerosity, all forbearance, all forgetfulness of little jealousiesand unworthy divisions, all united action for the generalgood. Then, all selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, allrevenge, and all evil, -now all good. Then, a bond to bebroken within the compass of a few-three or four-swiftlypassing hours, now, a bond to be valid and of good effectgenerations hence.Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery ofthis bond, between this generous gentleman on the onehand, and the united members of a too often and too longdisunited art upon the other, be you the witnesses. Do youattest of everything that is liberal and free in spirit, that isso nominated in the bond;" and of everything that isgrudging, self-seeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by nosophistry ever to be found there. I beg to move the resolution which I have already had the pleasure of reading.66inXXXIII.MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 3 , 1858.[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the Institu tional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire, held in the Free-trade Hallon the evening of the above day, at which Mr. Dickens presided. ]Thas of late years become noticeable in England thatthe autumn season produces an immense amount ofpublic speaking. I notice that no sooner do theleaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great pricebegin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, andnorth, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by.the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comethas this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it isby some supposed to have had upon the corn-harvest andthe vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I havenever observed the columns of the newspapers to groan soheavily under a pressure of orations, each vying with theother in the two qualities of having little or nothing to dowith the matter in hand, and of being always addressed toany audience in the wide world rather than the audience towhich it was delivered.The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am sosanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may break1272 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 3through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, and arecome together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it.We have no little straws of our ownto throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and wehave no oblique biddings of our own to make for anythingoutside this hall.allowAt the top of the public announcement of this meeting arethe words, " Institutional Association of Lancashire andCheshire." Will you me, in reference to the meaningof those words, to present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to putmyself through a short, voluntary examination as to theresults of my studies. To begin with: the title did notsuggest to me anything in the least like the truth. I havebeen for some years pretty familiar with the terms, " Mechanics' Institutions," and " Literary Societies," but theyhave, unfortunately, become too often associated in mymind.with a body of great pretensions, lame as to some important.member or other, which generally inhabits a new housemuch too large for it, which is seldom paid for, and whichtakes the name of the mechanics most grievously in vain,for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that placetogether.I, therefore, began my education, in respect of themeaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself,"Here's the old story. " But the perusal of a very few linesof my book soon gave me to understand that it was not byany means the old story; in short, that this association isexpressly designed to correct the old story, and to preventits defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that thisInstitutional Association is the union, in one central head,of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics' Institutions1858. ASSOCIATION. 213and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of nomore than five shillings to each society; suggesting to allhow they can best communicate with and profit by thefountain-head and one another; keeping their best aimssteadily before them; advising them how those aims can bebest attained; giving a direct end and object to what mightotherwise easily become waste forces; and sending amongthem not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called " Free Itinerating Libraries." I learnedthat these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being readwith inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands oftoiling people, but that they are never damaged or defacedby one rude hand. These and other like facts lead me toconsider the immense importance of the fact, that no littlecluster of working men's cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running streamwhich enterprise hunts out for water- power, but it has itseducational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it,acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speecheven before it has come into existence.·Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main considerationthat has brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do for those working men what thislocal association does. No central association at a distancecould possibly understand them as this local associationdoes. No central association at a distance could possiblyput them in that familiar and easy communication one withanother, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in thatvalley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eagerfor knowledge, in that valley twelve miles off, and shouldoccasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart yourlearning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart214 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 3mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, anda most important feature, of this society.On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that thesehonest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed inestablishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must materiallydiminish their cost, which is in time a vital consideration;and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to thesuccess of all combination, is especially so when its object isto diffuse the results of experience and of reflection.Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the presentprofitable history of this society does not stop here in hislearning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest andpleasure that the parent society at certain stated periodsinvites the more eager and enterprising members of thelocal society to submit themselves to voluntary examinationin various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester toreceive the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors inthe list of these examinations are now among us, and theselittle marks of recognition and encouragement I shall havethe honour presently of giving them, as they come beforeyou, one by one, for that purpose.I have looked over a few of those examination papers,which have comprised history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language-in fact, theycomprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge.I felt most devoutly gratified, as to many of them, that theyhad not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectlysure that if they had been, I should have had mighty little!1858.2:5to bestow upon myself to-night. And yet it is always tobe observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passedin a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existencehas been a constant wrestle withLEARNERS AND WORKERS." Those twin gaolers of the daring heart— Low birth and iron fortune.""*I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration,that these questions have been replied to, not by men likemyself, the business of whose life is with writing and withbooks, but by men, the business of whose life is with toolsand with machinery.Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory willserve me, from among the most interesting cases of prizeholders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you,some two or three of the most conspicuous examples.There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who workfrom morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers,have walked eight miles a- night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction.There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began lifeas piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a-week, and thefather of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machineryat which he worked, but not before he had himself foundedthe institution in which this son has since come to betaught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. Thereis a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took athird-class certificate last year at the hands of LordBrougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-makerfrom the same place, who knew little or absolutely

Claude Melnotte in The Lady ofLyons, Act iii . sc. 2.

216 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 3,nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learnedall he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six milesa-night, three nights a-week, to attend the classes in whichhe has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in aniron foundry, who, whilst he was working twelve hours aday before the furnace, got up at four o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. "The thought of my lads," he writesin his modest account of himself, " in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to thinkthat if I should never receive any personal benefit, I mightinstruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have madeour country, England, pre-eminent in the world's history. "There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read ateighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, whois the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmeticalteacher in the institution in which he himself was taught,who writes of himself that he made the resolution never totake up a subject without keeping to it, and who has keptto it with such an astonishing will, that he is now wellversed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholarin Stockport. The drawing- classes in that same Stockportare taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of thatworking blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as itwas written of another of his trade, by the American poet:"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,Onward through life he goes;Each morning sees some task begun,Each evening sees its close.Something attempted , something done,Has earn'd a night's repose. "1858 SELF-TAUGHT MEN. .To pass from the successful candidates to the delegatesfrom local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them. There is among theirnumber a most remarkable man, whose history I have readwith feelings that I could not adequately express under anycircumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me,who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue: who began to teachhimself as soon as he could earn five shillings a-week:who is now a botanist, acquainted with every productionof the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and hasmade and preserved a collection of the eggs of Britishbirds, and stuffed the birds: who is now a conchologist,with a very curious, and in some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved andcollected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: who isworthily the president of his own local Literary Institution,and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill.217So stimulating has been the influence of these bright,examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examinationpapers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up theprinted form by describing himself as ten years of age, andwho, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as "nursinga little child. " Nor are these things confined to the men.The women employed in factories, milliners' work, anddomestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting theyshould, a most decided determination not to be outdone bythe men; and the women of Preston in particular, have sohonourably distinguished themselves, and shown in theirexamination papers such an admirable knowledge of thescience of household management and household economy,213 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. Dec. 3.that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire cr Cheshire,and if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass inparticular, I should positively get up at four o'clock in themorning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself,and should go to Preston in search of a wife.Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and manymore, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely bettertestimony to the working of this Association, than any number of speakers could possibly present to you. Surely thepresence among us of these indefatigable people is theAssociation's best and most effective triumph in the presentand the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in thefuture. As its temporary mouth-piece, I would beg to sayto that portion of the company who attend to receive theprizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart fromthem; can never set itself above them; that theirdistinction and success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would most especiallyentreat them to observe that nothing will ever be furtherfrom this Association's mind than the impertinence ofpatronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificatesthat it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathywith so many striving brothers and sisters, and are onlyvaluable for the spirit in which they are given, and in whichthey are received. The prizes are money prizes, simplybecause the Institution does not presume to doubt thatpersons who have so well governed themselves, know besthow to make a little money serviceable-because it wouldbe a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying itout for them, and because it knows it is given, and knowsit is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and, above all, perfect independence.1858. SCIENCE AND IMAGINATIONLadies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the wholecollective audience before me, I will, in another twominutes, release the hold which your favour has given meon your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I havesaid, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with whichthe man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and Ishall say, nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the countyof Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men,that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason Irigidly abstain from putting together any of the shatteredfragments of that poor clay image of a parrot, which wasonce always saying, without knowing why, or what it meant,that knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soonthink of piecing together the mutilated remains of anywretched Hindoo who has been blown from an Englishgun. Both, creatures of the past, have been—as my friendMr. Carlyle vigorously has it—" blasted into space;" andthere, as to this world, is an end of them.219So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. Inthe first place, let me congratulate you upon the progresswhich real mutual improvement societies are making atthis time in your neighbourhood, through the noble agencyof individual employers and their families, whom you cannever too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through theagency of the great railway companies, some of which arebestirring themselves in this matter with a gallantry andgenerosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly,let me say one word out of my own personal heart, whichis always very near to it in this connexion. Do not let us,in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workingswe can tell of in figures, surrounded by machines that canbe made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every220 CHARLES DIckens's speECHES. Dec. 3, 1853.jay knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope-do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and theimagination which equally surround us as a part of the greatscheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man orwoman into which it changes, always remember those fablestenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannotbe weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idleenough, continue to have their places about us, be we neverso wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softestheart. The union and just balance of those two is alwaysa blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerateas He was powerful and wise. You all know how Hecould still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men canonly be at last to help to raise this earth to that conditionto which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses andpassions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let usalways remember that He set us the example of blendingthe understanding and the imagination, and that, followingit ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on toits better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of itmust know, has a very limited power indeed, when it informsthe head alone; but when it informs the head and the hearttoo, it has a power over life and death, the body and thesoul, and dominates the universe.XXXIV.COVENTRY, DECEMBER 4, 1858.[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle Hotel, onthe occasion of the presentation to Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold watch,as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his Christmas Carol, given inDecember of the previous year, in aid of the funds of the CoventryInstitute. The chair was taken by C. W. Hoskyns, Esq. Mr. Dickensacknowledged the testimonial in the following words:]MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Vice-chairman, and Gentlemen,-I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by myassuring you that it is one of the rules of my lifenever to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly didso, under any circumstances, it would be least of all undersuch circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it,would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fearwould contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest, and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of goodsense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure thatany attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence.Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently,222 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Dec. 4.and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch, withwhich you have presented me, shall be my companion inmy hours of sedentary working at home, and in my wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and itshall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I canassure you that after this night the object of those labourswill not less than before be to uphold the right and to do good.And when I have done with time and its measurement, thiswatch shall belong to my children; and as I have sevenboys, and as they have all begun to serve their country invarious ways, or to elect into what distant regions they shallroam, it is not only possible, but probable, that this littlevoice will be heard scores of years hence, who knows? insome yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan.Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heartof hearts, I can assure you that the memory of to-night, andofyour picturesque and interesting city, will never be absentfrom my mind, and I can never more hear the lightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in mybreast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment.T[ Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr. Dickens said:]THERE may be a great variety of conflicting opinions withregard to farming, and especially with reference to themanagement of a clay farm; but, however various opinionsas to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be butone opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer, -and it isthe health of that distinguished agriculturist which I have topropose.In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it1858. A CLAY FARMER, 223may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admitthat it is, exceedingly important that a clay farm should gofor a number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that thisvery rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughedup, and that we shall gather into our barns and store-housesthe admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up whenever he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, beggingto assure him that the kind manner in which he offered tome your very valuable present, I can never forget.XXXV.LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862.[At a Dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, the following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the chair:-]EVEN or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever being called upon to fill the chair atan anniversary festival ofthe Artists' General Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest reference tosuch an occasion, I selected the administration or thatCharity as the model on which I desired that another shouldbe reformed, both as regarded the mode in which the reliefwas afforded, and the singular economy with which its fundswere administered. As a proof of the latter quality during thepast year, the cost of distributing £1,126 among the recipients ofthe bounty of the Charity amounted to little more224 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.March 29,than £100, inclusive of all office charges and expenses.The experience and knowledge of those entrusted with themanagement of the funds are a guarantee that the last available farthing of the funds will be distributed among properand deserving recipients. Claiming, on my part, to be related in some degree to the profession of an artist, I disdainto stoop to ask for charity, in the ordinary acceptation ofthe term, on behalf of the Artists. In its broader andhigher signification of generous confidence, lasting trustfulness, love and confiding belief, I very readily associate thatcardinal virtue with art. I decline to present the artist tothe notice of the public as a grown-up child, or as a strange,unaccountable, moon-stricken person, waiting helplessly inthe street of life to be helped over the road by the crossingsweeper; on the contrary, I present the artist as a reasonable creature, a sensible gentleman, and as one wellacquainted with the value of his time, and that of otherpeople, as if he were in the habit of going on high ' Changeevery day. The Artist whom I wish to present to the notice ofthe Meeting is one to whom the perfect enjoymentof the five senses is essential to every achievement of hislife. He can gain no wealth nor fame by buying somethingwhich he never touched, and selling it to another who wouldalso never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike outfor himself every spark of fire which lighted, burned, andperhaps consumed him. He must win the battle of lifewith his own hand, and with his own eyes, and was obligedto act as general, captain, ensign, non-commissioned officer,private, drummer, great arms, small arms, infantry, cavalry,all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I ask help forthe artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was acripple from his birth, but I ask it as part payment of agreat debt which all sensible and civilised creatures owe to1862. ARTISTS' BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION. 225art, as a mark of respect to art, as a decoration-not as abadge as a remembrance of what this land, or any land,would be without art, and as the token of an appreciation ofthe works of the most successful artists of this country.With respect to the society of which I am the advocate, Iam gratified that it is so liberally supported by the mostdistinguished artists, and that it has the confidence of menwho occupy the highest rank as artists, above the reach ofreverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame,and whose support is above all price. Artists who haveobtained wide-world reputation know well that many deserving and persevering men, or their widows and orphans,have received help from this fund, and some of the artistswho have received this help are now enrolled among thesubscribers to the Institution.15XXXVI.LONDON, MAY 20, 1862.[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as chair man, at the annual Festival of the Newsvendors ' and Provident Institution,held at the Freemasons' Tavern on the above date. ]WHEN I had the honour of being asked to preside lastyear, I was prevented by indisposition, and I besought my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, to reign inmy stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellentspeech. Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speechwith considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with astrong misgiving that I had better have presided last yearwith neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head, ratherthan preside this year with my neuralgia all gone and mysubject anticipated . Therefore, I wish to preface the toastthis evening by making the managers of this Institution onevery solemn and repentant promise, and it is, if ever I findmyself obliged to provide a substitute again, they mayrely upon my sending the most speechless man of myacquaintance.The Chairman last year presented you with an amiableview ofthe universality of the newsman's calling. Nothing,THE NEWSMAN'S BUrden. 227I think, is left for me but to imagine the newsman's burdenitself, to unfold one of those wonderful sheets which heevery day disseminates, and to take a bird's-eye view of itsgeneral character and contents. So, if you please, choosingmyown time-though the newsman cannot choose his time,for he must be equally active in winter or summer, in sunshine or sleet, in light or darkness, early or late-but,choosing my own time, I shall for two or three momentsstart off with the newsman on a fine May morning, and takea view of the wonderful broadsheets which every day hescatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thingthat occurs to me following the newsman is, that every daywe are born, that every day we are married-some of us—and that every day we are dead; consequently, the firstthing the newsvendor's column informs me is, that Atkinshas been born, that Catkins has been married, and thatDatkins is dead. But the most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the next column, is that Atkins has grownto be seventeen years old, and that he has run away; for, atlast, my eye lights on the fact that William A. , who isseventeen years old, is adjured immediately to return to hisdisconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid he will never return,simply because, if he had meant to come back, he wouldnever have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character in such a mysterious difficulty that it is onlyto be expressed by several disjointed letters, by severalfigures, and several stars; and then I find the explanation inthe intimation that the writer has given his property over tohis uncle, and that the elephant is on the wing. Then, stillglancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend, thenewsman, I find there are great fleets of ships bound to allparts of the earth, that they all want a little more stowage, a1862.15-2228 CHARLESdickens's speeches. May 20,little more cargo, that they have a few more berths to let,that they have all the most spacious decks, that they are allbuilt of teak, and copper-bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience, and that they are all Ar at Lloyds', andanywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of myfriendthe newsman, I find I am offered all kinds of house-lodging,clerks, servants, and situations, which I can possibly or impossibly want. I learn, to my intense gratification, that Ineed never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenilebloom of my complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirelymy own fault; that if I have any complaint, and want browncod- liver oil or Turkish baths, I am told where to get them,and that, if I want an income of seven pounds a-week, Imay have it by sending half-a-crown in postage- stamps.Then I look to the police intelligence, and I can discoverthat I may bite off a human living nose cheaply, but if I takeoff the dead nose of a pig or a calf from a shop-window, it willcost me exceedingly dear. I also find that if I allow myselfto be betrayed into the folly of killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, that little incident will not affectthe testimonials to my character, but that I shall be described as a most amiable young man, and as, above allthings, remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of mycharacter and disposition. Then I turn my eye to the FineArts, and, under that head, I see that a certain "J. O." hasmost triumphantly exposed a certain " J. O. B. ," which"J. O. B." was remarkable for this particular ugly feature,that I was requested to deprive myself ofthe best of mypictures for six months; that for that time it was to behungon a wet wall, and that I was to be requited for my courtesyin having my picture most impertinently covered with a wetblanket. To sum up the results of a glance over my newsman's shoulder, it gives a comprehensive knowledge of whatUBIQUITY OF THE NEWSMAN.is going on over the continent of Europe, and also of whatis going on over the continent of America, to say nothing ofsuch little geographical regions as India and China.Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman'sshoulders from the whimsical point of view, which is thepoint, I believe, that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on steamboats, railway stations, andat every turn. His profits are small, he has a great amountof anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wearand tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom,and he is looked for with pleasurable excitement every day,except when he lends the paper for an hour, and when he ispunctual in calling for it, which is sometimes very painful.I think the lesson we can learn from our newsman is somenew illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration ofits vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanentlesson, some members of the trade originated this society,which affords them assistance in time of sickness and indigence. The subscription is infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five shillings. Looking at the returns before me,the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but it hasonly been slow for the best of all reasons, that it has beenThe pensions granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded capital, and, therefore, the Institutionis literally as safe as the Bank. It is stated that there areseveral newsvendors who are not members of this society;but that is true in all institutions which have come undermy experience. The persons who are most likely to standin need of the benefits which an institution confers, areusually the persons to keep away until bitter experiencecomes to them too late.sure.1862.229BUSFSXXXVII.LONDON, MAY 11, 1864.[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at apublic meeting, for the purpose of founding the Shakespeare Schools,in connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the followlowing address:]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN-Fortunately for me,and fortunately for you, it is the duty of the Chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be very carefulthat he does not anticipate those speakers who come afterhim. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he hasto be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his dutyto sit and hear speeches with exemplary attention than tostand up to make them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as plainand as short an exposition as I can possibly give you ofthereasons why we come together.First of all I will take leave to remark that we do notcome together in commemoration of Shakespeare. Wehave nothing to do with any commemoration, except thatwe are of course humble worshippers of that mighty genius,a864. DRAMATIC COLLEGE SCHOOLS. 231and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by nomeans to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenarycelebration were a hundred years hence, or a hundred yearspast, we should still be pursuing precisely the same object,though we should not pursue it under precisely the samecircumstances. The facts are these: There is, as you know,in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of thiscollege, which dates some five or six years back, expresslyprovides for the establishment of schools in connexion withit; and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme,when it was explained to him, was specially interesting tohis Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed itas evidence of the desire of the promoters to look forwardas well as to look back; to found educational institutionsfor the rising generation, as well as to establish a harbourof refuge for the generation going out, or at least havingtheir faces turned towards the setting sun. The leadingmembers of the dramatic art, applying themselves first tothe more pressing necessity of the two, set themselves towork on the construction of their harbour of refuge, and thisthey did with the zeal, energy, good-will, and goodfaith thatalways honourably distinguish them in their efforts to help.one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided bythe respected gentleman * under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeingme on these boards as I always am to see him here. Withsuch energy and determination did Mr. Webster and hisbrothers and sisters in art proceed with their work, that atthis present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, completely furnished, fitted with

Mr. B. Webster.

232 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 11,every appliance, and many of them inhabited. The centralnall of the College is built, the grounds are beautifullyplanned and laid out, and the estate has become the nucleusof a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr.Webster was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools, when, thisTercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred to himto represent to the National Shakespeare Committee theirjust and reasonable claim to participate in the results of anysubscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the committee that the social recognition andelevation of the followers of Shakespeare's own art, throughthe education of their children, was surely a monumentworthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project,which the public good sense would immediately appreciateand approve. This claim the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to understand that if thecommittee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenarycelebration had never been attempted, those schools, as adesign anterior to both, would still have solicited publicsupport.sexes.Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is,in fact, to find a new self-supporting public school; withthis additional feature, that it is to be available for bothThis, of course, presupposes two separate distinctschools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the firstno charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind underthat important head. It is, in short, proposed simply toestablish a new self-supporting public school, in a rapidlyincreasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fastaccumulating middle-class population, and where property1864. THE ACTOR'S VOCATION.in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the projectis a project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuchas the schools are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their schools the great name ofShakespeare, and evermore to give the followers of Shakespeare's art a prominent place in them. With this view, itis confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars—say, twenty girlsand twenty boys-who shall always receive their educationgratuitously, and who shall always be the children of actors,actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, is to be equal to the best existing public school. Itis to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensiveeducation, and it is to address the whole great middleclass at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as anyexisting puplic school.233Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design.There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholarsat nearly all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our standard national literature,and in remembrance of a great humanising art, will dothis thing for these children, it will at the same time bedoing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the case—and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one I cannotmake a sorry face about "the poor player. " I think it is aterm very much misused and very little understood—being,I venture to say, appropriated in a wrong sense by playersthemselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can onlypresent the player to you exceptionally in this wise-thathe follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocationvery rarely affording the means of accumulating moneythat that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it234 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 11many undistinguished men and women to one distinguishedone-that it is not a vocation the exerciser of which canprofit by the labours of others, but in which he must earnevery loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid ofhis own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory,and his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails.Surely this is reason enough to render him some little helpin opening for his children their paths through life. I saytheir paths advisedly, because it is not often found, exceptunder the pressure of necessity, or where there is stronghereditary talent—which is always an exceptional case—thatthe children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need not in the least fear that by helping toendow these schools they would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the reverse, forthey would divert into channels of public distinction andusefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in that market's over-rich superabundance.This project has received the support of the head of themost popular of our English public schools. On the committee stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire this liberalspirit, and your admiration-which I cordially share-bringsme naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is notin England any institution so socially liberal as a publicschool. It has been called a little cosmos of life outside,and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life's worstfoibles-for, as far as I know, nowhere in this country isthere so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, tomere position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boythere is always what his abilities or his personal qualitiesmake him. We may differ about the curriculum and othermatters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit1864. PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 235preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there can be nokind of question. It has happened in these later times thatobjection has been made to children of dramatic artists incertain little snivelling private schools-but in publicschools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise,and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious liberality ofa public school, in seeking not a little hole-and- corner placeof education for their children exclusively, but in addressingthe whole of the great middle class, and proposing to themto come and join them, the actors, on their own property, ina public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is now to be found.I have now done. The attempt has been a very timidone. I have endeavoured to confine myself within mymeans, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate,to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laida trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a littlebrushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I candescry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the firstresolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you forthe courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at alldoubting that we shall lay a strong foundation of theseschools to-day, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution,on Mr. Robert Bell.1233.0XXXVIII.LONDON, MAY 9, 1865.[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Association, and, in proposingthe toast of the evening, delivered the following speech. ]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -Dr. Johnson's experience of that club, the members of which havetravelled over one another's minds in every direction, is not to be compared with the experience of theperpetual president of a society like this. Having onprevious occasions said everything about it that he couldpossibly find to say, he is again produced, with the sameawful formalities, to say everything about it that he cannotpossibly find to say. It struck me, when Dr. F. Jones wasreferring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of suchan ill-starred president is very like that of the stag at EppingForest on Easter Monday. That unfortunate animal whenhe is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes place,generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at acool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole field, to theyard where he lives, and there subsides into a quiet and.inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out to beMay 9, 1865. ORATORICAL DIFFICULTIES. 237again followed by exactly the same field, under exactly thesame circumstances, next Easter Monday.The difficulties of the situation-and here I mean thepresident and not the stag-are greatly increased in such aninstance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. Inits unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believeme-for I have carefully considered the point-it presentsno opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it wereone of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of woolbears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I verylikely might have a word or two to say on the subject. Ifits funds were lavished in patronage and show, instead ofbeing honestly expended in providing small annuities forhard-working people who have themselves contributed toits funds-if its management were intrusted to people whocould by no possibility know anything about it, instead ofbeing invested in plain, business, practical hands—if ithoarded when it ought to spend—if it got by cringing andfawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impressyou very much by my indignation. If its managers couldtell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds—or by " Tom,"—if its treasurer had run away with themoney-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal toyour feelings. But I have no such chance. Just as a nationis happy whose records are barren, so is a society fortunatethat has no history-and its president unfortunate. I canonly assure you that this society continues its plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it does agreat deal of good at a very small cost, and that the objectsof its care and the bulk of its members are faithful working-servants of the public-sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their238 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May9own doors, at the street-corners, at every railway train, atevery steam-boat; through the agency of every establish .ment and the tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as master or as man, their profits are very modestand their risks numerous, while their trouble and responsibility are very great.The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinatepart of that wonderful engine-the newspaper press. StillI think we all know very well that they are to the fountainhead what a good service of water pipes is to a good watersupply. Just as a goodly store of water at Watford wouldbe a tantalization to thirsty London if it were not broughtinto town for its use, so any amount of news accumulatedat Printing-house Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand,would be if there were no skill and enterprise engaged inits dissemination.We are all of us in the habit of saying in our every- daylife, that " We never know the value of anything until we lose it." Let us try the newsvendors by the test. A fewyears ago we discovered one morning that there was astrike among the cab-drivers. Now, let us imagine a strikeof newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in vain for thenewspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dyingto know the shipping news, the commercial news, the foreignnews, the legal news, the criminal news, the dramatic news.Imagine the paralysis on all the provincial exchanges; thesilence and desertion of all the newsmen's exchanges inLondon. Imagine the circulation of the blood of the nationand of the country standing still, -the clock of the world.Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter-whom I amalways glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side ofMrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, belland wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each earTHE MODERN MERCURY. 1865.think how even he would click and flash those wondrousdispatches of his, and how they would become mere nothingwithout the activity and honesty which catch up the threadsand stitches of the electric needle, and scatter them overthe land.239It is curious to consider-and the thought occurred to methis day, when I was out for a stroll pondering over the dutiesof this evening, which even then were looming in the distance, but not quite so far off as I could wish-I found itvery curious to consider that though the newsman must beallowed to be a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury,or Fame, or what-not conventional messenger from theclouds, and although we must allow that he is of this earth,and has a good deal of it on his boots, still that he has twovery remarkable characteristics, to which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claim. One is thathe is always the messenger of civilization; the other thathe is at least equally so-not only in what he brings, but inwhat he ceases to bring. Thus the time was, and not somany years ago either, when the newsman constantly broughthome to our doors-though I am afraid not to our hearts,which were custom-hardened—the most terrific accounts ofmurders, of our fellow- creatures being publicly put to death.for what we now call trivial offences, in the very heart ofLondon, regularly every Monday morning. At the sametime the newsman regularly brought to us the infliction ofother punishments, which were demoralising to the innocentpart of the community, while they did not òperate aspunishments in deterring offenders from the perpetration ofcrimes. In those same days, also, the newsman brought tous daily accounts of a regularly accepted and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, litteringthem down on straw, starving them on bread and water,240CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.May9,damaging their clothes, and making periodical exhibitionsof them at a small charge; and that on a Sunday one ofour public resorts was a kind of demoniacal zoological gardens. They brought us accounts at the same time of somedamage done to the machinery which was destined tcsupply the operative classes with employment. In the sametime they brought us accounts of riots for bread, which wereconstantly occurring, and undermining society and the state;of the most terrible explosions of class against class, andof the habitual employment of spies for the discovery—ifnot for the origination-of plots, in which both sides foundin those days some relief. In the same time the samenewsmen were apprising us of a state of society all aroundus in which the grossest sensuality and intemperance werethe rule; and not as now, when the ignorant, the wicked,and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious exceptions-astate of society in which the professional bully was rampant,and when deadly duels were daily fought for the most absurdand disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceasedto tell us of. This state of society has discontinued in England for ever; and when we remember the undoubted truth,that the change could never have been effected without theaid of the load which the newsman carries, surely it is notvery romantic to express the hope on his behalf that thepublic will show to him some little token of the sympatheticremembrance which we are all of us glad to bestow on thebearers of happy tidings-the harbingers of good news.Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear thatI am coming to a conclusion; for that conclusion I have aprecedent. You all of you know how pleased you are onyour return from a morning's walk to learn that the collectorhas called. Well, I am the collector for this district, and Ihope you will bear in mind that I have respectfully called.•1865.RULES OF THE INSTITUTION.Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presentedmyself, I need only say technically two things. First, thatits annuities are granted out of its funded capital , and therefore it is safe as the Bank; and, secondly, that they areattainable by such a slight exercise of prudence and forethought, that a payment of 255. extending over a period offive years, entitles a subscriber-if a male-to an annuityof £16 a-year, and a female to £ 12 a-year. Now, bear inmind that this is an institution on behalf of which the collector has called, leaving behind his assurance that what youcan give to one of the most faithful of your servants shallbe well bestowed and faithfully applied to the purposes towhich you intend them, and to those purposes alone.16241WEXXXIX.NEWSPAPER PRESS FUND.LONDON, MAY 20, 1865.[At the second annual dinner of the Institution, held at the Freemasons'Tavern, on Saturday, the 20th May, 1865, the following speech wasdelivered by the chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in proposing the toast of the evening:]JADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -When a young childis produced after dinner to be shown to a circle ofadmiring relations and friends, it may generally beobserved that their conversation-I suppose in an instinctiveremembrance of the uncertainty of infant life—takes a retrospective turn. As how much the child has grown since thelast dinner; what a remarkably fine child it is, to have beenborn only two or three years ago, how much stronger it looksnow than before it had the measles, and so forth. When ayoung institution is produced after dinner, there is not thesame uncertainty or delicacy as in the case of the child,and it may be confidently predicted of it that if it deserve tolive it will surely live, and that if it deserve to die it willsurely die. The proof of desert in such a case as this mustbe mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, in what the societymeans to do with its money; secondly, in the extent towhich it is supported by the class with whom it originated,May 20, 1865. NEWSPAPEr press fund. 243and for whose benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in thepower of its hold upon the public. I add this lastly, because no such institution that ever I heard of ever yetdreamed of existing apart from the public, or ever yet considered it a degradation to accept the public support.Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to dowith its money is to grant relief to members in want or distress, and to the widows, families, parents, or other nearrelatives of deceased members in right of a moderate provident annual subscription-commutable, I observe, for amoderate provident life subscription-and its members comprise the whole paid class of literary contributors to thepress of the United Kingdom, and every class of reporters.The number of its members at this time last year was something below 100. At the present time it is somewhat above170, not including 30 members of the press who are regularsubscribers, but have not as yet qualified as regular members. This number is steadily on the increase, not only asregards the metropolitan press, but also as regards the provincial throughout the country. I have observed withinthese few days that many members of the press at Manchester have lately at a meeting expressed a strong brotherlyinterest in this Institution, and a great desire to extend itsoperations, and to strengthen its hands, provided that something in the independent nature of life assurance and thepurchase of deferred annuities could be introduced into itsdetails, and always assuming that in it the metropolis andthe provinces stand on perfectly equal ground. This appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that I canhardly have a doubt of a response on the part of themanagers, or of the beneficial and harmonious results. Itonly remains to add, on this head of desert, the agreeablecircumstance that out of all the money collected in aid of16-2I1244 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 20,the society during the last year more than one-third cameexclusively from the press.Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim—the last point of desert-the hold upon the public-I thinkI may say that probably not one single individual in thisgreat company has failed to-day to see a newspaper, or hasfailed to-day to hear something derived from a newspaperwhich was quite unknown to him or to her yesterday. Ofall those restless crowds that have this day thronged thestreets of this enormous city, the same may be said as thegeneral gigantic rule. It may be said almost equally, ofthebrightest and the dullest, the largest and the least provincialtown in the empire; and this, observe, not only as to theactive, the industrious, and the healthy among the population, but also to the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and thedeaf and dumb. Now, ifthe men who provide this all-pervading presence, this wonderful, ubiquitous newspaper, withevery description of intelligence on every subject of humaninterest, collected with immense pains and immense patience,often bythe exercise of a laboriously-acquired faculty unitedto a natural aptitude, much of the work done in the night,at the sacrifice of rest and sleep, and ( quite apart from themental strain) by the constant overtasking of the two mostdelicate of the senses, sight and hearing-I say, if the menwho, through the newspapers, from day to day, or fromnight to night, or from week to week, furnish the public withso much to remember, have not a righteous claim to be remembered bythe public in return, then I declare before GodI know no working class of the community who have.It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such anassembly as this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon theextraordinary combination of remarkable qualities involvedin the production of any newspaper. But assuming the1865.PRIVILEGE of " skipPING."majority of this associated body to be composed of reporters,because reporters, of one kind or other, compose the majorityof the literary staff of almost every newspaper that is not acompilation, I would venture to remind you, if I delicatelymay, in the august presence of members of Parliament, howmuch we, the public, owe to the reporters if it were only fortheir skill in the two great sciences of condensation and rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an ImperialParliament, however popularly constituted, under howeverglorious a constitution, would be if the reporters could notskip. Dr. Johnson, in one of his violent assertions, declaredthat " the man who was afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir." By no means binding myself to this opinionthough admitting that the man who is afraid of a newspaperwill generally be found to be rather something like it, I muststill freely own that I should approach my Parliamentarydebate with infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully served up for my breakfast. Ever since the timewhen the old man and his son took their donkey home,which were the old Greek days, I believe, and probably eversince the time when the donkey went into the ark-perhapshe did not like his accommodation there-but certainlyfromthat time downwards, he has objected to go in any directionrequired of him-from the remotest periods it has beenfound impossible to please everybody.I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know thisInstitution has been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freest discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sortof shelter or favour but what it can win, it has nothing, Iapprehend, but itself, to urge against objection. No institution conceived in perfect honesty and good faith has a rightto object to being questioned to any extent, and any institution so based must be in the end the better for it. More245246 CHARLES Dickens's speeches. May 20over, that this society has been questioned in quartersdeserving of the most respectful attention I take to be anindisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that respectfulattention, and I have come out of the discussion to whereyou see me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded byinstitutions between which and this I can descry no difference. The painters' art has four or five such institutions.The musicians' art, so generously and charmingly representedhere, has likewise several such institutions. In my own artthere is one, concerning the details of which my noble friend.the president of the society and myself have torn each other'shair to a considerable extent, and which I would, if I could,assimilate more nearly to this. In the dramatic art there arefour, and I never yet heard of any objection to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases of some famous actors oflarge gains, who having through the whole period of theirsuccesses positively refused to establish a right in them,became, in their old age and decline, repentant suppliantsfor their bounty. Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is objectionable because a parliamentary reporter,for instance, might report a subscribing M.P. in large, and anon-subscribing M.P. in little? Apart from the sweepingnature of this charge, which, it is to be observed, lays theunfortunate member and the unfortunate reporter underpretty much the same suspicion-apart from this consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper offices thatevery such man is reported according to the position he cangain in the public eye, and according to the force and weightof what he has to say. And if there were ever to be amongthe members of this society one so very foolish to hisbrethren, and so very dishonourable to himself, as venally toabuse his trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with journalism, whether they believe it possible1865.EXPERIENCE AS A REPORTER. 247that any newspaper so ill-conducted as to fail instantly todetect him could possibly exist as a thriving enterprise forone single twelvemonth? No, ladies and gentlemen, theblundering stupidity of such an offence would have no chanceagainst the acute sagacity of newspaper editors. But I willgo further, and submit to you that its commission, if it beto be dreaded at all, is far more likely on the part of somerecreant camp-follower of a scattered, disunited, and halfrecognized profession, than when there is a public opinionestablished in it, by the union of all classes of its membersfor the common good: the tendency of which union mustin the nature of things be to raise the lower members of thepress towards the higher, and never to bring the highermembers to the lower level.I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing wordsthat I feel a desire to say in remembrance of some circumstances, rather special, attending my present occupation orthis chair, to give those words something of a personal tone.I am not here advocating the case of a mere ordinary clientof whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold a brief tonight for my brothers. I went into the gallery of the Houseof Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boynot eighteen, and I left it-I can hardly believe the inexorable truth-nigh thirty years ago. I have pursued thecalling of a reporter under circumstances of which many ofmy brethren at home in England here, many of my modernsuccessors, can form no adequate conception. I have oftentranscribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy wasrequired, and a mistake in which would have been to ayoung man severely compromising, writing on the palm ofmy hand, bythe light of a dark lantern, in a post- chaise andfour, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead248 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 20,of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles anhour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled intothe castle yard there to identify, for the amusement of afriend, the spot on which I once " took," as we used to callit, an election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, inthe midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabondsin that division of the county, and under such a pelting rain,that I remember two goodnatured colleagues, who chancedto be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my notebook, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiasticalprocession. I have worn my knees by writing on them onthe old back row of the old gallery of the old House ofCommons; and I have worn my feet by standing to write ina preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where weused to be huddled together like so many sheep-kept inwaiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing.Returning home from excited political meetings in thecountry to the waiting press in London, I do verily believeI have been upset in almost every description of vehicleknown in this country. I have been, in my time, belatedon miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty milesfrom London, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horsesand drunken postboys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments bythe late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch fromthe broadest of hearts I ever knew.Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as anassurance to you that I never have forgotten the fascinationof that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in therapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out ofmy breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I tookto it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from1855. EXPERIENCE as a reporter. 249long disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit inthis hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon does occur-I sometimes beguile the tedium of themoment by mentally following the speaker in the old, oldway; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find myhand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note ofit all. Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what Iknow; as a confirmation of my undying interest in this oldcalling. Accept them as a proof that my feeling for thevocation of my youth is not a sentiment taken up to-night tobe thrown away to-morrow-but is a faithful sympathy whichis a part of myself. I verily believe—I am sure—that if Ihad never quitted my old calling I should have been foremost and zealous in the interests of this Institution , believingit to be a sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies andgentlemen, I am to propose to you to drink " Prosperity tothe Newspaper Press Fund," with which toast I will connect,as to its acknowledgment, a name that has shed new brilliancyon even the foremost newspaper in the world-the illustriousname of Mr. Russell.HOTHE ONXL.KNEBWORTH, JULY 29, 1865.[On the above date the members of the " Guild of Literature and Art" pro ceeded to the neighbourhood of Stevenage, near the magnificent seat ofthe President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built in the Gothic style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. After their survey,the party drove to Knebworth to partake of the hospitality of Lord Lytton .Mr. Dickens, who was one of the guests, proposed the health of the hostin the following words:]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -It was said by a verysagacious person, whose authority I am sure myfriendof many years will not impugn, seeing that he wasnamed Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and philosopherof Paul Clifford-it was said by that remarkable man, " Lifeis short, and why should speeches be long?" An aphorismso sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in thecircumstances in which we are placed, with this deliciousweather and such charming gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on the present occasion; and the rather so because the speech of my friend was exhaustive of the subject,as his speeches always are, though not in the least exhaustive of his audience. In thanking him for the toastwhich he has done us the honour to propose, allow me tocorrect an error into which he has fallen. Allow me to statethat these houses never could have been built but for hiszealous and valuable co-operation, and also that the pleasantJuly 29, 1865. LORD LYTTON. 251labour out of which they have arisen would have lost one ofits greatest charms and strongest impulses, if it had lost hisever ready sympathy with that class in which he has risen tothe foremost rank, and of which he is the brightest ornament.Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I canonly say, on behalf of my associates, that the ladies and gentlemen whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we havebuilt will never be placed under any social disadvantage.They will be invited to occupy them as artists, receivingthem as a mark of the high respect in which they are heldby their fellow-workers. As artists I hope they will oftenexercise their calling within those walls for the general advantage; and they will always claim, on equal terms, thehospitality of their generous neighbour.Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelingsofmybrothers and sisters in literature in proposing " Health,long life, and prosperity to our distinguished host. " Ladiesand gentlemen, you know very well that when the health,life, and beauty now overflowing these halls shall have fled,crowds of people will come to see the place where he livedand wrote. Setting aside the orator and statesman-forhappily we know no party here but this agreeable party—setting aside all, this you know very well, that this is thehome of a very great man whose connexion with Hertfordshire every other county in England will envy for many longyears to come. You know that when this hall is dullestand emptiest you can make it when you please brightest andfullest by peopling it with the creations of his brilliant fancy.Let us all wish together that they may be many more-forthe more they are the better it will be, and, as he alwaysexcels himself, the better they will be. I ask you to listento their praises and not to mine, and to let them, not me,propose his health.XLI.22LONDON, FEBRUARY 14, 1866.[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as Chairman at the annual dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Fund, at Willis's Rooms, wherehe made the following speech:]ADIES, before I couple you with the gentlemen, whichwill be at least proper to the inscription over myhead (St. Valentine's day) -before I do so, allowme, on behalf of my grateful sex here represented, to thankyou for the great pleasure and interest with which yourgracious presence at these festivals never fails to inspire us.There is no English custom which is so manifestly a relic ofsavage life as that custom which usually excludes you fromparticipation in similar gatherings. And although the crimecarries its own heavy punishment along with it, in respectthat it divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornamentand of its most fascinating charm, still the offence is nonethe less to be severely reprehended on every possible occasion, as outraging equally nature and art. I believe that aslittle is known of the saint whose name is written here as canwell be known of any saint or sinner. We, your loyalservants, are deeply thankful to him for having somehowgained possession of one day in the year-for having, as noFeb. 14, 1866. 253doubt he has, arranged the almanac for 1866-expressly todelight us with the enchanting fiction that we have sometender proprietorship in you which we should scarcely dareto claim on a less auspicious occasion. Ladies, the utmostdevotion sanctioned by the saint we beg to lay at your feet,and any little innocent privileges to which we may be entitled by the same authority we beg respectfully but firmlyto claim at your hands.Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to informyou that I am going to propose " Prosperity to the Dramatic, Musical, and Equestrian Sick Fund Association, "and, further, that I should be going to ask you actively topromote that prosperity by liberally contributing to its funds,if that task were not reserved for a much more persuasivespeaker. But I rest the strong claim of the society for itsuseful existence and its truly charitable functions on a veryfewwords, though, as well as I can recollect, upon somethinglike six grounds. First, it relieves the sick; secondly, itburies the dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of theprofession to journey to accept new engagements wheneverthey find themselves stranded in some remote, inhospitableplace, or when, from other circumstances, they find themselves perfectly crippled as to locomotion for want of money;fourthly, it often finds such engagements for them by actingas their honest, disinterested agent; fifthly, it is its principleto act humanely upon the instant, and never, as is too oftenthe case within my experience, to beat about the bush tillthe bush is withered and dead; lastly, the society is not in theleast degree exclusive, but takes under its comprehensive carethe whole range of the theatre and the concert-room, fromthe manager in his room of state, or in his caravan, or at thedrum-head-down to the theatrical housekeeper, who isusually to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, orSAINT VALENTINE.254 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.Feb. 14.down to the hall porter, who passes his life in a thoroughdraught-and, to the best of my observation, in perpetuallyinterrupted endeavours to eat something with a knife andfork out of a basin, by a dusty fire, in that extraordinary little gritty room, upon which the sun never shines, and onthe portals of which are inscribed the magic words, " stagedoor."Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers itsbenefits sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by way ofgift; sometimes by way of assurance at very low premiums;sometimes to members, oftener to non-members; alwaysexpressly, remember, through the hands of a secretary orcommittee well acquainted with the wants of the applicants,and thoroughly versed, if not by hard experience at least bysympathy, in the calamities and uncertainties incidental tothe general calling. One must know something of thegeneral calling to know what those afflictions are. A ladywho had been upon the stage from her earliest childhoodtill she was a blooming woman, and who came from a longline of provincial actors and actresses, once said to me whenshe was happily married; when she was rich, beloved,courted; when she was mistress of a fine house—once saidto me at the head of her own table, surrounded by distinguished guests of every degree, " Oh, but I have neverforgotten the hard time when I was on the stage, and whenmy baby brother died, and when my poor mother and Ibrought the little baby from Ireland to England, and actedthree nights in England, as we had acted three nights inIreland, with the pretty creature lying upon the only bed inour lodging before we got the money to pay for its funeral."Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to thishour; but, happily, at this day and in this hour this association has arisen to be the timely friend of such great distress.ACTORS. 255It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fallinto these straits. Struggling artists must necessarily changefrom place to place, and thus it frequently happens thatthey become, as it were, strangers in every place, and veryslight circumstances-a passing illness, the sickness of thehusband, wife, or child, a serious town, an anathematisingexpounder of the gospel of gentleness and forbearanceany one of these causes may often in a few hours wreckthem upon a rock in the barren ocean; and then, happily,this society, with the swift alacrity of the life-boat, dashesto the rescue, and takes them off. Looking just now overthe last report issued by this society, and confining myscrutiny to the head of illness alone, I find that in one year,I think, 672 days of sickness had been assuaged by its means. In nine years, which then formed the term of itsexistence, as many as 5,500 and odd. Well, I thoughtwhen I saw 5,500 and odd days of sickness, this is a veryserious sum, but add the nights! Add the nights-thoselong, dreary hours in the twenty-four when the shadow ofdeath is darkest, when despondency is strongest, and whenhope is weakest, before you gauge the good that is done bythis institution, and before you gauge the good that reallywill be done by every shilling that you bestow here to-night.Add, more than all, that the improvidence, the recklessnessof the general multitude of poor members of this profession, I should say is a cruel, conventional fable. Add thatthere is no class of society the members of which so wellhelp themselves, or so well help each other. Not in thewhole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and YorkMinster, not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange, not in the whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns of Court, not in the College ofPhysicians, not in the College of Surgeons, can there pos1866.256 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 14,sibly be found more remarkable instances of uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of the generousremembrance of the claims of kindred and professionalbrotherhood, than will certainly be found in the dingiestand dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid theatre-evenin the raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by weather.I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering actors when I address them as one of their trusteesat their General Fund dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody,unless it be sometimes myself; but, in such a company asthe present, I always feel it my manful duty to bear mytestimony to this fact-first, because it is opposed to astupid, unfeeling libel; secondly, because my doing so mayafford some slight encouragement to the persons who areunjustly depreciated; and lastly, and most of all, because Iknow it is the truth.Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what weprofessionally call " ring down " on these remarks. If you,such members of the general public as are here, will onlythink the great theatrical curtain has really fallen and beentaken up again for the night on that dull, dark vault whichmany of us know so well; if you will only think of thetheatre or other place of entertainment as empty; if youwill only think of the " float, " or other gas-fittings, as extinguished; if you will only think of the people who havebeguiled you of an evening's care, whose little vanities andalmost childish foibles are engendered in their competingface to face with you for your favour-surely it may besaid their feelings are partly of your making, while theirvirtues are all their own. If you will only do this, andfollow them out of that sham place into the real world,where it rains real rain, snows real snow, and blows realwind; where people sustain themselves by real money,PEPYS DIARY. 257which is much harder to get, much harder to make, andvery much harder to give away than the pieces of tobaccopipe in property bags-if you will only do this, and do itin a really kind, considerate spirit, this society, then certainof the result of the night's proceedings, can ask no more.I beg to propose to you to drink " Prosperity to the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick Fund Association. "[Mr. Dickens, in proposing the next toast, said:-]Gentlemen as I addressed myself to the ladies lasttime, so I address you this time, and I give you the delightful assurance that it is positively my last appearance butone on the present occasion. A certain Mr. Pepys, whowas Secretary for the Admiralty in the days of Charles II. ,who kept a diary well in shorthand, which he supposed noone could read, and which consequently remains to thisday the most honest diary known to print-Mr. Pepys hadtwo special and very strong likings, the ladies and thetheatres. But Mr. Pepys, whenever he committed anyslight act of remissness, or any little peccadillo which wasutterly and wholly untheatrical, used to comfort his conscience by recording a vow that he would abstain from thetheatres for a certain time. In the first part of Mr. Pepys'character I have no doubt we fully agree with him; in thesecond I have no doubt we do not.1866.I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembranceof a passage in his diary that I was reading the other night,from which it appears that he was not only curious in plays,but curious in sermons; and that one night when he happened to be walking past St. Dunstan's Church, he turned,went in, and heard what he calls " a. very edifying discourse;" during the delivery of which discourse, he notesin his diary-"I stood by a pretty young maid, whom I17258 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Feb. 14, 1866did attempt to take by the hand. " But he adds-" Shewould not; and I did perceive that she had pins in herpocket with which to prick me if I should touch her again--and was glad that I spied her design. " Afterwards, aboutthe close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. Pepys foundhimself near another pretty, fair young maid, who wouldseem upon the whole to have had no pins, and to have beenmore impressible.Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest toyou is, that we have been this evening in St. James's muchmore timid than Mr. Pepys was in St. Dunstan's, and thatwe have conducted ourselves very much better. As a slightrecompense to us for our highly meritorious conduct, andas a little relief to our over-charged hearts, I beg to proposethat we devote this bumper to invoking a blessing on theladies. It is the privilege of this society annually to heara lady speak for her own sex. Who so competent to dothis as Mrs. Stirling? Surely one who has so gracefully andcaptivatingly, with such an exquisite mixture of art, andfancy, and fidelity, represented her own sex in innumerablecharities, under an infinite variety of phases, cannot fail torepresent them well in her own character, especially when itis, amidst her many triumphs, the most agreeable of all. Ibeg to propose to you " The Ladies, " and I will couplewith that toast the name of Mrs. Stirling.XLII.LONDON, MARCH 28, 1866.[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Annual Festival ofthe Royal General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, inproposing the health of the Lord Mayor (Sir Benjamin Phillips) , whooccupied the chair. ]ENTLEMEN, in my childish days I remember tohave had a vague but profound admiration for acertain legendary person called the Lord Mayor'sfool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacityof that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and Ireally regarded him with feelings approaching to absoluteveneration, because my nurse informed me on every gastronomic occasion that the Lord Mayor's fool liked everythingthat was good. You will agree with me, I have no doubt,that if this discriminating jester had existed at the presenttime he could not fail to have liked his master very much,seeing that so good a Lord Mayor is very rarely to be found,and that a better Lord Mayor could not possibly be.You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about topropose to you to drink the health of the right honourablegentleman in the chair. As one of the Trustees of theGeneral Theatrical Fund, I beg officially to tender him mybest thanks for lending the very powerful aid of his presence,his influence, and his personal character to this very de17-2260 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. March 28,serving Institution. As his private friends we ventured taurge upon him to do us this gracious act, and I beg to assureyou that the perfect simplicity, modesty, cordiality, andfrankness with which he assented, enhanced the gift onethousand fold. I think it must also be very agreeable to acompany like this to know that the President of the nightis not ceremoniously pretending, " positively for this nightonly," to have an interest in the drama, but that he has anunusual and thorough acquaintance with it, and that he hasa living and discerning knowledge of the merits of the greatold actors. It is very pleasant to me to remember that theLord Mayor and I once beguiled the tedium of a journeyby exchanging our experiences upon this subject. I ratherprided myself on being something of an old stager, but Ifound the Lord Mayor so thoroughly up in all the stockpieces, and so knowing and yet so fresh about the merits ofthose who are most and best identified with them, that Ireadily recognised in him what would be called in fisticlanguage, a very ugly customer-one, ' I assure you, by nomeans to be settled by any novice not in thorough goodtheatrical training.Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancythat when the giants in Guildhall hear the clock strike one,they come down to dinner. Similarly, when the City ofLondon shall hear but one single word in just disparagement of its present Lord Mayor, whether as its enlightenedchief magistrate, or as one of its merchants, or as one ofits true gentlemen, he will then descend from the high personal place which he holds in the general honour and esUntil then he will remain upon his pedestal, andmy private opinion, between ourselves, is that the giantswill come down long before him.teem.Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the1866. ROYAL GENERAL THEATRICAL FUND.Lord Mayor made his truly remarkable, and truly manly,and unaffected speech, I could not but be struck by the oddreversal of the usual circumstances at the Mansion House,which he presented to our view, for whereas it is a verycommon thing for persons to be brought tremblingly beforethe Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor presented himself asbeing brought tremblingly before us. I hope that the resultmay hold still further, for whereas it is a common thing forthe Lord Mayor to say to a repentant criminal who doesnot seem to have much harm in him, " let me never seeyou here again," so I would propose that we all with oneaccord say to the Lord Mayor, " Let us by all means seeyou here again on the first opportunity. " Gentlemen, I begto propose to you to drink, with all the honours, " Thehealth of the right hon. the Lord Mayor."261HO+38 0XLIII.LONDON, MAY 7, 1866.[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs dining together at the London Tavern, on the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of theNautilus Rowing Club, occupied the chair. The Speech that follows was made in proposing " Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of London."Mr. Dickens said that:-]E could not avoid the remembrance of what verypoor things the amateur rowing clubs on theThames were in the early days of his noviciate;not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. Hecould not get on in the beginning without being a pupilunder an anomalous creature called a " fireman waterman, "who wore an eminently tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of which it might be said that if it was lessadapted for one thing than another, that thing was fire. Herecollected that this gentleman had on some former daywon a King's prize wherry, and they used to go about inthis accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing all the hardwork, while the fireman drank all the beer. The river wasvery much clearer, freër, and cleaner in those days thanthese; but he was persuaded that this philosophical oldboatman could no more have dreamt of seeing the spectacleMay 7, 1866.263which had taken place on Saturday (the procession of theboats of the Metropolitan Amateur Rowing Clubs) , or ofseeing these clubs matched for skill and speed, than he(the Chairman) should dare to announce through the usualauthentic channels that he was to be heard of at the barbelow, and that he was perfectly prepared to accommodateMr. James Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, hecould recollect that he had turned out for a spurt a fewyears ago on the River Thames with an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some other Eton boys,and that he could hold his own against them. More recently still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxfordhe was supposed to cover himself with honour, though hemust admit that he found the " locks " so picturesque as torequire much examination for the discovery of their beauty.But what he wanted to say was this, that though his" fireman waterman was one of the greatest humbugs thatever existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy,manly sport this was. Their waterman would bid thempull away, and assure them that they were certain of winning in some race. And here he would remark that aquaticsports never entailed a moment's cruelty, or a moment'spain, upon any living creature. Rowing men pursuedrecreation under circumstances which braced their muscles,and cleared the cobwebs from their minds. He assuredthem that he regarded such clubs as these as a nationalblessing. " They owed, it was true, a vast deal to steampower-as was sometimes proved at matches on the Thames—but, at the same time, they were greatly indebted to allthat tended to keep up a healthy, manly tone. He understood that there had been a committee selected for thepurpose of arranging a great amateur regatta, which was totake place off Putney in the course of the season that was66METROPOLITAN ROWING CLUBS.254 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May7, 1866.just begun. He could not abstain from availing himself ofthis occasion to express a hope that the committee wouldsuccessfully carry on its labours to a triumphant result, andthat they should see upon the Thames, in the course ofthis summer, such a brilliant sight as had never been seenthere before. To secure this there must be some hardwork, skilful combinations, and rather large subscriptions.But although the aggregate result must be great, it by nomeans followed that it need be at all large in its individualdetails.[ In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison between the paying off or purification of the national debt and the purification of the River Thames ]10-05T0%XLIV.LONDON, JUNE 5, 1857.[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Ninth Anniversary Festivalof the Railway Benevolent Society, at Willis's Rooms, and in proposing the toast of the evening, made the following speech . ]LTHOUGH we have not yet left behind us by thedistance of nearly fifty years the time when one ofthe first literary authorities of this country insistedupon the speed of the fastest railway train that the Legisture might disastrously sanction being limited by Act ofParliament to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, and every evening, there are railwaytrains running pretty smoothly to Ireland and to Scotlandat the rate of fifty miles an hour; much as it was objectedin its time to vaccination, that it must have a tendency toimpart to human children something of the nature of thecow, whereas I believe to this very time vaccinated childrenare found to be as easily defined from calves as they everwere, and certainly they have no cheapening influence onthe price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroformwas a contravention of the will of Providence, because itlessened providentially-inflicted pain, which would be areason for your not rubbing your face if you had the tooth265 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 5ache, or not rubbing your nose if it itched; so it was evidently predicted that the railway system, even if anythingso absurd could be productive of any result, would infalliblythrow half the nation out of employment; whereas, youobserve that the very cause and occasion of our cominghere together to-night is, apart from the various tributarychannels of occupation which it has opened out, that it hascalled into existence a specially and directly employedpopulation of upwards of 200,000 persons.Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 persons engaged upon the various railwaysof the United Kingdom cannot be rich; and although theirduties require great care and great exactness, and althoughour lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands ofmany of them, still, for the most of these places there willbe always great competition, because they are not postswhich require skilled workmen to hold. Wages, as youknow very well, cannot be high where competition is great,and you also know very well that railway directors, in thebargains they make, and the salaries which they pay, have todeal with the money of the shareholders, to whom they areaccountable. Thus it necessarily happens that railway officers and servants are not remunerated on the whole by anymeans splendidly, and that they cannot hope in the ordinarycourse of things to do more than meet the ordinary wantsand hazards of life. But it is to be observed that thegeneral hazards are in their case, by reason of the dangerousnature of their avocations, exceptionally great, so very great,I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a parliamentarypaper, bythe very startling round of figures, that whereasone railway traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers is killed,one railway servant in every 2,000 is killed.Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the1867. RAILWAY BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. 257Iusual prudential and benevolent considerations, therecame to be established among railway officers and servants,nine years ago, the Railway Benevolent Association.may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years ago,that this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chairthe banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually to do my duty the sameas if it had never been done before, and to ask whetherthere is any just cause or impediment why these two parties-theinstitution and the public-should not be joined together in holy charity. As I understand the society, its objectsare five-fold-first, to guarantee annuities which, it is alwaysto be observed, is paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that those annuities may be secure and safe-annualpensions, varying from £10 to £25, to distressed railwayofficers and servants incapacitated by age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to guarantee small pensions to distressedwidows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children;fourthly, to provide temporary relief for all those classestill lasting relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficientlylarge for the purpose; lastly, to induce railway officers andservants to assure their lives in some well- established officeby sub-dividing the payment of the premiums into smallperiodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonusof £10 per cent. on the amount assured from the funds ofthe institution.This is the society we are ' met to assist-simple, sympathetic, practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The numberof its members is large, and rapidly on the increase: theynumber 12,000; the amount of invested capital is verynearly £15,000; it has done a world of good and a worldof work in these first nine years of its life; and yet I amproud to say that the annual cost of the maintenance of the260 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 5institution is no more than £250. And now if you do notknow all about it in a small compass, either I do not knowall about it myself, or the fault must be in my " packing. "One naturally passes from what the institution is and hasdone, to what it wants. Well, it wants to do more good,and it cannot possibly do more good until it has moremoney. It cannot safely, and therefore it cannot honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until itgrows richer, and it cannot grow rich enough for its laudablepurpose by its own unaided self. The thing is absolutelyimpossible. The means of these railway officers and servants are far too limited. Even if they were helped to theutmost by the great railway companies, their means wouldstill be too limited; even if they were helped-and I hopethey shortly will be-by some of the great corporations ofthis country, whom railways have done so much to enrich.These railway officers and servants, on their road to a veryhumble and modest superannuation, can no more do withoutthe help of the great public, than the great public, on theirroad from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without them.Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servantsof the great railways-who, in fact, are their servants, theirready, zealous, faithful , hard-working servants—whether theyhave not established, whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim to liberal remembrance.Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a storyonce told me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mindto have a certain application. My friend was an Americansea-captain, and, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to say hisstory was quite true. He was captain and part owner of alarge American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out,in exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengersone beautiful young lady, and ten more or less beautiful1867. STORY OF THE TEN SUITORS.young gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing,the voyage was slow. They had made half their distancewhen the ten young gentlemen were all madly in love withthe beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to her,and bloodshed among the rivals seemed imminent pendingthe young lady's decision. On this extremity the beautifulyoung lady confided in my friend the captain, who gave herdiscreet advice. He said: " If your affections are disengaged, take that one of the young gentlemen whom you likethe best and settle the question. " To this the beautifulyoung lady made reply, " I cannot do that because I likethem all equally well." My friend, who was a man ofresource, hit upon this ingenious expedient, said he, "Tomorrow morning at mid-day, when lunch is announced, doyou plunge bodily overboard, head foremost. I will bealongside in a boat to rescue you, and take the one of theten who rushes to your rescue, and then you can afterwardshave him." The beautiful young lady highly approved, anddid accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine out of theten more or less beautiful young gentlemen plunged inafter her; and the tenth remained and shed tears, lookingover the side of the vessel. They were all picked up, andrestored dripping to the deck. The beautiful young ladyupon seeing them said, "What am I to do? See what aplight they are in. How can I possibly choose, becauseevery one of them is equally wet?" Then said my friendthe captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, "Take thedry one." I am sorry to say that she did so, and they livedhappy ever afterwards.259Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactlyreverse my friend the captain's anecdote, and I entreat thepublic in looking about to consider who are fit subjects fortheir bounty, to give each his hand with something in it,270 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. June 5, 1867,and not to award a dry hand to the industrious railwayservant who is always at his back. And I would ask anyone with a doubt upon this subject to consider what hisexperience of the railway servant is from the time of hisdeparture to his arrival at his destination. I know whatmine is. Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman's dress,scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by asort of instinct, binding up lost umbrellas and walkingsticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs-mostly very complicatedand sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look around-there he is, in a station-master's uniform, directing andoverseeing, with the head of a general, and with the courteous manners of a gentleman; and then there is the handsome figure of the guard, who inspires confidence in timid.passengers. I glide out of the station, and there he isagain with his flags in his hand at his post in the opencountry, at the level crossing, at the cutting, at the tunnel.mouth, and at every station on the road until our destinationis reached. In regard, therefore, to the railway servantswith whom we do come into contact, we may surely havesome natural sympathy, and it is on their behalf that I thisnight appeal to you. I beg now to propose " Success tothe Railway Benevolent Society."

XLV.LONDON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1867.[On presiding at a public Meeting of the Printers' Readers, .held at theSalisbury Hotel, on the above date, Mr. Dickens said:-]HAT as the meeting was convened, not to hear him,but to hear a statement of facts and figures verynearly affecting the personal interests of the greatmajority of those present, his preface to the proceedingsneed be very brief. Of the details of the question he knew,of his own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he hadconsented to occupy the chair on that occasion at therequest of the London Association of Correctors of thePress for two reasons-first, because he thought that openness and publicity in such cases were a very wholesomeexample very much needed at this time, and were highlybecoming to a body of men associated with that great publicsafeguard the Press; secondly, because he knew fromsome slight practical experience, what the duties of correctors of the press were, and how their duties were usuallydischarged; and he could testify, and did testify, that theywere not mechanical, that they were not mere matters of272 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 17, 1867.inanipulation and routine; but that they required from thosewho performed them much natural intelligence, much superadded cultivation, readiness of reference, quickness ofresource, an excellent memory, and a clear understanding.He most gratefully acknowledged that he had never gonethrough the sheets of any book that he had written, withouthaving presented to him by the correctors of the presssomething that he had overlooked, some slight inconsistency into which he had fallen, some little lapse he hadmade-in short, without having set down in black and whitesome unquestionable indication that he had been closelyfollowed through the work by a patient and trained mind,and not merely by a skilful eye. And in this declaration hehad not the slightest doubt that the great body of hisbrother and sister writers would, as a plain act of justice,readily concur. For these plain reasons he was there; andbeing there he begged to assure them that every one present-that every speaker-would have a patient hearing, whatever his opinions might be.[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair on the occasion. ]Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed thebelief that their very calm and temperate proceedings wouldfinally result in the establishment of relations of perfectamity between the employers and the employed, and consequently conduce to the general welfare of both.-OcasesXLVI.LONDON, NOVEMBER 2, 1867.[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary farewelldinner was given to Mr. Dickens at the Freemasons' Tavern onthe occasionof his revisiting the United States of America. Lord Lytton officiated aschairman, and proposed as a toast-"A Prosperous Voyage, Health ,and Long Life to our Illustrious Guest and Countryman, Charles Dickens.The toast was drunk with all the honours, and one cheer more.Mr. DICKENS then rose, and spoke as follows:MY LORDS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN,O thanks that I can offer you can express my sense ofmy reception by this great assemblage, or can in theleast suggest to you how deep the glowing words ofmy friend the chairman, and your acceptance of them, havesunk into my heart. But both combined have so greatlyshaken the composure I am used to command in the presenceof an audience, that I hope you may observe in me sometraces ofan eloquence more expressive than the richest words.To say that I am fervently grateful to you is to say nothing;to say that I can never forget this beautiful sight, is to saynothing; to say that it brings upon me a rush of emotion notonly in its present pride and honour, but in the thoughts ofitsremembrance in the future by those who are dearest to me, isto say nothing; but to feel all this for the moment, evenalmost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio says of the118274 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.Nov. 2,wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, that—"'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;but ' tis enough, ' twill serve. "* I may say ofthe wound in mybreast, newly dealt to me by the hands of my friends, that itis deeper than the soundless sea, and wider than the wholeCatholic Church. And I may safely add that it has for themoment almost stricken me dumb. I should be more thanhuman, and I assure you I am very human indeed, if I couldlook around upon this brilliant representative companyand notfeel greatly thrilled and stirred by the presence of so many ofmy brother artists, not only in literature, but also in the sisterarts, especially painting, among whose professors living andunhappily dead, are many of my oldest and best friends. Ihope that I may, without presumption, regard this throngingof my brothers around me as a testimony on their part thatthey believe that the cause of art generally has been safe inmy keeping, and that they think it has never been falsely dealtwith by me. Your resounding cheers just now would havebeen but so many cruel reproaches to me if I could not heredeclare that, from the earliest days of my career down to thisproud night, I have always tried to be true to my calling.Never unduly to assert it, on the one hand, and never, on anypretence or consideration , to permit it to be patronized in myperson, on the other, has been the steady endeavour of mylife; and I have occasionally been vain enough to hope thatI may leave its social position in England something betterthan I found it. Similarly, and equally I hope without presumption, I trust that I may take this general representationofthe public here, through so many orders, pursuits, and degrees, as a token that the public believe that, with a host ofimperfections and shortcomings upon my head, I have as awriter, in my soul and conscience, tried to be as true toRomeo andJuliet, Act III. Sc. 1 .1867. 275them as they have ever been true to me. And here, inreference to the inner circle of the arts and the outer circleof the public, I feel it a duty to-night to offer two remarks.I have in my day at odd times heard a great deal aboutliterary sets and cliques, and coteries and barriers; aboutkeeping this man up, and keeping that man down; aboutsworn disciples and sworn unbelievers, and mutual admiration societies, and I know not what other dragons in theupward path. I began to tread it when I was very young,without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, or adviser, and I am bound to put in evidence inthis place that I have never lighted on those dragons yet. Sohave I heard in my day, at divers other odd times, muchgenerally to the effect that the English people have little or nolove of art for its own sake, and that they do not greatly careto acknowledge or do honour to the artist. My own experience has uniformly been exactly the reverse. I can say that ofmy countrymen, although I cannot say that of my country.And now passing to the immediate occasion of yourdoing me this great honour, the story of my going again toAmerica is very easily and briefly told. Since I was therebefore a vast and entirely new generation has arisen in theUnited States. Since I was there before most of the bestknown of my books have been written and published. Thenew generation and the books have come together and havekept together, until at length numbers of those who have sowidely and constantly read me, naturally desiring a littlevariety in the relations between us, have expressed a strongwish that I should read myself. This wish, at first conveyed to me through public channels and business channels, has gradually become enforced by an immense accumulation of letters from individuals and associations ofindividuals, all expressing in the same hearty, homely, cordial ,SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.18-2276 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Nov. 2, 1867.unaffected way, a kind of personal interest in me--I had almost said a kind of personal affection for me, which I amsure you would agree with me it would be dull insensibilityon my part not to prize. Little by little this pressure hasbecome so great that, although, as Charles Lamb says, myhousehold gods strike a terribly deep root, I have torn themfrom their places, and this day week, at this hour, shall beupon the sea. You will readily conceive that I am inspiredbesides by a natural desire to see for myself the astonishingchange and progress of a quarter of a century, over there, tograsp the hands ofmanyfaithful friends whomI left upon thoseshores, to see the faces of a multitude of new friends uponwhom I have never looked, and last, not least, to use my bestendeavour to lay down a third cable of intercommunicationand alliance between the old world and the new. Twelveyears ago, when Heaven knows I little thought I should everbe bound upon the voyage which now lies before me, Iwrote in that form of my writings which obtains by far themost extensive circulation, these words of the Americannation:-"I know full well, whatever little motes my beamyeyes may have descried in theirs, that they are a kind, largehearted, generous, and great people. ". In that faith I amgoing to see them again; in that faith I shall, please God,return from them in the spring; in that same faith to liveand to die. I told you in the beginning that I could notthank you enough, and Heaven knows I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I may quote one other shortsentence from myself, let it imply all that I have left unsaid,and yet most deeply feel. Let it, putting a girdle round theearth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic at once in thismoment, and so, as Tiny Tim observed, " God bless usevery one. "XLVII.BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1868.[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, on the above date. On hisentrance a surprise awaited him. His reading- stand had been decoratedwith flowers and palm-leaves by some of the ladies of the city. Heacknowledged this graceful tribute in the following words:-" Beforeallowing Dr. Marigold to tell his story in his own peculiar way, I kissthe kind, fair hands unknown, which have so beautifully decorated mytable this evening. " After the Reading, Mr. Dickens attempted in vain to retire. Persistent hands demanded " one word more. " Returning tohis desk, pale, with a tear in his cye, that found its way to his voice, hespoke as follows:-]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -My gracious andgenerous welcome in America, which can never beobliterated from myremembrance, began here. Mydeparture begins here, too; for I assure you that I havenever until this moment really felt that I am going away.In this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost anythingfor the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, althoughmy face will so soon be turned towards my native land, andto all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration withme that in a very few moments from this time, this brillianthall and all that it contains, will fade from my view-for278CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.April 8, 1868.!evermore. But it is my consolation that the spirit of the brightfaces, the quick perception, the ready response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have made this placedelightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon itthat that spirit will abide with me as long as I have senseand sentiment left.I do not say this with any limited reference to privatefriendships that have for years upon years made Boston amemorable and beloved spot to me, for such private references have no business in this public place. I say itpurely in remembrance of, and in homage to, the greatpublic heart before me.Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most grate .fully, and most affectionately, to bid you, each and all,farewellPocessXLVIII.NEW YORK, APRIL 18, 1868.[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained at a farewell dinner at Delmonico's Hotel, previous to his return to England. Two hundred gentlemen sat down to it; Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. In acknow ledgment of the toast of his health, proposed by the chairman, Mr. Dickens rose and said:-]ENTLEMEN, —I cannot do better than take my cuefrom your distinguished president, and refer in myfirst remarks to his remarks in connexion with theold, natural, association between you and me.When I received an invitation from a private association of workingmembers of the press of New York to dine with them today, I accepted that compliment in grateful remembranceof a calling that was once my own, and in loyal sympathytowards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have neverquitted. To the wholesome training of severe newspaperwork, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer myfirstsuccesses; and my sons will hereafter testify of their fatherthat he was always steadily proud of that ladder by which heIf it were otherwise, I should have but a very pooropinion of their father, which, perhaps, upon the whole, Irose.280 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April 18have not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances.this company would have been exceptionally interesting andgratifying to me. But whereas I supposed that, like thefairies' pavilion in the " Arabian Nights," it would be buta mere handful, and I find it turn out, like the same elasticpavilion, capable of comprehending a multitude, so much.the more proud am I of the honour of being your guest;for you will readily believe that the more widely represen tative of the press in America my entertainers are, the moreI must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments towardsme of that vast institution.66Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heardin the land, and I have for upwards of four hard winter.months so contended against what I have been sometimesquite admiringly assured was a true American catarrha possession which I have throughout highly appreciated,though I might have preferred to be naturalised by anyother outward and visible signs-I say, gentlemen, so much.of my voice has lately been heard, that I might have beencontented with troubling you no further from my presentstanding-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforthcharge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasionwhatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bearmy honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been bythe amazing changes that I have seen around me on everyside-changes moral, changes physical, changes in theamount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the riseof vast new cities, changes in the growth of older citiesalmost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the press, without whose advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I,""1868. SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. 281believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twentyyears there have been no changes in me, and that I hadnothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correctwhen I was here first.And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which Ihave, ever since I landed here last November, observed astrict silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but inreference to which I will, with your good leave, take youinto my confidence now. Even the press, being human,may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I ratherthink that I have in one or two rare instances known itsinformation to be not perfectly accurate with reference tomyself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself than byany printed news that I have ever read in my present stateof existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with whichI have for some months past been collecting materials forand hammering away at a new book on America have muchastonished me, seeing that all that time it has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of theAtlantic that I positively declared that no consideration onearth should induce me to write one. But what I haveintended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England,in my own person, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this countryas I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that whereverI have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest,I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon meby the nature of my avocation here, and the state of myhealth. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as282 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April 18,my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shallcause to be re-published, as an appendix to every copy ofthose two books of mine in which I have referred toAmerica. And this I will do and cause to be done, not inmere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as anact of plain justice and honour.Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towardsand interest in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural one; but, whether or no, I makeit with an express object. I was asked in this very city,about last Christmas time, whether an American was not atsome disadvantage in England as a foreigner. The notion.of an American being regarded in England as a foreignerat all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in thatcharacter, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd tome, that my gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered.As soon as it was restored, I said that for years and yearspast I hoped I had had as many American friends and hadreceived as many American visitors as almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, fortified bytheirs, was that it was enough in England to be an American to be received with the readiest respect and recognitionanywhere. Hereupon, out of half-a-dozen people, suddenlyspoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art, who, finding himself on a certain Sundayoutside the walls of a certain historical English castle,famous for its pictures, was refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the establishment on that day, butwho, on merely representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the picture gallery,but the whole castle, placed at his immediate disposal. Theother was a lady, who, being in London, and having a greatdesire to see the famous reading-room of the British Mu1868. SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. 283seum, was assured by the English family with whom shestayed that it was unfortunately impossible, because theplace was closed for a week, and she had only three daysthere. Upon that lady's going to the Museum, as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an Americanlady, the gate flew open, as it were, magically. I am unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young andexceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution isof an obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him, not very impressible.Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateralassurance to you that the Englishman who shall humblystrive, as I hope to do, to be in England as faithful toAmerica as to England herself, has no previous conceptions.to contend against. Points of difference there have been,points of difference there are, points of difference thereprobably always will be between the two great peoples.But broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that thosetwo peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with themjointly to uphold the great Anglo- Saxon race, to which ourpresident has referred, and all its great achievements beforethe world. And if I know anything of my countrymenand they give me credit for knowing something-if I knowanything of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English heartis stirred by the fluttering of those Stars and Stripes, as it isstirred by no other flag that flies except its own. If I knowmy countrymen, in any and every relation towards America,they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended thatlovers should begin, with " a little aversion," but with agreat liking and a profound respect; and whatever the littlesensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, orthe little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, maybe, take my word for it, that the first enduring, great, popu284 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES April 18, 1868, .Ir consideration in England is a generous construction ofjustice.Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do believe that from the great majority of honestminds on both sides, there cannot be absent the convictionthat it would be better for this globe to be riven by anearthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, andabandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it shouldpresent the spectacle of these two great nations, each ofwhich has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and sosuccessfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the oneagainst the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your president enough or you enough for your kind reception of myhealth, and of mypoor remarks, but, believe me, I do thankyou with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable.XLIX.NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1868.[Mr. Dickens's last Reading in the United States was given at the Steinway Hall on the above date. The task finished he was about to retire, but atremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came forward and spoke thus:-)JADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -The shadow of oneword has impended over me this evening, and thetime has come at length when the shadow must fall.It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things isnot measured by their length, and two much shorter wordsexpress the round of our human existence. When I wasreading " David Copperfield " a few evenings since, I feltthere was more than usual significance in the words ofPeggotty, " My future life lies over the sea." And when Iclosed this book just now, I felt most keenly that I wasshortly to establish such an alibi as would have satisfiedeven the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have beenset up between us, while they have involved for me something more than mere devotion to a task, have been by yousustained with the readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.286 CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES. April 20, 1668.Those relations must now be broken for ever. Be assured,however, that you will not pass from my mind. I shalloften realise you as I see you now, equally by my winter fireand in the green English summer weather.I shall neverrecall you as a mere public audience, but rather as a host ofpersonal friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg tobid you farewell. God bless you, and God bless the landin which I leave you.HOBBYOKL.LIVERPOOL, APRIL 10, 1869.[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet held in his honour at St. George's Hall, Liverpool, after his health had been proposed by Lord Dufferin. ]R. MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,although I have been so well accustomed of late tothe sound of my own voice in this neighbourhoodas to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion is, believeme, very, very different in respect of those overwhelming voices ofyours. As Professor Wilson once confided to mein Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from hearinghim in public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when he was quite alone-so you can formno conception, from the specimen before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and again insome ofthe innermost moments of my future life. Oftenand often, then, God willing, my memory will recall thisbrilliant scene, and will re-illuminate this banquet-hall. I,faithful to this place in its present aspect, will observe itexactly as it stands—not one man's seat empty, not one288 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April Icwoman's fair face absent, while life and memory abide byme.Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting tome, so eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received,made a graceful and gracious allusion to the immediateoccasion of my present visit to your noble city. It is nohomage to Liverpool, based upon a moment's untrustworthyenthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock ofexperience that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers inlarge numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself tothem through the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremostamong the great places out of London to which I lookedwith eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this?Not merely because of the reputation of its citizens forgenerous estimation of the arts; not merely because I hadunworthily filled the chair of its great self-educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had been ahome to me since the well-remembered day when its blessedroofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me onthe occasion of my first sailing away to see my generousfriends across the Atlantic twenty-seven years ago. Not forone of those considerations, but because it had been myhappiness to have a public opportunity of testing the spiritof its people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards theworthy preservation of Shakespeare's house. On anotheroccasion I had ventured to address Liverpool in the namesof Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles. On still anotheroccasion I had addressed it in the cause of the brotherhoodand sisterhood of letters and the kindred arts, and on eachand all the response had been unsurpassably spontaneous,open-handed, and munificent.Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture1869.WRITER AND READER. 289.to take a small illustration of my present position from myown peculiar craft, I would say that there is this objection inwriting fiction to giving a story an autobiographical form ,that through whatever dangers the narrator may pass, it isclear unfortunately to the reader beforehand that he musthave come through them somehow else he could not havelived to tell the tale. Now, in speaking fact, when the factis associated with such honours as those with which youhave enriched me, there is this singular difficulty in the wayof returning thanks, that the speaker must infallibly comeback to himself through whatever oratorical disasters hemay languish on the road. Let me, then, take the plainerand simpler middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let me assure you that whateveryou have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen orby word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved inthe acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly andtrebly refined which has seven times passed the furnace, soa fancy may be said to become more and more refined eachtime it passes through the human heart. You have, andyou know you have, brought to the consideration of me thatquality in yourselves without which I should but have beatenthe air. Your earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, and your tears have overflowed myeyes. All that I can claim for myself in establishing the relations which exist between us is constant fidelity to hardwork. My literary fellows about me, of whom I am soproud to see so many, know very well how true it is in allart that what seems the easiest done is oftentimes the mostdifficult to do, and that the smallest truth may come ofthegreatest pains-much, as it occurred to me at Manchesterthe other day, as the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth'smeasuring machine, comes at last, of Heaven and Manches19290 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. April 10,ter and its mayor only know how much hammering-mycompanions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think itonly right the public should know too, that in our carefultoil and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence—not in any little gifts, misused by fits and starts—lies ourhighest duty at once to our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to you.Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that Ihave to clear myself of two very unexpected accusations.The first is a most singular charge preferred against me bymy old friend Lord Houghton, that I have been somewhatunconscious of the merits of the House of Lords. Now,ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have had some few notaltogether obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly, seeing that I had some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England bythe name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard withsome admiration and affection another obscure peer whollyunknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing alsothat I have had for some years some slight admiration of theextraordinary judicial properties and amazingly acute mindof a certain Lord Chief Justice popularly known by thename of Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no man inEngland whom I respect more in his public capacity, whomI love more in his private capacity, or from whom I havereceived more remarkable proofs of his honour and love ofliterature than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into consideration, I wasrather amazed by my noble friend's accusation. When Iasked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he replied that he had neverforgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies andgentlemen, I understood it all. Because it is a remarkable1869. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.fact that in the days when that depreciative and profoundlyunnatural character was invented there was no LordHoughton in the House of Lords. And there was in theHouse of Commons a rather indifferent member calledRichard Monckton Milnes.291Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, 1close with the other charge of my noble friend, and here Iam more serious, and I may be allowed perhaps to expressmy seriousness in half a dozen plain words. When I firsttook literature as my profession in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether Ifailed, literature should be my sole profession. It appearedto me at that time that it was not so well understood inEngland as it was in other countries that literature was adignified profession, by which any man might stand or fall .I made a compact with myself that in my person literatureshould stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; andthere is no consideration on earth which would induce meto break that bargain.Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you foryour great kindness, and for the touching earnestness withwhich you have drunk my health. I should have thankedyou with all my heart if it had not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost my heart asbetween half- past six and half-past seven to- night.LI.THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOATRACE.·0·SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30, 1869.[The International University Boat Race having taken place on August 27,the London Rowing Club invited the Crews to a Dinner at the CrystalPalace on the following Monday. The dinner was followed by a granddisplay of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in proposing the health of the Crews, made the following speech:]ENTLEMEN, flushed with fireworks, I can warrantmyself to you as about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spirt and then dying out.And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the London RowingClub on this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in thename of the other invited visitors present-always exceptingthe distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting—to thank the president for the modesty and the courtesywith which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeablepart of his evening's duty. It is the more graceful in him toAug. 30, 1869. OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE.do this because he can hardly fail to see that he might veryeasily do it himself, as this is a case of all others in whichit is according to good taste and the very principles of thingsthat the great social vice, speech-making, should hide itsdiminished head before the great social virtue action. How、ever, there is an ancient story of a lady who threw her gloveinto an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant loverto climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferringfrom the action the worth of the lady, risked his life for theglove, and then threw it lightly in her face as a token of hiseternal adieu. * I take up the President's glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and of my realinterest in the cause in which it was thrown down, and Inow profess my readiness to do even injustice to the dutywhich he has assigned me.293Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume waspublished in the United States within a short time beforemy last visit to that hospitable land, containing ninety-fivebiographies of young men, for the most part well-born andwell nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits oflife, who, when the flag of their country waved them fromthose quiet paths in which they were seeking distinction ofvarious kinds, took arms in the dread civil war which elicitedso much bravery on both sides, and died in the defence oftheir country. These great spirits displayed extraordinaryaptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, of militarytactics, in the combining and commanding of great massesof men, in surprising readiness of self-resource for the generalgood, in humanely treating the sick and the wounded, andin winning to themselves a very rare amount of personalconfidence and trust. They had all risen to be distinguishedsoldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; they

Robert Browning: Bells and Pomegranates.

294 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Aug. 30,had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a serenecheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit;and they had all been educated in one school-HarvardUniversity.Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these finedescendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. I ask you,who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is lesstrue to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, whowill not recognise in her boat'screw the leaven of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she has now a greater rightthan ever to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to herbreast when they return with resounding acclamations? Itis related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told a ladywho foolishly protested that she would like to see a greatvictory that there was only one thing worse than a great victory, and that was a great defeat.But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use theterm a great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful ofdaring fellows who make a preliminary dash of three or fourthousand stormy miles to meet great conquerors on theirown domain-who do not want the stimulus of friends andhome, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear landin the shouts and cheers of another-and who strive to thelast with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating ofthem a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, youagree with me that such a defeat is a great, noble part of amanly, wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essenceand life-blood of such a defeat to become at last sure victory.Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I amgoing to propose, and you know equally well that in thusglancing first towards our friends of the white stripes, I1869. 295merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive courtesy ofOxford towards our brothers from a distance -a courtesy extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, to any imaginablelimits except allowing them to take the first place in lastFriday's match, if they could by any human and honourablemeans be kept in the second. I will not avail myself of theopportunity provided for me by the absence of the greaterpart of the Oxford crew-indeed, of all but one, and thatits most modest and devoted member-I will not avail myself of the golden opportunity considerately provided for meto say a great deal in honour of the Oxford crew. I knowthat the gentleman who attends here attends under unusualanxieties and difficulties, and that if he were less in earnesthis filial affection could not possibly allow him to be here.OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE.It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough foryou, that I should say here, and now, that we all unite withone accord in regarding the Oxford crew as the pride andflower of England-and that we should consider it very weakindeed to set anything short of England's very best in opposition to or competition with America; though it certainly must be confessed-I am bound in common justiceand honour to admit it-it must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented gentleman remark last Friday night, about ten o'clock, when hewas baiting a very small horse in the Strand-he was one ofeleven with pipes in a chaise cart-I say it must be admittedin disparagement of the Oxford men on the authority of thisgentleman, that they have won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and that " they ought to do it, butthey won't. "Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering thepoor testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of thegallant spectacle which they presented to countless thou296 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Aug. 30, 1869.sands last Friday, I am sure I express not only your feeling,and my feeling, and the feeling of the Blue, but also thefeeling of the whole people of England, when I cordiallygive them welcome to our English waters and Englishground, and also bid them " God speed " in their voyagehome. As the greater includes the less, and the sea holdsthe river, so I think it is no very bold augury to predict thatin the friendly contests yet to come and to take place, Ihope, on both sides of the Atlantic-there are great rivertriumphs for Harvard University yet in store. Gentlemen,I warn the English portion of this audience that these arevery dangerous men. Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a commonseaman two years before the mast, * and who wrote about thebest sea book in the English tongue. Remember that it wasone of those young American gentlemen who sailed his miteof a yacht across the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailedin her to sink or swim with the men who believed in him.And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by yourcordial acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure ourbrothers from a distance that the utmost enthusiasm withwhich they can be received on their return home will find aready echo in every corner of England-and further, thatnone of their immediate countrymen-I use the qualifyingterm immediate, for we are, as our president said, fellowcountrymen, thank God-that none of their compatriotswho saw, or who will read of, what they did in this greatrace, can be more thoroughly imbued with a sense of theirindomitable courage and their high deserts than are theirrivals and their hosts to-night. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink the crews of Harvard and OxfordUniversity, and I beg to couple with that toast the namesof Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan.

R. H. Dana.

LII.BIRMINGHAM, SEPTEMBER 27, 1869.[ Inaugural Address on the opening of the Winter Session of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. ][One who was present during the delivery of the following speech, informsthe editor that " no note of any kind was referred to by Mr. Dickens --except the quotation from Sydney Smith. The address, evidently carefullyprepared, was delivered without a single pause, in Mr. Dickens's best manner, and was a very great success. "]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -We often hear ofour common country that it is an over-populatedone, that it is an over-pauperized one, that it is anover-colonizing one, and that it is an over-taxed one. Now,I entertain, especially of late times, the heretical belief thatit is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of publicspeech-making going about in various directions which.might be advantageously dispensed with. If I were free toact upon this conviction, as president for the time being ofthe great institution so numerously represented here, Ishould immediately and at once subside into a goldensilence, which would be of a highly edifying, because of avery exemplary character. But I happen to be the institution's willing servant, not its imperious master, and it exactstribute of mere silver or copper speech- not to say brazen-from whomsoever it exalts to my high office. SomeAfrican tribes-not to draw the comparison disrespectfully233CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.Sept. 27.!-some savage African tribes, when they make a kingrequire him perhaps to achieve an exhausting foot-raceunder the stimulus of considerable popular prodding andgoading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentallyknocked about the head by his Privy Council, or perhaps tobe dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drinkimmense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash—at all events, to undergo some purifying ordeal in presenceof his admiring subjects.I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I wasduly warned by your constituted authorities that whatever Imight happen to say here to-night would be termed aninaugural address on the entrance upon a new term of studyby the members of your various classes; for, besides that,the phrase is something high-sounding for my taste, I avowthat I do look forward to that blessed time when every manshall inaugurate his own work for himself, and do it. Ibelieve that we shall then have inaugurated a new eraindeed, and one in which the Lord's Prayer will become afulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering, however,that you may call anything by any name without in theleast changing its nature-bethinking myself that you may,if you be so minded, call a butterfly a buffalo, withoutadvancing a hair's breadth towards making it one-Ibecame composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to thevery homely intention I had previously formed. This wasmerely to tell you, the members, students, and friends ofthe Birmingham and Midland Institute-firstly, what youcannot possibly want to know, (this is a very popularoratorical theme); secondly, what your institution has done;and, thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its President forthe time being, remains for it to do and not to do.Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know.1869.299You cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the abstract advantages of knowledge or thebeauties of self- improvement. If you had any such requirement you would not be here. I conceive that you arehere because you have become thoroughly penetrated withsuch principles, either in your own persons or in the personsof some striving fellow- creatures, on whom you have lookedwith interest and sympathy. I conceive that you are herebecause you feel the welfare of the great chiefly adulteducational establishment, whose doors stand really open toall sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable fromthe best welfare of your great town and its neighbourhood.Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say thatwe all-every one of us here-perfectly well know that thebenefits of such an establishment must extend far beyondthe limits of this midland county-its fires and smoke,and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole community,I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage,in his ninth " Bridgewater Treatise," that a mere spokenword—a single articulated syllable thrown into the air—maygo on reverberating through illimitable space for ever andfor ever, seeing that there is no rim against which it canstrike-no boundary at which it can possibly arrive. Similarly it may be said-not as an ingenious speculation, butas a stedfast and absolute fact-that human calculation cannot limit the influence ofone atom of wholesome knowledgepatiently acquired, modestly possessed, and faithfully used.As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that thereare in the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours,to each of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseenstars belong, so it is certain that every man, howeverobscure, however far removed from the general recognition,is one of a group of men impressible for good, and imBABBAGE ON SOUND.300 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 27,pressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature ofthings that he cannot really improve himself without insome degree improving other men. And observe, this isespecially the case when he has improved bimself in theteeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeedingto a neglected or an ill-taught youth, in the few daily hoursremaining to him after ten or twelve hours' labour, in thefew pauses and intervals of a life of toil; for then hisfellows and companions have assurance that he can haveknown no favouring conditions, and that they can do whathe has done, in wresting some enlightenment and selfrespect from what Lord Lytton finely calls"Those twin gaolers of the daring heart,Low birth and iron fortune."As you have proved these truths in your own experience orin your own observation, and as it may be safely assumedthat there can be very few persons in Birmingham, of allplaces under heaven, who would contest the position thatthe more cultivated the employed the better for the employer, and the more cultivated the employer the better forthe employed; therefore, my references to what you do notwant to know shall here cease and determine.Next, with reference to what your institution has done;on my summary, which shall be as concise and as correctas my information and my remembrance of it may renderpossible, I desire to lay emphatic stress. Your institution ,sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen studytogether, has outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It is amost cheering sign of its vigorous vitality that of itsindustrial students almost half are artisans in the receipt ofweekly wages. I think I am correct in saying that 4001869. PENNY CLASSES.others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen'ssons. I note with particular pleasure the adherence of agoodly number of the gentler sex, without whom no institution whatever can truly claim to be either a civilising or acivilised one. The increased attendance at your educational classes is always greatest on the part of the artisans-the class within my experience the least reached in anysimilar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is theoftenest and the most constantly taken in vain. But it isspecially reached here, not improbably because it is, as itshould be, specially addressed in the foundation of theindustrial department, in the allotment of the direction ofthe society's affairs, and in the establishment of what arecalled its penny classes-a bold, and, I am happy to say, atriumphantly successful experiment, which enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects directlybearing upon his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness,as arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical geography, and singing, on payment of the astoundinglylow fee of a single penny every time he attends the class.I beg emphatically to say that I look upon this as one ofthe most remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof of the artisan, and if your institution haddone nothing else in all its life, I would take my stand byit on its having done this.301Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has itsgeneral department, offering all the advantages of a firstclass literary institution. It has its reading- rooms, itslibrary, its chemical laboratory, its museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive interest, delivered bylecturers of the highest qualifications. Very well. But itmay be asked, what are the practical results of all these302 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 27.appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose thatyour institution should have educated those who are nowits teachers. That would be a very remarkable fact. Supposing, besides, it should, so to speak, have educated education all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficientteachers into many and divers schools. Suppose the youngstudent, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should bepresently snapped up for the laboratory of the great andfamous hospitals. Suppose that in nine years its industrialstudents should have carried off a round dozen of the muchcompeted for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and theGovernment department, besides two local prizes originatingin the generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that theTown Council, having it in trust to find an artisan well fitto receive the Whitworth prizes, should find him here.Suppose that one of the industrial students should turnhis chemical studies to the practical account of extractinggold from waste colour water, and of taking it into custody,in the very act of running away with hundreds of poundsdown the town drains. Suppose another should perceivein his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss withhis master's until then inscrutably defective furnace, andshould go straight-to the great annual saving of that master-and put it right. Supposing another should puzzleout the means, until then quite unknown in England, ofmaking a certain description of coloured glass. Supposinganother should qualify himself to vanquish one by one, asthey daily arise, all the little difficulties incidental to hiscalling as an electro-plater, and should be applied to by hiscompanions in the shop in all emergencies under the nameof the " Encyclopædia." Suppose a long procession ofsuch cases, and then consider that these are not suppositions at all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating in1869. MANLY INDEPENDENCE.the one special and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, every one of the institution's industrial students who have taken its prizes within ten years, have sinceclimbed to higher situations in their way of life.As to the extent to which the institution encourages theartisan to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to thelittle shackling prejudices and observances perchanceexisting in his trade when they will not bear the test ofinquiry, that is only to be equalled by the extent to whichit encourages him to feel. There is a certain tone ofmodest manliness pervading all the little facts which I havelooked through which I found remarkably impressive. Thedecided objection on the part of industrial students to attend classes in their working clothes, breathes this tone, asbeing a graceful and at the same time perfectly independentrecognition of the place and of one another. And this toneis admirably illustrated in a different way, in the case of apoor bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses throughthe illness of his family, and having consequently beenobliged to part with his best clothes, and being thereforemissed from his classes, in which he had been noticed as avery hard worker, was persuaded to attend them in hisworking clothes. He replied, " No, it was not possible.It must not be thought of. It must not come into question for a moment. It would be supposed, or it might bethought, that he did it to attract attention . " And the sameman being offered by one of the officers a loan of moneyto enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the ground that he came to the institution tolearn and to know better how to help himself, not otherwiseto ask help, or to receive help from any man. Now, I amjustified in calling this the tone of the institution, becauseit is no isolated instance, but is a fair and honourable sam303304 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 27,ple of the spirit of the place, and as such I put it at theconclusion-though last certainly not least-of my references to what your institution has indubitably done.Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, inthe humble opinion of the evanescent officer before you,remains for the institution to do, and not to do. As Mr.Carlyle has it towards the closing pages of his grand history of the French Revolution, “ This we are now with duebrevity to glance at; and then courage, oh listener, I seeland!" * I earnestly hope-and I firmly believe thatyour institution will do henceforth as it has done hitherto;it can hardly do better. I hope and believe that it willknow among its members no distinction of persons, creed,or party, but that it will conserve its place of assemblage asa high, pure ground, on which all such considerations shallmerge into the one universal, heaven-sent aspiration of thehuman soul to be wiser and better. I hope and believethat it will always be expansive and elastic; for ever seekingto devise new means of enlarging the circle of its members,of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater andgreater numbers, and never evincing any more dispositionto stand still than time does, or life does, or the seasonsdo. And above all things, I hope, and I feel confidentfrom its antecedents, that it will never allow any consideration on the face of the earth to induce it to patronise or tobe patronised, for I verily believe that the bestowal andreceipt of patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has done more to prevent really goodobjects, and to lower really high character, than the utmostefforts of the narrowest antagonism could have effected int'vice the time.I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and

Carlyle's French Revolution. Book X. , Chapter I.

1869. A " MATERIAL AGE." 305Midland Institute will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the timid opponents of intellectual progress; but inthis connexion generally I cannot forbear from offering aremark which is much upon my mind. It is commonlyassumed much too commonly-that this age is a materialage, and that a material age is an irreligious age. I havebeen pained lately to see this assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for which I have a high respect,and desire to have a higher. I am afraid that by dint ofconstantly being reiterated, and reiterated without protest,this assumption—which I take leave altogether to deny—may be accepted by the more unthinking part of the publicas unquestionably true; just as caricaturists and paintersprofessedly making a portrait of some public man, whichwas not in the least like him to begin with, have gone onrepeating and repeating it until the public came to believethat it must be exactly like him, simply because it was likeitself, and really have at last, in the fulness of time, grownalmost disposed to resent upon him their tardy discovery—really to resent upon him their late discovery-that he wasnot like it. I confess, standing here in this responsiblesituation, that I do not understand this much-used andmuch-abused phrase the " material age. " I cannot comprehend—if anybody can I very much doubt-its logicalsignification. For instance, has electricity become morematerial in the mind of any sane or moderately insane man,woman, or child, because of the discovery that in the goodprovidence of God it could be made available for the service and use of man to an immeasurably greater extent thanfor his destruction? Do I make a more material journeyto the bed-side of my dying parent or my dying child whenI travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, thanwhen I travel thither at the rate of six? Rather, in the20306 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 27.swiftest case, does not my agonised heart become overfraught with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence fromwhom alone could have proceeded the wonderful means ofshortening my suspense? What is the materiality of thecable or the wire compared with the materiality of thespark? What is the materiality of certain chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or release,compared with the materiality of their appointed affinitiesand repulsions presented to them from the instant of theircreation to the day of judgment? When did this so-calledmaterial age begin? With the use of clothing; with thediscovery of the compass; with the invention of the art ofprinting? Surely, it has been a long time about; andwhich is the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give me light, or that flame of gas whichwill?No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouragedor deceived by any fine, vapid, empty words. The truematerial age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new orgrand revelations of nature are granted, because they areignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligentlyand humbly sought. The difference between the ancientfiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning and themodern historical picture of Franklin drawing it towards hiskite, in order that he might the more profoundly study thatwhich was set before him to be studied ( or it would nothave been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction between the much-maligned material sages-material inone sense, I suppose, but in another very immaterial sagesof the Celestial Empire school. Consider whether it islikely or unlikely, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, and finding myself surrounded by such discovered wonders on every hand,307should sometimes ask myself the question-should put tomyself the solemn consideration-can these things be amongthose things which might have been disclosed by divine lipsnigh upon two thousand years ago, but that the people ofthat time could not bear them? And whether this be so orno, if I am so surrounded on every hand, is not my moralresponsibility tremendously increased thereby, and with itmy intelligence and submission as a child of Adam and ofthe dust, before that Shining Source which equally of allthat is granted and all that is withheld holds in His mightyhands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death.To the students of your industrial classes generally I havehad it in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, intwo words, " Courage-Persevere." This is the motto of afriend and worker. Not because the eyes of Europe areupon them, for I don't in the least believe it; nor becausethe eyes of even England are upon them, for I don't in theleast believe it; not because their doings will be proclaimedwith blast of trumpet at street corners, for no such musicalperformances will take place; not because self-improvementis at all certain to lead to worldly success, but simply because it is good and right of itself, and because, being so, itdoes assuredly bring with it its own resources and its ownrewards. I would further commend to them a very wiseand witty piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding which was given more than half a century ago by theRev. Sydney Smith-wisest and wittiest of the friends I havelost. He says-and he is speaking, you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of volunteer students-he says:"There is a piece of foppery which is to be cautiously"guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all" sciences and excelling in all arts-chymistry, mathematics,"algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low1869. SYDNEY SMITH'S ADVICE.་20-2308 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Sept. 27,"Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the" modern precept of education very often is, " Take the Admi"rable Crichton for your model, I would have you ignorant"of nothing.' Now," says he, " my advice, on the contrary," is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number ofthings, in order that you may avoid the calamity of being"ignorant of everything. "66To this I would superadd a little truth, which holdsequally good of my own life and the life of every eminentman I have ever known. The one serviceable, safe, certain ,remunerative, attainable quality in every study and in everypursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention orimagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you,would never have served me as it has, but for the habit ofcommonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancyin association of ideas-such mental qualities, like the qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in Macbeth, will not be commanded; but attention, after due termof submissive service, always will. Like certain plants whichthe poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can becultivated by any one, and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth flowers and fruit. I can most truthfullyassure you by-the-by, that this eulogium on attention is sofar quite disinterested on my part as that it has not theleast reference whatever to the attention with which youhave honoured me.Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot butreflect how often you have probably heard within thesewalls one of the foremost men, and certainly one of the verybest speakers, if not the very best, in England. I could notsay to myself when I began just now, in Shakespeare'sline" I will be BRIGHT and shining gold "1869 POLITICAL CREED. . 309but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, " I willbe as natural and easy as I possibly can, " because my hearthas all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towardsBirmingham and Birmingham men. I have said that I bearan old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; letme amend a small omission, and add " and Birminghamwomen." This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if by rubbing it I could raise the spiritthat was obedient to Aladdin's ring, I heartily assure youthat my first instruction to that genius on the spot should beto place himself at Birmingham's disposal in the best ofcauses.[ In acknowledging the vote of thanks, Mr. Dickens said:-]Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possiblethat I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again beforeChristmas is out, and shall have the great interest of seeingthe faces and touching the hands of the successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily,and I most sincerely and fervently say to you, " Good night,and God bless you. " In reference to the appropriate andexcellent remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge myconscience of my political creed, which is contained in twoarticles, and has no reference to any party or persons. Myfaith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal;myfaith in the People governed is, on the whole, illimitable.LIII.BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 6, 1870.[On the evening of the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, distributed the prizes and certificates awarded to the most successful students in the first year. The proceedings took place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens entered at eight o'clock,accompanied by the officers of the Institute, and was received with loudapplause. After the lapse of a minute or two, he rose and said:-)JADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -When I last hadthe honour to preside over a meeting of the Institution which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of publicspeaking which seems to me to distinguish the present time.It will require very little self-denial on my part to practisenow what I preached then; firstly, because I said mylittlesay that night; and secondly, because we have definite andhighly interesting action before us to-night. We have nowto bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won bythe most successful competitors in the society's lists. I saythe most successful, because to- night we should particularlyobserve, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour,and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle1870.DISTRIBUTION OF Prizes.that is made. To strive at all involves a victory achievedover sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition forthese prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of cases,competition with and mastery asserted over circumstancesadverse to the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be certain that he has stillwon much-very much-and that he can well afford toswell the triumph of his rivals who have passed him in the311race.I have applied the word " rewards " to these prizes, andI do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic worthin silver or gold, but precisely because they do not. Theyrepresent what is above all price -what can be stated in noarithmetical figures, and what is one of the great needs ofthe human soul-encouraging sympathy. They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, that he does not work either neglected or unfriended,and that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated.Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of this largeassembly, and striking to the breasts of the recipients thatthrill which is inseparable from any great united utterance offeeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of thelabour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and bya sensitive spirit can never be forgotten.[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of “ Pickwick, " which was received with laughter. Mr. Dickens made some remarks to the lady in an undertone; and then observed to the audience,"I have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name. " The prizeshaving been distributed, Mr. Dickens made a second brief speech. He said:-]The prizes are now all distributed, and I have dischargedmyself of the delightful task you have entrusted to me;and if the recipients of these prizes and certificates whohave come upon this platform have had the genuine plea312 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. Jan. 6;sure in receiving their acknowledgments from my handsthat I have had in placing them in theirs, they are in a trueChristian temper to-night. I have the painful sense uponme, that it is reserved for some one else to enjoy this greatsatisfaction of mind next time. It would be useless for thefew short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happento have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that anotherSovereign will very soon sit upon my inconstant throne.To-night I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in themodern annals of Royalty-I am politely dethroned. Thismelancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to avery small point, personal to myself, upon which I will begyour permission to say a closing word.When I was here last autumn I made, in reference tosome remarks of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, ashort confession of my political faith-or perhaps I shouldbetter say want of faith. It imported that I have very littleconfidence in the people who govern us-please to observe"people " there will be with a small " p,"--but that I havegreat confidence in the People whom they govern; pleaseto observe " people " there with a large " P." This wasshortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil intention,I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained.Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, butone which I do see rather frequently quoted as if there weregrains of truth at the bottom of it—a fiction called the " Circumlocution Office, ” —and perhaps also as the writer of anidle book or two, whose public opinions are not obscurelystated-perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bearin mind Hamlet's caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo me.Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order thatthere may be no mistake as to what I did mean, and as to1870. BUCKLE ON LAWGIVERS. 313what I do mean, I will re- state my meaning, and I will doso in the words of a great thinker, a great writer, and a greatscholar, whose death, unfortunately for mankind, cut shorthis "History of Civilization in England:"-" They may talkas they will about reforms which Government has introducedand improvements to be expected from legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of humanaffairs, will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical.Theywill learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors of society instead of its helpers, and that in the extremely few cases where their measures have turned out well,their success has been owing to the fact that, contrary totheir usual custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit oftheir time, and have been- as they always should be—themere servants of the people, to whose wishes they are boundto give a public and legal sanction. "Henry Thomas Duckle.SLIV.THE FAREWELL READING.ST. JAMES'S HALL, MARCH 15, 1870.[With the "Christmas Carol " and "The Trial from Pickwick, " Mr. Charles Dickens brought to a brilliant close the memorable series ofpublic readings which have for sixteen years proved to audiences unexam pled in numbers, the source of the highest intellectual enjoyment. Every portion of available space in the building was, of course occupied some time before the appointed hour; but could the St. James's Hallhave been specially enlarged for the occasion to the dimensions of Salisbury Plain, it is doubtful whether sufficient room would even then have been provided for all anxious to seize the last chance of hearing the distinguished novelist give his own interpretation of the characters called into existence by his own creative pen. As if determined to convince hisauditors that, whatever reason had influenced his determination, physical exhaustion was not amongst them, Mr. Dickens never read with greater spirit and energy. His voice to the last retained its distinctive clearness,and the transitions of tone, as each personage in the story, conjured up by a word, rose vividly before the eye, seemed to be more marvellous than ever. The vast assemblage, hushed into breathless attention, sufferednot a syllable to escape the ear, and the rich humour and deep pathos of one of the most delightful books ever written found once again the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of merriment responsive to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit's Christmas day, and the wonted sympathy with the crippled child " Tiny Tim, " found prompt expression, and the general delight at hearing of Ebenezer Scrooge's reformation was only checked by the saddening remembrance that with it the last strain of the "carol" was dying away. After the " Trial from Pickwick," in which the speeches of the opposing counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge,March 15, 1870. THE FAREWELL READING. 315seemed to be delivered and depicted with greater dramatic power thanever, the applause of the audience rang for several minutes through thehall, and when it had subsided, Mr. Dickens, with evidently strongemotion, but in his usual distinct and expressive manner, spoke asfollows:-]ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -It would be worsethan idle for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling-if I were to disguise that I close this episodein my life with feelings of very considerable pain. Forsome fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, Ihave had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideasbefore you for your recognition, and, in closely observingyour reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of artisticdelight and instruction which, perhaps, is given to few mento know. In this task, and in every other I have everundertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving todo his best, I have been uniformly cheered by the readiestresponse, the most generous sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, at thefull flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon those olderassociations between us, which date from much further backthan these, and henceforth to devote myself exclusively tothe art that first brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time I hope that youmay enter, in your own homes, on a new series of readings,at which my assistance will be indispensable; * but fromthese garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell.[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic description whilsthats and handkerchiefs were waving in every part of the hall, Mr. CharlesDickens retired, withdrawing with him one of the greatest intellectual treats the public ever enjoyed. ]Allading to the forthcoming serial story of Edwin Drocd.40.33.0*LV.THE NEWSVENDORS' INSTITUTION.LONDON, APRIL 5, 1870.[ The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the Newsvendors' Benevolent andProvident Institution was held on the above evening, at the Free mason's Tavern. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, and was supported bythe Sheriffs ofthe City of London and Middlesex.After the usual toasts had been given and responded to,The Chairman said that if the approved order of their proceedings had beenobserved, the Corporation of the City of London would no doubt haveconsidered themselves snubbed if they were not toasted by themselves.He was sure that a distinguished member of the Corporation who waspresent would tell the company what the Corporation were going to do;and he had not the slightest doubt they were going to do something highlycreditable to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the wholemetropolis; and if the secret were not at present locked up in the bluechamber, they would be all deeply obliged to the gentleman who wouldimmediately follow him, if he let them into it in the same confidence as hehad observed with respect to the Corporation of the City of London beingsnubbed. He begged to give the toast of " The Corporation of the City of London."Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, said for once, and once only,had their chairman said an unkind word about the Corporation of London.Hehad always reckoned Mr. Dickens to be one of the warmest friends ofthe Corporation; and remembering that he (Mr. Dickens) did really gothrough a Lord Mayor's Show in a Lord Mayor's carriage, if he had notApril 5, 1870. THE NEWSVENDORS' INSTITUTION.felt himself quite a Lord Mayor, he must have at least considered himself next to one.In proposing the toast of the evening Mr. Dickens said:-]217ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-You receive mewith so much cordiality that I fear you believe that Ireally did once sit in a Lord Mayor's state coach.Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information receivedfrom Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour.Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed aLord Mayor's show except from the point of view obtainedby the other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, ladiesand gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, Idoubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you thatI occupy this chair to-night, because, having filled it onseveral previous occasions for the society on whose behalfwe are assembled, and having said everything that I couldthink ofto say about it, and being, moreover, the presidentofthe institution itself, I am placed to-night in the modestposition of a host who is not so much to display himself asto call out his guests-perhaps even to try to induce someamong them to occupy his place on another occasion. And,therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but witha modification almost as large as himself, I shall try ratherto be the cause of speaking in others than to speak myselfto-night. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door ofasnuff shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull inhis hand, who, having apparently taken all the snuff he cancarry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable,politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and trywhat they can do in the same line.It is an appropriate instance of the universality of thenewsman's calling that no toast we have drunk to-night- andno toast we shall drink to-night-and no toast we might,318 April 5,CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES.could, should, or would drink to-night, is separable for amoment from that great inclusion of all possible subjects ofhuman interest which he delivers at our doors every day.Further, it may be worthy the consideration of everybodyhere who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour sincewe have sat down at the table, what in the name of Heavenshould we have talked about, and how on earth could wehave possibly got on, if our newsman had only for one singleday forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let ustry to form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Letus remember that his work is very arduous; that it occupieshim early and late; that the profits he derives from us areat the best very small; that the services he renders to us arevery great; that if he be a master, his little capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, anxieties, and hazards;and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to allmanner of weathers, of tempers, and of difficult and unreasonable requirements.Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a socialdiscussion, which originated by chance. The subject was,What was the most absorbing and longest-lived passion inthe human breast? What was the passion so powerful thatit would almost induce the generous to be mean, the carelessto be cautious, the guileless to be deeply designing, and thedove to emulatethe serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and great acuteness, who was one ofthe company, considerably surprised us by saying with the greatest confidencethat the passion in question was the passion of getting ordersfor the play.There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and veryfew of the surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat.One of these on making land came straight to London, and1870. THE NEWSVENDORS INSTITUTION. 319straight to the newspaper office, with his story of how he

(Video) Charles Dickens: The Greatest Victorian Novelist

had seen the ship go down before his eyes.

That young·man had witnessed the most terrible contention between thepowers of fire and water for the destruction of that ship andof every one on board. He had rowed away among thefloating, dying, and the sinking dead. He had floated byday, and he had frozen by night, with no shelter and nofood, and, as he told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggardeyes about the room. When he had finished, and the talehad been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and soothed, and asked if anything could be donefor him. Even within him that master passion was so strongthat he immediately replied he should like an order forthe play. My friend the editor certainly thought that wasrather a strong case; but he said that during his many yearsof experience he had witnessed an incurable amount of selfprostration and abasement having no outer object, and thatalmost invariably on the part of people who could wellafford to pay.This made a great impression on my mind, and I reallylived in this faith until some years ago it happened upon astormy night I was kindly escorted from a bleak railwaystation to the little out-of-the-way town it represented by asprightly and vivacious newsman, to whom I propounded,as we went along under my umbrella-he being most excellent company-this old question, what was the one allabsorbing passion ofthe human soul? He replied, withoutthe slightest hesitation, that it certainly was the passion forgetting your newspaper in advance of your fellow-creatures;also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your own doorat exactly the same time as another man who hired the samecopy four miles off; and, finally, the invincible determination on the part of both men not to believe the time was upwhen the boy called.320CHARLESDICKENS'SSPEECHES.ApriLadies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity ofverifying this experience with my friends of the managingcommittee, but I have no doubt from its reception to-nightthat my friend the newsman was perfectly right. Well, as asort of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an assurancethat among a little body of working men there is a feeling ofbrotherhood and sympathy-which is worth much to allmen, or they would herd with wolves-the newsvendorsonce upon a time established the Benevolent and ProvidentInstitution, and here it is. Under the Provident head,certain small annuities are granted to old and hard-workingsubscribers. Under the Benevolent head, relief is affordedto temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, I ambound to say the help rendered is very humble and verysparing, but if you like it to be handsomer you have it inyour power to make it so. Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a deal of good. Such as it is, it ismost discreetly and feelingly administered; and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for management orpatronage.You know upon an old authority, that you may believeanything except facts and figures, but you really may believethat during the last year we have granted £100 in pensions,and some £70 in temporary relief, and we have invested inGovernment securities some £400. But, touching this matterof investments, it was suggested at the anniversary dinner,on the high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips,that we might grant more pensions and invest less money.We urged, on the other hand, that we wished our pensionsto be certain and unchangeable-which of course they mustbe if they are always paid out of our Government interestand never out of our capital. However, so amiable is our1870. THE NEWSVENDORS' INSTITUTION.nature, that we profess our desire to grant more pensionsand to invest more money too. The more you give us tonight again, so amiable is our nature, the more we promiseto do in both departments. That the newsman's work hasgreatly increased, and that it is far more wearing and tearingthan it used to be, you may infer from one fact, not to mention that we live in railway times. It is stated in Mitchell's"Newspaper Press Directory," that during the last quarterof a century the number of newspapers which appeared inLondon had more than doubled, while the increase in thenumber of people among whom they were disseminated wasprobably beyond calculation.Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman'ssimple case. I leave it in your hands. Within the last yearthe institution has had the good fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support of the eminent man of letters Iam proud to call my friend, * who now represents the greatRepublic of America at the British Court. Also it has thehonour of enrolling upon its list of donors and vice- presidents the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose toyou to drink "' Prosperity to the Newsvendors' Benevolentand Provident Institution. "

The Honourable John Lothrop Motley

!32121LVI.THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER.·0·LONDON, MAY 2, 1870.[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in theirnew galleries in Piccadilly, the President, Sir F. Grant, and the councilgave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very distinguished companywas present. The dinner took place in the large central room, and coverswere laid for 200 guests. The Prince of Wales acknowledged the toastof his health and that of the Princess, the Duke of Cambridge respondedto the toast of the army, Mr. Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to thevolunteers, Mr. Motley to " The Prosperity of the United States," Mr.Gladstone to "Her Majesty's Ministers, " the Archbishop of York to" The Guests," and Mr. Dickens to " Literature." The last toast havingbeen proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens responded . ]MR. PRESIDENT, your Royal Highnesses, my Lordsand Gentlemen, -I beg to acknowledge the toastwith which you have done me the great honour ofassociating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalfof the brotherhood of literature, present and absent, notforgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardyreturn to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits-orlately did sit-within a few chairs of or on your left hand.I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalfof the sisterhood of literature also, although that " betterhalf of human nature," to which Mr. Gladstone rendered1May 2, 1870. THE ROYAL ACADEMY dinner. 323his graceful tribute, is unworthily represented here, in thepresent state of its rights and wrongs, by the devouringmonster, man.All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness thatwomen, even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great distinction, and can win quite as loftynames as men. Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soonthey may " push us from our stools " at these tables, or howsoon our better half of human nature, standing in this placeof mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressinganother better half of human nature sitting in the president'schair.The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me to congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which risen excellence supremely asserts itself,and from which promise of a brilliant succession in time tocome is not wanting. They naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons of great men—historians,philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly illustrated aroundthem here. And they hope that they may modestly claimto have rendered some little assistance towards the production of many of the pictures in this magnificent gallery. Forwithout the patient labours of some among them unhistorichistory might have long survived in this place, and but forthe researches and wandering of others among them, the mostpreposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and theabsurdest superstitions, manners, and customs, might haveusurped the place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there isno knowing, Sir Francis Grant, what unlike portraits youyourself might have painted if you had been left, with yoursitters, to idle pens, unchecked reckless rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence.324 CHARLES DICKENS'S SPEECHES. May 2, 1870,I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to asad theme (the recent death of Daniel Maclise) to which hisRoyal Highness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and towhich the president referred with the eloquence of genuinefeeling. Since I first entered the public lists, a very youngman indeed, it has been my constant fortune to numberamongst my nearest and dearest friends members of theRoyal Academy who have been its grace and pride. Theyhave so dropped from my side one by one that I already,begin to feel like the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells,who had grown to believe that the only realities around himwere the pictures which he loved, and that all the movinglife he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream.For many years I was one of the two most intimate friendsand most constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Ofhis genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here,but of his prodigious fertility of mind and wonderful wealthof intellect, I may confidently assert that they would havemade him, if he had been so minded, at least as great awriter as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modestof men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of youngaspirants, and the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers,incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustainingthe true dignity of his vocation, without one grain of selfambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, " inwit a man, simplicity a child, " no artist, of whatsoever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leavinga golden memory more pure from dross, or having devotedhimself with a truer chivalry to the art goddess whom heworshipped.[These were the last public words of Charles Dickens. ]The Bibliography of Dickens:A Bibliographical List of the Published Writings in Prose andVerse of CHARLES DICKENS, from 1833 to 1883(including his Letters).19.04BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.IStories and Sketches contributed to The Monthly Magazine, orBritish Register of Politics, Literature, Art, Science, and the Belles Lettres. New Series. London published by A.Robertson, Johnson's-court, Fleet- street; afterwards byCochrane and Macrone, and by James Cochrane and Co.,Waterloo-place, Pall-mall. Vols. xvi. to xix. 1833-1835.THEVol. xvi.pp. 617-624. A Dinner at Poplar Walk.-December, 1833.Republished under the title of " Mr. Minns and his Cousin, " in the Second Series of Sketches by Boz.Vol. xvii.pp. 11-18. Mrs. Joseph Porter, ' over the way.'-January, 1834."" 151-162. Horatio Sparkins. -February, 1834.375-386. The Bloomsbury Christening.—April, 1834.481-493. The Boarding House. -May, 1834.Vol. xviii.pp. 177-192. The Boarding House, No. II. *--August, 1834 "" 360-376. The Steam Excursion. -October, 1834.11 ...Vol. xix,pp. 15-24. Passages in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter First. -January, 1835."" 121-137. Ib. Chapter Second. -February, 1835.2SKETCHES OF LONDON, signed " Boz," in the Evening Chronicle.1835.No. 1. Hackney-Coach Stands. -Saturday, January 31.No. 2. Gin Shops .-Saturday, February 7.

The first paper signed " Boz: " the previous Sketches appeared anonymously.

326BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.[1835No. 3. Early Coaches. -Thursday, February 19.No. 4. The Parish. -Saturday, February 28.No. 5. " The House. " -Saturday, March 7.No. 6. London Recreations. - Tuesday, March 17.No. 7. Public Dinners. -Tuesday, April 7.No. 8. Bellamy's. -Saturday, April 11.No. 9. Greenwich Fair. -Thursday, April 16.No. 10. Thoughts about People. -Thursday, April 23.No. 11. Astley's. -Saturday, May 9.No. 12. Our Parish. -Tuesday, May 19.No. 13. The River. -Saturday, June 6.No. 14. Our Parish. -Thursday, June 18.No. 15. The Pawnbroker's Shop. -Tuesday, June 30.No. 16. Our Parish. -Tuesday, July 14.No. 17. The Streets- Morning. -Tuesday, July 21.No. 18. Our Parish-Mr. Bung's Narrative. -Tuesday, July 23.No. 19. Private Theatres. -Tuesday, August II.No. 20. Our Parish.--Thursday, August 20.3SCENES AND CHARACTERS (signed " Tibbs "), printed in Bell'sLife in London, 1835-1836.1835.No. 1. Seven Dials. -September 27.No. 2. Miss Evans and " the Eagle. "-October 4No. 3. The Dancing Academy.-- October 11.No. 4. Making a Night of it. -October 18.No. 5. Love and Oysters. -October 25.Entitled in the collected " Sketches, " Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce.No. 6. Some Account of an Omnibus Cad. -November 1.No. 7. The Vocal Dress- Maker. -November 22.Entitled in the collected " Sketches," The Mistaken Milliner.No. 8. The Prisoners' Van. -November 29.No. 9. The Parlour. -December 13.Entitled The Parlour Orator in the collected "" Sketches."No. 10. Christmas Festivities. -December 27.Entitled in the collected " Sketches, " A Christmas Dinner.1836.No. 11. The New Year. -January 3.No. 12. The Streets at Night.-January 17.4The Tuggs's at Ramsgate (with two illustrations by Seymour).-A Little Talk about Spring, and the Sweeps (with an illustration by R. W. Buss).— The Library of Fiction, or FamilyStory-Teller; consisting of original Tales, Essays, and1836. ] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 327Sketches ofCharacter. London: Chapman and Hall. Vol. i.( 1836), pp. 1-18; 113-119 (both signed " Boz ")."0A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps reappeared in the Second Series of Sketches by Boz, under the title of The First of May. " The Tuggs's at Ramsgate was included for the first time in the one- volume Edition of 1839 ( vide infra); but the illustrations by Seymour and Buss were not reproduced.566 SKETCHES BY Boz." New Series. (Morning and EveningChronicle, 1836. )No. 1. Meditations in Monmouth- street. -M.C. Saturday, September 24: E. C. Monday, September 26.No. 2. Scotland Yard.-M.C. Tuesday, October 4; E. C. Wednesday,October 5.No. 3. Doctors' Commons. -E. C. Wednesday, October 12.No. 4. Vauxhall Gardens by Day.-M. C. and E.C. Wednesday,October 26.6SKETCHES BY " Boz,” ILLUStrative of EVERY-DAY LIFE,AND EVERY-DAY PEOPLE. In Two Volumes. Illustrationsby George Cruikshank. London: John Macrone, St. James'ssquare. 1836.The first volume ( pp. viii. 348) contains The Parish , in six chapters; Miss Evans and " The Eagle;" Shops and their Tenants; Thoughts about People; A Visit to Newgate; London Recreations; The Boarding House,in two chapters; Hackney- Coach Stands; Brokers and Marine-Store Shops The Bloomsbury Christening; Gin Shops; Public Dinners; Astley's;Greenwich Fair; The Prisoners' Van; A Christmas Dinner.The second volume (pp. 342) contains Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle, in two chapters; The Black Veil; Shabby- genteel People; Horatio Sparkins; The Pawnbroker's Shop; The Dancing Academy; Early Coaches; The River; Private Theatres; The Great Winglebury Duel;Omnibuses; Mrs. Joseph Porter; The Steam Excursion; Sentiment.The Preface to these two volumes is dated " Furnival's Inn, February,1836." There are sixteen illustrations by Cruikshank.A Second Edition appeared in the same year, with a new Preface, dated " Furnival's Inn, August 1 , 1836. "7SKETCHES BY " BOZ," ILLUSTRATIVE OF EVERY-DAY LIFE,AND EVERY-DAY PEOPLE. The Second Series. London:John Macrone, St. James's-square. 1837, pp. viii. 377.Containing The Streets by Morning; The Streets by Night; Making aNight of it; Criminal; Courts; Scotland Yard; The New Year; Medita tions in Monmouth-street; Our Next-door Neighbours; The Hospital328 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. [1836Patient; Seven Dials; The Mistaken Milliner; Doctors' Commons; Mis placed Attachment of Mr. John Dounce; Vauxhall Gardens by Day; AParliamentary Sketch-with a few Portraits; Mr. Minns and his Cousin;The Last Cab-Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad; The Parlour Orator;The First of May; The Drunkard's Death. With twelve illustrations by George Cruikshank.The Preface is dated " Furnival's Inn, December 17, 1836."First Complete Edition of the Two Series, with forty illustrations by George Cruikshank. In twenty monthly parts, demy 8vo, commencing November, 1837, and ending June, 1839. Twenty-seven of the twenty eight illustrations to the former editions were re-drawn and engraved to suit the larger- sized page of this edition (one illustration , " The Free and Easy," in The Streets by Night, being cancelled). To these were added thirteen new etchings. There was also a design on the first page of the pink wrapper by George Cruikshank. Preface dated "May 15, 1839. " London:Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1839, pp. 526.This Edition included all the Sketches enumerated above, with the additionof The Tuggs's at Ramsgate, " reprinted from The Library ofFiction.Anew Preface, dated " London, October, 1850, " was prefixed to the first cheap edition.8SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS. As it is; As Sabbath Billswould make it; As it might be made. By Timothy Sparks.London: Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1836, pp. v. 49.The illustrations (signed " H. K. B.") are by the late Hablot Knight Browne (" Phiz").9THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN: A Comic Burletta. In Two Acts.By " Boz." First performed at the St. James's Theatre, onThursday, September 29, 1836. London: Chapman and Hall,186, Strand. 1837, pp. 46, in wrapper.With etched frontispiece by " Phiz " (H. K. Browne).IOTHE VILLAGE COQUETTES: A Comic Opera. In Two Acts.By Charles Dickens. The Music by John Hullah. London:Richard Bentley, New Burlington-street. 1836, pp. 71 .First performed at the St. James's Theatre, on Tuesday, December 6,1836. The songs were issued separately in a small pamphlet bearing the following title:Songs, Choruses, and Concerted Pieces in the Operatic Burletta of The Village Coquettes, as produced at the St. James's Theatre. The Drama and Words of the Songs by " Boz. " The Music by John Hullah. [The Music is published by Messrs. Cramer and Co. , 201 , Regent- street. ]Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. 1837. [ Price Tenpence] pp. 10 (including Title and Dramatis Persona).1837.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.II329IS SHE HIS WIFE? or, Something Singular! A Comic Burletta.In One Act. By " Boz." London: 1837.First performed at the St. James's Theatre, Monday, March 6, 1837.12THE LAMPLIGHTER: A Farce. By Charles Dickens ( 1838),pp. 45, in wrapper.Only 250 copies privately printed ( 1879) from the manuscript copy in the Forster Collection at South Kensington; each copy numbered.13THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB. Beinga faithful Record of the Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures, and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members. Edited by " Boz." With forty-three illustrations by R. Seymour, R. W. Buss, and Hablot K. Browne (" Phiz ").In twenty monthly parts, commencing April, 1836, and ending November, 1837 ( Parts 19 and 20 forming a double number).*London: Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1837, pp. xvi. 609.The Dedication to Serjeant Talfourd is dated " 48, Doughty-street, Sep tember 27, 1837."The first two numbers contained each only 24 pages of letterpress.The first number contained four and the second three illustrations by Seymour, who committed suicide April 20, 1836, while the second number was in preparation. The third and succeeding numbers contained each 32 pages of letterpress, with only two illustrations. Those in the thirdnumber were originally executed by R. W. Buss, but his plates were replaced in later issues by two different designs executed by the late Hablot K. Browne (" Phiz " ) , who illustrated the remainder of this and many subsequent works of Dickens. The original green wrapper ¡hada design by Seymour, representing scenes of fishing and shooting, and groups of sporting_implements. Part ii. contained a notice respectingSeymour's death; Part x. an " Address " from the author to his readers,dated " December, 1836; " and Part xv. another “ Address, " dated " 186 ,Strand, June 30, 1837.The first cheap Edition contains a new Preface, dated " London, Sep tember, 1847." This Preface was considerably amplified in the " Charles Dickens " Edition (Chapman and Hall, 1867, pp. xii. 497).

No number was issued for June, 1837. The fourteenth number bears date " May, 1837, " and the fifteenth " July, 1837: " the publication was sus pended during that interval on account of a domestic bereavement.

330 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens.[183714OLIVER TWIST; OR, THE PARISH BOY'S PROGRESS. Com menced in the second number of Bentley's Miscellany, inFebruary, 1837, and concluded in March, 1839. Published in three volumes, post 8vo, in October, 1838, six months inadvance of its completion in the Miscellany, with twenty-four illustrations by George Cruikshank. * London: RichardBentley, New Burlington-street. 1838.A Third Edition was issued with a new Preface, dated " DevonshireTerrace, April, 1841." Three vols. 8vo. London: Chapman and Hall,1841.Edition in One Volume. Issued with the same plates as the former edi tions, in ten monthly parts, demy 8vo, uniform with Pickwick, commencing January, 1846. The first page of the green wrapper was from a design by George Cruikshank, and depicted eleven scenes (mostly different from those represented in the body of the work) illustrating incidents in the novel,pp. 311. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846.The first cheap Edition contains a new Preface, dated " Devonshire Terrace, March, 1850. " This Preface was considerably modified and abridged in the " Charles Dickens " Edition (Chapman and Hall, 1867,pp. viii. 258) , and a new paragraph was added at the end.15CONTRIBUTIONS TO Bentley's Miscellany, 1837-1839. London:Richard Bentley, New Burlington- street.Vol. i.

pp. 49-63. Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, once Mayor of Mudfog.

(Signed " Boz. ") With an etching and a woodcut illustration by George Cruikshank. January, 1837. 14 ,, 291-297. Stray Chapters by Boz.' Chapter I. The Panto

mime of Life. March, 1837.,, 515-518. Stray Chapters by Boz." Chapter 2. Some particulars concerning a Lion. May, 1837.Editor's Address on the Completion of the First Volume, signed " Boz, "and dated " London, June, 1837."Vol. ii.

pp. 397-413. Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Asso ciation for the Advancement of Everything. Signed " Boz. " October, 1837.Address, signed " Boz, " and dated " 30th November, 1837."

The last of these illustrations-Rose Maylic and Oliver-as it appeared in the early copies, was objected to by the author, and was designed afresh at his request.

1839.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens.Vol. iv.

pp. 204-206. Mr. Robert Bolton , the " Gentleman connected with the Press. August, 1838.

",, 209-227. Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything. Withan etched illustration by George Cruikshank. September,1838.

331Vol. v.pp. 219-220. Familiar Epistle from a Parent to a Child aged two years and two months, signed " Boz. " February, 1839.[The papers to which an asterisk is prefixed were republished, but without the illustrations by Cruikshank, in a volume entitled The Mudfog Papers, etc., by Charles Dickens, Author of " The Pickwick Papers,etc. Now first collected. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1880,pp. iv. 198.]16SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN. Dedicated to the YoungLadies. With six illustrations by " Phiz " (H. K. Browne) ,small 8vo. London: Chapman and Hall. 1838, pp. viii. 76.17SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES; with an urgent Remonstranceto the Gentlemen of England (being Bachelors or Widowers)on the present alarming crisis. By the Author of " Sketches of Young Gentlemen." With six illustrations by Phiz "(H. K. Browne) . London: Chapman and Hall. 1840, pp. 92(including title and half- title ).6618THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With39 illustrations by " Phiz;" and portrait of the author afterMaclise, engraved by Finden . In twenty monthly parts,demy 8vo, commencing April, 1838, and ending October,1839,-parts 19 and 20 forming a double number, pp. xvi. 624.London: Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1839.The first cheap Edition contains a new Preface, dated " Devonshire Terrace, May, 1848."19MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI. Edited by " Boz."twelve illustrations by George Cruikshank.post 8vo, pp. xix. 288; pp. ix. 263.Bentley. 1838.The Preface is dated " Doughty-street, February, 1838."WithIn two volumes,London: Richard332 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. [ 183920THE LOVING BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN. Illustrated byGeorge Cruikshank. London: Charles Tilt, Fleet-street;and Mustapha Syried, Constantinople. 1839, pp. 40."The literary portion of the work by Mr. Charles Dickens. " -REID'S Descriptive Catalogue of the Works ofGeorge Cruikshank ( London, 1871 ) ,vol. i. p. 328.21Notice of Mr. John Gibson Lockhart's pamphlet, " The Ballantyne Humbug handled. "—Examiner, March 31 , 1839.Allusion is made in this notice to a previous one of Ballantyne'sRefutation. There is a notice of the " Reply to Mr. Lockhart's pamphlet 'in the Examiner of September 29, 1839.Written and printed in the Examiner, "to express publicly, " says Mr. Forster, his hearty sympathy with Lockhart's handling of some passages in his admirable Life of Scott that had drawn down upon him the wrath of the Ballantynes. "22Notice of Hood's " Up the Rhine " ( 1840).- Printed in The Examiner." I find him noticing, in the Examiner, a book by Thomas Hood (' Upthe Rhine ' ): rather poor, but I have not said so, because Hood is too, and ill besides. ""-FORSTER'S Life ofDickens (ed. 1876, vol. i. , p. 121) .23MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. With illustrations on wood byGeorge Cattermole, H. K. Browne, George Cruikshank, andDaniel Maclise. In eighty-eight weekly numbers, imperial 8vo,commencing April 4, 1840, and ending November 27, 1841 ,and in twenty monthly parts,-forming three volumes. Vol. i . ,pp. iv. 306; vol. ii. , pp. vi. 306; vol. iii . , pp. vi. 426. London:Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1840-41 .Master Humphrey's Clock includes two stories , afterwards issued separately without the connecting matter, viz. , The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.The Old Curiosity Shop began at page 37 of the first volume, and con tinued, with occasional interruptions in its early part from the intercalary Pickwickian and other chapters, to page 223 of the second volume.[The first cheap Edition of The Old Curiosity Shop contained a new Preface, dated " London, September, 1848."]Barnaby Rudge began at page 229 of the second volume, and was finished with its 82nd chapter at page 420 of the third volume, after which the Clock was wound up by a closing chapter from Master Humphrey (pp. 421-426).The first cheap Edition of Barnaby Rudge contained a new Preface,dated " London, March, 1849."]1842.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 33324THE FINE Old English GENTLEMAN. New Version (to besaid or sung at all Conservative dinners). A squib in verse,of eight stanzas, forty-eight lines. -Examiner, Saturday,August 7, 1841, p. 500.25THE QUACK DOCTOR'S PROCLAMATION. A squib in verse, ofnine stanzas, thirty-six lines. —Examiner, Saturday, August 14,1841, P, 517.26SUBJECTS FOR PAINTERS. After Peter Pindar. A squib inverse, seventy lines. -Examiner, Saturday, August 21, 1841,P. 532.27THE LAMPLIGHTER'S STORY. -Printed in The Pic Nic Papersby various hands, edited by Charles Dickens. With illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: Henry Colburn.1841. Vol. i. , pp. 1-32."The Philosopher's Stone "-Cruikshank's illustration to The Lamp lighter's Story-forms the frontispiece to the first volume. The story is arifacimento, in narrative form. of the rejected farce of The Lamplighter (supra § 12).28Circular Letter on International Copyright with America, dated"Devonshire Terrace, July 7, 1842," and signed " Charles Dickens. " 4to.This letter, in printed form, was sent to the principal living authors and journalists of the time. It was reprinted in extenso in the MorningChronicle of Thursday, July 14, in the Athenæum and Examiner of July 16, 1842, and in other leading journals.29Prologue to Mr. Westland Marston's Play, " The Patrician's Daughter. " Written by Mr. Charles Dickens, and spoken byMr. Macready. (48 lines. ) Sunday Times, December 11,1842; Theatrical Journal, Saturday, December 17, 1842(vol. iii. , p. 407); Monthly Magazine and Liberal Miscellany,January, 1843, p. 74.This Prologue was not printed with the play itself, which had been pub lished in the previous year ( 1841 ) , before it was produced on the stage. It appears, with some variations, in the first volume of Charles Dickens's collected Letters (pp . 77-78).334 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. [184230AMERICAN NOTES for General Circulation. By Charles Dickens In two volumes, post 8vo, pp. xvi. 308; vii. 306.London: Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand. 1842.The first cheap Edition contained a new Preface, dated " London,June 22, 1850."31To the Editor of the Times. Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, Sunday, Jan. 15," and signed "Charles Dickens."-Printed in The Times, Monday, January 16, 1843.In contradiction of a misstatement made in a criticism of American Notes(by the late James Spedding), published in the Edinburgh Review of January, 1843.32THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT-hisRelations, Friends, and Enemies. Comprising all his wills and his ways with an Historical Record of what he did andwhat he didn't , showing, moreover, who inherited the familyplate, who came in for the silver spoons, and who for thewooden ladles: the whole forming a complete Key to theHouse of Chuzzlewit. Edited by Boz. With 40 illustrationsby H. K. Browne. In twenty monthly parts, demy 8vo, commencing January, 1843, and ending July, 1844, -parts 19and 20 forming a double number. Preface dated " London,June 25, 1844." London: Chapman and Hall. 1844, pp. xiv.624.The first cheap Edition contained a new Preface, dated " London,November, 1849. '33A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. By Charles Dickens. With illustrations byJohn Leech, fcp. 8vo, pp. 166. London: Chapman and Hall.1843.The title-page is in red and blue, and the full-page illustrations are coloured. The Preface is dated " December, 1843. '34A WORD IN SEASON. By Charles Dickens. Thirty-two linesof verse in four stanzas. Printed in The Keepsake for 1844,edited by the Countess of Blessington. 8vo. London: Long mans, pp. 73-74.1846. ] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKens.3566Letter to the Committee of the Metropolitan Drapers' Associa tion, dated " Devonshire Terrace, March 28, 1844," and signed Charles Dickens." Printed in The Student andYoung Men's Advocate, a Magazine of Literature, Science,and Art, No. 1 ( New Series). London: Aylott and Jones,Paternoster Row, January, 1845, p. 19.36Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood, from an Ancient Gentle man. By favour of Charles Dickens. Printed in Hood'sMagazine and Comic Miscellany. May, 1844 (vol. i. , pp. 409414).33537Evenings of a Working Man, being the occupation of his scanty leisure. By John Overs. With a Preface relative to the Author, by Charles Dickens. London: T. C. Newby.1844.38THE CHIMES: a Goblin Story of some Bells that rang an OldYear out and a New Year in. By Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, Leech, and Clarkson Stanfield.London: Chapman and Hall, 1845, pp. 175.39THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. A Fairy Tale of Home. ByCharles Dickens. Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Leech, and Landseer. London: Bradbury andEvans, 1846, pp. 174.CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE Daily News:•40The British Lion. A New Song, but an Old Story. Signed"Catnach."-Daily News, Saturday, January 24, 1846.4ICrime and Education . Letter, dated " Wednesday morning,Feb. 4, 1846," and signed " Charles Dickens."-Daily News,Wednesday, February 4, 1846.22336 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKens. [184642THE HYMN OF THE WILTSHIRE LABOURERS (Five stanzas ofeight lines each), signed " Charles Dickens."-Daily News,Saturday, February 14, 1846.43LETTERS ON SOCIAL QUESTIONS. -CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.Three letters, signed " Charles Dickens." -Daily News,Monday, March 9, Friday, March 13, and Monday, March 16,1846.44PICTURES FROM ITALY. By Charles Dickens. The VignetteIllustrations on wood, by Samuel Palmer, pp. 270. London:Bradbury and Evans. 1846.The substance of this volume appeared originally in the Daily News, from January to March, 1846, under the title of " Travelling Letters. Written on the Road. By Charles Dickens." The letters were seven in number, and appeared on the following dates:"No. 1. Wednesday, January 21.No. 2. Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon. -Saturday,January 24.No. 3. Avignon to Genoa. -Saturday, January 31.No. 4. A Retreat at Albaro. -Monday, February 9.No. 5. First Sketch of Genoa. The Streets, Shops, and Houses. Monday, February 16.No. 6. In Genoa. -Thursday, February 26.No. 7. In Genoa, and out of it. -Monday, March 2.45THE BATTLE OF LIFE. A Love Story. By Charles Dickens.London: Bradbury and Evans. 1846, pp. 175. Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, Leech, and Clarkson Stanfield.46DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY AND SON, WHOLEsale, Retail, AND FOR EXPORTATION. With forty illus trations by H. K. Browne. In twenty monthly parts, demy8vo,commencing October, 1846, and ending April, 1848,-parts 19 and 20 forming a double number. The Preface is dated"Devonshire Terrace, March 24, 1848." London: Bradburyand Evans, 1848, pp. xvi. 624.1850.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens. 33747Notice of " The Drunkard's Children," a Sequel to "The Bottle,"in eight plates, by George Cruikshank. —Examiner, July 8,1848, p. 436.48Notice of "The Rising Generation," a series of twelve drawings on stone, by John Leech.-Examiner, December 30, 1848,p. 838.49THE HAUNTED Man and the Ghost's BaRGAIN. A Fancy for Christmas Time. With frontispiece and title engravedon wood after John Tenniel, and fourteen other woodcutillustrations by Stanfield, Leech, Frank Stone, and JohnTenniel, foolscap 8vo, pp. 188. London: Bradbury and Evans.1848.The five Christmas books were collected into a single volume in 1852, with a new Preface, dated " London, September, 1852."50THE PERSONAL HISTORY, ADVENTURES, EXPERIENCE, ANDOBSERVATION OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, the Younger, ofBlunderstone Rookery. Which he never meant to be pub lished on any account. With forty illustrations by H. K. Browne. In twenty monthly parts, demy 8vo, commencingMay, 1849, and ending November, 1850, -parts 19 and 20 forming a double number. Preface dated " London, October,1850," pp. xvi. 624. London: Bradbury and Evans. 1850.In the "' Charles Dickens " Edition the Preface was considerably altered,and a new paragraph added at the end. The original announcements ofthe book were headed, " The Copperfield Survey of the World as it rolled. "51To the Editor of the Times.-Two Letters dated " DevonshireTerrace, Tuesday, Nov. 13," and " Saturday, Nov. 17," andsigned "Charles Dickens. "-Times, Wednesday, November 14,and Monday, November 19, 1849.These two letters on Public Executions are reprinted in the new edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens ( 1882) , vol. i. , pp. 219-225.338BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.[1850CONTRIBUTIONS TO Household Words:52A Preliminary Word. * -Household Words, March 30, 1850(vol. i. , pp. 1-2).53The Guild of Literature and Art. -Household Words, May 10,1851 (vol. iii . , pp. 145-147).54Whole Hogs.-Household Words, August 23, 1851 (vol. iii.,pp. 505-507).55One Man in a Dockyard. -Household Words, September 6,1851 (vol. iii. , pp. 553-557).This was a joint article by Charles Dickens and Mr. R. H. Horne. Mr. Horne wrote the description of the works of the dockyard, and Dickens of the fortifications and country scenery round about. (See " Recollections of Contemporaries, " appended to Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning addressed to R, H. Horne. London: Bentley, 1877, vol. ii . , pp. 271-273. )56What Christmas is, as we grow older. -Printed in the extranumber for Christmas, 1851 , of Household Words†, pp. 1-3.57MR. NIGHTINGALE'S DIARY: A Farce, in One Act. By[ ]. London, 1851 , 8vo, pp. 26 (besidestitle and leaf of Dramatis Persona). Bradbury and Evans,Printers, Whitefriars. (Privately printed. )There is a copy in the Forster Collection at South Kensington.

The series of Household Words, a WeeklyJournal, conducted by Charles Dickens, forms nineteen volumes of 620 pages each, apart from Title and Index. The first number is dated Saturday, March 30, 1850, and the 479th and last , Saturday, May 28, 1859.

+ Dickens's contributions to the other Christmas numbers are enumeratedinfra. The above has never been reprinted.IS1853.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.58TO BE READ AT DUSK. By Charles Dickens Printed in TheKeepsake, edited by Miss Power, for 1852. London: David Bogue. 8vo, pp. 117-131 .59A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles Dickens.339Vol. I. England from the ancient times to the death ofKing John. 1852, pp. xi. 210.Vol. II. England from the reign of Henry III. to the reign of Richard III . 1853, pp. viii . 214.Vol. III. England from the reign of Henry VII. to the Revolution of 1688. 1854, pp. viii. 321 .Three volumes, small square 8vo. London: Bradbury andEvans, 1852-1854. Frontispieces by F. W. Topham.Divided here into thirty-seven chapters, but originally into forty-five,which appeared at irregular intervals in Household Words; the first chapter in the number for January 25, 1851 (vol. ii . p. 409) , and the last in the number for December 10, 1853 (vol. viii. p. 360).60BLEAK HOUSE. With forty illustrations by H. K. Browne. Intwenty monthly parts, demy 8vo, commencing March, 1852,and ending September, 1853, -parts 19 and 20 forming adouble number. Preface dated " London, August, 1853,"pp. xvi. 624. London: Bradbury and Evans. 1853.CONTRIBUTIONS TO Household Words (continued):-—61Trading in Death.-Household Words, November 27, 1852(vol. vi. , pp. 241-245).On the State Funeral of the Duke of Wellington.62Frauds on the Fairies.--Household Words, October 1 , 1853 (vol. viii. , pp. 97-100).Ahumorous protest against the alterations made by George Cruikshank in the text of some familiar old fairy-tales illustrated by him, " as a means ofpropagating the doctrines of total abstinence, " etc.340 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens. [185463HARD TIMES. For these Times. By Charles Dickens. London:Bradbury and Evans, 1854, pp. viii . 352.Originally published in weekly instalments in Household Words (vol. ix. ),commencing April 1, and concluding August 12, 1854.64The late Mr. Justice Talfourd. -Household Words, March 25,1854 (vol . ix. , pp. 117-118).65By Rail to Parnassus. -Household Words, June 16, 1855(vol. xi. , pp. 477-480).Anotice of Leigh Hunt's Stories in Verse."During Leigh Hunt's life, and after the publication of Bleak House,Charles Dickens wrote a most genial paper about him in Household Words."-EDMUND OLLIER in the Daily News, Saturday, June 11, 1870.66LITTLE DORRIT. With forty illustrations by H. K. Browne.In twenty monthly parts, commencing December, 1855, and ending June, 1857, -parts 19 and 20 forming a double number.Preface dated " London, May, 1857,” pp. xiv. 625. London:Bradbury and Evans. 1857.67Curious Misprint in the Edinburgh Review. -Household Words,August 1, 1857 (vol. xvi. , pp. 97-100).Aretort upon the notice of Little Dorrit which appeared in the Edin burgh Review of July, 1857, under the title of The License of Modern Novelists. It relates to the Circumlocution Office and Sir Rowland Hill,and to the fall of houses in Tottenham Court Road, which the reviewer de.clared had suggested the catastrophe in Little Dorrit.68Vie et Aventures de Nicolas Nickleby. Traduit avec l'autorisation de l'Auteur par P. Lorain. Paris: Hachette, 1857.Contains an Address of the English author to the French public, dated " Tavistock House, January 17, 1857."1858.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.69The Case of the Reformers of the Literary Fund: stated byCharles W. Dilke, Charles Dickens, and John Forster.London: 1858, pp. 16.CONTRIBUTIONS TO Household Words (concluded):34

70A Nightly Scene in London. -Household Words, January 26,1856 (vol. xiii . , pp. 25-27).71Proposals for a National Jest- Book. -Household Words, Saturday, May 3, 1856 (vol. xiii . , pp. 361-364).72Child's Hymn of five stanzas (twenty lines), printed in " TheWreck of the Golden Mary," the extra number of Household Words for Christmas, 1856, p. 21.Mr. Forster ( Life ofDickens, ed. 1876, vol. ii. , p. 468) refers to and quotes a letter from Charles Dickens to the Rev. R. H. Davies, of Chelsea, respect ing this hymn. "The letter referred to, " writes Mr. Davies to the presenteditor, " was in reply to one from me to C. D. , thanking him on religious grounds for the publication of the hymn. He told me he was much obliged for my letter, and was the more gratified because he wrote the hymn himself. "73THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES. -HouseholdWords, October, 1857 (vol. xvi. , pp. 313, 337, 361, 385, 409)."Tothe first of these papers Dickens contributed all up to the top of the second column of page 316; to the second, all up to the white line in the second column of page 340; to the third, all except the reflections of Mr. Idle (363-365); and the whole of the fourth part. All the rest was by Mr. Wilkie Collins. "-FORSTER.74Personal.-Household Words, June 12, 1858 ( vol. xvii. , p. 601) .This is the statement which Dickens thought it necessary to publish respecting his separation from his wife, and the groundless rumours that were abroad in connexion with it.342 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. [185075"REPRINTED PIECES. "-Under this title thirty-one sketchesthat first appeared anonymously in Household Words, from 1850 to 1856, were for the first time collected and acknowledged in the Eighth Volume of the Library Edition of theWorks of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall.1858, pp. 153-435The " Reprinted Pieces " originally appeared in Household Words in the following order:-1850.I. A Child's Dream of a Star.-April 6.2. The Begging Letter-Writer. -May 18.3. A Walk in a Workhouse. -May 25.4. The Ghost of Art. -July 20.5. The Detective Police. -July 27, August 10.6. Three Detective Anecdotes. -September 14.7. A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent. -October 19.8. A Christmas Tree. -December 21.1851.9. "Births-Mrs . Meek of a Son."-February 22.10. A Monument of French Folly. -March 8.II. Bill Sticking. -March 22.12. On Duty with Inspector Field. -June 14.13. Our English Watering Place. -August 2.14. A Flight. -August 30.15. Our School . -October 1I.1852.16. A Plated Article. -April 24.17. Our Honourable Friend. -July 31.18. Our Vestry.—August 28.19. Our Bore. -October 9.20. Lying Awake. -October 30.21. The Poor Relation's Story.22. The Child's Story.-(Christmas Number. )1853.23. Down with the Tide. -February 5.24. The Noble Savage. -June 11.25. The Schoolboy's Story.26. Nobody's Story.- ( Christmas Number.)27. The Long Voyage. —December 31 .1958.]BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.1854.1855.28. Our French Watering Place .-November 4.29. Prince Bull: a Fairy Tale. —February 17.30. Out of Town. -September 29.1856.31. Out of the Season. -June 28.Among these are Dickens's contributions to the Christmas Numbers of 1850, 1852, and 1853.76A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English Goldsmith during his Wanderings in Germany and France. By William Duthie.Dedicated, by permission, to Charles Dickens, Esq. London:Darton and Co. , 58, Holborn Hill. 1858, pp. viii. xxxii. 182.343Of the twenty- eight papers contained in this volume, sixteen, enumerated by the Author in his Preface, originally appeared in Household Words, and received the advantage of the careful and valuable revision of Charles Dickens, the Editor.77Old Leaves gathered from Household Words. By W. HenryWills. London: Chapman and Hall . 1860, pp. vi. 437.[The Dedication is as follows:-" TO THE OTHER HAND, whose masterly touches gave to the Old Leaves, here freshly gathered, their brightest tints,they are affectionately inscribed. " ]Ofthe fifteen following papers, out of thirty- seven which thevolume contains, portions were interpolated by Charles Dickens.The dates of their original appearance in Household Words are added:1850.I. Valentine's Day at the Post- Office. -March 30.2. The Heart of Mid- London. - May 4.3. A Popular Delusion. —June 1 .4. The Old Lady in Threadneedle Street. -July 6.5. Bank-Note Forgeries ( Chapter II . ) .—September 21 .1851.6. Plate Glass. -February 1.7. Spitalfields. -April 5.8. The Metropolitan Protectives.- April 26.9. Epsom.-June 7.10. My Uncle.- December 6.344 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. [18521852.11. A Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree. -January 17.12. Post- Office Money Orders. —March 20.13. A Plated Article. —April 24.185314. Received, a Blank Child.-March 19.15. Idiots.-June 4.78A Last Household Word. -Household Words, No. 479, Saturday, May 28, 1859 ( vol. xix. , p. 620).CONTRIBUTIONS TO All the Year Round: —79The Poor Man and his Beer.-All the Year Round, April 30,1859* (vol. i. , pp. 13-16).80The Blacksmith. A Trade Song. All the Year Round,April 30, 1859 (vol. i. , p. 20) .-66 Composed by Mr. Dickens, and repeated to me while he was walking about. " Letter from Rev. T. B. Lawes, of Rothamsted, St. Alban's,quoted in Forster's Life of Dickens ( ed. 1876, vol. ii . , p. 285).81A TALE OF TWO CITIES. In Three Books. By CharlesDickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly,1859, pp. ix. 254.Published in weekly instalments in All the Year Round, commencing in the first number, April 30, 1859 (vol. i. , p. 1) , and ending in the thirty first, November 26, 1859 ( vol. ii . , p. 95) . Also published in monthly parts,with illustrations by H. K. Browne, the first part bearing date June and the last December, 1859-parts 7 and 8 forming a double number. Prefacedated " Tavistock House, November, 1859."

The first number of " All the Year Round, a Weekly Journal con ducted by Charles Dickens," bears date Saturday, April 30, 1859.

1860.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.82HUNTED DOWN. A Story in Two Portions. —Printed in TheNew York Ledger of August 20 and 27 and September 3,1859, illustrated with seven woodcuts. Reprinted in All theYear Round, August 4 and 11 , 1860 (vol. iii. , pp. 397-400;422-427).83Leigh Hunt. A Remonstrance.-All the Year Round, December 24, 1859 (vol. ii. , pp. 206-208).In reference to the current and not altogether unfounded idea that Leigh Hunt was the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House.34584THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. By Charles Dickens.London: Chapman and Hall. 1861 , pp. 264.Contains seventeen papers reprinted from All the Year Round. The Preface is dated December, 1860.These seventeen papers appeared in All the Year Round in 1860 as follows:Vol. II.His General Line of Business.Charter] -January 28, pp. 321-326.Wapping Workhouse. -February 18, pp. 392-396.Two Views of a Cheap Theatre. -February 25, pp. 416-421.Poor Mercantile Jack. -March 10, pp. 462-466.Refreshments for Travellers. -March 24, pp. 512-516.Travelling Abroad. -April 7, pp. 557-562.- The Shipwreck [of the RoyalVol. III..The Great Tasmania's Cargo. -April 21 , pp. 37-40.City of London Churches.--May 5, pp. 85-89.Shy Neighbourhoods. -May 26, pp. 155-159.Tramps. -June 16, pp. 230-234.Dulborough Town. -June 30, pp. 274-278.Night Walks. -July 21, pp. 348-352.Chambers. -August 18, pp. 452-456.Nurses' Stories. -September 8, pp. 517-521.Arcadian London. -September 29, pp. 588-591 .Vol. IV.The Italian Prisoner. -October 13, pp. 13-17. ]346BIBLIOGRAPHYOF Dickens.[186185GREAT EXPECTATIONS. By Charles Dickens. In ThreeVolumes, pp. 344, 351 , 344. London: Chapman and Hall.1861.Originally published in weekly instalments in All the Year Round, from December 1, 1860 ( vol. iv. , p. 169) , to August 3, 1861 (vol. v. , p. 437).86To the Editor of the Times. Letter dated " Gad's-hill, Jan. 8,"and signed " Charles Dickens. "-Times, Saturday, January 12,1861.Refers to a dramatized version of his Christmas story, " A Message fromthe Sea, " announced for performance without his sanction at the Britannia Theatre.87The Election for Finsbury. -To the Editor of the Daily News.Letter dated " Newcastle-on-Tyne, Nov. 21," and signed"Charles Dickens."-Daily News, Saturday, November 23,1861.8866 The Earthquake. -To the Editor of the Times. Letter datedGad's-hill-place, Oct. 7," and signed " Charles Dickens. ”—Times, Thursday, October 8, 1863.89IN MEMORIAM. By Charles Dickens. -Cornhill Magazine,February, 1864 (vol. ix. , pp. 129-132).A memorial notice of Thackeray.90OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. With 40 illustrations by MarcusStone. In 20 monthly parts, commencing May, 1864, and ending November, 1865- parts 19 and 20 forming a double number. In two volumes. Vol. i. , pp. xi . 320. Vol. ii. ,pp. viii. 309. Postscript in lieu of Preface " dated " Septem ber 2nd, 1865." London: Chapman and Hall.661865.1867.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 34791Legends and Lyrics. By Adelaide Anne Procter. With an Introduction by Charles Dickens. London: Bell and Daldy,1866.The Introduction occupies eleven pages.92History of " Pickwick." Letter dated " Gad's Hill Place,March 28, 1866," and signed " Charles Dickens ." -Athenæum,March 31, 1866 (p. 430); and note dated " April 3, 1866," and signed " Charles Dickens, " correcting a verbal mistake in theletter as printed. -Athenæum, April 7 , 1866, p . 464.Respecting Seymour and his illustrations of the first two numbers of The Pickwick Papers.93The late Mr. Stanfield. -All the Year Round, June 1 , 1867 (vol. xvii ., p. 537).94To the Editor of the Times. Letter dated " Gad's Hill Place,Sept. 2," and signed " Charles Dickens. " -Times, Wednesday,September 4, 1867.Referring to the erroneous reports current about his health.95CHRISTMAS STORIES from Household Words and All the YearRound ( 1854-1867) . First collected in the " Charles DickensEdition ( 1871 ) , with eight illustrations, and in the Illustrated Library Edition ( 1876), with fourteen illustrations.ניA posthumous collection of Charles Dickens's contributions to the extra Christmas numbers of his two journals. These were as follows: —1856.1857.1858.HOUSEHOLD Words.1854. " THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. "-I. In the old City of Rochester. 2. The Story of Richard Doubledick. 3. The Road.1855. " THE HOLLY TREE. ".-I. Myself. 2. The Boots. 3. The Bill." THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. "-The Wreck." THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. " -I. The Island of Silver- store. 2. The Rafts on the River."A HOUSE TO LET. " -Going into Society.348BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.[1859ALL THE YEAR ROUND.1859. "THE HAUNTED HOUSE. "-1. The Mortals in the House.2. The Ghost in Master B.'s Room (and a page at the close).1860. "A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. "-" Nearly all the first and the whole of the second and the last chapter, The Village, The Money,and The Restitution: the two intervening chapters, though also with insertions from his hand, not being his. " -FORSTER."1861. " TOM TIDDLER'S Ground. "-1. Picking up Soot and Cinders.2. Picking up Miss Kimmeens. 3. Picking up the Tinker.1862. ' SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. " —I. His leaving it till called for.2. His Boots. 3. His Brown-paper Parcel. 4. His wonderful end.5. A portion of the chapter, His Umbrella (not reprinted) .1863. " MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. "-The first and the last chapter.1. How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the business. 2. Howthe Parlours added a few words.1864. " MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. " -The first and the last chapter.1. Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on, and went over.Lirriper relates how Jemmy topped up.2. Mrs." 1865. DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. "-I. To be takenimmediately. 2. To be taken for life. 3. To be taken with a grain of salt (the portion describing a Trial for Murder).1866. " MUGBY JUNCTION. " -I. Barbox Brothers. 2. Barbox Brothers and Co. 3. Main Line-The Boy at Mugby. 4. No. 1 Branch Line-The Signal- man.1867. " NO THOROUGHFARE. " -Written conjointly with Mr. Wilkie Collins, in nearly equal portions. The only portions furnished ex clusively by Dickens were the " Overture " and the " Third Act; "Mr. Collins contributing to Acts First and Fourth, and writing the whole of the Second.་ ་96NO THOROUGHFARE. A Drama, in Five Acts and a Prologue.By Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. As first performed at the New Adelphi Theatre, London, December 26, 1867.New York: Robert M. de Witt, Publisher, No. 33, Rosestreet, pp. 40.CONTRIBUTIONS TO All the Year Round (continued):—97THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. By Charles Dickens.With illustrations. London Chapman and Hall, 1868.pp. 172.Contains eleven new papers from All the Year Round out of the thirteen enumerated below, besides those published in the former edition, making in all twenty-eight papers.1868. ] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.SECOND SERIES OF " THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER."All the Year Round. -1863.I. The Calais Night Mail. -May 2.2. Some Recollections of Mortality. -May 16.3. Birthday Celebrations. -June 6.4. The Short-Timers. -June 20.5. Bound for the Great Salt Lake. -July 4.6. The City of the Absent. -July 18 .7. An Old Stage- Coaching House. -August 1.8. The Boiled Beef of New England. -August 15.9. Chatham Dockyard. -August 29.10. In the French- Flemish Country. -September 12.II. Medicine-men of Civilisation. -September 26.12. Titbull's Almshouses. -October 24.1868.34913. The Ruffian. -October 10.Nos. 4 and 13 were first included in the " Illustrated Library Edition " of Dickens's Works (1875), together with six out of seven of the New Uncom mercial Samples (vide § 101 infrà), making in all thirty-six papers.98GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION, in nine chapters.Printed in the Atlantic Monthly (Boston: Ticknor and Fields), January, February, and March, 1868 (vol. xxi. ,pp. 118-123; 145-149; 277-283); and in All the Year Round,February 1 , 15, and 29, 1868 (vol. xix. , pp. 180-183; 228-230;276-281).99HOLIDAY ROMANCE. In Four Parts. Printed in Our YoungFolks, an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls (Boston:Ticknor and Fields), January, March, April, and May, 1868 (vol. iv. , pp. 1-7; 129-136; 193-200; 257-263) , with four fullpage illustrations drawn by Sir John Gilbert and initial-letter illustrations to each part by G. G. White and S. Eytinge,junior; and in All the Year Round, January 25, February 8,March 14, and April 4, 1868 ( vol. xix. , pp. 156-159; 204-208;324-327; 396-399).100ADebt of Honour. Postscript to the later editions of AmericanNotes and Martin Chuzzlewit, dated " May, 1868," and signed "Charles Dickens."-All the Year Round, June 6, 1868(vol. xix., p. 610).350 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. L1868IOINEW UNCOMMERCIAL SAMPLES. By Charles Dickens. Printedin Allthe Year Round, New Series.Vol. I.1. Aboard Ship. -December 5, 1868, pp. 12-17.2. ASmall Star in the East. -December 19, 1868, pp. 61-66.3. A Little Dinner in an Hour.—January 2, 1869, pp. 108 III.4. Mr. Barlow.-January 16, 1869, pp. 156-159.5. On an Amateur Beat. -February 27, 1869, pp. 300-303.6. *A Fly-leaf in a Life. -May 22, 1869, pp. 589-591 .Vol. II.7. A Plea for Total Abstinence. -June 5 , 1869, pp. 13-15 .102Landor's Life. A notice of Mr. John Forster's Life of WalterSavage Landor. -All the Year Round, New Series. July 24,1869 (vol. ii. , pp. 181-185) .The last paper contributed by Dickens to All the Year Round.103On Mr. Fechter's Acting. -Atlantic Monthly, Boston, August,1869 ( vol . xxiv. , pp. 242-244) , signed " Charles Dickens."104Religious Opinions of the late Reverend Chauncy Hare Towns hend. Published as directed in his Will by his Literary Executor. London: Chapman and Hall. 1869, pp. viii.293.The " Explanatory Introduction " by Charles Dickens, who edited the volume, occupies two pages.

Not included in any of the Collected Editions.

1892.] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.105351THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. -With twelve illustrationsby S. L. Fildes, and a portrait engraved on steel from a photo graph taken in 1868. In six monthly parts, commencingApril, 1870, and ending September, 1870, pp. viii. 190. London:Chapman and Hall, 1870.With Prefatory Note dated " 12th August, 1870, " referring to the un finished state in which the story was left at the author's death.106THE PLAYS AND POEMS of Charles DICKENS. With a fewMiscellanies in Prose. Now first Collected . Edited, prefaced,and annotated by Richard Herne Shepherd. In Two Volumes,8vo, pp. 406, 420. London: W. H. Allen and Co., 1882.A few copies were issued on Large Paper, quarto size, uniform with the Edition de Luxe of the Works of Charles Dickens. The book was with drawn from circulation a few weeks after publication (August, 1882).The text of these two volumes comprises a reprint in extenso of the entries in this Bibliography numbered 8 to 12 inclusive, 20, 24 to 27 inclusive, 29,34, 36, 37, 40, 42, 57, 58, 72, 80, 96, 103.i23352 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.LETTERS.107THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. Edited by his Sister-inlaw and his Eldest Daughter. In Three Volumes. Vol. i. ,pp. ix. 463; vol. ii. , pp. 464; vol . iii. , pp. 308. London:Chapman and Hall, 1880-82.The first two volumes appeared in November, 1879; the third in November, 1881.108THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. Edited by his Sisterin- Law and his Eldest Daughter. Vol. I. ( 1833 to 1855),pp. viii. 400. Vol. II. ( 1855 to 1870), pp. 432. London:Chapman and Hall, 1882.`This new Edition, in two volumes (uniform with the " Charles Dickens "Edition of the Works), was published in May, 1882. It comprehends the substance, redistributed and rearranged, of the three volumes of the Original Edition, a few entire letters and passages of letters being omitted and some added for the first time.109-LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS, not included in either of theabove collections, addressed to the following correspondents:ANONYMOUS (London Correspondent of a local paper):Letter dated " 48, Doughty- street, Feb. 16, 1838," and signed"Charles Dickens. "-Printed in Mackenzie's Life ofDickens,pp. 213-214.66ANONYMOUS:Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, Second January, 1844,"and signed " Charles Dickens. "-Facsimiled in The Autographic Mirror, London, February 20, 1864. No. 1 , p. 7.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 1 353ANDERSEN, Hans Christian:66 Three Letters signed " Charles Dickens," and dated, 1. Villades Moulineaux, near Boulogne, Saturday, July 5, 1856.”—2. "Tavistock House, April 3, 1857. " -3. " Gad's- hill- place,Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1857."-Printed in Breve til HansChristian Andersen, udgivne af C. St. A. Bille og NikolajBogh. Kjobenhavn [ Copenhagen], C. A. Reitzels Forlag,1877, pp. 119-125.BAYLIS, Thomas:Letter dated " Gad's- hill-place, Dec. 19, 1861," and signed "Charles Dickens."BRIT. MUS. -Egerton MSS. , 2264, ff. 22, 23.BENNETT, W. C.:Letter dated "Broadstairs, Aug. 29, 1848," and signed"Charles Dickens.”—Testimonials of Intellectual Ability,Letters from distinguished Men of the Time to W. C.Bennett [ Privately printed, 1871), pp. 21-22.BLESSINGTON, Lady:Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, May 19, 1846.-Printedin The Literary Life and Correspondence ofthe Countess of Blessington, by R. R. Madden. London: Newby, 1855,vol. iii . , p. 106.CAMPBELL, Lord:Letter to Lord Campbell dated " Tavistock House, Thursday,January 27, 1859," and signed " Charles Dickens. " -Printedin Life of John Lord Campbell, consisting of a Selectionfrom his Autobiography, Diary, and Letters, edited by hisdaughter. London: John Murray, 1881 , vol. ii., p. 363.CHORLEY, Henry Fothergill:Two letters, dated " Gad's Hill, July 3, 1867," and " Gad'sHill, Sunday, June 5, 1870. "-Printed in the Autobiography,Memoir, and Letters of Henry Fothergill Chorley, compiledby Henry G. Hewlett. London: Richard Bentley and Son,1873, vol. ii. , pp. 236, 319-320.CLARKE, Mr.::66 To Mr. Clarke, Editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine. Letter dated " Sept. 28, 1841," and signed Charles Dickens. "Printed in Perkins's Life of Dickens, New York, 1870,pp. 139-140.354 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKEens.CLARKE, Charles and Mary Cowden:Charles Dickens and his Letters. -Printed in Recollections of Writers, by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. London:Sampson Low and Co. , 1878, pp. 304-340.The letters not included in the recent Collection are dated as follows:1. Devonshire Terrace, April 16, 1848.2. "" July 1 , 1848.Broadstairs, August 5, 1848.""3.4. Sept. 19, 1848 (in facsimile).5. Devonshire Terrace, January 13, 1849.6. Devonshire House , May 7, 1851.8.9.IO.7. Tavistock House, December 28, 1852.November 14, 1853.December 19, 1855.October 10, 1856.II. London, April 23, 1860.12. Friday, January 25, 1861.13. Gad's-hill- place, July 7, 1862.14. London, November 3, 1866.June 17, 1867.16. Gad's Hill, November 2, 1867.""""""CROPPER, Margaret ( Lord Denman's fourth daughter):—Letter dated " Tavistock House, January 21 , 1853," andsigned " Charles Dickens."-Printed in Sir Joseph Arnould'sMemoir of Thomas, first Lord Denman. London: Long mans, 1873, vol . ii. , pp. 333-334.DILKE, Charles Wentworth:Letter dated " Tavistock House, March 16, 1855," and signed"Charles Dickens."-Printed in The Papers of a Critic,selected from the Writings ofthe late Charles WentworthDilke. With a Biographical Sketch by his grandson, SirC. Dilke. London: Murray, 1875, vol . i . , pp. 79-80FELTON, Mr. C. C.:—Letter to Mr. C. C. Felton, dated " Niagara Falls: April 29,1842."-Printed in Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields, p. 132.FIELDS, James T.:Letters to James T. Fields. - Printed in Fields' Yesterdayswith Authors, pp. 154-246.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.The letters not included in the recent Collection are dated as follows:1. Gad's Hill [June or July, 1859]. 13. November, 1867.[July, 1859].July 20, 1859.2.14. New York: January 15, 1868.15. Baltimore: February 9, 1868.16. Boston: February, 1868.17. Sunday: March 8, 1868.18. Albany: March 19, 1868.19. Liverpool: October 30, 1868.20. London: February 15, 1869.21. May 5, 1869.22.23.24.""3. "4. August 6, 1859.5. October, 1862.6. May 2, 1866.7. October 16, 1866.8. June 3, 1867.9. June 13, 1867.10. July 12, 1867.11. July 25, 1867.12. October 3, 1867.""99 "May 19, 1869.May 25, 1869.April 18, 1870.355FRASER, Thomas:66 Letter to Thomas Fraser, Esq., Morning Chronicle Office,signed " Charles Dickens," and dated George andPelican, Newbury, Sunday morning, Nov. 1835 . " -Printedin Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields. London:Sampson Low and Co., 1872, p. 232.Guy, Mr.:Letter dated " Barnum's Hotel (Baltimore) , March 23, 1842 ,"and signed " Charles Dickens."-Printed in Mackenzie'sLife of Dickens, pp. 144-145.HARNESS, Rev. William: —Letter (undated), signed " Charles Dickens. "-Printed in TheLiterary Life of the Rev. William Harness, by the Rev.A. G. L'Estrange. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1871,p. 168.HEAPHY, Thomas:Three Letters to Mr. Thomas Heaphy, signed " Charles Dickens," and dated " Gad's-hill- place, Sunday, Sept. 15 ,"and " Tuesday, Sept. 17;" and " Office of All the Year Round, Friday, Sept. 20, 1861 ." -A Wonderful GhostStory, being Mr. H.'s own Narrative, reprinted from “All the Year Round," October 5, 1861; with letters hithertounpublished ofCharles Dickens to the author respecting it.By Thomas Heaphy. London: Griffith and Farran, 1882,pp. 7-17.356 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens.HODDER, George:Letter, undated [ 1853], referring to Miss Kelly's benefit, andsigned " C. D. " -Memories of my Time, including Personal Reminiscences ofEminent Men. By George Hodder.London: Tinsley, 1870, p. 153.JAY, John:Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, London, Sept. 1 , 1842,"and signed " Charles Dickens. "-Printed in the New York Independent, December 25, 1879.JERDAN, William:Letter dated " Doughty-street, Friday morning," and signed "Charles Dickens."-Printed in The Autobiography ofWilliam Jerdan, vol . iv. ( 1853) , pp. 365-366.JERROLD, Douglas:Two Letters, signed “ Charles Dickens,” and dated:1. "Paris: Feb. 14, 1847.”2. Devonshire Terrace: Nov. 17, 1849."66·Printed in The Best of all Good Company. § A Day withCharles Dickens, edited by BlanchardJerrold.LEWIS, Hon. Ellis:Letter dated " Westminster Hotel, New York, January 18,1868," and signed " Charles Dickens.". Printed inMackenzie's Life ofDickens, p. 149.MACKENZIE, R. Shelton:Two Letters ≫ and dated " Broadstairs, Aug. 23, 1841,"Devonshire Terrace, Dec. 10, 1847," and signed " Charles Dickens."-Printed in Mackenzie's Life ofDickens, pp. 174,218-219.MACRAE, David:Extracts from Letters addressed by Charles Dickens in 1861 to Mr. David Macrae. -Printed in Home and Abroad:Sketches and Gleanings, by David Macrae. Glasgow, 1871,pp. 127-128.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.MARRYAT, Frederick:Four Letters, signed " Charles Dickens," and dated " Devonshire Terrace, July 16, 1842," " Devonshire Terrace,January 3," " Broadstairs, Sept. 6, 1843," " Brighton,Monday, March 6, 1848. ”—Printed in Life and Letters ofCaptain Marryat. London: Richard Bentley and Son, ·1872, vol. ii. , pp. 118-119; 143-145; 283-284.357MENKEN, Adah Isaacs:Letter dated " Gad's-hill-place, October 21, 1867," and signed"Charles Dickens. "-Facsimiled in a volume of Poems,entitled Infelicia, by Adah Isaacs Menken, 1868, which is dedicated to Dickens.MILLER, Mrs. Hugh:Letter to Mrs. Hugh Miller, dated " Tavistock House, Thurs day, April 16, 1857," and signed " Charles Dickens."Printed in The Life and Letters ofHugh Miller. By PeterBayne. London, 1871 , vol. ii., p. 484.MOORE, George:Letter, undated ( 1859) , signed “ Charles Dickens.”—Printedin a volume entitled George Moore, Merchant and Philanthropist. By Samuel Smiles. London: Routledge, 1878,p. 217.PHILP, Mr. Franklin:-Letter dated " Baltimore, January 28, 1868," and signed "Charles Dickens." Printed in Mackenzie's Life ofDickens, p. 279.---PLANCHE, J. R.: —Two Letters dated " Tavistock House, Sunday, 7th January,"and " 3rd May, 1855. "-Printed in The Recollections andReflections ofJ. R. Planché. London: Tinsley Brothers,1872, vol. ii. , pp. 158-159.RAWLINSON, Mr. Robert:Letter dated " Tavistock House, January 25, 1854," andsigned " Charles Dickens."-Printed in The Times, Friday,February 6, 1880.358 BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.SALA, George Augustus:Letter dated " Tavistock House, Friday, September 19,1856," and signed " Charles Dickens."-Printed in thePreface to Mr. Sala's Essay on Charles Dickens. London:Routledge and Sons [ 1870], pp. ix., x.SEYMOUR, Robert:Letter dated " April, 1836. "-Printed at pp. 7-8 of the Life ofRobert Seymour, prefixed to a Collection of Seymour'sSketches. London: John Camden Hotten [ 1867].SMITH, Arthur:—Letter dated " Tavistock House, May 25, 1858," with a supplementary note, dated " Tavistock House, May 28, 1858,"signed " C. D."-Printed in Mackenzie's Life of Dickens,pp. 248-250.First printed in the New York Tribune, and copied afterwards into some of the English journals. " It had been addressed and given to Mr. Arthur Smith, as an authority for correction of false rumours and scandals, and Mr. Smith had given a copy of it , with like intention, to the Tribune corres pondent in London. Its writer referred to it always afterwards as his violated letter. ' "-FORSTER's Life ofDickens.STONE, Frank:Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, May 24, 1849," and signed " Charles Dickens. "-Printed in Mackenzie's Life of Dickens, p. 220.TALFOURD, Serjeant:Three Letters dated " Devonshire Terrace, April 27 " ( 1840),"Feb. 16, 1841 ," and " March 22, 1841," and signed "Charles Dickens. " - Printed in Mackenzie's Life of Dickens, pp. 214-215; 216, 217.THACKERAY, W. M.: —Letter dated " Tavistock House, Wednesday, November 24,1858," and signed "Charles Dickens.". - Printed in apamphlet entitled Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club, the Correspondence and Facts, stated by Edmund Yates. Printedfor private circulation. 1859, p. 13.THOMPSON, T. J.: —Letter dated " Devonshire Terrace, Thursday morning '[? February , 1840] , and signed " C. D. " -Printed in The Pen: A Journal of Literature ( May 22, 1880) , vol. i. ,pp. 15-16.">BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 359THORNBURY, Walter:Letter dated " Gad's- hill-place, Monday, August 5, 1867," andsigned " Charles Dickens."-Printed in Notes and Queries,5th S., vii. , p. 326 (April 28, 1877) .Refers to the series of " Old Stories Re-told, " which Mr. Thornbury was at that time writing for All the Year Round.YOUNG, Charles Mayne:Letter dated " Office of Household Words, July 1 , 1852,” and signed "Charles Dickens." - Printed in A Memoir ofCharles Mayne Young, Tragedian, with Extracts from his Son's Journal. London: Macmillan, 1871, vol. ii. ,pp. 158-159.360 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.ANA.IThe Reception of Mr. Dickens. With a steel engraving,drawn and engraved by A. Halbert from a bust by H.Dexter. -United States Magazine and Democratic Review,April, 1842, pp. 315-320.I*Report of the dinner given to Charles Dickens in Boston,February 1, 1842. Reported by Thomas Gill and WilliamEnglish, reporters of the Morning Post. Most of the speeches revised by their authors. Boston: William Crosby and Co.,1842, pp. 66, including title.2Dickens's American Notes. -Edinburgh Review, January, 1843(vol. lxxvi., pp. 497-522) . Reprinted in Reviews and Dis cussions Literary, Political and Historical, by James Spedding. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1879, pp. 240-276 (with long added Note by the writer).3CHARLES DICKENS, with portrait after a drawing by Miss M.Gillies.-A New Spirit of the Age, edited by R. H. Horne.London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1844, vol. i. , pp. 1-76.4Boz versus Dickens. - Parker's London Magazine, No. II.February, 1845, pp. 122-128. (London: John W. Parker,West Strand. )5The Fictions of Dickens upon Solitary Confinement. -Prisons and Prisoners, by Joseph Adshead. London: Longmanand Co., 1845, PP. 95-121.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.6The People's Portrait Gallery § Charles Dickens. The letter press by William Howitt, with portrait engraved by W. J.Linton, from a picture by Margaret_Gillies.-The People'sJournal, edited by John Saunders. London: 1846, vol. i.,pp. 8-12.7Facts and Figures from Italy. By Don Jeremy Savonarola,Benedictine Monk, addressed during the last two winters toCharles Dickens, Esq. , being an Appendix to his " Pictures."London: Richard Bentley, 1847, pp. 309, besides title and separate leaf of " Notice. "361NOTICE.Having engaged the Father who signs himself " D. J. Savonarola," to enter on this correspondence, it only remains for me to say that these are his Letters.CHARLES DICKENS."Broadstairs, Kent, July 1, 1847.The volume concludes with a "Poetical Epistle from Savonarola to Boz, "dated Genoa, December 14, 1837. This had already appeared in Bentley's Miscellany, January, 1838 , under Dickens's editorship, with the title of ' Poetical Epistle from Father Prout to ' Boz,' " which enables us to assign the authorship of the whole volume to Father Prout,8Notice of the final (double) number (Part xix.-xx. ) of Dombeyand Son.-Printed in The Sun, London, Thursday Evening,April 13, 1848.By Mr. Charles Kent. Dickens was so much pleased with this notice that he wrote a warm letter of thanks, which he desired the Editor to convey to the then unknown anonymous writer. This led to a life-long friendship between the novelist and his reviewer. (See Letters ofCharles Dickens, vol. i. ,pp. 186-188. )9The Living Authors of England, by Thomas Powell. New York, 1849. Pictures of the Living Authors of Britain, by Thomas Powell. London: Partridge and Oakey, 1851.The chapter on Charles Dickens occupies pp. 153-178 of the American,and pp. 88-115 of the English edition. Respecting Mr. Thomas Powell,the writer of this work, see Letters ofCharles Dickens, vol. iii. , p. 112.10 ·Notice of Barnaby Rudge. By Edgar Allan Poe. TheLiterati,some honest opinions about autorial merits and demerits, etc.By Edgar A. Poe. New York, 1850, pp. 464-482.362 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.IIThe Poetical and Prose Remains of Edward Marsh Heavisides.London: Longmans, 1850.Contains (pp. 1-27) five chapters " on the Writings of Charles Dickens. ”12Charles Dickens. Eine Charakteristik von Dr. Julian Schmidt.Leipzig Verlag von Carl B. Lorck, 1852, pp. 74.13Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleak House, Slavery and Slave Trade.Six articles by Lord Denman, reprinted from the Standard.-London: Longmans, 1853, pp. 51 .14Charles Dickens and his Philosophy. -Discourses on SpecialOccasions and Miscellaneous Papers. By C. Van Santvoord.New York, 1856, pp. 333-359.15Dickens's Bleak House. -Spectator, September 24 Re , 1853.printed in Essays by the late George Brimley. Cambridge:Macmillan and Co., 1858, pp. 289-301 .16IMMORTELLES FROM CHARLES DICKENS. By Ich. London:John Moxon, 28, Maddox-street, Regent-street. 1856, pp.195.17The License of Modern Novelists. -Edinburgh Review, July,1857 (vol. cvi. , pp. 124-156).A notice of Little Dorrit ( in connexion with Charles Reade's Never too late to Mend and Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë) which elicited a retort from the author (vide suprà, p. 340 § 67).18Royal Literary Fund. -A Summary of Facts drawn from theRecords of the Society, and issued by the Committee in answerto allegations contained in a pamphlet entitled " The Case ofthe Reformers of the Literary Fund: stated by Charles W.Dilke, Charles Dickens, and John Forster," together with aReport of the Proceedings at the last Annual Meeting,March 12, 1858 (privately printed), pp. 34.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.19Charles Dickens ( 1858).—Literary Studies, by the late Walter Bagehot. London: Longmans, 1879, vol. ii. , pp. 184-220.20363Our Contemporaries. No. 1.-Charles Dickens.1858, 16m0. , pp. 82.With portrait and facsimile of autograph.London,21Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Victoria. By J. CordyJeaffreson London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858. .The notice of Charles Dickens occupies Chapter xv. (pp. 303-334) of the second volume, the frontispiece to which is a portrait of Dickens, engraved by J. H. Baker.22British Novelists and their Styles: being a Critical Sketch ofthe History of British Prose Fiction. By David Masson,M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. , 1859 .Pages 233-253 are devoted to a consideration of Dickens andThackeray.23Dickens's Dogs; or the Landseer of Fiction. -London Society,an Illustrated Magazine, July, 1863 ( vol. iv. , pp. 48-61 ) .By Mr. Percy Fitzgerald .24Two English Essayists: Charles Lamb and Charles Dickens.By Percy Fitzgerald . Printed in The Afternoon Lectures onLiterature and Art, Second Series. London: Bell and Daldy.1864.The portion of the lecture devoted to Dickens occupies pp. 85-100.25Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise. Par H. Taine. Tom. iv.Les Contemporains. Paris, 1864.Livre v. , chapitre 1. Le Roman: Dickens, pp. 3.69.History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Translatedfrom the French by H. Van Laun. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1874.Vol. iv. chapter 1. " The Novel-Dickens, " 115-162.364 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens.26The Genius of Dickens. By E. P. Whipple.-Atlantic Monthly,May, 1867 (vol. xix., pp. 546-554).27THE GAD'S Hill Gazette: 1865, etc."A little journal which one of his younger children, now a clever and prosperous barrister, conducted and published. A friend had made him apresent of a boy's printing-press, and his father was glad to encourage this dawning literary taste. The little enterprise was maintained for a very long time, and was a pleasant official record for acquaintances of what went on at Gad's Hill. Some ofthe numbers had a greater and more ' grown up' interest, there being grotesque controversies carried on between the editor's father, who delighted in such an occasion, and some friend, such as the late Mr. Chorley. This gentleman wrote as to some coined grievance— it may have been real-of obstruction in the grounds, I think, over which he had fallen. Our host replied in his most delightful strain. Here, when unofficial, he was ever at his best. "-PERCY FITZGERALD'S Recreations ofaLiterary Man, vol. i . , pp. 165-171 ( where a facsimile of one of the numbers of the little Gazette is given).28The Dickens Controversy. - Printed in the American Publishers'Circular of June 1 , 1867, with letter to Messrs. Ticknor andFields, dated " Gad's-hill-place, April 16, 1867," and signed "Charles Dickens."Reprinted in the form of an Addendum of six pages at the end of Dr. Shelton Mackenzie's Life of Dickens.29Charles Dickens's Use of the Bible. -Temple Bar, September,1869 (vol. xxvii. , pp. , 225-234) .30Charles Dickens. By George Augustus Sala. London: GeorgeRoutledge and Sons [ 1870], pp. x. 144.The first sketch of this essay on the genius and character of Charles Dickens appeared on the day following his death in the Daily Telegraph (June 10, 1870) . It is here amplified to four times its original length.31In Memoriam. (A memorial notice of Charles Dickens, by Sir Arthur Helps.)-Macmillan's Magazine, July, 1870 (vol. xxii. ,pp. 236-240).BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens.32365Charles Dickens. By Alfred Austin. -Temple Bar, July, 1870 (vol. xxix. , pp. 554-562).33Sermon preached by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, in Westminster Abbey, June 19, 1870, being the Sunday following the funeral of Charles Dickens. London: Mac millan and Co., 1870, pp. 16.34Parables of Fiction: A Memorial Discourse on Charles Dickens.By James Panton Ham. [Delivered in Essex-street_Chapel,Strand, on Sunday, July 3, 1870.] Published by Request.London, Trübner and Co., 1870, pp. 16.35CHARLES DICKENS. THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. With Illustrations and Facsimiles. London: John Camden Hotten[1870] , pp. 367.Compiled by the publisher from materials mainly supplied by Mr. H. T. Taverner.36THE CHARLES DICKENS SALE.-Calalogue of the Collection ofModern Pictures, Water Colour Drawings, and Objects ofArt of the late Charles Dickens, with the whole of the names ofpurchasers and prices realized appended to each lot. Sold byauction by Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods, at theirGreat Rooms, 8, King-street, St. James's-square, on Saturday,July 9, 1870. 4to. Field and Tuer, 50, Leadenhall- street,pp. 11, in wrapper.37Some Memories of Charles Dickens. By J. T. Fields. Atlantic Monthly, August, 1870 (vol. xxvi. , pp. 235-245).38CHARLES DICKENS: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS.By F. B. PERKINS. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons,1870, pp. 264 (including title), with portrait and vignette of Gad's Hill."366 BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.39Charles Dickens, with Anecdotes and Recollections of his Life.Written and Compiled by William Watkins. London: TheNewsvendor's Publishing Company [ 1870], pp. 64, with wrapper and portrait.40LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. By R. SHELTON MACKENZIE,LL.D., with Personal Recollections and Anecdotes, Lettersnever before published, and uncollected Papers in prose and verse, pp. 484. Philadelphia: J. B. Peterson and Brothers.41Four Months with Charles Dickens, during his first visit toAmerica (in 1842 ) . By his Secretary [ G. W. Putnam].Printed in The Atlantic Monthly, October and November,1870 (vol. xxvi. , pp. 476-482, 591-599) .42Charles Dickens. A Lecture by Professor Ward, delivered inthe Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, November 30, 1870(Science Lectures, Second Series, No. 5 , pp. 236-259) .chester: John Heywood.Man43MODERN MEN By J. OF LETTERS HONESTLY CRITICISED.Hain Friswell. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1870.The chapter on Charles Dickens occupies the first forty-five pages of the book.44A CHRISTMAS MEMORIAL OF CHARLES DICKENS. By A. B. Hume. 1870.""This memorial contains a facsimile of Charles Dickens's Letter to Mr. J. M. Makeham , dated 'June 8, 1870," and an Ode to his memory,written, " says Mr. Forster, " with feeling and spirit. "1645Mr. Dickens's Amateur Theatricals. A Reminiscence. —Macmillan's Magazine, January, 1871 ( vol . xxiii. , pp. 206-215).1111——BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.46Bygone Celebrities. By R. H. Horne, Author of Orion.1. The Guild of Literature and Art at Chatsworth.2. Mr. Nightingale's Diary.-Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. vi. , N. S.,pp. 247-262; 660-672 (February and May, 1871 ).35747The Best of all Good Company: a Series of Daily Companions,etc., edited by Blanchard Jerrold. Part 1. -A_Day_with CHARLES DICKENS ( large 8vo. , in wrapper, pp. 62).The Introductory leaf is dated " June, 1871." Prefixed to the brochure is a folding-leaf of facsimile of a portion of a manuscript letter addressed to Mr. Blanchard Jerrold by Charles Dickens and containing recollections of his father, Douglas Jerrold , the text of which is included in the new Edition of Dickens's Collected Letters.48Dickens at Gadshill. -Lines, signed C. K. [Charles Kent].Printed in The Athenæum of June 3, 1871 ( p. 687) .49DIALOGUES FROM DICKENS. First and Second Series. 2 vols. ,fcp. 8vo, pp. 260, 335. Arranged by W. Eliot Fette, A.M.Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870-1871.50PEN PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.Taken from Life by Kate Field. [ 1868. ] Boston: Loring,pp. 58 (double columns).New and Enlarged Edition, with portrait and illustrations ( Preface dated December 25, 1870). Boston: James R. Osgood and Co. , 1871. London:Trübner and Co. , pp. iv. 152.51CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. By Charles Kent. London:Chapman and Hall, 1872, pp. vii. 271 , with two facsimiles of pages in the Reading-books.52Mr. Dickens and his Critics.Mr. Dickens as a Reader.Miscellanies, by John Hollingshead. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874, pp. 270-283.24368BIBLIOGRAPHYOF DICKENS.53The Youth of Dickens . -Chambers's Journal, January 13 and20, 1872, pp. 17-21 , 40-45.The Middle Age of Dickens. -Ibid. , February 1 , 1873, pp. 74-79.By Mr. James Payn, the well-known novelist.53*Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. By J. Herbert Stack. Fortnightly Review, January, 1872, pp. 117-120.54Dickens in Relation to Criticism. By George Henry Lewes.- Fortnightly Review, February, 1872, N. S., vol. xi. ,pp. 141-154.-55THE DICKENS DICTIONARY: A Key to the Characters andPrincipal Incidents in the Tales of Charles Dickens. ByGilbert A. Pierce, with additions by William A. Wheeler.Illustrated. Boston James R. Osgood and Co., 1872,pp. xv. 573- London: Chapman and Hall, 1878 (withPreface by Charles Dickens, jun. ) , pp. xvi. 607.56André Joubert.-Charles Dickens, sa vie et ses œuvres. Extraitdu Correspondant. Paris: Charles Douniol et Cie. , Libraires Editeurs, 29, Rue de Tournon, 1872, 8vo. , pp. 23, in wrapper.57A CYCLOPÆDIA OF THE BEST THOUGHTS OF CHARLESDICKENS. Compiled and alphabetically arranged by F. G. de Fontaine, New York: E. J. Hale and Sons, Murraystreet, 1873, pp. 564 (printed in double columns).58Charles Dickens. By Walter Irving. Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., pp. 30,1874.59Bric-a- Brac Series.-Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray andDickens. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. —New York:Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 1874.The Biography of Dickens occupies pp. 197-299 of the volume.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS. 36960THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. BY JOHN FORSTER. [InThree Volumes, with portraits, facsimiles, and other illustra tions. ] London: Chapman and Hall, 1872-1874. Vol. i.( 1812-1842 ) , pp. xviii. , 398, published 1872; vol. ii. ( 1842-1852) ,pp. xx. 462, published 1873; vol. iii . ( 1852-1870) , pp. xv. 552,published 1874.Library Edition, Revised. In Two Volumes. London; Chapman andHall, 1876. Vol. i. ( 1812-1847) , pp. xvi . 528; Vol. ii . ( 1847-1870) , pp. xiv.558.61" Our Mutual Friend " in Manuscript. -Scribner's Monthly, ' anIllustrated Magazine, vol. viii. , pp. 472-475 (August, 1874) .—Scribner and Co., New York.250.The MS. of "Our Mutual Friend " was presented by the author, inJanuary, 1866, to Mr. E. S. Dallas, and passed out of his possession into that of Mr. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia.62IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH CHARLES DICKENS. By James T. Fields. Boston: James R. Osgood and Co. , 1876, pp . 170.Reissued from “ Yesterdays with Authors. " London, 1872, pp. 12763DICKENS'S LONDON; or London in the Works of Charles Dickens. By T. Edgar Pemberton. London: SamuelTinsley, 1876, pp. 260.63*Charles Dickens on Bells. By George Delamere Cowan.Belgravia, Third Series ( 1876), vol. viii. (xxviii. ) , pp. 380-387.64Dickens and the Pickwick Papers. -Oliver Twist. - By EdwinP. Whipple.-Atlantic Monthly, August and October, 1876 (vol. xxxviii. pp. 219-224; 474-479).65Darwin, Carlyle, and Dickens, with other Essays. By SamuelDavey. London: James Clarke and Co. , n.d.The essay on Charles Dickens occupies pp. 119-156.370 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.6666 Our Letter, by M. F. Armstrong, with facsimile of a Letter datedGad's-hill- place, Monday, February 10, 1862," and signed "Charles Dickens. "-St. Nicholas: Scribner's IllustratedMagazine for Girls and Boys. New York, May, 1877 (vol.iv. , pp. 438-441 ).The letter itself, with a brief extract from the lengthy narrative preceding it , is reprinted in the Collected Letters of Charles Dickens , vol. ii. , pp.175-176.67Charles Dickens's Manuscripts. —Chambers'sJournal, November10, 1877, pp. 710-712.68Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. By Percy Fitzgerald .-Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1878, pp. 61-77.69The Modern Novel. -Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray. Essays inBiography and Criticism. By Peter Bayne, M.A. First Series. Boston: Gould and Lincoln , 1857 , pp. 363-392.STUDIES OF ENGLISH AUTHORS. By Peter Bayne, LL.D. No. V. CHARLES DICKENS. -Printed in The LiteraryWorld, March 21 to May 30, 1879.70BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF CHARLES DICKENS,with many curious and interesting particulars relating to his Works. By James Cook. Paisley: J. and J. Cook, Printers and Publishers, 1879, pp. 80. London: F. Kerslake, 1879,with Appendix, pp. 88, in wrapper.71Charles Dickens as a Journalist. By Charles Kent.--Printed in The Journalist, a Monthly Phonographic Magazine ( F.Pitman, 20, Paternoster-row), London, December, 1879 (vol.i. pp. 17-25).72Great Novelists: Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Lytton. ByJames Crabb Watt. Edinburgh: Macniven and Wallace.1880.The chapter on Dickens occupies pp. 163-212.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Dickens. 37173IN KENT WITH CHARLES DICKENS. By Thomas Frost.London: Tinsley Brothers. 1880, pp. viii. 312.74A Lost Work of Charles Dickens. By Richard Herne Shep herd.-Printed in The Pen: A Journal of Literature,October, 1880, pp. 311-312.75PHILOSOPHY OF CHARLES DICKENS. By the Hon. AlbertS. G. Canning. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1880,PP. 335.76ABOUT ENGLAND WITH DICKENS. By Alfred Rimmer. WithFifty- eight Illustrations by the Author, Charles A. Vanderhoof,and others. Square 8vo. London: Chatto and Windus,1883, pp. ix. 307.77A SHORT LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS LETTERS. BY CHARLES H. JONES. (Appleton'sNew Handy- Volume Series. ) New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1880, pp. 260.78Charles Dickens and Rochester. By Robert Langton. With numerous Illustrations from original drawings by the late William Hull and the Author. London: Chapman and Hall,1880, pp. 24.Reprinted, with additions, from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club (before whom it was read February 16, 1880) , vol. vi. (Manchester,1880) , pp. 148-166.79The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens. By RobertLangton. Illustrated by the Author. ( In preparation. ) Aspecimen has appeared in The Manchester Quarterly Review.80Charles Dickens as an Editor; Charles Dickens at Home.—Recreations ofa Literary Man. By Percy Fitzgerald. London:Chatto and Windus, 1882, vol. i . , pp. 48-171.The substance of these two papers had already appeared anonymously in The Gentleman's Magazine for June and November, 1881. The second paper is considerably enlarged in the book.372 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.81THE CHARLES DICKENS BIRTHDAY BOOK. Compiled andEdited by his Eldest Daughter. With five Illustrations by his Youngest Daughter. Fcp. 4to. London: Chapman and Hall, 1882.82English Men ofLetters. Edited byJohn Morley.DICKENS. BY ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD. London: Macmillan and Co. , 1882, pp.viii. 224.83Charles Dickens. By Mowbray Morris. -Fortnightly Review,December, 1882, pp. 762-779.84In a Catalogue dated April 29, 1882, issued by Messrs. Henry Sotheran and Co., Booksellers, of 36, Piccadilly, the followinginteresting and important collection was offered for sale:DICKENS (C. ) , AUTOGRAPH CORRESPONDENCE: being a seriesof 172 Interesting Letters on personal, literary, business, legal,and other matters, entirely in his handwriting, and extendingfrom an early period (about 1833) to 2nd June, 1870. To which are added some curious documents of a personalcharacter, also in his handwriting. Also 149 autograph lettersto Charles Dickens, from the following eminent persons:William Harrison Ainsworth (6letters ).Lord Ashley.Lady Blessington (2).Lord Brougham.Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) (5) .Robert Browning.George Cattermole (8).Charles Cowden Clarke.Baroness Burdett Coutts ( 10).George Cruikshank (6).Count D'Orsay (2).Dr. Elliotson (4).Albany Fonblanque.J. Forrest (Lord Provost of Edin burgh).W. P. Frith, R.A. Mrs. Gore (2).Captain Basil Hall (16).John Pritt Harley (Comedian) (2).Rev. W. Harness.Col. Sir E. Henderson.Lady Holland (4).Thomas Hood (2).Leigh Hunt.Washington Irving.Lord Jeffrey ( 10).Robert Keeley (Comedian).Walter Savage Landor ( 3).Charles Lever.Lord Lytton.Daniel Maclise, R.A. ( 14).W. C. Macready (13).Macvey Napier (3).Samuel Rogers (3).Sir M. A. Shee.Sydney Smith.Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. (3).Sir T. N. Talfourd (5).C. Hare Townshend (6).Benjamin Webster.Sir David Wilkie, etc.BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DICKENS.""The interest of this collection of Dickens's Letters cannot be overrated.Written as most of them were to one of his earliest friends and schoolfellows,who subsequently became his legal adviser, they embrace a number of per sonal matters which could not find admittance into a regular series of pub lished Correspondence. For instance, one of the earliest notes, dated from Bentinck- street, runs thus:-" Dear Tom, Will you transmit me by bearer,until Saturday, the enormous sum of 4s.? . I need not say I'm rather hard up this week.' Another (dated 7th November, 1866) to his solicitor,Mr. F. Ouvry, says: First ascertaining, beyond all reasonable possibility of doubt, that this vagabond's statement that I was drunk in his Theatre is libellous, -fire away.' In one of his letters to the same friend (3rd August,1868) he says: " I am fitting out another son for Australia, and another for Cambridge, and on the whole I am inclined to depart from the text of mydear friend Mrs. Gamp, and say, ' which blest is the man as has not his kiver full of sich. ' In another (10th June, 1865) he gives an account of the disastrous Railway Accident in which he was involved. His negotiations for acquiring additional land (at Gad's Hill ) show him to have been, like Shakespeare in similar circumstances, a good man of business. But Letters of much more importance, and of considerable length, are included. There are letters during his first tour in the United States, dated from Boston, Baltimore,Cincinnati, Niagara, and others from Genoa, etc. One of the most amusing is a long one (occupying 24 quarto pages) detailing his proceedings in taking a Cottage from Mrs. Prannall (not Samuell as printed) for his parents near Plymouth.373""There are also important letters connected with the publication of some of his Works, and his negotiations with the publishers-together with details of the profits, etc. , which have not yet found their way into print. Among these will be found the original letter to Mr. Macrone accepting his offer (with the terms) to publish a novel to be entitled " Gabriel Vardon, the Locksmith of London. '"The collection was arranged in two large volumes quarto, with blank leaves, illustrated by six India proof portraits of Dickens; and bound in morocco super extra, leather joints, gilt edges, in morocco cases.It waspriced £225.85SOME PASSAGES IN THE EARLY LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.By Hargrave Jennings, Author of " The Rosicrucians," etc.London: George Redway, 12, York-street, Covent Garden.[In Preparation.1ADDISON, his Spectator, 28, 89.Administrative Reform, Dickens'sspeech on, 162-172.Alison, Sir Archibald, 114, 115.American Notes, 22; quoted, 63 note.Arabian Nights, stories in, 91, 280.Arkwright, Sir Richard, 79.Artists' Benevolent Institution, 223225.in Ashley, Lord (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) , his earnestness works of benevolence, 130.Avanelleda, his second part of Don Quixote, 8.INDEX.""BABBAGE, Mr., his Bridgewater Treatise " referred to, 299.Bacon, quoted, 84.Bell, Mr. Robert, and the Royal Literary Fund, 175-176; 235.Bentley's Miscellany, edited by Dickens, 9.-46Black, Mr. John, of the Morning Chronicle, Dickens's tribute to, 248.Bleak House, 149.Bloomfield, Robert, 79.' Boz, " 3, 96.Bright, John, Dickens's tribute to, 308.Brougham, Lord, 290.Browne, Hablot K. , succeeds Sey mouras theillustrator ofPickwick, 8.Browning, Robert, a poem of his referred to by Dickens, 293.Buckle, Henry Thomas, quoted , 313.Burns, Robert, quoted, 50, 79, 86.CARLYLE, Thomas, quoted, 219; his French Revolution quoted, 304.Castlereagh, Lord, caution of, 130.Cervantes, 73.Christmas Card, A , 27-29; 151.Circumlocution Office, " the, 312.Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, 290.Cocker's Arithmetic, 169.Collins, Mr. Wilkie, 226.Commercial Travellers, 154-157.Copyright, International, Dickens's letter on, 19-21; 66.Coventry, 222.Crabbe, George, 79.Cruikshank, George, his illustrations to Sketches by Boz, 6; to Oliver Twist and Grimaldi, 9.Cunningham, Peter, his Handbook of London, 160.66DANA, R. H. , his Two Years before the Mast, 296.DICKENS, CHARLES, his birth and parentage, I; his early educationand school - days, 2-3; commences his career as a reporter, 4; his earliest " Sketches, " 5; as a drama tist, 6-7; his Sunday under ThreeHeads, 7-8; his Pickwick Papers,8; edits Bentley's Miscellany, 9;edits the Memoirs of Grimaldi,9-10; his Nicholas Nickleby, 10;Humphrey's Clock, 11-16; his first visit to America, 16, 19; banquet to, at Edinburgh, 16-19; his letter376 INDEX.on International Copyright, 19-21;his American Notes, 22; Martin Chuzzlewit, 22-23; his Preface to John Overs's Evenings of a Work ing Man, 24-27; his Christmas stories, 27-29; his Hard Times,30-31; his use of the Bible, 32 40; his public readings, 40—41;his whimsical anecdotes, 41-43;on the earthquake of October, 1853,43-44; his enthusiasm of humanity,' 44; his Edwin Drood, 45;death, and burial in Westminster Abbey, ib.Dickens, John, father of Charles Dickens, 1 , 2, 4, 5.Dufferin , Lord, speech of, at a ban quet to Dickens at Liverpool, 287,288.EASTLAKE, Sir Charles, 144, 147, 148.Edinburgh, banquet to Dickens at,49; description of the old town of,190; reading of Christmas Carolat,195.Edwin Drood, 45.Elliotson, Dr. , 26–27.FERGUSON, 79.Field, Kate, on the American portraits in Martin Chuzzlewit, 22-23.Forster, John, his Life of Dickens,quoted, 2, 4; his sonnet to Dickens,quoted, 44.Franklin, Benjamin, 79, 306.GARDENING, Dickens's speeches on,131-137.Gil Blas, 118.Giles, Mr. William, Dickens's school master, 2, 3.Gladstone, W. E. , his speech at the Academy Banquet of 1870, 322 323.Goldsmith, Oliver, 71, 160.Grant, Sir Francis, President of theRoyal Academy, 322, 323.Greeley, Horace, presides at a fare well dinner to Dickens in New York, 279.Grimaldi, Joseph, Memoirs of, edited by Dickens, 9.HARLEY, John Pritt, performs in Dickens's three dramatic pieces at the St. James's Theatre, 7.Hartford, 63.Hazlitt, William, on actors, 100;quoted, 114."6Hewett, Captain, testimonial to, 55 56.Hoskyns, Chandos Wren (author of Chronicles of a Clay Farm ") ,takes the chair at a banquet to Dickens at Coventry, 221; Dickens's tribute to, 222-223.Houghton, Lord, his charge against Dickens, 290, 291.Hullah, John, composes the musicfor Dickens's Village Coquettes, 7.INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT,Dickens's letter on, 19-21; 66.Irving, Washington, presides at abanquet to Dickens, 19; 68; his letter to Dickens, 70; Dickens's tribute to, 71-73.JEFFREY, Lord, on Dickens's Christ mas Carol, 27-28.Johnson, Dr. , quoted, 236, 245.KEAN, Charles, Dickens's tribute to,208-209.LAMB, Charles, on " Dream Children, " 194; quoted, 276.Layard, A. H., 162, 171.Longfellow, H. W. , his Village Black smith quoted, 216.Longley, Dr. , bishop of Ripon, his speech on Sanitary Reform, 128.Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer (after wards Lord Lytton) , presides at the Macready Banquet, 117; Dickens's tribute to, 120-121; his Lady of Lyons quoted, 215; entertains the Guild of Literature and Art at Kneb worth, 250-251; presides at abanquet to Dickens previous to his departure on his second visitINDEX.to America, 273; 290; his Lady of Lyons quoted, 300.MACE, James, 263.Maclise, Daniel, death of, 324; Dic kens's tribute to, ib.Macready, Dickens's speech at the banquet to, 117–121.Martin Chuzzlewit, 22, 23.Master Humphrey's Clock, II—16;61.Mayhew, Horace, 160.Mendelssohn, 142.Milnes, Richard Monckton, 291. See also HOUGHTON, Lord.Moore, George, Dickens's tribute to,159.Moore, Thomas, quoted, 175.More, Sir Thomas, 79.Motley, John Lothrop, 321.Nicholas Nickleby, 10.North, Christopher, presides at Edin burgh banquet to Dickens, 17; his speech on the occasion, 17-19; 49;his health proposed by Dickens,52, 53; remark to Dickens, 287.Oliver Twist, 9, 23.Overs, John, his Evenings ofa Work ing Man, 24-27.PALMERSTON, Lord, Dickens's apos trophe to, 172.Paxton, Sir Joseph, 122, 131, 132 133, 160.Pepys, Samuel, his Diary quoted, 165 -166; 257-258.Phillips, Sir Benjamin, Lord Mayor of London, 259-261; 320.Phiz, see BROWNE, Hablot K. Printers' Readers, 271-272.RAILWAY BENEVOLENT SOCIETY,265-270.Raleigh, Sir Walter, in the Tower, 79.Reuter, Julius, 238.Rip van Winkle, 72, 178.Rogers, Henry, his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, 144.Rowing Clubs, 262, 263.377Ruskin, John, on Dickens's Hard Times, 30-31.Russell, Lord John ( afterwards Earl Russell), Dickens's tribute to, 186;290.Russell, W. H., his health proposed by Dickens, 249.SANDFORD, Archdeacon, 140.Sanitary Reform, Dickens's speech on, 127-130.Scott, Sir Walter, 66-67.Seymour, Robert, his illustrations tothe Pickwick Papers, 8; his death ,ib.Shakespeare, quoted, 54; 60; 65,95, 96; 98; 114, 119; 123; 166;171; 210, 230, 232, 233; 274, 308,312.Sheffield cutlery, 173.Sketches by Boz, 5, 6.Smith, Albert, his Ascent of Mont Blanc, 160.Smith, Sydney, on "the foppery of universality," 307-308.Southey, Robert, his poem of TheHolly Tree, quoted by Dickens,115.Sparks, Timothy, pseudonym of Dickens, 7.Spectator, The, 28.Stanfield, Clarkson, his picture of " The Victory, " 147-148.Stirling, Mrs. , Dickens's tribute to,258.Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, over hears some private conversation of Dickens, 150.Strange Gentleman, The, a farce by Dickens, performed at the St. James's Theatre, 6-7.Sunday under Three Heads, 8.TENNYSON, Alfred, quoted, 88; 132;136.Thackeray, W. M. , on Dickens's Christmas Carol, 28-29; presides at a dinner of the Theatrical Fund,197; Dickens's tribute to hiswritings, 199; at Academy Pan quet of 1858, 202.378INDEX.VALENTINE'S DAY, 252-253 Village Coquettes, The, an opera, by Dickens, performed at the St.James's Theatre, 7.WALKINGHAME, his Tutor's Assistant, 169.Ward, A. W., his Life of Dickens,quoted, 3 , note.Ward, E. M., his picture of " CharlotteCorday going to Execution, " 142.Webster, Benjamin, 231.Westminster Abbey, grave of Dickens in, 45.Wilkie, Sir David, death of, 53-547 his Spanish monk, 324.Wilks, Thomas Egerton, and Gri maldi's Life, 9.Wilson, Professor, see NORTH, Chris topher.Wordsworth, William, sonnet of,alluded to by Dickens, 182.THE END.BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY32101013263692DATE ISSUEDOCT 18NOV 9NUYDATE DUENOV 238MAY 17,251300

Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Speeches of Charles Dickens" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

(Video) Dickens at 200: Why Keep Reading Him Today?

Retrieved from "http://www.artandpopularculture.com/The_Speeches_of_Charles_Dickens"

The Speeches of Charles Dickens (2023)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Full text

Videos