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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16787-8.txt b/16787-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c997f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/16787-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7728 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life of Charles Dickens, by Frank Marzials + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Life of Charles Dickens + + +Author: Frank Marzials + + + +Release Date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #16787] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +E-text prepared by Jason Isbell, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Great Writers. + +Edited by + +Eric S. Robertson, M.A., + +Professor of English Literature and Philosophy in the University of +the Punjab, Lahore. + + + +[Illustration: Portrait of Dickens] + + + +LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS + +by + +FRANK T. MARZIALS + +London +Walter Scott +24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row + +1887 + + + + + + + +NOTE. + + +That I should have to acknowledge a fairly heavy debt to Forster's +"Life of Charles Dickens," and "The Letters of Charles Dickens," +edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, is almost a +matter of course; for these are books from which every present and +future biographer of Dickens must perforce borrow in a more or less +degree. My work, too, has been much lightened by Mr. Kitton's +excellent "Dickensiana." + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + PAGE + +The lottery of education; Charles Dickens born February 7, +1812; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood; +happy days at Chatham; family troubles; similarity between +little Charles and David Copperfield; John Dickens +taken to the Marshalsea; his character; Charles employed +in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about +this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into +family and prison circle; family in comparative comfort at +the Marshalsea; father released; Charles leaves the +blacking business; his mother; he is sent to Wellington +House Academy in 1824; character of that place of learning; +Dickens masters its humours thoroughly. 11 + + +CHAPTER II. + +Dickens becomes a solicitor's clerk in 1827; then a reporter; +his experiences in that capacity; first story published in +_The Old Monthly Magazine_ for January, 1834; writes more +"Sketches"; power of minute observation thus early +shown; masters the writer's art; is paid for his contributions +to the _Chronicle_; marries Miss Hogarth on April 2, +1836; appearance at that date; power of physical endurance; +admirable influence of his peculiar education; +and its drawbacks 27 + + +CHAPTER III. + +Origin of "Pickwick"; Seymour's part therein; first number +published on April 1, 1836; early numbers not a success; +suddenly the book becomes the rage; English literature +just then in want of its novelist; Dickens' kingship +acknowledged; causes of the book's popularity; its admirable +humour, and other excellent qualities; Sam Weller; +Mr. Pickwick himself; book read by everybody 40 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Dickens works "double tides" from 1836 to 1839; appointed +editor of _Bentley's Miscellany_ at beginning of 1837, and +commences "Oliver Twist"; _Quarterly Review_ predicts +his speedy downfall; pecuniary position at this time; +moves from Furnival's Inn to Doughty Street; death of +his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth; his friendships; absence +of all jealousy in his character; habits of work; riding and +pedestrianizing; walking in London streets necessary to the +exercise of his art 49 + + +CHAPTER V. + +"Oliver Twist"; analysis of the book; doubtful probability of +Oliver's character; "Nicholas Nickleby"; its wealth of +character; _Master Humphrey's Clock_ projected and begun +in April, 1840; the public disappointed in its expectations +of a novel; "Old Curiosity Shop" commenced, and miscellaneous +portion of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ dropped; +Dickens' fondness for taking a child as his hero or +heroine; Little Nell; tears shed over her sorrows; general +admiration for the pathos of her story; is such admiration +altogether deserved? Paul Dombey more natural; Little +Nell's death too declamatory as a piece of writing; Dickens +nevertheless a master of pathos; "Barnaby Rudge"; a +historical novel dealing with times of the Gordon riots 57 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Dickens starts for United States in January, 1842; had been +splendidly received a little before at Edinburgh; why he +went to the United States; is enthusiastically welcomed; +at first he is enchanted; then expresses the greatest disappointment; +explanation of the change; what the +Americans thought of _him_; "American Notes"; his +views modified on his second visit to America in 1867-8; +takes to fierce private theatricals for rest; delight of the +children on his return to England; an admirable father 71 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Dickens again at work and play; publication of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" begun in January, 1843; plot not Dickens' +strong point; this not of any vital consequence; a novel +not really remembered by its story; Dickens' books often +have a higher unity than that of plot; selfishness the +central idea of "Martin Chuzzlewit"; a great book, and +yet not at the time successful; Dickens foresees money embarrassments; +publishes the admirable "Christmas Carol" +at Christmas, 1843; and determines to go for a space to +Italy 84 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Journey through France; Genoa; the Italy of 1844; Dickens +charmed with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a +few weeks; his palace at Genoa; he sets to work upon "The +Chimes"; gets passionately interested in the little book; +travels through Italy to read it to his friends in London; +reads it on December 2, 1844; is soon back again in Italy; +returns to London in the summer of 1845; on January 21, +1846, starts _The Daily News_; holds the post of editor three +weeks; "Pictures from Italy" first published in _Daily News_ 93 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to +Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has +great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle +of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the +subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' +treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism +thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private +theatricals again; the "Haunted Man"; "David Copperfield" +begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point +in Dickens' career as a writer; _Household Words_ started +on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its +successor, _All the Year Round_; domestic sorrows cloud +the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year +from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins +"Bleak House"; story of the novel; its Chancery episodes; +Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant +quarters at Boulogne 102 + + +CHAPTER X. + +Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, +1853; was it _infra dig._ that he should read for money? he +begins his paid readings in April, 1858; reasons for their +success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their +dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them; how the +tones of Dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who +heard him 121 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"Hard Times" commenced in _Household Words_ for April 1, +1854; it is an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; +what Macaulay and Mr. Ruskin thought of it; +the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for "Administrative +Reform"; Dickens in the thick of the movement; +"Little Dorrit" and the "Circumlocution Office"; character +of Mr. Dorrit admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris +from December, 1855, to May, 1856; he buys Gad's Hill +Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with +his wife; and separation in May 1858; lying rumours; how +these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the +love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant +protest in _Household Words_; and writes an unjustifiable +letter 126 + + +CHAPTER XII. + +"The Tale of Two Cities," a story of the great French Revolution; +Phiz's connection with Dickens' works comes to +an end; his art and that of Cruikshank; both too essentially +caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the +illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; "Great Expectations"; +its story and characters; "Our Mutual Friend" +begun in May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens' +extraordinary sympathy for Eugene Wrayburn; generally +his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why +his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great real +refinement 139 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Dickens' health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident +in June, 1865; but bates no jot of his high courage, +and works on at his readings; sails for America on a +reading tour in November, 1867; is wretchedly ill, and yet +continues to read day after day; comes back to England, +and reads on; health failing more and more; reading has +to be abandoned for a time; begins to write his last and +unfinished book, "Edwin Drood"; except health all +seems well with him; on June 8, 1870, he works at his +book nearly all day; at dinner time is struck down; dies +on the following day, June the 9th; is buried in Westminster +Abbey among his peers; nor will his fame suffer +eclipse 149 + + +INDEX 163 + + + + +LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Education is a kind of lottery in which there are good and evil +chances, and some men draw blanks and other men draw prizes. And in +saying this I do not use the word education in any restricted sense, +as applying exclusively to the course of study in school or college; +nor certainly, when I speak of prizes, am I thinking of scholarships, +exhibitions, fellowships. By education I mean the whole set of +circumstances which go to mould a man's character during the +apprentice years of his life; and I call that a prize when those +circumstances have been such as to develop the man's powers to the +utmost, and to fit him to do best that of which he is best capable. +Looked at in this way, Charles Dickens' education, however untoward +and unpromising it may often have seemed while in the process, must +really be pronounced a prize of value quite inestimable. + +His father, John Dickens, held a clerkship in the Navy Pay Office, and +was employed in the Portsmouth Dockyard when little Charles first came +into the world, at Landport, in Portsea, on February 7, 1812. Wealth +can never have been one of the familiar friends of the household, nor +plenty have always sat at its board. Charles had one elder sister, and +six other brothers and sisters were afterwards added to the family; +and with eight children, and successive removals from Portsmouth to +London, and London to Chatham, and no more than the pay of a +Government clerk[1]--pay which not long afterwards dwindled to a +pension,--even a better domestic financier than the elder Dickens +might have found some difficulty in facing his liabilities. It was +unquestionably into a tottering house that the child was born, and +among its ruins that he was nurtured. + +But through all these early years I can do nothing better than take +him for my guide, and walk as it were in his companionship. Perhaps no +novelist ever had a keener feeling of the pathos of childhood than +Dickens, or understood more fully how real and overwhelming are its +sorrows. No one, too, has entered more sympathetically into its ways. +And of the child and boy that he himself had once been, he was wont to +think very tenderly and very often. Again and again in his writings he +reverts to the scenes and incidents and emotions of his earlier days. +Sometimes he goes back to his young life directly, speaking as of +himself. More often he goes back to it indirectly, placing imaginary +children and boys in the position he had once occupied. Thus it is +almost possible, by judiciously selecting from his works, and using +such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of +autobiography. Nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's +tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic +aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life +should convey a false impression. + +He was but two years old when his father left Portsea for London, and +but four when a second migration took the family to Chatham. Here we +catch our first glimpse of him, in his own word-painting, as a "very +queer small boy," a small boy who was sickly and delicate, and could +take but little part in the rougher sports of his school companions, +but read much, as sickly boys will--read the novels of the older +novelists in a "blessed little room," a kind of palace of enchantment, +where "'Roderick Random,' 'Peregrine Pickle,' 'Humphrey Clinker,' 'Tom +Jones,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Don Quixote, 'Gil Blas,' and +'Robinson Crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep him company." +And the queer small boy had read Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," too, and +knew all about Falstaff's robbery of the travellers at Gad's Hill, on +the rising ground between Rochester and Gravesend, and all about mad +Prince Henry's pranks; and, what was more, he had determined that when +he came to be a man, and had made his way in the world, he should own +the house called Gad's Hill Place, with the old associations of its +site, and its pleasant outlook over Rochester and over the low-lying +levels by the Thames. Was that a child's dream? The man's tenacity and +steadfast strength of purpose turned it into fact. The house became +the home of his later life. It was there that he died. + +But death was a long way forward in those old Chatham days; nor, as +the time slipped by, and his father's pecuniary embarrassments began +to thicken, and make the forward ways of life more dark and difficult, +could the purchase of Gad's Hill Place have seemed much less remote. +There is one of Dickens' works which was his own special favourite, +the most cherished, as he tells us, among the offspring of his brain. +That work is "David Copperfield." Nor can there be much difficulty in +discovering why it occupied such an exceptional position in "his heart +of hearts;" for in its pages he had enshrined the deepest memories of +his own childhood and youth. Like David Copperfield, he had known what +it was to be a poor, neglected lad, set to rough, uncongenial work, +with no more than a mechanic's surroundings and outlook, and having to +fend for himself in the miry ways of the great city. Like David +Copperfield, he had formed a very early acquaintance with debts and +duns, and been initiated into the mysteries and sad expedients of +shabby poverty. Like David Copperfield, he had been made free of the +interior of a debtor's prison. Poor lad, he was not much more than ten +or eleven years old when he left Chatham, with all the charms that +were ever after to live so brightly in his recollection,--the gay +military pageantry, the swarming dockyard, the shifting sailor life, +the delightful walks in the surrounding country, the enchanted room, +tenanted by the first fairy day-dreams of his genius, the day-school, +where the master had already formed a good opinion of his parts, +giving him Goldsmith's "Bee" as a keepsake. This pleasant land he left +for a dingy house in a dingy London suburb, with squalor for +companionship, no teaching but the teaching of the streets, and all +around and above him the depressing hideous atmosphere of debt. With +what inimitable humour and pathos has he told the story of these +darkest days! Substitute John Dickens for Mr. Micawber, and Mrs. +Dickens for Mrs. Micawber, and make David Copperfield a son of Mr. +Micawber, a kind of elder Wilkins, and let little Charles Dickens be +that son--and then you will have a record, true in every essential +respect, of the child's life at this period. "Poor Mrs. Micawber! she +said she had tried to exert herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. +The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great +brass-plate, on which was engraved 'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding +Establishment for Young Ladies;' but I never found that any young lady +had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or +proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to +receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of were +creditors. _They_ used to come at all hours, and some of them were +quite ferocious." Even such a plate, bearing the inscription, _Mrs. +Dickens's Establishment_, ornamented the door of a house in Gower +Street North, where the family had hoped, by some desperate effort, to +retrieve its ruined fortunes. Even so did the pupils refuse the +educational advantages offered to them, though little Charles went +from door to door in the neighbourhood, carrying hither and thither +the most alluring circulars. Even thus was the place besieged by +assiduous and angry duns. And when, in the ordinary course of such sad +stories, Mr. Dickens is arrested for debt, and carried off to the +Marshalsea prison,[2] he moralizes over the event in precisely the +same strain as Mr. Micawber, using, indeed, the very same words, and +calls on his son, with many tears, "to take warning by the Marshalsea, +and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent +nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; +but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched." + +The son was taking note of other things besides these moral apothegms, +and reproduced, in after days, with a quite marvellous detail and +fidelity, all the incidents of his father's incarceration. Probably, +too, he was beginning, as children will, almost unconsciously, to form +some estimate of his father's character. And a very queer study in +human nature _that_ must have been, giving Dickens, when once he had +mastered it, a most exceptional insight into the ways of +impecuniosity. Charles Lamb, as we all remember, divided mankind into +two races, the mighty race of the borrowers, and the mean race of the +lenders; and expatiated, with a whimsical and charming eloquence, upon +the greatness of one Bigod, who had been as a king among those who by +process of loan obtain possession of other people's money. Shift the +line of division a little, so that instead of separating borrowers and +lenders, it separates those who pay their debts from those who do not +pay them, and then Dickens the elder may succeed to something of +Bigod's kingship. He was of the great race of debtors, possessing +especially that _ideal_ quality of mind on which Lamb laid such +stress. Imagination played the very mischief with him. He had +evidently little grasp of fact, and moved in a kind of haze, through +which all clear outlines would show blurred and unreal. +Sometimes--most often, perhaps--that haze would be irradiated with +sanguine visionary hopes and expectations. Sometimes it would be +fitfully darkened with all the horrors of despair. But whether in +gloom or gleam, the realities of his position would be lost. He never, +certainly, contracted a debt which he did not mean honourably to pay. +But either he had never possessed the faculty of forming a just +estimate of future possibilities, or else, through the indulgence of +what may be called a vague habit of thought, he had lost the power of +seeing things as they are. Thus all his excellencies and good gifts +were neutralized at this time, so far as his family were concerned, +and went for practically nothing. He was, according to his son's +testimony, full of industry, most conscientious in the discharge of +any business, unwearying in loving patience and solicitude when those +bound to him by blood or friendship were ill or in trouble, "as +kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world." Yet as +debts accumulated, and accommodation bills shed their baleful shadow +on his life, and duns grew many and furious, he became altogether +immersed in mean money troubles, and suffered the son who was to shed +such lustre on his name to remain for a time without the means of +learning, and to sink first into a little household drudge, and then +into a mere warehouse boy. + +So little Charles, aged from eleven to twelve, first blacked boots, +and minded the younger children, and ran messages, and effected the +family purchases--which can have been no pleasant task in the then +state of the family credit,--and made very close acquaintance with the +inside of the pawnbrokers' shops, and with the purchasers of +second-hand books, disposing, among other things, of the little store +of books he loved so well; and then, when his father was imprisoned, +ran more messages hither and thither, and shed many childish tears in +his father's company--the father doubtless regarding the tears as a +tribute to his eloquence, though, heaven knows, there were other +things to cry over besides his sonorous periods. After which a +connection, James Lamert by name, who had lived with the family before +they moved from Camden Town to Gower Street, and was manager of a +worm-eaten, rat-riddled blacking business, near old Hungerford Market, +offered to employ the lad, on a salary of some six shillings a week, +or thereabouts. The duties which commanded these high emoluments +consisted of the tying up and labelling of blacking pots. At first +Charles, in consideration probably of his relationship to the manager, +was allowed to do his tying, clipping, and pasting in the +counting-house. But soon this arrangement fell through, as it +naturally would, and he descended to the companionship of the other +lads, similarly employed, in the warehouse below. They were not bad +boys, and one of them, who bore the name of Bob Fagin, was very kind +to the poor little better-nurtured outcast, once, in a sudden attack +of illness, applying hot blacking-bottles to his side with much +tenderness. But, of course, they were rough and quite uncultured, and +the sensitive, bookish, imaginative child felt that there was +something uncongenial and degrading in being compelled to associate +with them. Nor, though he had already sufficient strength of character +to learn to do his work well, did he ever regard the work itself as +anything but unsuitable, and almost discreditable. Indeed it may be +doubted whether the iron of that time did not unduly rankle and fester +as it entered into his soul, and whether the scar caused by the wound +was altogether quite honourable. He seems to have felt, in connection +with his early employment in a warehouse, a sense of shame such as +would be more fittingly associated with the commission of an unworthy +act. That he should not have habitually referred to the subject in +after life, may readily be understood. But why he should have kept +unbroken silence about it for long years, even with his wife, even +with so very close a friend as Forster, is less clear. And in the +terms used, when the revelation was finally made to Forster, there has +always, I confess, appeared to me to be a tone of exaggeration. "My +whole nature," he says, "was so penetrated with grief and humiliation, +... that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my +dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man, and +wander desolately back to that time of my life." And again: "From that +hour until this, at which I write, no word of that part of my +childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my +lips to any human being.... I have never, until I now impart it to +this paper, in any burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not +excepted, raised the curtain I then dropped, thank God." Great part, +perhaps the greatest part, of Dickens' success as a writer, came from +the sympathy and power with which he showed how the lower walks of +life no less than the higher are often fringed with beauty. I have +never been able to entirely divest myself of a slight feeling of the +incongruous in reading what he wrote about the warehouse episode in +his career. + +At first, when he began his daily toil at the blacking business, some +poor dregs of family life were left to the child. His father was at +the Marshalsea. But his mother and brothers and sisters were, to use +his own words, "still encamped, with a young servant girl from Chatham +workhouse, in the two parlours in the emptied house in Gower Street +North." And there he lived with them, in much "hugger-mugger," merely +taking his humble midday meal in nomadic fashion, on his own account. +Soon, however, his position became even more forlorn. The paternal +creditors proved insatiable. The gipsy home in Gower Street had to be +broken up. Mrs. Dickens and the children went to live at the +Marshalsea. Little Charles was placed under the roof--it cannot be +called under the care--of a "reduced old lady," dwelling in Camden +Town, who must have been a clever and prophetic old lady if she +anticipated that her diminutive lodger would one day give her a kind +of indirect unenviable immortality by making her figure, under the +name of "Mrs. Pipchin," in "Dombey and Son." Here the boy seems to +have been left almost entirely to his own devices. He spent his +Sundays in the prison, and, to the best of his recollection, his +lodgings at "Mrs. Pipchin's" were paid for. Otherwise, he "found +himself," in childish fashion, out of the six or seven weekly +shillings, breakfasting on two pennyworth of bread and milk, and +supping on a penny loaf and a bit of cheese, and dining hither and +thither, as his boy's appetite dictated--now, sensibly enough, on _à +la mode_ beef or a saveloy; then, less sensibly, on pudding; and anon +not dining at all, the wherewithal having been expended on some +morning treat of cheap stale pastry. But are not all these things, the +lad's shifts and expedients, his sorrows and despair, his visits to +the public-house, where the kindly publican's wife stoops down to kiss +the pathetic little face--are they not all written in "David +Copperfield"? And if so be that I have a reader unacquainted with that +peerless book, can I do better than recommend him, or her, to study +therein the story of Dickens' life at this particular time? + +At last the child's solitude and sorrows seem to have grown +unbearable. His fortitude broke down. One Sunday night he appealed to +his father, with many tears, on the subject, not of his employment, +which he seems to have accepted at the time manfully, but of his +forlornness and isolation. The father's kind, thoughtless heart was +touched. A back attic was found for Charles near the Marshalsea, at +Lant Street, in the Borough--where Bob Sawyer, it will be remembered, +afterwards invited Mr. Pickwick to that disastrous party. The boy +moved into his new quarters with the same feeling of elation as if he +had been entering a palace. + +The change naturally brought him more fully into the prison circle. He +used to breakfast there every morning, before going to the warehouse, +and would spend the larger portion of his spare time among the +inmates. Nor do Mr. Dickens and his family, and Charles, who is to us +the family's most important member, appear to have been relatively at +all uncomfortable while under the shadow of the Marshalsea. There is +in "David Copperfield" a passage of inimitable humour, where Mr. +Micawber, enlarging on the pleasures of imprisonment for debt, +apostrophizes the King's Bench Prison as being the place "where, for +the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of +pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by +importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no +knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal +service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely +at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the +tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in +his affliction by saying: "We are quiet here; we don't get badgered +here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors, +and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a +man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door-mat till he is. +Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's +freedom, sir, it's freedom!" One smiles as one reads; and it adds a +pathos, I think, to the smile, to find that these are records of +actual experience. The Marshalsea prison was to Mr. Dickens a haven of +peace, and to his household a place of plenty. Not only could he +pursue his career there untroubled by fears of arrest, but he +exercised among the other "gentlemen gaol-birds" a supremacy, a kind +of kingship, such as that to which Charles Lamb referred. They +recognized in him the superior spirit, ready of pen, and affluent of +speech, and with a certain grandeur in his conviviality. He it was +who drew up their memorial to George of England on an occasion no less +important than the royal birthday, when they, the monarch's +"unfortunate subjects,"--so they were described in the +memorial--besought the king's "gracious majesty," of his "well-known +munificence," to grant them a something towards the drinking of the +royal health. (Ah, with what keen eyes and penetrative genius did +little Charles, from his corner, watch the strange sad stream of +humanity that trickled through the room, and may be said to have +_smeared_ its approval of that petition!) And while Mr. Dickens was +enjoying his prison honours, he was also enjoying his Admiralty +pension,[3] which was not forfeited by his imprisonment; and his wife +and children were consequently enjoying a larger measure of the +necessaries of life than had been theirs for many a month. So all went +on merrily enough at the Marshalsea. + +But even under the old law, imprisonment for debt did not always last +for ever. A legacy, and the Insolvent Debtors Act, enabled Mr. Dickens +to march out of durance, in some sort with the honours of war, after a +few months' incarceration--this would be early in 1824;--and he went +with his family, including Charles, to lodge with the "Mrs. Pipchin" +already mentioned. Charles meanwhile still toiled on in the blacking +warehouse, now removed to Chandos Street, Covent Garden; and had +reached such skill in the tying, pasting, and labelling of the +bottles, that small crowds used to collect at the window for the +purpose of watching his deft fingers. There was pride in this, no +doubt, but also humiliation; and release was at hand. His father and +Lamert quarrelled about something--about _what_, Dickens seems never +to have known--and he was sent home. Mrs. Dickens acted the part of +the peacemaker on the next day, probably feeling that amid the shadowy +expectations on which she and her husband had subsisted for so long, +even six or seven shillings a week was something tangible, and not to +be despised. Yet in spite of this, he did not return to the business. +His father decided that he should go to school. "I do not write +resentfully or angrily," said Dickens, in the confidential +communication made long afterwards to Forster, and to which reference +has already been made; "but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall +forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent +back." + +The mothers of great men is a subject that has been handled often, and +eloquently. How many of those who have achieved distinction can trace +their inherited gifts to a mother's character, and their acquired +gifts to a mother's teaching and influence. Mrs. Dickens seems not to +have been a mother of this stamp. She scarcely, I fear, possessed +those admirable qualities of mind and heart which one can clearly +recognize as having borne fruit in the greatness and goodness of her +famous son. So far as I can discover, she exercised no influence upon +him at all. Her name hardly appears in his biographies. He never, that +I can recollect, mentions her in his correspondence; only refers to +her on the rarest occasions. And perhaps, on the whole, this is not to +be wondered at, if we accept the constant tradition that she had, +unknown to herself, sat to her son for the portrait of Mrs. Nickleby, +and suggested to him the main traits in the character of that +inconsequent and not very wise old lady. Mrs. Nickleby, I take it, was +not the kind of person calculated to form the mind of a boy of genius. +As well might one expect some very domestic bird to teach an eaglet +how to fly. + +The school to which our callow eaglet was sent (in the spring or early +summer of 1824), belonged emphatically to the old school of schools. +It bore the goodly name of _Wellington House Academy_, and was +situated in Mornington Place, near the Hampstead Road. A certain Mr. +Jones held chief rule there; and as more than fifty years have now +elapsed since Dickens' connection with the establishment ceased, I +trust there may be nothing libellous in giving further currency to his +statement, or rather, perhaps, to his recorded impression,[4] that the +head master's one qualification for his office was dexterity in the +use of the cane;--especially as another "old boy" corroborates that +impression, and declares Mr. Jones to have been "a most ignorant +fellow, and a mere tyrant." Dickens, however, escaped with +comparatively little beating, because he was a day-boy, and sound +policy dictated that day-boys, who had facilities for carrying home +their complaints, should be treated with some leniency. So he had to +get his learning without tears, which was not at all considered the +orthodox method in the good old days; and, indeed, I doubt if he +finally took away from Wellington House Academy very much of the book +knowledge that would tell in a modern competitive examination. For +though in his own account of the school it is implied that he resumed +his interrupted studies with Virgil, and was, before he left, head +boy, and the possessor of many prizes, yet this is not corroborated by +the evidence of his surviving fellow pupils; nor can we, of course, in +the face of their direct counter evidence, treat statements made in a +fictitious or half-fictitious narrative as if made in what professed +to be a sober autobiography. Dickens, I repeat, seems to have acquired +a very scant amount of classic lore while under the instruction of Mr. +Jones, and not too much lore of any kind. But if he learned little, he +observed much. He thoroughly mastered the humours of the place, just +as he had mastered the humours of the Marshalsea. He had got to know +all about the masters, and all about the boys, and all about the white +mice--of which there were many in various stages of civilization. He +acquired, in short, a fund of school knowledge that seemed +inexhaustible, and on which he drew again and again, with the most +excellent results, in "David Copperfield," in "Dombey," in such +inimitable short papers as "Old Cheeseman." And while thus, half +unconsciously perhaps, assimilating the very life of the school, he +was himself a thorough schoolboy, bright, alert, intelligent; taking +part in all fun and frolic; amply indemnifying himself for his +enforced abstinence from childish games during the dreary warehouse +days; good at recitations and mimic plays; and already possessed of a +reputation among his peers as a writer of tales. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] £200 a year "without extras" from 1815 to 1820, and then £350. See +"Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens," by Robert Langton, a very +valuable monograph. + +[2] Mr. Langton appears to doubt whether John Dickens was not +imprisoned in the King's Bench. But this seems scarcely a point on +which Dickens himself can have been mistaken. + +[3] According to Mr. Langton's dates, he would still be drawing his +pay. + +[4] See paper entitled "Our School." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Dickens cannot have been very long at Wellington House Academy, for +before May, 1827, he had been at another school near Brunswick Square, +and had also obtained, and quitted, some employment in the office of a +solicitor in New Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields. It seems clear, +therefore, that the whole of his school life might easily be computed +in months; and in May, 1827, it will be remembered, he was still but a +lad of fifteen. At that date he entered the office of a second +solicitor, in Gray's Inn this time, on a salary of thirteen shillings +and sixpence a week, afterwards increased to fifteen shillings. Here +he remained till November, 1828, again picking up a good deal of +information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but +such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. He would +seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, +from the topmost Tulkinghorns and Perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers +like Pell and Brass, and also to have given particular attention to +the parasites of the law--the Guppys and Chucksters; and altogether to +have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of +invaluable notes and observations. All very well, no doubt, as we +look at the matter now. But then it must often have seemed to the +ambitious, energetic lad, that he was wasting his time. Was he to +remain for ever a lawyer's clerk who has not the means to be an +articled clerk, and who can never, therefore, aspire to become a +full-blown solicitor? Was he to spend the future obscurely in the +dingy purlieus of the law? His father, in whose career "something," as +Mr. Micawber would have said, had at last "turned up," was now a +reporter for the press. The son determined to be a reporter too. + +He threw himself into this new career with characteristic energy. Of +course a reporter is not made in a day. It takes many months of +drudgery to obtain such skill in shorthand as shall enable the pen of +the ready-writer to keep up with the winged words of speech, and make +dots and lines that shall be readable. Dickens laboured hard to +acquire the art. In the intervals of his work he made it a kind of +holiday task to attend the Reading-room of the British Museum, and so +remedy the defects in the literary part of his education. But the best +powers of his mind were directed to "Gurney's system of shorthand." +And in time he had his reward. He earned and justified the reputation +of being one of the best reporters of his day. + +I shall not quote the autobiographical passages in "David Copperfield" +which bear on the difficulties of stenography. The book is in +everybody's hands. But I cannot forego the pleasure of brightening my +pages with Dickens' own description of his experiences as a reporter, +a description contained in one of those charming felicitous speeches +of his which are almost as unique in kind as his novels. Speaking in +May, 1865, as chairman of a public dinner on behalf of the Newspaper +Press Fund, he said: "I have pursued the calling of a reporter under +circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in England here, +many of my modern successors, can form no adequate conception. I have +often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important +public speeches, in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a +mistake in which would have been, to a young man, severely +compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark +lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, +and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of +fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled +into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, +the spot on which I once took, as we used to call it, an election +speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight +maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and +under such pelting rain, that I remember two good-natured colleagues, +who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my +note-book, after the manner of a State canopy in an ecclesiastical +procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back +row of the old gallery in the old House of Commons; and I have worn my +feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of +Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept +in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning +home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting +press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every +description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my +time, belated in miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or +fifty miles from London, in a wheel-less carriage, with exhausted +horses, and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for +publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the +late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of +hearts I ever knew." + +What shall I add to this? That the papers on which he was engaged as a +reporter, were _The True Sun_, _The Mirror of Parliament_, and _The +Morning Chronicle_; that long afterwards, little more than two years +before his death, when addressing the journalists of New York, he gave +public expression to his "grateful remembrance of a calling that was +once his own," and declared, "to the wholesome training of severe +newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my +first success;" that his income as a reporter appears latterly to have +been some five guineas a week, of course in addition to expenses and +general breakages and damages; that there is independent testimony to +his exceptional quickness in reporting and transcribing, and to his +intelligence in condensing; that to an observer so keen and apt, the +experiences of his business journeys in those more picturesque and +eventful ante-railway days must have been invaluable; and, finally, +that his connection with journalism lasted far into 1836, and so did +not cease till some months after "Pickwick" had begun to add to the +world's store of merriment and laughter. + +But I have not really reached "Pickwick" yet, nor anything like it. +That master-work was not also a first work. With all Dickens' genius, +he had to go through some apprenticeship in the writer's art before +coming upon the public as the most popular novelist of his time. Let +us go back for a little to the twilight before the full sunrise, nay, +to the earliest streak upon the greyness of night, to his first +original published composition. Dickens himself, and in his preface to +"Pickwick" too, has told us somewhat about that first paper of his; +how it was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and +trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court +in Fleet Street;" how it was accepted, and "appeared in all the glory +of print;" and how he was so filled with pleasure and pride on +purchasing a copy of the magazine in which it was published, that he +went into Westminster Hall to hide the tears of joy that would come +into his eyes. The paper thus joyfully wept over was originally +entitled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," and now bears, among the "Sketches +by Boz," the name of "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"; the periodical in +which it was published was _The Old Monthly Magazine_, and the date of +publication was January 1, 1834. + +"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" may be pronounced a very fairly told tale. +It is, no doubt, always easy to be wise after the event, in criticism +particularly easy, and when once a writer has achieved success, there +is but too little difficulty in showing that his earlier productions +were prophetic of his future greatness. At the risk, however, of +incurring a charge of this kind, I repeat that Dickens' first story is +well told, and that the editor of _The Old Monthly Magazine_ showed +due discernment in accepting it and encouraging his unknown +contributor to further efforts. Quite apart from the fact that the +author was only a young fellow of some two or three and twenty, both +this first story and the stories that followed it in _The Old Monthly +Magazine_, during 1834 and the early part of 1835, possessed qualities +of a very remarkable kind. So also did the humorous descriptive papers +shortly afterwards published in _The Evening Chronicle_, papers that, +with the stories, now compose the book known as "Sketches by Boz." Sir +Arthur Helps, speaking of Dickens, just after Dickens' death,[5] said, +"His powers of observation were almost unrivalled.... Indeed, I have +said to myself when I have been with him, he sees and observes nine +facts for any two that I see and observe." This particular faculty is, +I think, almost as clearly discernible in the "Sketches" as in the +author's later and greater works. London--its sins and sorrows, its +gaieties and amusements, its suburban gentilities, and central +squalor, the aspects of its streets, and the humours of the dingier +classes among its inhabitants,--all this had certainly never been so +seen and described before. The power of exact minute delineation +lavished upon the picture is admirable. Again, the dialogue in the +dramatic parts is natural, well-conducted, characteristic, and so used +as to help, not impede, the narrative. The speech, for instance, of +Mr. Bung, the broker's man, is a piece of very good Dickens. Of course +there is humour, and very excellent fooling some of it is; and +equally, of course, there is pathos, and some of that is not bad. Do I +mean at all that this earlier work stands on the same level of +excellence as the masterpieces of the writer? Clearly not. It were +absurd to expect the stripling, half-furtively coming forward, first +without a name at all, and then under the pseudonym of Boz,[6] to +write with the superb practised ease and mastery of the Charles +Dickens who penned "David Copperfield." By dint of doing blacksmith's +work, says the French proverb, one becomes a blacksmith. The artist, +like the handicraftsman, must learn his art. Much in the "Sketches" +betrays inexperience; or, perhaps, it would be more just to say, +comparative clumsiness of hand. The descriptions, graphic as they +undoubtedly are, lack for the most part the final imaginative touch; +the kind of inbreathing of life which afterwards gave such individual +charm to Dickens' word-painting. The humour is more obvious, less +delicate, turns too readily on the claim of the elderly spinster to be +considered young, and the desire of all spinsters to get married. The +pathos is often spoilt by over-emphasis and declamation. It lacks +simplicity. + +For the "Sketches" published in _The Old Monthly Magazine_, Dickens +got nothing, beyond the pleasure of seeing himself in print. The +_Chronicle_ treated him somewhat more liberally, and, on his +application, increased his salary, giving him, in view of his original +contributions, seven guineas a week, instead of the five guineas which +he had been drawing as a reporter. Not a particularly brilliant +augmentation, perhaps, and one at which he must often have smiled in +after years, when his pen was dropping gold as well as ink. Still, the +addition to his income was substantial, and the son of John Dickens +must always, I imagine, have been in special need of money. Moreover +the circumstances of the next few months would render any increased +earnings doubly pleasant. For Dickens was shortly after this engaged +to be married to Miss Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of one of his +fellow-workers on the _Chronicle_. There had been, so Forster tells +us, a previous very shadowy love affair in his career,--an affair so +visionary indeed, and boyish, as scarcely to be worthy of mention in +this history, save for three facts: first, that his devotion, +dreamlike as it was, seems to have had love's highest practical effect +in inducing him to throw his whole strength into the study of +shorthand; secondly, that the lady of his love appears to have had +some resemblance to Dora, the child-wife of David Copperfield; and +thirdly, that he met her again long years afterwards, when time had +worked its changes, and the glamour of love had left his eyes, and +that to that meeting we owe the passages in "Little Dorrit" relating +to poor Flora. This, however, is a parenthesis. The engagement to Miss +Hogarth was neither shadowy nor unreal--an engagement only in +dreamland. Better for both, perhaps--who knows?--if it had been. Ah +me, if one could peer into the future, how many weddings there are at +which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! Would +Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth have foreborne to plight their +troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely +the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?--They were +married on the 2nd of April, 1836. + +This date again leads me to a time subsequent to the publication of +the first number of "Pickwick," which had appeared a day or two +before;--and again I refrain from dealing with that great book. For +before I do so, I wish to pause a brief space to consider what manner +of man Charles Dickens was when he suddenly broke on the world in his +full popularity; and also what were the influences, for good and evil, +which his early career had exercised upon his character and intellect. + +What manner of man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that +he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing--bright, animated, eager, +with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was +when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when +Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on +the _Mirror_. So Carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this, +and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted +kindliness. "He is a fine little fellow--Boz, I think. Clear, blue, +intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive +rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme _mobility_, which he +shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular +manner while speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of +common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very +small, and dressed _à la_ D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick. +For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to +guess pretty well what he is and what others are."[7] Is not this a +graphic little picture, and characteristic even to the touch about +D'Orsay, the dandy French Count? For Dickens, like the young men of +the time--Disraeli, Bulwer, and the rest--was a great fop. We, of +these degenerate days, shall never see again that antique magnificence +in coloured velvet waistcoats. + +But to return. Dickens, it need scarcely be said, had by this +[time][8] long out-lived the sickliness of his earlier years. The +hardships and trials of his childhood and boyhood had served but to +brace his young manhood, knitting the frame and strengthening the +nerves. Light and small, as Carlyle describes him, he was wiry and +very active, and could bear without injury an amount of intellectual +work and bodily fatigue that would have killed many men of seemingly +stronger build. And as what might have seemed unfortunate in his youth +had helped perchance to develop his physical powers, so had it +assisted to strengthen his character and foster his genius. I go back +here to the point from which I started. No doubt a weaker man would +have been crushed by such a youth. He would have been indolently +content to remain a warehouse drudge, would have listlessly fallen +into his father's ways about money, would have had no ambition beyond +his desk and salary as a lawyer's clerk, would have never cared to +piece together and supplement the scattered scraps of his education, +would have rested on his oars when he had once shot into the waters of +ordinary journalism. With Dickens it was not so. The alchemy of a fine +nature had transmuted his disadvantages into gold. To him the lessons +of such a childhood and boyhood as he had had, were energy, +self-reliance, a determination to overcome all obstacles, to fight the +battles of life, in all honour and rectitude, so as to win. From the +muddle of his father's affairs he had taken away a lesson of method, +order, and punctuality in business and other arrangements. "What is +worth doing at all is worth doing well," was not only one of his +favourite maxims--it was the rule of his life. + +And for what was to be his life work, what better preparation could +there have been than that which he received? I am far from +recommending warehouses, squalid solitary lodgings, pawnshops, +debtors' prisons,--if such could now be found,--ill-conducted private +schools,--which probably could be found,--attorneys' offices, and the +hand-to-mouth of journalism, as constituting generally the highest +ideal of a liberal education. I am equally far from asserting that the +majority of men do not require more training of a purely scholastic +kind than fell to Dickens' lot. But Dickens was not a bookish man. His +genius did not lie in that direction. To have forced him unduly into +the world of books would have made him, doubtless, an average scholar, +but might have weakened his hold on life. Such a risk was certainly +not worth the running. Fate arranged it otherwise. What he was above +all was a student of the world of men, a passionately keen observer of +the ways of humanity. Men were to be his books, his special branch of +knowledge; and in order to graduate and take high honours in that +school, I repeat, he could have had no better training. Not only had +he passed through a range of most unwonted experiences, experiences +calculated to quicken to the uttermost his superb faculties of +observation and insight; but he had been placed in sympathetic +communication with a strange assortment of characters, lying quite out +of the usual ken of the literary classes. Knowledge and sympathy, the +seeing eye and the feeling heart--were these nothing to have +acquired? + +That so abnormal an education can have been entirely without +drawbacks, it is no part of my purpose to affirm. Tossed, as one may +say, to sink or swim amid the waves of life, where those waves ran +turbid and brackish, Dickens had emerged strengthened, triumphant. But +that some little signs should not remain of the straining and effort +with which he had won the land, was scarcely to be expected. He +himself, in his more confidential communications with Forster, seems +to avow a consciousness that this was so; and Forster, though he +speaks guardedly, lovingly, appears to be of opinion that a certain +self-assertiveness and fierce intolerance of advice or control[9] +occasionally discernible in his friend, might justly be attributed to +the harsh influence of early struggles and privations. But what then? +That system of education has yet to be devised which shall mould this +poor human clay of ours into flawless shapes of use and beauty. A man +may be considered fortunate indeed, when his training has left in him +only what the French call the "defects of his virtues," that is, the +exaggeration of his good qualities till they turn into faults. Without +his immense strength of purpose and iron will, Dickens might never +have emerged from obscurity, and the world would have been very +distinctly the poorer. One cannot be very sorry that he possessed +these gifts in excess. + +And now, at last, having slightly sketched the history of his earlier +years, and endeavoured to show, however perfectly, what influences had +gone to the formation of his character, I proceed to consider the book +that lifted him to fame and fortune. The years of apprenticeship are +over, and the master-workman brings forth his finished work in its +flower of perfection. Let us study "Pickwick." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1870. + +[6] It was the pet name of one of his brothers; that was why he took +it. + +[7] Froude's "Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London." + +[8] Transcriber's Note: The word "time" appears to be missing from the +original text. + +[9] "I have heard Dickens described by those who knew him," says Mr. +Edmund Yates, in his "Recollections," "as aggressive, imperious, and +intolerant, and I can comprehend the accusation.... He was imperious +in the sense that his life was conducted on the _sic volo sic jubeo_ +principle, and that everything gave way before him. The society in +which he mixed, the hours which he kept, the opinions which he held, +his likes and dislikes, his ideas of what should or should not be, +were all settled by himself, not merely for himself, but for all those +brought into connection with him, and it was never imagined they could +be called in question.... He had immense powers of will." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Dickens has told us, in his preface to the later editions, much of how +"Pickwick" came to be projected and published. It was in this wise: +Seymour, a caricaturist of very considerable merit, though not, as we +should now consider, in the first rank of the great caricaturists, had +proposed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, then just starting on their +career as publishers, a "series of Cockney sporting plates." Messrs. +Chapman and Hall entertained the idea favourably, but opined that the +plates would require illustrative letter-press; and casting about for +some suitable author, bethought themselves of Dickens, whose tales and +sketches had been exciting some little sensation in the world of +journalism; and who had, indeed, already written for the firm a story, +the "Tuggs at Ramsgate," which may be read among the "Sketches." +Accordingly Mr. Hall called on Dickens for the purpose of proposing +the scheme. This would be in 1835, towards the latter end of the year; +and Dickens, who had apparently left the paternal roof for some little +time, was living bachelorwise, in Furnival's Inn. What was his +astonishment, when Mr. Hall came in, to find he was the same person +who had sold him the copy of the magazine containing his first +story--that memorable copy at which he had looked, in Westminster +Hall, through eyes bedimmed with joyful tears. Such coincidences +always had for Dickens a peculiar, almost a superstitious, interest. +The circumstance seemed of happy augury to both the "high contracting +parties." Publisher and author were for the nonce on the best of +terms. The latter, no doubt, saw his opening; was more than ready to +undertake the work, and had no quarrel with the remuneration offered. +But even then he was not the man to play second fiddle to anybody. +Before they parted, he had quite succeeded in turning the tables on +Seymour. The original proposal had been that the artist should produce +four caricatures on sporting subjects every month, and that the +letter-press should be in illustration of the caricatures. Dickens got +Mr. Hall to agree to reverse that position. _He_, Dickens, was to have +the command of the story, and the artist was to illustrate _him_. How +far these altered relations would have worked quite smoothly if +Seymour had lived, and if Dickens' story had not so soon assumed the +proportions of a colossal success, it is idle to speculate. Seymour +died by his own hand before the second number was published, and so +ceased to be in a position to assert himself. It was, however, in +deference to the peculiar bent of his art that Mr. Winkle, with his +disastrous sporting proclivities, made part of the first conception of +the book; and it is also very significant of the book's origin, that +the design on the green wrapper in which the monthly parts made their +appearance, should have had a purely sporting character, and exhibited +Mr. Pickwick sleepily fishing in a punt, and Mr. Winkle shooting at +what looks like a cock-sparrow, the whole surrounded by a chaste +arabesque of guns, rods, and landing-nets. To Seymour, too, we owe the +portrait of Mr. Pickwick, which has impressed that excellent old +gentleman's face and figure upon all our memories. But to return to +Dickens' interview with Mr. Hall. They seem to have parted in mutual +satisfaction. At least it is certain Dickens was satisfied, for in a +letter written, apparently on the same day, to "my dearest Kate," he +thus sums up the proposals of the publishers: "They have made me an +offer of fourteen pounds a month to write and edit a new publication +they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and +each number to contain four wood-cuts.... The work will be no joke, +but the emolument is too tempting to resist."[10] + +So, little thinking how soon he would begin to regard the "emolument" +as ludicrously inadequate, he set to work on "Pickwick." The first +part was published on the 31st of March or 1st of April, 1836. + +That part seems scarcely to have created any sensation. Mr James +Grant, the novelist, says indeed, that the first five parts were "a +dead failure," and that the publishers were even debating whether the +enterprise had not better be abandoned altogether, when suddenly Sam +Weller appeared upon the scene, and turned their gloom into laughter. +Be that as it may, certain it is that before many months had passed, +Messrs. Chapman and Hall must have been thoroughly confirmed in a +policy of perseverance. "The first order for Part I.," that is, the +first order for binding, "was," says the bookbinder who executed the +work, "for four hundred copies only." The order for Part XV. had +risen to forty thousand. All contemporary accounts agree that the +success was sudden, immense. The author, like Lord Byron, some +twenty-five years before, "awoke and found himself famous." Young as +he was, not having yet numbered more than twenty-four summers, he at +one stride reached the topmost height of popularity. Everybody read +his book. Everybody laughed over it. Everybody talked about it. +Everybody felt, confusedly perhaps, but very surely, that a new and +vital force had arisen in English literature. + +And English literature just then was in one of its times of slackness, +rather than full flow. The great tide of the beginning of the century +had ebbed. The tide of the Victorian age had scarcely begun to do more +than ripple and flash on the horizon. Byron was dead, and Shelley and +Keats and Coleridge and Lamb; Southey's life was on the decline; +Wordsworth had long executed his best work; while of the coming men, +Carlyle, though in the plenitude of his power, having published +"Sartor Resartus," had not yet published his "French Revolution,"[11] +or delivered his lectures on the "Heroes," and was not yet in the +plenitude of his fame and influence; and Macaulay, then in India, was +known only as the essayist and politician; and Lord Tennyson and the +Brownings were more or less names of the future. Looking especially at +fiction, the time may be said to have been waiting for its +master-novelist. Five years had gone by since the good and great Sir +Walter Scott had been laid to rest in Dryburgh Abbey, there to sleep, +as is most fit, amid the ruins of that old Middle Age world he loved +so well, with the babble of the Tweed for lullaby. Nor had any one +shown himself of stature to step into his vacant place, albeit Bulwer, +more precocious even than Dickens, was already known as the author of +"Pelham," "Eugene Aram," and the "Last Days of Pompeii;" and Disraeli +had written "Vivian Grey," and his earlier books; while Thackeray, +Charlotte Brontë, Kingsley, George Eliot were all, of course, to come +later. No, there was a vacant throne among the novelists. Here was the +hour--and here, too, was the man. In virtue of natural kingship he +took up his sceptre unquestioned. + +Still, it may not be superfluous to inquire into the why and wherefore +of his success. All effects have a cause. What was the cause of this +special phenomenon? In the first place, the admirable freshness of the +book won its way into every heart. There is a fervour of youth and +healthy good spirits about the whole thing. In a former generation, +Byron had uttered his wail of despair over a worthless world. We, in +our own time, have got back to the dreary point of considering whether +life be worth living. Here was a writer who had no such misgivings. +For him life was pleasant, useful, full of delight--to be not only +tolerated, but enjoyed. He liked its sights, its play of character, +its adventures--affected no superiority to its amusements and +convivialities--thoroughly laid himself out to please and to be +pleased. And his characters were in the same mood. Their fund of +animal spirits seemed inexhaustible. For life's jollities they were +never unprepared. No doubt there were "mighty mean moments" in their +existence, as there have been in the existence of most of us. It +cannot have been pleasant to Mr. Winkle to have his eye blackened by +the obstreperous cabman. Mr. Tracy Tupman probably felt a passing pang +when jilted by the maiden aunt in favour of the audacious Jingle. No +man would elect to occupy the position of defendant in an action for +breach of promise, or prefer to sojourn in a debtors' prison. But how +jauntily do Mr. Pickwick and his friends shake off such discomforts! +How buoyantly do they override the billows that beset their course! +And what excellent digestions they have, and how slightly do they seem +to suffer the next day from any little excesses in the matter of milk +punch! + +Then besides the good spirits and good temper, there is Dickens' royal +gift of humour. As some actors have only to show their face and utter +a word or two, in order to convulse an audience with merriment, so +here does almost every sentence hold good and honest laughter. Not, +perhaps, objects the superfine and too dainty critic, humour of the +most delicate sort--not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality +can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of Lamb, or Sterne, +or Goldsmith, or Washington Irving. Granted freely; not humour of that +special character. But very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly +popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce--the humour that +finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous +situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and +eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How +thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time merry and +wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. +With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable +laughter, he never makes game of what is at all worthy of respect. +Here, as in his later books, right is right, and wrong wrong, and he +is never tempted to jingle his jester's bell out of season, and make +right look ridiculous. And if the humour of "Pickwick" be wholesome, +it is also most genial and kindly. We have here no acrid cynic +sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing +pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. Rather does +Dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering +memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of +unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. In +brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and +even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on them lovingly and +helpfully. + +So much the first readers of "Pickwick" might note as the book +unfolded itself to them, part by part; and they might also note one or +two things besides. They might note--they could scarcely fail to do +so--that though there was a touch of caricature in nearly all the +characters, yet those characters were, one and all, wonderfully real, +and very much alive. It was no world of shadows to which the author +introduced them. Mr. Pickwick had a very distinct existence, and so +had his three friends, and Bob Sawyer, and Benjamin Allen, and Mr. +Jingle, and Tony Weller, and all the swarm of minor characters. While +as to Sam Weller, if it be really true that he averted impending ruin +from the book, and turned defeat into victory, one can only say that +it was like him. When did he ever "stint stroke" in "foughten field"? +By what array of adverse circumstances was he ever taken at a +disadvantage? To have created a character of this vitality, of this +individual force, would be a feather in the cap of any novelist who +ever lived. Something I think of Dickens' own blood passed into this +special progeniture of his. It has been irreverently said that +Falstaff might represent Shakespeare in his cups, just as Hamlet might +represent him in his more sober moments. So I have always had a kind +of fancy that Sam Weller might be regarded as Dickens himself seen in +a certain aspect--a sort of Dickens, shall I say?--in an humbler +sphere of life, and who had never devoted himself to literature. There +is in both the same energy, pluck, essential goodness of heart, +fertility of resource, abundance of animal spirits, and also an +imagination of a peculiar kind, in which wit enters as a main +ingredient. And having noted how highly vitalized were the characters +in "Pickwick," I think the first readers might also fairly be expected +to note,--and, in fact, it is clear from Dickens' preface that they +did note--how greatly the book increased in scope and power as it +proceeded. The beginning was conceived almost in a spirit of farce. +The incidents and adventures had scarcely any other object than to +create amusement. Mr. Pickwick himself appeared on the scene with +fantastic honours and the badge of absurdity, as "the man who had +traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the +scientific world with the Theory of Tittlebats." But in all this there +is a gradual change. Mr. Pickwick is presented to us latterly as an +exceedingly sound-headed as well as sound-hearted old gentleman, whom +we should never think of associating with the sources of Hampstead +Ponds or any other folly. While in such scenes as those at the Fleet +Prison, the author is clearly endeavouring to do much more than raise +a laugh. He is sounding the deeper, more tragic chords in human +feeling. + +Ah, if we add to all this--to the freshness, the "go," the good +spirits, the keen observation, the graphic painting, the humour, the +vitality of the characters, the gradual development of power--if we +add to all this that something which is in all, and greater than all, +viz., genius, and genius of a highly popular kind, then we shall have +no difficulty in understanding why everybody read "Pickwick," and how +it came to pass that its publishers made some £20,000 by a work that +they had once thought of abandoning as worthless.[12] + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] See the Letters published by Chapman and Hall. + +[11] It was finished in January, 1837, and not published till six +months afterwards. + +[12] They acknowledged to Dickens that they had made £14,000 by the +sale of the monthly parts alone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Dickens was not at all the man to rest on his oars while "Pickwick" +was giving such a magnificent impetus to the boat that contained his +fortunes. The amount of work which he accomplished in the years 1836, +1837, 1838, and 1839 is, if we consider its quality, amazing. +"Pickwick," as we have seen, was begun with the first of these years, +and its publication continued till the November of 1837. Independently +of his work on "Pickwick," he was, in the year 1836, engaged in the +arduous profession of a reporter till the close of the parliamentary +session, and also wrote a pamphlet on Sabbatarianism, a farce in two +acts, "The Strange Gentleman," for the St. James's Theatre, and a +comic opera, "The Village Coquettes," which was set to music by +Hullah. With the very commencement of 1837--"Pickwick," it will be +remembered, going on all the while--he entered upon the duties of +editor of _Bentley's Miscellany_, and in the second number began the +publication of "Oliver Twist," which was continued into the early +months of 1839, when his connection with the magazine ceased. In the +April of 1838, and simultaneously, of course, with "Oliver Twist," +appeared the first part of "Nicholas Nickleby"--the last part +appearing in the October of the following year. Three novels of more +than full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, +besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work--certainly that was +"good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that _The +Quarterly Review_, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to +croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and +putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, +feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to +mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," so he +was in danger of "coming down like the stick." Small wonder, I say, +and yet to us now, how unjust the accusation appears, and how false +the prophecy. Rapidly as those books were executed, Dickens, like the +real artist that he was, had put into them his best work. There was no +scamping. The critics of the time judged superficially, not making +allowance for the ample fund of observations he had amassed, for the +genuine fecundity of his genius, and for the admirable industry of an +extremely industrious man. "The World's Workers"--there exists under +that general designation a series of short biographies, for which Miss +Dickens has written a sketch of her father's life. To no one could the +description more fittingly apply. Throughout his life he worked +desperately hard. He possessed, in a high degree, the "infinite +faculty for taking pains," which is so great an adjunct to genius, +though it is not, as the good Sir Joshua Reynolds held, genius itself. +Thus what he had done rapidly was done well; and, for the rest, the +writer, who had yet to give the world "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The +Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," and "Dombey," was not "coming +down like a stick." There were many more stars, and of very brilliant +colours, to be showered out by that rocket; and the stick has not even +yet fallen to the ground.[13] + +Naturally, with the success of "Pickwick," came a great change in +Dickens' pecuniary position. He had, as we have seen, been glad +enough, before he began the book, to close with the offer of £14 for +each monthly part. That sum was afterwards increased to £15, and the +two first payments seem to have been made in advance for the purpose +of helping him to defray the expenses of his marriage. But as the sale +leapt up, the publishers themselves felt that such a rate of +remuneration was altogether insufficient, and sent him, first and +last, a goodly number of supplementary cheques, for sums amounting in +the aggregate, as _they_ computed, to £3,000, and as Forster computes +to about £2,500. This Dickens, who, to use his own words, "never +undervalued his own work," considered a very inadequate percentage on +their gains--forgetting a little, perhaps, that the risks had been +wholly theirs, and that he had been more than content with the +original bargain. Similarly he was soon utterly dissatisfied with his +arrangements with Bentley about the editorship of the _Miscellany_ and +"Oliver Twist,"--arrangements which had been entered into in August, +1836, while "Pickwick" was in progress; and he utterly refused to let +that publisher have "Gabriel Varden, The Locksmith of London" +("Barnaby Rudge") on the terms originally agreed upon. With Macrone +also, who had made some £4,000 by the "Sketches," and given him about +£400, he was no better pleased, especially when that enterprising +gentleman threatened a re-issue in monthly parts, and so compelled him +to re-purchase the copyright for £2,000. But however much he might +consider himself ill-treated by the publishing fraternity, he was, of +course, rapidly getting far richer than he had been, and so able to +enlarge his mode of life. He had begun, modestly enough, by taking his +wife to live with him in his bachelor's quarters in Furnival's +Inn,--much as Tommy Traddles, in "David Copperfield," took _his_ wife +to live in chambers at Gray's Inn; and there, in Furnival's Inn, his +first child, a boy, was born on the 6th of January, 1837. But in the +March of that year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at 48, +Doughty Street, where he remained till the end of 1839, when still +increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at 1, +Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. But the house in Doughty Street +must have been endeared to him by many memories. It was there, on the +7th of May, 1837, that he lost, at the early age of seventeen, and +quite suddenly, a sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was greatly +attached. The blow fell so heavily at the time as to incapacitate him +from all work, and delayed the publication of one of the numbers of +"Pickwick." Nor was the sorrow only sharp and transient. He speaks of +her in the preface to the first edition of that book. Her spirit +seemed to be hovering near as he stood looking at Niagara. He felt her +hallowing influence when in danger of growing too much elated by his +first reception in America. She came back to him in dreams in Italy. +Her image remained in his heart, unchanged by time, as he declared, to +the very end. She represented to his mind all that was pure and lovely +in opening womanhood, and lives, in the world created by his art, as +the Little Nell of "The Old Curiosity Shop." It was in Doughty Street, +too, that he began to gather round him the circle of friends whose +names seem almost like a muster-roll of the famous men and women in +the first thirty years of Queen Victoria's reign. I shall not +enumerate them. The list of writers, artists, actors, would be too +long. But this at least it would be unjust not to note, that among his +friends were included nearly all those who by any stretch of fancy +could be regarded as his rivals in the fields of humour and fiction. +With Washington Irving, Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Lord Lytton, Harrison +Ainsworth, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, and, save for a passing +foolish quarrel, with Thackeray, the novelist who really was his peer, +he maintained the kindliest and most cordial relations. Nor when +George Eliot published her first books, "The Scenes of Clerical Life" +and "Adam Bede," did any one acknowledge their excellence more freely. +Petty jealousies found no place in the nature of this great writer. + +It was also while living at Doughty Street that he seems, in great +measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which +every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and +idiosyncrasies. His favourite time for work was the morning, between +the hours of breakfast and lunch; and though, at this particular +period, the enormous pressure of his engagements compelled him to work +"double tides," and often far into the night, yet he was essentially a +day-worker, not a night-worker. Like the great German poet Goethe, he +preferred to exercise his art in the fresh morning hours, when the +dewdrops, as it were, lay bright upon his imagination and fancy. And +for relaxation and sedative, when he had thoroughly worn himself out +with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily +exercise. At first riding seems to have contented him--fifteen miles +out and fifteen miles in, with a halt at some road-side inn for +refreshment. But soon walking took the place of riding, and he became +an indefatigable pedestrian. He would think nothing of a walk of +twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous heyday of +youth, but afterwards, to the very last. He was always on those alert, +quick feet of his, perambulating London from end to end, and in every +direction; perambulating the suburbs, perambulating the "greater +London" that lies within a radius of twenty miles, round the central +core of metropolitan houses. In short, he was everywhere, in all +weathers, at all hours. Nor was London, smaller and greater, his only +walking field. He would walk wherever he was--walked through and +through Genoa, and all about Genoa, when he lived there; knew every +inch of the Kent country round Broadstairs and round Gad's Hill--was, +as I have said, always, always, always on his feet. But if he would +pedestrianize everywhere, London remained the walking ground of his +heart. As Dr. Johnson held that nothing equalled a stroll down Fleet +Street, so did Dickens, sitting in full view of Genoa's perfect bay, +and with the blue Mediterranean sparkling at his feet, turn in thought +for inspiration to his old haunts. "Never," he writes to Forster, when +about to begin "The Chimes," "never did I stagger so upon a threshold +before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I +left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to +it.... Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. If +they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the West +Middlesex Waterworks at Devonshire Terrace.... Put me down on Waterloo +Bridge at eight o'clock in the evening, with leave to roam about as +long as I like, and I would come home, as you know, panting to go on. +I am sadly strange as it is, and can't settle." "Eight o'clock in the +evening,"--that points to another of his peculiarities. As he liked +best to walk in London, so he liked best to walk at night. The +darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. He never +grew tired of it, would find pleasure and refreshment, when most weary +and jaded, in losing himself in it, in abandoning himself to its +mysteries. Looked at with this knowledge, the opening of the "Old +Curiosity Shop" becomes a passage of autobiography. And how all these +wanderings must have served him in his art! Remember what a keen +observer he was, perhaps one of the keenest that ever lived, and then +think what food for observation he would thus be constantly +collecting. To the eye that knows how to see, there is no stage where +so many scenes from the drama of life are being always enacted as the +streets of London. Dickens frequented that theatre very assiduously, +and of his power of sight there can be no question. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] I think critics, and perhaps I myself, have been a little hard on +this Quarterly Reviewer. He did not, after all, say that Dickens would +come down like a stick, only that he might do so if he wrote too fast +and furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"Pickwick" had been a novel without any plot. The story, if story it +can be called, bore every trace of its hasty origin. Scene succeeded +scene, and incident incident, and Mr. Pickwick and his three friends +were hurried about from place to place, and through adventures of all +kinds, without any particularly defined purpose. In truth, many +people, and myself among the number, find some difficulty in reading +the book as a connected narrative, and prefer to take it piecemeal. +But in "Oliver Twist" there is a serious effort to work out a coherent +plot, and real unity of conception. Whether that conception be based +on probability, is another point. Oliver is the illegitimate son of a +young lady who has lapsed from virtue under circumstances of great +temptation, but still lapsed from virtue, and who dies in giving him +birth. He is brought up as a pauper child in a particularly +ill-managed workhouse, and apprenticed to a low undertaker. Thence he +escapes, and walks to London, where he falls in with a gang of +thieves. His legitimate brother, an unutterable scoundrel, happens to +see him in London, and recognizing him by a likeness to their common +father, bribes the thieves to recapture him when he has escaped from +their clutches. Now I would rather not say whether I consider it quite +likely that a boy of this birth and nurture would fly at a boy much +bigger than himself in vindication of the fair fame of a mother whom +he had never known, or would freely risk his life to warn a sleeping +household that they were being robbed, or would, on all occasions, +exhibit the most excellent manners and morals, and a delicacy of +feeling that is quite dainty. But this is the essence of the book. To +show purity and goodness of disposition as self-sufficient in +themselves to resist all adverse influences, is Dickens' main object. +Take Oliver's sweet uncontaminated character away, and the story +crumbles to pieces. With mere improbabilities of plot, I have no +quarrel. Of course it is not likely that the boy, on the occasion of +his first escape from the thieves, should be rescued by his father's +oldest friend, and, on the second occasion, come across his aunt. But +such coincidences must be accepted in any story; they violate no truth +of character. I am afraid I can't say as much of Master Oliver's +graces and virtues. + +With this reservation, however, how much there is in the book to which +unstinted admiration can be given! As "Pickwick" first fully exhibited +the humorous side of Dickens' genius, so "Oliver Twist" first fully +exhibited its tragic side;--the pathetic side was to come somewhat +later. The scenes at the workhouse; at the thieves' dens in London; +the burglary; the murder of poor Nancy; the escape and death of the +horror-haunted Sikes,--all are painted with a master's hand. And the +book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to follow, +contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as +types,--characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in +themselves to sum up a whole class. Such are Bill Sikes, whose +ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the +Jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they +should _not_ go; and Master Dawkins, the Artful Dodger. Such, too, is +Mr. Bumble, greatest and most unhappy of beadles. + +Comedy had predominated in "Pickwick," tragedy in "Oliver Twist." The +more complete fusion of the two was effected in "Nicholas Nickleby." +But as the mighty actor Garrick, in the well-known picture by Sir +Joshua Reynolds, is drawn towards the more mirthful of the two +sisters, so, here again, I think that comedy decidedly bears away the +palm,--though tragedy is not beaten altogether without a struggle +either. Here is the story as it unfolds itself. The two heroes are +Ralph Nickleby and his nephew Nicholas. They stand forth, almost from +the beginning, as antagonists, in battle array the one against the +other; and the story is, in the main, a history of the campaigns +between them--cunning and greed being mustered on the one side, and +young, generous courage on the other. At first Nicholas believes in +his uncle, who promises to befriend Nicholas's mother and sister, and +obtains for Nicholas himself a situation as usher in a Yorkshire +school kept by one Squeers. But the young fellow's gorge rises at the +sickening cruelty exercised in the school, and he leaves it, having +first beaten Mr. Squeers,--leaves it followed by a poor shattered +creature called Smike. Meanwhile Ralph, the usurer, befriends his +sister-in-law and niece after his own fashion, and tries to use the +latter's beauty in furtherance of his trade as a money-lender. +Nicholas discovers his plots, frustrates all his schemes, rescues, and +ultimately marries, a young lady who had been immeshed in one of them; +and Ralph, at last, utterly beaten, commits suicide on finding that +Smike, through whom he had been endeavouring all through to injure +Nicholas, and who is now dead, was his own son. Such are the book's +dry bones, its skeleton, which one is almost ashamed to expose thus +nakedly. For the beauty of these novels lies not at all in the plot; +it is in the incidents, situations, characters. And with beauty of +this kind how richly dowered is "Nicholas Nickleby"! Take the +characters alone. What lavish profusion of humour in the theatrical +group that clusters round Mr. Vincent Crummles, the country manager; +and in the Squeers family too; and in the little shop-world of Mrs. +Mantalini, the fashionable dressmaker; and in Cheeryble Brothers, the +golden-hearted old merchants who take Nicholas into their +counting-house. Then for single characters commend me to Mrs. +Nickleby, whose logic, which some cynics would call feminine, is +positively sublime in its want of coherence; and to John Browdie, the +honest Yorkshire cornfactor, as good a fellow almost as Dandie +Dinmont, the Border yeoman whom Scott made immortal. The high-life +personages are far less successful. Dickens had small gift that way, +and seldom succeeded in his society pictures. Nor, if the truth must +be told, do I greatly care for the description of the duel between Sir +Mulberry Hawk and Lord Verisopht, though it was evidently very much +admired at the time, and is quoted, as a favourable specimen of +Dickens' style, in Charles Knight's "Half-hours with the Best +Authors." The writing is a little too _tall_. It lacks simplicity, as +is sometimes the case with Dickens, when he wants to be particularly +impressive. + +And this leads me, by a kind of natural sequence, to what I have to +say about his next book, "The Old Curiosity Shop;" for here, again, +though in a very much more marked degree, I fear I shall have to run +counter to a popular opinion. + +But first a word as to the circumstances under which the book was +published. Casting about, after the conclusion of "Nicholas Nickleby," +for further literary ventures, Dickens came to the conclusion that the +public must be getting tired of his stories in monthly parts. It +occurred to him that a weekly periodical, somewhat after the manner of +Addison's _Spectator_ or Goldsmith's _Bee_, and containing essays, +stories, and miscellaneous papers,--to be written mainly, but not +entirely, by himself,--would be just the thing to revive interest, and +give his popularity a spur. Accordingly an arrangement was entered +into with Messrs. Chapman and Hall, by which they covenanted to give +him £50 for each weekly number of such a periodical, and half +profits;--and the first number of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ made its +appearance in the April of 1840. Unfortunately Dickens had reckoned +altogether without his host. The public were not to be cajoled. What +they expected from their favourite was novels, not essays, short +stories, or sketches, however admirable. The orders for the first +number had amounted to seventy thousand; but they fell off as soon as +it was discovered that Master Humphrey, sitting by his clock, had no +intention of beguiling the world with a continuous narrative,--that +the title, in short, did not stand for the title of a novel. Either +the times were not ripe for the _Household Words_, which, ten years +afterwards, proved to be such a great and permanent success, or +Dickens had laid his plans badly. Vainly did he put forth all his +powers, vainly did he bring back upon the stage those old popular +favourites, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Tony Weller. All was of no +avail. Clearly, in order to avoid defeat, a change of front had become +necessary. The novel of "The Old Curiosity Shop" was accordingly +commenced in the fourth number of the _Clock_, and very soon acted the +cuckoo's part of thrusting Master Humphrey and all that belonged to +him out of the nest. He disappeared pretty well from the periodical, +and when the novel was republished, the whole machinery of the _Clock_ +had gone;--and with it I may add, some very characteristic and +admirable writing. Dickens himself confessed that he "winced a +little," when the "opening paper, ... in which Master Humphrey +described himself and his manner of life," "became the property of the +trunkmaker and the butterman;" and most Dickens lovers will agree with +me in rejoicing that the omitted parts have now at last been tardily +rescued from unmerited neglect, and finds [Transcriber's Note: sic] a +place in the recently issued "Charles Dickens" edition of the works. + +There is no hero in "The Old Curiosity Shop,"--unless Mr. Richard +Swiveller, "perpetual grand-master of the Glorious Apollos," be the +questionable hero; and the heroine is Little Nell, a child. Of +Dickens' singular feeling for the pathos and humour of childhood, I +have already spoken. Many novelists, perhaps one might even say, most +novelists, have no freedom of utterance when they come to speak about +children, do not know what to do with a child if it chances to stray +into their pages. But how different with Dickens! He is never more +thoroughly at home than with the little folk. Perhaps his best speech, +and they all are good, is the one uttered at the dinner given on +behalf of the Children's Hospital. Certainly there is no figure in +"Dombey and Son" on which more loving care has been lavished than the +figure of little Paul, and when the lad dies one quite feels that the +light has gone out of the book. "David Copperfield" shorn of David's +childhood and youth would be a far less admirable performance. The +hero of "Oliver Twist" is a boy. Pip is a boy through a fair portion +of "Great Expectations." The heroine of "The Old Curiosity Shop" is, +as I have just said, a girl. And of all these children, the one who +seems, from the first, to have stood highest in popular favour, and +won most hearts, is Little Nell. Ay me, what tears have been shed over +her weary wanderings with that absurd old gambling grandfather of +hers; how many persons have sorrowed over her untimely end as if she +had been a daughter or a sister. High and low, literate and +illiterate, over nearly all has she cast her spell. Hood, he who sang +the "Song of the Shirt," paid her the tribute of his admiration, and +Jeffrey, the hard-headed old judge and editor of _The Edinburgh +Review_, the tribute of his tears. Landor volleyed forth his +thunderous praises over her grave, likening her to Juliet and +Desdemona. Nay, Dickens himself sadly bewailed her fate, described +himself as being the "wretchedest of the wretched" when it drew near, +and shut himself from all society as if he had suffered a real +bereavement. While as to the feeling which she has excited in the +breasts of the illiterate, we may take Mr. Bret Harte's account of the +haggard golddiggers by the roaring Californian camp fire, who throw +down their cards to listen to her story, and, for the nonce, are +softened and humanized.[14]--Such is the sympathy she has created. And +for the description of her death and burial, as a superb piece of +pathetic writing, there has been a perfect chorus of praise broken +here and there no doubt by a discordant voice, but still of the +loudest and most heartfelt. Did not Horne, a poet better known to the +last generation than to this, point out that though printed as prose, +these passages were, perhaps as "the result of harmonious accident," +essentially poetry, and "written in blank verse of irregular metres +and rhythms, which Southey and Shelley and some other poets have +occasionally adopted"? Did he not print part of the passages in this +form, substituting only, as a concession to the conventionalities of +verse, the word "grandames" for "grandmothers"; and did he not declare +of one of the extracts so printed that it was "worthy of the best +passages in Wordsworth"? + +If it "argues an insensibility" to stand somewhat unmoved among all +these tears and admiration, I am afraid I must be rather +pebble-hearted. To tell the whole damaging truth, I am, and always +have been, only slightly affected by the story of Little Nell; have +never felt any particular inclination to shed a tear over it, and +consider the closing chapters as failing of their due effect, on me at +least, because they are pitched in a key that is altogether too high +and unnatural. Of course one makes a confession of this kind with +diffidence. It is no light thing to stem the current of a popular +opinion. But one can only go with the stream when one thinks the +stream is flowing in a right channel. And here I think the stream is +meandering out of its course. For me, Little Nell is scarcely more +than a figure in cloudland. Possibly part of the reason why I do not +feel as much sympathy with her as I ought, is because I do not seem to +know her very well. With Paul Dombey I am intimately acquainted. I +should recognize the child anywhere, should be on the best of terms +with him in five minutes. Few things would give me greater pleasure +than an hour's saunter by the side of his little invalid's carriage +along the Parade at Brighton. How we should laugh, to be sure, if we +happened to come across Mr. Toots, and smile, too, if we met Feeder, +B.A., and give a furtive glance of recognition at Glubb, the discarded +charioteer. Then the classic Cornelia Blimber would pass, on her +constitutional, and we should quail a little--at least I am certain +_I_ should--as she bent upon us her scholastic spectacles; and a +glimpse of Dr. Blimber would chill us even more; till--ah! what's +this? Why does a flush of happiness mantle over my little friend's +pale face? Why does he utter a faint cry of pleasure? Yes, there she +is--he has caught sight of Floy running forward to meet him.--So am +I led, almost instinctively, whenever the figure of Paul flashes into +my mind, to think of him as a child I have actually known. But +Nell--she has no such reality of existence. She has been etherealized, +vapourized, rhapsodized about, till the flesh and blood have gone out +of her. I recognize her attributes, unselfishness, sweetness of +disposition, gentleness. But these don't constitute a human being. +They don't make up a recognizable individuality. If I met her in the +street, I am afraid I should not know her; and if I did, I am sure we +should both find it difficult to keep up a conversation. + +Do the passages describing her death and burial really possess the +rhythm of poetry? That would seem to me, I confess, to be as ill a +compliment as to say of a piece of poetry that it was really prose. +The music of prose and of poetry are essentially different. They do +not affect the ear in the same way. The one is akin to song, the other +to speech. Give to prose the recurring cadences, the measure, and the +rhythmic march of verse, and it becomes bad prose without becoming +good poetry.[15] So, in fairness to Dickens, one is bound, as far as +one can, to forget Horne's misapplied praise. But even thus, and +looking upon it as prose alone, can we say that the account of Nell's +funeral is, in the high artistic sense, a piece of good work. Here is +an extract: "And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by +night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a +living voice--rang its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so +beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming +youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride +of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn +of life--to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were +dim and senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years +ago, and still been old,--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, +the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that +earthly grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which +still could crawl and creep above it?" Such is the tone throughout, +and one feels inclined to ask whether it is quite the appropriate tone +in which to speak of the funeral of a child in a country churchyard? +All this pomp of rhetoric seems to me--shall I say it?--as much out of +place as if Nell had been buried like some great soldier or minister +of state--with a hearse, all sable velvet and nodding plumes, drawn by +a long train of sable steeds, and a final discharge of artillery over +the grave. The verbal honours paid here to the deceased are really not +much less incongruous and out of keeping. Surely in such a subject, +above all others, the pathos of simplicity would have been most +effective. + +There are some, indeed, who deny to Dickens the gift of pathos +altogether. Such persons acknowledge, for the most part a little +unwillingly, that he was a master of humour of the broader, more +obvious kind. But they assert that all his sentiment is mawkish and +overstrained, and that his efforts to compel our tears are so obvious +as to defeat their own purpose. Now it will be clear, from what I +have said about Little Nell, that I am capable of appreciating the +force of any criticism of this kind; nay, that I go so far as to +acknowledge that Dickens occasionally lays himself open to it. But go +one inch beyond this I cannot. Of course we may, if we like, take up a +position of pure stoicism, and deny pathos altogether, in life as in +art. We may regard all human affairs but as a mere struggle for +existence, and say that might makes right, and that the weak is only +treated according to his deserts when he goes to the wall. We may hold +that neither sorrow nor suffering call for any meed of sympathy. Such +is mainly the attitude which the French novelist adopts towards the +world of his creation.[16] But once admit that feeling is legitimate; +once allow that tears are due to those who have been crushed and left +bleeding by this great world of ours as it crashes blundering on its +way; once grant that the writer's art can properly embrace what +Shakespeare calls "the pity of it," the sorrows inwoven in all our +human relationships; once acknowledge all this, and then I affirm, +most confidently, that Dickens, working at his best, was one of the +greatest masters of pathos who ever lived. I can myself see scarce a +strained discordant note in the account of the short life and early +death of Paul Dombey, and none in the description of the death of Paul +Dombey's mother, or in the story of Tiny Tim, or in the record of +David Copperfield's childhood and boyhood. I consider the passage in +"American Notes" describing the traits of gentle kindliness among the +emigrants as being nobly, pathetically eloquent. Did space allow, I +could support my position by quotations and example to any extent. And +my conclusion is that, though he failed with Little Nell, yet he +succeeded elsewhere, and superbly. + +The number of _Master Humphrey's Clock_, containing the conclusion of +"The Old Curiosity Shop," appeared on the 17th of January, 1841, and +"Barnaby Rudge" began its course in the ensuing week. The first had +been essentially a tale of modern life. All the characters that made a +kind of background, mostly grotesque or hideous, for the figure of +Little Nell, were characters of to-day, or at least of the day when +the book was written; for I must not forget that that day ran into the +past some six and forty years ago. Quilp, the dwarf,--and a far finer +specimen of a scoundrel by the by, in every respect, than that poor +stage villain Monks; Sampson Brass and his legal sister Sally, a +goodly pair; Kit, golden-hearted and plain of body, who so barely +escapes from the plot laid by the afore-mentioned worthies to prove +him a thief; Chuckster, most lady-killing of notaries' clerks; Mrs. +Jarley, the good-natured waxwork woman, in whose soul there would be +naught save kindliness, only she cannot bring herself to tolerate +Punch and Judy; Short and Codlin, the Punch and Judy men; the little +misused servant, whom Dick Swiveller in his grandeur creates a +marchioness; and the magnificent Swiveller himself, prince among the +idle and impecunious, justifying by his snatches of song, and flowery +rhetoric, his high position as "perpetual grand-master" among the +"Glorious Apollers,"--all these, making allowance perhaps for some +idealization, were personages of Dickens' own time. But in "Barnaby +Rudge," Dickens threw himself back into the last century. The book is +a historical novel, one of the two which he wrote, the other being the +"Tale of Two Cities," and its scenes are many of them laid among the +No Popery Riots of 1780. + +A ghastly time, a time of aimless, brutal incendiarism and mad +turbulence on the part of the mob; a time of weakness and ineptitude +on the part of the Government; a time of wickedness, folly, and +misrule. Dickens describes it admirably. His picture of the riots +themselves seems painted in pigments of blood and fire; and yet, +through all the hurry and confusion, he retains the clearness of +arrangement and lucidity which characterize the pictures of such +subjects when executed by the great masters of the art--as Carlyle, +for example. His portrait of the poor, crazy-brained creature, Lord +George Gordon, who sowed the wind which the country was to reap in +whirlwind, is excellent. Nor is what may be called the private part of +the story unskilfully woven with the historical part. The plot, though +not good, rises perhaps above the average of Dickens' plots; for even +we, his admirers, are scarcely bound to maintain that plot was his +strong point. Beyond this, I think I may say that the book is, on the +whole, the least characteristic of his books. It is the one which +those who are most out of sympathy with his peculiar vein of humour +and pathos will probably think the best, and the one which the true +Dickens lovers will generally regard as bearing the greatest +resemblance to an ordinary novel. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] "Dickens in Camp." + +[15] Dickens himself knew that he had a tendency to fall into blank +verse in moments of excitement, and tried to guard against it. + +[16] M. Daudet, in many respects a follower of Dickens, is a fine and +notable exception. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The last number of "Barnaby Rudge" appeared in November, 1841, and, on +the 4th of the following January Dickens sailed with his wife for a +six months' tour in the United States. What induced him to undertake +this journey, more formidable then, of course, than now? + +Mainly, I think, that restless desire to see the world which is strong +in a great many men, and was specially strong in Dickens. Ride as he +might, and walk as he might, his abounding energies remained +unsatisfied. In 1837 there had been trips to Belgium, Broadstairs, +Brighton; in 1838 to Yorkshire, Broadstairs, North Wales, and a fairly +long stay at Twickenham; in 1839 a similar stay at Petersham--where, +as at Twickenham, frolic, gaiety and athletics had prevailed,--and +trips to Broadstairs and Devonshire; in 1840 trips again to Bath, +Birmingham, Shakespeare's country, Broadstairs, Devonshire; in 1841 +more trips, and a very notable visit to Edinburgh, with which Little +Nell had a great deal to do. For Lord Jeffrey was enamoured of that +young lady, declaring to whomsoever would hear that there had been +"nothing so good ... since Cordelia;" and inoculating the citizens of +the northern capital with his enthusiasm, he had induced them to offer +to Dickens a right royal banquet, and the freedom of their city. +Accordingly to Edinburgh he repaired, and the dinner took place on the +26th of June, with three hundred of the chief notabilities for +entertainers, and a reception such as kings might have envied. Jeffrey +himself was ill and unable to take the chair, but Wilson, the leonine +"Christopher North," editor of _Blackwood_, and author of those +"Noctes Ambrosianæ" which were read so eagerly as they came out, and +which some of us find so difficult to read now--Wilson presided most +worthily. Of speechifying there was of course much, and compliments +abounded. But the banquet itself, the whole reception at Edinburgh was +the most magnificent of compliments. Never, I imagine, can such +efforts have been made to turn any young man's brain, as were made, +during this and the following year, to turn the head of Dickens, who +was still, be it remembered, under thirty. Nevertheless he came +unscathed through the ordeal. A kind of manly genuineness bore him +through. Amid all the adulation and excitement, the public and private +hospitalities, the semi-regal state appearance at the theatre, he +could write, and write truly, to his friend Forster: "The moral of +this is, that there is no place like home; and that I thank God most +heartily for having given me a quiet spirit and a heart that won't +hold many people. I sigh for Devonshire Terrace and Broadstairs, for +battledore and shuttlecock; I want to dine in a blouse with you and +Mac (Maclise).... On Sunday evening, the 17th July, I shall revisit +my household gods, please heaven. I wish the day were here." + +Yes, except during the few years when he and his wife lived unhappily +together, he was greatly attached to his home, with its friendships +and simple pleasures; but yet, as I have said, a desire to see more of +the world, and to garner new experiences, was strong upon him. The two +conflicting influences often warred in his life, so that it almost +seemed sometimes as if he were being driven by relentless furies. +Those furies pointed now with stern fingers towards America, though +"how" he was "to get on" "for seven or eight months without" his +friends, he could not upon his "soul conceive;" though he dreaded "to +think of breaking up all" his "old happy habits for so long a time;" +though "Kate," remembering doubtless her four little children, wept +whenever the subject was "spoken of." Something made him feel that the +going was "a matter of imperative necessity." Washington Irving +beckoned from across the Atlantic, speaking, as Jeffrey had spoken +from Edinburgh, of Little Nell and her far-extended influence. There +was a great reception foreshadowed, and a new world to be seen, and a +book to be written about it. While as to the strongest of the home +ties--the children that brought the tears into Mrs. Dickens' +eyes,--the separation, after all, would not be eternal, and the good +Macready, tragic actor and true friend, would take charge of the +little folk while their parents were away. So Dickens, who had some +time before "begun counting the days between this and coming home +again," set sail, as I have said, for America on the 4th of January, +1842. + +And a very rough experience he, and Mrs. Dickens, and Mrs. Dickens' +maid seem to have had during that January passage from Liverpool to +Halifax and Boston. Most of the time it blew horribly, and they were +direfully ill. Then a storm supervened, which swept away the +paddle-boxes and stove in the life-boats, and they seem to have been +in real peril. Next the ship struck on a mud-bank. But dangers and +discomforts must have been forgotten, at any rate to begin with, in +the glories of the reception that awaited the "inimitable,"--as +Dickens whimsically called himself in those days,--when he landed in +the New World. If he had been received with princely honours in +Edinburgh, he was treated now as an emperor in some triumphant +progress. Halifax sounded the first note of welcome, gave, as it were, +the preliminary trumpet flourish. From that town he writes: "I wish +you could have seen the crowds cheering the inimitable in the streets. +I wish you could have seen judges, law-officers, bishops, and +law-makers welcoming the inimitable. I wish you could have seen the +inimitable shown to a great elbow-chair by the Speaker's throne, and +sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the House of Commons, the +observed of all observers, listening with exemplary gravity to the +queerest speaking possible, and breaking, in spite of himself, into a +smile as he thought of this commencement to the thousand and one +stories in reserve for home." At Boston the enthusiasm had swelled to +even greater proportions. "How can I give you," he writes, "the +faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and +out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when I go out; +of the cheering when I went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, +letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, +assemblies without end?... There is to be a dinner in New York, ... to +which I have had an invitation with every known name in America +appended to it.... I have had deputations from the Far West, who have +come from more than two thousand miles' distance; from the lakes, the +rivers, the backwoods, the log-houses, the cities, factories, +villages, and towns. Authorities from nearly all the states have +written to me. I have heard from the universities, congress, senate, +and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind." All was +indeed going happy as a marriage bell. Did I not rightly say that the +world was conspiring to spoil this young man of thirty, whose youth +had certainly not been passed in the splendour of opulence or power? +What wonder if in the dawn of his American experiences, and of such a +reception, everything assumed a roseate hue? Is it matter for surprise +if he found the women "very beautiful," the "general breeding neither +stiff nor forward," "the good nature universal"; if he expatiated, not +without a backward look at unprogressive Old England, on the +comparative comfort among the working classes, and the absence of +beggars in the streets? But, alas, that rosy dawn ended, as rosy dawns +sometimes will, in sleet and mist and very dirty weather. Before many +weeks, before many days had flown, Dickens was writing in a very +different spirit. On the 24th of February, in the midst of a perfect +ovation of balls and dinners, he writes "with reluctance, +disappointment, and sorrow," that "there is no country on the face of +the earth, where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in +reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, than in" +the United States. On the 22nd of March he writes again, to Macready, +who seems to have remonstrated with him on his growing discontent: "It +is of no use, I _am_ disappointed. This is not the republic I came to +see; this is not the republic of my imagination. I infinitely prefer a +liberal monarchy--even with its sickening accompaniment of Court +circulars--to such a government as this. The more I think of its youth +and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it +appears in my eyes. In everything of which it has made a boast, +excepting its education of the people, and its care for poor children, +it sinks immeasurably below the level I had placed it upon, and +England, even England, bad and faulty as the old land is, and +miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison.... +Freedom of opinion; where is it? I see a press more mean and paltry +and silly and disgraceful than any country I ever knew.... In the +respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by +tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, I have suffered considerably." + +Extracts like these could be multiplied to any extent, and the +question arises, why did such a change come over the spirit of +Dickens? Washington Irving, at the great New York dinner, had called +him "the guest of the nation." Why was the guest so quickly +dissatisfied with his host, and quarrelling with the character of his +entertainment? Sheer physical fatigue, I think, had a good deal to do +with it. Even at Boston, before he had begun to travel over the +unending railways, water-courses, and chaotic coach-roads of the great +Republic, that key-note had been sounded. "We are already," he had +written, "weary at times, past all expression." Few men can wander +with impunity out of their own professional sphere, and undertake +duties for which they have neither the training nor acquired tastes. +Dickens was a writer, not a king; and here he was expected to hold a +king's state, and live in a king's publicity, but without the formal +etiquette that hedge a king from intruders, and make his position +tolerable. He was hemmed in by curious eyes, mobbed in the streets, +stared at in his own private rooms, interviewed by the hour, shaken by +the hand till his arm must often have been ready to drop off, waylaid +at every turn with formal addresses. If he went to church the people +crowded into the adjacent pews, and the preacher preached at him. If +he got into a public conveyance, every one inside insisted on an +introduction, and the people outside--say before the train +started--would pull down the windows and comment freely on his nose +and eyes and personal appearance generally, some even touching him as +if to see if he were real. He was safe from intrusion nowhere--no, not +when he was washing and his wife in bed. Such attentions must have +been exhausting to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. But there +was more than mere physical weariness in his growing distaste for the +United States. Perfectly outspoken at all times, and eager for the +strife of tongues in any cause which he had at heart, it horrified him +to find that he was expected not to express himself freely on such +subjects as International Copyright, and that even in private, or +semi-private intercourse, slavery was a topic to be avoided. Then I +fear, too, that as he left cultured Boston behind, he was brought into +close and habitual contact with natives whom he did not appreciate. +Rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for Brother Jonathan as +Brother Jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. He +was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough +familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all +means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for +literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and +expectorations. So when Dickens gets to "Niagara Falls, upon the +_English_ side," he puts ten dashes under the word English; and, +meeting two English officers, contrasts them in thought with the men +whom he has just left, and seems, by note of exclamation and italics, +to call upon the world to witness, "what _gentlemen_, what noblemen of +nature they seemed!" + +And Brother Jonathan, how did _he_ regard his young guest? Well, +Jonathan, great as he was, and greater as he was destined to be, did +not possess the gift of prophecy, and could not of course foresee the +scathing satire of "American Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." But +still, amid all his enthusiasm, I think there must have been a feeling +of uneasiness and disappointment. Part, as there is no doubt, of the +fervour with which he greeted Dickens, was due to his regarding +Dickens as the representative of democratic feeling in aristocratic +England, as the advocate of the poor and down-trodden against the +wealthy and the strong; "and"--thus argued Jonathan--"because we are +a democracy, therefore Dickens will admire and love us, and see how +immeasurably superior we are to the retrograde Britishers of his +native land." But unfortunately Dickens showed no signs of being +impressed in that particular way. On the contrary, as we have seen, +such comparison as he made in his own mind was infinitely to the +disadvantage of the United States. "We must be cracked up," says +Hannibal Chollop, in "Martin Chuzzlewit," speaking of his fellow +countrymen. And Dickens, even while fêted and honoured, would not +"crack up" the Americans. He lectured them almost with truculence on +their sins in the matter of copyright; he could scarcely be restrained +from testifying against slavery; he was not the man to say he liked +manners and customs which he loathed. Jonathan must have been very +doubtfully satisfied with his guest. + +It is no part of my purpose to follow Dickens lingeringly, and step by +step, from the day when he landed at Halifax, to the 7th of June, when +he re-embarked at New York for England. From Boston he went to New +York, where the great dinner was given with Washington Irving in the +chair, and thence to Philadelphia and Washington,--which was still the +empty "city of magnificent distances," that Mr. Goldwin Smith declares +it has now ceased to be;--and thence again westward, and by Niagara +and Canada back to New York. And if any persons want to know what he +thought about these and other places, and the railway travelling, and +the coach travelling, and the steamboat travelling, and the prisons +and other public institutions--aye, and many other things besides, +they cannot do better than read the "American Notes for general +circulation," which he wrote and published within the year after his +return. Nor need such persons be deterred by the fact that Macaulay +thought meanly of the book; for Macaulay, with all his great gifts, +did not, as he himself knew full well, excel in purely literary +criticism. So when he pronounces, that "what is meant to be easy and +sprightly is vulgar and flippant," and "what is meant to be fine is a +great deal too fine for me, as the description of the Falls of +Niagara," one can venture to differ without too great a pang. The +book, though not assuredly one of Dickens' best, contains admirable +passages which none but he could have written, and the description of +Niagara is noticeably fine, the sublimity of the subject being +remembered, as a piece of impassioned prose. Whether satire so bitter +and unfriendly as that in which he indulged, both here and in "Martin +Chuzzlewit," was justifiable from what may be called an international +point of view, is another question. Publicists do not always remember +that a cut which would smart for a moment, and then be forgotten, if +aimed at a countryman, rankles and festers if administered to a +foreigner. And if this be true as regards the English publicist's +comment on the foreigner who does not understand our language, it is, +of course, true with tenfold force as regards the foreigner whose +language is our own. _He_ understands only too well the jibe and the +sneer, and the tone of superiority, more offensive perhaps than +either. Looked at in this way, it can, I think, but be accounted a +misfortune that the most popular of English writers penned two books +containing so much calculated to wound American feeling, as the +"Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." Nor are signs entirely wanting that, +as the years went by, the mind of Dickens himself was haunted by some +such suspicion. A quarter of a century later, he visited the United +States a second time; and speaking at a public dinner given in his +honour by the journalists of New York, he took occasion to comment on +the enormous strides which the country had made in the interval, and +then said, "Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in +five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had +nothing to learn, and no extreme impressions to correct when I was +here first." And he added that, in all future editions of the two +books just named, he would cause to be recorded, that, "wherever he +had been, in the smallest place equally with the largest, he had been +received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, +hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the +privacy daily enforced upon him by the nature of his avocation there" +(as a public reader), "and the state of his health." + +And now, with three observations, I will conclude what I have to say +about the visit to America in 1842. The first is that the "Notes" are +entirely void of all vulgarity of reference to the private life of the +notable Americans whom Dickens had met. He seems to have known, more +or less intimately, the chief writers of the time--Washington Irving, +Channing, Dana, Bryant, Longfellow, Bancroft; but his intercourse with +them he held sacred, and he made no literary capital out of it. +Secondly, it is pleasant to note that there was, so far, no great +"incompatibility of temper" between him and his wife. He speaks of +her enthusiastically, in his correspondence, as a "most admirable +traveller," and expatiates on the good temper and equanimity with +which she had borne the fatigues and jars of a most trying journey. +And the third point to which I will call attention is the thoroughly +characteristic form of rest to which he had recourse in the midst of +all his toil and travel. Most men would have sought relaxation in +being quiet. He found it in vigorously getting up private theatricals +with the officers of the Coldstream Guards, at Montreal. Besides +acting in all the three pieces played, he also accepted the part of +stage manager; and "I am not," he says, "placarded as stage manager +for nothing. Everybody was told that they would have to submit to the +most iron despotism, and didn't I come Macready over them? Oh no, by +no means; certainly not. The pains I have taken with them, and the +perspiration I have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in +amount anything you can imagine." What bright vitality, and what a +singular charm of exuberant animal spirits! + +And who was glad one evening--which would be about the last evening in +June, or the first of July--when a hackney coach rattled up to the +door of the house in Devonshire Terrace, and four little folk, two +girls and two boys, were hurried down, and kissed through the bars of +the gate, because their father was too eager to wait till it was +opened? Who were glad but the little folk aforementioned--I say +nothing of the joy of father and mother; for children as they were, a +sense of sorrowful loss had been theirs while their parents were away, +and greater strictness seems to have reigned in the good Macready's +household than in their own joyous home. It is Miss Dickens herself +who tells us this, and in whose memory has lingered that pretty scene +of the kiss through the bars in the summer gloaming. And she has much +to tell us too of her father's tenderness and care,--of his sympathy +with the children's terrors, so that, for instance, he would sit +beside the cot of one of the little girls who had been startled, and +hold her hand in his till she fell asleep; of his having them on his +knees, and singing to them the merriest of comic songs; of his +interest in all their small concerns; of the many pet names with which +he invested them.[17] Then, as they grew older, there were Twelfth +Night parties and magic lanterns. "Never such magic lanterns as those +shown by him," she says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was +dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he +practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, +lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight +rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private +theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest +himself in his children's occupations, lessons, amusements, and +general welfare." Clearly not one of those brilliant men, a numerous +race, who when away from their homes, in general society, sparkle and +scintillate, flash out their wit, and irradiate all with their humour, +but who, when at home, are dull as rusted steel. Among the many +tributes to his greatness, that of his own child has a place at once +touching and beautiful. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Miss Dickens evidently bears proudly still her pet name of +"Mamie," and signs it to her book. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +With the return from America began the old life of hard work and hard +play. There was much industrious writing of "American Notes," at +Broadstairs and elsewhere; and there were many dinners of welcome +home, and strolls, doubtless, with Forster and Maclise, and other +intimates, to old haunts, as Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath, +and similar houses of public entertainment. And then in the autumn +there was "such a trip ... into Cornwall," with Forster, and the +painters Stanfield and Maclise for travelling companions. How they +enjoyed themselves to be sure, and with what bubbling, bursting +merriment. "I never laughed in my life as I did on this journey," +writes Dickens, "... I was choking and gasping ... all the way. And +Stanfield got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often +obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could +recover him." Immediately on their return, refreshed and invigorated +by this wholesome hilarity and enjoyment, he threw himself into the +composition of his next book, and the first number of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" appeared in January, 1843. + +"Martin Chuzzlewit" is unquestionably one of Dickens' great works. He +himself held it to be "in a hundred points" and "immeasurably" +superior to anything he had before written, and that verdict may, I +think, be accepted freely. The plot, as plot is usually understood, +can scarcely indeed be commended. But then plot was never his strong +point. Later in life, and acting, as I have always surmised, under the +influence of his friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, he endeavoured to +construct ingenious stories that turned on mysterious disappearances, +and the substitution of one person for another, and murders real or +suspected. All this was, to my mind, a mistake. Dickens had no real +gift for the manufacture of these ingenious pieces of mechanism. He +did not even many times succeed in disposing the events and +marshalling the characters in his narratives so as to work, by +seemingly unforced and natural means, to a final situation and climax. +Too often, in order to hold his story together and make it move +forward at all, he was compelled to make his personages pursue a line +of conduct preposterous and improbable, and even antagonistic to their +nature. Take this very book. Old Martin Chuzzlewit is a man who has +been accustomed, all through a long life, to have his own way, and to +take it with a high hand. Yet he so far sets aside, during a course of +months, every habit of his life, as to simulate the weakest +subservience to Pecksniff--and that not for the purpose of unmasking +Pecksniff, who wanted no unmasking, but only in order to disappoint +him. Is it believable that old Martin should have thought Pecksniff +worth so much trouble, personal inconvenience, and humiliation? Or +take again Mr. Boffin in "Our Mutual Friend." Mr. Boffin is a simple, +guileless, open-hearted, open-handed old man. Yet, in order to prove +to Miss Bella Wilfer that it is not well to be mercenary, he, again, +goes through a long course of dissimulation, and does some admirable +comic business in the character of a miser. I say it boldly, I do not +believe Mr. Boffin possessed that amount of histrionic talent. Plots +requiring to be worked out by such means are ill-constructed plots; +or, to put it in another way, a man who had any gift for the +construction of plots would never have had recourse to such means. Nor +would he, I think, have adopted, as Dickens did habitually and for all +his stories, a mode of publication so destructive of unity of effect, +as the publication in monthly or weekly parts. How could the reader +see as a whole that which was presented to him at intervals of time +more or less distant? How, and this is of infinitely greater +importance, how could the writer produce it as a whole? For Dickens, +it must be remembered, never finished a book before the commencement +of publication. At first he scarcely did more than complete each +monthly instalment as required; and though afterwards he was generally +some little way in advance, yet always he wrote by parts, having the +interest of each separate part in his mind, as well as the general +interest of the whole novel. Thus, however desirable in the +development of the story, he dared not risk a comparatively tame and +uneventful number. Moreover, any portion once issued was unalterable +and irrevocable. If, as sometimes happened, any modification seemed +desirable as the book progressed, there was no possibility of +changing anything in the chapters already in the hands of the public, +and so making them harmonize better with the new. + +But of course, with all this, the question still remains how far +Dickens' comparative failure as a constructor of plots really detracts +from his fame and standing as a novelist. To my mind, I confess, not +very much. Plot I regard as the least essential element in the +novelist's art. A novel can take the very highest rank without it. +There is not any plot to speak of in Lesage's "Gil Blas," and just as +little in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and only a very bad one in +Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield." Coleridge admired the plot of "Tom +Jones," but though one naturally hesitates to differ from a critic of +such superb mastery and power, I confess I have never been struck by +that plot, any more than by the plots, such as they are, in "Joseph +Andrews," or in Smollett's works. Nor, if I can judge of other +people's memories by my own, is it by the mechanism of the story, or +by the intrigue, however admirably woven and unravelled, that one +remembers a work of fiction. These may exercise an intense passing +interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. But +afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly +vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full +coloured, for an indefinite time. Scott's "Guy Mannering" is a +well-constructed story. The plot is deftly laid, the events are +prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as +to be made to look as probable as may be. Yet we remember and love the +book, not for such excellences as these, but for Dandie Dinmont, the +Border farmer, and Pleydell, the Edinburgh advocate, and Meg +Merrilies, the gipsy. The book's life is in its flesh and blood, not +in its plot. And the same is true of Dickens' novels. He crowds them +so full of human creatures, each with its own individuality and +character, that we have no care for more than just as much story as +may serve to show them struggling, joying, sorrowing, loving. If the +incidents will do this for us we are satisfied. It is not necessary +that those incidents should be made to go through cunning evolutions +to a definite end. Each is admirable in itself, and admirably adapted +to its immediate purpose. That should more than suffice. + +And Dickens sometimes succeeds in reaching a higher unity than that of +mere plot. He takes one central idea, and makes of it the soul of his +novel, animating and vivifying every part. That central idea in +"Martin Chuzzlewit" is the influence of selfishness. The Chuzzlewits +are a selfish race. Old Martin is selfish; and so, with many good +qualities and possibilities of better things, is his grandson, young +Martin. The other branch of the family, Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son +Jonas, are much worse. The latter especially is a horrible creature. +Brought up to think of nothing except his own interests and the main +chance, he is only saved by an accident from the crime of parricide, +and afterwards commits a murder and poisons himself. As his career is +one of terrible descent, so young Martin's is one of gradual +regeneration from his besetting weakness. He falls in love with his +cousin Mary--the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye--and +quarrels about this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes +into the hard school of adversity. There he learns much. Specially +valuable is the teaching which he gets as a settler in the swampy +backwoods of the United States in company with Mark Tapley, jolliest +and most helpful of men. On his return, he finds his grandfather +seemingly under the influence of Pecksniff, the hypocrite, the English +Tartuffe. But that, as I have already mentioned, is only a ruse. Old +Martin is deceiving Pecksniff, who in due time receives the reward of +his deeds, and all ends happily for those who deserve happiness. Such +is something like a bare outline of the story, with the beauty +eliminated. For what makes its interest, we must go further, to the +household of Pecksniff with his two daughters, Charity and Mercy, and +Tom Pinch, whose beautiful, unselfish character stands so in contrast +to that of the grasping self-seekers by whom he is surrounded; we must +study young Martin himself, whose character is admirably drawn, and +without Dickens' usual tendency to caricature; we must laugh in +sympathy with Mark Tapley; we must follow them both through the +American scenes, which, intensely amusing as they are, must have +bitterly envenomed the wounds inflicted on the national vanity by +"American Notes," and, according to Dickens' own expression, "sent +them all stark staring raving mad across the water;" we must frequent +the boarding establishment for single gentlemen kept by lean Mrs. +Todgers, and sit with Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig as they hideously +discuss their avocations, or quarrel over the shadowy Mrs. Harris; we +must follow Jonas Chuzzlewit on his errand of murder, and note how +even his felon nature is appalled by the blackness and horror of his +guilt, and how the ghastly terror of it haunts and cows him. A great +book, I say again, a very great book. + +Yet not at the time a successful book. Why Fortune, the fickle jade, +should have taken it into her freakish head to frown, or half frown, +on Dickens at this particular juncture, who shall tell? He was wooing +her with his very best work, and she turned from him. The sale of +"Pickwick" and "Nicholas Nickleby" had been from forty to fifty +thousand copies of each part; the sale of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ +had risen still higher; the sale of even the most popular parts of +"Martin Chuzzlewit" fell to twenty-three thousand. This was, as may be +supposed, a grievous disappointment. Dickens' personal expenditure had +not perhaps been lavish in view of what he thought he could calculate +on earning; but it had been freely based on that calculation. Demands, +too, were being made upon his purse by relations,--probably by his +father, and certainly by his brother Frederic, which were frequent, +embarrassing, and made in a way which one may call worse than +indelicate. Any permanent loss of popularity would have meant serious +money entanglements. With his father's career in full view, such a +prospect must have been anything but pleasant. He cast about what he +should do, and determined to leave England for a space, live more +economically on the Continent, and gather materials in Italy or +Switzerland for a new travel book. But before carrying out this +project, he would woo fortune once again, and in a different form. +During the months of October and November, 1843, in the intervals of +"Chuzzlewit," he wrote a short story that has taken its place, by +almost universal consent, among his masterpieces, nay, among the +masterpieces of English literature: "The Christmas Carol." + +All Dickens' great gifts seem reflected, sharp and distinct, in this +little book, as in a convex mirror. His humour, his best pathos, which +is not that of grandiloquence, but of simplicity, his bright poetic +fancy, his kindliness, all here find a place. It is great painting in +miniature, genius in its quintessence, a gem of perfect water. We may +apply to it any simile that implies excellence in the smallest +compass. None but a fine imagination would have conceived the +supernatural agency that works old Scrooge's moral regeneration--the +ghosts of Christmas past, present, and to come, that each in turn +speaks to the wizened heart of the old miser, so that, almost +unwittingly, he is softened by the tender memories of childhood, +warmed by sympathy for those who struggle and suffer, and appalled by +the prospect of his own ultimate desolation and black solitude. Then +the episodes: the scenes to which these ghostly visitants convey +Scrooge; the story of his earlier years as shown in vision; the +household of the Cratchits, and poor little crippled Tiny Tim; the +party given by Scrooge's nephew; nay, before all these, the terrible +interview with Marley's Ghost. All are admirably executed. Sacrilege +would it be to suggest the alteration of a word. First of the +Christmas books in the order of time, it is also the best of its own +kind; it is in its own order perfect. + +Nor did the public of Christmas, 1843, fail to appreciate that +something of very excellent quality had been brought forth for their +benefit. "The first edition of six thousand copies," says Forster, +"was sold" on the day of publication, and about as many more would +seem to have been disposed of before the end of February, 1844. But, +alas, Dickens had set his heart on a profit of £1,000, whereas in +February he did not see his way to much more than £460,[18] and his +unpaid bills for the previous year he described as "terrific." So +something, as I have said, had to be done. A change of front became +imperative. Messrs. Bradbury and Evans advanced him £2,800 "for a +fourth share in whatever he might write during the ensuing eight +years,"--he purchased at the Pantechnicon "a good old shabby devil of +a coach," also described as "an English travelling carriage of +considerable proportions"; engaged a courier who turned out to be the +courier of couriers, a very conjurer among couriers; let his house in +Devonshire Terrace; and so started off for Italy, as I calculate the +dates, on the 1st of July, 1844. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] The profit at the end of 1844 was £726. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Ah, those eventful, picturesque, uncomfortable old travelling days, +when railways were unborn, or in their infancy; those interminable old +dusty drives, in diligence or private carriage, along miles and miles +of roads running straight to the low horizon, through a line of tall +poplars, across the plains of France! What an old-world memory it +seems, and yet, as the years go, not so very long since after all. The +party that rumbled from Boulogne to Marseilles in the old "devil of a +coach" aforesaid, "and another conveyance for luggage," and I know not +what other conveyances besides, consisted of Dickens himself; Mrs. +Dickens; her sister, Miss Georgina Hogarth, who had come to live with +them on their return from America; five children, for another boy had +been born some six months before; Roche, the prince of couriers; +"Anne," apparently the same maid who had accompanied them across the +Atlantic; and other dependents: a somewhat formidable troupe and +cavalcade. Of their mode of travel, and what they saw on the way, or +perhaps, more accurately, of what Dickens saw, with those specially +keen eyes of his, at Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, and other +places--one may read the master's own account in the "Pictures from +Italy." Marseilles was reached on the 14th of July, and thence a +steamer took them, coasting the fairy Mediterranean shores, to Genoa, +their ultimate destination, where they landed on the 16th. + +The Italy of 1844 was like, and yet unlike the Italy of to-day. It was +the old disunited Italy of several small kingdoms and principalities, +the Italy over which lowered the shadow of despotic Austria, and of +the Pope's temporal power, not the Italy which the genius of Cavour +has welded into a nation. It was a land whose interest came altogether +from the past, and that lay as it were in the beauty of time's sunset. +How unlike the United States! The contrast has always, I confess, +seemed to me a piquant one. It has often struck me with a feeling of +quaintness that the two countries which Dickens specially visited and +described, were, the one this lovely land of age and hoar antiquity, +and the other that young giant land of the West, which is still in the +garish strong light of morning, and whose great day is in the future. +Nor, I think, before he had seen both, would Dickens himself have been +able to tell on which side his sympathies would lie. Thoroughly +popular in his convictions, thoroughly satisfied that to-day was in +all respects better than yesterday, it is clear that he expected to +find more pleasure in the brand new Republic than his actual +experience warranted. The roughness of the strong, uncultured young +life grated upon him. It jarred upon his sensibilities. But of Italy +he wrote with very different feeling. What though the places were +dirty, the people shiftless, idle, unpunctual, unbusinesslike, and +the fleas as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? It +mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners +were so full of amenity. Your inn might be, and probably was, +ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors agape, the +windows banging--a contrast in every way to the palatial hotel in New +York or Washington. But then how cheerful and amusing were mine host +and hostess, and how smilingly determined all concerned to make things +pleasant. So the artist in Dickens turned from the new to the old, and +Italy, as she is wont, cast upon him her spell. + +First impressions, however, were not altogether satisfactory. Dickens +owns to a pang when he was "set down" at Albaro, a suburb of Genoa, +"in a rank, dull, weedy courtyard, attached to a kind of pink jail, +and told he lived there." But he immediately adds: "I little thought +that day that I should ever come to have an attachment for the very +stones in the streets of Genoa, and to look back upon the city with +affection, as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet." In +sooth, he enjoyed the place thoroughly. "Martin Chuzzlewit" had left +his hands. He was fairly entitled for a few weeks to the luxury of +idleness, and he threw himself into doing nothing, as he was +accustomed to throw himself into his work, with all energy. And there +was much to do, much especially to see. So Dickens bathed and walked; +and strolled about the city hither and thither, and about the suburbs +and about the surrounding country; and visited public buildings and +private palaces; and noted the ways of the inhabitants; and saw +Genoese life in its varied forms; and wrote light glancing letters +about it all to friends at home; and learnt Italian; and, in the end +of September, left his "pink jail," which had been taken for him at a +disproportionate rent, and moved into the Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa +itself: a wonderful palace, with an entrance-hall fifty feet high, and +larger than "the dining-room of the Academy," and bedrooms "in size +and shape like those at Windsor Castle, but greatly higher," and a +view from the windows over gardens where the many fountains sparkled, +and the gold fish glinted, and into Genoa itself, with its "many +churches, monasteries, and convents pointing to the sunny sky," and +into the harbour, and over the sapphire sea, and up again to the +encircling hills--a view, as Dickens declared, that "no custom could +impair, and no description enhance." + +But with the beginning of October came again the time for work; and +beautiful beyond all beauty as were his surroundings, the child of +London turned to the home of his heart, and pined for the London +streets. For some little space he seemed to be thinking in vain, and +cudgelling his brains for naught, when suddenly the chimes of Genoa's +many churches, that seemed to have been clashing and clanging nothing +but distraction and madness, rang harmony into his mind. The subject +and title of his new Christmas book were found. He threw himself into +the composition of "The Chimes." + +Earnest at all times in what he wrote, living ever in intense and +passionate sympathy with the world of his imagination, he seems +specially to have put his whole heart into this book. "All my +affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became +as haggard as a murderer long before I wrote 'the end,'"--so he told +Lady Blessington on the 20th of November; and to Forster he expressed +the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time, +lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling +people that nothing could obliterate." This was the keynote of "The +Chimes." He intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on +behalf of the poor and down-trodden. His purpose, so far as I can make +it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings, +and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there linger traces +of goodness and kindly feeling. On this I shall have something to say +when discussing "Hard Times," which is somewhat akin to "The Chimes" +in scope and purpose. Meanwhile it cannot honestly be affirmed that +the story justifies the passion that Dickens threw into its +composition. The supernatural machinery is weak as compared with that +of the "Carol." Little Trotty Veck, dreaming to the sound of the bells +in the old church tower, is a bad substitute for Scrooge on his +midnight rambles. Nor are his dreams at all equal, for humour or +pathos, to Scrooge's visions and experiences. And the moral itself is +not clearly brought out. I confess to being a little doubtful as to +what it exactly is, and how it follows from the premises furnished. I +wish, too, that it had been carried home to some one with more power +than little Trotty to give it effect. What was the good of convincing +that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? +He knew it very well. Take from the book the fine imaginative +description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing +of the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions--and not +much more. + +Such, however, was very far from being Dickens' view. He had +"undergone," he said, "as much sorrow and agitation" in the writing +"as if the thing were real," and on the 3rd of November, when the last +page was written, had indulged "in what women call a good cry;" and, +as usually happens, the child that had cost much sorrow was a child of +special love.[19] So, when all was over, nothing would do but he must +come to London to read his book to the choice literary spirits whom he +specially loved. Accordingly he started from Genoa on the 6th of +November, travelled by Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice--where, +such was the enchantment of the place, that he felt it "cruel not to +have brought Kate and Georgy, positively cruel and base";--and thence +again by Verona, Mantua, Milan, the Simplon Pass, Strasbourg, Paris, +and Calais, to Dover, and wintry England. Sharp work, considering all +he had seen by the way, and how effectually he had seen it, for he was +in London on the evening of the 30th of November, and, on the 2nd of +December, reading his little book to the choice spirits aforesaid, all +assembled for the purpose at Forster's house. There they are: they +live for us still in Maclise's drawing, though Time has plied his +scythe among them so effectually, during the forty-two years since +flown, that each has passed into the silent land. There they sit: +Carlyle, not the shaggy Scotch terrier with the melancholy eyes that +we were wont to see in his later days, but close shaven and alert; and +swift-witted Douglas Jerrold; and Laman Blanchard, whose name goes +darkling in the literature of the last generation; and Forster +himself, journalist and author of many books; and the painters Dyce, +Maclise, and Stanfield; and Byron's friend and school companion, the +clergyman Harness, who, like Dyce, pays to the story the tribute of +his tears. + +Dickens can have been in London but the fewest of few days, for on the +13th of December he was leaving Paris for Genoa, and that after going +to the theatre more than once. From Genoa he started again, on the +20th of January, 1845, with Mrs. Dickens, to see the Carnival at Rome. +Thence he went to Naples, returning to Rome for the Holy Week; and +thence again by Florence to Genoa. He finally left Italy in the +beginning of June, and was back with his family in Devonshire Terrace +at the end of that month. + +To what use of a literary kind should he turn his Italian observations +and experiences? In what form should he publish the notes made by the +way? Events soon answered that question. The year 1845 stands in the +history of Queen Victoria's reign as a time of intense political +excitement. The Corn Law agitation raged somewhat furiously. Dickens +felt strongly impelled to throw himself into the strife. Why should he +not influence his fellow-men, and "battle for the true, the just," as +the able editor of a daily newspaper? Accordingly, after all the +negotiations which enterprises of this kind necessitate, he made the +due arrangements for starting a new paper, _The Daily News_. It was to +be edited by himself, to "be kept free," the prospectus said, "from +personal influence or party bias," and to be "devoted to the advocacy +of all rational and honest means by which wrong may be redressed, just +rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted." +His salary, so I have seen it stated, was to be £2,000 a year; and the +first number came out on the morning of the 21st of January, 1846. He +held the post of editor three weeks. + +The world may, I think, on the whole, be congratulated that he did not +hold it longer. Able editors are more easily found than such writers +as Dickens. There were higher claims upon his time. But to return to +the Italian Notes: it was in the columns of _The Daily News_ that they +first saw the light. They were among the baby attractions and charms, +if I may so speak, of the nascent paper, which is now, as I need not +remind my readers, enjoying a hale and vigorous manhood. And admirable +sketches they are. Much, very much has been written about Italy. The +subject has been done to death by every variety of pen, and in every +civilized tongue. But amid all this writing, Dickens' "Pictures from +Italy" still holds a high and distinctive position. That the +descriptions, whether of places and works of art, or of life's +pageantry, and what may be called the social picturesque, should be +graphic, vivid, animated, was almost a matter of course. But _à +priori_, I think one might have feared lest he should "chaff" the +place and its inhabitants overmuch, and yield to the temptation of +making merriment over matters which hoar age and old associations had +hallowed. We can all imagine the kind of observation that would occur +to Sam Weller in strolling through St. Mark's at Venice, or the +Vatican; and, guessing beforehand, guessing before the "Pictures" +were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens +should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller. Such +prophecies would have been falsified by the event. The book as a whole +is very free from banter or _persiflage_. Once and again the comic +side of some situation strikes him, of course. Thus, after the +ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory +of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says: "The whole +thirteen sat down to dinner; grace said by the Pope; Peter in the +chair." But these humorous touches are rare, and not in bad taste; +while for the historic and artistic grandeurs of Italy he shows an +enthusiasm which is _individual_ and discriminating. We feel, in what +he says about painting, that we are getting the fresh impressions of a +man not specially trained in the study of the old masters, but who yet +succeeds, by sheer intuitive sympathy; in appreciating much of their +greatness. His criticism of the paintings at Venice, for instance, is +very decidedly superior to that of Macaulay. In brief the "Pictures," +to give to the book the name which Dickens gave it, are painted with a +brush at once kindly and brilliant. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] He read "The Chimes" at his first reading as a paid reader. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The publication of the "Pictures," though I have dealt with it as a +sort of complement to Dickens' sojourn in Italy, carries us to the +year 1846. But before going on with the history of that year, there +are one or two points to be taken up in the history of 1845. The first +is the performance, on the 21st of September, of Ben Jonson's play of +"Every Man in his Humour," by a select company of amateur actors, +among whom Dickens held chief place. "He was the life and soul of the +entire affair," says Forster. "I never seem till then to have known +his business capabilities. He took everything on himself, and did the +whole of it without an effort. He was stage director, very often stage +carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master. +Without offending any one, he kept every one in order. For all he had +useful suggestions.... He adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, +invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced, +as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he +urged the necessity on others." Dickens had once thought of the stage +as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor +of very unusual power. But of course he only acted for his amusement, +and I don't know that I should have dwelt upon this performance, which +was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in Forster's +description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a +practical man. The second event to be mentioned as happening in 1845, +is the publication of another very pretty Christmas story, "The +Cricket on the Hearth." + +Though Dickens had ceased to edit _The Daily News_ on the 9th of +February, 1846, he contributed to the paper for some few weeks longer. +But by the month of May his connection with it had entirely ceased; +and on the 31st of that month, he started, by Belgium and the Rhine, +for Lausanne in Switzerland, where he had determined to spend some +time, and commence his next great book, and write his next Christmas +story. + +A beautiful place is Lausanne, as many of my readers will know; and a +beautiful house the house called Rosemont, situated on a hill that +rises from the Lake of Geneva, with the lake's blue waters stretching +below, and across, on the other side, a magnificent panorama of snowy +mountains, the Simplon, St. Gothard, Mont Blanc, towering to the sky. +This delightful place Dickens took at a rent of some £10 a month. Then +he re-arranged all the furniture, as was his energetic wont. Then he +spent a fortnight or so in looking about him, and writing a good deal +for Lord John Russell on Ragged Schools, and for Miss Coutts about her +various charities; and finally, on the 28th of June, as he announced +to Forster in capital letters, BEGAN DOMBEY. + +But as the Swiss pine with home-sickness when away from their own +dear land, so did this Londoner, amid all the glories of the Alps, +pine for the London streets. It seemed almost as if they were +essential to the exercise of his genius. The same strange mental +phenomenon which he had observed in himself at Genoa was reproduced +here. Everything else in his surroundings smiled most congenially. The +place was fair beyond speech. The shifting, changing beauty of the +mountains entranced him. The walks offered an endless variety of +enjoyment. He liked the people. He liked the English colony. He had +made several dear friends among them and among the natives. He was +interested in the politics of the country, which happened, just then, +to be in a state of peculiar excitement and revolution. Everything was +charming;--"but," he writes, "the toil and labour of writing, day +after day, without that magic-lantern (of the London streets) is +IMMENSE!" It literally knocked him up. He had "bad nights," was "sick +and giddy," desponding over his book, more than half inclined to +abandon the Christmas story altogether for that year. However, a short +trip to Geneva, and the dissipation of a stroll or so in its +thoroughfares, to remind him, as it were, of what streets were like, +and a week of "idleness" "rusting and devouring," "complete and +unbroken," set him comparatively on his legs again, and before he left +Lausanne for Paris on the 16th of November, he had finished three +parts of "Dombey," and the "Battle of Life." + +Of the latter I don't know that I need say anything. It is decidedly +the weakest of his Christmas books. But "Dombey" is very different +work, and the first five numbers especially, which carry the story to +the death of little Paul, contain passages of humour and pathos, and +of humour and pathos mingled together and shot in warp and woof, like +some daintiest silken fabric, that are scarcely to be matched in the +language. As I go in my mind through the motherless child's short +history--his birth, his christening, the engagement of the wet-nurse, +the time when he is consigned to the loveless care of Mrs. Pipchin, +his education in Dr. Blimber's Academy under the classic Cornelia, and +his death--as I follow it all in thought, now smiling at each +well-remembered touch of humour, and now saddened and solemnized as +the shadow of death deepens over the frail little life, I confess to +something more than critical admiration for the writer as an artist. I +feel towards him as towards one who has touched my heart. Of course it +is the misfortune of the book, regarding it as a whole, that the +chapters relating to Paul, which are only an episode, should be of +such absorbing interest, and come so early. Dickens really wrote them +too well. They dwarf the rest of the story. We find a difficulty in +resuming the thread of it with the same zest when the child is gone. +But though the remainder of the book inevitably suffers in this way, +it ought not to suffer unduly. Even apart from little Paul the novel +is a fine one. Pride is its subject, as selfishness is that of "Martin +Chuzzlewit." Mr. Dombey, the city merchant, has as much of the +arrogance of caste and position as any blue-blooded hidalgo. He is as +proud of his name as if he had inherited it from a race of princes. +That he neglects and slights his daughter, and loves his son, is +mainly because the latter will add a sort of completeness to the +firm, and make it truly Dombey _and Son_, while the girl, for all +commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his +pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his +confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, +first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into +large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, +certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her +birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his +social prestige--she, with ungovernable pride equal to his own, +revolts against his authority, and, in order to humiliate him the +more, pretends to elope with Carker, whom in turn she scorns and +crushes. Broken thus in fortune and honour, Mr. Dombey yet falls not +ignobly. His creditors he satisfies in full, reserving to himself +nothing; and with a softened heart turns to the daughter he had +slighted, and in her love finds comfort. Such is the main purport of +the story, and round it, in graceful arabesques, are embroidered, +after Dickens' manner, a whole world of subsidiary incidents thronged +with all sorts of characters. What might not one say about Dr. +Blimber's genteel academy at Brighton; and the Toodles family, so +humble in station and intellect and so large of heart; and the +contrast between Carker the manager and his brother, who for some +early dishonest act, long since repented of, remains always Carker the +junior; and about Captain Cuttle, and that poor, muddled nautical +philosopher, Captain Bunsby, and the Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin, +and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix with wilful legs so little under +control, and yet to the core of him a gentleman; and the apoplectic +Major Bagstock, the Joey B. who claimed to be "rough and tough and +devilish sly;" and Susan Nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and +as sharp? Reader, don't you know all these people? For myself, I have +jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. They +are as much part of my life as the people I meet every day. + +But there is one person whom I have left out of my enumeration, not +certainly because I don't know him, for I know him very well, but +because I want to speak about him more particularly. That person is my +old friend, Mr. Toots; and the special point in his character which +induces me to linger is the slight touch of craziness that sits so +charmingly upon him. M. Taine, the French critic, in his chapters on +Dickens, repeats the old remark that genius and madness are near +akin.[20] He observes, and observes truly, that Dickens describes so +well because an imagination of singular intensity enables him to _see_ +the object presented, and at the same time to impart to it a kind of +visionary life. "That imagination," says M. Taine, "is akin to the +imagination of the monomaniac." And, starting from this point, he +proceeds to show, here again quite truly, with what admirable +sympathetic power and insight Dickens has described certain cases of +madness, as in Mr. Dick. But here, having said some right things, M. +Taine goes all wrong. According to him, these portraits of persons who +have lost their wits, "however amusing they may seem at first sight," +are "horrible." They could only have been painted by "an imagination +such as that of Dickens, excessive, disordered, and capable of +hallucination." He seems to be not far from thinking that only our +splenetic and melancholy race could have given birth to such literary +monsters. To speak like this, as I conceive, shows a singular +misconception of the instinct or set purpose that led Dickens to +introduce these characters into his novels at all. It is perfectly +true that he has done so several times. Barnaby Rudge, the hero of the +book of the same name, is half-witted. Mr. Dick, in "David +Copperfield," is decidedly crazy. Mr. Toots is at least simple. Little +Miss Flite, in "Bleak House," haunting the Law Courts in expectation +of a judgment on the Day of Judgment, is certainly not _compos +mentis_. And one may concede to M. Taine that some element of sadness +must always be present when we see a human creature imperfectly gifted +with man's noblest attribute of reason. But, granting this to the +full, is it possible to conceive of anything more kindly and gentle in +the delineation of partial insanity than the portraits which the +French critic finds horrible? Barnaby Rudge's lunatic symptoms are +compatible with the keenest enjoyment of nature's sights and sounds, +fresh air and free sunlight, and compatible with loyalty and high +courage. Many men might profitably change their reason for his +unreason. Mr. Dick's flightiness is allied to an intense devotion and +gratitude to the woman who had rescued him from confinement in an +asylum; there lives a world of kindly sentiments in his poor +bewildered brains. Of Mr. Toots, Susan Nipper says truly, "he may not +be a Solomon, nor do I say he is, but this I do say, a less selfish +human creature human nature never knew." And to this one may add that +he is entirely high-minded, generous, and honourable. Miss Flite's +crazes do not prevent her from being full of all womanly sympathies. +Here I think lies the charm these characters had for Dickens. As he +was fond of showing a soul of goodness in the ill-favoured and +uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered +intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. M. +Taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. I think myself it would be +possible to find a better adjective. + +Dickens was at work on "Dombey and Son" during the latter part of the +year 1846, and the whole of 1847, and the early part of 1848. We left +him on the 16th of November, in the first of these years, starting +from Lausanne for Paris, which he reached on the evening of the 20th. +Here he took a house--a "preposterous" house, according to his own +account, with only gleams of reason in it; and visited many theatres; +and went very often to the Morgue, where lie the unowned dead; and had +pleasant friendly intercourse with the notable French authors of the +time, Alexandre Dumas the Great, most prolific of romance writers; and +Scribe of the innumerable plays; and the poets Lamartine and Victor +Hugo; and Chateaubriand, then in his sad and somewhat morose old age. +And in Paris too, with the help of streets and crowded ways, he +wrote the great number of Dombey, the number in which little Paul +dies. Three months did Dickens spend in the French capital, the +incomparable city, and then was back in London, at the old life of +hard work; but with even a stronger infusion than before of private +theatricals--private theatricals on a grandiose scale, that were +applauded by the Queen herself, and took him and his troupe starring +about during the next three or four years, hither and thither, and +here and there, in London and the provinces. "Splendid strolling" +Forster calls it; and a period of unmixed jollity and enjoyment it +seems to have been. Of course Dickens was the life and soul of it all. +Mrs. Cowden Clarke, one of the few survivors, looking back to that +happy time, says enthusiastically, "Charles Dickens, beaming in look, +alert in manner, radiant with good humour, genial-voiced, gay, the +very soul of enjoyment, fun, good taste, and good spirits, admirable +in organizing details and suggesting novelty of entertainment, was of +all beings the very man for a holiday season."[21] The proceeds of the +performances were devoted to various objects, but chiefly to an +impossible "Guild of Literature and Art," which, in the sanguine +confidence of its projectors, and especially of Dickens, was to +inaugurate a golden age for the author and the artist. But of all +this, and of Dickens' speeches at the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, and +Glasgow Athenæum, in the December of 1847, I don't know that I need +say very much. The interest of a great writer's life is, after all, +mainly in what he writes; and when I have said that "Dombey" proved to +be a pecuniary success, the first six numbers realizing as much as +£2,820, I think I may fairly pass on to Dickens' next book, the +"Haunted Man." + +This was his Christmas story for 1848; the last, and not the worst of +his Christmas stories. Both conception and treatment are thoroughly +characteristic. Mr. Redlaw, a chemist, brooding over an ancient wrong, +comes to the conclusion that it would be better for himself, better +for all, if, in each of us, every memory of the past could be +cancelled. A ghostly visitant, born of his own resentment and gloom, +gives him the boon he seeks, and enables him to go about the world +freezing all recollection in those he meets. And lo the boon turns out +to be a curse. His presence blights those on whom it falls. For with +the memory of past wrongs, goes the memory of past benefits, of all +the mutual kindlinesses of life, and each unit of humanity becomes +self-centred and selfish. Two beings alone resist his influence--one, +a creature too selfishly nurtured for any of mankind's better +recollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the spell, +and even, finally, to exorcise it in Mr. Redlaw's own breast. + +"David Copperfield" was published between May, 1849, and the autumn of +1850, and marks, I think, the culminating point in Dickens' career as +a writer. So far there had been, not perhaps from book to book, but on +the whole, decided progress, the gradual attainment of greater ease, +and of the power of obtaining results of equal power by simpler means. +Beyond this there was, if not absolute declension, for he never wrote +anything that could properly be called careless and unworthy of +himself, yet at least no advance. Of the interest that attaches to the +book from the fact that so many portions are autobiographical, I have +already spoken; nor need I go over the ground again. But quite apart +from such adventitious attractions, the novel is an admirable one. +All the scenes of little David's childhood in the Norfolk home--the +Blunderstone rookery, where there were no rooks--are among the most +beautiful pictures of childhood in existence. In what sunshine of love +does the lad bask with his mother and Peggotty, till Mrs. Copperfield +contracts her disastrous second marriage with Mr. Murdstone! Then how +the scene changes. There come harshness and cruelty; banishment to Mr. +Creakle's villainous school; the poor mother's death; the worse +banishment to London, and descent into warehouse drudgery; the strange +shabby-genteel, happy-go-lucky life with the Micawbers; the flight +from intolerable ills in the forlorn hope that David's aunt will take +pity on him. Here the scene changes again. Miss Betsy Trotwood, a fine +old gnarled piece of womanhood, places the boy at school at +Canterbury, where he makes acquaintance with Agnes, the woman whom he +marries far, far on in the story; and with her father, Mr. Wickham, a +somewhat port wine-loving lawyer; and with Uriah Heep, the fawning +villain of the piece. How David is first articled to a proctor in +Doctors' Commons, and then becomes a reporter, and then a successful +author; and how he marries his first wife, the childish Dora, who +dies; and how, meanwhile, Uriah is effecting the general ruin, and +aspiring to the hand of Agnes, till his villanies are detected and his +machinations defeated by Micawber--how all this comes about, would be +a long story to tell. But, as is usual with Dickens, there are +subsidiary rills of story running into the main stream, and by one of +these I should like to linger a moment. The head-boy, and a kind of +parlour-boarder, at Mr. Creakles' establishment, is one Steerforth, +the spoilt only son of a widow. This Steerforth, David meets again +when both are young men, and they go down together to Yarmouth, and +there David is the means of making him known to a family of +fisherfolk. He is rich, handsome, with an indescribable charm, +according to his friends' testimony, and he induces the fisherman's +niece, the pretty Em'ly, to desert her home, and the young +boat-builder to whom she is engaged, and to fly to Italy. Now to this +story, as Dickens tells it, French criticism objects that he dwells +exclusively on the sin and sorrow, and sets aside that in which the +French novelist would delight, viz., the mad force and irresistible +sway of passion. To which English criticism may, I think, reply, that +the "pity of it," the wide-working desolation, are as essentially part +of such an event as the passion; and, therefore, even from an +exclusively artistic point of view, just as fit subjects for the +novelist. + +While "David Copperfield" was in progress, Dickens started on a new +venture. He had often before projected a periodical, and twice, as we +have seen,--once in _Master Humphrey's Clock_, and again as editor of +_The Daily News_,--had attempted quasi-journalism or its reality. But +now at last he had struck the right vein. He had discovered a means of +utilizing his popularity, and imparting it to a paper, without being +under the crushing necessity of writing the whole of that paper +himself. The first number of _Household Words_ appeared on the 30th of +March, 1850. + +The "preliminary word" heralds the paper in thoroughly characteristic +fashion, and is, not unnaturally, far more personal in tone than the +first leading article of the first number of _The Daily News_, though +that, too, be it said in passing, bears traces, through all its +officialism, of having come from the same pen.[22] In introducing +_Household Words_ to his new readers, Dickens speaks feelingly, +eloquently, of his own position as a writer, and the responsibilities +attached to his popularity, and tells of his hope that a future of +instruction, and amusement, and kindly playful fancy may be in store +for the paper. Nor were his happy anticipations belied. All that he +had promised, he gave. _Household Words_ found an entrance into +innumerable homes, and was everywhere recognized as a friend. Never +did editor more strongly impress his own personality upon his staff. +The articles were sprightly, amusing, interesting, and instructive +too--often very instructive, but always in an interesting way. That +was one of the periodical's main features. The pill of knowledge was +always presented gilt. Taking _Household Words_ and _All the Year +Round_ together--and for this purpose they may properly be regarded as +one and the same paper, because the change of name and proprietorship +in 1859[23] brought no change in form or character,--taking them +together, I say, they contain a vast quantity of very pleasant, if not +very profound, reading. Even apart from the stories, one can do very +much worse than while away an hour, now and again, in gleaning here +and there among their pages. Among Dickens' own contributions may be +mentioned "The Child's History of England," and "Lazy Tour of Two Idle +Apprentices"--being the record of an excursion made by him in 1857, +with Mr. Wilkie Collins; and "The Uncommercial Traveller" papers. +While as to stories, "Hard Times" appeared in _Household Words_; and +"The Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," in _All the Year +Round_. And to the Christmas numbers he gave some of his best and +daintiest work. Nor were novels and tales by other competent hands +wanting. Here it was that Mrs. Gaskell gave to the world those papers +on "Cranford" that are so full of a dainty, delicate humour, and "My +Lady Ludlow," and "North and South," and "A Dark Night's Work." Here, +too, Mr. Wilkie Collins wove together his ingenious threads of plot +and mystery in "The Moonstone," "The Woman in White," and "No Name." +And here also Lord Lytton published "A Strange Story," and Charles +Reade his "Very Hard Cash." + +The year 1851 opened sadly for Dickens. His wife, who had been +confined of a daughter in the preceding August, was so seriously +unwell that he had to take her to Malvern. His father, to whom, +notwithstanding the latter's peculiarities and eccentricities, he was +greatly attached, died on the 31st of March; and on the 14th of April +his infant daughter died also. In connection with this latter death +there occurred an incident of great pathos. Dickens had come up from +Malvern on the 14th, to take the chair at the dinner on behalf of the +Theatrical Fund, and looking in at Devonshire Terrace on his way, +played with the children, as was his wont, and fondled the baby, and +then went on to the London Tavern.[24] Shortly after he left the +house, the child died, suddenly. The news was communicated to Forster, +who was also at the dinner, and he decided that it would be better not +to tell the poor father till the speech of the evening had been made. +So Dickens made his speech, and a brilliant one it was--it is +brilliant even as one reads it now, in the coldness of print, without +the glamour of the speaker's voice, and presence, and yet brilliant +with an undertone of sadness, which the recent death of the speaker's +father would fully explain. And Forster, who knew of the yet later +blow impending on his friend, had to sit by and listen as that dear +friend, all unconscious of the dread application of the words, spoke +of "the actor" having "sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of +suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part;" and then went +on to tell how "all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do +violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in fighting this +great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and +responsibilities." + +In this same year, 1851, Dickens left the house in Devonshire Terrace, +now grown too small for his enlarging household, and, after a long +sojourn at Broadstairs, moved into Tavistock House, in Tavistock +Square. Here "Bleak House" was begun at the end of November, the first +number being published in the ensuing March. It is a fine work of art +unquestionably, a very fine work of art--the canvas all crowded with +living figures, and yet the main lines of the composition +well-ordered and harmonious. Two threads of interest run through the +story, one following the career of Lady Dedlock, and the other tracing +the influence of a great Chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its +toils. From the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily +interwoven. Let us take Lady Dedlock's thread first. She is the wife +of Sir Leicester Dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a +great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though +no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of +manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. But in her +past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest +disposition walks her kindly course through the story, who might call +Lady Dedlock "mother." This secret, or perhaps rather the fact that +there is a secret at all, she reveals in a moment of surprise to the +family lawyer; and she lays herself still further open to his +suspicions by going, disguised in her maid's clothes, to the poor +graveyard where her former lover lies buried. The lawyer worms the +whole story out, and, just as he is going to reveal it, is murdered by +the French maid aforesaid. But the murder comes too late to save my +lady, nay, adds to her difficulties. She flies, in anticipation of the +disclosure of her secret, and is found dead at the graveyard gate. To +such end has the sin of her youth led her. So once again has Dickens +dwelt, not on the passionate side of wrongful love, but on its sorrow. +Now take the other thread--the Chancery suit--"Jarndyce _versus_ +Jarndyce," a suit held in awful reverence by the profession as a +"monument of Chancery practice"--a suit seemingly interminable, till, +after long, long years of wrangling and litigation, the fortuitous +discovery of a will settles it all, with the result that the whole +estate has been swallowed up in the costs. And how about the +litigants? How about poor Richard Carstone and his wife, whom we see, +in the opening of the story, in all the heyday and happiness of their +youth, strolling down to the court--they are its wards,--and wondering +sadly over the "headache and heartache" of it all, and then saying, +gleefully, "at all events Chancery will work none of its bad influence +on _us_"? "None of its bad influence on _us_!" poor lad, whose life is +wasted and character impaired in following the mirage of the suit, and +who is killed by the mockery of its end. Thus do the two intertwined +stories run; but apart from these, though all in place and keeping, +and helping on the general development, there is a whole profusion of +noticeable characters. In enumerating them, however baldly, one +scarcely knows where to begin. The lawyer group--clerks and all--is +excellent. Dickens' early experiences stood him in good stead here. +Excellent too are those studies in the ways of impecuniosity and +practical shiftlessness, Harold Skimpole, the airy, irresponsible, +light-hearted epicurean, with his pretty tastes and dilettante +accomplishments, and Mrs. Jellyby, the philanthropist, whose eyes "see +nothing nearer" than Borrioboola-Gha, on the banks of the far Niger, +and never dwell to any purpose on the utter discomfort of the home of +her husband and children. Characters of this kind no one ever +delineated better than Dickens. That Leigh Hunt, the poet and +essayist, who had sat for the portrait of Skimpole, was not altogether +flattered by the likeness, is comprehensible enough; and in truth it +is unfair, both to painter and model, that we should take such +portraits too seriously. Landor, who sat for the thunderous and kindly +Boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. Besides these one may +mention Joe, the outcast; and Mr. Turveydrop, the beau of the school +of the Regency--how horrified he would have been at the +juxtaposition--and George, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine +soldierly figure; and Mr. Bucket, the detective--though Dickens had a +tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. As to Sir +Leicester Dedlock, I think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best +study of the aristocracy, a direction in which Dickens' forte did not +lie, for Sir Leicester _is_ a gentleman, and receives the terrible +blow that falls upon him in a spirit at once chivalrous and human. + +What between "Bleak House," _Household Words_, and "The Child's +History of England," Dickens, in the spring of 1853, was overworked +and ill. Brighton failed to restore him; and he took his family over +to Boulogne in June, occupying there a house belonging to a certain M. +de Beaucourt. Town, dwelling, and landlord, all suited him exactly. +Boulogne he declared to be admirable for its picturesqueness in +buildings and life, and equal in some respects to Naples itself. The +dwelling, "a doll's house of many rooms," embowered in roses, and with +a terraced garden, was a place after his own heart. While as to the +landlord--he was "wonderful." Dickens never tires of extolling his +virtues, his generosity, his kindness, his anxiety to please, his +pride in "the property." All the pleasant delicate quaint traits in +the man's character are irradiated as if with French sunshine in his +tenant's description. It is a dainty little picture and painted with +the kindliest of brushes. Poor Beaucourt, he was "inconsolable" when +he and Dickens finally parted three years afterwards--for twice again +did the latter occupy a house, but not this same house, on "the +property." Many were the tears that he shed, and even the garden, the +loved garden, went forlorn and unweeded. But that was in 1856. The +parting was not so final and terrible in the October of 1853, when +Dickens, having finished "Bleak House," started with Mr. Wilkie +Collins, and Augustus Egg, the artist, for a holiday tour in +Switzerland and Italy. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] "History of English Literature," vol. v. + +[21] "Recollections of Writers," by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. + +[22] As, for instance, in such expressions as this: "The stamp on +newspapers is not like the stamp on universal medicine bottles, which +licenses anything, however false and monstrous." + +[23] The last number of _Household Words_ appeared on the 28th of May, +1859, and the first of _All the Year Round_ on the 30th of April, +1859. + +[24] There are one or two slight discrepancies between Forster's +narrative and that of Miss Dickens and Miss Hogarth. The latter are +clearly more likely to be right on such a matter. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +On his return to England, just after the Christmas of 1853, Dickens +gave his first public readings. He had, as we have seen, read "The +Chimes" some nine years before, to a select few among his literary +friends; and at Lausanne he had similarly read portions of "Dombey and +Son." But the three readings given at Birmingham, on the 27th, 29th, +and 30th December, 1853, were, in every sense, public entertainments, +and, except that the proceeds were devoted entirely to the local +Institute, differed in no way from the famous readings by which he +afterwards realized what may almost be called a fortune. The idea of +coming before the world in this new character had long been in his +mind. As early as 1846, after the private reading at Lausanne, he had +written to Forster: "I was thinking the other day that in these days +of lecturings and readings, a great deal of money might possibly be +made (if it were not _infra dig._) by one's having readings of one's +own books. I think it would take immensely. What do you say?" Forster +said then, and said consistently throughout, that he held the thing to +_be_ "_infra dig._," and unworthy of Dickens' position; and in this I +think one may venture to assert that Forster was wrong. There can +surely be no reason why a popular writer, who happens also to be an +excellent elocutionist, should not afford general pleasure by giving +sound to his prose, and a voice to his imaginary characters. Nor is it +opposed to the fitness of things that he should be paid for his skill. +If, however, one goes further in Dickens' case, and asks whether the +readings did not involve too great an expenditure of time, energy, +and, as we shall see, ultimately of life, and whether he would not, in +the highest sense, have been better employed over his books,--why then +the question becomes more difficult of solution. But, after all, each +man must answer such questions for himself. Dickens may have felt, as +the years began to tell, that he required the excitement of the +readings for mental stimulus, and that he would not even have written +as much as he did without them. Be that as it may, the success at +Birmingham, where a sum of from £400 to £500 was realized, the +requests that poured in upon him to read at other places, the +invariably renewed success whenever he did so, the clear evidence that +a large sum was to be realized if he determined to come forward on his +own account, all must have contributed to scatter Forster's objections +to the winds. On the 29th of April, 1858, at St. Martin's Hall, in +London, he started his career as a paid public reader, and he +continued to read, with shorter or longer periods of intermission, +till his death. But into the story of his professional tours it is not +my intention just now to enter. I shall only stay to say a few words +about the character and quality of his readings. + +That they were a success can readily be accounted for. The mere desire +to see and hear Dickens, the great Dickens, the novelist who was more +than popular, who was the object of real personal affection on the +part of the English-speaking race,--this would have drawn a crowd at +any time. But Dickens was not the man to rely upon such sources of +attraction, any more than an actress who is really an actress will +consent to rely exclusively on her good looks. "Whatever is worth +doing at all is worth doing well," such as we have seen was one of the +governing principles of his life; and he read very well. Of +nervousness there was no trace in his composition. To some one who +asked him whether he ever felt any shyness as a speaker, he answered, +"Not in the least; the first time I took the chair (at a public +dinner) I felt as much confidence as if I had done the thing a hundred +times." This of course helped him much as a reader, and gave him full +command over all his gifts. But the gifts were also assiduously +cultivated. He laboured, one might almost say, agonized, to make +himself a master of the art. Mr. Dolby, who acted as his "manager," +during the tours undertaken from 1866 to 1870, tells us that before +producing "Dr. Marigold," he not only gave a kind of semi-public +rehearsal, but had rehearsed it to himself considerably over two +hundred times. Writing to Forster Dickens says: "You have no idea how +I have worked at them [the readings].... I have tested all the serious +passion in them by everything I know, made the humorous points much +more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; ... I learnt +'Dombey' like the rest, and did it to myself often twice a day, with +exactly the same pains as at night, over, and over, and over again." + +The results justified the care and effort bestowed. There are, +speaking generally, two schools of readers: those who dramatize what +they read, and those who read simply, audibly, with every attention to +emphasis and point, but with no effort to do more than slightly +indicate differences of personage or character. To the latter school +Thackeray belonged. He read so as to be perfectly heard, and perfectly +understood, and so that the innate beauty of his literary style might +have full effect. Dickens read quite differently. He read not as a +writer to whom style is everything, but as an actor throwing himself +into the world he wished to bring before his hearers. He was so +careless indeed of pure literature, in this particular matter, that he +altered his books for the readings, eliminating much of the narrative, +and emphasizing the dialogue. He was pre-eminently the dramatic +reader. Carlyle, who had been dragged to "Hanover Rooms," to "the +complete upsetting," as he says, "of my evening habitudes, and +spiritual composure," was yet constrained to declare: "Dickens does it +capitally, such as _it_ is; acts better than any Macready in the +world; a whole tragic, comic, heroic, _theatre_ visible, performing +under one _hat_, and keeping us laughing--in a sorry way, some of us +thought--the whole night. He is a good creature, too, and makes fifty +or sixty pounds by each of these readings." "A whole theatre"--that is +just the right expression minted for us by the great coiner of +phrases. Dickens, by mere play of voice, for the gestures were +comparatively sober, placed before you, on his imaginary stage, the +men and women he had created. There Dr. Marigold pattered his +cheap-jack phrases; and Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig, with throats +rendered husky by much gin, had their memorable quarrel; and Sergeant +Buzfuz bamboozled that stupid jury; and Boots at the Swan told his +pretty tale of child-elopement; and Fagin, in his hoarse Jew whisper, +urged Bill Sikes to his last foul deed of murder. Ay me, in the great +hush of the past there are tones of the reader's voice that still +linger in my ears! I seem to hear once more the agonized quick +utterance of poor Nancy, as she pleads for life, and the dread +stillness after the ruffian's cruel blows have fallen on her upturned +face. Again comes back to me the break in Bob Cratchit's voice, as he +speaks of the death of Tiny Tim. As of old I listen to poor little +Chops, the dwarf, declaring, very piteously, that his "fashionable +friends" don't use him well, and put him on the mantel-piece when he +refuses to "have in more champagne-wine," and lock him in the +sideboard when he "won't give up his property." And I _see_--yes, I +declare I _see_, as I saw when Dickens was reading, such was the +illusion of voice and gesture--that dying flame of Scrooge's fire, +which leaped up when Marley's ghost came in, and then fell again. Nor +can I forbear to mention, among these reminiscences, that there is +also a passage in one of Thackeray's lectures that is still in my ears +as on the evening when I heard it. It is a passage in which he spoke +of the love that children had for the works of his more popular rival, +and told how his own children would come to him and ask, "Why don't +you write books like Mr. Dickens?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Chancery had occupied a prominent place in "Bleak House." +Philosophical radicalism occupied the same kind of position in "Hard +Times," which was commenced in the number of _Household Words_ for the +1st of April, 1854. The book, when afterwards published in a complete +form, bore a dedication to Carlyle; and very fittingly so, for much of +its philosophy is his. Dickens, like Kingsley, and like Mr. Ruskin and +Mr. Froude, and so many other men of genius and ability, had come +under the influence of the old Chelsea sage.[25] And what are the +ideas which "Hard Times" is thus intended to popularize? These: that +men are not merely intellectual calculating machines, with reason and +self-interest for motive power, but creatures possessing also +affections, feelings, fancy--a whole world of emotions that lie +outside the ken of the older school of political economists. +Therefore, to imagine that they can live and flourish on facts alone +is a fallacy and pernicious; as is also the notion that any human +relations can be permanently established on a basis of pure supply +and demand. If we add to this an unlimited contempt for Parliament, as +a place where the national dustmen are continually stirring the +national dust to no purpose at all, why then we are pretty well +advanced in the philosophy of Carlyle. And how does Dickens illustrate +these points? We are at Coketown, a place, as its name implies, of +smoke and manufacture. Here lives and flourishes Thomas Gradgrind, "a +man of realities; a man of facts and calculations;" not essentially a +bad man, but bound in an iron system as in a vice. He brings up his +children on knowledge, and enlightened self-interest exclusively; and +the boy becomes a cub and a mean thief, and the girl marries, quite +without love, a certain blustering Mr. Bounderby, and is as nearly as +possible led astray by the first person who approaches her with the +language of gallantry and sentiment. Mr. Bounderby, her husband, is, +one may add, a man who, in mere lying bounce, makes out his humble +origin to be more humble than it is. On the other side of the picture +are Mr. Sleary and his circus troupe; and Cissy Jupe, the daughter of +the clown; and the almost saintly figures of Stephen Blackpool, and +Rachel, a working man and a working woman. With these people facts are +as naught, and self-interest as dust in the balance. Mr. Sleary has a +heart which no brandy-and-water can harden, and he enables Mr. +Gradgrind to send off the wretched cub to America, refusing any +guerdon but a glass of his favourite beverage. The circus troupe are +kindly, simple, loving folk. Cissy Jupe proves the angel of the +Gradgrind household. Stephen is the victim of unjust persecution on +the part of his own class, is suspected, by young Gradgrind's +machinations, of the theft committed by that young scoundrel, falls +into a disused pit as he is coming to vindicate his character, and +only lives long enough to forgive his wrongs, and clasp in death the +hand of Rachel--a hand which in life could not be his, as he had a +wife alive who was a drunkard and worse. A marked contrast, is it not? +On one side all darkness, and on the other all light. The demons of +fact and self-interest opposed to the angels of fancy and +unselfishness. A contrast too violent unquestionably. Exaggeration is +the fault of the novel. One may at once allow, for instance, that +Rachel and Stephen, though human nature in its infinite capacity may +include such characters, are scarcely a typical working woman and +working man. But then neither, heaven be praised, are Coupeau the sot, +and Gervaise the drab, in M. Zola's "Drink"--and, for my part, I think +Rachel and Stephen the better company. + +"Sullen socialism"--such is Macaulay's view of the political +philosophy of "Hard Times." "Entirely right in main drift and +purpose"--such is the verdict of Mr. Ruskin. Who shall decide between +the two? or, if a decision be necessary, then I would venture to say, +yes, entirely right in feeling. Dickens is right in sympathy for those +who toil and suffer, right in desire to make their lives more human +and beautiful, right in belief that the same human heart beats below +all class distinctions. But, beyond this, a novelist only, not a +philosopher, not fitted to grapple effectively with complex social and +political problems, and to solve them to right conclusions. There are +some things unfortunately which even the best and kindest instincts +cannot accomplish. + +The last chapter of "Hard Times" appeared in the number of _Household +Words_ for the 12th of August, 1854, and the first number of "Little +Dorrit" came out at Christmas, 1855. Between those dates a great war +had waxed and waned. The heart of England had been terribly moved by +the story of the sufferings and privations which the army had had to +undergo amid the snows of a Russian winter. From the trenches before +Sebastopol the newspaper correspondents had sent terrible accounts of +death and disease, and of ills which, as there seemed room for +suspicion, might have been prevented by better management. Through +long disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed +to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. A great demand arose +for reform in the whole administration of the country. A movement, now +much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the +purpose of making the civil service more efficient, and putting John +Bull's house in order. "Administrative Reform," such was the cry of +the moment, and Dickens uttered it with the full strength of his +lungs. He attended a great meeting held at Drury Lane Theatre on the +27th of June, in furtherance of the cause, and made what he declared +to be his first political speech. He spoke on the subject again at the +dinner of the Theatrical Fund. He urged on his friends in the press to +the attack. He was in the forefront of the battle. And when his next +novel, "Little Dorrit," appeared, there was the Civil Service, like a +sort of gibbeted Punch, executing the strangest antics. + +But the "Circumlocution Office," where the clerks sit lazily devising +all day long "how _not_ to do" the business of the country, and devote +their energies alternately to marmalade and general insolence,--the +"Circumlocution Office" occupies after all only a secondary position +in the book. The main interest of it circles round the place that had +at one time been almost a home to Dickens. Again he drew upon his +earlier experiences. We are once more introduced into a debtors' +prison. Little Dorrit is the child of the Marshalsea, born and bred +within its walls, the sole living thing about the place on which its +taint does not fall. Her worthless brother, her sister, her +father--who is not only her father, but the "father of the +Marshalsea"--the prison blight is on all three. Her father especially +is a piece of admirable character-drawing. Dickens has often been +accused of only catching the surface peculiarities of his personages, +their outward tricks, and obvious habits of speech and of mind. Such a +study as Mr. Dorrit would alone be sufficient to rebut the charge. No +novelist specially famed for dissecting character to its innermost +recesses could exhibit a finer piece of mental analysis. We follow the +poor weak creature's deterioration from the time when the helpless +muddle in his affairs brings him into durance. We note how his +sneaking pride seems to feed even on the garbage of his degradation. +We see how little inward change there is in the man himself when there +comes a transformation scene in his fortunes, and he leaves the +Marshalsea wealthy and prosperous. It is all thoroughly worked out, +perfect, a piece of really great art. No wonder that Mr. Clennam +pities the child of such a father; indeed, considering what a really +admirable woman she is, one only wonders that his pity does not sooner +turn to love. + +"Little Dorrit" ran its course from December, 1855, to June, 1857, and +within that space of time there occurred two or three incidents in +Dickens' career which should not pass unnoticed. At the first of these +dates he was in Paris, where he remained till the middle of May, 1856, +greatly fêted by the French world of letters and art; dining hither +and thither; now enjoying an Arabian Nights sort of banquet given by +Emile de Girardin, the popular journalist; now meeting George Sand, +the great novelist, whom he describes as "just the sort of woman in +appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly +nurse--chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed;" then studying French +art, and contrasting it with English art, somewhat to the disadvantage +of the latter; anon superintending the translation of his works into +French, and working hard at "Little Dorrit;" and all the while +frequenting the Paris theatres with great assiduity and admiration. +Meanwhile, too, on the 14th of March, 1856, a Friday, his lucky day as +he considered it, he had written a cheque for the purchase of Gad's +Hill Place, at which he had so often looked when a little lad, living +penuriously at Chatham--the house which it had been the object of his +childish ambition to win for his own. + +So had merit proved to be not without its visible prize, literally a +prize for good conduct. He took possession of the house in the +following February, and turned workmen into it, and finished "Little +Dorrit" there. At first the purchase was intended mainly as an +investment, and he only purposed to spend some portion of his time at +Gad's Hill, letting it at other periods, and so recouping himself for +the interest on the £1,790 which it had cost, and for the further sums +which he expended on improvements. But as time went on it became his +hobby, the love of his advancing years. He beautified here and +beautified there, built a new drawing-room, added bedrooms, +constructed a tunnel under the road, erected in the "wilderness" on +the other side of the road a Swiss châlet, which had been presented to +him by Fechter, the French-English actor, and in short indulged in all +the thousand and one vagaries of a proprietor who is enamoured of his +property. The matter seems to have been one of the family jokes; and +when, on the Sunday before his death, he showed the conservatory to +his younger daughter, and said, "Well, Katey, now you see _positively_ +the last improvement at Gad's Hill," there was a general laugh. But +this is far on in the story; and very long before the building of the +conservatory, long indeed before the main other changes had been made, +the idea of an investment had been abandoned. In 1860 he sold +Tavistock House, in London, and made Gad's Hill Place his final home. + +Even here, however, I am anticipating; for before getting to 1860 +there is in Dickens' history a page which one would willingly turn +over, if that were possible, in silence and sadness. But it is not +possible. No account of his life would be complete, and what is of +more importance, true, if it made no mention of his relations with his +wife. + +For some time before 1858 Dickens had been in an over-excited, +nervous, morbid state. During earlier manhood his animal spirits and +fresh energy had been superb. Now, as the years advanced, and +especially at this particular time, the energy was the same; but it +was accompanied by something of feverishness and disease. He could not +be quiet. In the autumn of 1857 he wrote to Forster, "I have now no +relief but in action. I am become incapable of rest. I am quite +confident I should rust, break, and die if I spared myself. Much +better to die doing." And again, a little later, "If I couldn't walk +fast and far, I should just explode and perish." It was the +foreshadowing of such utterances as these, and the constant wanderings +to and fro for readings and theatricals and what not, that led Harriet +Martineau, who had known and greatly liked Dickens, to say after +perusing the second volume of his life, "I am much struck by his +hysterical restlessness. It must have been terribly wearing to his +wife." On the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that his +wife wore _him_. "Why is it," he had said to Forster in one of the +letters from which I have just quoted, "that, as with poor David +(Copperfield), a sense comes always crushing on me now, when I fall +into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one +friend and companion I have never made?" And again: "I find that the +skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." Then +come even sadder confidences: "Poor Catherine and I are not made for +each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes +me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too, and much more so. +She is exactly what you know in the way of being amiable and +complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is +between us.... Her temperament will not go with mine." And at last, in +March, 1858, two months before the end: "It is not with me a matter of +will, or trial, or sufferance, or good humour, or making the best of +it, or making the worst of it, any longer. It is all despairingly +over." So, after living together for twenty years, these two went +their several ways in May, 1858. Dickens allowed to his wife an income +of £600 a year, and the eldest son went to live with her. The other +children and their aunt, Miss Hogarth, remained with Dickens himself. + +Scandal has not only a poisonous, but a busy tongue, and when a +well-known public man and his wife agree to live apart, the beldame +seldom neglects to give her special version of the affair. So it +happened here. Some miserable rumour was whispered about to the +detriment of Dickens' morals. He was at the time, as we have seen, in +an utterly morbid, excited state, sore doubtless with himself, and +altogether out of mental condition, and the lie stung him almost to +madness. He published an article branding it as it deserved in the +number of _Household Words_ for the 12th of June, 1858. + +So far his course of action was justifiable. Granted that it was +judicious to notice the rumour at all, and to make his private affairs +the matter of public comment, then there was nothing in the terms of +the article to which objection could be taken. It contained no +reflection of any kind on Mrs. Dickens. It was merely an honest man's +indignant protest against an anonymous libel which implicated others +as well as himself. Whether the publication, however, was judicious +is a different matter. Forster thinks not. He holds that Dickens had +altogether exaggerated the public importance of the rumour, and the +extent of its circulation. And this, according to my own recollection, +is entirely true. I was a lad at the time, but a great lover of +Dickens' works, as most lads then were, and I well remember the +feeling of surprise and regret which that article created among us of +the general public. At the same time, it is only fair to Dickens to +recollect that the lying story was, at least, so far fraught with +danger to his reputation, that Mrs. Dickens would seem for a time to +have believed it; and further, that Dickens occupied a very peculiar +position towards the public, and a position that might well in his own +estimation, and even in ours, give singular importance to the general +belief in his personal character. + +This point will bear dwelling upon. Dickens claimed, and claimed +truly, that the relation between himself and the public was one of +exceptional sympathy and affection. Perhaps an illustration will best +show what that kind of relationship was. Thackeray tells of two ladies +with whom he had, at different times, discussed "The Christmas Carol," +and how each had concluded by saying of the author, "God bless him!" +God bless him!--that was the sort of feeling towards himself which +Dickens had succeeded in producing in most English hearts. He had +appealed from the first and so constantly to every kind and gentle +emotion, had illustrated so often what is good and true in human +character, had pleaded the cause of the weak and suffering with such +assiduity, had been so scathingly indignant at all wrong; and he had +moreover shown such a manly and chivalrous purity in all his utterance +with regard to women, that his readers felt for him a kind of personal +tenderness, quite distinct from their mere admiration for his genius +as a writer. Nor was that feeling based on his books alone. So far as +one could learn at the time, no great dissimilarity existed between +the author and the man. We all remember Byron's corrosive remark on +the sentimentalist Sterne, that he "whined over a dead ass, and +allowed his mother to die of hunger." But Dickens' feelings were by no +means confined to his pen. He was known to be a good father and a good +friend, and of perfect truth and honesty. The kindly tolerance for the +frailties of a father or brother which he admired in Little Dorrit, he +was ready to extend to his own father and his own brother. He was most +assiduous in the prosecution of his craft as a writer, and yet had +time and leisure of heart at command for all kinds of good and +charitable work. His private character had so far stood above all +floating cloud of suspicion. + +That Dickens felt an honourable pride in the general affection he +inspired, can readily be understood. He also felt, even more +honourably, its great responsibility. He knew that his books and he +himself were a power for good, and he foresaw how greatly his +influence would suffer if a suspicion of hypocrisy--the vice at which +he had always girded--were to taint his reputation. Here, for +instance, in "Little Dorrit," the work written in the thick of his +home troubles, he had written of Clennam as "a man who had, +deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things +his life had been without," and had shown how this belief had "saved +Clennam still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of +holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come +into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in +the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the +basest elements." A touching utterance if it expressed the real +feeling of a writer sorely disappointed and in great trouble; but an +utterance moving rather to contempt if it came from a writer who had +transferred his affections from his wife to some other woman. I do not +wonder, therefore, that Dickens, excited and exasperated, spoke out, +though I think it would have been better if he had kept silence. + +But he did other things that were not justifiable. He quarrelled with +Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, his publishers, because they did not use +their influence to get _Punch_, a periodical in which Dickens had no +interest, to publish the personal statement that had appeared in +_Household Words_; and worse, much worse, he wrote a letter, which +ought never to have been written, detailing the grounds on which he +and his wife had separated. This letter, dated the 28th of May, 1858, +was addressed to his secretary, Arthur Smith, and was to be shown to +any one interested. Arthur Smith showed it to the London correspondent +of _The New York Tribune_, who naturally caused it to be published in +that paper. Then Dickens was horrified. He was a man of far too high +and chivalrous feeling not to know that the letter contained +statements with regard to his wife's failings which ought never to +have been made public. He knew as well as any one, that a literary man +ought not to take the world into his confidence on such a subject. +Ever afterwards he referred to the letter as his "violated letter." +But, in truth, the wrong went deeper than the publication. The letter +should never have been written, certainly never sent to Arthur Smith +for general perusal. Dickens' only excuse is the fact that he was +clearly not himself at the time, and that he never fell into a like +error again. It is, however, sad to notice how entirely his wife seems +to have passed out of his affection. The reference to her in his will +is almost unkind; and when death was on him she seems not to have been +summoned to his bedside. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Dickens did not accept the whole Carlyle creed. He retained a +sort of belief in the collective wisdom of the people, which Carlyle +certainly did not share. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Dickens' career as a reader reading for money commenced on the 29th of +April, 1858, while the trouble about his wife was at the thickest; +and, after reading in London on sixteen nights, he made a reading tour +in the provinces, and in Scotland and Ireland. In the following year +he read likewise. But meanwhile, which is more important to us than +his readings, he was writing another book. On the 30th of April, 1859, +in the first number of _All the Year Round_,[26] was begun "The Tale +of Two Cities," a simultaneous publication in monthly parts being also +commenced. + +"The Tale of Two Cities" is a tale of the great French Revolution of +1793, and the two cities in question are London and Paris,--London as +it lay comparatively at peace in the days when George III. was king, +and Paris running blood and writhing in the fierce fire of anarchy and +mob rule. A powerful book, unquestionably. No doubt there is in its +heat and glare a reflection from Carlyle's "French Revolution," a book +for which Dickens had the greatest admiration. But that need not be +regarded as a demerit. Dickens is no pale copyist, and adds fervour +to what he borrows. His pictures of Paris in revolution are as fine as +the London scenes in "Barnaby Rudge;" and the interweaving of the +story with public events is even better managed in the later book than +in the earlier story of the Gordon riots. And the story, what does it +tell? It tells of a certain Dr. Manette, who, after long years of +imprisonment in the Bastille, is restored to his daughter in London; +and of a young French noble, who has assumed the name of Darnay, and +left France in horror of the doings of his order, and who marries Dr. +Manette's daughter; and of a young English barrister, able enough in +his profession, but careless of personal success, and much addicted to +port wine, and bearing a striking personal resemblance to the young +French noble. These persons, and others, being drawn to Paris by +various strong inducements, Darnay is condemned to death as a +_ci-devant_ noble, and the ne'er-do-well barrister, out of the great +pure love he bears to Darnay's wife, succeeds in dying for him. That +is the tale's bare outline; and if any one says of the book that it is +in parts melodramatic, one may fitly answer that never was any portion +of the world's history such a thorough piece of melodrama as the +French Revolution. + +With "The Tale of Two Cities" Hablôt K. Browne's connection with +Dickens, as the illustrator of his books, came to an end. The +"Sketches" had been illustrated by Cruikshank, who was the great +popular illustrator of the time, and it is amusing to read, in the +preface to the first edition of the first series, published in 1836, +how the trembling young author placed himself, as it were, under the +protection of the "well-known individual who had frequently +contributed to the success of similar undertakings." Cruikshank also +illustrated "Oliver Twist;" and indeed, with an arrogance which +unfortunately is not incompatible with genius, afterwards set up a +rather preposterous claim to have been the real originator of that +book, declaring that he had worked out the story in a series of +etchings, and that Dickens had illustrated _him_, and not he +Dickens.[27] But apart from the drawings for the "Sketches" and +"Oliver Twist," and the first few drawings by Seymour, and two +drawings by Buss,[28] in "Pickwick," and some drawings by Cattermole +in _Master Humphrey's Clock_, and by Samuel Palmer in the "Pictures +from Italy," and by various hands in the Christmas stories--apart from +these, Browne, or "Phiz," had executed the illustrations to Dickens' +novels. Nor, with all my admiration for certain excellent qualities +which his work undeniably possessed, do I think that this was +altogether a good thing. Such, I know, is not a popular opinion. But I +confess I am unable to agree with those critics who, from their +remarks on the recent jubilee edition of "Pickwick," seem to think his +illustrations so pre-eminently fine that they should be permanently +associated with Dickens' stories. The editor of that edition was, in +my view, quite right in treating Browne's illustrations as practically +obsolete. The value of Dickens' works is perennial, and Browne's +illustrations represent the art fashion of a time only. So, too, I am +unable to see any great cause to regret that Cruikshank's artistic +connection with Dickens came to an end so soon.[29] For both Browne +and Cruikshank were pre-eminently caricaturists, and caricaturists of +an old school. The latter had no idea of beauty. His art, very great +art in its way, was that of grotesqueness and exaggeration. He never +drew a lady or gentleman in his life. And though Browne, in my view +much the lesser artist, was superior in these respects to Cruikshank, +yet he too drew the most hideous Pecksniffs, and Tom Pinches, and Joey +B.'s, and a whole host of characters quite unreal and absurd. The +mischief of it is, too, that Dickens' humour will not bear +caricaturing. The defect of his own art as a writer is that it verges +itself too often on caricature. Exaggeration is its bane. When, for +instance, he makes the rich alderman in "The Chimes" eat up poor +Trotty Veck's little last tit-bit of tripe, we are clearly in the +region of broad farce. When Mr. Pancks, in "Little Dorrit," so far +abandons the ordinary ways of mature rent collectors as to ask a +respectable old accountant to "give him a back," in the Marshalsea +court, and leaps over his head, we are obviously in a world of +pantomime. Dickens' comic effects are generally quite forced enough, +and should never be further forced when translated into the sister art +of drawing. Rather, if anything, should they be attenuated. But +unfortunately exaggeration happened to be inherent in the +draftsmanship of both Cruikshank and Browne. And, having said this, I +may as well finish with the subject of the illustrations to Dickens' +books. "Our Mutual Friend" was illustrated by Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., +then a rising young artist, and the son of Dickens' old friend, Frank +Stone. Here the designs fall into the opposite defect. They are, some +of them, pretty enough, but they want character. Mr. Fildes' pictures +for "Edwin Drood" are a decided improvement. As to the illustrations +for the later _Household Edition_, they are very inferior. The designs +for a great many are clearly bad, and the mechanical execution almost +uniformly so. Even Mr. Barnard's skill has had no fair chance against +poor woodcutting, careless engraving, and inferior paper. And this is +the more to be regretted, in that Mr. Barnard, by natural affinity of +talent, has, to my thinking, done some of the best art work that has +been done at all in connection with Dickens. His _Character Sketches_, +especially the lithographed series, are admirable. The Jingle is a +masterpiece; but all are good, and he even succeeds in making +something pictorially acceptable of Little Nell and Little Dorrit. + +Just a year, almost to a day, elapsed between the conclusion of "The +Tale of Two Cities," and the commencement of "Great Expectations." The +last chapter of the former appeared in the number of _All the Year +Round_ for the 26th of November, 1859, and the first chapter of the +latter in the number of the same periodical for the 1st of December, +1860. Poor Pip--for such is the name of the hero of the book--poor +Pip, I think he is to be pitied. Certainly he lays himself open to the +charge of snobbishness, and is unduly ashamed of his connections. But +then circumstances were decidedly against him. Through some occult +means he is removed from his natural sphere, from the care of his +"rampageous" sister and of her husband, the good, kind, honest Joe, +and taken up to London, and brought up as a gentleman, and started in +chambers in Barnard's Inn. All this is done through the +instrumentality of Mr. Jaggers, a barrister in highest repute among +the criminal brotherhood. But Pip not unnaturally thinks that his +unknown benefactress is a certain Miss Havisham, who, having been +bitterly wronged in her love affairs, lives in eccentric fashion near +his native place, amid the mouldering mementoes of her wedding day. +What is his horror when he finds that his education, comfort, and +prospects have no more reputable foundation than the bounty of a +murderous criminal called Magwitch, who has showered all these +benefits upon him from the antipodes, in return for the gift of food +and a file when he, Magwitch, was trying to escape from the hulks, and +Pip was a little lad. Magwitch, the transported convict, comes back to +England, at the peril of his life, to make himself known to Pip, and +to have the pleasure of looking at that young gentleman. He is again +tracked by the police, and caught, notwithstanding Pip's efforts to +get him off, and dies in prison. Pip ultimately, very ultimately, +marries a young lady oddly brought up by the queer Miss Havisham, and +who turns out to be Magwitch's daughter. + +Such, as I have had occasion to say before in speaking of similar +analyses, such are the dry bones of the story. Pip's character is well +drawn. So is that of Joe. And Mr. Jaggers, the criminal's friend, and +his clerk, Wemmick, are striking and full of a grim humour. Miss +Havisham and her _protégée_, Estella, whom she educates to be the +scourge of men, belong to what may be called the melodramatic side of +Dickens' art. They take their place with Mrs. Dombey and with Miss +Dartle in "David Copperfield," and Miss Wade in "Little +Dorrit"--female characters of a fantastic and haughty type, and quite +devoid, Miss Dartle and Miss Wade especially, of either verisimilitude +or the milk of human kindness. + +"Great Expectations" was completed in August, 1861, and the first +number of "Our Mutual Friend" appeared in May, 1864. This was an +unusual interval, but the great writer's faculty of invention was +beginning to lose its fresh spring and spontaneity. And besides he had +not been idle. Though writing no novel, he had been busy enough with +readings, and his work on _All the Year Round_. He had also written a +short, but very graceful paper[30] on Thackeray, whose death, on the +Christmas Eve of 1863, had greatly affected him. Now, however, he +again braced himself for one of his greater efforts. + +Scarcely, I think, as all will agree, with the old success. In "Our +Mutual Friend" he is not at his best. It is a strange complicated +story that seems to have some difficulty in unravelling itself: the +story of a man who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a +changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young +woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. A +golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give +him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man +aforesaid, and who, to crown his virtues, pretends to be a miser in +order to teach the young woman, also aforesaid, how bad it is to be +mercenary, and to induce her to marry the unrecognized and seemingly +penniless son; their marriage accordingly, with ultimate result that +the bridegroom turns out to be no poor clerk, but the original heir, +who, of course, is not dead, and is the inheritor of thousands; +subsidiary groups of characters, of course, one which I think rather +uninteresting, of some brand-new people called the Veneerings and +their acquaintances, for they have no friends; and some fine sketches +of the river-side population; striking and amusing characters +too--Silas Wegg, the scoundrelly vendor of songs, who ferrets among +the dust for wills in order to confound the good dustman, his +benefactor; and the little deformed dolls' dressmaker, with her sot of +a father; and Betty Higden, the sturdy old woman who has determined +neither in life nor death to suffer the pollution of the workhouse; +such, with more added, are the ingredients of the story. + +One episode, however, deserves longer comment. It is briefly this: +Eugene Wrayburn is a young barrister of good family and education, and +of excellent abilities and address, all gifts that he has turned to no +creditable purpose whatever. He falls in with a girl, Lizzie Hexham, +of more than humble rank, but of great beauty and good character. She +interests him, and in mere wanton carelessness, for he certainly has +no idea of offering marriage, he gains her affection, neither meaning, +in any definite way, to do anything good nor anything bad with it. +There is another man who loves Lizzie, a schoolmaster, who, in his +dull, plodding way, has made the best of his intellect, and risen in +life. He naturally, and we may say properly, for no good can come of +them, resents Wrayburn's attentions, as does the girl's brother. +Wrayburn uses the superior advantages of his position to insult them +in the most offensive and brutal manner, and to torture the +schoolmaster, just as he has used those advantages to win the girl's +heart. Whereupon, after being goaded to heart's desire for a +considerable time, the schoolmaster as nearly as possible beats out +Wrayburn's life, and commits suicide. Wrayburn is rescued by Lizzie as +he lies by the river bank sweltering in blood, and tended by her, and +they are married and live happy ever afterwards. + +Now the amazing part of this story is, that Dickens' sympathies +throughout are with Wrayburn. How this comes to be so I confess I do +not know. To me Wrayburn's conduct appears to be heartless, cruel, +unmanly, and the use of his superior social position against the +schoolmaster to be like a foul blow, and quite unworthy of a +gentleman. Schoolmasters ought not to beat people about the head, +decidedly. But if Wrayburn's thoughts took a right course during +convalescence, I think he may have reflected that he deserved his +beating, and also that the woman whose affection he had won was a +great deal too good for him. + +Dickens' misplaced sympathy in this particular story has, I repeat, +always struck me with amazement. Usually his sympathies are so +entirely right. Nothing is more common than to hear the accusation of +vulgarity made against his books. A certain class of people seem to +think, most mistakenly, that because he so often wrote about vulgar +people, uneducated people, people in the lower ranks of society, +therefore his writing was vulgar, nay more, he himself vulgar too. +Such an opinion can only be based on a strange confusion between +subject and treatment. There is scarcely any subject not tainted by +impurity, that cannot be treated with entire refinement. Washington +Irving wrote to Dickens, most justly, of "that exquisite tact that +enabled him to carry his reader through the veriest dens of vice and +villainy without a breath to shock the ear or a stain to sully the +robe of the most shrinking delicacy;" and added: "It is a rare gift to +be able to paint low life without being low, and to be comic without +the least taint of vulgarity." This is well said; and if we look for +the main secret of the inherent refinement of Dickens' books, we shall +find it, I think, in this: that he never intentionally paltered with +right and wrong. He would make allowance for evil, would take pleasure +in showing that there were streaks of lingering good in its blackness, +would treat it kindly, gently, humanly. But it always stood for evil, +and nothing else. He made no attempt by cunning jugglery to change its +seeming. He had no sneaking affection for it. And therefore, I say +again, his attachment to Eugene Wrayburn has always struck me with +surprise. As regards Dickens' own refinement, I cannot perhaps do +better than quote the words of Sir Arthur Helps, an excellent judge. +"He was very refined in his conversation--at least, what I call +refined--for he was one of those persons in whose society one is +comfortable from the certainty that they will never say anything which +can shock other people, or hurt their feelings, be they ever so +fastidious or sensitive." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] His foolish quarrel with Bradbury and Evans had necessitated the +abandonment of _Household Words_. + +[27] See his pamphlet, "The Artist and the Author." The matter is +fully discussed in his life by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold. + +[28] Buss's illustrations were executed under great disadvantages, and +are bad. Those of Seymour are excellent. + +[29] I am always sorry, however, that Cruikshank did not illustrate +the Christmas stories. + +[30] See _Cornhill Magazine_ for February, 1864. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +But we are now, alas, nearing the point where the "rapid" of Dickens' +life began to "shoot to its fall." The year 1865, during which he +partly wrote "Our Mutual Friend," was a fatal one in his career. In +the month of February he had been very ill, with an affection of the +left foot, at first thought to be merely local, but which really +pointed to serious mischief, and never afterwards wholly left him. +Then, on June 9th, when returning from France, where he had gone to +recruit, he as nearly as possible lost his life in a railway accident +at Staplehurst. A bridge had broken in; some of the carriages fell +through, and were smashed; that in which Dickens was, hung down the +side of the chasm. Of courage and presence of mind he never showed any +lack. They were evinced, on one occasion, at the readings, when an +alarm of fire arose. They shone conspicuous here. He quieted two +ladies who were in the same compartment of the carriage; helped to +extricate them and others from their perilous position; gave such help +as he could to the wounded and dying; probably was the means of saving +the life of one man, whom he was the first to hear faintly groaning +under a heap of wreckage; and then, as he tells in the "postscript" to +the book, scrambled back into the carriage to find the crumpled MS. +of a portion of "Our Mutual Friend."[31] But even pluck is powerless +to prevent a ruinous shock to the nerves. Though Dickens had done so +manfully what he had to do at the time, he never fully recovered from +the blow. His daughter tells us how he would often, "when travelling +home from London, suddenly fall into a paroxysm of fear, tremble all +over, clutch the arms of the railway carriage, large beads of +perspiration standing on his face, and suffer agonies of terror.... He +had ... apparently no idea of our presence." And Mr. Dolby tells us +also how in travelling it was often necessary for him to ward off such +attacks by taking brandy. Dickens had been failing before only too +surely; and this accident, like a coward's blow, struck him heavily as +he fell. + +But whether failing or stricken, he bated no jot of energy or courage; +nay, rather, as his health grew weaker, did he redouble the pressure +of his work. I think there is a grandeur in the story of the last five +years of his life, that dwarfs even the tale of his rapid and splendid +rise. It reads like some antique myth of the Titans defying Jove's +thunder. There is about the man something indomitable and heroic. He +had, as we have seen, given a series of readings in 1858-59; and he +gave another in the years 1861 to 1863--successful enough in a +pecuniary sense, but through failure of business capacity on the part +of the manager, entailing on the reader himself a great deal of +anxiety and worry.[32] Now, in the spring of 1866, with his left foot +giving him unceasing trouble, and his nerves shattered, and his heart +in an abnormal state, he accepted an offer from Messrs. Chappell to +read "in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Paris," for £1,500, and the +payment of all expenses, and then to give forty-two more readings for +£2,500. Mr. Dolby, who accompanied Dickens as business manager in this +and the remaining tours, has told their story in an interesting +volume.[33] Of course the wear was immense. The readings themselves +involved enormous fatigue to one who so identified himself with what +he read, and whose whole being seemed to vibrate not only with the +emotions of the characters in his stories, but of the audience. Then +there was the weariness of long railway journeys in all seasons and +weathers--journeys that at first must have been rendered doubly +tedious, as he could not bear to travel by express trains. Yet, +notwithstanding failure of strength, notwithstanding fatigue, his +native gaiety and good spirits smile like a gleam of winter sunlight +over the narrative. As he had been the brightest and most genial of +companions in the old holiday days when strolling about the country +with his actor-troupe, so now he was occasionally as frolic as a boy, +dancing a hornpipe in the train for the amusement of his companions, +compounding bowls of punch in which he shared but sparingly--for he +was really convivial only in idea--and always considerate and kindly +towards his companions and dependents. And mingled pathetically with +all this are confessions of pain, weariness, illness, faintness, +sleeplessness, internal bleeding,--all bravely borne, and never for an +instant suffered to interfere with any business arrangement. + +But if the strain of the readings was too heavy here at home, what was +it likely to be during a winter in America? Nevertheless he +determined, against all remonstrances, to go thither. It would almost +seem as if he felt that the day of his life was waning, and that it +was his duty to gather in a golden harvest for those he loved ere the +night came on. So he sailed for Boston once more on the 9th of +November, 1867. The Americans, it must be said, behaved nobly. All the +old grudges connected with "The American Notes," and "Martin +Chuzzlewit," sank into oblivion. The reception was everywhere +enthusiastic, the success of the readings immense. Again and again +people waited all night, amid the rigours of an almost arctic winter, +in order to secure an opportunity of purchasing tickets as soon as the +ticket office opened. There were enormous and intelligent audiences at +Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia--everywhere. The sum which +Dickens realized by the tour, amounted to the splendid total of nearly +£19,000. Nor, in this money triumph, did he fail to excite his usual +charm of personal fascination, though the public affection and +admiration were manifested in forms less objectionable and offensive +than of old. On his birthday, the 7th of February, 1868, he says, "I +couldn't help laughing at myself ...; it was observed so much as +though I were a little boy." Flowers, garlands were set about his +room; there were presents on his dinner-table, and in the evening the +hall where he read was decorated by kindly unknown hands. Of public +and private entertainment he might have had just as much as he chose. + +But to this medal there was a terrible reverse. Travelling from New +York to Boston just before Christmas, he took a most disastrous cold, +which never left him so long as he remained in the country. He was +constantly faint. He ate scarcely anything. He slept very little. +Latterly he was so lame, as scarcely to be able to walk. Again and +again it seemed impossible that he should fulfil his night's +engagement. He was constantly so exhausted at the conclusion of the +reading, that he had to lie down for twenty minutes or half an hour, +"before he could undergo the fatigue even of dressing." Mr. Dolby +lived in daily fear lest he should break down altogether. "I used to +steal into his room," he says, "at all hours of the night and early +morning, to see if he were awake, or in want of anything; always +though to find him wide awake, and as cheerful and jovial as +circumstances would admit--never in the least complaining, and only +reproaching me for not taking my night's rest." "Only a man of iron +will could have accomplished what he did," says Mr. Fields, who knew +him well, and saw him often during the tour. + +In the first week of May, 1868, Dickens was back in England, and soon +again in the thick of his work and play. Mr. Wills, the sub-editor of +_All the Year Round_, had met with an accident. Dickens supplied his +place. Chauncy Hare Townshend had asked him to edit a chaotic mass of +religious lucubrations. He toilfully edited them. Then, with the +autumn, the readings began again;--for it marks the indomitable +energy of the man that, even amid the terrible physical trials +incident to his tour in America, he had agreed with Messrs. Chappell, +for a sum of £8,000, to give one hundred more readings after his +return. So in October the old work began again, and he was here, +there, and everywhere, now reading at Manchester and Liverpool, now at +Edinburgh and Glasgow, anon coming back to read fitfully in London, +then off again to Ireland, or the West of England. Nor is it necessary +to say that he spared himself not one whit. In order to give novelty +to these readings, which were to be positively the last, he had +laboriously got up the scene of Nancy's murder, in "Oliver Twist," and +persisted in giving it night after night, though of all his readings +it was the one that exhausted him most terribly.[34] But of course +this could not last. The pain in his foot "was always recurring at +inconvenient and unexpected moments," says Mr. Dolby, and occasionally +the American cold came back too. In February, in London, the foot was +worse than it had ever been, so bad that Sir Henry Thompson, and Mr. +Beard, his medical adviser, compelled him to postpone a reading. At +Edinburgh, a few days afterwards, Mr. Syme, the eminent surgeon, +strongly recommended perfect rest. Still he battled on, but "with +great personal suffering such as few men could have endured." +Sleeplessness was on him too. And still he fought on, determined, if +it were physically possible, to fulfil his engagement with Messrs. +Chappell, and complete the hundred nights. But it was not to be. +Symptoms set in that pointed alarmingly towards paralysis of the left +side. At Preston, on the 22nd of April, Mr. Beard, who had come +post-haste from London, put a stop to the readings, and afterwards +decided, in consultation with Sir Thomas Watson, that they ought to be +suspended entirely for the time, and never resumed in connection with +any railway travelling. + +Even this, however, was not quite the end; for a summer of comparative +rest, or what Dickens considered rest, seemed so far to have set him +up that he gave a final series of twelve readings in London between +the 11th of January and 15th of March, 1870, thus bringing to its real +conclusion an enterprise by which, at whatever cost to himself, he had +made a sum of about £45,000. + +Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1869, he had gone back to the old work, +and was writing a novel, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." It is a good +novel unquestionably. Without going so far as Longfellow, who had +doubts whether it was not "the most beautiful of all" Dickens' works, +one may admit that there is about it a singular freshness, and no sign +at all of mental decay. As for the "mystery," I do not think _that_ +need baffle us altogether. But then I see no particular reason to +believe that Dickens had wished to baffle us, or specially to rival +Edgar Allan Poe or Mr. Wilkie Collins in the construction of criminal +puzzles. Even though only half the case is presented to us, and the +book remains for ever unfinished, we need have, I think, no difficulty +in working out its conclusion. The course pursued by Mr. Jasper, Lay +Precentor of the Cathedral at Cloisterham, is really too suspicious. +No intelligent British jury, seeing the facts as they are presented to +us, the readers, could for a moment think of acquitting him of the +murder of his nephew, Edwin Drood. Take those facts seriatim. First, +we have the motive: he is passionately in love with the girl to whom +his nephew is engaged. Then we have a terrible coil of compromising +circumstances: his extravagant profession of devotion to his nephew, +his attempts to establish a hidden influence over the girl's mind to +his nephew's detriment and his own advantage, his gropings amid the +dark recesses of the Cathedral and inquiries into the action of +quicklime, his endeavours to foment a quarrel between Edwin Drood and +a fiery young gentleman from Ceylon, on the night of the murder, and +his undoubted doctoring of the latter's drink. Then, after the murder, +how damaging is his conduct. He falls into a kind of fit on +discovering that his nephew's engagement had been broken off, which he +might well do if his crime turned out to be not only a crime but also +a blunder. And his conduct to the girl is, to say the least of it, +strange. Nor will his character help him. He frequents the opium dens +of the East-end of London. Guilty, guilty, most certainly guilty. +There is nothing to be said in arrest of judgment. Let the judge put +on the black cap, and Jasper be devoted to his merited doom. + +Such was the story that Dickens was unravelling in the spring and +early summer of 1870. And fortune smiled upon it. He had sold the +copyright for the large sum of £7,500, and a half share of the profits +after a sale of twenty-five thousand copies, plus £1,000 for the +advance sheets sent to America; and the sale was more than answering +his expectations. Nor did prosperity look favourably on the book +alone. It also, in one sense, showered benefits on the author. He was +worth, as the evidence of the Probate Court was to show only too soon, +a sum of over £80,000. He was happy in his children. He was +universally loved, honoured, courted. "Troops of friends," though, +alas! death had made havoc among the oldest, were still his. Never had +man exhibited less inclination to pay fawning court to greatness and +social rank. Yet when the Queen expressed a desire to see him, as she +did in March, 1870, he felt not only pride, but a gentleman's pleasure +in acceding to her wish, and came away charmed from a long chatting +interview. But, while prosperity was smiling thus, the shadows of his +day of life were lengthening, lengthening, and the night was at hand. + +On Wednesday, June 8th, he seemed in excellent spirits; worked all the +morning in the Châlet[35] as was his wont, returned to the house for +lunch and a cigar, and then, being anxious to get on with "Edwin +Drood," went back to his desk once more. The weather was superb. All +round the landscape lay in fullest beauty of leafage and flower, and +the air rang musically with the song of birds. What were his thoughts +that summer day as he sat there at his work? Writing many years +before, he had asked whether the "subtle liquor of the blood" may not +"perceive, by properties within itself," when danger is imminent, and +so "run cold and dull"? Did any such monitor within, one wonders, warn +him at all that the hand of death was uplifted to strike, and that its +shadow lay upon him? Judging from the words that fell from his pen +that day we might almost think that it was so--we might almost go +further, and guess with what hopes and fears he looked into the +darkness beyond. Never at any time does he appear to have been greatly +troubled by speculative doubt. There is no evidence in his life, no +evidence in his letters, no evidence in his books, that he had ever +seen any cause to question the truth of the reply which Christianity +gives to the world-old problems of man's origin and destiny. For +abstract speculation he had not the slightest turn or taste. In no +single one of his characters does he exhibit any fierce mental +struggle as between truth and error. All that side of human +experience, with its anguish of battle, its despairs, and its +triumphs, seems to have been unknown to him. Perhaps he had the +stronger grasp of other matters in consequence--who knows? But the +fact remains. With a trust quite simple and untroubled, he held +through life to the faith of Christ. When his children were little, he +had written prayers for them, had put the Bible into simpler language +for their use. In his will, dated May 12, 1869, he had said, "I commit +my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, +and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the +broad teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put +no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or +there." And now, on this last day of his life, in probably the last +letter that left his pen, he wrote to one who had objected to some +passage in "Edwin Drood" as irreverent: "I have always striven in my +writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our +Saviour--because I feel it." And with a significance, of which, as I +have said, he may himself have been dimly half-conscious, among the +last words of his unfinished story, written that very afternoon, are +words that tell of glorious summer sunshine transfiguring the city of +his imagination, and of the changing lights, and the song of birds, +and the incense from garden and meadow that "penetrate into the +cathedral" of Cloisterham, "subdue its earthy odour, and preach the +Resurrection and the Life." + +For now the end had come. When he went in to dinner Miss Hogarth +noticed that he looked very ill, and wished at once to send for a +doctor. But he refused, struggled for a short space against the +impending fit, and tried to talk, at last very incoherently. Then, +when urged to go up to his bed, he rose, and, almost immediately, slid +from her supporting arm, and fell on the floor. Nor did consciousness +return. He passed from the unrest of life into the peace of eternity +on the following day, June 9, 1870, at ten minutes past six in the +evening. + +And now he lies in Westminster Abbey, among the men who have most +helped, by deed or thought, to make this England of ours what it is. +Dean Stanley only gave effect to the national voice when he assigned +to him that place of sepulture. The most popular, and in most +respects the greatest novelist of his time; the lord over the laughter +and tears of a whole generation; the writer, in his own field of +fiction, whose like we shall probably not see again for many a long, +long year, if ever; where could he be laid more fittingly for his last +long sleep than in the hallowed resting-place which the country sets +apart for the most honoured of her children? + +So he lies there among his peers in the Southern Transept. Close +beside him sleep Dr. Johnson, the puissant literary autocrat of his +own time; and Garrick, who was that time's greatest actor; and Handel, +who may fittingly claim to have been one of the mightiest musicians of +all time. There sleeps, too, after the fitful fever of his troubled +life, the witty, the eloquent Sheridan. In close proximity rests +Macaulay, the artist-historian and essayist. Within the radius of a +few yards lies all that will ever die of Chaucer, who five hundred +years ago sounded the spring note of English literature, and gave to +all after-time the best, brightest glimpse into mediæval England; and +all that is mortal also of Spenser of the honey'd verse; and of +Beaumont, who had caught an echo of Shakespeare's sweetness if not his +power; and of sturdy Ben Jonson, held in his own day a not unworthy +rival of Shakespeare's self; and of "glorious" and most masculine John +Dryden. From his monument Shakespeare looks upon the place with his +kindly eyes, and Addison too, and Goldsmith; and one can almost +imagine a smile of fellowship upon the marble faces of those later +dead--Burns, Coleridge, Southey, and Thackeray. + +Nor in that great place of the dead does Dickens enjoy cold barren +honour alone. Nearly seventeen years have gone by since he was laid +there--yes, nearly seventeen years, though it seems only yesterday +that I was listening to the funeral sermon in which Dean Stanley spoke +of the simple and sufficient faith in which he had lived and died. But +though seventeen years have gone by, yet are outward signs not wanting +of the peculiar love that clings to him still. As I strolled through +the Abbey this last Christmas Eve I found his grave, and his grave +alone, made gay with the season's hollies. "Lord, keep my memory +green,"--in another sense than he used the words, that prayer is +answered. + +And of the future what shall we say? His fame had a brilliant day +while he lived; it has a brilliant day now. Will it fade into +twilight, without even an after-glow; will it pass altogether into the +night of oblivion? I cannot think so. The vitality of Dickens' works +is singularly great. They are all a-throb, as it were, with hot human +blood. They are popular in the highest sense because their appeal is +universal, to the uneducated as well as the educated. The humour is +superb, and most of it, so far as one can judge, of no ephemeral kind. +The pathos is more questionable, but that too, at its simplest and +best; and especially when the humour is shot with it--is worthy of a +better epithet than excellent. It is supremely touching. Imagination, +fancy, wit, eloquence, the keenest observation, the most strenuous +endeavour to reach the highest artistic excellence, the largest +kindliness,--all these he brought to his life-work. And that work, as +I think, will live, I had almost dared to prophesy for ever. Of +course fashions change. Of course no writer of fiction, writing for +his own little day, can permanently meet the needs of all after times. +Some loss of immediate vital interest is inevitable. Nevertheless, in +Dickens' case, all will not die. Half a century, a century hence, he +will still be read; not perhaps as he was read when his words flashed +upon the world in their first glory and freshness, nor as he is read +now in the noon of his fame. But he will be read much more than we +read the novelists of the last century--be read as much, shall I say, +as we still read Scott. And so long as he _is_ read, there will be one +gentle and humanizing influence the more at work among men. + + +THE END. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] For his own graphic account of the accident, see his "Letters." + +[32] He computed that he had made £12,000 by the two first series of +readings. + +[33] "Charles Dickens as I Knew Him." By George Dolby. Miss Dickens +considers this "the best and truest picture of her father yet +written." + +[34] Mr. Dolby remonstrated on this, and it was in connection with a +very slight show of temper on the occasion that he says: "In all my +experiences with the Chief that was the only time I ever heard him +address angry words to any one." + +[35] The Châlet, since sold and removed, stood at the edge of a kind +of "wilderness," which is separated from Gad's Hill Place by the high +road. A tunnel, constructed by Dickens, connects the "wilderness" and +the garden of the house. Close to the road, in the "wilderness," and +fronting the house, are two fine cedars. + + + + +INDEX. + + +A. + +"Administrative Reform" agitation, 129 + +_All the Year Round_, 114, 115 + +America, Dickens' first visit to United States in 1842, 71, 74-82, 94, + 95; second visit in 1867-8, 152-153 + +"American Notes," 68, 79-81 + + +B. + +"Barnaby Rudge," 52, 69-70, 108 + +Barnard, Mr., his illustrations to Dickens' works, 143 + +"Battle of Life," 104 + +_Bentley's Miscellany_ edited by Dickens, 49, 51 + +"Bleak House," 116-119 + +Boulogne, 119, 120 + +Bret Harte, Mr., on Little Nell, 64 + +Browne, or "Phiz," his illustrations to Dickens' works, 140-142 + + +C. + +Carlyle, his description of Dickens quoted, 35; + and of Dickens' reading, 124; + his influence on Dickens, 126, 127; + see also 98 and 139 + +Chapman and Hall, 40, 41, 42, 51, 61 + +Chatham, 13 + +Childhood, Dickens' feeling for its pathos, 12, 63 + +"Child's History of England," 115 + +"Chimes," 55, 96-99, 142 + +"Christmas Carol," 91-92, 125 + +"Christopher North," 72 + +Cowden Clarke, Mrs., quoted, 110 + +Cruikshank, his illustrations to "Sketches" and "Oliver Twist," 140-142 + + +D. + +_Daily News_, started with Dickens as editor, 99, 100, 103, 114 +"David Copperfield"--in many respects autobiographical, 14-16, 21, 133; + analysis of, 63, 68, 111-113 + +Dick, Mr., 107, 108 + +Dickens, Charles, birth, 12; + childhood and boyhood, 12-26; + school experiences, 25, 26; + law experiences, 27, 28; + experiences as reporter for the press, 28-30; + first attempts at authorship, 31-33; + marriage, 34; + his personal appearance in early manhood, 35, 36; + influence of his early training, 36-39; + pecuniary position after publication of "Pickwick," 51, 52; + habits of work and relaxation, 54-56; + reception at Edinburgh, 71, 72; + American experiences, 74-81; + affection for his children, 82, 83; + Italian experiences, 93-99; + appointed editor of _Daily News_, 99, 100; + efficiency in practical matters, 102, 103; + his charm as a holiday companion, 110; + first public readings in 1853, 121; + character of his reading, 124, 125; + purchase of Gad's Hill Place, 131, 132; + separation from his wife, 132-138; + general love in which he was held, 135, 136; + tendency to caricature in his art, 142; + essential refinement in his writing and in himself, 147, 148; + his presence of mind, 149; + his brave battle against failing strength, 149-155; + with what thoughts he faced death, 158, 159; + his death, 159; + resting-place in Westminster Abbey, 159-161; + love that clings to his memory, 161; + future of his fame, 161, 162 + +Dickens, John, his character, 16, 17; + his imprisonment, 22, 23, 28; + his death, 115 + +Dickens, Miss, biography of her father, quoted, 50, 83, 150 + +Dickens, Mrs. (Dickens' mother), 24, 25 + +Dickens, Mrs., 82; + separated from her husband, 132-138 + +Dolby, Mr., manager for the readings, 150, 151, 153 + +"Dombey and Son," 63, 103-107, 110 + +Dombey, Paul, 63, 65-66, 68, 105 + + +E. + +Edinburgh, Dickens' reception there, 71, 72 + +"Edwin Drood," 143, 155-157 + + +F. + +Fildes, Mr. L., A.R.A., illustrates "Edwin Drood," 143 + +Flite, Miss, 108, 109 + +Forster, John, 19, 38, 99, 116; + his opinion on the advisability of public readings, 121, 122 + + +G. + +Gad's Hill Place, 13; + purchase of, 131, 132 + +Genoa, 54, 55, 95-96, 98, 99 + +Grant, Mr. James, 42 + +"Great Expectations," 63, 143-145 + +H. + +"Hard Times," 126-129 + +"Haunted Man," The, 110-111 + +Helps, Sir Arthur, on Dickens' powers of observation, 32; + on his essential refinement, 148 + +Hogarth, Mary, her death and character, 52-53 + +Horne, on description of Little Nell's death and burial, 64, 66-67 + +_Household Words_, 113-115, 134 + +Humour of Dickens, 32, 33, 45, 46, 142, 161 + + +I. + +Italy in 1844, 94-95 + + +J. + +Jeffrey, his opinion of Little Nell, 63, 71, 72 + + +L. + +Landor, his admiration for Little Nell, 64; + his likeness to Mr. Boythorn, 119 + +Lausanne, 103, 104 + +Leigh Hunt, 118 + +"Little Dorrit," 22, 129-131, 142-143 + +Little Nell, criticism on her character and story, 63-67, 71, 72, 73 + +London, Dickens' knowledge of, and walks in, 32, 54-56 + + +M. + +Macaulay, 80, 128, 160 + +Macready, the tragic actor, 73, 76, 82, 83 + +Marshalsea Prison, Dickens' father imprisoned there, 16, 20, 21-23; + made the chief scene of "Little Dorrit," 130 + +"Martin Chuzzlewit," 84, 85, 88-90 + +_Master Humphrey's Clock_, 61, 62, 90, 141 + +Micawber, Mr., 15, 16, 22 + + +N. + +Nickleby, Mrs., 25 + +"Nicholas Nickleby," 50, 59-61, 90 + + +O. + +"Old Curiosity Shop," 61, 62-69 + +"Oliver Twist," 49, 51, 57-59, 63, 141 + +"Our Mutual Friend," 86, 143, 145-147 + + +P. + +Paris, 109, 131 + +Pathos of Dickens, 32, 33, 67-69, 161 + +"Pickwick," 40-48, 49, 51, 90, 141 + +"Pictures from Italy," 99, 100-101 + +Pipchin, Mrs., 20, 23 + +Plots, Dickens', 85-88 + + +Q. + +_Quarterly Review_ foretells Dickens' speedy downfall, 50, 51 + + +R. + +Readings, Dickens', 121-125, 139, 150-155 + +Ruskin, Mr., his opinion of "Hard Times," 128 + +S. + +Sam Weller, 46, 47 + +Scott, Sir Walter, 43, 87, 162 + +Seymour, his connection with "Pickwick," 40-42, 141 + +"Sketches by Boz," 31-33, 52, 140, 141 + +Stanley, Dean, 159, 161 + +Stone, Mr. Marcus, R.A., illustrates "Our Mutual Friend," 143 + + +T. + +Taine, M., his criticism criticised, 107-109 + +"Tale of Two Cities," 139-140 + +Thackeray, 53, 135, 145; + as a reader, 124, 125 + +Tiny Tim, 68, 125 + +Toots, Mr., 107, 108, 109 + + +W. + +Washington Irving, 73, 148 + +Westminster Abbey, Dickens place of burial, 159-161 + + +Y. + +Yates, Edmund, Mr., quoted, 38 + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + +BY + +JOHN P. ANDERSON + +_(British Museum)._ + + * * * * * + + I. WORKS. + + II. SELECTIONS. + +III. SINGLE WORKS. + + IV. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. + + V. APPENDIX-- + + Biographical, Critical, etc. + Dramatic. + Musical. + Parodies and Imitations. + Poetical. + Magazine and Newspaper Articles. + + VI. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. + + * * * * * + +I. WORKS. + +FIRST CHEAP EDITION. 19 vols. London, 1847-67, 8vo. + + This edition was in three series, the first and third being + published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the second by Messrs. + Bradbury and Evans. It was printed in double columns, with + frontispieces by Leslie, Hablôt K. Browne, Cruikshank, etc. + +LIBRARY EDITION. 22 vols. London, 1858-59, 8vo. + +LIBRARY EDITION. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1861-1873. + + The original illustrations were added to the later issues of + the Library Edition, and the series completed in 30 vols. + +THE PEOPLE'S EDITION. 25 vols. London, 1865-1867, 8vo. + + A re-issue of the Cheap Edition. + +THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION. Illustrated. 21 vols. London, +1867-1873, 8vo. + +THE HOUSEHOLD EDITION. Illustrated. 22 vols. London, +1871-1879, 4to. + +ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. 30 vols. London, 1873-1876, 8vo. + +THE POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, +1878-1880, 8vo. + +THE POCKET EDITION. 30 vols. London, 1880, 16mo. + +THE DIAMOND EDITION. Illustrated. 14 vols. London, 1880, +16mo. + +ÉDITION DE LUXE. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1881, 4to. + + One thousand copies only of this Édition de Luxe were + printed for sale, each numbered, and it was dedicated to Her + Majesty the Queen. + +THE CABINET EDITION. Illustrated. London, 1885, etc., 16mo. + + A re-issue of the Pocket Edition. + + +II. SELECTIONS. + +The Beauties of Pickwick. Collected and arranged by Sam Weller. +London, 1838, 8vo. + +The Story Teller. A collection of tales, stories, and novels. By +Walter Scott, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, etc. Edited by +Hermann Schütz. Siegen, 1850, 8vo. + +Immortelles from C.D. By Ich. London, 1856, 8vo. + +Novels and Tales reprinted from Household Words. 11 vols. (_Tauchnitz +Edition_). Leipzig, 1856-59, 16mo. + +Christmas Stories from the Household Words. Conducted by C.D. London +[1860], 8vo. + +The Poor Traveller: Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn; and Mrs. Gamp, by +C.D. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Arranged by Dickens for his Readings. + +Dialogues from Dickens. Arranged by W.E. Fette. Two Series. Boston, +1870-71, 8vo. + +A Cyclopædia of the best thoughts of C.D. Compiled and alphabetically +arranged by F.G. De Fontaine. New York, 1873, 8vo. + +A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens. Being fac-similes of +original drawings by F. Barnard [with extracts from some of D.'s +works]. 2 pts. London [1879]-85, folio. + +----Another Edition. London, 1884, folio. + +The Dickens Reader. Character Readings from the stories of Charles +Dickens. Selected, adapted, and arranged by Nathan Sheppard, with +numerous illustrations by F. Barnard, New York, 1881, 4to. + +The Charles Dickens Birthday Book. Compiled and edited by his eldest +daughter (Mary Dickens). With illustrations by his youngest daughter +(Kate Perugini). London, 1882, 8vo. + +Readings from the works of C.D. Condensed and adapted by J.A. +Jennings. Dublin [1882], 8vo. + +The Readings of C.D. as arranged and read by himself. With +illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo. + +Chips from Dickens selected by Thomas Mason. Glasgow [1884], 32mo. + +Tales from Charles Dickens's Works. London [1884], 8vo. + +The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens. Selected by Chas. Kent. +London, 1884, 8vo. + +Child-Pictures from Dickens. [Illustrated.] London, 1885, 4to. + +Wellerisms from "Pickwick" and "Master Humphrey's Clock." Selected by +Charles F. Rideal, and Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Kent, +author of "The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens." London, 1886, +8vo. + + +III. SINGLE WORKS. + +American Notes for general circulation. 2 vols. London, 1842, 8vo. + +----[Other Editions. London, 1850, 8vo.; London, 1884, 8vo]. + +Bleak House. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London, 1853, 8vo. + +Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn, by Charles Dickens, as condensed by +himself for his readings. Boston, 1868, 8vo. + + The Holly-Tree Inn was the Christmas Number of "Household + Words" for 1855. Dickens contributed "The Guest," "The + Boots," and "The Bill." + +A Child's History of England. With a frontispiece by F.W. Topham. 3 +vols. London, 1852-54, 16mo. + +The Chimes: a Goblin Story of some bells that rang an old year out and +a new year in. By Charles Dickens. [Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, +Leech, and Clarkson Stanfield.] London, 1845, 8vo. + + An edition with notes and elucidations by K. ten Bruggencate + was published at Groningen in 1883. + +Christmas Books. London, 1852, 8vo. + +Christmas Books. With illustrations by Sir E. Landseer, Maclise, +Stanfield, F. Stone, Doyle, Leech, and Tenniel. London, 1869, 8vo. + +A Christmas Carol in Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. By C.D. +With illustrations by John Leech. London, 1843, 8vo. + +----Condensed by himself, for his readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. By C.D. [Illustrated +by Maclise, Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Leech, and Landseer.] London, +1846, 16mo. + +The Battle of Life: A Love Story. [Illustrated by Maclise, Stanfield, +Doyle, and Leech.] London, 1846, 16mo. + +The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas Time. +[Illustrated by Stanfield, John Tenniel, Frank Stone, and John Leech.] +London, 1848, 16mo. + +Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, wholesale, retail, and for +exportation. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1848, 8vo. + +The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Revised by Dickens for his Readings. + +The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his +readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 894.) +Leipzig, 1867, 16mo. + + The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1865. + Dickens contributed chap. i., "To be Taken Immediately;" + chap. vi., "To be Taken With a Grain of Salt;" and the + concluding chapter, "To be Taken for Life." + +Doctor Marigold. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Great Expectations. By C.D. In three volumes. London, 1861, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in _All the Year Round_, December 1, + 1860, to August 3, 1861. An American edition was published + the same year with illustrations by J. McLenan. + +Hard Times. For these Times. By C.D. London, 1854, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in Household Words, April 1 to August + 12, 1854. + +Hunted Down. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 536.) Leipzig, 1860, 16mo. + + Appeared originally in the _New York Ledger_, August 20, 27, + Sept. 3, 1859, and _All the Year Round_, Aug. 4 and 11, + 1860. + +Hunted Down. A Story. By C.D. With some account of T.G. Wainewright, +the poisoner [by John Camden Hotten]. London [1870], 8vo. + +Is She his Wife? or, Something Singular. A comic burletta in one act. +Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo. + + First produced at the St. James's Theatre, March 6, 1837. + Mr. Shepherd says that this was first printed in 1837, but + no copy is known to exist. + +The Lamplighter: A Farce. By C.D. (1838). + + Only 250 copies were privately printed in 1879 from the MS. + copy in the Forster Collection at South Kensington; each + copy numbered. + +The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. With illustrations by +Phiz [_i.e._, H.K. Browne]. London, 1844, 8vo. + +Mrs. Gamp [extracted from "The Life and Adventures of Martin +Chuzzlewit"]. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With illustrations by +Phiz. London, 1839, 8vo. + + Contains a portrait of Dickens, and 39 illustrations. + +Nicholas Nickleby at the Yorkshire School [extracted from "The Life +and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby"]. By C.D., as condensed by +himself, for his readings. (Four Chapters). Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + + Another edition in three chapters was published at Boston + the same year. + +Little Dorrit. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London [1855]-57, +8vo. + +Master Humphrey's Clock. With illustrations by George Cattermole and +H.K. Browne. 3 vols. London, 1840-41, 8vo. + + Comprises two stories, "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby + Rudge," both subsequently issued as independent works, the + first in 1848, and the second in 1849. + +The Old Curiosity Shop. London, 1848, 8vo. + +Barnaby Rudge. A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. London, 1849, 8vo. + +Mr. Nightingale's Diary: a Farce, in one act. London, 1851, 8vo. + + Privately printed and extremely scarce. There is a copy in + the Forster Collection at South Kensington. + +----Another edition. Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo. + + This edition is now scarce. + +The Mudfog Papers. Now first collected. London, 1880, 8vo. + + Reprinted from Bentley's Miscellany. + +----Second edition. London, 1880, 8vo. + +The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With twelve illustrations by S.L. Fildes, +and a portrait. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. By "Boz." In three +volumes. [With illustrations by George Cruikshank.] London, 1838, 8vo. + + The second edition, with the title-page reading "Oliver + Twist, by Charles Dickens," appeared the following year; the + third edition, with a new preface, was published in 1841. + The edition of 1846, in one volume, bears the following + title-page:--"The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish + Boy's Progress. By Charles Dickens. With twenty-four + illustrations on Steel, by George Cruikshank." + +Our Mutual Friend. With illustrations by Marcus Stone. 2 vols. +London, 1865, 8vo. + +The Personal History of David Copperfield. With illustrations, by H.K. +Browne. London, 1850, 8vo. + +David Copperfield. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Pictures from Italy. By C.D. The vignette illustrations on wood, by +Samuel Palmer. London, 1846, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in the _Daily News_, from January to + March 1846, with the title of "Travelling Letters written on + the Road. By Charles Dickens." + +The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Being a 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 Phiz [H.K. +Browne], London, 1837, 8vo. + + In twenty monthly parts, commencing April 1836, and ending + November 1837, no number being issued for June 1837. + +----Another edition. V.D. Land, Launceston, 1838, 8vo. + + This edition of Pickwick is interesting from the fact that + it was published in Van Dieman's Land, the illustrations + being exact copies of the originals executed in lithography. + There is an additional title-page, engraved, bearing date + 1836. + +----The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, with notes and +illustrations. Edited by C. Dickens the younger, (Jubilee Edition.) 2 +vols. London, 1886, 8vo. + +Mr. Bob. Sawyer's Party [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Bardell and Pickwick [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Sketches by "Boz," illustrative of every-day life and every-day +people. In two volumes. Illustrations by George Cruikshank. London, +1836, 12mo. + +----Second edition. London, 1836, 12mo. + +Sketches by "Boz." Third edition. London, 1837, 12mo. + +----Second Series. London, 1837, 12mo. + +----First complete edition of the two series. With forty illustrations +by George Cruikshank. London, 1839, 8vo. + +----Sketches and Tales of London Life. [Selections from "Sketches by +Boz."] London [1877], 8vo. + +----The Tuggs's at Ramsgate [from "Sketches by Boz"]. London [1870], +8vo. + +Sketches of Young Gentlemen. Dedicated to the Young Ladies. With six +illustrations by "Phiz" (H.K. Browne). London, 1838, 8vo. + +Sketches of Young Couples; with an urgent Remonstrance to the +Gentlemen of England (being Bachelors or Widowers) on the present +alarming Crisis. With six illustrations by "Phiz" [H.K. Browne]. +London, 1840, 8vo. + + An edition was published in 1869 with the title "Sketches of + Young Couples, Young Ladies, Young Gentlemen. By Quiz. + Illustrated by Phiz." Only the first and third of these + sketches were written by Charles Dickens. "The Sketches of + Young Ladies" were by an anonymous author, who also assumed + the pseudonym of Quiz. + +Somebody's Luggage. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 888.) Leipzig, 1867, +16mo. + + The Christmas Number of _All the Year Round_ for 1862. + Dickens contributed "His leaving it till called for"; "His + Boots"; "His Brown-paper Parcel" and "His Wonderful End." + +The Strange Gentleman: A Comic Burletta. In two acts. By "Boz." First +performed at the St. James's Theatre, on Thursday, September 29, 1836. +London, 1837, 8vo. + +Sunday under Three Heads. As it is; as Sabbath bills would make it; as +it might be made. By Timothy Sparks. London, 1836, 12mo. + + Reproduced in fac-simile, London, 1884, and in Pearson's + Manchester Series of Fac-simile Reprints, Manchester, same + date. + +A Tale of Two Cities. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1859, +8vo. + + Originally issued in _All the Year Round_, between April 30 + and November 26, 1859. + +The Uncommercial Traveller. By C.D. London, 1861, 8vo. + + Consists of seventeen papers which originally appeared in + _All the Year Round_ with this title between January 28 and + October 13, 1860. The impression which was issued in 1868 in + the Charles Dickens Edition contains eleven fresh papers. + +The Village Coquettes: A Comic Opera. In two acts. By C.D. The music +by John Hullah. London, 1836, 8vo. + +----Songs, choruses, and concerted pieces in the Operatic Burletta of +The Village Coquettes as produced at St. James's Theatre. The drama +and words of the songs by "Boz." The music by John Hullah. London, +1837, 8vo. + + Editions of "The Village Coquettes" were published at + Leipzig, 1845, and at Amsterdam, 1868, in English, and it + was reprinted in 1878. _See_ also under _Music_. + + +IV. + +MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. + +All the Year Round. A weekly journal conducted by Charles Dickens. +London, 1859-1870, 8vo. + + Commenced on the 30th of April 1859. + +Bentley's Miscellany. [Successively edited by Boz, Ainsworth, Albert +Smith, etc.] Vol. 1-64. London, 1837-68, 8vo. + +Evenings of a Working Man, being the occupation of his scanty leisure. +By John Overs. With a preface relative to the author, by C.D. London, +1844, 16mo. + +Household Words: a weekly journal. Conducted by C.D. 19 vols. London, +1850-59, 8vo. + + This Journal commenced on the 30th March 1850, and was + continued to the 28th of May 1859, when it was incorporated + with _All the Year Round_. A cheap edition of Household + Words, in 19 vols. was published in 1868-73. + +----Christmas Stories from Household Words (1850-58). Conducted by +C.D. London, [1860], 8vo. + +Legends and Lyrics, by Adelaide Anne Procter. With an introduction by +C.D. New edition, illustrated by Dobson, Palmer, Tenniel, etc. London, +1866, 4to. + +The Letters of C.D. Edited by his sister-in-law (G. Hogarth) and his +eldest daughter (M. Dickens). 3 vols. London, 1880-1882, 8vo. + +----Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo. + +The Library of Fiction; or Family Story-Teller. [Edited by C.D.] +London, 1836-37, 8vo. + +The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. +London, 1839, 8vo. + + The notes and preface were written by Dickens. + +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Edited by "Boz." With illustrations by G. +Cruikshank. 2 vols. London, 1838, 12mo. + +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Another edition. Revised by C. Whitehead. +London, 1846, 8vo. + +----Another edition. London, 1853, 8vo. + +----Another edition. London, 1866, 8vo. + + Two other editions were published in 1884 by G. Routledge + and Sons, and J. Dicks. + +The Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution. Speeches on +behalf of the Institution by C.D. London, 1871, 8vo. + +The Pic-Nic Papers by various hands. Edited by C.D. With illustrations +by George Cruikshank. 3 vols. London, 1841, 8vo. + + Dickens contributed a preface and the opening tale, "The + Lamplighter's Story." + +The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens. With a few Miscellanies in +prose. Now first collected, edited, prefaced, and annotated by R.H. +Shepherd. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo. + + This work was almost immediately suppressed, as it contained + copyright matter. A new edition appeared in 1885, without + the copyright play of "No Thoroughfare." + +Religious Opinions of Chauncy Hare Townshend. Published as directed in +his Will, by his literary executor [Charles Dickens]. London, 1869, +8vo. + +Royal Literary Fund. A summary of facts in answer to allegations +contained in "The Case of the Reformers of the Literary Fund," stated +by C.D., etc. [London, 1858], 8vo. + +Speech delivered at the meeting of the Administrative Reform +Association. London, 1855, 8vo. + +Speech of C.D. as Chairman of the Anniversary Festival Dinner of the +Royal Free Hospital, 1863. [London, 1870], 12mo. + +The Speeches of C.D., 1841-1870, edited and prefaced by R.H. Shepherd. +With a new bibliography, revised and enlarged. London, 1884, 8vo. + +Speeches, letters, and sayings of C.D. To which is added a Sketch of +the author by G.A. Sala, and Dean Stanley's sermon. New York, 1870, +8vo. + +Speeches: Literary and Social. London [1870], 8vo. + +A Wonderful Ghost Story. With letters of C.D. to the author respecting +it. By Thomas Heaphy. London, 1882, 8vo. + + +V. APPENDIX. + +BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, ETC. + +Adshead, Joseph.--Prisons and Prisoners. London, 1845, 8vo. + + The Fictions of Dickens upon solitary confinement, pp. + 95-121. + +Allbut, Robert.--London Rambles "En Zigzag," with Charles Dickens. +London [1886], 8vo. + +Atlantic Almanac.--The Atlantic Almanac for 1871. Boston, 1871, 8vo. + + A short biographical notice of Dickens, with portrait and + view of Gad's Hill, pp. 20-21. + +Bagehot, Walter.--Literary Studies, by the late Walter Bagehot. 2 +vols. London, 1879, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens (1858), vol. 2, pp. 184-220. + +Bayne, Peter.--Essays in Biography and Criticism. By Peter Bayne. +First series. Boston, 1857, 8vo. + + The modern novel: Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, pp. 363-392. + +Behn-Eschenburg, H.--Charles Dickens. Von H. Behn-Eschenburg. Basel, +1872, 8vo. + + Hft. 6, of "Oeffentliche Vorträge gehalten in der Schweiz." + +Brimley, George.--Essays by the late George Brimley. Edited by William +George Clark. Cambridge, 1858, 8vo. + + "Bleak House," pp. 289-301. Reprinted from the _Spectator_, + September 24th, 1853. + +Browne, Hablôt K.--Dombey and Son. The four portraits of Edith, +Florence, Alice, and Little Paul. London, 1848, 8vo. + +----Dombey and Son. Full-length portraits of Dombey and Carker, Miss +Tox, Mrs. Skewton, etc. London, 1848, 8vo. + +----Six illustrations to The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. +Engraved from original drawings by Phiz. London [1854], 8vo. + +Buchanan, Robert.--A Poet's Sketch-Book; selections from the prose +writings of Robert Buchanan. London, 1883, 8vo. + + The Good Genie of Fiction. Charles Dickens, pp. 119-140. + (Reprinted from _St. Paul's Magazine_, 1872, pp. 130-148.) + +Calverley, C.S.--Fly Leaves. Second Edition. By C.S. Calverley. +Cambridge, 1872, 8vo. + + An Examination Paper. "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick + Club," pp. 121-124. + +Canning, S.G.--Philosophy of Charles Dickens. By the Hon. Albert S.G. +Canning. London, 1880, 8vo. + +Cary, Thomas G.--Letter to a lady in France on the supposed failure of +a national bank ... with answers to enquiries concerning the books of +Captain Marryat and Mr. Dickens. [By Thomas G. Cary.] Boston [U.S.], +1843, 8vo. + +----Second Edition. Boston, [U.S.], 1844, 8vo. + +Chambers, Robert.--Cyclopædia of English Literature. Edited by Robert +Chambers. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1844, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 630-633. + +----Another Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1860, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 644-650. + +----Third Edition, 2 vols. London, 1876, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 515-521. + +Chapman, T.J.--Schools and Schoolmasters; from the works of Charles +Dickens. New York, 1871, 8vo. + +Clarke, Charles and Mary Cowden.--Recollections of Writers. By Charles +and Mary Cowden Clarke. With letters of Charles Lamb ... and Charles +Dickens, etc. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Cleveland, Charles Dexter.--English Literature of the Nineteenth +Century. A new edition. Philadelphia, 1867, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 718-730. + +Cochrane, Robert.--Risen by Perseverance; or, lives of self-made men. +By Robert Cochrane. Edinburgh, 1879, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 172-223. + +Cook, James.--Bibliography of the writings of Charles Dickens, with +many curious and interesting particulars relating to his works. By +James Cook. London, 1879, 8vo. + +Cruikshank, George.--George Cruikshank's Magazine. London, 1854, 8vo. + + February 1854, pp. 74-80, "A letter from Hop-o'-My-Thumb to + Charles Dickens, Esq., upon 'Frauds on the Fairies,' 'Whole + Hogs,' etc." + +D., H.W.--Ward and Lock's Penny Books for the People. Biographical +series. The Life of Charles Dickens. By H.W.D. Pp. 513-528. London, +1882, 8vo. + +Davey, Samuel.--Darwin, Carlyle and Dickens, with other essays. By +Samuel Davey. London, [1876], 8vo. + +Denman, Lord.--Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleak House, Slavery and Slave +Trade. Six articles by Lord Denman. London, 1853, 8vo. + +----Second Edition. London, 1853, 8vo. + +Dépret, Louis.--Chez les Anglais. Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, +Longfellow, etc. Paris, 1879. + + Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, occupies pp. 71-130. + +Dickens, Charles.--Chas. Dickens. A critical biography. London, 1858, +8vo. + + No. 1 of a series entitled "Our Contemporaries," etc. + +----The Life and Times of Charles Dickens. With a portrait. (_Police +News_ edition.) London. [1870], 8vo. + +----The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1881], 8vo. + +----The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1882], 8vo. + + Part of Haughton's Popular Illustrated Biographies. + +----Some Notes on America to be re-written, suggested with respect to +Charles Dickens. Philadelphia, 1868, 8vo. + +----Catalogue of the beautiful collection of modern pictures, etc., of +Charles Dickens, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Christie, +Manson and Woods ... July 9, 1870. London [1870], 4to. + +----Dickens Memento, with introduction by F. Phillimore, and "Hints to +Dickens Collectors," by J.F. Dexter. Catalogue with purchasers' names, +etc. London [1884], 4to. + +----Mary.--Charles Dickens. By his eldest daughter (Mary Dickens). +London, 1885, 8vo. + + Part of the series "The World's Workers," etc. + +Dilke, Charles W.--The Papers of a Critic, etc. 2 vols. London, 1875, +8vo. + + Reference to the Literary Fund Controversy, with a letter + from C.D. to C.W. Dilke. Vol. i., pp. 79, 80. + +Dolby, George.--Charles Dickens as I knew him. The story of the +Reading Tours in Great Britain and America (1866-1870). By George +Dolby. London, 1885, 8vo. + +Drake, Samuel Adams.--Our Great Benefactors; short biographies, etc. +Boston, 1884, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 102-111, illustrated. + +Dulcken, A.--Scenes from "The Pickwick Papers," designed by A. +Dulcken. London [1861], obl. fol. + +----H.W.--Worthies of the World, a series of historical and critical +sketches, etc. Edited by H.W. Dulcken. London [1881], 8vo. + + Biography of Charles Dickens, with a portrait, pp. 513-528. + +Essays.--English Essays. 4 vols. Hamburg, 1870, 8vo. + + Vol. iv. contains an article reprinted from the _Illustrated + London News_, June 18, 1870, on Charles Dickens. + +Field, Kate.--Pen Photographs of Charles Dickens's Readings. Taken +from life. By Kate Field. Boston, [U.S.], [1868], 8vo. + +----Another edition. Illustrated. Boston (U.S.), 1871, 8vo. + +Fields, James T.--In and out of doors with Charles Dickens. By James +T. Fields. Boston, (U.S.), 1876, 16mo. + +----James T. Fields. Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches. Boston +[U.S.], 1881, 8vo. + + Pp. 152-160 relate to Dickens. + +Fitzgerald, Percy.--Two English Essayists. C. Lamb and C. Dickens. By +Percy Fitzgerald. London, 1864, 8vo. + + Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, series 2. + +----Recreations of a Literary Man. By Percy Fitzgerald. 2 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as an editor, vol. i., pp. 48-96; Charles + Dickens at Home, vol. i., pp. 97-171. + +Forster, John.--The Life of Charles Dickens. (With portraits.) 3 vols. +London, 1872-4, 8vo. + + Numerous editions. + +Friswell, J. Hain.--Modern Men of Letters honestly criticised. By J. +Hain Friswell. London, 1870, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 1-45. + +Frost, Thomas.--In Kent with Charles Dickens. By Thomas Frost. London, +1880, 8vo. + +Gill, T.--Report of the Dinner given to C.D. in Boston. Reported by T. +Gill and W. English. Boston [U.S.], 1842, 8vo. + +Hall, Samuel Carter.--A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the +Age, etc. By S.C. Hall. London, 1871, 4to. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 449-452. + +----Second edition. London, 1877, 4to. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 454-458. + +Ham, James Panton.--Parables of Fiction: a memorial discourse on C. +Dickens. By James Panton Ham. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Hanaford, P.A.--Life and Writings of C. Dickens. New York, 1882, 8vo. + +Hassard, John R.G.--A Pickwickian Pilgrimage. (Letters on "the London +of Charles Dickens.") By John R.G. Hassard. Boston (U.S.), 1881, 8vo. + +Heavisides, Edward Marsh.--The Poetical and Prose Remains of Edward +Marsh Heavisides. London, 1850, 8vo. + + The Essay on Dickens's writings, pp. 1-27. + +Hollingshead, John.--To-Day; Essays and Miscellanies. 2 vols. London, +1865, 8vo. + + Mr. Dickens and his Critics, vol. ii., pp. 277-283; Mr. + Dickens as a Reader, vol. ii., pp. 284-296. + +Hollingshead, John.--Miscellanies. Stories and Essays by John +Hollingshead. 3 vols. London, 1874, 8vo. + + Mr. Dickens and his critics, vol. iii., pp. 270-274; Mr. + Dickens as a Reader, vol. iii., pp. 275-283. + +Horne, Richard H.--A New Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne. 2 +vols. London, 1844, 12mo. + + Charles Dickens, with portrait, vol. i., pp. 1-76. + +Hotten, John Camden.--Charles Dickens, the Story of his Life. By the +Author of the Life of Thackeray (J.C. Hotten). With illustrations and +fac-similes. London (1870), 8vo. + +----Popular edition. London (1873), 12mo. + +Hume, A.B.--A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume. +1870, 8vo. + + Contains a fac-simile of Charles Dickens's letter to Mr. + J.W. Makeham, dated June 8, 1870, and an Ode to his memory. + +Hutton, Laurence.--Literary Landmarks of London. By Laurence Hutton. +London [1885], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, pp. 79-86. + +Irving, Walter.--Charles Dickens. [An essay.] By Walter Irving. +Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo. + +Jeaffreson, J. Cordy.--Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to +Victoria. By J. Cordy Jeaffreson. 2 vols. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 303-334. + +Jerrold, Blanchard.--The Best of All Good Company. Edited by Blanchard +Jerrold. Pt. 1., A Day with Charles Dickens. London, 1871, 8vo. + + Reprinted in 1872, 8 vo. + +Johnson, Charles Plumptre.--Hints to Collectors of original editions +of the works of Charles Dickens. By Charles Plumptre Johnson. London, +1885, 8vo. + +Johnson, Joseph.--Clever Boys of our Time, and how they became famous +men. Edinburgh [1878], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 40-63. + +Jones, Charles H.--Appleton's New Handy-volume Series. A short life of +Charles Dickens, etc. By Charles H. Jones. New York, 1880, 8vo. + +Joubert, André.--André Joubert. Charles Dickens, sa vie et ses +oeuvres. Paris, 1872, 8vo. + +Kent, Charles.--The Charles Dickens Dinner. An authentic record of the +public banquet given to Mr Charles Dickens ... prior to his departure +for the United States. [With a preface signed C.K. _i.e._, Charles +Kent.] London, 1867, 8vo. + +Kent, Charles.--Charles Dickens as a Reader. By Charles Kent. London, +1872, 8vo. + +Kitton, Fred. G.--"Phiz" (Hablôt Knight Browne.) A Memoir. Including a +selection from his Correspondence and Notes on his principal works. By +Fred. G. Kitton. With a portrait and numerous illustrations. London, +1882, 8vo. + + An account is given of the relationship that existed between + Dickens and Phiz. + +----Dickensiana. A Bibliography of the literature relating to Charles +Dickens and his writings. Compiled by Fred. G. Kitton. London, 1880, +8vo. + +Langton, Robert.--Charles Dickens and Rochester, etc. By Robert +Langton. London, 1886, 8vo. + +Langton, Robert.--The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, etc. By +Robert Langton. Manchester, 1883, 8vo. + +L'Estrange, A.G.--History of English Humour, etc. By the Rev. A.G. +L'Estrange. 2 vols. London, 1878, 8vo. + + Chapter 18 of vol. ii. is devoted to Dickens. + +Lynch, Judge.--Judge Lynch (of America), his two letters to Charles +Dickens (of England) upon the subject of the Court of Chancery. +London, 1859, 8vo. + +McCarthy, Justin.--A History of Our Own Times. A new edition. 4 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, vol. ii., pp. 255-259. + +McKenzie, Charles H.--The Religious Sentiments of C.D., collected from +his writings. By Charles H. McKenzie. Newcastle, 1884, 8vo. + +Mackenzie, R. Shelton.--Life of Charles Dickens, etc. By R. Shelton +Mackenzie. Philadelphia [1870], 8vo. + +Macrae, David.--Home and Abroad; Sketches and Gleanings. By David +Macrae. Glasgow, 1871, 8vo. + + Carlyle and Dickens, pp. 122-128. + +Masson, David.--British Novelists and their styles: being a critical +sketch of the history of British prose fiction. By David Masson. +Cambridge, 1859, 8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 233-253. + +Mateaux, C.L.--Brave Lives and Noble. By Miss C.L. Mateaux. London, +1883, 8vo. + + The Boyhood of Dickens, pp. 313-320. + +Mézières, L.--Histoire Critique de la Littérature Anglaise, etc. +Seconde édition. 3 tom. Paris, 1841, 8vo. + + Dickens, Le Club Pickwick, tom. iii., pp. 469-496. + +Nicholson, Renton.--Nicholson's Sketches of Celebrated Characters. +London [1856], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens. By Renton Nicholson, p. 11. + +Nicoll, Henry J.--Landmarks of English Literature. By Henry J. Nicoll. +London, 1883, 8vo. + + Dickens noticed, pp. 378-385. + +Notes and Queries. General Index to Notes and Queries. Five Series. +London, 1856-80, 4to. + + Numerous references to C.D. + +Parley.--Parley's Penny Library. London, [1841], 18mo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. i. + +----Peter Parley's Annual for 1871, etc. London [1871], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as Boy and Man, pp. 320-335. + +Parton, James.--Illustrious Men and their achievements; or, the +people's book of biography. New York [1882], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as a Citizen, pp. 831-841. + +----Some noted Princes, Authors, and Statesmen of our time. By Canon +Farrar, James T. Fields, Archibald Forbes, etc. Edited by James +Parton. New York [1886], 4to. + + Dickens with his children, by Mamie Dickens, pp. 30-47, + illustrated; Recollections of Dickens, by James T. Fields, + pp. 48-51. + +Payn, James.--The Youth and Middle Age of Charles Dickens. By James +Payn. Edinburgh, 1883, 8vo. + + Reprinted from _Chambers's Journal_, January 1872, February + 1873, March 1874. + +----Some literary recollections. By James Payn. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Chapter vi., First meeting with Dickens. Reprinted from _The + Cornhill Magazine_. + +Pemberton, T. Edgar.--Dickens's London; or, London in the works of +Charles Dickens. By T. Edgar Pemberton. London, 1876, 8vo. + +Perkins, F.B.--Charles Dickens: a sketch of his life and works. By +F.B. Perkins. New York, 1870, 12mo. + +Pierce, Gilbert A.--The Dickens Dictionary. A key to the characters +and principal incidents in the tales of Charles Dickens. By Gilbert A. +Pierce. Illustrated. Boston [U.S.], 1872, 12mo. + +----Another edition. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Poe, Edgar A.--The Literati: some honest opinions about autorial +merits and demerits, etc. By Edgar A. Poe. New York, 1850, 8vo. + + Notice of "Barnaby Rudge," pp. 464-482. + +----The works of E.A. Poe. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1875, 8vo. + + Vol. 3, Marginalia, Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop," and + Dickens and Bulwer, pp. 373-375. + +Powell, Thomas.--The Living Authors of England. By Thos. Powell. New +York, 1849, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 153-178. + +----Pictures of the Living Authors of Britain. By Thos. Powell. +London, 1851, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 88-115. + +Pryde, David.--The Genius and Writings of Charles Dickens. By David +Pryde. Edinburgh, 1869, 8vo. + +Reeve, Lovell A.--Portraits of men of eminence in literature, science, +and art, with biographical memoirs. [Vols. iii.-vi. by E. Walford]. 6 +vols. London, 1863-67, 8vo. + + Vol. iv., Charles Dickens, pp. 93-99. + +Richardson, David Lester.--Literary Recreations, etc. By David Lester +Richardson. London, 1852, 8vo. + + Dickens's "David Copperfield," and Thackeray's "Pendennis," + pp. 238-243. + +Rimmer, Alfred.--About England with Dickens. By Alfred Rimmer. With +fifty-eight illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo. + +Sala, Geo. A.--Charles Dickens. [An Essay.] London [1870], 8vo. + +Santvoord, C. Van.--Discourses on special occasions, and miscellaneous +papers. By C. Van Santvoord. New York, 1856, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens and his philosophy, pp. 333-359. + +Schmidt, Julian.--Charles Dickens. Eine charakteristik. Leipzig 1852, +8vo. + +Seymour, Mrs.--An account of the Origin of the "Pickwick Papers." By +Mrs. Seymour, etc. London, n.d. + +Shepard, William.--The Literary Life. Edited by William Shepard. Pen +Pictures of Modern Authors. New York, 1882, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 236-293. + +Shepherd, Richard Herne.--The Bibliography of Dickens. A +bibliographical list, arranged in chronological order, of the +published writings in prose and verse of Charles Dickens. From 1834 to +1880. Manchester, [1880], 8vo. + +Spedding, James.--Reviews and Discussions, literary, political, and +historical. By James Spedding. London, 1879, 8vo. + + Dickens's "American Notes," pp. 240-276. Reprinted from the + _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1843. + +Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn.--Sermon preached in Westminster Abbey, ... +the Sunday following the funeral of Dickens. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Stoddard, Richard Henry.--Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of +Thackeray and Dickens. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, +1874, 8vo. + +Taine, H.--Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise. Par H. Taine. 4 tom. +Paris, 1864, 8vo. + + Le Roman--Dickens, tom. iv., pp. 3-69. + +----History of English Literature. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo. + + The Novel--Dickens. Vol. iv., pp. 115-164. + +Taylor, Theodore.--Charles Dickens: the story of his life. New York, +n.d., 8vo. + +Thackeray, William Makepeace.--Early and late papers hitherto +uncollected. Boston, 1867, 8vo. + + Dickens in France (a description of a performance of + Nicholas Nickleby in Paris), pp. 95-121. Appeared originally + in _Fraser's Magazine_, March 1842. + +Thomson, David Croal.--Life and Labours of Hablôt Knight Browne, +"Phiz." By David Croal Thomson. With one hundred and thirty +illustrations, etc. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Contains a series of illustrations to Dickens, printed from + the original plates and blocks. + +Timbs, John.--Anecdote Lives of the later wits and humourists. By John +Timbs. 2 vols. London, 1874, 8vo. + + Vol. ii., pp. 201-255, relate to Dickens. + +Times, The.--A second series of Essays from _The Times_. London, 1854, +8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 320-338. + +----Eminent Persons: biographies reprinted from the _Times_, 1870-79. +London, 1880, 8vo. + + Mr. Charles Dickens--Leading Article, June 10, 1870; + Obituary notice, June 11, 1870, pp. 8-12. + +Tooley, Mrs. G.W.--Lives, Great and Simple. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 183-197. + +Ward, Adolphus W.--Charles Dickens. A lecture by Professor Ward. +[_Science Lectures_, series 2.] Manchester, 1871, 8vo. + +----Dickens. By Adolphus William Ward. [_English Men of Letters_ +Series.] London, 1882, 8vo. + +Watkins, William.--Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections +of his life. Written and compiled by William Watkins. London [1870], +8vo. + +Watt, James Crabb.--Great Novelists. Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, +Lytton. By James Crabb Watt. Edinburgh, 1880, 8vo. + +----Another Edition. London [1885], 8vo. + +Weizmann, Louis.--Dickens und Daudet in deutscher Uebersetzung. Von +Louis Weizmann. Berlin, 1880, 8vo. + +Weller, Sam.--On the Origin of Sam Weller, and the real cause of the +success of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, etc. London, +1883, 8vo. + +Welsh, Alfred H.--Development of English Literature and Language. 2 +vols. Chicago, 1882, 8vo. + + Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 438-454. + +World.--The World's Great Men: a Gallery of over a hundred portraits +and biographies, etc. London [1880], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with portrait, pp. 125-128. + +Yates, Edmund.--Edmund Yates: his recollections and experiences. 2 +vols. London, 1884, 8vo. + + A Dickens Chapter, vol. ii., pp. 91-128. + + +DRAMATIC. + + Plays founded on Dickens's Works. + +Yankee Notes for English Circulation: a farce, in one act. By E. +Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 46. + +The Battle of Life: a drama, in three acts. By Edward Stirling. +London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57. + +The drama founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles Dickens, called +The Battle of Life: dramatized by Albert Smith. In three acts and in +verse. London (1846), 12mo. + +La Bataille de la Vie. Pièce en trois actes, etc. Par M.M. Mélesville +et André de Goy. Paris, 1853, 8vo. + +Bleak House; or, Poor "Jo:" a drama, in four acts. Adapted from +Dickens's "Bleak House," by George Lander. (_Dicks' Standard Plays_, +No. 388.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Lady Dedlock's Secret: a drama, in four acts. Founded on an episode in +Dickens's "Bleak House." By J. Palgrave Simpson. London, n.d., 8vo. + +"Move On;" or, Jo, the Outcast: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by +James Mortimer. + + Not published. + +Poor "Jo:" a drama, in three acts. Adapted by Mr. Terry Hurst. + + Not published. + +Jo: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Charles Dickens's "Bleak +House." By J.P. Burnett. + + Not published. + +The Chimes: a Goblin Story. A drama, in four quarters, dramatised by +Mark Lemon and Gilbert A. A'Beckett. London, n.d., 8vo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. 11. + +A Christmas Carol. By C.Z. Barnett. London (1872), 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 94. + +The Cricket on the Hearth; or, a fairy tale of home: a drama, in three +acts. Dramatized by Albert Smith (_Dicks' Standard Plays_, No. 394). +London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home. By Edward Stirling. +(_Webster's "Acting National Drama_," vol. 12.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home in three chirps. By +W.T. Townsend. London (1860), 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 44. + +Dot: a Fairy Tale of Home. A drama, in three acts. From the "Cricket +on the Hearth," by Charles Dickens. Dramatized by Dion Boucicault. + + Not published. + +David Copperfield: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's +popular work of the same name, by John Brougham. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 474.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Little Em'ly: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Dickens's "David +Copperfield," by Andrew Halliday. New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Dombey and Son: in three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham. (_Dicks' +Standard Plays_, No. 373.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Captain Cuttle: a comic drama, in one act. By John Brougham. (_Dicks' +Standard Plays_, No. 572.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Great Expectations: a Drama, in three acts, and a prologue. Adapted by +W.S. Gilbert. + + Not published. + +The Haunted Man: a drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens's Christmas +Story. + + Not published. + +Tom Pinch: a Domestic Comedy, in three acts. Adapted by Messrs. Dilley +and Clifton, from "Martin Chuzzlewit." London, n.d. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: or, his Wills and his Ways, etc. A drama, in three +acts. By Thomas Higgie. London [1872], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition, Supplement, vol. i. + +Tartüffe Junior, von H.C.L. Klein. [Play in five acts, after "The Life +of Martin Chuzzlewit."] Neuwied, 1864, 16mo. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By E. Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 50. + +Mrs. Harris! a farce, in one act. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., +12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57. + +Mrs. Gamp's Party. (Adapted from "Martin Chuzzlewit.") In one act. +Manchester, n.d., 12mo. + +Mrs. Sarah Gamp's Tea and Turn Out: a Bozzian Sketch, in one act. By +B. Webster. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Acting National Drama, vol. xiii. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Webb. London, +n.d., 12mo. + +Master Humphrey's Clock: a domestic drama, in two acts. By F.F. +Cooper. (_Duncombe's British Theatre_, vol. xli.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by Mr. Charles +Dickens, Jun., from his father's novel. + + Not published. + +Mrs. Jarley's Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works, as arranged by G.B. +Bartlett. In two parts. London [1873], 8vo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Charles +Dickens's novel of the same name, by George Lander. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 398.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in two acts. By E. Stirling. London +[1868], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. lxxvii. + +Barnaby Rudge: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's work by +Thomas Higgie. London [1854], 12mo. + +Barnaby Rudge: a domestic drama, in three acts. By Charles Selby and +Charles Melville. London [1875], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. ci. + +A Message from the Sea: a drama, in four acts. Founded on Charles +Dickens's tale of that name. By John Brougham. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 459.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +A Message from the Sea: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Dickens and +William Wilkie Collins. London, 1861, 8vo. + +The Infant Phenomenon, etc.: a domestic piece, in one act. Being an +episode in the adventures of "Nicholas Nickleby." Adapted by H. +Horncastle. London, n.d., 8vo. + +Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by H. Simms. +(_Dicks' Standard Plays_, No. 469.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Fortunes of Smike, or a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in +two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. ix. + +Nicholas Nickleby: a farce, in two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. v. + +Nicholas Nickleby: an Episodic Sketch, in three tableaux, based upon +an incident in "Nicholas Nickleby." + + Not published. + +L'Abîme, drame en cinq actes. [Founded on the story of "No +Thoroughfare."] Paris, 1868, 8vo. + +No Thorough Fare: a drama, in five acts, and a prologue. By Charles +Dickens and Wilkie Collins. New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Identity; or, No Thoroughfare. A drama, in four acts. By Louis Lequêl. +New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Bumble's Courtship. From Dickens's "Oliver Twist." A Comic Interlude, +in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London [1874], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix. + +Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in three acts. By George Almar. +London, n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. vi. + +Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress: a domestic drama, in three +acts. By C.Z. Barnett. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxix. + +Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in four acts. By George Almar. +New York, n.d. + +Sam Weller, or the Pickwickians: a drama, in three acts, etc. By W.T. +Moncrieff. London, 1837, 8vo. + +The Pickwickians, or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller: a Comic Drama, +in three acts. Arranged from Moncrieff's adaptation of Charles +Dickens's work, by T.H. Lacy. London [1837], 8vo. + +The Great Pickwick Case, arranged as a comic operetta. The words of +the songs by Robert Pollitt; the music arranged by Thomas Rawson. +Manchester [1884], 8vo. + +The Pickwick Club ... a burletta, in three acts. By E. Stirling. +London [1837], 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxvi. + +The Peregrinations of Pickwick: an acting drama. By William Leman +Rede. London, 1837, 8vo. + +Bardell _versus_ Pickwick; versified and diversified. Songs and +choruses. Words by T.H. Gem; music by Frank Spinney. Leamington +[1881], 12mo. + +The Dead Witness; or Sin and its Shadow. A drama, in three acts, +founded on "The Widow's Story" of The Seven Poor Travellers, by +Charles Dickens. The drama written by Wybert Reeve. London [1874], +12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix. + +A Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in two acts, etc. By Tom Taylor. London +[1860], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xlv. + +The Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by H.J. +Rivers, etc. London [1862], 12mo. + + +MUSICAL. + +All the Year Round; or, The Search for Happiness. A song. Words by +W.S. Passmore; music by John J. Blockley. London [1860], fol. + +Yankee Notes for English Circulation; or, Boz in A-Merry-Key. Comic +song, by J. Briton. Music by Loder. [1842.] + +Dolly Varden: a Ballad. Words and music by Cotsford Dick. London +[1880], fol. + +Maypole Hugh: a song. Words by Charles Bradberry; music by George E. +Fox. London [1881], fol. + +The Chimes Quadrille. (_Musical Bouquet_, No. 5.) London, n.d., fol. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: Quadrille. By F. Lancelott. (_Musical +Bouquet_, No. 57.) London [1846], fol. + +What are the Wild Waves Saying? A vocal duet. Written by Joseph E. +Carpenter; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol. + +A Voice from the Waves: a vocal duet, in answer to the above. Words by +R. Ryan; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol. + +Little Dorrit's Vigil. A Song. Written by John Barnes; composed by +George Linley. London [1856], fol. + +Who Passes by this Road so Late? Blandois' song, from "Little Dorrit." +Words by Charles Dickens. Music by H.R.S. Dalton, London [1857], fol. + +My Dear Old Home: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on Dickens's "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], fol. + +Floating Away: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on a passage in "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], +fol. + +The Nicholas Nickleby Quadrilles and Nickleby Galop. By Sydney Vernon. +London, 1839, fol. + +Little Nell: a melody. Composed by George Linley, and arranged for the +pianoforte by Carlo Zotti. London [1865], fol. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Mrs. Henry Dale. London [1840], fol. + + The song is introduced in chap. vi. of the "Pickwick Papers" + as a recitation by the clergyman of Dingley Dell. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by A. De Belfour. London [1843], fol. + +The Ivy Green. Arranged for the pianoforte by Ricardo Linter. London +[1844], fol. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Henry Russell. London [1844], fol. + +The Ivy Green. Music by W. Lovell Phillips. London [1844], fol. + +Gabriel Grub. Cantata Seria Buffa. Adapted from "Pickwick." Music by +George E. Fox. London [1881], 4to. + +Sam Weller's Adventures: a song of the Pickwickians. (Reprinted in +_The Life and Times of James Catnach_, by Charles Hindley. London, +1878). + +The Tuggs's at Ramsgate. Versified from "Boz's" sketch. + +The Child and the Old Man: song in the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." +The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol. + +Love is not a feeling to pass away: a ballad in "The Village +Coquettes." Words by C. Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol. + +My Fair Home: air in "The Village Coquettes." Words by Charles +Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +No light bound of stag or timid hare. Quintett in the Opera, "The +Village Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John +Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +Some Folks who have grown old. Song in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +There's a Charm in Spring: a ballad in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +The Cares of the Day: song with chorus, in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, composed by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol. + +In Rich and Lowly Station shine. Duet in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol. + +Autumn Leaves: air from the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." The words +by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1871], fol. + + +PARODIES AND IMITATIONS. + +Change for the American Notes; or, Letters from London to New York. By +an American Lady. London, 1843, 8vo. + +Current American Notes. By "Buz." London, n.d. + +The Battle of London Life; or, "Boz" and his Secretary. By Morna. With +a portrait and illustrations by G.A. Sala. London, 1849. + +The Battle Won by the Wind. By Ch----s D*ck*ns, etc. + + Published in _The Puppet Showman's Album_. Illustrated by + Gavarni. + +Bleak House: a Narrative of Real Life, etc. London, 1856. + +Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen. By Quiz Junior. With +woodcut illustrations. London [1838]. + +A Child's History of Germany. By H.W. Friedlaender. A Pendant to a +Child's History of England, by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861, 8vo. + +"Christmas Eve" with the Spirits ... with some further tidings of the +Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870. + +A Christmas Carol: being a few scattered staves, from a familiar +composition, re-arranged for performance, by a distinguished Musical +Amateur, during the holiday season, at H--rw--rd--n. With four +illustrations by Harry Furness. + + _Punch_, Dec. 1885, pp. 304, 305. + +Micawber Redivivus; or, How to Make a Fortune as a Middleman, etc. By +Jonathan Coalfield [_i.e._ W. Graham Simpson?]. [London, 1883], 8vo. +[Transcriber's Note: The subtitle of this volume should be "How He +Made a Fortune as a Middleman, etc."] + +Dombey and Son Finished: a burlesque. Illustrated by Albert Smith. + + _The Man in the Moon_, 1848, pp. 59-67. + +Dombey and Daughter: a moral fiction. By Renton Nicholson. London +[1850], 8vo. + +Dolby and Father, by Buz. [A satire on C. Dickens.] New York, 1868, +12mo. + +Hard Times (Refinished). By Charles Diggens. + + Parody on _Hard Times_, published in "Our Miscellany." + Edited by H. Yates and R.B. Brough, pp. 142-156. + +The Haunted Man. By CH--R--S D--C--K--N--S. New York, 1870, 12mo. + + _Condensed Novels, and Other Papers._ By F. Bret Harte. + +Mister Humfries' Clock. "Bos," Maker. A miscellany of striking +interest. Illustrated. London, 1840, 8vo. + +Master Timothy's Bookcase; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By +G.W.M. Reynolds. London, 1842. + +A Girl at a Railway Junction's Reply [to an article in the Christmas +number for 1866 of "All the Year Round," entitled "Mugby Junction."] +London [1867], 8vo. + +The Cloven Foot: being an adaptation of the English novel, "The +Mystery of Edwin Drood" to American scenes, characters, customs, and +nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870, 8vo. + +The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. By Orpheus C. Kerr. + + _The Piccadilly Annual_, Dec. 1870, pp. 59-62. + +The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. An adaptation. By O.C. Kerr. London +[1871], 8vo. + +John Jasper's Secret: a sequel to Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, +"The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Philadelphia [1871]. + +The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Part the Second, by the Spirit Pen of +Charles Dickens, etc. Brattleboro' [U.S.], 1873. + +A Great Mystery Solved: being a sequel to "The Mystery of Edwin +Drood." By Gillian Vase. 3 vols. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Nicholas Nickelbery. Containing the adventures of the family of +Nickelbery. By "Bos." With forty-three woodcut illustrations. London +[1838], 8vo. + +Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married ... being a sequel to the +"Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby." Edited by "Guess." With +twenty-one etched illustrations by "Quiz." London, 1840. + +No Thoroughfare: the Book in Eight Acts, etc. + + _The Mask._ February 1868, pp. 14-18. + +No Throughfare. [A Parody upon Dickens's "No Thoroughfare."] By C----s +D----s, B. Brownjohn, and Domby. Second Edition. Boston [U.S.], 1868, +8vo. + +The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy. [Edited by +Bos.] London [1839]. 8vo. + +Posthumous Papers of the Cadger's Club. With sixteen engravings. +London [1837]. + +Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, formerly of Camden +Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by "Poz." With eleven +illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by Point. London, 1838. + +The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club. Edited by "Bos." +Illustrated with 120 engravings. 2 vols. London [1839], 8vo. + + There are, in fact, 332 engravings. + +Pickwick in America! detailing all the ... adventures of taat [_sic._] +individual in the United States. Edited by "Bos." Illustrated with +forty-six engravings. London [1840], 8vo. + +Pickwick Abroad; or, the Tour in France. By George W.M. Reynolds. +Illustrated with forty-one steel plates, by Alfred Crowquill, etc. +London, 1839, 8vo. + +--Another edition. London, 1864, 8vo. + +Lloyd's Pickwickian Songster, etc. London [1837]. + +Pickwick Songster. With portraits, designed by C.J. Grant, of "Mr. +Pickwick as Apollo," and "Sam Weller brushing boots." London, n.d. + +The Pickwick Comic Almanac for 1838. With twelve comic woodcut +illustrations, drawn by R. Cruikshank. London, 1838. + +Mr. Pickwick's Collection of Songs. Illustrated. London [1837], 12mo. + +Pickwick Treasury of Wit; or, Joe Miller's Jest Book. Dublin, 1840. + +Sam Weller's Favourite Song Book. London [1837], 12mo. + +Sam Weller's Pickwick Jest-Book, etc. With illustrations by +Cruikshank, and portraits of all the "Pickwick" characters. London, +1837. + +The Sam Weller Scrap Sheet. With forty woodcut portraits of "all the +Pickwick Characters," etc. London, n.d. + +Facts and Figures from Italy. Addressed during the last two winters to +C. Dickens, being an appendix to his "Pictures." By Don Jeremy +Savonarola. London, 1847, 8vo. + +The Sketch Book. By "Bos." Containing tales, sketches, etc. With +seventeen woodcut illustrations. London [1837], 8vo. + + +POETICAL. + +Impromptu. By C.J. Davids. + + _Bentley's Miscellany_, No. 2, March 1837, p. 297. + +Poetical Epistle from Father Prout to "Boz." A poem of seven verses. + + _Bentley's Miscellany_, Jan. 1838, p. 71. + +A Tribute to Charles Dickens. A poem of twelve lines. By the Hon. Mrs. +Norton. + + _English Bijou Almanac_, 1842. + +To Charles Dickens on his proposed voyage to America, 1842. By Thomas +Hood. + + _New Monthly Magazine_, Feb. 1842, p. 217. + +To Charles Dickens, on his "Christmas Carol." A poem of fifteen lines. +By W.W.G. + + _Illuminated Magazine_, Feb. 1844, p. 189. + +To Charles Dickens on his "Oliver Twist." By T.N. Talfourd. + + _Tragedies; to which are added a few Sonnets and Verses_, by + T.N. Talfourd, p. 244. London, 1844. 16mo. + +The American's Apostrophe to "Boz." A poem. + + _The Book of Ballads_ [_by T. Martin and W.E. Aytoun_]. + _Edited by Bon Gaultier_, pp. 81-86. London, 1845, 16mo. + +To Charles Dickens. A Sonnet. + + _Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine_, March 1845, p. 250. + +To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Sonnet. By John Forster. + + _The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith_, by John + Forster. London, 1848, 8vo. + +To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Poem of two verses. By James +Ballantine. + + _Poems_, by James Ballantine. Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo. + +Au Revoir. A poem of four verses. + + _Judy_, Oct. 30, 1867, p. 37. + +A Welcome to Dickens. A poem of eighty-four lines. By F.J. Parmentier. + + _Harper's Weekly_, Nov. 30, 1867, pp. 757, 758. + +Impromptu. A Humorous Verse of six lines. + + _Life of Charles Dickens_, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, p. 97. + Philadelphia [1870], 8vo. + +Charles Dickens reading to his daughters on the Lawn at Gadshill. A +poem of eight verses. By the Editor (C.W.). + + _Life_, Dec. 8, 1880, p. 1005. + +Memorial Verses, June 9, 1870. Fifteen verses. By F.T.P. + + _Daily News_, June 18, 1870, p. 5. + +Ode to the Memory of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume. + + _A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens_, by A.B. Hume. + London, 1870, 8vo. + +Charles Dickens. Born February 7, 1812. Died June 9, 1870. A memorial +poem of fourteen verses. + + _Punch_, June 18, 1870, p. 244. + +In Memoriam. June 9, 1870. A poem of six verses. + + _Graphic_, June 18, 1870, p. 678. + +Charles Dickens. Born 7th February 1812; died 9th June 1870. A +memorial sonnet. + + _Judy_, June 22, 1870, p. 91. + +In Memory. A poem of ten verses, with an illustration by F. Barnard. + + _Fun_, June 25, 1870, p. 157. + +In Memoriam. A poem of seventy lines. By H.M.C. + + _Gentleman's Magazine_, July 1, 1870, p. 22. + +To His Memory. A poem of five verses. + + _Argosy_, August, 1870, p. 114. + +A Man of the Crowd to Charles Dickens. A poem of a hundred-and-six +lines. By E.J. Milliken. + + _Gentleman's Magazine_, August 1870, pp. 277-279. + +Dickens. A memorial poem of two verses. By O.C.K. (Orpheus C. Kerr). + + _Piccadilly Annual_, Dec. 1870, p. 72. + +In Memoriam. Charles Dickens. _Obiit_, June 9, 1870. Five verses. + + _Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections of his + life._ By William Watkins. London [1870], 8vo. + +Dickens in Camp. A poem of ten verses. By F. Bret Harte. + + _Poems_, by F. Bret Harte. Boston, 1871, 12mo. + +Dickens at Gadshill. A poem of eighteen verses. By C.K. (Charles +Kent). + + _Athenæum_, June 3, 1871, p. 687. + +Death of Charles Dickens. A poem of seventeen verses. + + _The Circe and other Poems_, by John Appleby, 1873. + +At Gad's Hill. An obituary poem of fourteen verses. By Richard Henry +Stoddard. + + _Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and + Dickens_, p. 296. By Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, 1874, + 8vo. + +At the Grave of Dickens. A sonnet. By Clelia R. Crespi. + + _Detroit Free Press_, July 1884. + +In Memoriam: Charles Dickens. Died June 9, 1870. A sonnet. By C.K. + + _Graphic_, June 6, 1885, p. 586. + + +MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES. + +Charles Dickens. _Revue Britannique_, Avril 1843, pp. +340-376.--_People's Journal_ (portrait), by William Howitt, 1846, vol. +1, pp. 8-12.--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Arthur Dudley, March 1848, +pp. 901-922--_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April 1855, pp. +451-466; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, June 1855, pp. +200-214.--_Die Gartenlaube_ (portrait), 1856, pp. 73-75.--_Saturday +Review_, May 1858, pp. 474, 475; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, +July 1858, pp. 263-265--_Town Talk_, June 1858, p. 76.--_National +Review_, vol. 7, 1858, pp. 458-486.--_Illustrated News of the World_, +Supplement, Oct. 9, 1858.--_National Review_ (by W. Bagehot), Oct. +1858, pp. 458-486; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1858, pp. +643-659; and in "Literary Studies by the late Walter +Bagehot."--_Critic_ (portrait), 1858, pp. 534-537.--_Harper's New +Monthly Magazine_, 1862, pp. 376-380.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 1, 1866, +p. 79; vol. 9, p. 225.--_Harper's Weekly_ (portrait), 1867, p. 757; +same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1867, pp. 688-690.--_North +American Review_, by C.E. Norton, April, 1868, pp. 671-672.--_Court +Suburb Magazine_, by B., Dec. 1868, pp. 142, 143.--_Contemporary +Review_, by George Stott, Feb. 1869, pp. 203-225; same article, +_Littell's Living Age_, March 1869, pp. 707-720.--_L'Illustration_ +(portrait), by Jules Claretie, 18 Juin, 1870--_Le Monde Illustré_ +(portrait), by Léo de Bernard, 25 Juin, 1870.--_Annual Register_, +1870, pp. 151-153.--_Illustrated London News_ (portrait), June, 1870, +p. 639.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 716, 717.--_Ueber Land und Meer_ +(portrait), No. 42, 1870, p. 19--_Fraser's Magazine_, July 1870, pp. +130-134.--_Putnam's Monthly Magazine_, by P. Godwin, vol. 16, 1870, p. +231.--_St. Paul's Magazine_, by Anthony Trollope, July 1870, pp. +370-375; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Sept. 1870, pp. +297-301.--_Illustrated Magazine_, by "Meteor," 1870, pp. 164, +165.--_Illustrated Review_, with portrait, vol. 1, 1870, pp. +1-4.--_Hours at Home_, by D.G. Mitchell, 1870, pp. +363-368.--_Gentleman's Magazine_ (portrait), July 1870, pp. 21, +22.--_Graphic_ (portrait), 1870, p. 687.--_Nation_ (by J.R. Dennett), +1870, pp. 380, 381.--_Temple Bar_, by Alfred Austin, July 1870, pp. +554-562.--_St. James's Magazine_ (portrait), 1870, pp. +696-699.--_Victoria Magazine_, by Edward Roscoe, vol. 15, 1870, pp. +357-363.--_Art Journal_, July, 1870, p. 224.--_Leisure Hour_ +(portrait), by Miss E.J. Whately, Nov. 1870, pp. 728-732.--_New +Eclectic_, by B. Jerrold, vol. 7, 1871, p. 332.--_London Quarterly +Review_, Jan. 1871, pp. 265-286.--_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, +June 1871, pp. 673-695; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Sept. 1871, +pp. 257, 274; _Littell's Living Age_, July 1871, pp. +29-44.--_Gentleman's Magazine_, by George Barnett Smith, 1874, pp. +301-316.--_Social Notes_, by Moy Thomas (portrait), etc., Oct. 1879, +pp. 114-117.--_Fortnightly Review_, by Mowbray Morris, Dec. 1882, pp. +762-779. + +----About England with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin +[illustrated], Aug. 1880, pp. 494-503. + +----Amateur Theatricals. _Macmillan's Magazine_, Jan. 1871, pp. +206-215; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, March 1871, pp. +322-330.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 10, p. 70. + +----As "Captain Bobadil" (portrait). _Every Saturday_, vol. 11, p. +295. + +----American Notes. _Fraser's Magazine_, Nov. 1842, pp. +617-629.--_Monthly Review_, Nov. 1842, pp. 392-403.--_Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal_, Nov. 1842, pp. 348, 349, 356, 357.--_New Monthly +Magazine_ (by Thomas Hood), Nov. 1842, pp. 396-406.--_Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine_, by Q.Q.Q., Dec. 1842, pp. 783-801.--_Tait's +Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. 9, 1842, pp. 737-746.--_Christian +Remembrancer_, Dec. 1842, pp. 679, 680.--_Edinburgh Review_, by James +Spedding, Jan. 1843, pp. 497-522. Reprinted in "Reviews and +Discussions," etc., by James Spedding; Note to the above, Feb. 1843, +p. 301.--_Eclectic Museum_, vol. 1, 1843, p. 230.--_North American +Review_, Jan. 1843, pp. 212-237.--_Quarterly Review_, March 1843, pp. +502-522.--_Westminster Review_, by H., 1843, pp. 146-160.--_New +Englander_, by J.P. Thompson, 1843, pp. 64-84.--_Southern Literary +Messenger_, 1843, pp. 58-62.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, +April 1877, pp. 462-466. + +----And Benjamin Disraeli. _Tailor and Cutter_, July 1870, pp. +401-402. + +----The Styles of Disraeli and. _Galaxy_, by Richard Grant White, Aug. +1870, pp. 253-263. + +----And Thackeray. _Littell's Living Age_, vol. 21, p. 224.--_Dublin +Review_, April 1871, pp. 315-350. + +----And Bulwer. A Contrast. _Temple Bar_, Jan. 1875, pp. 168-180. + +----Living Literati; Sir E. Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Charles Dickens. +_Eginton's Literary Railway Miscellany_, 1854, pp. 19-25, 174-188. + +----And Chauncy Hare Townshend. _London Society_, Aug. 1870, pp. +157-159. + +----And his Critics. _The Train_, by John Hollingshead, Aug. 1857, pp. +76-79; reprinted in "Essays and Miscellanies" by John Hollingshead. + +----And his Debt of Honour. _Land We Love_, vol. 5, p. 414. + +----And his Illustrators. With nine illustrations. _Christmas +Bookseller_, 1879, pp. 15-21. + +----And his Letters. Part 1. By Mary Cowden Clarke. _Gentleman's +Magazine_, Dec. 1876, pp. 708-713. + +----And his Works. _Fraser's Magazine_, April 1840, pp. 381-400. + +----Another Gossip about.--_Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. +12, 1872, pp. 78-83. + +----As an Author and Reader. _Welcome_, with portrait, vol. 12, 1885, +pp. 166-170. + +----As a Dramatic Critic. _Longman's Magazine_, by Dutton Cook, May +1883, pp. 29-42. + +----As a Dramatist and a Poet. _Gentleman's Magazine_, by Percy +Fitzgerald, 1878, pp. 61-77. + +----As a Humaniser. _St. James's Magazine_, by Arnold Quamoclit, 1879, +pp. 281-291. + +----As a Journalist. _Journalist, A Monthly Phonographic Magazine_, by +Charles Kent, in Pitman's Shorthand, vol. 1, Dec. 1879, pp. 17-25. +Done into English--_Time_, July 1881, pp. 361-374. + +----As a Literary Exemplar. _University Quarterly_, by F.A. Walker, +vol. 1, p. 91, etc. + +----As a Moralist. _Old and New_, April 1871, pp. 480-483. + +----As a Moral Teacher. _Monthly Religious Magazine_, by J.H. Morison, +vol. 44, p. 129, etc. + +----As a Reader. _The Critic_, 1858, pp. 537, 538. + +----Eine Vorlesung von Charles Dickens. _Die Gartenlaube_, by Corvin +(portrait), 1861, pp. 612-614. + +----Readings by Charles Dickens. _Land We Love_, by T.C. De Leon, vol. +4, p. 421, etc. + +----Farewell Reading in London. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, pp. 242, +260. + +----Last Readings. _Graphic_, February 1870, p. 250. + +----New Reading. Illustrated. _Tinsley's Magazine_, by Edmund Yates, +1869, pp. 60-64. + +----At Home. _Every Saturday_, vol. 2, p. 396. _Gentleman's Magazine_ +(by Percy Fitzgerald), November 1881, pp. 562-583.--_Cornhill +Magazine_ (by his eldest daughter), 1885, pp. 32-51. + +----At Gadshill Place. _Life_, 1880, pp. 1005, 1006. + +----Biographical Sketch of. _The Eclectic Magazine_ (portrait), 1864, +pp. 115-117. + +----Bleak House. _Rambler_, vol. 1. N.S., 1854, pp. 41-45. + +----Boyhood of. _Thistle_, by J.D.D., vol. 1, pp. 51-55. + +----Childhood of. (Illustrated.) _Manchester Quarterly_, by Robert L. +Langton, vol. 1, 1882, pp. 178-180. + +----Early Life of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 12, p. 60. + +----Boz. _The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, by J.T., July 1870, +pp. 14-16. + +----The "Boz" Ball. _Historical Magazine_, by P.M., pp. 110-113 and +291-294. + +----"Boz" in Paris.--_Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. 10, pp. +186-189. + +----Boz _versus_ Dickens. _Parker's London Magazine_, February 1845, +pp. 122-128. + +----Grip the Raven, in "Barnaby Rudge." _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, 542, +742, 749. + +----The Battle of Life. _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1847, pp. 55-60. + +----Bleak House. _Spectator_ (by George Brimley), Sep. 1853, pp. +923-925. Reprinted in "Essays by the late George Brimley."--_United +States Magazine and Democratic Review_, Sep. 1853, pp. +276-280.--_North American Review_ (by W. Sargent,) Oct. 1853, pp. +409-439.--_Eclectic Review_, Dec. 1853, pp. 665-679. + +----Characters in. _Putnam's Monthly Magazine_ (by C.F. Riggs), 1853, +pp. 558-562. + +----Characters from Dickens [Illustrated]. _Jack and Jill_, 1885-6. + +----The Chimes. _Dublin Review_, Dec. 1844, pp. 560-568.--_Eclectic +Review_, 1845, pp. 70-88.--_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1845, pp. 181-189; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, May 1845, pp. 33-38. + +----Christmas Books. _Union Magazine_, 1846, pp. 223-236. + +----A Christmas Carol. _Dublin Review_, 1843, pp. 510-529.--_Fraser's +Magazine_, by M.A.T., Feb. 1844, pp. 167-169.--_Hood's Magazine_, +1844, pp. 68-75.--_Knickerbocker_, by S.G. Clark, March, 1844, pp. +276-281. + +----Controversy. _American Publishers' Circular_, June 1867, pp. +68-69. + +----Cricket on the Hearth. _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, 1846, pp. +44-48.--_Oxford and Cambridge Review_, vol. 2, 1846, pp. 43-50. + +----David Copperfield. _Fraser's Magazine_, Dec. 1850, pp. 698-710; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Feb. 1851, pp. 247-258. + +----David Copperfield and Arthur Pendennis. _Southern Literary +Messenger_, 1851, pp. 499-504.--_Prospective Review_, July 1851, pp. +157-191.--_North British Review_ (by David Masson), May 1851, pp. +57-89; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, July 1851, pp. 97-110. + +----Schools; or, Teachers and Taught. _Family Herald_, July 1849, pp. +204-205. + +----The Death of. Articles reprinted from the _Saturday Review_, the +_Spectator_, the _Daily News_, and the _Times_. _Eclectic Magazine_, +Aug. 1870, pp. 217-224.--_Saturday Review_, June 11, 1870, pp. 760, +761.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9, 1870, p. 450. + +----Devonshire House Theatricals. _Bentley's Miscellany_, 1851, pp. +660-667. + +----Dictionary of (Pierce and Wheeler's). _Every Saturday_, vol. 11, +p. 258. + +----Dogs; or, the Landseer of Fiction. [Illustrated.] _London +Society_, July 1863, pp. 48-61. + +----Dombey and Son. _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, Oct. 1846, pp. +269, 270.--_North British Review_, May 1847, pp. 110-136.--_Rambler_, +vol. 1, 1848, pp. 64, 66.--_Sun_ (by Charles Kent), April 13, 1848. + +---- ----Humourists: Dickens and Thackeray (Dombey and Son and Vanity +Fair). _English Review_, Dec. 1848, pp. 257-275; same article, +_Eclectic Magazine_, March 1849, pp. 370-379. + +---- ----The Wooden Midshipman (of "Dombey and Son"). (By Ashby +Sterry.) _All the Year Round_, Oct. 1881, pp. 173-179. + +----English Magazines on, 1870. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 482. + +----Farewell Banquet to, 1867. _Every Saturday_, vol. 4, p. 705. + +----A Few Words on. _Town and Country_, by A.J.H. Crespi, N.S., vol. +1, 1873, pp. 265-273. + +----Footprints of. _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_, by M.D. Conway. +1870, pp. 610-616. + +----Forster's Life of (Vol. 1). _Examiner_, by Herbert Wilson, Dec. +1871, pp. 1217, 1218; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Feb. 1872, +pp. 237-240.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James Payn), Jan. 1872, pp. +17-21 and 40-45.--_Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1872, pp. +125-147.--_Nation_, 1872, pp. 42, 43.--_Fortnightly Review_, by J. +Herbert Stack, Jan. 1872, pp. 117-120.--_Fraser's Magazine_, Jan. +1872, pp. 105-113; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, March 1872, pp. +277-284.--_Canadian Monthly_, Feb. 1872, pp. 179-182.--_Lakeside +Monthly_, April 1872, pp. 336-340.--_Overland Monthly_, by George B. +Merrill, May 1872, pp. 443-451. + +----Forster's Life of (vol. 2). _Examiner_, Nov. 1872, pp. 1132, +1133.--_Nation_, 1873, pp. 28, 29.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James +Payn), Feb. 1873, pp. 74-79.--_Canadian Monthly_, Feb. 1873, pp. +171-173.--_Temple Bar_, May 1873, pp. 169-185. + +----Forster's Life of (vol. 3). _Examiner_, 1874, pp. 161, +162.--_Nation_, 1874, pp. 175, 176.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James +Payn), March 1874, pp. 177-180.--_Canadian Monthly_, April 1874, pp. +364-366. + +----Forster's Life of. _International Review_, May 1874, pp. +417-420.--_North American Review_, vol. 114, p. 413.--_Every +Saturday_, vol. 14, p. 608.--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Léon Boucher, +tom. 8, 1875, pp. 95-126.--_American Bibliopolist_, vol. 4, p. +125.--_Catholic World_, by J.R.G. Hassard, vol. 30, p. 692. + +----Four months with. (1842.) _Atlantic Monthly_, by G.W. Putnam. +1870, pp. 476-482, 591-599. + +----French Criticism of. _People's Journal_, vol. 5, p. 228. + +----On the Genius of. _Knickerbocker_, by F.W. Shelton, May 1852, pp. +421-431.--_Putnam's Monthly Magazine_, by G.F. Talbot, 1855, pp. +263-272.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by E.P. Whipple, May 1867, pp. +546-554.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 749-751.--_New Eclectic_, vol. 7, +1871, p. 257 + +----The "Good Genie" of Fiction. _St. Paul's Magazine_, by Robert +Buchanan, 1872, pp. 130-148; reprinted in "A Poet's Sketch-Book," +etc., by Robert Buchanan, 1883. + +----Great Expectations. _Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Sep. +1877, pp. 327-333.--_Eclectic Review_, Oct. 1861, pp. +458-477.--_Dublin University Magazine_, Dec. 1861, pp. 685-693. + +----Bygone Celebrities: I. The Guild of Literature and Art. +_Gentleman's Magazine_, by R.H. Horne, Feb. 1871, pp. 247-262. + +----Hard Times. _Westminster Review_, Oct. 1854, pp. +604-608.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, March 1877, pp. +353-358. + +----The Home of. _Hours at Home_, by John D. Sherwood, July 1867, pp. +239-242.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 228. + +----In and Out of London with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin. +[Illustrated.] May 1881, pp. 32-45. + +----In London with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin. +(Illustrated). March 1881, pp. 649-664. + +----In the Editor's Chair. _Gentleman's Magazine_, by Percy +Fitzgerald, June 1881, pp. 725-742. + +----In Memoriam. By A.H. (Arthur Helps). _Macmillan's Magazine_, July +1870, pp. 236-240.--_Gentleman's Magazine_, by Blanchard Jerrold, July +1870, pp. 228-241; reprinted, with additions, as "A Day with Charles +Dickens," in the "Best of all Good Company," by Blanchard Jerrold, +1872. + +----In New York (by J.R. Dennett). _Nation_, 1867, pp. 482, 483. + +----In Poet's Corner. _Illustrated London News_, June 1870, pp. 652 +and 662, 663. + +----In Relation to Christmas. _Graphic_ Christmas Number, 1870, p, 19. + +----In Relation to Criticism. _Fortnightly Review_, by George Henry +Lewes, 1872, pp. 141-154; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1872, pp. +445-453; _Every Saturday_, vol. 12., p. 246, etc. + +----A Lost Work of (Is She His Wife? or, Something Singular). _The +Pen; a Journal of Literature_, by Richard Herne Shepherd, October +1880, pp. 311, 312. + +----Least known writings of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 471. + +----Letters of. _Fortnightly Review_, by William Minto, Dec. 1879, pp. +845-862; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1880, pp. 3-13; +_Eclectic Magazine_, 1880, pp. 165-175.--_Nation_, by W.C. Brownell, +December 1879, pp. 388-390.--_Literary World_, December 1879, pp. +369-371.--_Scribner's Monthly_, Jan. 1880, pp. 470, 471.--_Appleton's +Journal of Literature_, 1880, pp. 72-81.--_Contemporary Review_, by +Matthew Browne, 1880, pp. 77-85.--_North American Review_, by Eugene +L. Didier, March 1880, pp. 302-306.--_Westminster Review_, April 1880, +pp. 423-448; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, June 1880, pp. +707-720.--_Dublin Review_, by Helen Atteridge, April 1880, pp. +409-438.--_Month_, by the Rev. G. Macleod, May 1880, pp. +81-97.--_International Review_, by J.S. Morse, Jnn., vol. 8, p. 271. + +----Life and Letters of. _Catholic World_, vol. 30, pp. 692-701. + +----Little Boys and Great Men. _Little Folks_, by C.L.M. Nos. 64, 65. + +----Little Dorrit. _Edinburgh Review_, July 1857, pp. +124-156.--_Leader_, June 1857, pp. 616, 617.--_Sun_, by Charles Kent, +June 26, 1857. + +----Lives of the Illustrious. _The Biographical Magazine_, by J.H.F., +vol. 2, pp. 276-297. + +----Manuscripts, _Chambers's Journal_, Nov. 1877, pp. 710-712; same +article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1878, pp. 80-82; _Littell's Living Age_, +1878, pp. 252-254.--_Potter's American Monthly_, vol. 10, p. 156. + +----Life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. _Monthly Review_, Sept. +1844, pp. 137-146.--_National Review_, July 1861, pp. 134-150. + +----Master Humphrey's Clock. _Monthly Review_, May 1840, pp. +35-43.--_Christian Examiner_, March 1842, pp. 1-19. + +----Memories of Charles Dickens. _Atlantic Monthly_, by J.T. Fields, +Aug. 1870, pp. 235-245; same article, _Piccadilly Annual_, 1870, pp. +66-72. + +----Bygone Celebrities: II. Mr. Nightingale's Diary. _Gentleman's +Magazine_, by R.H. Horne. May 1871, pp. 660-672. + +----Modern Novelists. _Westminster Review_, Oct. 1864, pp. 414-441; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1865, pp. 42-59. + +----Modern Novels. Including the "Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas +Nickleby," and "Master Humphrey's Clock." _Christian Remembrancer_, +Dec. 1842, pp. 581-596. + +----Moral Services to Literature. _Spectator_, April 1869, pp. 474, +475; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, July 1869, pp. 103-106. + +----Mystery of Edwin Drood. _Graphic_, April 1870, p. 438.--_Every +Saturday_, 1870, vol. 9, pp. 291, 594.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 1176, +1177.--_Old and New_, (by George B. Woods), Nov. 1870, pp. +530-533.--_Southern Magazine_, 1873, vol. 14, p. 219.--_Belgravia_ (by +Thomas Foster), June 1878, pp. 453-473. + +----How "Edwin Drood" was Illustrated. [Illustrated.] _Century +Magazine_, by Alice Meynell, Feb. 1884, pp. 522-528. + +----A Quasi-Scientific Inquiry into "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." +Illustrated. _Knowledge_, by Thomas Foster, Sep. 12, Nov. 14, 1884. + +----Suggestions for a Conclusion to "Edwin Drood." _Cornhill +Magazine_, March 1884, pp. 308-317. + +----Edwin Drood. Concluded by Charles Dickens, through a Medium. +_Transatlantic_, vol. 2, 1873, pp. 173-183. + +----In France. (Acting of Nicholas Nickleby in Paris.) _Fraser's +Magazine_, March 1842, pp. 342-352. + +----Nomenclature. _Belgravia_, by W.F. Peacock, 1873, pp. 267-276, +393-402. + +----Notes and Correspondence. _Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. +11, 1871, pp. 91-95. + +----Novel Reading: The works of. _Nineteenth Century_, by Anthony +Trollope, 1879, pp. 24-43. + +----Novels and Novelists. _North American Review_, by E.P. Whipple, +October 1849, pp. 383-407; reprinted in "Literature and Life," etc., +by E.P. Whipple. + +----Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge. _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. +4, 1842, p. 581.--_Pall Mall Gazette_, January 1, 1884, pp. 11, 12. + +----The Old Lady of Fetter Lane (Old Curiosity Shop). (Illustrated.) +_Pall Mall Gazette_, January 5, 1884, p. + +----Oliver Twist. _Southern Literary Messenger_, May 1837, pp. +323-325.--_London and Westminster Review_, July 1837, pp. +194-215.--_Dublin University Magazine_, December 1838, pp. +699-723.--_Quarterly Review_, June 1839, pp. 83-102.--_Christian +Examiner_, by J.S.D., Nov. 1839, pp. 161-174.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by +Edwin P. Whipple, Oct. 1876, pp. 474-479. + +----On Bells. _Belgravia_, by George Delamere Cowan, Jan. 1876, pp. +380-387. + +----Our Letter. _St. Nicholas_, by M.F. Armstrong, 1877, pp. 438-441. + +----Our Mutual Friend. _Eclectic Review_, Nov. 1865, pp. +455-476.--_Nation_, Dec. 1865, pp. 786, 787.--_Westminster Review_, +April 1866, pp. 582-585. + +----Our Mutual Friend in Manuscript. _Scribner's Monthly Magazine_, by +Kate Field, August 1874, pp. 472-475. + +----Pickwick Club. _Southern Literary Messenger_, 1836, pp. 787, 788; +Sept. 1837, pp. 525-532.--_Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature_, +vol. 32, 1837, p. 195.--_Monthly Review_, Feb. 1837, pp. +153-163.--_Eclectic Review_, April 1837, pp. 339-355.--_Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal_, April 1837, pp. 109, 110.--_London and Westminster +Review_, July 1837, pp. 194-215.--_Quarterly Review_, Oct. 1837, pp. +484-518.--_Belgravia_, by W.S. (W. Sawyer), July 1870, pp. +33-36.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. 1876, pp. +219-224. + +---- ----Mr. Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby. [Illustrated.] +_Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin, Sept. 1880, pp. 641-656. + +---- ----From Faust to Mr. Pickwick. _Contemporary Review_, by +Matthew Browne, July 1880, pp. 162-176. + +---- ----German Translation of the "Pickwick Papers." _Dublin Review_, +Feb. 1840, pp. 160-188. + +---- ----The Origin of the Pickwick Papers. _Society_, by R.H. +Shepherd, Oct. 4, 1884, pp. 18-20. + +---- ----The Portrait of Mr. Pickwick. _Belgravia_, by George Augustus +Sala, Aug. 1870, pp. 165-171. + +----Pictures from Italy. _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. 13, 1846, +pp. 461-466.--_Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, 1846, pp. +389-391.--_Dublin Review_, Sept. 1846, pp. 184-201.--_Sun_, by Charles +Kent, March 1846. + +----Poetic Element in the Style of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 811. + +----The Pressmen of, and Thackeray. _Graphic_, by T.H. North, 1881, p. +116. + +----Reception of. _United States Magazine and Democratic Review_ +(portrait), April 1842, pp. 315-320. + +----Reminiscences of. _Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, by E.E.C., +vol. 10, 1871, pp. 336-344. + +----Remonstrance with. _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April 1857, +pp. 490-503; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, May 1857, pp. +480-492. + +----Sale of the Effects of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. +557.--_Chambers's Journal_, 1870, pp. 522-505. + +----Seasonable Words about. _The Overland Monthly_, by N.S. Dodge, +1871, pp. 72-82. + +----Secularistic Teaching. _Secular Chronicle_, by Harriet T. Law +(portrait). Dec. 1877, pp. 289-291. + +----Shadow on Life of. _Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. +1877, pp. 227-233. + +----Sketches by Boz. _Monthly Review_, March 1836, pp. 350-357; 1837, +pp. 153-163.--_Mirror_, April 1836, pp. 249-250--_London and +Westminster Review_, July 1837, pp. 194-215.--_Quarterly Review_, Oct. +1837, pp. 484-518. + +---- ----The Boarding House (Sketches by Boz). _Chambers's Edinburgh +Journal_, April 1836, pp. 83, 84. + +---- ----Watkins Tottle and other Sketches (Sketches by Boz). +_Southern Literary Messenger_, 1836, pp. 457-460. + +----Son talent et ses oeuvres. _Revue des Deux Mondes_, by H. Taine. +Feb. 1856, pp. 618-647. + +----Studien über Dickens und den Humor. _Westermann's Jahrbuch der +Illustrirten Deutschen Monatshefte_, Von Julian Schmidt (portrait), +April-July 1870. + +----Studies of English Authors. No. V. Charles Dickens. In eleven +chapters. _Literary World_, by Peter Bayne, March 21 to May 30, 1879. + +----Study. _Graphic_ Christmas Number, by C.C. 1870. + +----A Tale of Two Cities. _Saturday Review_, Dec. 1859, pp. 741-743; +same article, _Littell's Living Age_, Feb. 1860, pp. 366-369. _Sun_, +by Charles Kent, Aug. 11, 1859. + +----Tales. _Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1838, pp. 75-97. + +----The Tendency of Works of. _Argosy_, by A.D., 1885, pp. 282-292. + +----The Tension in. _Every Saturday_, Dec. 1872, pp. 678-679. + +----A Tramp with. Through London by Night with the Great Novelist. +_Detroit Free Press_, April 7, 1883. + +----Tulrumble, and Oliver Twist. _Southern Literary Messenger_, May +1837, pp. 323-325. + +----The "Two Green Leaves" (portrait). _Graphic_, March 26, 1870, pp. +388-390. + +----Unpublished Letters. _Times_, Oct. 27, 1883. + +----Satire on. _Blackwood's Magazine_, by S. Warren, vol. 60, 1846, +pp. 590-605; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, vol. 10, 1847, p. 65. + +----Use of the Bible. _Temple Bar_, September 1869, pp. 225-234; same +article, _Appleton's Journal_, Oct. 16, 23, 1869, pp. 265-267, 294, +295; _Every Saturday_, vol. 8, p. 411. + +----Verse. _Spectator_, 1877, pp. 1651-1653; same article, _Littell's +Living Age_, 1878, pp. 237-241. + +----Visit to Charles Dickens by Hans Christian Andersen. _Bentley's +Miscellany_, 1860, pp. 181-185; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, +1860, pp. 692-695, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1864, pp. 110-114. + +---- ----Andersen's. _Temple Bar_, December 1870, pp. 27-46; same +article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1871, pp. 183-196, _Every Saturday_, +vol. 9, p. 874, etc.; Appendix to _Pictures of Travels in Sweden_, +etc. + +---- ----Pilgrimage. [Visit to Gadshill.] _Lippincott's Magazine_, by +Barton Hill. Sept. 1870, pp. 288-293. + +----Voice of Christmas Past. (Illustrated.) _Harper's New Monthly +Magazine_, by Mrs. Z.B. Buddington, January 1871, pp. 187-200. + +----With the Newsvendors.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9. p. 318. + +----Works. _London University Magazine_, by J.S. (James Spedding), +vol. 1, 1842, pp. 378-398.--_North British Review_, by J. Cleghorn, +May 1845, pp. 65-87; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, June 1845, +pp. 601-610.--_National Quarterly Review_, by H. Dennison, 1860, vol. +1, p. 91.--_British Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1862, pp. +135-159.--_Scottish Review_, Dec. 1883, pp. 125-147. + + +VI.--CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. + +Sketches by Boz 1836-37 +Sunday under Three Heads 1836 +The Village Coquettes 1836 +The Strange Gentleman 1837 +Pickwick Papers 1837 +Oliver Twist 1838 +Sketches of Young Gentlemen 1838 +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi 1838 +Nicholas Nickleby 1839 +Sketches of Young Couples 1840 +Master Humphrey's Clock +(The Old Curiosity Shop and +Barnaby Rudge) 1840-1 +American Notes 1842 +Christmas Carol 1843 +Martin Chuzzlewit 1844 +The Chimes 1845 +Cricket on the Hearth 1846 +Pictures from Italy 1846 +Battle of Life 1846 +Dombey and Son 1848 +Haunted Man 1848 +David Copperfield 1850 +Mr. Nightingale's Diary 1851 +Child's History of England 1852-4 +Bleak House 1853 +Hard Times 1854 +Little Dorrit 1857 +Hunted Down 1859 +Tale of Two Cities 1859 +Great Expectations 1861 +Uncommercial Traveller 1861 +Our Mutual Friend 1865 +Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870 + +_Printed by_ WALTER SCOTT, _Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne_ + + + + +GREAT WRITERS. + +A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. + +EDITED BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON. + +_MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES._ + + * * * * * + +Vol. I.--"LIFE OF LONGFELLOW." + +BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON + + "The object of 'GREAT WRITERS' is to 'furnish the public + with interesting and accurate accounts of the men and women + notable in modern literature.' The first volume, now before + us, is on Longfellow, by the Editor, and gives, in the space + of 180 pages, a detailed account of the poet's life, an + analysis of his work, and an essay on his place in + literature. It is as the household poet _par excellence_ that + Longfellow may reasonably take the first place in such a + series as that now to be issued, and, as an accompaniment to + the reading of the poems themselves, nothing more is wanted + than will be found in these pages. The type is clear, the + paper good, the binding stout, and the size handy. Altogether + a remarkable shillingsworth, even in this day of cheap books. + Other numbers promised are 'Coleridge,' by Hall Caine; + 'Dickens,' by Frank Marzials; and 'Rossetti,' by Joseph + Knight. If the future numbers are as good as the first, a + great success may be anticipated."--_The Standard._ + + +Vol. II. is "LIFE OF COLERIDGE." + +BY HALL CAINE. + + +Vol. III. will be "LIFE OF DICKENS." + +BY FRANK T. MARZIALS. [Ready Feb. 20. + + +Vol. IV. will be "LIFE OF ROSSETTI." + +BY JOSEPH KNIGHT. [Ready March 20. + + The following Gentlemen have agreed to write the volumes + forming the First Year's Issue:--WILLIAM ROSSETTI, HALL + CAINE, RICHARD GARNETT, FRANK T. MARZIALS, WILLIAM SHARP, + JOSEPH KNIGHT, AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, Professor D'ARCY + THOMPSON, R.B. HALDANE, M.P., AUSTIN DOBSON, Colonel + F. GRANT, and THE EDITOR. + + Library Edition of "Great Writers."--A Limited Issue of all + the Volumes in this Series will be published, printed on + large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, + price 2s. 6d. per volume. + + * * * * * + +LONDON: + +WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + + +The Canterbury Poets. + + +_In_ SHILLING _Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo. Well printed on fine toned +paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each Volume +contains from 300 to 350 pages. With Introductory Notices by_ +WILLIAM SHARP, MATHILDE BLIND, WALTER LEWIN, JOHN HOGBEN, A.J. +SYMINGTON, JOSEPH SKIPSEY, EVA HOPE, JOHN RICHMOND, ERNEST RHYS, PERCY +E. PINKERTON, MRS. GARDEN, DEAN CARRINGTON, DR. J. BRADSHAW, FREDERICK +COOPER, HON. RODEN NOEL, J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, G. WILLIS COOKE, ERIC +MACKAY, ERIC S. ROBERTSON, WILLIAM TIREBUCK, STUART J. REID, MRS. +FREILIGRATH KROEKER, J. 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Pinkerton. + +KEATS. +Edited by John Hogben. + +HERBERT. +Edited by Ernest Rhys. + +VICTOR HUGO. +Translated by Dean Carrington. + +COWPER. +Edited by Eva Hope. + +SHAKESPEARE: +Songs, Poems, and Sonnets. +Edited by William Sharp. + +EMERSON. +Edited by Walter Lewin. + +SONNETS of this CENTURY. +Edited by William Sharp. + +WHITMAN. +Edited by Ernest Rhys. + +SCOTT. Marmion, etc. +SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc. +Edited by William Sharp. + +PRAED. +Edited by Frederick Cooper. + +HOGG. +By his Daughter, Mrs. Garden. + +GOLDSMITH. +Edited by William Tirebuck. + +LOVE LETTERS OF A +VIOLINIST. By Eric Mackay. + +SPENSER. +Edited by Hon. Roden Noel. + +CHILDREN OF THE POETS. +Edited by Eric S. Robertson. + +BEN JONSON. +Edited by J.A. Symonds. + +BYRON (2 Vols.) +Edited by Mathilde Blind. + +THE SONNETS OF EUROPE. +Edited by S. Waddington. + +ALLAN RAMSAY. +Edited by J. Logie Robertson. + +SYDNEY DOBELL. +Edited by Mrs. Dobell. + + * * * * * + +London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + + +THE CAMELOT CLASSICS. + +_VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED._ + + +ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR. +BY SIR T. MALORY. Edited by ERNEST RHYS. + +WALDEN. BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU. +With Introductory Note by WILL H. DIRCKS. + +CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. +BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. With Introduction by +WILLIAM SHARP. + +IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. +BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. With Introduction +by HAVELOCK ELLIS. + +PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Edited by B.J. SNELL, M.A. + +SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, etc. +Edited, with Introduction, by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. + +ESSAYS AND LETTERS. +BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Edited, with +Introduction, by ERNEST RHYS. + +PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT. Edited by W. LEWIN. + +MY STUDY WINDOWS. +BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Edited, with Introduction, +by RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. + +GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. +BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Edited, with Introduction, +by WILLIAM SHARP. + +LORD BYRON'S LETTERS. Edited by M. BLIND. + +ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT. Edited by A. SYMONS. + +LONGFELLOW'S PROSE WORKS. Edited, with +Introduction, by WILLIAM TIREBUCK. + + * * * * * + +The Series is issued in two styles of Binding--Red Cloth, Cut Edges; +and Dark Blue Cloth, Uncut Edges. Either Style, PRICE ONE +SHILLING. + + * * * * * + +_Price Sixpence; Crown 4to, 48 pages._ + +PART I. READY 25TH FEBRUARY 1887. + +THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE + +OF + +North-Country Lore and Legend. + +_From the "Newcastle Weekly Chronicle."_ + +It has repeatedly been suggested that the valuable matter published +every week in the _Weekly Chronicle_ should be reprinted in some +handier form, so as to be capable of permanent preservation. Not a few +of our readers take the trouble to cut out the articles in which they +are interested, paste them in scrap-books, and thus form a serviceable +collection of local and other literature. 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EVERS, M.B., M.R.C.S. +(London), Medallist, etc. + +A SERIES OF PRACTICAL LESSONS FOR BLACKBOARD TEACHING OF MACHINE +DRAWING. + + * * * * * + +London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + + +NOW READY. + +_Uniform in size with the "Canterbury Poets," + +365 pages, + +Cloth Gilt, price 1s. 4d._ + + * * * * * + +DAYS OF THE YEAR. + +A POETIC CALENDAR + +OF PASSAGES FROM THE WORKS OF + +ALFRED AUSTIN. + +_SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY A.S._ + + +With an Introduction by WILLIAM SHARP. + + * * * * * + +LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + + +The Canterbury Poets. + +_In Crown Quarto, Printed on Antique Paper, Price 12s. 6d._ + + * * * * * + +EDITION DE LUXE. + +SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY. + +_With an Exhaustive and Critical Essay on the Sonnet,_ + +BY WILLIAM SHARP. + +This Edition has been thoroughly Revised, and several new Sonnets +added. + + +_THE VOLUME CONTAINS SONNETS BY_ + +LORD TENNYSON. +ROBERT BROWNING. +A.C. SWINBURNE. +MATTHEW ARNOLD. +THEODORE WATTS. +ARCHBISHOP TRENCH. +J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS. +W. BELL SCOTT. +CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. +EDWARD DOWDEN. +EDMUND GOSSE. +ANDREW LANG. +GEORGE MEREDITH. +CARDINAL NEWMAN. + +_By the Late_ + +DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. +MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. +C. TENNYSON-TURNER, ETC. + +AND ALL THE BEST WRITERS OF THIS CENTURY. + + * * * * * + +London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16787-8.txt or 16787-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/7/8/16787 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Life of Charles Dickens</p> +<p>Author: Frank Marzials</p> +<p>Release Date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #16787]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Jason Isbell, Linda Cantoni,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 1]<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p> +<h3>"Great Writers."</h3> + +<p style="text-align: center">EDITED BY</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.,</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN +THE</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">UNIVERSITY OF THE PUNJAB, LAHORE.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>LIFE OF DICKENS.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 2]<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/dickens.jpg" width="286" height="400" alt="Charles Dickens" /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 3]<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span></p> +<h2>LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>FRANK T. MARZIALS</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center"> + </p><p style="text-align: center"> +LONDON</p><p> </p> +<p style="text-align: center">WALTER SCOTT</p> +<p> </p> +<p style="text-align: center">24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW</p> +<p> </p> + +<p style="text-align: center">1887</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 5]<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></span></p> +<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE.</h2> + + +<p>That I should have to acknowledge a fairly heavy debt to Forster's +"Life of Charles Dickens," and "The Letters of Charles Dickens," +edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, is almost a +matter of course; for these are books from which every present and +future biographer of Dickens must perforce borrow in a more or less +degree. My work, too, has been much lightened by Mr. Kitton's +excellent "Dickensiana."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 7]<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#NOTE"><b>NOTE.</b></a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></p> +<p> +The lottery of education; Charles Dickens born February 7, +1812; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood; +happy days at Chatham; family troubles; similarity between +little Charles and David Copperfield; John Dickens +taken to the Marshalsea; his character; Charles employed +in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about +this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into +family and prison circle; family in comparative comfort at +the Marshalsea; father released; Charles leaves the +blacking business; his mother; he is sent to Wellington +House Academy in 1824; character of that place of learning; +Dickens masters its humours thoroughly. <a href="#Page_11">11</a> +</p> +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></p><p>Dickens becomes a solicitor's clerk in 1827; then a reporter; +his experiences in that capacity; first story published in +<i>The Old Monthly Magazine</i> for January, 1834; writes more +"Sketches"; power of minute observation thus early +shown; masters the writer's art; is paid for his contributions +to the <i>Chronicle</i>; marries Miss Hogarth on April 2, +1836; appearance at that date; power of physical endurance; +admirable influence of his peculiar education; +and its drawbacks <a href="#Page_27">27</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></p> +<p>Origin of "Pickwick"; Seymour's part therein; first number +published on April 1, 1836; early numbers not a success; +suddenly the book becomes the rage; English literature +just then in want of its novelist; Dickens' kingship +acknowledged; causes of the book's popularity; its admirable +humour, and other excellent qualities; Sam Weller; +Mr. Pickwick himself; book read by everybody <a href="#Page_40">40</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a></p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 8]<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></span>Dickens works "double tides" from 1836 to 1839; appointed +editor of <i>Bentley's Miscellany</i> at beginning of 1837, and +commences "Oliver Twist"; <i>Quarterly Review</i> predicts +his speedy downfall; pecuniary position at this time; +moves from Furnival's Inn to Doughty Street; death of +his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth; his friendships; absence +of all jealousy in his character; habits of work; riding and +pedestrianizing; walking in London streets necessary to the +exercise of his art <a href="#Page_49">49</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a></p> +<p>"Oliver Twist"; analysis of the book; doubtful probability of +Oliver's character; "Nicholas Nickleby"; its wealth of +character; <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i> projected and begun +in April, 1840; the public disappointed in its expectations +of a novel; "Old Curiosity Shop" commenced, and miscellaneous +portion of <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i> dropped; +Dickens' fondness for taking a child as his hero or +heroine; Little Nell; tears shed over her sorrows; general +admiration for the pathos of her story; is such admiration +altogether deserved? Paul Dombey more natural; Little +Nell's death too declamatory as a piece of writing; Dickens +nevertheless a master of pathos; "Barnaby Rudge"; a +historical novel dealing with times of the Gordon riots <a href="#Page_57">57</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a></p> +<p>Dickens starts for United States in January, 1842; had been +splendidly received a little before at Edinburgh; why he +went to the United States; is enthusiastically welcomed; +at first he is enchanted; then expresses the greatest disappointment; +explanation of the change; what the +Americans thought of <i>him</i>; "American Notes"; his +views modified on his second visit to America in 1867-8; +takes to fierce private theatricals for rest; delight of the +children on his return to England; an admirable father <a href="#Page_71">71</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a></p> +<p>Dickens again at work and play; publication of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" begun in January, 1843; plot not Dickens' +strong point; this not of any vital consequence; a novel +not really remembered by its story; Dickens' books often +have a higher unity than that of plot; selfishness the +central idea of "Martin Chuzzlewit"; a great book, and +yet not at the time successful; Dickens foresees money embarrassments;<span class="pagenum">[Pg 9]<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a></span> +publishes the admirable "Christmas Carol" +at Christmas, 1843; and determines to go for a space to +Italy <a href="#Page_84">84</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a></p> +<p>Journey through France; Genoa; the Italy of 1844; Dickens +charmed with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a +few weeks; his palace at Genoa; he sets to work upon "The +Chimes"; gets passionately interested in the little book; +travels through Italy to read it to his friends in London; +reads it on December 2, 1844; is soon back again in Italy; +returns to London in the summer of 1845; on January 21, +1846, starts <i>The Daily News</i>; holds the post of editor three +weeks; "Pictures from Italy" first published in <i>Daily News</i> +<a href="#Page_93">93</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a></p> +<p>Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to +Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has +great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle +of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the +subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' +treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism +thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private +theatricals again; the "Haunted Man"; "David Copperfield" +begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point +in Dickens' career as a writer; <i>Household Words</i> started +on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its +successor, <i>All the Year Round</i>; domestic sorrows cloud +the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year +from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins +"Bleak House"; story of the novel; its Chancery episodes; +Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant +quarters at Boulogne <a href="#Page_102">102</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a></p> +<p>Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, +1853; was it <i>infra dig.</i> that he should read for money? he +begins his paid readings in April, 1858; reasons for their +success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their +dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them; how the +tones of Dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who +heard him <a href="#Page_121">121</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a></p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 10]<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a></span> +"Hard Times" commenced in <i>Household Words</i> for April 1, +1854; it is an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; +what Macaulay and Mr. Ruskin thought of it; +the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for "Administrative +Reform"; Dickens in the thick of the movement; +"Little Dorrit" and the "Circumlocution Office"; character +of Mr. Dorrit admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris +from December, 1855, to May, 1856; he buys Gad's Hill +Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with +his wife; and separation in May 1858; lying rumours; how +these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the +love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant +protest in <i>Household Words</i>; and writes an unjustifiable +letter <a href="#Page_126">126</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a></p> +<p> +"The Tale of Two Cities," a story of the great French Revolution; +Phiz's connection with Dickens' works comes to +an end; his art and that of Cruikshank; both too essentially +caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the +illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; "Great Expectations"; +its story and characters; "Our Mutual Friend" +begun in May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens' +extraordinary sympathy for Eugene Wrayburn; generally +his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why +his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great real +refinement <a href="#Page_139">139</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a></p> +<p> +Dickens' health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident +in June, 1865; but bates no jot of his high courage, +and works on at his readings; sails for America on a +reading tour in November, 1867; is wretchedly ill, and yet +continues to read day after day; comes back to England, +and reads on; health failing more and more; reading has +to be abandoned for a time; begins to write his last and +unfinished book, "Edwin Drood"; except health all +seems well with him; on June 8, 1870, he works at his +book nearly all day; at dinner time is struck down; dies +on the following day, June the 9th; is buried in Westminster +Abbey among his peers; nor will his fame suffer +eclipse <a href="#Page_149">149</a></p> +<p> +<b> +<a href="#INDEX">INDEX.</a>  </b><a href="#Page_163">163</a></p> +<p> +<a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY"><b>BIBLIOGRAPHY.</b></a></p> +<p> +<a href="#GREAT_WRITERS"><b>Publisher Advertisements</b></a> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 11]<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></span></p> +<h2>LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + + +<p>Education is a kind of lottery in which there are good and evil +chances, and some men draw blanks and other men draw prizes. And in +saying this I do not use the word education in any restricted sense, +as applying exclusively to the course of study in school or college; +nor certainly, when I speak of prizes, am I thinking of scholarships, +exhibitions, fellowships. By education I mean the whole set of +circumstances which go to mould a man's character during the +apprentice years of his life; and I call that a prize when those +circumstances have been such as to develop the man's powers to the +utmost, and to fit him to do best that of which he is best capable. +Looked at in this way, Charles Dickens' education, however untoward +and unpromising it may often have seemed while in the process, must +really be pronounced a prize of value quite inestimable.</p> + +<p>His father, John Dickens, held a clerkship in the Navy Pay Office, and +was employed in the Portsmouth Dockyard when little Charles first came +into the world, at <span class="pagenum">[Pg 12]<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a></span>Landport, in Portsea, on February 7, 1812. Wealth +can never have been one of the familiar friends of the household, nor +plenty have always sat at its board. Charles had one elder sister, and +six other brothers and sisters were afterwards added to the family; +and with eight children, and successive removals from Portsmouth to +London, and London to Chatham, and no more than the pay of a +Government clerk<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>—pay which not long afterwards dwindled to a +pension,—even a better domestic financier than the elder Dickens +might have found some difficulty in facing his liabilities. It was +unquestionably into a tottering house that the child was born, and +among its ruins that he was nurtured.</p> + +<p>But through all these early years I can do nothing better than take +him for my guide, and walk as it were in his companionship. Perhaps no +novelist ever had a keener feeling of the pathos of childhood than +Dickens, or understood more fully how real and overwhelming are its +sorrows. No one, too, has entered more sympathetically into its ways. +And of the child and boy that he himself had once been, he was wont to +think very tenderly and very often. Again and again in his writings he +reverts to the scenes and incidents and emotions of his earlier days. +Sometimes he goes back to his young life directly, speaking as of +himself. More often he goes back to it indirectly, placing imaginary +children and boys in the position he had once occupied. Thus it is +almost possible, by judiciously <span class="pagenum">[Pg 13]<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></span>selecting from his works, and using +such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of +autobiography. Nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's +tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic +aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life +should convey a false impression.</p> + +<p>He was but two years old when his father left Portsea for London, and +but four when a second migration took the family to Chatham. Here we +catch our first glimpse of him, in his own word-painting, as a "very +queer small boy," a small boy who was sickly and delicate, and could +take but little part in the rougher sports of his school companions, +but read much, as sickly boys will—read the novels of the older +novelists in a "blessed little room," a kind of palace of enchantment, +where "'Roderick Random,' 'Peregrine Pickle,' 'Humphrey Clinker,' 'Tom +Jones,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Don Quixote, 'Gil Blas,' and +'Robinson Crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep him company." +And the queer small boy had read Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," too, and +knew all about Falstaff's robbery of the travellers at Gad's Hill, on +the rising ground between Rochester and Gravesend, and all about mad +Prince Henry's pranks; and, what was more, he had determined that when +he came to be a man, and had made his way in the world, he should own +the house called Gad's Hill Place, with the old associations of its +site, and its pleasant outlook over Rochester and over the low-lying +levels by the Thames. Was that a child's dream? The man's tenacity and +steadfast strength of purpose turned it into fact. The house became +the home of his later life. It was there that he died.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 14]<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a></span>But death was a long way forward in those old Chatham days; nor, as +the time slipped by, and his father's pecuniary embarrassments began +to thicken, and make the forward ways of life more dark and difficult, +could the purchase of Gad's Hill Place have seemed much less remote. +There is one of Dickens' works which was his own special favourite, +the most cherished, as he tells us, among the offspring of his brain. +That work is "David Copperfield." Nor can there be much difficulty in +discovering why it occupied such an exceptional position in "his heart +of hearts;" for in its pages he had enshrined the deepest memories of +his own childhood and youth. Like David Copperfield, he had known what +it was to be a poor, neglected lad, set to rough, uncongenial work, +with no more than a mechanic's surroundings and outlook, and having to +fend for himself in the miry ways of the great city. Like David +Copperfield, he had formed a very early acquaintance with debts and +duns, and been initiated into the mysteries and sad expedients of +shabby poverty. Like David Copperfield, he had been made free of the +interior of a debtor's prison. Poor lad, he was not much more than ten +or eleven years old when he left Chatham, with all the charms that +were ever after to live so brightly in his recollection,—the gay +military pageantry, the swarming dockyard, the shifting sailor life, +the delightful walks in the surrounding country, the enchanted room, +tenanted by the first fairy day-dreams of his genius, the day-school, +where the master had already formed a good opinion of his parts, +giving him Goldsmith's "Bee" as a keepsake. This pleasant land he left +for a dingy house in a dingy London suburb, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 15]<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></span>with squalor for +companionship, no teaching but the teaching of the streets, and all +around and above him the depressing hideous atmosphere of debt. With +what inimitable humour and pathos has he told the story of these +darkest days! Substitute John Dickens for Mr. Micawber, and Mrs. +Dickens for Mrs. Micawber, and make David Copperfield a son of Mr. +Micawber, a kind of elder Wilkins, and let little Charles Dickens be +that son—and then you will have a record, true in every essential +respect, of the child's life at this period. "Poor Mrs. Micawber! she +said she had tried to exert herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. +The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great +brass-plate, on which was engraved 'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding +Establishment for Young Ladies;' but I never found that any young lady +had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or +proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to +receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of were +creditors. <i>They</i> used to come at all hours, and some of them were +quite ferocious." Even such a plate, bearing the inscription, <i>Mrs. +Dickens's Establishment</i>, ornamented the door of a house in Gower +Street North, where the family had hoped, by some desperate effort, to +retrieve its ruined fortunes. Even so did the pupils refuse the +educational advantages offered to them, though little Charles went +from door to door in the neighbourhood, carrying hither and thither +the most alluring circulars. Even thus was the place besieged by +assiduous and angry duns. And when, in the ordinary course of such sad +stories, Mr. Dickens is arrested for debt, and carried <span class="pagenum">[Pg 16]<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a></span>off to the +Marshalsea prison,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he moralizes over the event in precisely the +same strain as Mr. Micawber, using, indeed, the very same words, and +calls on his son, with many tears, "to take warning by the Marshalsea, +and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent +nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; +but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched."</p> + +<p>The son was taking note of other things besides these moral apothegms, +and reproduced, in after days, with a quite marvellous detail and +fidelity, all the incidents of his father's incarceration. Probably, +too, he was beginning, as children will, almost unconsciously, to form +some estimate of his father's character. And a very queer study in +human nature <i>that</i> must have been, giving Dickens, when once he had +mastered it, a most exceptional insight into the ways of +impecuniosity. Charles Lamb, as we all remember, divided mankind into +two races, the mighty race of the borrowers, and the mean race of the +lenders; and expatiated, with a whimsical and charming eloquence, upon +the greatness of one Bigod, who had been as a king among those who by +process of loan obtain possession of other people's money. Shift the +line of division a little, so that instead of separating borrowers and +lenders, it separates those who pay their debts from those who do not +pay them, and then Dickens the elder may succeed to something of +Bigod's kingship. He was of the great race of debtors, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 17]<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></span> +possessing especially that <i>ideal</i> quality of mind on which Lamb laid +such stress. Imagination played the very mischief with him. He had +evidently little grasp of fact, and moved in a kind of haze, through +which all clear outlines would show blurred and unreal. +Sometimes—most often, perhaps—that haze would be irradiated with +sanguine visionary hopes and expectations. Sometimes it would be +fitfully darkened with all the horrors of despair. But whether in +gloom or gleam, the realities of his position would be lost. He never, +certainly, contracted a debt which he did not mean honourably to pay. +But either he had never possessed the faculty of forming a just +estimate of future possibilities, or else, through the indulgence of +what may be called a vague habit of thought, he had lost the power of +seeing things as they are. Thus all his excellencies and good gifts +were neutralized at this time, so far as his family were concerned, +and went for practically nothing. He was, according to his son's +testimony, full of industry, most conscientious in the discharge of +any business, unwearying in loving patience and solicitude when those +bound to him by blood or friendship were ill or in trouble, "as +kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world." Yet as +debts accumulated, and accommodation bills shed their baleful shadow +on his life, and duns grew many and furious, he became altogether +immersed in mean money troubles, and suffered the son who was to shed +such lustre on his name to remain for a time without the means of +learning, and to sink first into a little household drudge, and then +into a mere warehouse boy.</p> + +<p>So little Charles, aged from eleven to twelve, first <span class="pagenum">[Pg 18]<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></span>blacked boots, +and minded the younger children, and ran messages, and effected the +family purchases—which can have been no pleasant task in the then +state of the family credit,—and made very close acquaintance with the +inside of the pawnbrokers' shops, and with the purchasers of +second-hand books, disposing, among other things, of the little store +of books he loved so well; and then, when his father was imprisoned, +ran more messages hither and thither, and shed many childish tears in +his father's company—the father doubtless regarding the tears as a +tribute to his eloquence, though, heaven knows, there were other +things to cry over besides his sonorous periods. After which a +connection, James Lamert by name, who had lived with the family before +they moved from Camden Town to Gower Street, and was manager of a +worm-eaten, rat-riddled blacking business, near old Hungerford Market, +offered to employ the lad, on a salary of some six shillings a week, +or thereabouts. The duties which commanded these high emoluments +consisted of the tying up and labelling of blacking pots. At first +Charles, in consideration probably of his relationship to the manager, +was allowed to do his tying, clipping, and pasting in the +counting-house. But soon this arrangement fell through, as it +naturally would, and he descended to the companionship of the other +lads, similarly employed, in the warehouse below. They were not bad +boys, and one of them, who bore the name of Bob Fagin, was very kind +to the poor little better-nurtured outcast, once, in a sudden attack +of illness, applying hot blacking-bottles to his side with much +tenderness. But, of course, they were rough and quite uncultured, and +the sensitive, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 19]<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></span>bookish, imaginative child felt that there was +something uncongenial and degrading in being compelled to associate +with them. Nor, though he had already sufficient strength of character +to learn to do his work well, did he ever regard the work itself as +anything but unsuitable, and almost discreditable. Indeed it may be +doubted whether the iron of that time did not unduly rankle and fester +as it entered into his soul, and whether the scar caused by the wound +was altogether quite honourable. He seems to have felt, in connection +with his early employment in a warehouse, a sense of shame such as +would be more fittingly associated with the commission of an unworthy +act. That he should not have habitually referred to the subject in +after life, may readily be understood. But why he should have kept +unbroken silence about it for long years, even with his wife, even +with so very close a friend as Forster, is less clear. And in the +terms used, when the revelation was finally made to Forster, there has +always, I confess, appeared to me to be a tone of exaggeration. "My +whole nature," he says, "was so penetrated with grief and humiliation, +... that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my +dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man, and +wander desolately back to that time of my life." And again: "From that +hour until this, at which I write, no word of that part of my +childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my +lips to any human being.... I have never, until I now impart it to +this paper, in any burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not +excepted, raised the curtain I then dropped, thank God." Great part, +perhaps the greatest part, of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 20]<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a></span>Dickens' success as a writer, came from +the sympathy and power with which he showed how the lower walks of +life no less than the higher are often fringed with beauty. I have +never been able to entirely divest myself of a slight feeling of the +incongruous in reading what he wrote about the warehouse episode in +his career.</p> + +<p>At first, when he began his daily toil at the blacking business, some +poor dregs of family life were left to the child. His father was at +the Marshalsea. But his mother and brothers and sisters were, to use +his own words, "still encamped, with a young servant girl from Chatham +workhouse, in the two parlours in the emptied house in Gower Street +North." And there he lived with them, in much "hugger-mugger," merely +taking his humble midday meal in nomadic fashion, on his own account. +Soon, however, his position became even more forlorn. The paternal +creditors proved insatiable. The gipsy home in Gower Street had to be +broken up. Mrs. Dickens and the children went to live at the +Marshalsea. Little Charles was placed under the roof—it cannot be +called under the care—of a "reduced old lady," dwelling in Camden +Town, who must have been a clever and prophetic old lady if she +anticipated that her diminutive lodger would one day give her a kind +of indirect unenviable immortality by making her figure, under the +name of "Mrs. Pipchin," in "Dombey and Son." Here the boy seems to +have been left almost entirely to his own devices. He spent his +Sundays in the prison, and, to the best of his recollection, his +lodgings at "Mrs. Pipchin's" were paid for. Otherwise, he "found +himself," in childish fashion, out of the six or seven weekly +shillings, breakfasting on <span class="pagenum">[Pg 21]<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></span>two pennyworth of bread and milk, and +supping on a penny loaf and a bit of cheese, and dining hither and +thither, as his boy's appetite dictated—now, sensibly enough, on <i>à +la mode</i> beef or a saveloy; then, less sensibly, on pudding; and anon +not dining at all, the wherewithal having been expended on some +morning treat of cheap stale pastry. But are not all these things, the +lad's shifts and expedients, his sorrows and despair, his visits to +the public-house, where the kindly publican's wife stoops down to kiss +the pathetic little face—are they not all written in "David +Copperfield"? And if so be that I have a reader unacquainted with that +peerless book, can I do better than recommend him, or her, to study +therein the story of Dickens' life at this particular time?</p> + +<p>At last the child's solitude and sorrows seem to have grown +unbearable. His fortitude broke down. One Sunday night he appealed to +his father, with many tears, on the subject, not of his employment, +which he seems to have accepted at the time manfully, but of his +forlornness and isolation. The father's kind, thoughtless heart was +touched. A back attic was found for Charles near the Marshalsea, at +Lant Street, in the Borough—where Bob Sawyer, it will be remembered, +afterwards invited Mr. Pickwick to that disastrous party. The boy +moved into his new quarters with the same feeling of elation as if he +had been entering a palace.</p> + +<p>The change naturally brought him more fully into the prison circle. He +used to breakfast there every morning, before going to the warehouse, +and would spend the larger portion of his spare time among the +inmates. Nor do Mr. Dickens and his family, and Charles, who is to us +the <span class="pagenum">[Pg 22]<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a></span>family's most important member, appear to have been relatively at +all uncomfortable while under the shadow of the Marshalsea. There is +in "David Copperfield" a passage of inimitable humour, where Mr. +Micawber, enlarging on the pleasures of imprisonment for debt, +apostrophizes the King's Bench Prison as being the place "where, for +the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of +pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by +importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no +knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal +service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely +at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the +tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in +his affliction by saying: "We are quiet here; we don't get badgered +here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors, +and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a +man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door-mat till he is. +Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's +freedom, sir, it's freedom!" One smiles as one reads; and it adds a +pathos, I think, to the smile, to find that these are records of +actual experience. The Marshalsea prison was to Mr. Dickens a haven of +peace, and to his household a place of plenty. Not only could he +pursue his career there untroubled by fears of arrest, but he +exercised among the other "gentlemen gaol-birds" a supremacy, a kind +of kingship, such as that to which Charles Lamb referred. They +recognized in him the superior spirit, ready of pen, and affluent of +speech, and with a certain grandeur in his conviviality. <span class="pagenum">[Pg 23]<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a></span>He it was +who drew up their memorial to George of England on an occasion no less +important than the royal birthday, when they, the monarch's +"unfortunate subjects,"—so they were described in the +memorial—besought the king's "gracious majesty," of his "well-known +munificence," to grant them a something towards the drinking of the +royal health. (Ah, with what keen eyes and penetrative genius did +little Charles, from his corner, watch the strange sad stream of +humanity that trickled through the room, and may be said to have +<i>smeared</i> its approval of that petition!) And while Mr. Dickens was +enjoying his prison honours, he was also enjoying his Admiralty +pension,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> which was not forfeited by his imprisonment; and his wife +and children were consequently enjoying a larger measure of the +necessaries of life than had been theirs for many a month. So all went +on merrily enough at the Marshalsea.</p> + +<p>But even under the old law, imprisonment for debt did not always last +for ever. A legacy, and the Insolvent Debtors Act, enabled Mr. Dickens +to march out of durance, in some sort with the honours of war, after a +few months' incarceration—this would be early in 1824;—and he went +with his family, including Charles, to lodge with the "Mrs. Pipchin" +already mentioned. Charles meanwhile still toiled on in the blacking +warehouse, now removed to Chandos Street, Covent Garden; and had +reached such skill in the tying, pasting, and labelling of the +bottles, that small crowds used to collect at the window for the +purpose of watching his deft fingers. There was pride in <span class="pagenum">[Pg 24]<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a></span>this, no +doubt, but also humiliation; and release was at hand. His father and +Lamert quarrelled about something—about <i>what</i>, Dickens seems never +to have known—and he was sent home. Mrs. Dickens acted the part of +the peacemaker on the next day, probably feeling that amid the shadowy +expectations on which she and her husband had subsisted for so long, +even six or seven shillings a week was something tangible, and not to +be despised. Yet in spite of this, he did not return to the business. +His father decided that he should go to school. "I do not write +resentfully or angrily," said Dickens, in the confidential +communication made long afterwards to Forster, and to which reference +has already been made; "but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall +forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent +back."</p> + +<p>The mothers of great men is a subject that has been handled often, and +eloquently. How many of those who have achieved distinction can trace +their inherited gifts to a mother's character, and their acquired +gifts to a mother's teaching and influence. Mrs. Dickens seems not to +have been a mother of this stamp. She scarcely, I fear, possessed +those admirable qualities of mind and heart which one can clearly +recognize as having borne fruit in the greatness and goodness of her +famous son. So far as I can discover, she exercised no influence upon +him at all. Her name hardly appears in his biographies. He never, that +I can recollect, mentions her in his correspondence; only refers to +her on the rarest occasions. And perhaps, on the whole, this is not to +be wondered at, if we accept the constant tradition that she had, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 25]<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></span>unknown to herself, sat to her son for the portrait of Mrs. Nickleby, +and suggested to him the main traits in the character of that +inconsequent and not very wise old lady. Mrs. Nickleby, I take it, was +not the kind of person calculated to form the mind of a boy of genius. +As well might one expect some very domestic bird to teach an eaglet +how to fly.</p> + +<p>The school to which our callow eaglet was sent (in the spring or early +summer of 1824), belonged emphatically to the old school of schools. +It bore the goodly name of <i>Wellington House Academy</i>, and was +situated in Mornington Place, near the Hampstead Road. A certain Mr. +Jones held chief rule there; and as more than fifty years have now +elapsed since Dickens' connection with the establishment ceased, I +trust there may be nothing libellous in giving further currency to his +statement, or rather, perhaps, to his recorded impression,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> that the +head master's one qualification for his office was dexterity in the +use of the cane;—especially as another "old boy" corroborates that +impression, and declares Mr. Jones to have been "a most ignorant +fellow, and a mere tyrant." Dickens, however, escaped with +comparatively little beating, because he was a day-boy, and sound +policy dictated that day-boys, who had facilities for carrying home +their complaints, should be treated with some leniency. So he had to +get his learning without tears, which was not at all considered the +orthodox method in the good old days; and, indeed, I doubt if he +finally took away from Wellington House Academy very much of the book +knowledge that would tell in a modern com<span class="pagenum">[Pg 26]<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a></span>petitive examination. For +though in his own account of the school it is implied that he resumed +his interrupted studies with Virgil, and was, before he left, head +boy, and the possessor of many prizes, yet this is not corroborated by +the evidence of his surviving fellow pupils; nor can we, of course, in +the face of their direct counter evidence, treat statements made in a +fictitious or half-fictitious narrative as if made in what professed +to be a sober autobiography. Dickens, I repeat, seems to have acquired +a very scant amount of classic lore while under the instruction of Mr. +Jones, and not too much lore of any kind. But if he learned little, he +observed much. He thoroughly mastered the humours of the place, just +as he had mastered the humours of the Marshalsea. He had got to know +all about the masters, and all about the boys, and all about the white +mice—of which there were many in various stages of civilization. He +acquired, in short, a fund of school knowledge that seemed +inexhaustible, and on which he drew again and again, with the most +excellent results, in "David Copperfield," in "Dombey," in such +inimitable short papers as "Old Cheeseman." And while thus, half +unconsciously perhaps, assimilating the very life of the school, he +was himself a thorough schoolboy, bright, alert, intelligent; taking +part in all fun and frolic; amply indemnifying himself for his +enforced abstinence from childish games during the dreary warehouse +days; good at recitations and mimic plays; and already possessed of a +reputation among his peers as a writer of tales.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> £200 a year "without extras" from 1815 to 1820, and then +£350. See "Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens," by Robert Langton, +a very valuable monograph.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr. Langton appears to doubt whether John Dickens was not +imprisoned in the King's Bench. But this seems scarcely a point on +which Dickens himself can have been mistaken.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> According to Mr. Langton's dates, he would still be +drawing his pay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See paper entitled "Our School."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 27]<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + + +<p>Dickens cannot have been very long at Wellington House Academy, for +before May, 1827, he had been at another school near Brunswick Square, +and had also obtained, and quitted, some employment in the office of a +solicitor in New Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields. It seems clear, +therefore, that the whole of his school life might easily be computed +in months; and in May, 1827, it will be remembered, he was still but a +lad of fifteen. At that date he entered the office of a second +solicitor, in Gray's Inn this time, on a salary of thirteen shillings +and sixpence a week, afterwards increased to fifteen shillings. Here +he remained till November, 1828, again picking up a good deal of +information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but +such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. He would +seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, +from the topmost Tulkinghorns and Perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers +like Pell and Brass, and also to have given particular attention to +the parasites of the law—the Guppys and Chucksters; and altogether to +have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of +invaluable notes and observations. All very well, no doubt, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 28]<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a></span>as we +look at the matter now. But then it must often have seemed to the +ambitious, energetic lad, that he was wasting his time. Was he to +remain for ever a lawyer's clerk who has not the means to be an +articled clerk, and who can never, therefore, aspire to become a +full-blown solicitor? Was he to spend the future obscurely in the +dingy purlieus of the law? His father, in whose career "something," as +Mr. Micawber would have said, had at last "turned up," was now a +reporter for the press. The son determined to be a reporter too.</p> + +<p>He threw himself into this new career with characteristic energy. Of +course a reporter is not made in a day. It takes many months of +drudgery to obtain such skill in shorthand as shall enable the pen of +the ready-writer to keep up with the winged words of speech, and make +dots and lines that shall be readable. Dickens laboured hard to +acquire the art. In the intervals of his work he made it a kind of +holiday task to attend the Reading-room of the British Museum, and so +remedy the defects in the literary part of his education. But the best +powers of his mind were directed to "Gurney's system of shorthand." +And in time he had his reward. He earned and justified the reputation +of being one of the best reporters of his day.</p> + +<p>I shall not quote the autobiographical passages in "David Copperfield" +which bear on the difficulties of stenography. The book is in +everybody's hands. But I cannot forego the pleasure of brightening my +pages with Dickens' own description of his experiences as a reporter, +a description contained in one of those charming felicitous speeches +of his which are almost as unique in kind as his <span class="pagenum">[Pg 29]<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a></span>novels. Speaking in +May, 1865, as chairman of a public dinner on behalf of the Newspaper +Press Fund, he said: "I have pursued the calling of a reporter under +circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in England here, +many of my modern successors, can form no adequate conception. I have +often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important +public speeches, in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a +mistake in which would have been, to a young man, severely +compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark +lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, +and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of +fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled +into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, +the spot on which I once took, as we used to call it, an election +speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight +maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and +under such pelting rain, that I remember two good-natured colleagues, +who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my +note-book, after the manner of a State canopy in an ecclesiastical +procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back +row of the old gallery in the old House of Commons; and I have worn my +feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of +Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept +in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning +home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting +press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every +de<span class="pagenum">[Pg 30]<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></span>scription of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my +time, belated in miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or +fifty miles from London, in a wheel-less carriage, with exhausted +horses, and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for +publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the +late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of +hearts I ever knew."</p> + +<p>What shall I add to this? That the papers on which he was engaged as a +reporter, were <i>The True Sun</i>, <i>The Mirror of Parliament</i>, and <i>The +Morning Chronicle</i>; that long afterwards, little more than two years +before his death, when addressing the journalists of New York, he gave +public expression to his "grateful remembrance of a calling that was +once his own," and declared, "to the wholesome training of severe +newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my +first success;" that his income as a reporter appears latterly to have +been some five guineas a week, of course in addition to expenses and +general breakages and damages; that there is independent testimony to +his exceptional quickness in reporting and transcribing, and to his +intelligence in condensing; that to an observer so keen and apt, the +experiences of his business journeys in those more picturesque and +eventful ante-railway days must have been invaluable; and, finally, +that his connection with journalism lasted far into 1836, and so did +not cease till some months after "Pickwick" had begun to add to the +world's store of merriment and laughter.</p> + +<p>But I have not really reached "Pickwick" yet, nor anything like it. +That master-work was not also a first work. <span class="pagenum">[Pg 31]<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a></span>With all Dickens' genius, +he had to go through some apprenticeship in the writer's art before +coming upon the public as the most popular novelist of his time. Let +us go back for a little to the twilight before the full sunrise, nay, +to the earliest streak upon the greyness of night, to his first +original published composition. Dickens himself, and in his preface to +"Pickwick" too, has told us somewhat about that first paper of his; +how it was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and +trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court +in Fleet Street;" how it was accepted, and "appeared in all the glory +of print;" and how he was so filled with pleasure and pride on +purchasing a copy of the magazine in which it was published, that he +went into Westminster Hall to hide the tears of joy that would come +into his eyes. The paper thus joyfully wept over was originally +entitled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," and now bears, among the "Sketches +by Boz," the name of "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"; the periodical in +which it was published was <i>The Old Monthly Magazine</i>, and the date of +publication was January 1, 1834.</p> + +<p>"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" may be pronounced a very fairly told tale. +It is, no doubt, always easy to be wise after the event, in criticism +particularly easy, and when once a writer has achieved success, there +is but too little difficulty in showing that his earlier productions +were prophetic of his future greatness. At the risk, however, of +incurring a charge of this kind, I repeat that Dickens' first story is +well told, and that the editor of <i>The Old Monthly Magazine</i> showed +due discernment in accepting it and encouraging his unknown +contributor to further <span class="pagenum">[Pg 32]<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></span>efforts. Quite apart from the fact that the +author was only a young fellow of some two or three and twenty, both +this first story and the stories that followed it in <i>The Old Monthly +Magazine</i>, during 1834 and the early part of 1835, possessed qualities +of a very remarkable kind. So also did the humorous descriptive papers +shortly afterwards published in <i>The Evening Chronicle</i>, papers that, +with the stories, now compose the book known as "Sketches by Boz." Sir +Arthur Helps, speaking of Dickens, just after Dickens' death,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> said, +"His powers of observation were almost unrivalled.... Indeed, I have +said to myself when I have been with him, he sees and observes nine +facts for any two that I see and observe." This particular faculty is, +I think, almost as clearly discernible in the "Sketches" as in the +author's later and greater works. London—its sins and sorrows, its +gaieties and amusements, its suburban gentilities, and central +squalor, the aspects of its streets, and the humours of the dingier +classes among its inhabitants,—all this had certainly never been so +seen and described before. The power of exact minute delineation +lavished upon the picture is admirable. Again, the dialogue in the +dramatic parts is natural, well-conducted, characteristic, and so used +as to help, not impede, the narrative. The speech, for instance, of +Mr. Bung, the broker's man, is a piece of very good Dickens. Of course +there is humour, and very excellent fooling some of it is; and +equally, of course, there is pathos, and some of that is not bad. Do I +mean at all that this earlier work stands on the same level of +excellence as the masterpieces of the writer? Clearly not. It <span class="pagenum">[Pg 33]<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a></span>were +absurd to expect the stripling, half-furtively coming forward, first +without a name at all, and then under the pseudonym of Boz,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> to +write with the superb practised ease and mastery of the Charles +Dickens who penned "David Copperfield." By dint of doing blacksmith's +work, says the French proverb, one becomes a blacksmith. The artist, +like the handicraftsman, must learn his art. Much in the "Sketches" +betrays inexperience; or, perhaps, it would be more just to say, +comparative clumsiness of hand. The descriptions, graphic as they +undoubtedly are, lack for the most part the final imaginative touch; +the kind of inbreathing of life which afterwards gave such individual +charm to Dickens' word-painting. The humour is more obvious, less +delicate, turns too readily on the claim of the elderly spinster to be +considered young, and the desire of all spinsters to get married. The +pathos is often spoilt by over-emphasis and declamation. It lacks +simplicity.</p> + +<p>For the "Sketches" published in <i>The Old Monthly Magazine</i>, Dickens +got nothing, beyond the pleasure of seeing himself in print. The +<i>Chronicle</i> treated him somewhat more liberally, and, on his +application, increased his salary, giving him, in view of his original +contributions, seven guineas a week, instead of the five guineas which +he had been drawing as a reporter. Not a particularly brilliant +augmentation, perhaps, and one at which he must often have smiled in +after years, when his pen was dropping gold as well as ink. Still, the +addition to his income was substantial, and the son of John Dickens +must <span class="pagenum">[Pg 34]<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a></span>always, I imagine, have been in special need of money. Moreover +the circumstances of the next few months would render any increased +earnings doubly pleasant. For Dickens was shortly after this engaged +to be married to Miss Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of one of his +fellow-workers on the <i>Chronicle</i>. There had been, so Forster tells +us, a previous very shadowy love affair in his career,—an affair so +visionary indeed, and boyish, as scarcely to be worthy of mention in +this history, save for three facts: first, that his devotion, +dreamlike as it was, seems to have had love's highest practical effect +in inducing him to throw his whole strength into the study of +shorthand; secondly, that the lady of his love appears to have had +some resemblance to Dora, the child-wife of David Copperfield; and +thirdly, that he met her again long years afterwards, when time had +worked its changes, and the glamour of love had left his eyes, and +that to that meeting we owe the passages in "Little Dorrit" relating +to poor Flora. This, however, is a parenthesis. The engagement to Miss +Hogarth was neither shadowy nor unreal—an engagement only in +dreamland. Better for both, perhaps—who knows?—if it had been. Ah +me, if one could peer into the future, how many weddings there are at +which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! Would +Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth have foreborne to plight their +troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely +the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?—They were +married on the 2nd of April, 1836.</p> + +<p>This date again leads me to a time subsequent to the publication of +the first number of "Pickwick," which had <span class="pagenum">[Pg 35]<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a></span>appeared a day or two +before;—and again I refrain from dealing with that great book. For +before I do so, I wish to pause a brief space to consider what manner +of man Charles Dickens was when he suddenly broke on the world in his +full popularity; and also what were the influences, for good and evil, +which his early career had exercised upon his character and intellect.</p> + +<p>What manner of man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that +he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing—bright, animated, eager, +with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was +when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when +Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on +the <i>Mirror</i>. So Carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this, +and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted +kindliness. "He is a fine little fellow—Boz, I think. Clear, blue, +intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive +rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme <i>mobility</i>, which he +shuttles about—eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all—in a very singular +manner while speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of +common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very +small, and dressed <i>à la</i> D'Orsay rather than well—this is Pickwick. +For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to +guess pretty well what he is and what others are."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Is not this a +graphic little picture, and characteristic even to the touch about +D'Orsay, the dandy French Count? For Dickens, like the young men <span class="pagenum">[Pg 36]<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a></span>of +the time—Disraeli, Bulwer, and the rest—was a great fop. We, of +these degenerate days, shall never see again that antique magnificence +in coloured velvet waistcoats.</p> + +<p>But to return. Dickens, it need scarcely be said, had by this +[time]<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> long out-lived the sickliness of his earlier years. The +hardships and trials of his childhood and boyhood had served but to +brace his young manhood, knitting the frame and strengthening the +nerves. Light and small, as Carlyle describes him, he was wiry and +very active, and could bear without injury an amount of intellectual +work and bodily fatigue that would have killed many men of seemingly +stronger build. And as what might have seemed unfortunate in his youth +had helped perchance to develop his physical powers, so had it +assisted to strengthen his character and foster his genius. I go back +here to the point from which I started. No doubt a weaker man would +have been crushed by such a youth. He would have been indolently +content to remain a warehouse drudge, would have listlessly fallen +into his father's ways about money, would have had no ambition beyond +his desk and salary as a lawyer's clerk, would have never cared to +piece together and supplement the scattered scraps of his education, +would have rested on his oars when he had once shot into the waters of +ordinary journalism. With Dickens it was not so. The alchemy of a fine +nature had transmuted his disadvantages into gold. To him the lessons +of such a childhood and boyhood as he had had, were energy, +self-reliance, a determination to overcome all obstacles, to fight the +battles of life, in all honour and rectitude, so as to win. From the +muddle of his father's affairs he had taken away <span class="pagenum">[Pg 37]<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a></span>a lesson of method, +order, and punctuality in business and other arrangements. "What is +worth doing at all is worth doing well," was not only one of his +favourite maxims—it was the rule of his life.</p> + +<p>And for what was to be his life work, what better preparation could +there have been than that which he received? I am far from +recommending warehouses, squalid solitary lodgings, pawnshops, +debtors' prisons,—if such could now be found,—ill-conducted private +schools,—which probably could be found,—attorneys' offices, and the +hand-to-mouth of journalism, as constituting generally the highest +ideal of a liberal education. I am equally far from asserting that the +majority of men do not require more training of a purely scholastic +kind than fell to Dickens' lot. But Dickens was not a bookish man. His +genius did not lie in that direction. To have forced him unduly into +the world of books would have made him, doubtless, an average scholar, +but might have weakened his hold on life. Such a risk was certainly +not worth the running. Fate arranged it otherwise. What he was above +all was a student of the world of men, a passionately keen observer of +the ways of humanity. Men were to be his books, his special branch of +knowledge; and in order to graduate and take high honours in that +school, I repeat, he could have had no better training. Not only had +he passed through a range of most unwonted experiences, experiences +calculated to quicken to the uttermost his superb faculties of +observation and insight; but he had been placed in sympathetic +communication with a strange assortment of characters, lying quite out +of the usual ken of the literary classes. Knowledge and sympathy, the +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 38]<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a></span>seeing eye and the feeling heart—were these nothing to have +acquired?</p> + +<p>That so abnormal an education can have been entirely without +drawbacks, it is no part of my purpose to affirm. Tossed, as one may +say, to sink or swim amid the waves of life, where those waves ran +turbid and brackish, Dickens had emerged strengthened, triumphant. But +that some little signs should not remain of the straining and effort +with which he had won the land, was scarcely to be expected. He +himself, in his more confidential communications with Forster, seems +to avow a consciousness that this was so; and Forster, though he +speaks guardedly, lovingly, appears to be of opinion that a certain +self-assertiveness and fierce intolerance of advice or control<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +occasionally discernible in his friend, might justly be attributed to +the harsh influence of early struggles and privations. But what then? +That system of education has yet to be devised which shall mould this +poor human clay of ours into flawless shapes of use and beauty. A man +may be considered fortunate indeed, when his training has left in him +only what the French call the "defects <span class="pagenum">[Pg 39]<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a></span>of his virtues," that is, the +exaggeration of his good qualities till they turn into faults. Without +his immense strength of purpose and iron will, Dickens might never +have emerged from obscurity, and the world would have been very +distinctly the poorer. One cannot be very sorry that he possessed +these gifts in excess.</p> + +<p>And now, at last, having slightly sketched the history of his earlier +years, and endeavoured to show, however perfectly, what influences had +gone to the formation of his character, I proceed to consider the book +that lifted him to fame and fortune. The years of apprenticeship are +over, and the master-workman brings forth his finished work in its +flower of perfection. Let us study "Pickwick."</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, July, 1870.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> It was the pet name of one of his brothers; that was why +he took it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Froude's "Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in +London."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Transcriber's Note: The word "time" appears to be missing +from the original text.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> "I have heard Dickens described by those who knew him," +says Mr. Edmund Yates, in his "Recollections," "as aggressive, +imperious, and intolerant, and I can comprehend the accusation.... He +was imperious in the sense that his life was conducted on the <i>sic +volo sic jubeo</i> principle, and that everything gave way before him. +The society in which he mixed, the hours which he kept, the opinions +which he held, his likes and dislikes, his ideas of what should or +should not be, were all settled by himself, not merely for himself, +but for all those brought into connection with him, and it was never +imagined they could be called in question.... He had immense powers of +will."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 40]<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + + +<p>Dickens has told us, in his preface to the later editions, much of how +"Pickwick" came to be projected and published. It was in this wise: +Seymour, a caricaturist of very considerable merit, though not, as we +should now consider, in the first rank of the great caricaturists, had +proposed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, then just starting on their +career as publishers, a "series of Cockney sporting plates." Messrs. +Chapman and Hall entertained the idea favourably, but opined that the +plates would require illustrative letter-press; and casting about for +some suitable author, bethought themselves of Dickens, whose tales and +sketches had been exciting some little sensation in the world of +journalism; and who had, indeed, already written for the firm a story, +the "Tuggs at Ramsgate," which may be read among the "Sketches." +Accordingly Mr. Hall called on Dickens for the purpose of proposing +the scheme. This would be in 1835, towards the latter end of the year; +and Dickens, who had apparently left the paternal roof for some little +time, was living bachelorwise, in Furnival's Inn. What was his +astonishment, when Mr. Hall came in, to find he was the same person +who had sold him the copy of the magazine containing his <span class="pagenum">[Pg 41]<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a></span>first +story—that memorable copy at which he had looked, in Westminster +Hall, through eyes bedimmed with joyful tears. Such coincidences +always had for Dickens a peculiar, almost a superstitious, interest. +The circumstance seemed of happy augury to both the "high contracting +parties." Publisher and author were for the nonce on the best of +terms. The latter, no doubt, saw his opening; was more than ready to +undertake the work, and had no quarrel with the remuneration offered. +But even then he was not the man to play second fiddle to anybody. +Before they parted, he had quite succeeded in turning the tables on +Seymour. The original proposal had been that the artist should produce +four caricatures on sporting subjects every month, and that the +letter-press should be in illustration of the caricatures. Dickens got +Mr. Hall to agree to reverse that position. <i>He</i>, Dickens, was to have +the command of the story, and the artist was to illustrate <i>him</i>. How +far these altered relations would have worked quite smoothly if +Seymour had lived, and if Dickens' story had not so soon assumed the +proportions of a colossal success, it is idle to speculate. Seymour +died by his own hand before the second number was published, and so +ceased to be in a position to assert himself. It was, however, in +deference to the peculiar bent of his art that Mr. Winkle, with his +disastrous sporting proclivities, made part of the first conception of +the book; and it is also very significant of the book's origin, that +the design on the green wrapper in which the monthly parts made their +appearance, should have had a purely sporting character, and exhibited +Mr. Pickwick sleepily fishing in a punt, and Mr. Winkle shooting at +what looks like a cock-sparrow, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 42]<a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a></span>the whole surrounded by a chaste +arabesque of guns, rods, and landing-nets. To Seymour, too, we owe the +portrait of Mr. Pickwick, which has impressed that excellent old +gentleman's face and figure upon all our memories. But to return to +Dickens' interview with Mr. Hall. They seem to have parted in mutual +satisfaction. At least it is certain Dickens was satisfied, for in a +letter written, apparently on the same day, to "my dearest Kate," he +thus sums up the proposals of the publishers: "They have made me an +offer of fourteen pounds a month to write and edit a new publication +they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and +each number to contain four wood-cuts.... The work will be no joke, +but the emolument is too tempting to resist."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>So, little thinking how soon he would begin to regard the "emolument" +as ludicrously inadequate, he set to work on "Pickwick." The first +part was published on the 31st of March or 1st of April, 1836.</p> + +<p>That part seems scarcely to have created any sensation. Mr James +Grant, the novelist, says indeed, that the first five parts were "a +dead failure," and that the publishers were even debating whether the +enterprise had not better be abandoned altogether, when suddenly Sam +Weller appeared upon the scene, and turned their gloom into laughter. +Be that as it may, certain it is that before many months had passed, +Messrs. Chapman and Hall must have been thoroughly confirmed in a +policy of perseverance. "The first order for Part I.," that is, the +first order for binding, "was," says the bookbinder who executed the +work, "for four hundred copies <span class="pagenum">[Pg 43]<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a></span>only." The order for Part XV. had +risen to forty thousand. All contemporary accounts agree that the +success was sudden, immense. The author, like Lord Byron, some +twenty-five years before, "awoke and found himself famous." Young as +he was, not having yet numbered more than twenty-four summers, he at +one stride reached the topmost height of popularity. Everybody read +his book. Everybody laughed over it. Everybody talked about it. +Everybody felt, confusedly perhaps, but very surely, that a new and +vital force had arisen in English literature.</p> + +<p>And English literature just then was in one of its times of slackness, +rather than full flow. The great tide of the beginning of the century +had ebbed. The tide of the Victorian age had scarcely begun to do more +than ripple and flash on the horizon. Byron was dead, and Shelley and +Keats and Coleridge and Lamb; Southey's life was on the decline; +Wordsworth had long executed his best work; while of the coming men, +Carlyle, though in the plenitude of his power, having published +"Sartor Resartus," had not yet published his "French Revolution,"<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> +or delivered his lectures on the "Heroes," and was not yet in the +plenitude of his fame and influence; and Macaulay, then in India, was +known only as the essayist and politician; and Lord Tennyson and the +Brownings were more or less names of the future. Looking especially at +fiction, the time may be said to have been waiting for its +master-novelist. Five years had gone by since the good and great Sir +Walter Scott had been laid to rest in Dryburgh Abbey, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 44]<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a></span> +there to sleep, as is most fit, amid the ruins of that old Middle Age +world he loved so well, with the babble of the Tweed for lullaby. Nor +had any one shown himself of stature to step into his vacant place, +albeit Bulwer, more precocious even than Dickens, was already known as +the author of "Pelham," "Eugene Aram," and the "Last Days of Pompeii;" +and Disraeli had written "Vivian Grey," and his earlier books; while +Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Kingsley, George Eliot were all, of +course, to come later. No, there was a vacant throne among the +novelists. Here was the hour—and here, too, was the man. In virtue of +natural kingship he took up his sceptre unquestioned.</p> + +<p>Still, it may not be superfluous to inquire into the why and wherefore +of his success. All effects have a cause. What was the cause of this +special phenomenon? In the first place, the admirable freshness of the +book won its way into every heart. There is a fervour of youth and +healthy good spirits about the whole thing. In a former generation, +Byron had uttered his wail of despair over a worthless world. We, in +our own time, have got back to the dreary point of considering whether +life be worth living. Here was a writer who had no such misgivings. +For him life was pleasant, useful, full of delight—to be not only +tolerated, but enjoyed. He liked its sights, its play of character, +its adventures—affected no superiority to its amusements and +convivialities—thoroughly laid himself out to please and to be +pleased. And his characters were in the same mood. Their fund of +animal spirits seemed inexhaustible. For life's jollities they were +never unprepared. No doubt there were <span class="pagenum">[Pg 45]<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a></span>"mighty mean moments" in their +existence, as there have been in the existence of most of us. It +cannot have been pleasant to Mr. Winkle to have his eye blackened by +the obstreperous cabman. Mr. Tracy Tupman probably felt a passing pang +when jilted by the maiden aunt in favour of the audacious Jingle. No +man would elect to occupy the position of defendant in an action for +breach of promise, or prefer to sojourn in a debtors' prison. But how +jauntily do Mr. Pickwick and his friends shake off such discomforts! +How buoyantly do they override the billows that beset their course! +And what excellent digestions they have, and how slightly do they seem +to suffer the next day from any little excesses in the matter of milk +punch!</p> + +<p>Then besides the good spirits and good temper, there is Dickens' royal +gift of humour. As some actors have only to show their face and utter +a word or two, in order to convulse an audience with merriment, so +here does almost every sentence hold good and honest laughter. Not, +perhaps, objects the superfine and too dainty critic, humour of the +most delicate sort—not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality +can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of Lamb, or Sterne, +or Goldsmith, or Washington Irving. Granted freely; not humour of that +special character. But very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly +popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce—the humour that +finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous +situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and +eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How +thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time <span class="pagenum">[Pg 46]<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></span>merry and +wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. +With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable +laughter, he never makes game of what is at all worthy of respect. +Here, as in his later books, right is right, and wrong wrong, and he +is never tempted to jingle his jester's bell out of season, and make +right look ridiculous. And if the humour of "Pickwick" be wholesome, +it is also most genial and kindly. We have here no acrid cynic +sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing +pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. Rather does +Dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering +memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of +unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. In +brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and +even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on them lovingly and +helpfully.</p> + +<p>So much the first readers of "Pickwick" might note as the book +unfolded itself to them, part by part; and they might also note one or +two things besides. They might note—they could scarcely fail to do +so—that though there was a touch of caricature in nearly all the +characters, yet those characters were, one and all, wonderfully real, +and very much alive. It was no world of shadows to which the author +introduced them. Mr. Pickwick had a very distinct existence, and so +had his three friends, and Bob Sawyer, and Benjamin Allen, and Mr. +Jingle, and Tony Weller, and all the swarm of minor characters. While +as to Sam Weller, if it be really true that he averted impending ruin +from the book, and turned defeat <span class="pagenum">[Pg 47]<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></span>into victory, one can only say that +it was like him. When did he ever "stint stroke" in "foughten field"? +By what array of adverse circumstances was he ever taken at a +disadvantage? To have created a character of this vitality, of this +individual force, would be a feather in the cap of any novelist who +ever lived. Something I think of Dickens' own blood passed into this +special progeniture of his. It has been irreverently said that +Falstaff might represent Shakespeare in his cups, just as Hamlet might +represent him in his more sober moments. So I have always had a kind +of fancy that Sam Weller might be regarded as Dickens himself seen in +a certain aspect—a sort of Dickens, shall I say?—in an humbler +sphere of life, and who had never devoted himself to literature. There +is in both the same energy, pluck, essential goodness of heart, +fertility of resource, abundance of animal spirits, and also an +imagination of a peculiar kind, in which wit enters as a main +ingredient. And having noted how highly vitalized were the characters +in "Pickwick," I think the first readers might also fairly be expected +to note,—and, in fact, it is clear from Dickens' preface that they +did note—how greatly the book increased in scope and power as it +proceeded. The beginning was conceived almost in a spirit of farce. +The incidents and adventures had scarcely any other object than to +create amusement. Mr. Pickwick himself appeared on the scene with +fantastic honours and the badge of absurdity, as "the man who had +traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the +scientific world with the Theory of Tittlebats." But in all this there +is a gradual change. Mr. Pickwick is presented to us latterly as an +exceedingly sound-headed as well as <span class="pagenum">[Pg 48]<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></span>sound-hearted old gentleman, whom +we should never think of associating with the sources of Hampstead +Ponds or any other folly. While in such scenes as those at the Fleet +Prison, the author is clearly endeavouring to do much more than raise +a laugh. He is sounding the deeper, more tragic chords in human +feeling.</p> + +<p>Ah, if we add to all this—to the freshness, the "go," the good +spirits, the keen observation, the graphic painting, the humour, the +vitality of the characters, the gradual development of power—if we +add to all this that something which is in all, and greater than all, +viz., genius, and genius of a highly popular kind, then we shall have +no difficulty in understanding why everybody read "Pickwick," and how +it came to pass that its publishers made some £20,000 by a work that +they had once thought of abandoning as worthless.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See the Letters published by Chapman and Hall.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> It was finished in January, 1837, and not published till +six months afterwards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> They acknowledged to Dickens that they had made £14,000 +by the sale of the monthly parts alone.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 49]<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + + +<p>Dickens was not at all the man to rest on his oars while "Pickwick" +was giving such a magnificent impetus to the boat that contained his +fortunes. The amount of work which he accomplished in the years 1836, +1837, 1838, and 1839 is, if we consider its quality, amazing. +"Pickwick," as we have seen, was begun with the first of these years, +and its publication continued till the November of 1837. Independently +of his work on "Pickwick," he was, in the year 1836, engaged in the +arduous profession of a reporter till the close of the parliamentary +session, and also wrote a pamphlet on Sabbatarianism, a farce in two +acts, "The Strange Gentleman," for the St. James's Theatre, and a +comic opera, "The Village Coquettes," which was set to music by +Hullah. With the very commencement of 1837—"Pickwick," it will be +remembered, going on all the while—he entered upon the duties of +editor of <i>Bentley's Miscellany</i>, and in the second number began the +publication of "Oliver Twist," which was continued into the early +months of 1839, when his connection with the magazine ceased. In the +April of 1838, and simultaneously, of course, with "Oliver Twist," +appeared <span class="pagenum">[Pg 50]<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a></span>the first part of "Nicholas Nickleby"—the last part +appearing in the October of the following year. Three novels of more +than full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, +besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work—certainly that was +"good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that <i>The +Quarterly Review</i>, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to +croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and +putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, +feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to +mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," so he +was in danger of "coming down like the stick." Small wonder, I say, +and yet to us now, how unjust the accusation appears, and how false +the prophecy. Rapidly as those books were executed, Dickens, like the +real artist that he was, had put into them his best work. There was no +scamping. The critics of the time judged superficially, not making +allowance for the ample fund of observations he had amassed, for the +genuine fecundity of his genius, and for the admirable industry of an +extremely industrious man. "The World's Workers"—there exists under +that general designation a series of short biographies, for which Miss +Dickens has written a sketch of her father's life. To no one could the +description more fittingly apply. Throughout his life he worked +desperately hard. He possessed, in a high degree, the "infinite +faculty for taking pains," which is so great an adjunct to genius, +though it is not, as the good Sir Joshua Reynolds held, genius itself. +Thus what he had done rapidly was done <span class="pagenum">[Pg 51]<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></span>well; and, for the rest, the +writer, who had yet to give the world "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The +Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," and "Dombey," was not "coming +down like a stick." There were many more stars, and of very brilliant +colours, to be showered out by that rocket; and the stick has not even +yet fallen to the ground.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Naturally, with the success of "Pickwick," came a great change in +Dickens' pecuniary position. He had, as we have seen, been glad +enough, before he began the book, to close with the offer of £14 for +each monthly part. That sum was afterwards increased to £15, and the +two first payments seem to have been made in advance for the purpose +of helping him to defray the expenses of his marriage. But as the sale +leapt up, the publishers themselves felt that such a rate of +remuneration was altogether insufficient, and sent him, first and +last, a goodly number of supplementary cheques, for sums amounting in +the aggregate, as <i>they</i> computed, to £3,000, and as Forster computes +to about £2,500. This Dickens, who, to use his own words, "never +undervalued his own work," considered a very inadequate percentage on +their gains—forgetting a little, perhaps, that the risks had been +wholly theirs, and that he had been more than content with the +original bargain. Similarly he was soon utterly dissatisfied with his +arrangements with Bentley about the editorship of the <i>Miscellany</i> and +"Oliver Twist,"—arrangements which had been <span class="pagenum">[Pg 52]<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a></span>entered into in August, +1836, while "Pickwick" was in progress; and he utterly refused to let +that publisher have "Gabriel Varden, The Locksmith of London" +("Barnaby Rudge") on the terms originally agreed upon. With Macrone +also, who had made some £4,000 by the "Sketches," and given him about +£400, he was no better pleased, especially when that enterprising +gentleman threatened a re-issue in monthly parts, and so compelled him +to re-purchase the copyright for £2,000. But however much he might +consider himself ill-treated by the publishing fraternity, he was, of +course, rapidly getting far richer than he had been, and so able to +enlarge his mode of life. He had begun, modestly enough, by taking his +wife to live with him in his bachelor's quarters in Furnival's +Inn,—much as Tommy Traddles, in "David Copperfield," took <i>his</i> wife +to live in chambers at Gray's Inn; and there, in Furnival's Inn, his +first child, a boy, was born on the 6th of January, 1837. But in the +March of that year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at 48, +Doughty Street, where he remained till the end of 1839, when still +increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at 1, +Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. But the house in Doughty Street +must have been endeared to him by many memories. It was there, on the +7th of May, 1837, that he lost, at the early age of seventeen, and +quite suddenly, a sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was greatly +attached. The blow fell so heavily at the time as to incapacitate him +from all work, and delayed the publication of one of the numbers of +"Pickwick." Nor was the sorrow only sharp and <span class="pagenum">[Pg 53]<a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a></span>transient. He speaks of +her in the preface to the first edition of that book. Her spirit +seemed to be hovering near as he stood looking at Niagara. He felt her +hallowing influence when in danger of growing too much elated by his +first reception in America. She came back to him in dreams in Italy. +Her image remained in his heart, unchanged by time, as he declared, to +the very end. She represented to his mind all that was pure and lovely +in opening womanhood, and lives, in the world created by his art, as +the Little Nell of "The Old Curiosity Shop." It was in Doughty Street, +too, that he began to gather round him the circle of friends whose +names seem almost like a muster-roll of the famous men and women in +the first thirty years of Queen Victoria's reign. I shall not +enumerate them. The list of writers, artists, actors, would be too +long. But this at least it would be unjust not to note, that among his +friends were included nearly all those who by any stretch of fancy +could be regarded as his rivals in the fields of humour and fiction. +With Washington Irving, Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Lord Lytton, Harrison +Ainsworth, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, and, save for a passing +foolish quarrel, with Thackeray, the novelist who really was his peer, +he maintained the kindliest and most cordial relations. Nor when +George Eliot published her first books, "The Scenes of Clerical Life" +and "Adam Bede," did any one acknowledge their excellence more freely. +Petty jealousies found no place in the nature of this great writer.</p> + +<p>It was also while living at Doughty Street that he <span class="pagenum">[Pg 54]<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></span>seems, in great +measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which +every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and +idiosyncrasies. His favourite time for work was the morning, between +the hours of breakfast and lunch; and though, at this particular +period, the enormous pressure of his engagements compelled him to work +"double tides," and often far into the night, yet he was essentially a +day-worker, not a night-worker. Like the great German poet Goethe, he +preferred to exercise his art in the fresh morning hours, when the +dewdrops, as it were, lay bright upon his imagination and fancy. And +for relaxation and sedative, when he had thoroughly worn himself out +with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily +exercise. At first riding seems to have contented him—fifteen miles +out and fifteen miles in, with a halt at some road-side inn for +refreshment. But soon walking took the place of riding, and he became +an indefatigable pedestrian. He would think nothing of a walk of +twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous heyday of +youth, but afterwards, to the very last. He was always on those alert, +quick feet of his, perambulating London from end to end, and in every +direction; perambulating the suburbs, perambulating the "greater +London" that lies within a radius of twenty miles, round the central +core of metropolitan houses. In short, he was everywhere, in all +weathers, at all hours. Nor was London, smaller and greater, his only +walking field. He would walk wherever he was—walked through and +through Genoa, and all about Genoa, when he lived there; knew every +inch of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 55]<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a></span>the Kent country round Broadstairs and round Gad's Hill—was, +as I have said, always, always, always on his feet. But if he would +pedestrianize everywhere, London remained the walking ground of his +heart. As Dr. Johnson held that nothing equalled a stroll down Fleet +Street, so did Dickens, sitting in full view of Genoa's perfect bay, +and with the blue Mediterranean sparkling at his feet, turn in thought +for inspiration to his old haunts. "Never," he writes to Forster, when +about to begin "The Chimes," "never did I stagger so upon a threshold +before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I +left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to +it.... Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. If +they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the West +Middlesex Waterworks at Devonshire Terrace.... Put me down on Waterloo +Bridge at eight o'clock in the evening, with leave to roam about as +long as I like, and I would come home, as you know, panting to go on. +I am sadly strange as it is, and can't settle." "Eight o'clock in the +evening,"—that points to another of his peculiarities. As he liked +best to walk in London, so he liked best to walk at night. The +darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. He never +grew tired of it, would find pleasure and refreshment, when most weary +and jaded, in losing himself in it, in abandoning himself to its +mysteries. Looked at with this knowledge, the opening of the "Old +Curiosity Shop" becomes a passage of autobiography. And how all these +wanderings must have served him in his art! Remember what a keen +observer he was, per<span class="pagenum">[Pg 56]<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a></span>haps one of the keenest that ever lived, and then +think what food for observation he would thus be constantly +collecting. To the eye that knows how to see, there is no stage where +so many scenes from the drama of life are being always enacted as the +streets of London. Dickens frequented that theatre very assiduously, +and of his power of sight there can be no question.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> I think critics, and perhaps I myself, have been a +little hard on this Quarterly Reviewer. He did not, after all, say +that Dickens would come down like a stick, only that he might do so if +he wrote too fast and furiously.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 57]<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + + +<p>"Pickwick" had been a novel without any plot. The story, if story it +can be called, bore every trace of its hasty origin. Scene succeeded +scene, and incident incident, and Mr. Pickwick and his three friends +were hurried about from place to place, and through adventures of all +kinds, without any particularly defined purpose. In truth, many +people, and myself among the number, find some difficulty in reading +the book as a connected narrative, and prefer to take it piecemeal. +But in "Oliver Twist" there is a serious effort to work out a coherent +plot, and real unity of conception. Whether that conception be based +on probability, is another point. Oliver is the illegitimate son of a +young lady who has lapsed from virtue under circumstances of great +temptation, but still lapsed from virtue, and who dies in giving him +birth. He is brought up as a pauper child in a particularly +ill-managed workhouse, and apprenticed to a low undertaker. Thence he +escapes, and walks to London, where he falls in with a gang of +thieves. His legitimate brother, an unutterable scoundrel, happens to +see him in London, and recognizing him by a likeness to their common +father, bribes the thieves to recapture him <span class="pagenum">[Pg 58]<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a></span>when he has escaped from +their clutches. Now I would rather not say whether I consider it quite +likely that a boy of this birth and nurture would fly at a boy much +bigger than himself in vindication of the fair fame of a mother whom +he had never known, or would freely risk his life to warn a sleeping +household that they were being robbed, or would, on all occasions, +exhibit the most excellent manners and morals, and a delicacy of +feeling that is quite dainty. But this is the essence of the book. To +show purity and goodness of disposition as self-sufficient in +themselves to resist all adverse influences, is Dickens' main object. +Take Oliver's sweet uncontaminated character away, and the story +crumbles to pieces. With mere improbabilities of plot, I have no +quarrel. Of course it is not likely that the boy, on the occasion of +his first escape from the thieves, should be rescued by his father's +oldest friend, and, on the second occasion, come across his aunt. But +such coincidences must be accepted in any story; they violate no truth +of character. I am afraid I can't say as much of Master Oliver's +graces and virtues.</p> + +<p>With this reservation, however, how much there is in the book to which +unstinted admiration can be given! As "Pickwick" first fully exhibited +the humorous side of Dickens' genius, so "Oliver Twist" first fully +exhibited its tragic side;—the pathetic side was to come somewhat +later. The scenes at the workhouse; at the thieves' dens in London; +the burglary; the murder of poor Nancy; the escape and death of the +horror-haunted Sikes,—all are painted with a master's hand. And the +book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to <span class="pagenum">[Pg 59]<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a></span>follow, +contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as +types,—characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in +themselves to sum up a whole class. Such are Bill Sikes, whose +ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the +Jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they +should <i>not</i> go; and Master Dawkins, the Artful Dodger. Such, too, is +Mr. Bumble, greatest and most unhappy of beadles.</p> + +<p>Comedy had predominated in "Pickwick," tragedy in "Oliver Twist." The +more complete fusion of the two was effected in "Nicholas Nickleby." +But as the mighty actor Garrick, in the well-known picture by Sir +Joshua Reynolds, is drawn towards the more mirthful of the two +sisters, so, here again, I think that comedy decidedly bears away the +palm,—though tragedy is not beaten altogether without a struggle +either. Here is the story as it unfolds itself. The two heroes are +Ralph Nickleby and his nephew Nicholas. They stand forth, almost from +the beginning, as antagonists, in battle array the one against the +other; and the story is, in the main, a history of the campaigns +between them—cunning and greed being mustered on the one side, and +young, generous courage on the other. At first Nicholas believes in +his uncle, who promises to befriend Nicholas's mother and sister, and +obtains for Nicholas himself a situation as usher in a Yorkshire +school kept by one Squeers. But the young fellow's gorge rises at the +sickening cruelty exercised in the school, and he leaves it, having +first beaten Mr. Squeers,—leaves it followed by a poor shattered +creature called Smike. Meanwhile Ralph, the usurer, befriends <span class="pagenum">[Pg 60]<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a></span>his +sister-in-law and niece after his own fashion, and tries to use the +latter's beauty in furtherance of his trade as a money-lender. +Nicholas discovers his plots, frustrates all his schemes, rescues, and +ultimately marries, a young lady who had been immeshed in one of them; +and Ralph, at last, utterly beaten, commits suicide on finding that +Smike, through whom he had been endeavouring all through to injure +Nicholas, and who is now dead, was his own son. Such are the book's +dry bones, its skeleton, which one is almost ashamed to expose thus +nakedly. For the beauty of these novels lies not at all in the plot; +it is in the incidents, situations, characters. And with beauty of +this kind how richly dowered is "Nicholas Nickleby"! Take the +characters alone. What lavish profusion of humour in the theatrical +group that clusters round Mr. Vincent Crummles, the country manager; +and in the Squeers family too; and in the little shop-world of Mrs. +Mantalini, the fashionable dressmaker; and in Cheeryble Brothers, the +golden-hearted old merchants who take Nicholas into their +counting-house. Then for single characters commend me to Mrs. +Nickleby, whose logic, which some cynics would call feminine, is +positively sublime in its want of coherence; and to John Browdie, the +honest Yorkshire cornfactor, as good a fellow almost as Dandie +Dinmont, the Border yeoman whom Scott made immortal. The high-life +personages are far less successful. Dickens had small gift that way, +and seldom succeeded in his society pictures. Nor, if the truth must +be told, do I greatly care for the description of the duel between Sir +Mulberry Hawk and Lord Verisopht, though it was evidently very much +admired at the time, and is <span class="pagenum">[Pg 61]<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a></span>quoted, as a favourable specimen of +Dickens' style, in Charles Knight's "Half-hours with the Best +Authors." The writing is a little too <i>tall</i>. It lacks simplicity, as +is sometimes the case with Dickens, when he wants to be particularly +impressive.</p> + +<p>And this leads me, by a kind of natural sequence, to what I have to +say about his next book, "The Old Curiosity Shop;" for here, again, +though in a very much more marked degree, I fear I shall have to run +counter to a popular opinion.</p> + +<p>But first a word as to the circumstances under which the book was +published. Casting about, after the conclusion of "Nicholas Nickleby," +for further literary ventures, Dickens came to the conclusion that the +public must be getting tired of his stories in monthly parts. It +occurred to him that a weekly periodical, somewhat after the manner of +Addison's <i>Spectator</i> or Goldsmith's <i>Bee</i>, and containing essays, +stories, and miscellaneous papers,—to be written mainly, but not +entirely, by himself,—would be just the thing to revive interest, and +give his popularity a spur. Accordingly an arrangement was entered +into with Messrs. Chapman and Hall, by which they covenanted to give +him £50 for each weekly number of such a periodical, and half +profits;—and the first number of <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i> made its +appearance in the April of 1840. Unfortunately Dickens had reckoned +altogether without his host. The public were not to be cajoled. What +they expected from their favourite was novels, not essays, short +stories, or sketches, however admirable. The orders for the first +number had amounted to seventy <span class="pagenum">[Pg 62]<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></span>thousand; but they fell off as soon as +it was discovered that Master Humphrey, sitting by his clock, had no +intention of beguiling the world with a continuous narrative,—that +the title, in short, did not stand for the title of a novel. Either +the times were not ripe for the <i>Household Words</i>, which, ten years +afterwards, proved to be such a great and permanent success, or +Dickens had laid his plans badly. Vainly did he put forth all his +powers, vainly did he bring back upon the stage those old popular +favourites, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Tony Weller. All was of no +avail. Clearly, in order to avoid defeat, a change of front had become +necessary. The novel of "The Old Curiosity Shop" was accordingly +commenced in the fourth number of the <i>Clock</i>, and very soon acted the +cuckoo's part of thrusting Master Humphrey and all that belonged to +him out of the nest. He disappeared pretty well from the periodical, +and when the novel was republished, the whole machinery of the <i>Clock</i> +had gone;—and with it I may add, some very characteristic and +admirable writing. Dickens himself confessed that he "winced a +little," when the "opening paper, ... in which Master Humphrey +described himself and his manner of life," "became the property of the +trunkmaker and the butterman;" and most Dickens lovers will agree with +me in rejoicing that the omitted parts have now at last been tardily +rescued from unmerited neglect, and finds [Transcriber's Note: sic] a +place in the recently issued "Charles Dickens" edition of the works.</p> + +<p>There is no hero in "The Old Curiosity Shop,"—unless Mr. Richard +Swiveller, "perpetual grand-master of the Glorious Apollos," be the +questionable hero; and the <span class="pagenum">[Pg 63]<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a></span>heroine is Little Nell, a child. Of +Dickens' singular feeling for the pathos and humour of childhood, I +have already spoken. Many novelists, perhaps one might even say, most +novelists, have no freedom of utterance when they come to speak about +children, do not know what to do with a child if it chances to stray +into their pages. But how different with Dickens! He is never more +thoroughly at home than with the little folk. Perhaps his best speech, +and they all are good, is the one uttered at the dinner given on +behalf of the Children's Hospital. Certainly there is no figure in +"Dombey and Son" on which more loving care has been lavished than the +figure of little Paul, and when the lad dies one quite feels that the +light has gone out of the book. "David Copperfield" shorn of David's +childhood and youth would be a far less admirable performance. The +hero of "Oliver Twist" is a boy. Pip is a boy through a fair portion +of "Great Expectations." The heroine of "The Old Curiosity Shop" is, +as I have just said, a girl. And of all these children, the one who +seems, from the first, to have stood highest in popular favour, and +won most hearts, is Little Nell. Ay me, what tears have been shed over +her weary wanderings with that absurd old gambling grandfather of +hers; how many persons have sorrowed over her untimely end as if she +had been a daughter or a sister. High and low, literate and +illiterate, over nearly all has she cast her spell. Hood, he who sang +the "Song of the Shirt," paid her the tribute of his admiration, and +Jeffrey, the hard-headed old judge and editor of <i>The Edinburgh +Review</i>, the tribute of his tears.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 64]<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></span> Landor volleyed forth his +thunderous praises over her grave, likening her to Juliet and +Desdemona. Nay, Dickens himself sadly bewailed her fate, described +himself as being the "wretchedest of the wretched" when it drew near, +and shut himself from all society as if he had suffered a real +bereavement. While as to the feeling which she has excited in the +breasts of the illiterate, we may take Mr. Bret Harte's account of the +haggard golddiggers by the roaring Californian camp fire, who throw +down their cards to listen to her story, and, for the nonce, are +softened and humanized.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>—Such is the sympathy she has created. And +for the description of her death and burial, as a superb piece of +pathetic writing, there has been a perfect chorus of praise broken +here and there no doubt by a discordant voice, but still of the +loudest and most heartfelt. Did not Horne, a poet better known to the +last generation than to this, point out that though printed as prose, +these passages were, perhaps as "the result of harmonious accident," +essentially poetry, and "written in blank verse of irregular metres +and rhythms, which Southey and Shelley and some other poets have +occasionally adopted"? Did he not print part of the passages in this +form, substituting only, as a concession to the conventionalities of +verse, the word "grandames" for "grandmothers"; and did he not declare +of one of the extracts so printed that it was "worthy of the best +passages in Wordsworth"?</p> + +<p>If it "argues an insensibility" to stand somewhat unmoved among all +these tears and admiration, I am afraid I must be rather +pebble-hearted. To tell the <span class="pagenum">[Pg 65]<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a></span>whole damaging truth, I am, and always +have been, only slightly affected by the story of Little Nell; have +never felt any particular inclination to shed a tear over it, and +consider the closing chapters as failing of their due effect, on me at +least, because they are pitched in a key that is altogether too high +and unnatural. Of course one makes a confession of this kind with +diffidence. It is no light thing to stem the current of a popular +opinion. But one can only go with the stream when one thinks the +stream is flowing in a right channel. And here I think the stream is +meandering out of its course. For me, Little Nell is scarcely more +than a figure in cloudland. Possibly part of the reason why I do not +feel as much sympathy with her as I ought, is because I do not seem to +know her very well. With Paul Dombey I am intimately acquainted. I +should recognize the child anywhere, should be on the best of terms +with him in five minutes. Few things would give me greater pleasure +than an hour's saunter by the side of his little invalid's carriage +along the Parade at Brighton. How we should laugh, to be sure, if we +happened to come across Mr. Toots, and smile, too, if we met Feeder, +B.A., and give a furtive glance of recognition at Glubb, the discarded +charioteer. Then the classic Cornelia Blimber would pass, on her +constitutional, and we should quail a little—at least I am certain +<i>I</i> should—as she bent upon us her scholastic spectacles; and a +glimpse of Dr. Blimber would chill us even more; till—ah! what's +this? Why does a flush of happiness mantle over my little friend's +pale face? Why does he utter a faint cry of pleasure? Yes, there she +is —<span class="pagenum">[Pg 66]<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a></span>he has caught sight of Floy running forward to meet him.—So am +I led, almost instinctively, whenever the figure of Paul flashes into +my mind, to think of him as a child I have actually known. But +Nell—she has no such reality of existence. She has been etherealized, +vapourized, rhapsodized about, till the flesh and blood have gone out +of her. I recognize her attributes, unselfishness, sweetness of +disposition, gentleness. But these don't constitute a human being. +They don't make up a recognizable individuality. If I met her in the +street, I am afraid I should not know her; and if I did, I am sure we +should both find it difficult to keep up a conversation.</p> + +<p>Do the passages describing her death and burial really possess the +rhythm of poetry? That would seem to me, I confess, to be as ill a +compliment as to say of a piece of poetry that it was really prose. +The music of prose and of poetry are essentially different. They do +not affect the ear in the same way. The one is akin to song, the other +to speech. Give to prose the recurring cadences, the measure, and the +rhythmic march of verse, and it becomes bad prose without becoming +good poetry.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> So, in fairness to Dickens, one is bound, as far as +one can, to forget Horne's misapplied praise. But even thus, and +looking upon it as prose alone, can we say that the account of Nell's +funeral is, in the high artistic sense, a piece of good work. Here is +an extract: "And now the bell—the bell she had so often heard, by +night and day, and listened to with <span class="pagenum">[Pg 67]<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></span>solemn pleasure almost as a +living voice—rang its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so +beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming +youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth—on crutches, in the pride +of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn +of life—to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were +dim and senses failing—grandmothers, who might have died ten years +ago, and still been old,—the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, +the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that +earthly grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which +still could crawl and creep above it?" Such is the tone throughout, +and one feels inclined to ask whether it is quite the appropriate tone +in which to speak of the funeral of a child in a country churchyard? +All this pomp of rhetoric seems to me—shall I say it?—as much out of +place as if Nell had been buried like some great soldier or minister +of state—with a hearse, all sable velvet and nodding plumes, drawn by +a long train of sable steeds, and a final discharge of artillery over +the grave. The verbal honours paid here to the deceased are really not +much less incongruous and out of keeping. Surely in such a subject, +above all others, the pathos of simplicity would have been most +effective.</p> + +<p>There are some, indeed, who deny to Dickens the gift of pathos +altogether. Such persons acknowledge, for the most part a little +unwillingly, that he was a master of humour of the broader, more +obvious kind. But they assert that all his sentiment is mawkish and +overstrained, and that his efforts to compel our tears are so obvious +as to defeat <span class="pagenum">[Pg 68]<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a></span>their own purpose. Now it will be clear, from what I +have said about Little Nell, that I am capable of appreciating the +force of any criticism of this kind; nay, that I go so far as to +acknowledge that Dickens occasionally lays himself open to it. But go +one inch beyond this I cannot. Of course we may, if we like, take up a +position of pure stoicism, and deny pathos altogether, in life as in +art. We may regard all human affairs but as a mere struggle for +existence, and say that might makes right, and that the weak is only +treated according to his deserts when he goes to the wall. We may hold +that neither sorrow nor suffering call for any meed of sympathy. Such +is mainly the attitude which the French novelist adopts towards the +world of his creation.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> But once admit that feeling is legitimate; +once allow that tears are due to those who have been crushed and left +bleeding by this great world of ours as it crashes blundering on its +way; once grant that the writer's art can properly embrace what +Shakespeare calls "the pity of it," the sorrows inwoven in all our +human relationships; once acknowledge all this, and then I affirm, +most confidently, that Dickens, working at his best, was one of the +greatest masters of pathos who ever lived. I can myself see scarce a +strained discordant note in the account of the short life and early +death of Paul Dombey, and none in the description of the death of Paul +Dombey's mother, or in the story of Tiny Tim, or in the record of +David Copperfield's childhood and boyhood. I consider the passage in +"American Notes" describing the traits of gentle kindliness among the +emigrants as <span class="pagenum">[Pg 69]<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a></span>being nobly, pathetically eloquent. Did space allow, I +could support my position by quotations and example to any extent. And +my conclusion is that, though he failed with Little Nell, yet he +succeeded elsewhere, and superbly.</p> + +<p>The number of <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i>, containing the conclusion of +"The Old Curiosity Shop," appeared on the 17th of January, 1841, and +"Barnaby Rudge" began its course in the ensuing week. The first had +been essentially a tale of modern life. All the characters that made a +kind of background, mostly grotesque or hideous, for the figure of +Little Nell, were characters of to-day, or at least of the day when +the book was written; for I must not forget that that day ran into the +past some six and forty years ago. Quilp, the dwarf,—and a far finer +specimen of a scoundrel by the by, in every respect, than that poor +stage villain Monks; Sampson Brass and his legal sister Sally, a +goodly pair; Kit, golden-hearted and plain of body, who so barely +escapes from the plot laid by the afore-mentioned worthies to prove +him a thief; Chuckster, most lady-killing of notaries' clerks; Mrs. +Jarley, the good-natured waxwork woman, in whose soul there would be +naught save kindliness, only she cannot bring herself to tolerate +Punch and Judy; Short and Codlin, the Punch and Judy men; the little +misused servant, whom Dick Swiveller in his grandeur creates a +marchioness; and the magnificent Swiveller himself, prince among the +idle and impecunious, justifying by his snatches of song, and flowery +rhetoric, his high position as "perpetual grand-master" among the +"Glorious Apollers,"—all these, making allowance perhaps for some +idealization, were personages of Dickens' own time. But in "Barnaby +Rudge,"<span class="pagenum">[Pg 70]<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a></span> Dickens threw himself back into the last century. The book is +a historical novel, one of the two which he wrote, the other being the +"Tale of Two Cities," and its scenes are many of them laid among the +No Popery Riots of 1780.</p> + +<p>A ghastly time, a time of aimless, brutal incendiarism and mad +turbulence on the part of the mob; a time of weakness and ineptitude +on the part of the Government; a time of wickedness, folly, and +misrule. Dickens describes it admirably. His picture of the riots +themselves seems painted in pigments of blood and fire; and yet, +through all the hurry and confusion, he retains the clearness of +arrangement and lucidity which characterize the pictures of such +subjects when executed by the great masters of the art—as Carlyle, +for example. His portrait of the poor, crazy-brained creature, Lord +George Gordon, who sowed the wind which the country was to reap in +whirlwind, is excellent. Nor is what may be called the private part of +the story unskilfully woven with the historical part. The plot, though +not good, rises perhaps above the average of Dickens' plots; for even +we, his admirers, are scarcely bound to maintain that plot was his +strong point. Beyond this, I think I may say that the book is, on the +whole, the least characteristic of his books. It is the one which +those who are most out of sympathy with his peculiar vein of humour +and pathos will probably think the best, and the one which the true +Dickens lovers will generally regard as bearing the greatest +resemblance to an ordinary novel.</p> + + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> "Dickens in Camp."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Dickens himself knew that he had a tendency to fall into +blank verse in moments of excitement, and tried to guard against it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> M. Daudet, in many respects a follower of Dickens, is a +fine and notable exception.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 71]<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + + +<p>The last number of "Barnaby Rudge" appeared in November, 1841, and, on +the 4th of the following January Dickens sailed with his wife for a +six months' tour in the United States. What induced him to undertake +this journey, more formidable then, of course, than now?</p> + +<p>Mainly, I think, that restless desire to see the world which is strong +in a great many men, and was specially strong in Dickens. Ride as he +might, and walk as he might, his abounding energies remained +unsatisfied. In 1837 there had been trips to Belgium, Broadstairs, +Brighton; in 1838 to Yorkshire, Broadstairs, North Wales, and a fairly +long stay at Twickenham; in 1839 a similar stay at Petersham—where, +as at Twickenham, frolic, gaiety and athletics had prevailed,—and +trips to Broadstairs and Devonshire; in 1840 trips again to Bath, +Birmingham, Shakespeare's country, Broadstairs, Devonshire; in 1841 +more trips, and a very notable visit to Edinburgh, with which Little +Nell had a great deal to do. For Lord Jeffrey was enamoured of that +young lady, declaring to whomsoever <span class="pagenum">[Pg 72]<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></span>would hear that there had been +"nothing so good ... since Cordelia;" and inoculating the citizens of +the northern capital with his enthusiasm, he had induced them to offer +to Dickens a right royal banquet, and the freedom of their city. +Accordingly to Edinburgh he repaired, and the dinner took place on the +26th of June, with three hundred of the chief notabilities for +entertainers, and a reception such as kings might have envied. Jeffrey +himself was ill and unable to take the chair, but Wilson, the leonine +"Christopher North," editor of <i>Blackwood</i>, and author of those +"Noctes Ambrosianæ" which were read so eagerly as they came out, and +which some of us find so difficult to read now—Wilson presided most +worthily. Of speechifying there was of course much, and compliments +abounded. But the banquet itself, the whole reception at Edinburgh was +the most magnificent of compliments. Never, I imagine, can such +efforts have been made to turn any young man's brain, as were made, +during this and the following year, to turn the head of Dickens, who +was still, be it remembered, under thirty. Nevertheless he came +unscathed through the ordeal. A kind of manly genuineness bore him +through. Amid all the adulation and excitement, the public and private +hospitalities, the semi-regal state appearance at the theatre, he +could write, and write truly, to his friend Forster: "The moral of +this is, that there is no place like home; and that I thank God most +heartily for having given me a quiet spirit and a heart that won't +hold many people. I sigh for Devonshire Terrace and Broadstairs, for +battledore and shuttlecock; I want to dine in a blouse with you and +Mac (Maclise).... On Sunday <span class="pagenum">[Pg 73]<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></span>evening, the 17th July, I shall revisit +my household gods, please heaven. I wish the day were here."</p> + +<p>Yes, except during the few years when he and his wife lived unhappily +together, he was greatly attached to his home, with its friendships +and simple pleasures; but yet, as I have said, a desire to see more of +the world, and to garner new experiences, was strong upon him. The two +conflicting influences often warred in his life, so that it almost +seemed sometimes as if he were being driven by relentless furies. +Those furies pointed now with stern fingers towards America, though +"how" he was "to get on" "for seven or eight months without" his +friends, he could not upon his "soul conceive;" though he dreaded "to +think of breaking up all" his "old happy habits for so long a time;" +though "Kate," remembering doubtless her four little children, wept +whenever the subject was "spoken of." Something made him feel that the +going was "a matter of imperative necessity." Washington Irving +beckoned from across the Atlantic, speaking, as Jeffrey had spoken +from Edinburgh, of Little Nell and her far-extended influence. There +was a great reception foreshadowed, and a new world to be seen, and a +book to be written about it. While as to the strongest of the home +ties—the children that brought the tears into Mrs. Dickens' +eyes,—the separation, after all, would not be eternal, and the good +Macready, tragic actor and true friend, would take charge of the +little folk while their parents were away. So Dickens, who had some +time before "begun counting the days between this and coming home +again," set sail, as I have said, for America on the 4th of January, +1842.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 74]<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></span></p> + +<p>And a very rough experience he, and Mrs. Dickens, and Mrs. Dickens' +maid seem to have had during that January passage from Liverpool to +Halifax and Boston. Most of the time it blew horribly, and they were +direfully ill. Then a storm supervened, which swept away the +paddle-boxes and stove in the life-boats, and they seem to have been +in real peril. Next the ship struck on a mud-bank. But dangers and +discomforts must have been forgotten, at any rate to begin with, in +the glories of the reception that awaited the "inimitable,"—as +Dickens whimsically called himself in those days,—when he landed in +the New World. If he had been received with princely honours in +Edinburgh, he was treated now as an emperor in some triumphant +progress. Halifax sounded the first note of welcome, gave, as it were, +the preliminary trumpet flourish. From that town he writes: "I wish +you could have seen the crowds cheering the inimitable in the streets. +I wish you could have seen judges, law-officers, bishops, and +law-makers welcoming the inimitable. I wish you could have seen the +inimitable shown to a great elbow-chair by the Speaker's throne, and +sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the House of Commons, the +observed of all observers, listening with exemplary gravity to the +queerest speaking possible, and breaking, in spite of himself, into a +smile as he thought of this commencement to the thousand and one +stories in reserve for home." At Boston the enthusiasm had swelled to +even greater proportions. "How can I give you," he writes, "the +faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and +out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when I <span class="pagenum">[Pg 75]<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a></span>go out; +of the cheering when I went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, +letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, +assemblies without end?... There is to be a dinner in New York, ... to +which I have had an invitation with every known name in America +appended to it.... I have had deputations from the Far West, who have +come from more than two thousand miles' distance; from the lakes, the +rivers, the backwoods, the log-houses, the cities, factories, +villages, and towns. Authorities from nearly all the states have +written to me. I have heard from the universities, congress, senate, +and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind." All was +indeed going happy as a marriage bell. Did I not rightly say that the +world was conspiring to spoil this young man of thirty, whose youth +had certainly not been passed in the splendour of opulence or power? +What wonder if in the dawn of his American experiences, and of such a +reception, everything assumed a roseate hue? Is it matter for surprise +if he found the women "very beautiful," the "general breeding neither +stiff nor forward," "the good nature universal"; if he expatiated, not +without a backward look at unprogressive Old England, on the +comparative comfort among the working classes, and the absence of +beggars in the streets? But, alas, that rosy dawn ended, as rosy dawns +sometimes will, in sleet and mist and very dirty weather. Before many +weeks, before many days had flown, Dickens was writing in a very +different spirit. On the 24th of February, in the midst of a perfect +ovation of balls and dinners, he writes "with reluctance, +disappointment, and sorrow," that "there is no country on the face of +the earth, where <span class="pagenum">[Pg 76]<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></span>there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in +reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, than in" +the United States. On the 22nd of March he writes again, to Macready, +who seems to have remonstrated with him on his growing discontent: "It +is of no use, I <i>am</i> disappointed. This is not the republic I came to +see; this is not the republic of my imagination. I infinitely prefer a +liberal monarchy—even with its sickening accompaniment of Court +circulars—to such a government as this. The more I think of its youth +and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it +appears in my eyes. In everything of which it has made a boast, +excepting its education of the people, and its care for poor children, +it sinks immeasurably below the level I had placed it upon, and +England, even England, bad and faulty as the old land is, and +miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison.... +Freedom of opinion; where is it? I see a press more mean and paltry +and silly and disgraceful than any country I ever knew.... In the +respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by +tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, I have suffered considerably."</p> + +<p>Extracts like these could be multiplied to any extent, and the +question arises, why did such a change come over the spirit of +Dickens? Washington Irving, at the great New York dinner, had called +him "the guest of the nation." Why was the guest so quickly +dissatisfied with his host, and quarrelling with the character of his +entertainment? Sheer physical fatigue, I think, had a good deal to do +with it. Even at<span class="pagenum">[Pg 77]<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a></span> Boston, before he had begun to travel over the +unending railways, water-courses, and chaotic coach-roads of the great +Republic, that key-note had been sounded. "We are already," he had +written, "weary at times, past all expression." Few men can wander +with impunity out of their own professional sphere, and undertake +duties for which they have neither the training nor acquired tastes. +Dickens was a writer, not a king; and here he was expected to hold a +king's state, and live in a king's publicity, but without the formal +etiquette that hedge a king from intruders, and make his position +tolerable. He was hemmed in by curious eyes, mobbed in the streets, +stared at in his own private rooms, interviewed by the hour, shaken by +the hand till his arm must often have been ready to drop off, waylaid +at every turn with formal addresses. If he went to church the people +crowded into the adjacent pews, and the preacher preached at him. If +he got into a public conveyance, every one inside insisted on an +introduction, and the people outside—say before the train +started—would pull down the windows and comment freely on his nose +and eyes and personal appearance generally, some even touching him as +if to see if he were real. He was safe from intrusion nowhere—no, not +when he was washing and his wife in bed. Such attentions must have +been exhausting to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. But there +was more than mere physical weariness in his growing distaste for the +United States. Perfectly outspoken at all times, and eager for the +strife of tongues in any cause which he had at heart, it horrified him +to find that he was expected not to express himself freely on such +subjects as Inter<span class="pagenum">[Pg 78]<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span>national Copyright, and that even in private, or +semi-private intercourse, slavery was a topic to be avoided. Then I +fear, too, that as he left cultured Boston behind, he was brought into +close and habitual contact with natives whom he did not appreciate. +Rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for Brother Jonathan as +Brother Jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. He +was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough +familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all +means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for +literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and +expectorations. So when Dickens gets to "Niagara Falls, upon the +<i>English</i> side," he puts ten dashes under the word English; and, +meeting two English officers, contrasts them in thought with the men +whom he has just left, and seems, by note of exclamation and italics, +to call upon the world to witness, "what <i>gentlemen</i>, what noblemen of +nature they seemed!"</p> + +<p>And Brother Jonathan, how did <i>he</i> regard his young guest? Well, +Jonathan, great as he was, and greater as he was destined to be, did +not possess the gift of prophecy, and could not of course foresee the +scathing satire of "American Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." But +still, amid all his enthusiasm, I think there must have been a feeling +of uneasiness and disappointment. Part, as there is no doubt, of the +fervour with which he greeted Dickens, was due to his regarding +Dickens as the representative of democratic feeling in aristocratic +England, as the advocate of the poor and down-trodden against the +wealthy and the strong; "and"—thus argued Jonathan—"because <span class="pagenum">[Pg 79]<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a></span>we are +a democracy, therefore Dickens will admire and love us, and see how +immeasurably superior we are to the retrograde Britishers of his +native land." But unfortunately Dickens showed no signs of being +impressed in that particular way. On the contrary, as we have seen, +such comparison as he made in his own mind was infinitely to the +disadvantage of the United States. "We must be cracked up," says +Hannibal Chollop, in "Martin Chuzzlewit," speaking of his fellow +countrymen. And Dickens, even while fêted and honoured, would not +"crack up" the Americans. He lectured them almost with truculence on +their sins in the matter of copyright; he could scarcely be restrained +from testifying against slavery; he was not the man to say he liked +manners and customs which he loathed. Jonathan must have been very +doubtfully satisfied with his guest.</p> + +<p>It is no part of my purpose to follow Dickens lingeringly, and step by +step, from the day when he landed at Halifax, to the 7th of June, when +he re-embarked at New York for England. From Boston he went to New +York, where the great dinner was given with Washington Irving in the +chair, and thence to Philadelphia and Washington,—which was still the +empty "city of magnificent distances," that Mr. Goldwin Smith declares +it has now ceased to be;—and thence again westward, and by Niagara +and Canada back to New York. And if any persons want to know what he +thought about these and other places, and the railway travelling, and +the coach travelling, and the steamboat travelling, and the prisons +and other public institutions—aye, and many other things besides, +they cannot do better than read the "Ameri<span class="pagenum">[Pg 80]<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a></span>can Notes for general +circulation," which he wrote and published within the year after his +return. Nor need such persons be deterred by the fact that Macaulay +thought meanly of the book; for Macaulay, with all his great gifts, +did not, as he himself knew full well, excel in purely literary +criticism. So when he pronounces, that "what is meant to be easy and +sprightly is vulgar and flippant," and "what is meant to be fine is a +great deal too fine for me, as the description of the Falls of +Niagara," one can venture to differ without too great a pang. The +book, though not assuredly one of Dickens' best, contains admirable +passages which none but he could have written, and the description of +Niagara is noticeably fine, the sublimity of the subject being +remembered, as a piece of impassioned prose. Whether satire so bitter +and unfriendly as that in which he indulged, both here and in "Martin +Chuzzlewit," was justifiable from what may be called an international +point of view, is another question. Publicists do not always remember +that a cut which would smart for a moment, and then be forgotten, if +aimed at a countryman, rankles and festers if administered to a +foreigner. And if this be true as regards the English publicist's +comment on the foreigner who does not understand our language, it is, +of course, true with tenfold force as regards the foreigner whose +language is our own. <i>He</i> understands only too well the jibe and the +sneer, and the tone of superiority, more offensive perhaps than +either. Looked at in this way, it can, I think, but be accounted a +misfortune that the most popular of English writers penned two books +containing so much calculated to wound American <span class="pagenum">[Pg 81]<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a></span>feeling, as the +"Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." Nor are signs entirely wanting that, +as the years went by, the mind of Dickens himself was haunted by some +such suspicion. A quarter of a century later, he visited the United +States a second time; and speaking at a public dinner given in his +honour by the journalists of New York, he took occasion to comment on +the enormous strides which the country had made in the interval, and +then said, "Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in +five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had +nothing to learn, and no extreme impressions to correct when I was +here first." And he added that, in all future editions of the two +books just named, he would cause to be recorded, that, "wherever he +had been, in the smallest place equally with the largest, he had been +received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, +hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the +privacy daily enforced upon him by the nature of his avocation there" +(as a public reader), "and the state of his health."</p> + +<p>And now, with three observations, I will conclude what I have to say +about the visit to America in 1842. The first is that the "Notes" are +entirely void of all vulgarity of reference to the private life of the +notable Americans whom Dickens had met. He seems to have known, more +or less intimately, the chief writers of the time—Washington Irving, +Channing, Dana, Bryant, Longfellow, Bancroft; but his intercourse with +them he held sacred, and he made no literary capital out of it. +Secondly, it is pleasant to note that there was, so far, no great +"incompatibility of temper" between him and his wife.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 82]<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></span> He speaks of +her enthusiastically, in his correspondence, as a "most admirable +traveller," and expatiates on the good temper and equanimity with +which she had borne the fatigues and jars of a most trying journey. +And the third point to which I will call attention is the thoroughly +characteristic form of rest to which he had recourse in the midst of +all his toil and travel. Most men would have sought relaxation in +being quiet. He found it in vigorously getting up private theatricals +with the officers of the Coldstream Guards, at Montreal. Besides +acting in all the three pieces played, he also accepted the part of +stage manager; and "I am not," he says, "placarded as stage manager +for nothing. Everybody was told that they would have to submit to the +most iron despotism, and didn't I come Macready over them? Oh no, by +no means; certainly not. The pains I have taken with them, and the +perspiration I have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in +amount anything you can imagine." What bright vitality, and what a +singular charm of exuberant animal spirits!</p> + +<p>And who was glad one evening—which would be about the last evening in +June, or the first of July—when a hackney coach rattled up to the +door of the house in Devonshire Terrace, and four little folk, two +girls and two boys, were hurried down, and kissed through the bars of +the gate, because their father was too eager to wait till it was +opened? Who were glad but the little folk aforementioned—I say +nothing of the joy of father and mother; for children as they were, a +sense of sorrowful loss had been theirs while their parents were away, +and greater strictness seems to have reigned in the <span class="pagenum">[Pg 83]<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a></span>good Macready's +household than in their own joyous home. It is Miss Dickens herself +who tells us this, and in whose memory has lingered that pretty scene +of the kiss through the bars in the summer gloaming. And she has much +to tell us too of her father's tenderness and care,—of his sympathy +with the children's terrors, so that, for instance, he would sit +beside the cot of one of the little girls who had been startled, and +hold her hand in his till she fell asleep; of his having them on his +knees, and singing to them the merriest of comic songs; of his +interest in all their small concerns; of the many pet names with which +he invested them.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Then, as they grew older, there were Twelfth +Night parties and magic lanterns. "Never such magic lanterns as those +shown by him," she says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was +dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he +practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, +lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight +rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private +theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest +himself in his children's occupations, lessons, amusements, and +general welfare." Clearly not one of those brilliant men, a numerous +race, who when away from their homes, in general society, sparkle and +scintillate, flash out their wit, and irradiate all with their humour, +but who, when at home, are dull as rusted steel. Among the many +tributes to his greatness, that of his own child has a place at once +touching and beautiful.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Miss Dickens evidently bears proudly still her pet name +of "Mamie," and signs it to her book.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 84]<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + + +<p>With the return from America began the old life of hard work and hard +play. There was much industrious writing of "American Notes," at +Broadstairs and elsewhere; and there were many dinners of welcome +home, and strolls, doubtless, with Forster and Maclise, and other +intimates, to old haunts, as Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath, +and similar houses of public entertainment. And then in the autumn +there was "such a trip ... into Cornwall," with Forster, and the +painters Stanfield and Maclise for travelling companions. How they +enjoyed themselves to be sure, and with what bubbling, bursting +merriment. "I never laughed in my life as I did on this journey," +writes Dickens, "... I was choking and gasping ... all the way. And +Stanfield got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often +obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could +recover him." Immediately on their return, refreshed and invigorated +by this wholesome hilarity and enjoyment, he threw himself into the +composition of his next book, and the first number of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" appeared in January, 1843.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 85]<a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a></span></p> + +<p>"Martin Chuzzlewit" is unquestionably one of Dickens' great works. He +himself held it to be "in a hundred points" and "immeasurably" +superior to anything he had before written, and that verdict may, I +think, be accepted freely. The plot, as plot is usually understood, +can scarcely indeed be commended. But then plot was never his strong +point. Later in life, and acting, as I have always surmised, under the +influence of his friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, he endeavoured to +construct ingenious stories that turned on mysterious disappearances, +and the substitution of one person for another, and murders real or +suspected. All this was, to my mind, a mistake. Dickens had no real +gift for the manufacture of these ingenious pieces of mechanism. He +did not even many times succeed in disposing the events and +marshalling the characters in his narratives so as to work, by +seemingly unforced and natural means, to a final situation and climax. +Too often, in order to hold his story together and make it move +forward at all, he was compelled to make his personages pursue a line +of conduct preposterous and improbable, and even antagonistic to their +nature. Take this very book. Old Martin Chuzzlewit is a man who has +been accustomed, all through a long life, to have his own way, and to +take it with a high hand. Yet he so far sets aside, during a course of +months, every habit of his life, as to simulate the weakest +subservience to Pecksniff—and that not for the purpose of unmasking +Pecksniff, who wanted no unmasking, but only in order to disappoint +him. Is it believable that old Martin should have thought Pecksniff +worth so much trouble, personal inconvenience, and <span class="pagenum">[Pg 86]<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a></span>humiliation? Or +take again Mr. Boffin in "Our Mutual Friend." Mr. Boffin is a simple, +guileless, open-hearted, open-handed old man. Yet, in order to prove +to Miss Bella Wilfer that it is not well to be mercenary, he, again, +goes through a long course of dissimulation, and does some admirable +comic business in the character of a miser. I say it boldly, I do not +believe Mr. Boffin possessed that amount of histrionic talent. Plots +requiring to be worked out by such means are ill-constructed plots; +or, to put it in another way, a man who had any gift for the +construction of plots would never have had recourse to such means. Nor +would he, I think, have adopted, as Dickens did habitually and for all +his stories, a mode of publication so destructive of unity of effect, +as the publication in monthly or weekly parts. How could the reader +see as a whole that which was presented to him at intervals of time +more or less distant? How, and this is of infinitely greater +importance, how could the writer produce it as a whole? For Dickens, +it must be remembered, never finished a book before the commencement +of publication. At first he scarcely did more than complete each +monthly instalment as required; and though afterwards he was generally +some little way in advance, yet always he wrote by parts, having the +interest of each separate part in his mind, as well as the general +interest of the whole novel. Thus, however desirable in the +development of the story, he dared not risk a comparatively tame and +uneventful number. Moreover, any portion once issued was unalterable +and irrevocable. If, as sometimes happened, any modification seemed +desirable as the book progressed, there was no possibility <span class="pagenum">[Pg 87]<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a></span>of +changing anything in the chapters already in the hands of the public, +and so making them harmonize better with the new.</p> + +<p>But of course, with all this, the question still remains how far +Dickens' comparative failure as a constructor of plots really detracts +from his fame and standing as a novelist. To my mind, I confess, not +very much. Plot I regard as the least essential element in the +novelist's art. A novel can take the very highest rank without it. +There is not any plot to speak of in Lesage's "Gil Blas," and just as +little in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and only a very bad one in +Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield." Coleridge admired the plot of "Tom +Jones," but though one naturally hesitates to differ from a critic of +such superb mastery and power, I confess I have never been struck by +that plot, any more than by the plots, such as they are, in "Joseph +Andrews," or in Smollett's works. Nor, if I can judge of other +people's memories by my own, is it by the mechanism of the story, or +by the intrigue, however admirably woven and unravelled, that one +remembers a work of fiction. These may exercise an intense passing +interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. But +afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly +vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full +coloured, for an indefinite time. Scott's "Guy Mannering" is a +well-constructed story. The plot is deftly laid, the events are +prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as +to be made to look as probable as may be. Yet we remember and love the +book, not for such excellences as these, but for Dandie<span class="pagenum">[Pg 88]<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a></span> Dinmont, the +Border farmer, and Pleydell, the Edinburgh advocate, and Meg +Merrilies, the gipsy. The book's life is in its flesh and blood, not +in its plot. And the same is true of Dickens' novels. He crowds them +so full of human creatures, each with its own individuality and +character, that we have no care for more than just as much story as +may serve to show them struggling, joying, sorrowing, loving. If the +incidents will do this for us we are satisfied. It is not necessary +that those incidents should be made to go through cunning evolutions +to a definite end. Each is admirable in itself, and admirably adapted +to its immediate purpose. That should more than suffice.</p> + +<p>And Dickens sometimes succeeds in reaching a higher unity than that of +mere plot. He takes one central idea, and makes of it the soul of his +novel, animating and vivifying every part. That central idea in +"Martin Chuzzlewit" is the influence of selfishness. The Chuzzlewits +are a selfish race. Old Martin is selfish; and so, with many good +qualities and possibilities of better things, is his grandson, young +Martin. The other branch of the family, Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son +Jonas, are much worse. The latter especially is a horrible creature. +Brought up to think of nothing except his own interests and the main +chance, he is only saved by an accident from the crime of parricide, +and afterwards commits a murder and poisons himself. As his career is +one of terrible descent, so young Martin's is one of gradual +regeneration from his besetting weakness. He falls in love with his +cousin Mary—the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye—and +quarrels about <span class="pagenum">[Pg 89]<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a></span>this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes +into the hard school of adversity. There he learns much. Specially +valuable is the teaching which he gets as a settler in the swampy +backwoods of the United States in company with Mark Tapley, jolliest +and most helpful of men. On his return, he finds his grandfather +seemingly under the influence of Pecksniff, the hypocrite, the English +Tartuffe. But that, as I have already mentioned, is only a ruse. Old +Martin is deceiving Pecksniff, who in due time receives the reward of +his deeds, and all ends happily for those who deserve happiness. Such +is something like a bare outline of the story, with the beauty +eliminated. For what makes its interest, we must go further, to the +household of Pecksniff with his two daughters, Charity and Mercy, and +Tom Pinch, whose beautiful, unselfish character stands so in contrast +to that of the grasping self-seekers by whom he is surrounded; we must +study young Martin himself, whose character is admirably drawn, and +without Dickens' usual tendency to caricature; we must laugh in +sympathy with Mark Tapley; we must follow them both through the +American scenes, which, intensely amusing as they are, must have +bitterly envenomed the wounds inflicted on the national vanity by +"American Notes," and, according to Dickens' own expression, "sent +them all stark staring raving mad across the water;" we must frequent +the boarding establishment for single gentlemen kept by lean Mrs. +Todgers, and sit with Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig as they hideously +discuss their avocations, or quarrel over the shadowy Mrs. Harris; we +must follow Jonas Chuzzlewit on his errand of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 90]<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a></span>murder, and note how +even his felon nature is appalled by the blackness and horror of his +guilt, and how the ghastly terror of it haunts and cows him. A great +book, I say again, a very great book.</p> + +<p>Yet not at the time a successful book. Why Fortune, the fickle jade, +should have taken it into her freakish head to frown, or half frown, +on Dickens at this particular juncture, who shall tell? He was wooing +her with his very best work, and she turned from him. The sale of +"Pickwick" and "Nicholas Nickleby" had been from forty to fifty +thousand copies of each part; the sale of <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i> +had risen still higher; the sale of even the most popular parts of +"Martin Chuzzlewit" fell to twenty-three thousand. This was, as may be +supposed, a grievous disappointment. Dickens' personal expenditure had +not perhaps been lavish in view of what he thought he could calculate +on earning; but it had been freely based on that calculation. Demands, +too, were being made upon his purse by relations,—probably by his +father, and certainly by his brother Frederic, which were frequent, +embarrassing, and made in a way which one may call worse than +indelicate. Any permanent loss of popularity would have meant serious +money entanglements. With his father's career in full view, such a +prospect must have been anything but pleasant. He cast about what he +should do, and determined to leave England for a space, live more +economically on the Continent, and gather materials in Italy or +Switzerland for a new travel book. But before carrying out this +project, he would woo fortune once again, and in a different form. +During the months of<span class="pagenum">[Pg 91]<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a></span> October and November, 1843, in the intervals of +"Chuzzlewit," he wrote a short story that has taken its place, by +almost universal consent, among his masterpieces, nay, among the +masterpieces of English literature: "The Christmas Carol."</p> + +<p>All Dickens' great gifts seem reflected, sharp and distinct, in this +little book, as in a convex mirror. His humour, his best pathos, which +is not that of grandiloquence, but of simplicity, his bright poetic +fancy, his kindliness, all here find a place. It is great painting in +miniature, genius in its quintessence, a gem of perfect water. We may +apply to it any simile that implies excellence in the smallest +compass. None but a fine imagination would have conceived the +supernatural agency that works old Scrooge's moral regeneration—the +ghosts of Christmas past, present, and to come, that each in turn +speaks to the wizened heart of the old miser, so that, almost +unwittingly, he is softened by the tender memories of childhood, +warmed by sympathy for those who struggle and suffer, and appalled by +the prospect of his own ultimate desolation and black solitude. Then +the episodes: the scenes to which these ghostly visitants convey +Scrooge; the story of his earlier years as shown in vision; the +household of the Cratchits, and poor little crippled Tiny Tim; the +party given by Scrooge's nephew; nay, before all these, the terrible +interview with Marley's Ghost. All are admirably executed. Sacrilege +would it be to suggest the alteration of a word. First of the +Christmas books in the order of time, it is also the best of its own +kind; it is in its own order perfect.</p> + +<p>Nor did the public of Christmas, 1843, fail to appreciate <span class="pagenum">[Pg 92]<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a></span>that +something of very excellent quality had been brought forth for their +benefit. "The first edition of six thousand copies," says Forster, +"was sold" on the day of publication, and about as many more would +seem to have been disposed of before the end of February, 1844. But, +alas, Dickens had set his heart on a profit of £1,000, whereas in +February he did not see his way to much more than £460,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and his +unpaid bills for the previous year he described as "terrific." So +something, as I have said, had to be done. A change of front became +imperative. Messrs. Bradbury and Evans advanced him £2,800 "for a +fourth share in whatever he might write during the ensuing eight +years,"—he purchased at the Pantechnicon "a good old shabby devil of +a coach," also described as "an English travelling carriage of +considerable proportions"; engaged a courier who turned out to be the +courier of couriers, a very conjurer among couriers; let his house in +Devonshire Terrace; and so started off for Italy, as I calculate the +dates, on the 1st of July, 1844.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The profit at the end of 1844 was £726.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 93]<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + + +<p>Ah, those eventful, picturesque, uncomfortable old travelling days, +when railways were unborn, or in their infancy; those interminable old +dusty drives, in diligence or private carriage, along miles and miles +of roads running straight to the low horizon, through a line of tall +poplars, across the plains of France! What an old-world memory it +seems, and yet, as the years go, not so very long since after all. The +party that rumbled from Boulogne to Marseilles in the old "devil of a +coach" aforesaid, "and another conveyance for luggage," and I know not +what other conveyances besides, consisted of Dickens himself; Mrs. +Dickens; her sister, Miss Georgina Hogarth, who had come to live with +them on their return from America; five children, for another boy had +been born some six months before; Roche, the prince of couriers; +"Anne," apparently the same maid who had accompanied them across the +Atlantic; and other dependents: a somewhat formidable troupe and +cavalcade. Of their mode of travel, and what they saw on the way, or +perhaps, more accurately, of what Dickens saw, with those specially +keen eyes of his, at<span class="pagenum">[Pg 94]<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a></span> Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, and other +places—one may read the master's own account in the "Pictures from +Italy." Marseilles was reached on the 14th of July, and thence a +steamer took them, coasting the fairy Mediterranean shores, to Genoa, +their ultimate destination, where they landed on the 16th.</p> + +<p>The Italy of 1844 was like, and yet unlike the Italy of to-day. It was +the old disunited Italy of several small kingdoms and principalities, +the Italy over which lowered the shadow of despotic Austria, and of +the Pope's temporal power, not the Italy which the genius of Cavour +has welded into a nation. It was a land whose interest came altogether +from the past, and that lay as it were in the beauty of time's sunset. +How unlike the United States! The contrast has always, I confess, +seemed to me a piquant one. It has often struck me with a feeling of +quaintness that the two countries which Dickens specially visited and +described, were, the one this lovely land of age and hoar antiquity, +and the other that young giant land of the West, which is still in the +garish strong light of morning, and whose great day is in the future. +Nor, I think, before he had seen both, would Dickens himself have been +able to tell on which side his sympathies would lie. Thoroughly +popular in his convictions, thoroughly satisfied that to-day was in +all respects better than yesterday, it is clear that he expected to +find more pleasure in the brand new Republic than his actual +experience warranted. The roughness of the strong, uncultured young +life grated upon him. It jarred upon his sensibilities. But of Italy +he wrote with very different feeling. What though the places were +dirty, the people <span class="pagenum">[Pg 95]<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a></span>shiftless, idle, unpunctual, unbusinesslike, and +the fleas as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? It +mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners +were so full of amenity. Your inn might be, and probably was, +ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors agape, the +windows banging—a contrast in every way to the palatial hotel in New +York or Washington. But then how cheerful and amusing were mine host +and hostess, and how smilingly determined all concerned to make things +pleasant. So the artist in Dickens turned from the new to the old, and +Italy, as she is wont, cast upon him her spell.</p> + +<p>First impressions, however, were not altogether satisfactory. Dickens +owns to a pang when he was "set down" at Albaro, a suburb of Genoa, +"in a rank, dull, weedy courtyard, attached to a kind of pink jail, +and told he lived there." But he immediately adds: "I little thought +that day that I should ever come to have an attachment for the very +stones in the streets of Genoa, and to look back upon the city with +affection, as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet." In +sooth, he enjoyed the place thoroughly. "Martin Chuzzlewit" had left +his hands. He was fairly entitled for a few weeks to the luxury of +idleness, and he threw himself into doing nothing, as he was +accustomed to throw himself into his work, with all energy. And there +was much to do, much especially to see. So Dickens bathed and walked; +and strolled about the city hither and thither, and about the suburbs +and about the surrounding country; and visited public buildings and +private palaces; and noted the ways of the inhabitants; and saw +Genoese life in its varied <span class="pagenum">[Pg 96]<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a></span>forms; and wrote light glancing letters +about it all to friends at home; and learnt Italian; and, in the end +of September, left his "pink jail," which had been taken for him at a +disproportionate rent, and moved into the Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa +itself: a wonderful palace, with an entrance-hall fifty feet high, and +larger than "the dining-room of the Academy," and bedrooms "in size +and shape like those at Windsor Castle, but greatly higher," and a +view from the windows over gardens where the many fountains sparkled, +and the gold fish glinted, and into Genoa itself, with its "many +churches, monasteries, and convents pointing to the sunny sky," and +into the harbour, and over the sapphire sea, and up again to the +encircling hills—a view, as Dickens declared, that "no custom could +impair, and no description enhance."</p> + +<p>But with the beginning of October came again the time for work; and +beautiful beyond all beauty as were his surroundings, the child of +London turned to the home of his heart, and pined for the London +streets. For some little space he seemed to be thinking in vain, and +cudgelling his brains for naught, when suddenly the chimes of Genoa's +many churches, that seemed to have been clashing and clanging nothing +but distraction and madness, rang harmony into his mind. The subject +and title of his new Christmas book were found. He threw himself into +the composition of "The Chimes."</p> + +<p>Earnest at all times in what he wrote, living ever in intense and +passionate sympathy with the world of his imagination, he seems +specially to have put his whole heart into this book. "All my +affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became +as haggard <span class="pagenum">[Pg 97]<a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a></span>as a murderer long before I wrote 'the end,'"—so he told +Lady Blessington on the 20th of November; and to Forster he expressed +the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time, +lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling +people that nothing could obliterate." This was the keynote of "The +Chimes." He intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on +behalf of the poor and down-trodden. His purpose, so far as I can make +it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings, +and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there linger traces +of goodness and kindly feeling. On this I shall have something to say +when discussing "Hard Times," which is somewhat akin to "The Chimes" +in scope and purpose. Meanwhile it cannot honestly be affirmed that +the story justifies the passion that Dickens threw into its +composition. The supernatural machinery is weak as compared with that +of the "Carol." Little Trotty Veck, dreaming to the sound of the bells +in the old church tower, is a bad substitute for Scrooge on his +midnight rambles. Nor are his dreams at all equal, for humour or +pathos, to Scrooge's visions and experiences. And the moral itself is +not clearly brought out. I confess to being a little doubtful as to +what it exactly is, and how it follows from the premises furnished. I +wish, too, that it had been carried home to some one with more power +than little Trotty to give it effect. What was the good of convincing +that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? +He knew it very well. Take from the book the fine imaginative +description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing +of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 98]<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a></span>the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions—and not +much more.</p> + +<p>Such, however, was very far from being Dickens' view. He had +"undergone," he said, "as much sorrow and agitation" in the writing +"as if the thing were real," and on the 3rd of November, when the last +page was written, had indulged "in what women call a good cry;" and, +as usually happens, the child that had cost much sorrow was a child of +special love.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> So, when all was over, nothing would do but he must +come to London to read his book to the choice literary spirits whom he +specially loved. Accordingly he started from Genoa on the 6th of +November, travelled by Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice—where, +such was the enchantment of the place, that he felt it "cruel not to +have brought Kate and Georgy, positively cruel and base";—and thence +again by Verona, Mantua, Milan, the Simplon Pass, Strasbourg, Paris, +and Calais, to Dover, and wintry England. Sharp work, considering all +he had seen by the way, and how effectually he had seen it, for he was +in London on the evening of the 30th of November, and, on the 2nd of +December, reading his little book to the choice spirits aforesaid, all +assembled for the purpose at Forster's house. There they are: they +live for us still in Maclise's drawing, though Time has plied his +scythe among them so effectually, during the forty-two years since +flown, that each has passed into the silent land. There they sit: +Carlyle, not the shaggy Scotch terrier with the melancholy eyes that +we were wont to see in his later days, but close shaven and alert; and +swift-witted Douglas Jerrold; and Laman Blanchard, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 99]<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a></span> +whose name goes darkling in the literature of the last generation; +and Forster himself, journalist and author of many books; and the +painters Dyce, Maclise, and Stanfield; and Byron's friend and school +companion, the clergyman Harness, who, like Dyce, pays to the story +the tribute of his tears.</p> + +<p>Dickens can have been in London but the fewest of few days, for on the +13th of December he was leaving Paris for Genoa, and that after going +to the theatre more than once. From Genoa he started again, on the +20th of January, 1845, with Mrs. Dickens, to see the Carnival at Rome. +Thence he went to Naples, returning to Rome for the Holy Week; and +thence again by Florence to Genoa. He finally left Italy in the +beginning of June, and was back with his family in Devonshire Terrace +at the end of that month.</p> + +<p>To what use of a literary kind should he turn his Italian observations +and experiences? In what form should he publish the notes made by the +way? Events soon answered that question. The year 1845 stands in the +history of Queen Victoria's reign as a time of intense political +excitement. The Corn Law agitation raged somewhat furiously. Dickens +felt strongly impelled to throw himself into the strife. Why should he +not influence his fellow-men, and "battle for the true, the just," as +the able editor of a daily newspaper? Accordingly, after all the +negotiations which enterprises of this kind necessitate, he made the +due arrangements for starting a new paper, <i>The Daily News</i>. It was to +be edited by himself, to "be kept free," the prospectus said, "from +personal influence or party bias," and to be "devoted to <span class="pagenum">[Pg 100]<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a></span>the advocacy +of all rational and honest means by which wrong may be redressed, just +rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted." +His salary, so I have seen it stated, was to be £2,000 a year; and the +first number came out on the morning of the 21st of January, 1846. He +held the post of editor three weeks.</p> + +<p>The world may, I think, on the whole, be congratulated that he did not +hold it longer. Able editors are more easily found than such writers +as Dickens. There were higher claims upon his time. But to return to +the Italian Notes: it was in the columns of <i>The Daily News</i> that they +first saw the light. They were among the baby attractions and charms, +if I may so speak, of the nascent paper, which is now, as I need not +remind my readers, enjoying a hale and vigorous manhood. And admirable +sketches they are. Much, very much has been written about Italy. The +subject has been done to death by every variety of pen, and in every +civilized tongue. But amid all this writing, Dickens' "Pictures from +Italy" still holds a high and distinctive position. That the +descriptions, whether of places and works of art, or of life's +pageantry, and what may be called the social picturesque, should be +graphic, vivid, animated, was almost a matter of course. But <i>à +priori</i>, I think one might have feared lest he should "chaff" the +place and its inhabitants overmuch, and yield to the temptation of +making merriment over matters which hoar age and old associations had +hallowed. We can all imagine the kind of observation that would occur +to Sam Weller in strolling through St. Mark's at Venice, or the +Vatican; and, guessing <span class="pagenum">[Pg 101]<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a></span>beforehand, guessing before the "Pictures" +were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens +should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller. Such +prophecies would have been falsified by the event. The book as a whole +is very free from banter or <i>persiflage</i>. Once and again the comic +side of some situation strikes him, of course. Thus, after the +ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory +of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says: "The whole +thirteen sat down to dinner; grace said by the Pope; Peter in the +chair." But these humorous touches are rare, and not in bad taste; +while for the historic and artistic grandeurs of Italy he shows an +enthusiasm which is <i>individual</i> and discriminating. We feel, in what +he says about painting, that we are getting the fresh impressions of a +man not specially trained in the study of the old masters, but who yet +succeeds, by sheer intuitive sympathy; in appreciating much of their +greatness. His criticism of the paintings at Venice, for instance, is +very decidedly superior to that of Macaulay. In brief the "Pictures," +to give to the book the name which Dickens gave it, are painted with a +brush at once kindly and brilliant.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> He read "The Chimes" at his first reading as a paid +reader.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 102]<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + + +<p>The publication of the "Pictures," though I have dealt with it as a +sort of complement to Dickens' sojourn in Italy, carries us to the +year 1846. But before going on with the history of that year, there +are one or two points to be taken up in the history of 1845. The first +is the performance, on the 21st of September, of Ben Jonson's play of +"Every Man in his Humour," by a select company of amateur actors, +among whom Dickens held chief place. "He was the life and soul of the +entire affair," says Forster. "I never seem till then to have known +his business capabilities. He took everything on himself, and did the +whole of it without an effort. He was stage director, very often stage +carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master. +Without offending any one, he kept every one in order. For all he had +useful suggestions.... He adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, +invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced, +as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he +urged the necessity on others." Dickens had once thought of the stage +as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor +of very unusual power.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 103]<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a></span> But of course he only acted for his amusement, +and I don't know that I should have dwelt upon this performance, which +was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in Forster's +description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a +practical man. The second event to be mentioned as happening in 1845, +is the publication of another very pretty Christmas story, "The +Cricket on the Hearth."</p> + +<p>Though Dickens had ceased to edit <i>The Daily News</i> on the 9th of +February, 1846, he contributed to the paper for some few weeks longer. +But by the month of May his connection with it had entirely ceased; +and on the 31st of that month, he started, by Belgium and the Rhine, +for Lausanne in Switzerland, where he had determined to spend some +time, and commence his next great book, and write his next Christmas +story.</p> + +<p>A beautiful place is Lausanne, as many of my readers will know; and a +beautiful house the house called Rosemont, situated on a hill that +rises from the Lake of Geneva, with the lake's blue waters stretching +below, and across, on the other side, a magnificent panorama of snowy +mountains, the Simplon, St. Gothard, Mont Blanc, towering to the sky. +This delightful place Dickens took at a rent of some £10 a month. Then +he re-arranged all the furniture, as was his energetic wont. Then he +spent a fortnight or so in looking about him, and writing a good deal +for Lord John Russell on Ragged Schools, and for Miss Coutts about her +various charities; and finally, on the 28th of June, as he announced +to Forster in capital letters, <span class="smcap">Began Dombey</span>.</p> + +<p>But as the Swiss pine with home-sickness when away <span class="pagenum">[Pg 104]<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a></span>from their own +dear land, so did this Londoner, amid all the glories of the Alps, +pine for the London streets. It seemed almost as if they were +essential to the exercise of his genius. The same strange mental +phenomenon which he had observed in himself at Genoa was reproduced +here. Everything else in his surroundings smiled most congenially. The +place was fair beyond speech. The shifting, changing beauty of the +mountains entranced him. The walks offered an endless variety of +enjoyment. He liked the people. He liked the English colony. He had +made several dear friends among them and among the natives. He was +interested in the politics of the country, which happened, just then, +to be in a state of peculiar excitement and revolution. Everything was +charming;—"but," he writes, "the toil and labour of writing, day +after day, without that magic-lantern (of the London streets) is +IMMENSE!" It literally knocked him up. He had "bad nights," was "sick +and giddy," desponding over his book, more than half inclined to +abandon the Christmas story altogether for that year. However, a short +trip to Geneva, and the dissipation of a stroll or so in its +thoroughfares, to remind him, as it were, of what streets were like, +and a week of "idleness" "rusting and devouring," "complete and +unbroken," set him comparatively on his legs again, and before he left +Lausanne for Paris on the 16th of November, he had finished three +parts of "Dombey," and the "Battle of Life."</p> + +<p>Of the latter I don't know that I need say anything. It is decidedly +the weakest of his Christmas books. But "Dombey" is very different +work, and the first five <span class="pagenum">[Pg 105]<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a></span>numbers especially, which carry the story to +the death of little Paul, contain passages of humour and pathos, and +of humour and pathos mingled together and shot in warp and woof, like +some daintiest silken fabric, that are scarcely to be matched in the +language. As I go in my mind through the motherless child's short +history—his birth, his christening, the engagement of the wet-nurse, +the time when he is consigned to the loveless care of Mrs. Pipchin, +his education in Dr. Blimber's Academy under the classic Cornelia, and +his death—as I follow it all in thought, now smiling at each +well-remembered touch of humour, and now saddened and solemnized as +the shadow of death deepens over the frail little life, I confess to +something more than critical admiration for the writer as an artist. I +feel towards him as towards one who has touched my heart. Of course it +is the misfortune of the book, regarding it as a whole, that the +chapters relating to Paul, which are only an episode, should be of +such absorbing interest, and come so early. Dickens really wrote them +too well. They dwarf the rest of the story. We find a difficulty in +resuming the thread of it with the same zest when the child is gone. +But though the remainder of the book inevitably suffers in this way, +it ought not to suffer unduly. Even apart from little Paul the novel +is a fine one. Pride is its subject, as selfishness is that of "Martin +Chuzzlewit." Mr. Dombey, the city merchant, has as much of the +arrogance of caste and position as any blue-blooded hidalgo. He is as +proud of his name as if he had inherited it from a race of princes. +That he neglects and slights his daughter, and loves his son, is +mainly because the latter will add a sort <span class="pagenum">[Pg 106]<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a></span>of completeness to the +firm, and make it truly Dombey <i>and Son</i>, while the girl, for all +commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his +pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his +confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, +first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into +large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, +certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her +birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his +social prestige—she, with ungovernable pride equal to his own, +revolts against his authority, and, in order to humiliate him the +more, pretends to elope with Carker, whom in turn she scorns and +crushes. Broken thus in fortune and honour, Mr. Dombey yet falls not +ignobly. His creditors he satisfies in full, reserving to himself +nothing; and with a softened heart turns to the daughter he had +slighted, and in her love finds comfort. Such is the main purport of +the story, and round it, in graceful arabesques, are embroidered, +after Dickens' manner, a whole world of subsidiary incidents thronged +with all sorts of characters. What might not one say about Dr. +Blimber's genteel academy at Brighton; and the Toodles family, so +humble in station and intellect and so large of heart; and the +contrast between Carker the manager and his brother, who for some +early dishonest act, long since repented of, remains always Carker the +junior; and about Captain Cuttle, and that poor, muddled nautical +philosopher, Captain Bunsby, and the Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin, +and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix with wilful legs so little under +control, and yet to the core of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 107]<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a></span>him a gentleman; and the apoplectic +Major Bagstock, the Joey B. who claimed to be "rough and tough and +devilish sly;" and Susan Nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and +as sharp? Reader, don't you know all these people? For myself, I have +jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. They +are as much part of my life as the people I meet every day.</p> + +<p>But there is one person whom I have left out of my enumeration, not +certainly because I don't know him, for I know him very well, but +because I want to speak about him more particularly. That person is my +old friend, Mr. Toots; and the special point in his character which +induces me to linger is the slight touch of craziness that sits so +charmingly upon him. M. Taine, the French critic, in his chapters on +Dickens, repeats the old remark that genius and madness are near +akin.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> He observes, and observes truly, that Dickens describes so +well because an imagination of singular intensity enables him to <i>see</i> +the object presented, and at the same time to impart to it a kind of +visionary life. "That imagination," says M. Taine, "is akin to the +imagination of the monomaniac." And, starting from this point, he +proceeds to show, here again quite truly, with what admirable +sympathetic power and insight Dickens has described certain cases of +madness, as in Mr. Dick. But here, having said some right things, M. +Taine goes all wrong. According to him, these portraits of persons who +have lost their wits, "however amusing they may seem at first sight," +are "horrible." They could only have been painted by "an imagination +such as that of Dickens, excessive, dis<span class="pagenum">[Pg 108]<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a></span>ordered, and capable of +hallucination." He seems to be not far from thinking that only our +splenetic and melancholy race could have given birth to such literary +monsters. To speak like this, as I conceive, shows a singular +misconception of the instinct or set purpose that led Dickens to +introduce these characters into his novels at all. It is perfectly +true that he has done so several times. Barnaby Rudge, the hero of the +book of the same name, is half-witted. Mr. Dick, in "David +Copperfield," is decidedly crazy. Mr. Toots is at least simple. Little +Miss Flite, in "Bleak House," haunting the Law Courts in expectation +of a judgment on the Day of Judgment, is certainly not <i>compos +mentis</i>. And one may concede to M. Taine that some element of sadness +must always be present when we see a human creature imperfectly gifted +with man's noblest attribute of reason. But, granting this to the +full, is it possible to conceive of anything more kindly and gentle in +the delineation of partial insanity than the portraits which the +French critic finds horrible? Barnaby Rudge's lunatic symptoms are +compatible with the keenest enjoyment of nature's sights and sounds, +fresh air and free sunlight, and compatible with loyalty and high +courage. Many men might profitably change their reason for his +unreason. Mr. Dick's flightiness is allied to an intense devotion and +gratitude to the woman who had rescued him from confinement in an +asylum; there lives a world of kindly sentiments in his poor +bewildered brains. Of Mr. Toots, Susan Nipper says truly, "he may not +be a Solomon, nor do I say he is, but this I do say, a less selfish +human creature human nature <span class="pagenum">[Pg 109]<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a></span>never knew." And to this one may add that +he is entirely high-minded, generous, and honourable. Miss Flite's +crazes do not prevent her from being full of all womanly sympathies. +Here I think lies the charm these characters had for Dickens. As he +was fond of showing a soul of goodness in the ill-favoured and +uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered +intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. M. +Taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. I think myself it would be +possible to find a better adjective.</p> + +<p>Dickens was at work on "Dombey and Son" during the latter part of the +year 1846, and the whole of 1847, and the early part of 1848. We left +him on the 16th of November, in the first of these years, starting +from Lausanne for Paris, which he reached on the evening of the 20th. +Here he took a house—a "preposterous" house, according to his own +account, with only gleams of reason in it; and visited many theatres; +and went very often to the Morgue, where lie the unowned dead; and had +pleasant friendly intercourse with the notable French authors of the +time, Alexandre Dumas the Great, most prolific of romance writers; and +Scribe of the innumerable plays; and the poets Lamartine and Victor +Hugo; and Chateaubriand, then in his sad and somewhat morose old age. +And in Paris too, with the help of streets and crowded ways, he wrote +the great number of Dombey, the number in which little Paul dies. +Three months did Dickens spend in the French capital, the incomparable +city, and then was back in London, at the old life of hard work; but +with even a stronger <span class="pagenum">[Pg 110]<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a></span>infusion than before of private +theatricals—private theatricals on a grandiose scale, that were +applauded by the Queen herself, and took him and his troupe starring +about during the next three or four years, hither and thither, and +here and there, in London and the provinces. "Splendid strolling" +Forster calls it; and a period of unmixed jollity and enjoyment it +seems to have been. Of course Dickens was the life and soul of it all. +Mrs. Cowden Clarke, one of the few survivors, looking back to that +happy time, says enthusiastically, "Charles Dickens, beaming in look, +alert in manner, radiant with good humour, genial-voiced, gay, the +very soul of enjoyment, fun, good taste, and good spirits, admirable +in organizing details and suggesting novelty of entertainment, was of +all beings the very man for a holiday season."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The proceeds of the +performances were devoted to various objects, but chiefly to an +impossible "Guild of Literature and Art," which, in the sanguine +confidence of its projectors, and especially of Dickens, was to +inaugurate a golden age for the author and the artist. But of all +this, and of Dickens' speeches at the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, and +Glasgow Athenæum, in the December of 1847, I don't know that I need +say very much. The interest of a great writer's life is, after all, +mainly in what he writes; and when I have said that "Dombey" proved to +be a pecuniary success, the first six numbers realizing as much as +£2,820, I think I may fairly pass on to Dickens' next book, the +"Haunted Man."</p> + +<p>This was his Christmas story for 1848; the last, and +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 111]<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a></span> +not the worst of his Christmas stories. Both conception and treatment +are thoroughly characteristic. Mr. Redlaw, a chemist, brooding over an +ancient wrong, comes to the conclusion that it would be better for +himself, better for all, if, in each of us, every memory of the past +could be cancelled. A ghostly visitant, born of his own resentment and +gloom, gives him the boon he seeks, and enables him to go about the +world freezing all recollection in those he meets. And lo the boon +turns out to be a curse. His presence blights those on whom it falls. +For with the memory of past wrongs, goes the memory of past benefits, +of all the mutual kindlinesses of life, and each unit of humanity +becomes self-centred and selfish. Two beings alone resist his +influence—one, a creature too selfishly nurtured for any of mankind's +better recollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the +spell, and even, finally, to exorcise it in Mr. Redlaw's own breast.</p> + +<p>"David Copperfield" was published between May, 1849, and the autumn of +1850, and marks, I think, the culminating point in Dickens' career as +a writer. So far there had been, not perhaps from book to book, but on +the whole, decided progress, the gradual attainment of greater ease, +and of the power of obtaining results of equal power by simpler means. +Beyond this there was, if not absolute declension, for he never wrote +anything that could properly be called careless and unworthy of +himself, yet at least no advance. Of the interest that attaches to the +book from the fact that so many portions are autobiographical, I have +already spoken; nor need I go over the ground again. But quite apart +from such adventitious <span class="pagenum">[Pg 112]<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a></span>attractions, the novel is an admirable one. +All the scenes of little David's childhood in the Norfolk home—the +Blunderstone rookery, where there were no rooks—are among the most +beautiful pictures of childhood in existence. In what sunshine of love +does the lad bask with his mother and Peggotty, till Mrs. Copperfield +contracts her disastrous second marriage with Mr. Murdstone! Then how +the scene changes. There come harshness and cruelty; banishment to Mr. +Creakle's villainous school; the poor mother's death; the worse +banishment to London, and descent into warehouse drudgery; the strange +shabby-genteel, happy-go-lucky life with the Micawbers; the flight +from intolerable ills in the forlorn hope that David's aunt will take +pity on him. Here the scene changes again. Miss Betsy Trotwood, a fine +old gnarled piece of womanhood, places the boy at school at +Canterbury, where he makes acquaintance with Agnes, the woman whom he +marries far, far on in the story; and with her father, Mr. Wickham, a +somewhat port wine-loving lawyer; and with Uriah Heep, the fawning +villain of the piece. How David is first articled to a proctor in +Doctors' Commons, and then becomes a reporter, and then a successful +author; and how he marries his first wife, the childish Dora, who +dies; and how, meanwhile, Uriah is effecting the general ruin, and +aspiring to the hand of Agnes, till his villanies are detected and his +machinations defeated by Micawber—how all this comes about, would be +a long story to tell. But, as is usual with Dickens, there are +subsidiary rills of story running into the main stream, and by one of +these I should like to linger a moment. The head-boy, and a kind of +parlour-boarder, at Mr. Creakles'<span class="pagenum">[Pg 113]<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a></span> establishment, is one Steerforth, +the spoilt only son of a widow. This Steerforth, David meets again +when both are young men, and they go down together to Yarmouth, and +there David is the means of making him known to a family of +fisherfolk. He is rich, handsome, with an indescribable charm, +according to his friends' testimony, and he induces the fisherman's +niece, the pretty Em'ly, to desert her home, and the young +boat-builder to whom she is engaged, and to fly to Italy. Now to this +story, as Dickens tells it, French criticism objects that he dwells +exclusively on the sin and sorrow, and sets aside that in which the +French novelist would delight, viz., the mad force and irresistible +sway of passion. To which English criticism may, I think, reply, that +the "pity of it," the wide-working desolation, are as essentially part +of such an event as the passion; and, therefore, even from an +exclusively artistic point of view, just as fit subjects for the +novelist.</p> + +<p>While "David Copperfield" was in progress, Dickens started on a new +venture. He had often before projected a periodical, and twice, as we +have seen,—once in <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i>, and again as editor of +<i>The Daily News</i>,—had attempted quasi-journalism or its reality. But +now at last he had struck the right vein. He had discovered a means of +utilizing his popularity, and imparting it to a paper, without being +under the crushing necessity of writing the whole of that paper +himself. The first number of <i>Household Words</i> appeared on the 30th of +March, 1850.</p> + +<p>The "preliminary word" heralds the paper in thoroughly characteristic +fashion, and is, not unnaturally, far more <span class="pagenum">[Pg 114]<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a></span>personal in tone than the +first leading article of the first number of <i>The Daily News</i>, though +that, too, be it said in passing, bears traces, through all its +officialism, of having come from the same pen.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> In introducing +<i>Household Words</i> to his new readers, Dickens speaks feelingly, +eloquently, of his own position as a writer, and the responsibilities +attached to his popularity, and tells of his hope that a future of +instruction, and amusement, and kindly playful fancy may be in store +for the paper. Nor were his happy anticipations belied. All that he +had promised, he gave. <i>Household Words</i> found an entrance into +innumerable homes, and was everywhere recognized as a friend. Never +did editor more strongly impress his own personality upon his staff. +The articles were sprightly, amusing, interesting, and instructive +too—often very instructive, but always in an interesting way. That +was one of the periodical's main features. The pill of knowledge was +always presented gilt. Taking <i>Household Words</i> and <i>All the Year +Round</i> together—and for this purpose they may properly be regarded as +one and the same paper, because the change of name and proprietorship +in 1859<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> brought no change in form or character,—taking them +together, I say, they contain a vast quantity of very pleasant, if not +very profound, reading. Even apart from the stories, one can do very +much worse than while away an hour, now and again, in gleaning here +and there <span class="pagenum">[Pg 115]<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a></span>among their pages. Among Dickens' own contributions may be +mentioned "The Child's History of England," and "Lazy Tour of Two Idle +Apprentices"—being the record of an excursion made by him in 1857, +with Mr. Wilkie Collins; and "The Uncommercial Traveller" papers. +While as to stories, "Hard Times" appeared in <i>Household Words</i>; and +"The Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," in <i>All the Year +Round</i>. And to the Christmas numbers he gave some of his best and +daintiest work. Nor were novels and tales by other competent hands +wanting. Here it was that Mrs. Gaskell gave to the world those papers +on "Cranford" that are so full of a dainty, delicate humour, and "My +Lady Ludlow," and "North and South," and "A Dark Night's Work." Here, +too, Mr. Wilkie Collins wove together his ingenious threads of plot +and mystery in "The Moonstone," "The Woman in White," and "No Name." +And here also Lord Lytton published "A Strange Story," and Charles +Reade his "Very Hard Cash."</p> + +<p>The year 1851 opened sadly for Dickens. His wife, who had been +confined of a daughter in the preceding August, was so seriously +unwell that he had to take her to Malvern. His father, to whom, +notwithstanding the latter's peculiarities and eccentricities, he was +greatly attached, died on the 31st of March; and on the 14th of April +his infant daughter died also. In connection with this latter death +there occurred an incident of great pathos. Dickens had come up from +Malvern on the 14th, to take the chair at the dinner on behalf of the +Theatrical Fund, and looking in at Devonshire Terrace on his way, +played with the children, as <span class="pagenum">[Pg 116]<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a></span>was his wont, and fondled the baby, and +then went on to the London Tavern.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Shortly after he left the +house, the child died, suddenly. The news was communicated to Forster, +who was also at the dinner, and he decided that it would be better not +to tell the poor father till the speech of the evening had been made. +So Dickens made his speech, and a brilliant one it was—it is +brilliant even as one reads it now, in the coldness of print, without +the glamour of the speaker's voice, and presence, and yet brilliant +with an undertone of sadness, which the recent death of the speaker's +father would fully explain. And Forster, who knew of the yet later +blow impending on his friend, had to sit by and listen as that dear +friend, all unconscious of the dread application of the words, spoke +of "the actor" having "sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of +suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part;" and then went +on to tell how "all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do +violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in fighting this +great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and +responsibilities."</p> + +<p>In this same year, 1851, Dickens left the house in Devonshire Terrace, +now grown too small for his enlarging household, and, after a long +sojourn at Broadstairs, moved into Tavistock House, in Tavistock +Square. Here "Bleak House" was begun at the end of November, the first +number being published in the ensuing March. It is a fine work of art +unquestionably, a very fine work of art—the canvas all crowded with +living figures, and yet <span class="pagenum">[Pg 117]<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a></span>the main lines of the composition +well-ordered and harmonious. Two threads of interest run through the +story, one following the career of Lady Dedlock, and the other tracing +the influence of a great Chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its +toils. From the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily +interwoven. Let us take Lady Dedlock's thread first. She is the wife +of Sir Leicester Dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a +great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though +no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of +manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. But in her +past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest +disposition walks her kindly course through the story, who might call +Lady Dedlock "mother." This secret, or perhaps rather the fact that +there is a secret at all, she reveals in a moment of surprise to the +family lawyer; and she lays herself still further open to his +suspicions by going, disguised in her maid's clothes, to the poor +graveyard where her former lover lies buried. The lawyer worms the +whole story out, and, just as he is going to reveal it, is murdered by +the French maid aforesaid. But the murder comes too late to save my +lady, nay, adds to her difficulties. She flies, in anticipation of the +disclosure of her secret, and is found dead at the graveyard gate. To +such end has the sin of her youth led her. So once again has Dickens +dwelt, not on the passionate side of wrongful love, but on its sorrow. +Now take the other thread—the Chancery suit—"Jarndyce <i>versus</i> +Jarndyce," a suit held in awful reverence by the profession as a +"monument of Chancery practice"—a suit seemingly interminable, till, +after long, long years of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 118]<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a></span>wrangling and litigation, the fortuitous +discovery of a will settles it all, with the result that the whole +estate has been swallowed up in the costs. And how about the +litigants? How about poor Richard Carstone and his wife, whom we see, +in the opening of the story, in all the heyday and happiness of their +youth, strolling down to the court—they are its wards,—and wondering +sadly over the "headache and heartache" of it all, and then saying, +gleefully, "at all events Chancery will work none of its bad influence +on <i>us</i>"? "None of its bad influence on <i>us</i>!" poor lad, whose life is +wasted and character impaired in following the mirage of the suit, and +who is killed by the mockery of its end. Thus do the two intertwined +stories run; but apart from these, though all in place and keeping, +and helping on the general development, there is a whole profusion of +noticeable characters. In enumerating them, however baldly, one +scarcely knows where to begin. The lawyer group—clerks and all—is +excellent. Dickens' early experiences stood him in good stead here. +Excellent too are those studies in the ways of impecuniosity and +practical shiftlessness, Harold Skimpole, the airy, irresponsible, +light-hearted epicurean, with his pretty tastes and dilettante +accomplishments, and Mrs. Jellyby, the philanthropist, whose eyes "see +nothing nearer" than Borrioboola-Gha, on the banks of the far Niger, +and never dwell to any purpose on the utter discomfort of the home of +her husband and children. Characters of this kind no one ever +delineated better than Dickens. That Leigh Hunt, the poet and +essayist, who had sat for the portrait of Skimpole, was not altogether +flattered by the likeness, is comprehensible <span class="pagenum">[Pg 119]<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a></span>enough; and in truth it +is unfair, both to painter and model, that we should take such +portraits too seriously. Landor, who sat for the thunderous and kindly +Boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. Besides these one may +mention Joe, the outcast; and Mr. Turveydrop, the beau of the school +of the Regency—how horrified he would have been at the +juxtaposition—and George, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine +soldierly figure; and Mr. Bucket, the detective—though Dickens had a +tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. As to Sir +Leicester Dedlock, I think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best +study of the aristocracy, a direction in which Dickens' forte did not +lie, for Sir Leicester <i>is</i> a gentleman, and receives the terrible +blow that falls upon him in a spirit at once chivalrous and human.</p> + +<p>What between "Bleak House," <i>Household Words</i>, and "The Child's +History of England," Dickens, in the spring of 1853, was overworked +and ill. Brighton failed to restore him; and he took his family over +to Boulogne in June, occupying there a house belonging to a certain M. +de Beaucourt. Town, dwelling, and landlord, all suited him exactly. +Boulogne he declared to be admirable for its picturesqueness in +buildings and life, and equal in some respects to Naples itself. The +dwelling, "a doll's house of many rooms," embowered in roses, and with +a terraced garden, was a place after his own heart. While as to the +landlord—he was "wonderful." Dickens never tires of extolling his +virtues, his generosity, his kindness, his anxiety to please, his +pride in "the property." All the pleasant delicate quaint traits in +the man's character are irradiated as if with French sun<span class="pagenum">[Pg 120]<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a></span>shine in his +tenant's description. It is a dainty little picture and painted with +the kindliest of brushes. Poor Beaucourt, he was "inconsolable" when +he and Dickens finally parted three years afterwards—for twice again +did the latter occupy a house, but not this same house, on "the +property." Many were the tears that he shed, and even the garden, the +loved garden, went forlorn and unweeded. But that was in 1856. The +parting was not so final and terrible in the October of 1853, when +Dickens, having finished "Bleak House," started with Mr. Wilkie +Collins, and Augustus Egg, the artist, for a holiday tour in +Switzerland and Italy.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "History of English Literature," vol. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> "Recollections of Writers," by Charles and Mary Cowden +Clarke.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> As, for instance, in such expressions as this: "The +stamp on newspapers is not like the stamp on universal medicine +bottles, which licenses anything, however false and monstrous."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The last number of <i>Household Words</i> appeared on the +28th of May, 1859, and the first of <i>All the Year Round</i> on the 30th +of April, 1859.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> There are one or two slight discrepancies between +Forster's narrative and that of Miss Dickens and Miss Hogarth. The +latter are clearly more likely to be right on such a matter.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 121]<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + + +<p>On his return to England, just after the Christmas of 1853, Dickens +gave his first public readings. He had, as we have seen, read "The +Chimes" some nine years before, to a select few among his literary +friends; and at Lausanne he had similarly read portions of "Dombey and +Son." But the three readings given at Birmingham, on the 27th, 29th, +and 30th December, 1853, were, in every sense, public entertainments, +and, except that the proceeds were devoted entirely to the local +Institute, differed in no way from the famous readings by which he +afterwards realized what may almost be called a fortune. The idea of +coming before the world in this new character had long been in his +mind. As early as 1846, after the private reading at Lausanne, he had +written to Forster: "I was thinking the other day that in these days +of lecturings and readings, a great deal of money might possibly be +made (if it were not <i>infra dig.</i>) by one's having readings of one's +own books. I think it would take immensely. What do you say?" Forster +said then, and said consistently throughout, that he held the thing to +<i>be</i> "<i>infra dig.</i>," and unworthy of Dickens' position; <span class="pagenum">[Pg 122]<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a></span>and in this I +think one may venture to assert that Forster was wrong. There can +surely be no reason why a popular writer, who happens also to be an +excellent elocutionist, should not afford general pleasure by giving +sound to his prose, and a voice to his imaginary characters. Nor is it +opposed to the fitness of things that he should be paid for his skill. +If, however, one goes further in Dickens' case, and asks whether the +readings did not involve too great an expenditure of time, energy, +and, as we shall see, ultimately of life, and whether he would not, in +the highest sense, have been better employed over his books,—why then +the question becomes more difficult of solution. But, after all, each +man must answer such questions for himself. Dickens may have felt, as +the years began to tell, that he required the excitement of the +readings for mental stimulus, and that he would not even have written +as much as he did without them. Be that as it may, the success at +Birmingham, where a sum of from £400 to £500 was realized, the +requests that poured in upon him to read at other places, the +invariably renewed success whenever he did so, the clear evidence that +a large sum was to be realized if he determined to come forward on his +own account, all must have contributed to scatter Forster's objections +to the winds. On the 29th of April, 1858, at St. Martin's Hall, in +London, he started his career as a paid public reader, and he +continued to read, with shorter or longer periods of intermission, +till his death. But into the story of his professional tours it is not +my intention just now to enter. I shall only stay to say a few words +about the character and quality of his readings.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 123]<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a></span></p> + +<p>That they were a success can readily be accounted for. The mere desire +to see and hear Dickens, the great Dickens, the novelist who was more +than popular, who was the object of real personal affection on the +part of the English-speaking race,—this would have drawn a crowd at +any time. But Dickens was not the man to rely upon such sources of +attraction, any more than an actress who is really an actress will +consent to rely exclusively on her good looks. "Whatever is worth +doing at all is worth doing well," such as we have seen was one of the +governing principles of his life; and he read very well. Of +nervousness there was no trace in his composition. To some one who +asked him whether he ever felt any shyness as a speaker, he answered, +"Not in the least; the first time I took the chair (at a public +dinner) I felt as much confidence as if I had done the thing a hundred +times." This of course helped him much as a reader, and gave him full +command over all his gifts. But the gifts were also assiduously +cultivated. He laboured, one might almost say, agonized, to make +himself a master of the art. Mr. Dolby, who acted as his "manager," +during the tours undertaken from 1866 to 1870, tells us that before +producing "Dr. Marigold," he not only gave a kind of semi-public +rehearsal, but had rehearsed it to himself considerably over two +hundred times. Writing to Forster Dickens says: "You have no idea how +I have worked at them [the readings].... I have tested all the serious +passion in them by everything I know, made the humorous points much +more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; ... I learnt +'Dombey' like the rest, and did it to myself often <span class="pagenum">[Pg 124]<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a></span>twice a day, with +exactly the same pains as at night, over, and over, and over again."</p> + +<p>The results justified the care and effort bestowed. There are, +speaking generally, two schools of readers: those who dramatize what +they read, and those who read simply, audibly, with every attention to +emphasis and point, but with no effort to do more than slightly +indicate differences of personage or character. To the latter school +Thackeray belonged. He read so as to be perfectly heard, and perfectly +understood, and so that the innate beauty of his literary style might +have full effect. Dickens read quite differently. He read not as a +writer to whom style is everything, but as an actor throwing himself +into the world he wished to bring before his hearers. He was so +careless indeed of pure literature, in this particular matter, that he +altered his books for the readings, eliminating much of the narrative, +and emphasizing the dialogue. He was pre-eminently the dramatic +reader. Carlyle, who had been dragged to "Hanover Rooms," to "the +complete upsetting," as he says, "of my evening habitudes, and +spiritual composure," was yet constrained to declare: "Dickens does it +capitally, such as <i>it</i> is; acts better than any Macready in the +world; a whole tragic, comic, heroic, <i>theatre</i> visible, performing +under one <i>hat</i>, and keeping us laughing—in a sorry way, some of us +thought—the whole night. He is a good creature, too, and makes fifty +or sixty pounds by each of these readings." "A whole theatre"—that is +just the right expression minted for us by the great coiner of +phrases. Dickens, by mere play of voice, for the gestures were +comparatively sober, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 125]<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a></span>placed before you, on his imaginary stage, the +men and women he had created. There Dr. Marigold pattered his +cheap-jack phrases; and Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig, with throats +rendered husky by much gin, had their memorable quarrel; and Sergeant +Buzfuz bamboozled that stupid jury; and Boots at the Swan told his +pretty tale of child-elopement; and Fagin, in his hoarse Jew whisper, +urged Bill Sikes to his last foul deed of murder. Ay me, in the great +hush of the past there are tones of the reader's voice that still +linger in my ears! I seem to hear once more the agonized quick +utterance of poor Nancy, as she pleads for life, and the dread +stillness after the ruffian's cruel blows have fallen on her upturned +face. Again comes back to me the break in Bob Cratchit's voice, as he +speaks of the death of Tiny Tim. As of old I listen to poor little +Chops, the dwarf, declaring, very piteously, that his "fashionable +friends" don't use him well, and put him on the mantel-piece when he +refuses to "have in more champagne-wine," and lock him in the +sideboard when he "won't give up his property." And I <i>see</i>—yes, I +declare I <i>see</i>, as I saw when Dickens was reading, such was the +illusion of voice and gesture—that dying flame of Scrooge's fire, +which leaped up when Marley's ghost came in, and then fell again. Nor +can I forbear to mention, among these reminiscences, that there is +also a passage in one of Thackeray's lectures that is still in my ears +as on the evening when I heard it. It is a passage in which he spoke +of the love that children had for the works of his more popular rival, +and told how his own children would come to him and ask, "Why don't +you write books like Mr. Dickens?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 126]<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + + +<p>Chancery had occupied a prominent place in "Bleak House." +Philosophical radicalism occupied the same kind of position in "Hard +Times," which was commenced in the number of <i>Household Words</i> for the +1st of April, 1854. The book, when afterwards published in a complete +form, bore a dedication to Carlyle; and very fittingly so, for much of +its philosophy is his. Dickens, like Kingsley, and like Mr. Ruskin and +Mr. Froude, and so many other men of genius and ability, had come +under the influence of the old Chelsea sage.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> And what are the +ideas which "Hard Times" is thus intended to popularize? These: that +men are not merely intellectual calculating machines, with reason and +self-interest for motive power, but creatures possessing also +affections, feelings, fancy—a whole world of emotions that lie +outside the ken of the older school of political economists. +Therefore, to imagine that they can live and flourish on facts alone +is a fallacy and pernicious; as is also the notion that any human +relations can be <span class="pagenum">[Pg 127]<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a></span>permanently established on a basis of pure supply +and demand. If we add to this an unlimited contempt for Parliament, as +a place where the national dustmen are continually stirring the +national dust to no purpose at all, why then we are pretty well +advanced in the philosophy of Carlyle. And how does Dickens illustrate +these points? We are at Coketown, a place, as its name implies, of +smoke and manufacture. Here lives and flourishes Thomas Gradgrind, "a +man of realities; a man of facts and calculations;" not essentially a +bad man, but bound in an iron system as in a vice. He brings up his +children on knowledge, and enlightened self-interest exclusively; and +the boy becomes a cub and a mean thief, and the girl marries, quite +without love, a certain blustering Mr. Bounderby, and is as nearly as +possible led astray by the first person who approaches her with the +language of gallantry and sentiment. Mr. Bounderby, her husband, is, +one may add, a man who, in mere lying bounce, makes out his humble +origin to be more humble than it is. On the other side of the picture +are Mr. Sleary and his circus troupe; and Cissy Jupe, the daughter of +the clown; and the almost saintly figures of Stephen Blackpool, and +Rachel, a working man and a working woman. With these people facts are +as naught, and self-interest as dust in the balance. Mr. Sleary has a +heart which no brandy-and-water can harden, and he enables Mr. +Gradgrind to send off the wretched cub to America, refusing any +guerdon but a glass of his favourite beverage. The circus troupe are +kindly, simple, loving folk. Cissy Jupe proves the angel of the +Gradgrind household. Stephen is the victim of unjust persecution <span class="pagenum">[Pg 128]<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a></span>on +the part of his own class, is suspected, by young Gradgrind's +machinations, of the theft committed by that young scoundrel, falls +into a disused pit as he is coming to vindicate his character, and +only lives long enough to forgive his wrongs, and clasp in death the +hand of Rachel—a hand which in life could not be his, as he had a +wife alive who was a drunkard and worse. A marked contrast, is it not? +On one side all darkness, and on the other all light. The demons of +fact and self-interest opposed to the angels of fancy and +unselfishness. A contrast too violent unquestionably. Exaggeration is +the fault of the novel. One may at once allow, for instance, that +Rachel and Stephen, though human nature in its infinite capacity may +include such characters, are scarcely a typical working woman and +working man. But then neither, heaven be praised, are Coupeau the sot, +and Gervaise the drab, in M. Zola's "Drink"—and, for my part, I think +Rachel and Stephen the better company.</p> + +<p>"Sullen socialism"—such is Macaulay's view of the political +philosophy of "Hard Times." "Entirely right in main drift and +purpose"—such is the verdict of Mr. Ruskin. Who shall decide between +the two? or, if a decision be necessary, then I would venture to say, +yes, entirely right in feeling. Dickens is right in sympathy for those +who toil and suffer, right in desire to make their lives more human +and beautiful, right in belief that the same human heart beats below +all class distinctions. But, beyond this, a novelist only, not a +philosopher, not fitted to grapple effectively with complex social and +political problems, and to solve them to right conclusions.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 129]<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a></span> There are +some things unfortunately which even the best and kindest instincts +cannot accomplish.</p> + +<p>The last chapter of "Hard Times" appeared in the number of <i>Household +Words</i> for the 12th of August, 1854, and the first number of "Little +Dorrit" came out at Christmas, 1855. Between those dates a great war +had waxed and waned. The heart of England had been terribly moved by +the story of the sufferings and privations which the army had had to +undergo amid the snows of a Russian winter. From the trenches before +Sebastopol the newspaper correspondents had sent terrible accounts of +death and disease, and of ills which, as there seemed room for +suspicion, might have been prevented by better management. Through +long disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed +to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. A great demand arose +for reform in the whole administration of the country. A movement, now +much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the +purpose of making the civil service more efficient, and putting John +Bull's house in order. "Administrative Reform," such was the cry of +the moment, and Dickens uttered it with the full strength of his +lungs. He attended a great meeting held at Drury Lane Theatre on the +27th of June, in furtherance of the cause, and made what he declared +to be his first political speech. He spoke on the subject again at the +dinner of the Theatrical Fund. He urged on his friends in the press to +the attack. He was in the forefront of the battle. And when his next +novel, "Little Dorrit," appeared, there was the Civil Service, like a +sort of gibbeted Punch, executing the strangest antics.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 130]<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a></span></p> + +<p>But the "Circumlocution Office," where the clerks sit lazily devising +all day long "how <i>not</i> to do" the business of the country, and devote +their energies alternately to marmalade and general insolence,—the +"Circumlocution Office" occupies after all only a secondary position +in the book. The main interest of it circles round the place that had +at one time been almost a home to Dickens. Again he drew upon his +earlier experiences. We are once more introduced into a debtors' +prison. Little Dorrit is the child of the Marshalsea, born and bred +within its walls, the sole living thing about the place on which its +taint does not fall. Her worthless brother, her sister, her +father—who is not only her father, but the "father of the +Marshalsea"—the prison blight is on all three. Her father especially +is a piece of admirable character-drawing. Dickens has often been +accused of only catching the surface peculiarities of his personages, +their outward tricks, and obvious habits of speech and of mind. Such a +study as Mr. Dorrit would alone be sufficient to rebut the charge. No +novelist specially famed for dissecting character to its innermost +recesses could exhibit a finer piece of mental analysis. We follow the +poor weak creature's deterioration from the time when the helpless +muddle in his affairs brings him into durance. We note how his +sneaking pride seems to feed even on the garbage of his degradation. +We see how little inward change there is in the man himself when there +comes a transformation scene in his fortunes, and he leaves the +Marshalsea wealthy and prosperous. It is all thoroughly worked out, +perfect, a piece of really great art. No wonder that Mr. Clennam +pities the child of <span class="pagenum">[Pg 131]<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a></span>such a father; indeed, considering what a really +admirable woman she is, one only wonders that his pity does not sooner +turn to love.</p> + +<p>"Little Dorrit" ran its course from December, 1855, to June, 1857, and +within that space of time there occurred two or three incidents in +Dickens' career which should not pass unnoticed. At the first of these +dates he was in Paris, where he remained till the middle of May, 1856, +greatly fêted by the French world of letters and art; dining hither +and thither; now enjoying an Arabian Nights sort of banquet given by +Emile de Girardin, the popular journalist; now meeting George Sand, +the great novelist, whom he describes as "just the sort of woman in +appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly +nurse—chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed;" then studying French +art, and contrasting it with English art, somewhat to the disadvantage +of the latter; anon superintending the translation of his works into +French, and working hard at "Little Dorrit;" and all the while +frequenting the Paris theatres with great assiduity and admiration. +Meanwhile, too, on the 14th of March, 1856, a Friday, his lucky day as +he considered it, he had written a cheque for the purchase of Gad's +Hill Place, at which he had so often looked when a little lad, living +penuriously at Chatham—the house which it had been the object of his +childish ambition to win for his own.</p> + +<p>So had merit proved to be not without its visible prize, literally a +prize for good conduct. He took possession of the house in the +following February, and turned workmen into it, and finished "Little +Dorrit" there. At first the purchase was intended mainly as an +investment, and he <span class="pagenum">[Pg 132]<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a></span>only purposed to spend some portion of his time at +Gad's Hill, letting it at other periods, and so recouping himself for +the interest on the £1,790 which it had cost, and for the further sums +which he expended on improvements. But as time went on it became his +hobby, the love of his advancing years. He beautified here and +beautified there, built a new drawing-room, added bedrooms, +constructed a tunnel under the road, erected in the "wilderness" on +the other side of the road a Swiss châlet, which had been presented to +him by Fechter, the French-English actor, and in short indulged in all +the thousand and one vagaries of a proprietor who is enamoured of his +property. The matter seems to have been one of the family jokes; and +when, on the Sunday before his death, he showed the conservatory to +his younger daughter, and said, "Well, Katey, now you see <i>positively</i> +the last improvement at Gad's Hill," there was a general laugh. But +this is far on in the story; and very long before the building of the +conservatory, long indeed before the main other changes had been made, +the idea of an investment had been abandoned. In 1860 he sold +Tavistock House, in London, and made Gad's Hill Place his final home.</p> + +<p>Even here, however, I am anticipating; for before getting to 1860 +there is in Dickens' history a page which one would willingly turn +over, if that were possible, in silence and sadness. But it is not +possible. No account of his life would be complete, and what is of +more importance, true, if it made no mention of his relations with his +wife.</p> + +<p>For some time before 1858 Dickens had been in an <span class="pagenum">[Pg 133]<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a></span>over-excited, +nervous, morbid state. During earlier manhood his animal spirits and +fresh energy had been superb. Now, as the years advanced, and +especially at this particular time, the energy was the same; but it +was accompanied by something of feverishness and disease. He could not +be quiet. In the autumn of 1857 he wrote to Forster, "I have now no +relief but in action. I am become incapable of rest. I am quite +confident I should rust, break, and die if I spared myself. Much +better to die doing." And again, a little later, "If I couldn't walk +fast and far, I should just explode and perish." It was the +foreshadowing of such utterances as these, and the constant wanderings +to and fro for readings and theatricals and what not, that led Harriet +Martineau, who had known and greatly liked Dickens, to say after +perusing the second volume of his life, "I am much struck by his +hysterical restlessness. It must have been terribly wearing to his +wife." On the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that his +wife wore <i>him</i>. "Why is it," he had said to Forster in one of the +letters from which I have just quoted, "that, as with poor David +(Copperfield), a sense comes always crushing on me now, when I fall +into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one +friend and companion I have never made?" And again: "I find that the +skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." Then +come even sadder confidences: "Poor Catherine and I are not made for +each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes +me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too, and much more so. +She is exactly what you know in the way <span class="pagenum">[Pg 134]<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a></span>of being amiable and +complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is +between us.... Her temperament will not go with mine." And at last, in +March, 1858, two months before the end: "It is not with me a matter of +will, or trial, or sufferance, or good humour, or making the best of +it, or making the worst of it, any longer. It is all despairingly +over." So, after living together for twenty years, these two went +their several ways in May, 1858. Dickens allowed to his wife an income +of £600 a year, and the eldest son went to live with her. The other +children and their aunt, Miss Hogarth, remained with Dickens himself.</p> + +<p>Scandal has not only a poisonous, but a busy tongue, and when a +well-known public man and his wife agree to live apart, the beldame +seldom neglects to give her special version of the affair. So it +happened here. Some miserable rumour was whispered about to the +detriment of Dickens' morals. He was at the time, as we have seen, in +an utterly morbid, excited state, sore doubtless with himself, and +altogether out of mental condition, and the lie stung him almost to +madness. He published an article branding it as it deserved in the +number of <i>Household Words</i> for the 12th of June, 1858.</p> + +<p>So far his course of action was justifiable. Granted that it was +judicious to notice the rumour at all, and to make his private affairs +the matter of public comment, then there was nothing in the terms of +the article to which objection could be taken. It contained no +reflection of any kind on Mrs. Dickens. It was merely an honest man's +indignant protest against an anonymous libel which implicated others +as well as himself. Whether <span class="pagenum">[Pg 135]<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a></span>the publication, however, was judicious +is a different matter. Forster thinks not. He holds that Dickens had +altogether exaggerated the public importance of the rumour, and the +extent of its circulation. And this, according to my own recollection, +is entirely true. I was a lad at the time, but a great lover of +Dickens' works, as most lads then were, and I well remember the +feeling of surprise and regret which that article created among us of +the general public. At the same time, it is only fair to Dickens to +recollect that the lying story was, at least, so far fraught with +danger to his reputation, that Mrs. Dickens would seem for a time to +have believed it; and further, that Dickens occupied a very peculiar +position towards the public, and a position that might well in his own +estimation, and even in ours, give singular importance to the general +belief in his personal character.</p> + +<p>This point will bear dwelling upon. Dickens claimed, and claimed +truly, that the relation between himself and the public was one of +exceptional sympathy and affection. Perhaps an illustration will best +show what that kind of relationship was. Thackeray tells of two ladies +with whom he had, at different times, discussed "The Christmas Carol," +and how each had concluded by saying of the author, "God bless him!" +God bless him!—that was the sort of feeling towards himself which +Dickens had succeeded in producing in most English hearts. He had +appealed from the first and so constantly to every kind and gentle +emotion, had illustrated so often what is good and true in human +character, had pleaded the cause of the weak and suffering with such +assiduity, <span class="pagenum">[Pg 136]<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a></span>had been so scathingly indignant at all wrong; and he had +moreover shown such a manly and chivalrous purity in all his utterance +with regard to women, that his readers felt for him a kind of personal +tenderness, quite distinct from their mere admiration for his genius +as a writer. Nor was that feeling based on his books alone. So far as +one could learn at the time, no great dissimilarity existed between +the author and the man. We all remember Byron's corrosive remark on +the sentimentalist Sterne, that he "whined over a dead ass, and +allowed his mother to die of hunger." But Dickens' feelings were by no +means confined to his pen. He was known to be a good father and a good +friend, and of perfect truth and honesty. The kindly tolerance for the +frailties of a father or brother which he admired in Little Dorrit, he +was ready to extend to his own father and his own brother. He was most +assiduous in the prosecution of his craft as a writer, and yet had +time and leisure of heart at command for all kinds of good and +charitable work. His private character had so far stood above all +floating cloud of suspicion.</p> + +<p>That Dickens felt an honourable pride in the general affection he +inspired, can readily be understood. He also felt, even more +honourably, its great responsibility. He knew that his books and he +himself were a power for good, and he foresaw how greatly his +influence would suffer if a suspicion of hypocrisy—the vice at which +he had always girded—were to taint his reputation. Here, for +instance, in "Little Dorrit," the work written in the thick of his +home troubles, he had written of Clennam as "a man who had, +deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things +his life had been without," and <span class="pagenum">[Pg 137]<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a></span>had shown how this belief had "saved +Clennam still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of +holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come +into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in +the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the +basest elements." A touching utterance if it expressed the real +feeling of a writer sorely disappointed and in great trouble; but an +utterance moving rather to contempt if it came from a writer who had +transferred his affections from his wife to some other woman. I do not +wonder, therefore, that Dickens, excited and exasperated, spoke out, +though I think it would have been better if he had kept silence.</p> + +<p>But he did other things that were not justifiable. He quarrelled with +Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, his publishers, because they did not use +their influence to get <i>Punch</i>, a periodical in which Dickens had no +interest, to publish the personal statement that had appeared in +<i>Household Words</i>; and worse, much worse, he wrote a letter, which +ought never to have been written, detailing the grounds on which he +and his wife had separated. This letter, dated the 28th of May, 1858, +was addressed to his secretary, Arthur Smith, and was to be shown to +any one interested. Arthur Smith showed it to the London correspondent +of <i>The New York Tribune</i>, who naturally caused it to be published in +that paper. Then Dickens was horrified. He was a man of far too high +and chivalrous feeling not to know that the letter contained +statements with regard to his wife's failings which ought never to +have been made public. He knew as well as any one, that a literary man +ought not to take the world into <span class="pagenum">[Pg 138]<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a></span>his confidence on such a subject. +Ever afterwards he referred to the letter as his "violated letter." +But, in truth, the wrong went deeper than the publication. The letter +should never have been written, certainly never sent to Arthur Smith +for general perusal. Dickens' only excuse is the fact that he was +clearly not himself at the time, and that he never fell into a like +error again. It is, however, sad to notice how entirely his wife seems +to have passed out of his affection. The reference to her in his will +is almost unkind; and when death was on him she seems not to have been +summoned to his bedside.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Dickens did not accept the whole Carlyle creed. He +retained a sort of belief in the collective wisdom of the people, +which Carlyle certainly did not share.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 139]<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + + +<p>Dickens' career as a reader reading for money commenced on the 29th of +April, 1858, while the trouble about his wife was at the thickest; +and, after reading in London on sixteen nights, he made a reading tour +in the provinces, and in Scotland and Ireland. In the following year +he read likewise. But meanwhile, which is more important to us than +his readings, he was writing another book. On the 30th of April, 1859, +in the first number of <i>All the Year Round</i>,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> was begun "The Tale +of Two Cities," a simultaneous publication in monthly parts being also +commenced.</p> + +<p>"The Tale of Two Cities" is a tale of the great French Revolution of +1793, and the two cities in question are London and Paris,—London as +it lay comparatively at peace in the days when George III. was king, +and Paris running blood and writhing in the fierce fire of anarchy and +mob rule. A powerful book, unquestionably. No doubt there is in its +heat and glare a reflection from Carlyle's "French Revolution," a book +for which Dickens had the greatest admiration. But that need not be +re<span class="pagenum">[Pg 140]<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a></span>garded as a demerit. Dickens is no pale copyist, and adds fervour +to what he borrows. His pictures of Paris in revolution are as fine as +the London scenes in "Barnaby Rudge;" and the interweaving of the +story with public events is even better managed in the later book than +in the earlier story of the Gordon riots. And the story, what does it +tell? It tells of a certain Dr. Manette, who, after long years of +imprisonment in the Bastille, is restored to his daughter in London; +and of a young French noble, who has assumed the name of Darnay, and +left France in horror of the doings of his order, and who marries Dr. +Manette's daughter; and of a young English barrister, able enough in +his profession, but careless of personal success, and much addicted to +port wine, and bearing a striking personal resemblance to the young +French noble. These persons, and others, being drawn to Paris by +various strong inducements, Darnay is condemned to death as a +<i>ci-devant</i> noble, and the ne'er-do-well barrister, out of the great +pure love he bears to Darnay's wife, succeeds in dying for him. That +is the tale's bare outline; and if any one says of the book that it is +in parts melodramatic, one may fitly answer that never was any portion +of the world's history such a thorough piece of melodrama as the +French Revolution.</p> + +<p>With "The Tale of Two Cities" Hablôt K. Browne's connection with +Dickens, as the illustrator of his books, came to an end. The +"Sketches" had been illustrated by Cruikshank, who was the great +popular illustrator of the time, and it is amusing to read, in the +preface to the first edition of the first series, published in 1836, +how the trembling young author placed himself, as it were, under <span class="pagenum">[Pg 141]<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a></span>the +protection of the "well-known individual who had frequently +contributed to the success of similar undertakings." Cruikshank also +illustrated "Oliver Twist;" and indeed, with an arrogance which +unfortunately is not incompatible with genius, afterwards set up a +rather preposterous claim to have been the real originator of that +book, declaring that he had worked out the story in a series of +etchings, and that Dickens had illustrated <i>him</i>, and not he +Dickens.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> But apart from the drawings for the "Sketches" and +"Oliver Twist," and the first few drawings by Seymour, and two +drawings by Buss,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> in "Pickwick," and some drawings by Cattermole +in <i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i>, and by Samuel Palmer in the "Pictures +from Italy," and by various hands in the Christmas stories—apart from +these, Browne, or "Phiz," had executed the illustrations to Dickens' +novels. Nor, with all my admiration for certain excellent qualities +which his work undeniably possessed, do I think that this was +altogether a good thing. Such, I know, is not a popular opinion. But I +confess I am unable to agree with those critics who, from their +remarks on the recent jubilee edition of "Pickwick," seem to think his +illustrations so pre-eminently fine that they should be permanently +associated with Dickens' stories. The editor of that edition was, in +my view, quite right in treating Browne's illustrations as practically +obsolete. The value of Dickens' works is perennial, and Browne's +illustrations <span class="pagenum">[Pg 142]<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a></span>represent the art fashion of a time only. So, too, I am +unable to see any great cause to regret that Cruikshank's artistic +connection with Dickens came to an end so soon.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> For both Browne +and Cruikshank were pre-eminently caricaturists, and caricaturists of +an old school. The latter had no idea of beauty. His art, very great +art in its way, was that of grotesqueness and exaggeration. He never +drew a lady or gentleman in his life. And though Browne, in my view +much the lesser artist, was superior in these respects to Cruikshank, +yet he too drew the most hideous Pecksniffs, and Tom Pinches, and Joey +B.'s, and a whole host of characters quite unreal and absurd. The +mischief of it is, too, that Dickens' humour will not bear +caricaturing. The defect of his own art as a writer is that it verges +itself too often on caricature. Exaggeration is its bane. When, for +instance, he makes the rich alderman in "The Chimes" eat up poor +Trotty Veck's little last tit-bit of tripe, we are clearly in the +region of broad farce. When Mr. Pancks, in "Little Dorrit," so far +abandons the ordinary ways of mature rent collectors as to ask a +respectable old accountant to "give him a back," in the Marshalsea +court, and leaps over his head, we are obviously in a world of +pantomime. Dickens' comic effects are generally quite forced enough, +and should never be further forced when translated into the sister art +of drawing. Rather, if anything, should they be attenuated. But +unfortunately exaggeration happened to be inherent in the +draftsmanship of both Cruikshank and Browne. <span class="pagenum">[Pg 143]<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a></span>And, having said this, I +may as well finish with the subject of the illustrations to Dickens' +books. "Our Mutual Friend" was illustrated by Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., +then a rising young artist, and the son of Dickens' old friend, Frank +Stone. Here the designs fall into the opposite defect. They are, some +of them, pretty enough, but they want character. Mr. Fildes' pictures +for "Edwin Drood" are a decided improvement. As to the illustrations +for the later <i>Household Edition</i>, they are very inferior. The designs +for a great many are clearly bad, and the mechanical execution almost +uniformly so. Even Mr. Barnard's skill has had no fair chance against +poor woodcutting, careless engraving, and inferior paper. And this is +the more to be regretted, in that Mr. Barnard, by natural affinity of +talent, has, to my thinking, done some of the best art work that has +been done at all in connection with Dickens. His <i>Character Sketches</i>, +especially the lithographed series, are admirable. The Jingle is a +masterpiece; but all are good, and he even succeeds in making +something pictorially acceptable of Little Nell and Little Dorrit.</p> + +<p>Just a year, almost to a day, elapsed between the conclusion of "The +Tale of Two Cities," and the commencement of "Great Expectations." The +last chapter of the former appeared in the number of <i>All the Year +Round</i> for the 26th of November, 1859, and the first chapter of the +latter in the number of the same periodical for the 1st of December, +1860. Poor Pip—for such is the name of the hero of the book—poor +Pip, I think he is to be pitied. Certainly he lays himself open to the +charge of snobbishness, and is unduly ashamed of his connections.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 144]<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a></span> But +then circumstances were decidedly against him. Through some occult +means he is removed from his natural sphere, from the care of his +"rampageous" sister and of her husband, the good, kind, honest Joe, +and taken up to London, and brought up as a gentleman, and started in +chambers in Barnard's Inn. All this is done through the +instrumentality of Mr. Jaggers, a barrister in highest repute among +the criminal brotherhood. But Pip not unnaturally thinks that his +unknown benefactress is a certain Miss Havisham, who, having been +bitterly wronged in her love affairs, lives in eccentric fashion near +his native place, amid the mouldering mementoes of her wedding day. +What is his horror when he finds that his education, comfort, and +prospects have no more reputable foundation than the bounty of a +murderous criminal called Magwitch, who has showered all these +benefits upon him from the antipodes, in return for the gift of food +and a file when he, Magwitch, was trying to escape from the hulks, and +Pip was a little lad. Magwitch, the transported convict, comes back to +England, at the peril of his life, to make himself known to Pip, and +to have the pleasure of looking at that young gentleman. He is again +tracked by the police, and caught, notwithstanding Pip's efforts to +get him off, and dies in prison. Pip ultimately, very ultimately, +marries a young lady oddly brought up by the queer Miss Havisham, and +who turns out to be Magwitch's daughter.</p> + +<p>Such, as I have had occasion to say before in speaking of similar +analyses, such are the dry bones of the story. Pip's character is well +drawn. So is that of Joe. And Mr. Jaggers, the criminal's friend, and +his clerk, Wem<span class="pagenum">[Pg 145]<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a></span>mick, are striking and full of a grim humour. Miss +Havisham and her <i>protégée</i>, Estella, whom she educates to be the +scourge of men, belong to what may be called the melodramatic side of +Dickens' art. They take their place with Mrs. Dombey and with Miss +Dartle in "David Copperfield," and Miss Wade in "Little +Dorrit"—female characters of a fantastic and haughty type, and quite +devoid, Miss Dartle and Miss Wade especially, of either verisimilitude +or the milk of human kindness.</p> + +<p>"Great Expectations" was completed in August, 1861, and the first +number of "Our Mutual Friend" appeared in May, 1864. This was an +unusual interval, but the great writer's faculty of invention was +beginning to lose its fresh spring and spontaneity. And besides he had +not been idle. Though writing no novel, he had been busy enough with +readings, and his work on <i>All the Year Round</i>. He had also written a +short, but very graceful paper<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> on Thackeray, whose death, on the +Christmas Eve of 1863, had greatly affected him. Now, however, he +again braced himself for one of his greater efforts.</p> + +<p>Scarcely, I think, as all will agree, with the old success. In "Our +Mutual Friend" he is not at his best. It is a strange complicated +story that seems to have some difficulty in unravelling itself: the +story of a man who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a +changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young +woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. A +golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give +him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man +aforesaid, and who, to <span class="pagenum">[Pg 146]<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a></span>crown his virtues, pretends to be a miser in +order to teach the young woman, also aforesaid, how bad it is to be +mercenary, and to induce her to marry the unrecognized and seemingly +penniless son; their marriage accordingly, with ultimate result that +the bridegroom turns out to be no poor clerk, but the original heir, +who, of course, is not dead, and is the inheritor of thousands; +subsidiary groups of characters, of course, one which I think rather +uninteresting, of some brand-new people called the Veneerings and +their acquaintances, for they have no friends; and some fine sketches +of the river-side population; striking and amusing characters +too—Silas Wegg, the scoundrelly vendor of songs, who ferrets among +the dust for wills in order to confound the good dustman, his +benefactor; and the little deformed dolls' dressmaker, with her sot of +a father; and Betty Higden, the sturdy old woman who has determined +neither in life nor death to suffer the pollution of the workhouse; +such, with more added, are the ingredients of the story.</p> + +<p>One episode, however, deserves longer comment. It is briefly this: +Eugene Wrayburn is a young barrister of good family and education, and +of excellent abilities and address, all gifts that he has turned to no +creditable purpose whatever. He falls in with a girl, Lizzie Hexham, +of more than humble rank, but of great beauty and good character. She +interests him, and in mere wanton carelessness, for he certainly has +no idea of offering marriage, he gains her affection, neither meaning, +in any definite way, to do anything good nor anything bad with it. +There is another man who loves Lizzie, a schoolmaster, who, in his +dull, plodding way, has made the best <span class="pagenum">[Pg 147]<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a></span>of his intellect, and risen in +life. He naturally, and we may say properly, for no good can come of +them, resents Wrayburn's attentions, as does the girl's brother. +Wrayburn uses the superior advantages of his position to insult them +in the most offensive and brutal manner, and to torture the +schoolmaster, just as he has used those advantages to win the girl's +heart. Whereupon, after being goaded to heart's desire for a +considerable time, the schoolmaster as nearly as possible beats out +Wrayburn's life, and commits suicide. Wrayburn is rescued by Lizzie as +he lies by the river bank sweltering in blood, and tended by her, and +they are married and live happy ever afterwards.</p> + +<p>Now the amazing part of this story is, that Dickens' sympathies +throughout are with Wrayburn. How this comes to be so I confess I do +not know. To me Wrayburn's conduct appears to be heartless, cruel, +unmanly, and the use of his superior social position against the +schoolmaster to be like a foul blow, and quite unworthy of a +gentleman. Schoolmasters ought not to beat people about the head, +decidedly. But if Wrayburn's thoughts took a right course during +convalescence, I think he may have reflected that he deserved his +beating, and also that the woman whose affection he had won was a +great deal too good for him.</p> + +<p>Dickens' misplaced sympathy in this particular story has, I repeat, +always struck me with amazement. Usually his sympathies are so +entirely right. Nothing is more common than to hear the accusation of +vulgarity made against his books. A certain class of people seem to +think, most mistakenly, that because he so often wrote <span class="pagenum">[Pg 148]<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></span>about vulgar +people, uneducated people, people in the lower ranks of society, +therefore his writing was vulgar, nay more, he himself vulgar too. +Such an opinion can only be based on a strange confusion between +subject and treatment. There is scarcely any subject not tainted by +impurity, that cannot be treated with entire refinement. Washington +Irving wrote to Dickens, most justly, of "that exquisite tact that +enabled him to carry his reader through the veriest dens of vice and +villainy without a breath to shock the ear or a stain to sully the +robe of the most shrinking delicacy;" and added: "It is a rare gift to +be able to paint low life without being low, and to be comic without +the least taint of vulgarity." This is well said; and if we look for +the main secret of the inherent refinement of Dickens' books, we shall +find it, I think, in this: that he never intentionally paltered with +right and wrong. He would make allowance for evil, would take pleasure +in showing that there were streaks of lingering good in its blackness, +would treat it kindly, gently, humanly. But it always stood for evil, +and nothing else. He made no attempt by cunning jugglery to change its +seeming. He had no sneaking affection for it. And therefore, I say +again, his attachment to Eugene Wrayburn has always struck me with +surprise. As regards Dickens' own refinement, I cannot perhaps do +better than quote the words of Sir Arthur Helps, an excellent judge. +"He was very refined in his conversation—at least, what I call +refined—for he was one of those persons in whose society one is +comfortable from the certainty that they will never say anything which +can shock other people, or hurt their feelings, be they ever so +fastidious or sensitive."</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> His foolish quarrel with Bradbury and Evans had +necessitated the abandonment of <i>Household Words</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See his pamphlet, "The Artist and the Author." The +matter is fully discussed in his life by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Buss's illustrations were executed under great +disadvantages, and are bad. Those of Seymour are excellent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> I am always sorry, however, that Cruikshank did not +illustrate the Christmas stories.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> See <i>Cornhill Magazine</i> for February, 1864.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 149]<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + + +<p>But we are now, alas, nearing the point where the "rapid" of Dickens' +life began to "shoot to its fall." The year 1865, during which he +partly wrote "Our Mutual Friend," was a fatal one in his career. In +the month of February he had been very ill, with an affection of the +left foot, at first thought to be merely local, but which really +pointed to serious mischief, and never afterwards wholly left him. +Then, on June 9th, when returning from France, where he had gone to +recruit, he as nearly as possible lost his life in a railway accident +at Staplehurst. A bridge had broken in; some of the carriages fell +through, and were smashed; that in which Dickens was, hung down the +side of the chasm. Of courage and presence of mind he never showed any +lack. They were evinced, on one occasion, at the readings, when an +alarm of fire arose. They shone conspicuous here. He quieted two +ladies who were in the same compartment of the carriage; helped to +extricate them and others from their perilous position; gave such help +as he could to the wounded and dying; probably was the means of saving +the life of one man, whom he was the first to hear faintly groaning +under a heap of wreckage; and then, as he tells in the "postscript" to +the book, scrambled <span class="pagenum">[Pg 150]<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a></span>back into the carriage to find the crumpled MS. +of a portion of "Our Mutual Friend."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> But even pluck is powerless +to prevent a ruinous shock to the nerves. Though Dickens had done so +manfully what he had to do at the time, he never fully recovered from +the blow. His daughter tells us how he would often, "when travelling +home from London, suddenly fall into a paroxysm of fear, tremble all +over, clutch the arms of the railway carriage, large beads of +perspiration standing on his face, and suffer agonies of terror.... He +had ... apparently no idea of our presence." And Mr. Dolby tells us +also how in travelling it was often necessary for him to ward off such +attacks by taking brandy. Dickens had been failing before only too +surely; and this accident, like a coward's blow, struck him heavily as +he fell.</p> + +<p>But whether failing or stricken, he bated no jot of energy or courage; +nay, rather, as his health grew weaker, did he redouble the pressure +of his work. I think there is a grandeur in the story of the last five +years of his life, that dwarfs even the tale of his rapid and splendid +rise. It reads like some antique myth of the Titans defying Jove's +thunder. There is about the man something indomitable and heroic. He +had, as we have seen, given a series of readings in 1858-59; and he +gave another in the years 1861 to 1863—successful enough in a +pecuniary sense, but through failure of business capacity on the part +of the manager, entailing on the reader himself a great deal of +anxiety and worry.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Now, in the spring of 1866, +<span class="pagenum">[Pg 151]<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a></span> +with his left foot giving him unceasing trouble, and his nerves +shattered, and his heart in an abnormal state, he accepted an offer +from Messrs. Chappell to read "in England, Ireland, Scotland, and +Paris," for £1,500, and the payment of all expenses, and then to give +forty-two more readings for £2,500. Mr. Dolby, who accompanied Dickens +as business manager in this and the remaining tours, has told their +story in an interesting volume.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Of course the wear was immense. +The readings themselves involved enormous fatigue to one who so +identified himself with what he read, and whose whole being seemed to +vibrate not only with the emotions of the characters in his stories, +but of the audience. Then there was the weariness of long railway +journeys in all seasons and weathers—journeys that at first must have +been rendered doubly tedious, as he could not bear to travel by +express trains. Yet, notwithstanding failure of strength, +notwithstanding fatigue, his native gaiety and good spirits smile like +a gleam of winter sunlight over the narrative. As he had been the +brightest and most genial of companions in the old holiday days when +strolling about the country with his actor-troupe, so now he was +occasionally as frolic as a boy, dancing a hornpipe in the train for +the amusement of his companions, compounding bowls of punch in which +he shared but sparingly—for he was really convivial only in idea—and +always considerate and kindly towards his companions and dependents. +And mingled pathetically with all this are <span class="pagenum">[Pg 152]<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a></span>confessions of pain, +weariness, illness, faintness, sleeplessness, internal bleeding,—all +bravely borne, and never for an instant suffered to interfere with any +business arrangement.</p> + +<p>But if the strain of the readings was too heavy here at home, what was +it likely to be during a winter in America? Nevertheless he +determined, against all remonstrances, to go thither. It would almost +seem as if he felt that the day of his life was waning, and that it +was his duty to gather in a golden harvest for those he loved ere the +night came on. So he sailed for Boston once more on the 9th of +November, 1867. The Americans, it must be said, behaved nobly. All the +old grudges connected with "The American Notes," and "Martin +Chuzzlewit," sank into oblivion. The reception was everywhere +enthusiastic, the success of the readings immense. Again and again +people waited all night, amid the rigours of an almost arctic winter, +in order to secure an opportunity of purchasing tickets as soon as the +ticket office opened. There were enormous and intelligent audiences at +Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia—everywhere. The sum which +Dickens realized by the tour, amounted to the splendid total of nearly +£19,000. Nor, in this money triumph, did he fail to excite his usual +charm of personal fascination, though the public affection and +admiration were manifested in forms less objectionable and offensive +than of old. On his birthday, the 7th of February, 1868, he says, "I +couldn't help laughing at myself ...; it was observed so much as +though I were a little boy." Flowers, garlands were set about his +room; there were presents on his dinner-table, and in the evening the +hall <span class="pagenum">[Pg 153]<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a></span>where he read was decorated by kindly unknown hands. Of public +and private entertainment he might have had just as much as he chose.</p> + +<p>But to this medal there was a terrible reverse. Travelling from New +York to Boston just before Christmas, he took a most disastrous cold, +which never left him so long as he remained in the country. He was +constantly faint. He ate scarcely anything. He slept very little. +Latterly he was so lame, as scarcely to be able to walk. Again and +again it seemed impossible that he should fulfil his night's +engagement. He was constantly so exhausted at the conclusion of the +reading, that he had to lie down for twenty minutes or half an hour, +"before he could undergo the fatigue even of dressing." Mr. Dolby +lived in daily fear lest he should break down altogether. "I used to +steal into his room," he says, "at all hours of the night and early +morning, to see if he were awake, or in want of anything; always +though to find him wide awake, and as cheerful and jovial as +circumstances would admit—never in the least complaining, and only +reproaching me for not taking my night's rest." "Only a man of iron +will could have accomplished what he did," says Mr. Fields, who knew +him well, and saw him often during the tour.</p> + +<p>In the first week of May, 1868, Dickens was back in England, and soon +again in the thick of his work and play. Mr. Wills, the sub-editor of +<i>All the Year Round</i>, had met with an accident. Dickens supplied his +place. Chauncy Hare Townshend had asked him to edit a chaotic mass of +religious lucubrations. He toilfully edited them. Then, with the +autumn, the readings <span class="pagenum">[Pg 154]<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a></span>began again;—for it marks the indomitable +energy of the man that, even amid the terrible physical trials +incident to his tour in America, he had agreed with Messrs. Chappell, +for a sum of £8,000, to give one hundred more readings after his +return. So in October the old work began again, and he was here, +there, and everywhere, now reading at Manchester and Liverpool, now at +Edinburgh and Glasgow, anon coming back to read fitfully in London, +then off again to Ireland, or the West of England. Nor is it necessary +to say that he spared himself not one whit. In order to give novelty +to these readings, which were to be positively the last, he had +laboriously got up the scene of Nancy's murder, in "Oliver Twist," and +persisted in giving it night after night, though of all his readings +it was the one that exhausted him most terribly.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> But of course +this could not last. The pain in his foot "was always recurring at +inconvenient and unexpected moments," says Mr. Dolby, and occasionally +the American cold came back too. In February, in London, the foot was +worse than it had ever been, so bad that Sir Henry Thompson, and Mr. +Beard, his medical adviser, compelled him to postpone a reading. At +Edinburgh, a few days afterwards, Mr. Syme, the eminent surgeon, +strongly recommended perfect rest. Still he battled on, but "with +great personal suffering such as few men could have endured." +Sleeplessness was on him too. And still he fought on, determined, if +it were physically pos<span class="pagenum">[Pg 155]<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a></span>sible, to fulfil his engagement with Messrs. +Chappell, and complete the hundred nights. But it was not to be. +Symptoms set in that pointed alarmingly towards paralysis of the left +side. At Preston, on the 22nd of April, Mr. Beard, who had come +post-haste from London, put a stop to the readings, and afterwards +decided, in consultation with Sir Thomas Watson, that they ought to be +suspended entirely for the time, and never resumed in connection with +any railway travelling.</p> + +<p>Even this, however, was not quite the end; for a summer of comparative +rest, or what Dickens considered rest, seemed so far to have set him +up that he gave a final series of twelve readings in London between +the 11th of January and 15th of March, 1870, thus bringing to its real +conclusion an enterprise by which, at whatever cost to himself, he had +made a sum of about £45,000.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1869, he had gone back to the old work, +and was writing a novel, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." It is a good +novel unquestionably. Without going so far as Longfellow, who had +doubts whether it was not "the most beautiful of all" Dickens' works, +one may admit that there is about it a singular freshness, and no sign +at all of mental decay. As for the "mystery," I do not think <i>that</i> +need baffle us altogether. But then I see no particular reason to +believe that Dickens had wished to baffle us, or specially to rival +Edgar Allan Poe or Mr. Wilkie Collins in the construction of criminal +puzzles. Even though only half the case is presented to us, and the +book remains for ever unfinished, we need have, I think, no difficulty +in working out its conclusion. The course pursued by Mr. Jasper,<span class="pagenum">[Pg 156]<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a></span> Lay +Precentor of the Cathedral at Cloisterham, is really too suspicious. +No intelligent British jury, seeing the facts as they are presented to +us, the readers, could for a moment think of acquitting him of the +murder of his nephew, Edwin Drood. Take those facts seriatim. First, +we have the motive: he is passionately in love with the girl to whom +his nephew is engaged. Then we have a terrible coil of compromising +circumstances: his extravagant profession of devotion to his nephew, +his attempts to establish a hidden influence over the girl's mind to +his nephew's detriment and his own advantage, his gropings amid the +dark recesses of the Cathedral and inquiries into the action of +quicklime, his endeavours to foment a quarrel between Edwin Drood and +a fiery young gentleman from Ceylon, on the night of the murder, and +his undoubted doctoring of the latter's drink. Then, after the murder, +how damaging is his conduct. He falls into a kind of fit on +discovering that his nephew's engagement had been broken off, which he +might well do if his crime turned out to be not only a crime but also +a blunder. And his conduct to the girl is, to say the least of it, +strange. Nor will his character help him. He frequents the opium dens +of the East-end of London. Guilty, guilty, most certainly guilty. +There is nothing to be said in arrest of judgment. Let the judge put +on the black cap, and Jasper be devoted to his merited doom.</p> + +<p>Such was the story that Dickens was unravelling in the spring and +early summer of 1870. And fortune smiled upon it. He had sold the +copyright for the large sum of £7,500, and a half share of the profits +after a <span class="pagenum">[Pg 157]<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a></span>sale of twenty-five thousand copies, plus £1,000 for the +advance sheets sent to America; and the sale was more than answering +his expectations. Nor did prosperity look favourably on the book +alone. It also, in one sense, showered benefits on the author. He was +worth, as the evidence of the Probate Court was to show only too soon, +a sum of over £80,000. He was happy in his children. He was +universally loved, honoured, courted. "Troops of friends," though, +alas! death had made havoc among the oldest, were still his. Never had +man exhibited less inclination to pay fawning court to greatness and +social rank. Yet when the Queen expressed a desire to see him, as she +did in March, 1870, he felt not only pride, but a gentleman's pleasure +in acceding to her wish, and came away charmed from a long chatting +interview. But, while prosperity was smiling thus, the shadows of his +day of life were lengthening, lengthening, and the night was at hand.</p> + +<p>On Wednesday, June 8th, he seemed in excellent spirits; worked all the +morning in the Châlet<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> as was his wont, returned to the house for +lunch and a cigar, and then, being anxious to get on with "Edwin +Drood," went back to his desk once more. The weather was superb. All +round the landscape lay in fullest beauty of leafage and flower, and +the air rang musically with the song of birds. What were his thoughts +that summer day <span class="pagenum">[Pg 158]<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a></span>as he sat there at his work? Writing many years +before, he had asked whether the "subtle liquor of the blood" may not +"perceive, by properties within itself," when danger is imminent, and +so "run cold and dull"? Did any such monitor within, one wonders, warn +him at all that the hand of death was uplifted to strike, and that its +shadow lay upon him? Judging from the words that fell from his pen +that day we might almost think that it was so—we might almost go +further, and guess with what hopes and fears he looked into the +darkness beyond. Never at any time does he appear to have been greatly +troubled by speculative doubt. There is no evidence in his life, no +evidence in his letters, no evidence in his books, that he had ever +seen any cause to question the truth of the reply which Christianity +gives to the world-old problems of man's origin and destiny. For +abstract speculation he had not the slightest turn or taste. In no +single one of his characters does he exhibit any fierce mental +struggle as between truth and error. All that side of human +experience, with its anguish of battle, its despairs, and its +triumphs, seems to have been unknown to him. Perhaps he had the +stronger grasp of other matters in consequence—who knows? But the +fact remains. With a trust quite simple and untroubled, he held +through life to the faith of Christ. When his children were little, he +had written prayers for them, had put the Bible into simpler language +for their use. In his will, dated May 12, 1869, he had said, "I commit +my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, +and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the +broad teaching of the New Testament in <span class="pagenum">[Pg 159]<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a></span>its broad spirit, and to put +no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or +there." And now, on this last day of his life, in probably the last +letter that left his pen, he wrote to one who had objected to some +passage in "Edwin Drood" as irreverent: "I have always striven in my +writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our +Saviour—because I feel it." And with a significance, of which, as I +have said, he may himself have been dimly half-conscious, among the +last words of his unfinished story, written that very afternoon, are +words that tell of glorious summer sunshine transfiguring the city of +his imagination, and of the changing lights, and the song of birds, +and the incense from garden and meadow that "penetrate into the +cathedral" of Cloisterham, "subdue its earthy odour, and preach the +Resurrection and the Life."</p> + +<p>For now the end had come. When he went in to dinner Miss Hogarth +noticed that he looked very ill, and wished at once to send for a +doctor. But he refused, struggled for a short space against the +impending fit, and tried to talk, at last very incoherently. Then, +when urged to go up to his bed, he rose, and, almost immediately, slid +from her supporting arm, and fell on the floor. Nor did consciousness +return. He passed from the unrest of life into the peace of eternity +on the following day, June 9, 1870, at ten minutes past six in the +evening.</p> + +<p>And now he lies in Westminster Abbey, among the men who have most +helped, by deed or thought, to make this England of ours what it is. +Dean Stanley only gave effect to the national voice when he assigned +to him that <span class="pagenum">[Pg 160]<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></span>place of sepulture. The most popular, and in most +respects the greatest novelist of his time; the lord over the laughter +and tears of a whole generation; the writer, in his own field of +fiction, whose like we shall probably not see again for many a long, +long year, if ever; where could he be laid more fittingly for his last +long sleep than in the hallowed resting-place which the country sets +apart for the most honoured of her children?</p> + +<p>So he lies there among his peers in the Southern Transept. Close +beside him sleep Dr. Johnson, the puissant literary autocrat of his +own time; and Garrick, who was that time's greatest actor; and Handel, +who may fittingly claim to have been one of the mightiest musicians of +all time. There sleeps, too, after the fitful fever of his troubled +life, the witty, the eloquent Sheridan. In close proximity rests +Macaulay, the artist-historian and essayist. Within the radius of a +few yards lies all that will ever die of Chaucer, who five hundred +years ago sounded the spring note of English literature, and gave to +all after-time the best, brightest glimpse into mediæval England; and +all that is mortal also of Spenser of the honey'd verse; and of +Beaumont, who had caught an echo of Shakespeare's sweetness if not his +power; and of sturdy Ben Jonson, held in his own day a not unworthy +rival of Shakespeare's self; and of "glorious" and most masculine John +Dryden. From his monument Shakespeare looks upon the place with his +kindly eyes, and Addison too, and Goldsmith; and one can almost +imagine a smile of fellowship upon the marble faces of those later +dead—Burns, Coleridge, Southey, and Thackeray.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 161]<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a></span></p> + +<p>Nor in that great place of the dead does Dickens enjoy cold barren +honour alone. Nearly seventeen years have gone by since he was laid +there—yes, nearly seventeen years, though it seems only yesterday +that I was listening to the funeral sermon in which Dean Stanley spoke +of the simple and sufficient faith in which he had lived and died. But +though seventeen years have gone by, yet are outward signs not wanting +of the peculiar love that clings to him still. As I strolled through +the Abbey this last Christmas Eve I found his grave, and his grave +alone, made gay with the season's hollies. "Lord, keep my memory +green,"—in another sense than he used the words, that prayer is +answered.</p> + +<p>And of the future what shall we say? His fame had a brilliant day +while he lived; it has a brilliant day now. Will it fade into +twilight, without even an after-glow; will it pass altogether into the +night of oblivion? I cannot think so. The vitality of Dickens' works +is singularly great. They are all a-throb, as it were, with hot human +blood. They are popular in the highest sense because their appeal is +universal, to the uneducated as well as the educated. The humour is +superb, and most of it, so far as one can judge, of no ephemeral kind. +The pathos is more questionable, but that too, at its simplest and +best; and especially when the humour is shot with it—is worthy of a +better epithet than excellent. It is supremely touching. Imagination, +fancy, wit, eloquence, the keenest observation, the most strenuous +endeavour to reach the highest artistic excellence, the largest +kindliness,—all these he brought to his life-work. And that work, as +I think, will live, I had almost dared to pro<span class="pagenum">[Pg 162]<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a></span>phesy for ever. Of +course fashions change. Of course no writer of fiction, writing for +his own little day, can permanently meet the needs of all after times. +Some loss of immediate vital interest is inevitable. Nevertheless, in +Dickens' case, all will not die. Half a century, a century hence, he +will still be read; not perhaps as he was read when his words flashed +upon the world in their first glory and freshness, nor as he is read +now in the noon of his fame. But he will be read much more than we +read the novelists of the last century—be read as much, shall I say, +as we still read Scott. And so long as he <i>is</i> read, there will be one +gentle and humanizing influence the more at work among men.</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><b>THE END.</b></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> For his own graphic account of the accident, see his +"Letters."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> He computed that he had made £12,000 by the two first +series of readings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> "Charles Dickens as I Knew Him." By George Dolby. Miss +Dickens considers this "the best and truest picture of her father yet +written."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Mr. Dolby remonstrated on this, and it was in connection +with a very slight show of temper on the occasion that he says: "In +all my experiences with the Chief that was the only time I ever heard +him address angry words to any one."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The Châlet, since sold and removed, stood at the edge of +a kind of "wilderness," which is separated from Gad's Hill Place by +the high road. A tunnel, constructed by Dickens, connects the +"wilderness" and the garden of the house. Close to the road, in the +"wilderness," and fronting the house, are two fine cedars.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 163]<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a></span></p> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2> + + +<p> + </p> +<p> +<b>A.</b></p><p>"Administrative Reform" agitation, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></p> +<p> +<i>All the Year Round</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></p> +<p>America, Dickens' first visit to United States in 1842, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></p> +<p>         second visit in 1867-8, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a></p> +<p>"American Notes," <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>B.</b></p> +<p>"Barnaby Rudge," <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></p> +<p>Barnard, Mr., his illustrations to Dickens' works, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></p> +<p>"Battle of Life," <a href="#Page_104">104</a></p> +<p><i>Bentley's Miscellany</i> edited by Dickens, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></p> +<p>"Bleak House," <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a></p> +<p>Boulogne, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></p> +<p>Bret Harte, Mr., on Little Nell, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p> +<p>Browne, or "Phiz," his illustrations to Dickens' works, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>C.</b></p> +<p>Carlyle, his description of Dickens quoted, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</p> +<p>           and of Dickens' reading, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;<br /> +           his influence on Dickens, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;<br /> +           see also <a href="#Page_98">98</a> and <a href="#Page_139">139</a></p> +<p>Chapman and Hall, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></p> +<p>Chatham, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></p> +<p>Childhood, Dickens' feeling for its pathos, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></p> +<p>"Child's History of England," <a href="#Page_115">115</a></p> +<p>"Chimes," <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> +<p>"Christmas Carol," <a href="#Page_91">91</a>-<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></p> +<p>"Christopher North," <a href="#Page_72">72</a></p> +<p>Cowden Clarke, Mrs., quoted, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></p> +<p>Cruikshank, his illustrations to "Sketches" and "Oliver Twist," <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>D.</b></p> +<p><i>Daily News</i>, started with Dickens as editor, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 164]<a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a></span></p> +<p>"David Copperfield"—in many respects autobiographical, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>-<a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</p> +<p>           +analysis of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_113">113</a></p> +<p>Dick, Mr., <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></p> +<p>Dickens, Charles, birth, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</p> +<p>          childhood and boyhood, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>;<br /> +          school experiences, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, +26;<br /> +          law experiences, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br /> +          experiences as reporter for the press, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br /> +          first attempts at authorship, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>-<a href="#Page_33">33</a>;<br /> +          marriage, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;<br /> +          his personal appearance in early manhood, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;<br /> +          influence of his early training, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>;<br /> +          pecuniary position after publication of "Pickwick," <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;<br /> +          habits of work and relaxation, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br /> +          reception at Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;<br /> +          American experiences, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>;<br /> +          affection for his children, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br /> +          Italian experiences, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br /> +          appointed editor of <i>Daily News</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;<br /> +          efficiency in practical matters, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;<br /> +          his charm as a holiday companion, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;<br /> +          first public readings in 1853, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;<br /> +          character of his reading, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;<br /> +          purchase of Gad's Hill Place, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;<br /> +          separation from his wife, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_138">138</a>;<br /> +          general love in which he was held, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;<br /> +          tendency to caricature in his art, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;<br /> +          essential refinement in his writing and in himself, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;<br /> +          his presence of mind, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;<br /> +          his brave battle against failing strength, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a>;<br /> +          with what thoughts he faced death, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;<br /> +          his death, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;<br /> +          resting-place in Westminster Abbey, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br /> +          love that clings to his memory, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br /> +          future of his fame, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></p> +<p>Dickens, John, his character, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</p> +<p>          his imprisonment, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br /> +          his death, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></p> +<p>Dickens, Miss, biography of her father, quoted, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></p> +<p>Dickens, Mrs. (Dickens' mother), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> +<p>Dickens, Mrs., <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</p> +<p>          separated from her husband, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_138">138</a></p> +<p>Dolby, Mr., manager for the readings, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></p> +<p>"Dombey and Son," <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></p> +<p>Dombey, Paul, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>E.</b></p> +<p>Edinburgh, Dickens' reception there, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></p> +<p>"Edwin Drood," <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>F.</b></p> +<p>Fildes, Mr. L., A.R.A., illustrates "Edwin Drood," <a href="#Page_143">143</a></p> +<p>Flite, Miss, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></p> +<p>Forster, John, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</p> +<p>          his opinion on the advisability of public readings, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>G.</b></p> +<p>Gad's Hill Place, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</p> +<p>          purchase of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></p> +<p>Genoa, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></p> +<p>Grant, Mr. James, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></p> +<p>"Great Expectations," <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_145">145</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>H.</b></p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 165]<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a></span></p> +<p>"Hard Times," <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a></p> +<p>"Haunted Man," The, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a></p> +<p>Helps, Sir Arthur, on Dickens' powers of observation, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</p> +<p>          on his essential refinement, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></p> +<p>Hogarth, Mary, her death and character, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>-<a href="#Page_53">53</a></p> +<p>Horne, on description of Little Nell's death and burial, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a></p> +<p><i>Household Words</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p> +<p>Humour of Dickens, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>I.</b></p> +<p>Italy in 1844, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_95">95</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>J.</b></p> +<p>Jeffrey, his opinion of Little Nell, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>L.</b></p> +<p>Landor, his admiration for Little Nell, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</p> +<p>          his likeness to Mr. Boythorn, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></p> +<p>Lausanne, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></p> +<p>Leigh Hunt, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></p> +<p>"Little Dorrit," <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-<a href="#Page_143">143</a></p> +<p>Little Nell, criticism on her character and story, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></p> +<p>London, Dickens' knowledge of, and walks in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_56">56</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>M.</b></p> +<p>Macaulay, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></p> +<p>Macready, the tragic actor, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p> +<p>Marshalsea Prison, Dickens' father imprisoned there, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</p> +<p>          made the chief scene of "Little Dorrit," <a href="#Page_130">130</a></p> +<p>"Martin Chuzzlewit," <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a></p> +<p><i>Master Humphrey's Clock</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p> +<p>Micawber, Mr., <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>N.</b></p> +<p>Nickleby, Mrs., <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p> +<p>"Nicholas Nickleby," <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>O.</b></p> +<p>"Old Curiosity Shop," <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>-<a href="#Page_69">69</a></p> +<p>"Oliver Twist," <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p> +<p>"Our Mutual Friend," <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-<a href="#Page_147">147</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>P.</b></p> +<p>Paris, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></p> +<p>Pathos of Dickens, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>-<a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></p> +<p>"Pickwick," <a href="#Page_40">40</a>-<a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p> +<p>"Pictures from Italy," <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a></p> +<p>Pipchin, Mrs., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></p> +<p>Plots, Dickens', <a href="#Page_85">85</a>-<a href="#Page_88">88</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>Q.</b></p> +<p><i>Quarterly Review</i> foretells Dickens' speedy downfall, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>R.</b></p> +<p>Readings, Dickens', <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a></p> +<p>Ruskin, Mr., his opinion of "Hard Times," <a href="#Page_128">128</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>S.</b></p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 166]<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a></span></p> +<p>Sam Weller, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></p> +<p>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></p> +<p>Seymour, his connection with "Pickwick," <a href="#Page_40">40</a>-<a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p> +<p>"Sketches by Boz," <a href="#Page_31">31</a>-<a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p> +<p>Stanley, Dean, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></p> +<p>Stone, Mr. Marcus, R.A., illustrates "Our Mutual Friend," <a href="#Page_143">143</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>T.</b></p> +<p>Taine, M., his criticism criticised, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_109">109</a></p> +<p>"Tale of Two Cities," <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a></p> +<p>Thackeray, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</p> +<p>          as a reader, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></p> +<p>Tiny Tim, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></p> +<p>Toots, Mr., <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>W.</b></p> +<p>Washington Irving, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></p> +<p>Westminster Abbey, Dickens place of burial, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p><b>Y.</b></p> +<p>Yates, Edmund, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 167]<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a></span></p> + + +<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY.</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center">BY</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">JOHN P. ANDERSON</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>(British Museum).</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +I. <span class="smcap">Works.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +II. <span class="smcap">Selections.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">III. <span class="smcap">Single Works.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +IV. <span class="smcap">Miscellaneous Works.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +V. <span class="smcap">Appendix—</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +Biographical, Critical, etc.<br /> +Dramatic.<br /> +Musical.<br /> +Parodies and Imitations.<br /> +Poetical.<br /> +Magazine and Newspaper Articles.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +VI. <span class="smcap">Chronological List of Works.</span></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><b>I. WORKS.</b></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">First Cheap Edition.</span> 19 vols. London, 1847-67, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This edition was in three series, the first and third being +published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the second by Messrs. +Bradbury and Evans. It was printed in double columns, with +frontispieces by Leslie, Hablôt K. Browne, Cruikshank, etc.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Library Edition.</span> 22 vols. London, 1858-59, 8vo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Library Edition.</span> Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1861-1873.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The original illustrations were added to the later issues of +the Library Edition, and the series completed in 30 vols.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The People's Edition.</span> 25 vols. London, 1865-1867, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A re-issue of the Cheap Edition.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Charles Dickens Edition.</span> Illustrated. 21 vols. London, +1867-1873, 8vo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Household Edition.</span> Illustrated. 22 vols. London, +1871-1879, 4to.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Illustrated Library Edition.</span> 30 vols. London, 1873-1876, 8vo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Popular Library Edition.</span> Illustrated. 30 vols. London, +1878-1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Pocket Edition.</span> 30 vols. London, 1880, 16mo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Diamond Edition.</span> Illustrated. 14 vols. London, 1880, +16mo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Édition de Luxe.</span> Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1881, 4to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>One thousand copies only of this Édition de Luxe were +printed for sale, each numbered, and it was dedicated to Her +Majesty the Queen.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Cabinet Edition.</span> Illustrated. London, 1885, etc., 16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A re-issue of the Pocket Edition.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 168]<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a></span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><b>II. SELECTIONS.</b></p> + +<p>The Beauties of Pickwick. Collected and arranged by Sam Weller. +London, 1838, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Story Teller. A collection of tales, stories, and novels. By +Walter Scott, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, etc. Edited by +Hermann Schütz. Siegen, 1850, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Immortelles from C.D. By Ich. London, 1856, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Novels and Tales reprinted from Household Words. 11 vols. (<i>Tauchnitz +Edition</i>). Leipzig, 1856-59, 16mo.</p> + +<p>Christmas Stories from the Household Words. Conducted by C.D. London +[1860], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Poor Traveller: Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn; and Mrs. Gamp, by +C.D. London, 1858, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Arranged by Dickens for his Readings.</p></div> + +<p>Dialogues from Dickens. Arranged by W.E. Fette. Two Series. Boston, +1870-71, 8vo.</p> + +<p>A Cyclopædia of the best thoughts of C.D. Compiled and alphabetically +arranged by F.G. De Fontaine. New York, 1873, 8vo.</p> + +<p>A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens. Being fac-similes of +original drawings by F. Barnard [with extracts from some of D.'s +works]. 2 pts. London [1879]-85, folio.</p> + +<p>—Another Edition. London, 1884, folio.</p> + +<p>The Dickens Reader. Character Readings from the stories of Charles +Dickens. Selected, adapted, and arranged by Nathan Sheppard, with +numerous illustrations by F. Barnard, New York, 1881, 4to.</p> + +<p>The Charles Dickens Birthday Book. Compiled and edited by his eldest +daughter (Mary Dickens). With illustrations by his youngest daughter +(Kate Perugini). London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Readings from the works of C.D. Condensed and adapted by J.A. +Jennings. Dublin [1882], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Readings of C.D. as arranged and read by himself. With +illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Chips from Dickens selected by Thomas Mason. Glasgow [1884], 32mo.</p> + +<p>Tales from Charles Dickens's Works. London [1884], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens. Selected by Chas. Kent. +London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Child-Pictures from Dickens. [Illustrated.] London, 1885, 4to.</p> + +<p>Wellerisms from "Pickwick" and "Master Humphrey's Clock." Selected by +Charles F. Rideal, and Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Kent, +author of "The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens." London, 1886, +8vo.</p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><b>III. SINGLE WORKS.</b></p> + +<p>American Notes for general circulation. 2 vols. London, 1842, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—[Other Editions. London, 1850, 8vo.; London, 1884, 8vo].</p> + +<p>Bleak House. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London, 1853, 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 169]<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a></span></p> + +<p>Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn, by Charles Dickens, as condensed by +himself for his readings. Boston, 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Holly-Tree Inn was the Christmas Number of "Household +Words" for 1855. Dickens contributed "The Guest," "The +Boots," and "The Bill."</p></div> + +<p>A Child's History of England. With a frontispiece by F.W. Topham. 3 +vols. London, 1852-54, 16mo.</p> + +<p>The Chimes: a Goblin Story of some bells that rang an old year out and +a new year in. By Charles Dickens. [Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, +Leech, and Clarkson Stanfield.] London, 1845, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An edition with notes and elucidations by K. ten Bruggencate +was published at Groningen in 1883.</p></div> + +<p>Christmas Books. London, 1852, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Christmas Books. With illustrations by Sir E. Landseer, Maclise, +Stanfield, F. Stone, Doyle, Leech, and Tenniel. London, 1869, 8vo.</p> + +<p>A Christmas Carol in Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. By C.D. +With illustrations by John Leech. London, 1843, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Condensed by himself, for his readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. By C.D. [Illustrated +by Maclise, Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Leech, and Landseer.] London, +1846, 16mo.</p> + +<p>The Battle of Life: A Love Story. [Illustrated by Maclise, Stanfield, +Doyle, and Leech.] London, 1846, 16mo.</p> + +<p>The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas Time. +[Illustrated by Stanfield, John Tenniel, Frank Stone, and John Leech.] +London, 1848, 16mo.</p> + +<p>Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, wholesale, retail, and for +exportation. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1848, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D. London, 1858, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Revised by Dickens for his Readings.</p></div> + +<p>The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his +readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions. (<i>Tauchnitz Edition</i>, vol. 894.) +Leipzig, 1867, 16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1865. +Dickens contributed chap. i., "To be Taken Immediately;" +chap. vi., "To be Taken With a Grain of Salt;" and the +concluding chapter, "To be Taken for Life."</p></div> + +<p>Doctor Marigold. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Great Expectations. By C.D. In three volumes. London, 1861, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Appeared originally in <i>All the Year Round</i>, December 1, +1860, to August 3, 1861. An American edition was published +the same year with illustrations by J. McLenan.</p></div> + +<p>Hard Times. For these Times. By C.D. London, 1854, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Appeared originally in Household Words, April 1 to August +12, 1854.</p></div> + +<p>Hunted Down. (<i>Tauchnitz Edition</i>, vol. 536.) Leipzig, 1860, 16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Appeared originally in the <i>New York Ledger</i>, August 20, 27, +Sept. 3, 1859, and <i>All the Year Round</i>, Aug. 4 and 11, +1860.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 170]<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a></span></p> + +<p>Hunted Down. A Story. By C.D. With some account of T.G. Wainewright, +the poisoner [by John Camden Hotten]. London [1870], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Is She his Wife? or, Something Singular. A comic burletta in one act. +Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>First produced at the St. James's Theatre, March 6, 1837. +Mr. Shepherd says that this was first printed in 1837, but +no copy is known to exist.</p></div> + +<p>The Lamplighter: A Farce. By C.D. (1838).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Only 250 copies were privately printed in 1879 from the MS. +copy in the Forster Collection at South Kensington; each +copy numbered.</p></div> + +<p>The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. With illustrations by +Phiz [<i>i.e.</i>, H.K. Browne]. London, 1844, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gamp [extracted from "The Life and Adventures of Martin +Chuzzlewit"]. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With illustrations by +Phiz. London, 1839, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Contains a portrait of Dickens, and 39 illustrations.</p></div> + +<p>Nicholas Nickleby at the Yorkshire School [extracted from "The Life +and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby"]. By C.D., as condensed by +himself, for his readings. (Four Chapters). Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Another edition in three chapters was published at Boston +the same year.</p></div> + +<p>Little Dorrit. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London [1855]-57, +8vo.</p> + +<p>Master Humphrey's Clock. With illustrations by George Cattermole and +H.K. Browne. 3 vols. London, 1840-41, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Comprises two stories, "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby +Rudge," both subsequently issued as independent works, the +first in 1848, and the second in 1849.</p></div> + +<p>The Old Curiosity Shop. London, 1848, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Barnaby Rudge. A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. London, 1849, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Mr. Nightingale's Diary: a Farce, in one act. London, 1851, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Privately printed and extremely scarce. There is a copy in +the Forster Collection at South Kensington.</p></div> + +<p>—Another edition. Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This edition is now scarce.</p></div> + +<p>The Mudfog Papers. Now first collected. London, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reprinted from Bentley's Miscellany.</p></div> + +<p>—Second edition. London, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With twelve illustrations by S.L. Fildes, +and a portrait. London, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. By "Boz." In three +volumes. [With illustrations by George Cruikshank.] London, 1838, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The second edition, with the title-page reading "Oliver +Twist, by Charles Dickens," appeared the following year; the +third edition, with a new preface, was published in 1841. +The edition of 1846, in one volume, bears the following +title-page:—"The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish +Boy's Progress. By Charles Dickens. With twenty-four +illustrations on Steel, by George Cruikshank."</p></div> + +<p>Our Mutual Friend. With illus<span class="pagenum">[Pg 171]<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a></span>trations by Marcus Stone. 2 vols. +London, 1865, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Personal History of David Copperfield. With illustrations, by H.K. +Browne. London, 1850, 8vo.</p> + +<p>David Copperfield. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Pictures from Italy. By C.D. The vignette illustrations on wood, by +Samuel Palmer. London, 1846, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Appeared originally in the <i>Daily News</i>, from January to +March 1846, with the title of "Travelling Letters written on +the Road. By Charles Dickens."</p></div> + +<p>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Being a 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 Phiz [H.K. +Browne], London, 1837, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In twenty monthly parts, commencing April 1836, and ending +November 1837, no number being issued for June 1837.</p></div> + +<p>—Another edition. V.D. Land, Launceston, 1838, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This edition of Pickwick is interesting from the fact that +it was published in Van Dieman's Land, the illustrations +being exact copies of the originals executed in lithography. +There is an additional title-page, engraved, bearing date +1836.</p></div> + +<p>—The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, with notes and +illustrations. Edited by C. Dickens the younger, (Jubilee Edition.) 2 +vols. London, 1886, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bob. Sawyer's Party [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Bardell and Pickwick [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Sketches by "Boz," illustrative of every-day life and every-day +people. In two volumes. Illustrations by George Cruikshank. London, +1836, 12mo.</p> + +<p>—Second edition. London, 1836, 12mo.</p> + +<p>Sketches by "Boz." Third edition. London, 1837, 12mo.</p> + +<p>—Second Series. London, 1837, 12mo.</p> + +<p>—First complete edition of the two series. With forty illustrations +by George Cruikshank. London, 1839, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Sketches and Tales of London Life. [Selections from "Sketches by +Boz."] London [1877], 8vo.</p> + +<p>—The Tuggs's at Ramsgate [from "Sketches by Boz"]. London [1870], +8vo.</p> + +<p>Sketches of Young Gentlemen. Dedicated to the Young Ladies. With six +illustrations by "Phiz" (H.K. Browne). London, 1838, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Sketches of Young Couples; with an urgent Remonstrance to the +Gentlemen of England (being Bachelors or Widowers) on the present +alarming Crisis. With six illustrations by "Phiz" [H.K. Browne]. +London, 1840, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An edition was published in 1869 with the title "Sketches of +Young Couples, Young Ladies, Young Gentlemen. By Quiz. +Illustrated <span class="pagenum">[Pg 172]<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a></span>by Phiz." Only the first and third of these +sketches were written by Charles Dickens. "The Sketches of +Young Ladies" were by an anonymous author, who also assumed +the pseudonym of Quiz.</p></div> + +<p>Somebody's Luggage. (<i>Tauchnitz Edition</i>, vol. 888.) Leipzig, 1867, +16mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Christmas Number of <i>All the Year Round</i> for 1862. +Dickens contributed "His leaving it till called for"; "His +Boots"; "His Brown-paper Parcel" and "His Wonderful End."</p></div> + +<p>The Strange Gentleman: A Comic Burletta. In two acts. By "Boz." First +performed at the St. James's Theatre, on Thursday, September 29, 1836. +London, 1837, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Sunday under Three Heads. As it is; as Sabbath bills would make it; as +it might be made. By Timothy Sparks. London, 1836, 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reproduced in fac-simile, London, 1884, and in Pearson's +Manchester Series of Fac-simile Reprints, Manchester, same +date.</p></div> + +<p>A Tale of Two Cities. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1859, +8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Originally issued in <i>All the Year Round</i>, between April 30 +and November 26, 1859.</p></div> + +<p>The Uncommercial Traveller. By C.D. London, 1861, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Consists of seventeen papers which originally appeared in +<i>All the Year Round</i> with this title between January 28 and +October 13, 1860. The impression which was issued in 1868 in +the Charles Dickens Edition contains eleven fresh papers.</p></div> + +<p>The Village Coquettes: A Comic Opera. In two acts. By C.D. The music +by John Hullah. London, 1836, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Songs, choruses, and concerted pieces in the Operatic Burletta of +The Village Coquettes as produced at St. James's Theatre. The drama +and words of the songs by "Boz." The music by John Hullah. London, +1837, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Editions of "The Village Coquettes" were published at +Leipzig, 1845, and at Amsterdam, 1868, in English, and it +was reprinted in 1878. <i>See</i> also under <i>Music</i>.</p></div> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><b>IV. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.</b></p> + +<p>All the Year Round. A weekly journal conducted by Charles Dickens. +London, 1859-1870, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Commenced on the 30th of April 1859.</p></div> + +<p>Bentley's Miscellany. [Successively edited by Boz, Ainsworth, Albert +Smith, etc.] Vol. 1-64. London, 1837-68, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Evenings of a Working Man, being the occupation of his scanty leisure. +By John Overs. With a preface relative to the author, by C.D. London, +1844, 16mo.</p> + +<p>Household Words: a weekly journal. Conducted by C.D. 19 vols. London, +1850-59, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This Journal commenced on the 30th March 1850, and was +continued to the 28th of May 1859, when it was incorporated +with <i>All the Year Round</i>. A cheap edition of Household +Words, in 19 vols. was published in 1868-73.</p></div> + +<p>—Christmas Stories from Household Words (1850-58). Conducted by +C.D. London, [1860], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Legends and Lyrics, by Adelaide Anne Procter. With an introduction by +C.D. New edition, illustrated by Dobson, Palmer, Tenniel, etc. London, +1866, 4to.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 173]<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a></span></p> + +<p>The Letters of C.D. Edited by his sister-in-law (G. Hogarth) and his +eldest daughter (M. Dickens). 3 vols. London, 1880-1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Library of Fiction; or Family Story-Teller. [Edited by C.D.] +London, 1836-37, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. +London, 1839, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The notes and preface were written by Dickens.</p></div> + +<p>Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Edited by "Boz." With illustrations by G. +Cruikshank. 2 vols. London, 1838, 12mo.</p> + +<p>Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Another edition. Revised by C. Whitehead. +London, 1846, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. London, 1853, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. London, 1866, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Two other editions were published in 1884 by G. Routledge +and Sons, and J. Dicks.</p></div> + +<p>The Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution. Speeches on +behalf of the Institution by C.D. London, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Pic-Nic Papers by various hands. Edited by C.D. With illustrations +by George Cruikshank. 3 vols. London, 1841, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens contributed a preface and the opening tale, "The +Lamplighter's Story."</p></div> + +<p>The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens. With a few Miscellanies in +prose. Now first collected, edited, prefaced, and annotated by R.H. +Shepherd. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This work was almost immediately suppressed, as it contained +copyright matter. A new edition appeared in 1885, without +the copyright play of "No Thoroughfare."</p></div> + +<p>Religious Opinions of Chauncy Hare Townshend. Published as directed in +his Will, by his literary executor [Charles Dickens]. London, 1869, +8vo.</p> + +<p>Royal Literary Fund. A summary of facts in answer to allegations +contained in "The Case of the Reformers of the Literary Fund," stated +by C.D., etc. [London, 1858], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Speech delivered at the meeting of the Administrative Reform +Association. London, 1855, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Speech of C.D. as Chairman of the Anniversary Festival Dinner of the +Royal Free Hospital, 1863. [London, 1870], 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Speeches of C.D., 1841-1870, edited and prefaced by R.H. Shepherd. +With a new bibliography, revised and enlarged. London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Speeches, letters, and sayings of C.D. To which is added a Sketch of +the author by G.A. Sala, and Dean Stanley's sermon. New York, 1870, +8vo.</p> + +<p>Speeches: Literary and Social. London [1870], 8vo.</p> + +<p>A Wonderful Ghost Story. With letters of C.D. to the author respecting +it. By Thomas Heaphy. London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><b>V. APPENDIX.</b></p> + + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Biographical, Critical, etc.</span></p> + +<p>Adshead, Joseph.—Prisons and Prisoners. London, 1845, 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 174]<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Fictions of Dickens upon solitary confinement, pp. +95-121.</p></div> + +<p>Allbut, Robert.—London Rambles "En Zigzag," with Charles Dickens. +London [1886], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Atlantic Almanac.—The Atlantic Almanac for 1871. Boston, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A short biographical notice of Dickens, with portrait and +view of Gad's Hill, pp. 20-21.</p></div> + +<p>Bagehot, Walter.—Literary Studies, by the late Walter Bagehot. 2 +vols. London, 1879, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens (1858), vol. 2, pp. 184-220.</p></div> + +<p>Bayne, Peter.—Essays in Biography and Criticism. By Peter Bayne. +First series. Boston, 1857, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The modern novel: Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, pp. 363-392.</p></div> + +<p>Behn-Eschenburg, H.—Charles Dickens. Von H. Behn-Eschenburg. Basel, +1872, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Hft. 6, of "Oeffentliche Vorträge gehalten in der Schweiz."</p></div> + +<p>Brimley, George.—Essays by the late George Brimley. Edited by William +George Clark. Cambridge, 1858, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Bleak House," pp. 289-301. Reprinted from the <i>Spectator</i>, +September 24th, 1853.</p></div> + +<p>Browne, Hablôt K.—Dombey and Son. The four portraits of Edith, +Florence, Alice, and Little Paul. London, 1848, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Dombey and Son. Full-length portraits of Dombey and Carker, Miss +Tox, Mrs. Skewton, etc. London, 1848, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Six illustrations to The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. +Engraved from original drawings by Phiz. London [1854], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Buchanan, Robert.—A Poet's Sketch-Book; selections from the prose +writings of Robert Buchanan. London, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Good Genie of Fiction. Charles Dickens, pp. 119-140. +(Reprinted from <i>St. Paul's Magazine</i>, 1872, pp. 130-148.)</p></div> + +<p>Calverley, C.S.—Fly Leaves. Second Edition. By C.S. Calverley. +Cambridge, 1872, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An Examination Paper. "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick +Club," pp. 121-124.</p></div> + +<p>Canning, S.G.—Philosophy of Charles Dickens. By the Hon. Albert S.G. +Canning. London, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Cary, Thomas G.—Letter to a lady in France on the supposed failure of +a national bank ... with answers to enquiries concerning the books of +Captain Marryat and Mr. Dickens. [By Thomas G. Cary.] Boston [U.S.], +1843, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Second Edition. Boston, [U.S.], 1844, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Chambers, Robert.—Cyclopædia of English Literature. Edited by Robert +Chambers. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1844, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 630-633.</p></div> + +<p>—Another Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1860, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 644-650.</p></div> + +<p>—Third Edition, 2 vols. London, 1876, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 515-521.</p></div> + +<p>Chapman, T.J.—Schools and Schoolmasters; from the works of Charles +Dickens. New York, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Clarke, Charles and Mary Cowden.—Recollections of Writers. By Charles +and Mary Cowden Clarke. With letters of Charles Lamb ... and Charles +Dickens, etc. London, 1878, 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 175]<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a></span></p> + +<p>Cleveland, Charles Dexter.—English Literature of the Nineteenth +Century. A new edition. Philadelphia, 1867, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 718-730.</p></div> + +<p>Cochrane, Robert.—Risen by Perseverance; or, lives of self-made men. +By Robert Cochrane. Edinburgh, 1879, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 172-223.</p></div> + +<p>Cook, James.—Bibliography of the writings of Charles Dickens, with +many curious and interesting particulars relating to his works. By +James Cook. London, 1879, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Cruikshank, George.—George Cruikshank's Magazine. London, 1854, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>February 1854, pp. 74-80, "A letter from Hop-o'-My-Thumb to +Charles Dickens, Esq., upon 'Frauds on the Fairies,' 'Whole +Hogs,' etc."</p></div> + +<p>D., H.W.—Ward and Lock's Penny Books for the People. Biographical +series. The Life of Charles Dickens. By H.W.D. Pp. 513-528. London, +1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Davey, Samuel.—Darwin, Carlyle and Dickens, with other essays. By +Samuel Davey. London, [1876], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Denman, Lord.—Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleak House, Slavery and Slave +Trade. Six articles by Lord Denman. London, 1853, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Second Edition. London, 1853, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Dépret, Louis.—Chez les Anglais. Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, +Longfellow, etc. Paris, 1879.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, occupies pp. 71-130.</p></div> + +<p>Dickens, Charles.—Chas. Dickens. A critical biography. London, 1858, +8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>No. 1 of a series entitled "Our Contemporaries," etc.</p></div> + +<p>—The Life and Times of Charles Dickens. With a portrait. (<i>Police +News</i> edition.) London. [1870], 8vo.</p> + +<p>—The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1881], 8vo.</p> + +<p>—The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1882], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Part of Haughton's Popular Illustrated Biographies.</p></div> + +<p>—Some Notes on America to be re-written, suggested with respect to +Charles Dickens. Philadelphia, 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Catalogue of the beautiful collection of modern pictures, etc., of +Charles Dickens, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Christie, +Manson and Woods ... July 9, 1870. London [1870], 4to.</p> + +<p>—Dickens Memento, with introduction by F. Phillimore, and "Hints to +Dickens Collectors," by J.F. Dexter. Catalogue with purchasers' names, +etc. London [1884], 4to.</p> + +<p>—Mary.—Charles Dickens. By his eldest daughter (Mary Dickens). +London, 1885, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Part of the series "The World's Workers," etc.</p></div> + +<p>Dilke, Charles W.—The Papers of a Critic, etc. 2 vols. London, 1875, +8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reference to the Literary Fund Controversy, with a letter +from C.D. to C.W. Dilke. Vol. i., pp. 79, 80.</p></div> + +<p>Dolby, George.—Charles Dickens as I knew him. The story of the +Reading Tours in Great Britain and America (1866-1870). By George +Dolby. London, 1885, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Drake, Samuel Adams.—Our Great Benefactors; short bio<span class="pagenum">[Pg 176]<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a></span>graphies, etc. +Boston, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 102-111, illustrated.</p></div> + +<p>Dulcken, A.—Scenes from "The Pickwick Papers," designed by A. +Dulcken. London [1861], obl. fol.</p> + +<p>—H.W.—Worthies of the World, a series of historical and critical +sketches, etc. Edited by H.W. Dulcken. London [1881], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Biography of Charles Dickens, with a portrait, pp. 513-528.</p></div> + +<p>Essays.—English Essays. 4 vols. Hamburg, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Vol. iv. contains an article reprinted from the <i>Illustrated +London News</i>, June 18, 1870, on Charles Dickens.</p></div> + +<p>Field, Kate.—Pen Photographs of Charles Dickens's Readings. Taken +from life. By Kate Field. Boston, [U.S.], [1868], 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. Illustrated. Boston (U.S.), 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Fields, James T.—In and out of doors with Charles Dickens. By James +T. Fields. Boston, (U.S.), 1876, 16mo.</p> + +<p>—James T. Fields. Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches. Boston +[U.S.], 1881, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Pp. 152-160 relate to Dickens.</p></div> + +<p>Fitzgerald, Percy.—Two English Essayists. C. Lamb and C. Dickens. By +Percy Fitzgerald. London, 1864, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, series 2.</p></div> + +<p>—Recreations of a Literary Man. By Percy Fitzgerald. 2 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens as an editor, vol. i., pp. 48-96; Charles +Dickens at Home, vol. i., pp. 97-171.</p></div> + +<p>Forster, John.—The Life of Charles Dickens. (With portraits.) 3 vols. +London, 1872-4, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Numerous editions.</p></div> + +<p>Friswell, J. Hain.—Modern Men of Letters honestly criticised. By J. +Hain Friswell. London, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 1-45.</p></div> + +<p>Frost, Thomas.—In Kent with Charles Dickens. By Thomas Frost. London, +1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Gill, T.—Report of the Dinner given to C.D. in Boston. Reported by T. +Gill and W. English. Boston [U.S.], 1842, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Hall, Samuel Carter.—A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the +Age, etc. By S.C. Hall. London, 1871, 4to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 449-452.</p></div> + +<p>—Second edition. London, 1877, 4to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 454-458.</p></div> + +<p>Ham, James Panton.—Parables of Fiction: a memorial discourse on C. +Dickens. By James Panton Ham. London, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Hanaford, P.A.—Life and Writings of C. Dickens. New York, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Hassard, John R.G.—A Pickwickian Pilgrimage. (Letters on "the London +of Charles Dickens.") By John R.G. Hassard. Boston (U.S.), 1881, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Heavisides, Edward Marsh.—The Poetical and Prose Remains of Edward +Marsh Heavisides. London, 1850, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Essay on Dickens's writings, pp. 1-27.</p></div> + +<p>Hollingshead, John.—To-Day; Essays and Miscellanies. 2 vols. London, +1865, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Dickens and his Critics, vol. ii., pp. 277-283; Mr. +Dickens as a Reader, vol. ii., pp. 284-296.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 177]<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a></span></p> + +<p>Hollingshead, John.—Miscellanies. Stories and Essays by John +Hollingshead. 3 vols. London, 1874, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Dickens and his critics, vol. iii., pp. 270-274; Mr. +Dickens as a Reader, vol. iii., pp. 275-283.</p></div> + +<p>Horne, Richard H.—A New Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne. 2 +vols. London, 1844, 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, with portrait, vol. i., pp. 1-76.</p></div> + +<p>Hotten, John Camden.—Charles Dickens, the Story of his Life. By the +Author of the Life of Thackeray (J.C. Hotten). With illustrations and +fac-similes. London (1870), 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Popular edition. London (1873), 12mo.</p> + +<p>Hume, A.B.—A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume. +1870, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Contains a fac-simile of Charles Dickens's letter to Mr. +J.W. Makeham, dated June 8, 1870, and an Ode to his memory.</p></div> + +<p>Hutton, Laurence.—Literary Landmarks of London. By Laurence Hutton. +London [1885], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, pp. 79-86.</p></div> + +<p>Irving, Walter.—Charles Dickens. [An essay.] By Walter Irving. +Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Jeaffreson, J. Cordy.—Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to +Victoria. By J. Cordy Jeaffreson. 2 vols. London, 1858, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 303-334.</p></div> + +<p>Jerrold, Blanchard.—The Best of All Good Company. Edited by Blanchard +Jerrold. Pt. 1., A Day with Charles Dickens. London, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reprinted in 1872, 8 vo.</p></div> + +<p>Johnson, Charles Plumptre.—Hints to Collectors of original editions +of the works of Charles Dickens. By Charles Plumptre Johnson. London, +1885, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Johnson, Joseph.—Clever Boys of our Time, and how they became famous +men. Edinburgh [1878], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 40-63.</p></div> + +<p>Jones, Charles H.—Appleton's New Handy-volume Series. A short life of +Charles Dickens, etc. By Charles H. Jones. New York, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Joubert, André.—André Joubert. Charles Dickens, sa vie et ses +[oe]uvres. Paris, 1872, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Kent, Charles.—The Charles Dickens Dinner. An authentic record of the +public banquet given to Mr Charles Dickens ... prior to his departure +for the United States. [With a preface signed C.K. <i>i.e.</i>, Charles +Kent.] London, 1867, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Kent, Charles.—Charles Dickens as a Reader. By Charles Kent. London, +1872, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Kitton, Fred. G.—"Phiz" (Hablôt Knight Browne.) A Memoir. Including a +selection from his Correspondence and Notes on his principal works. By +Fred. G. Kitton. With a portrait and numerous illustrations. London, +1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An account is given of the relationship that existed between +Dickens and Phiz.</p></div> + +<p>—Dickensiana. A Bibliography of the literature relating to Charles +Dickens and his writings. Compiled by Fred. G. Kitton. London, 1880, +8vo.</p> + +<p>Langton, Robert.—Charles Dickens and Rochester, etc. By Robert +Langton. London, 1886, 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 178]<a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a></span></p> + +<p>Langton, Robert.—The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, etc. By +Robert Langton. Manchester, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<p>L'Estrange, A.G.—History of English Humour, etc. By the Rev. A.G. +L'Estrange. 2 vols. London, 1878, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Chapter 18 of vol. ii. is devoted to Dickens.</p></div> + +<p>Lynch, Judge.—Judge Lynch (of America), his two letters to Charles +Dickens (of England) upon the subject of the Court of Chancery. +London, 1859, 8vo.</p> + +<p>McCarthy, Justin.—A History of Our Own Times. A new edition. 4 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens and Thackeray, vol. ii., pp. 255-259.</p></div> + +<p>McKenzie, Charles H.—The Religious Sentiments of C.D., collected from +his writings. By Charles H. McKenzie. Newcastle, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Mackenzie, R. Shelton.—Life of Charles Dickens, etc. By R. Shelton +Mackenzie. Philadelphia [1870], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Macrae, David.—Home and Abroad; Sketches and Gleanings. By David +Macrae. Glasgow, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Carlyle and Dickens, pp. 122-128.</p></div> + +<p>Masson, David.—British Novelists and their styles: being a critical +sketch of the history of British prose fiction. By David Masson. +Cambridge, 1859, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 233-253.</p></div> + +<p>Mateaux, C.L.—Brave Lives and Noble. By Miss C.L. Mateaux. London, +1883, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Boyhood of Dickens, pp. 313-320.</p></div> + +<p>Mézières, L.—Histoire Critique de la Littérature Anglaise, etc. +Seconde édition. 3 tom. Paris, 1841, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens, Le Club Pickwick, tom. iii., pp. 469-496.</p></div> + +<p>Nicholson, Renton.—Nicholson's Sketches of Celebrated Characters. +London [1856], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens. By Renton Nicholson, p. 11.</p></div> + +<p>Nicoll, Henry J.—Landmarks of English Literature. By Henry J. Nicoll. +London, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens noticed, pp. 378-385.</p></div> + +<p>Notes and Queries. General Index to Notes and Queries. Five Series. +London, 1856-80, 4to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Numerous references to C.D.</p></div> + +<p>Parley.—Parley's Penny Library. London, [1841], 18mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. i.</p></div> + +<p>—Peter Parley's Annual for 1871, etc. London [1871], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens as Boy and Man, pp. 320-335.</p></div> + +<p>Parton, James.—Illustrious Men and their achievements; or, the +people's book of biography. New York [1882], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens as a Citizen, pp. 831-841.</p></div> + +<p>—Some noted Princes, Authors, and Statesmen of our time. By Canon +Farrar, James T. Fields, Archibald Forbes, etc. Edited by James +Parton. New York [1886], 4to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens with his children, by Mamie Dickens, pp. 30-47, +illustrated; Recollections of Dickens, by James T. Fields, +pp. 48-51.</p></div> + +<p>Payn, James.—The Youth and Middle Age of Charles Dickens. By James +Payn. Edinburgh, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Reprinted from <i>Chambers's Journal</i>, January 1872, February +1873, March 1874.</p></div> + +<p>—Some literary recollections.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 179]<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a></span> By James Payn. London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Chapter vi., First meeting with Dickens. Reprinted from <i>The +Cornhill Magazine</i>.</p></div> + +<p>Pemberton, T. Edgar.—Dickens's London; or, London in the works of +Charles Dickens. By T. Edgar Pemberton. London, 1876, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Perkins, F.B.—Charles Dickens: a sketch of his life and works. By +F.B. Perkins. New York, 1870, 12mo.</p> + +<p>Pierce, Gilbert A.—The Dickens Dictionary. A key to the characters +and principal incidents in the tales of Charles Dickens. By Gilbert A. +Pierce. Illustrated. Boston [U.S.], 1872, 12mo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. London, 1878, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Poe, Edgar A.—The Literati: some honest opinions about autorial +merits and demerits, etc. By Edgar A. Poe. New York, 1850, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Notice of "Barnaby Rudge," pp. 464-482.</p></div> + +<p>—The works of E.A. Poe. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1875, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Vol. 3, Marginalia, Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop," and +Dickens and Bulwer, pp. 373-375.</p></div> + +<p>Powell, Thomas.—The Living Authors of England. By Thos. Powell. New +York, 1849, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 153-178.</p></div> + +<p>—Pictures of the Living Authors of Britain. By Thos. Powell. +London, 1851, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 88-115.</p></div> + +<p>Pryde, David.—The Genius and Writings of Charles Dickens. By David +Pryde. Edinburgh, 1869, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Reeve, Lovell A.—Portraits of men of eminence in literature, science, +and art, with biographical memoirs. [Vols. iii.-vi. by E. Walford]. 6 +vols. London, 1863-67, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Vol. iv., Charles Dickens, pp. 93-99.</p></div> + +<p>Richardson, David Lester.—Literary Recreations, etc. By David Lester +Richardson. London, 1852, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens's "David Copperfield," and Thackeray's "Pendennis," +pp. 238-243.</p></div> + +<p>Rimmer, Alfred.—About England with Dickens. By Alfred Rimmer. With +fifty-eight illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Sala, Geo. A.—Charles Dickens. [An Essay.] London [1870], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Santvoord, C. Van.—Discourses on special occasions, and miscellaneous +papers. By C. Van Santvoord. New York, 1856, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens and his philosophy, pp. 333-359.</p></div> + +<p>Schmidt, Julian.—Charles Dickens. Eine charakteristik. Leipzig 1852, +8vo.</p> + +<p>Seymour, Mrs.—An account of the Origin of the "Pickwick Papers." By +Mrs. Seymour, etc. London, n.d.</p> + +<p>Shepard, William.—The Literary Life. Edited by William Shepard. Pen +Pictures of Modern Authors. New York, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 236-293.</p></div> + +<p>Shepherd, Richard Herne.—The Bibliography of Dickens. A +bibliographical list, arranged in chronological order, of the +published writings in prose and verse of Charles Dickens. From 1834 to +1880. Manchester, [1880], 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 180]<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a></span></p> + +<p>Spedding, James.—Reviews and Discussions, literary, political, and +historical. By James Spedding. London, 1879, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens's "American Notes," pp. 240-276. Reprinted from the +<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, Jan. 1843.</p></div> + +<p>Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn.—Sermon preached in Westminster Abbey, ... +the Sunday following the funeral of Dickens. London, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Stoddard, Richard Henry.—Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of +Thackeray and Dickens. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, +1874, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Taine, H.—Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise. Par H. Taine. 4 tom. +Paris, 1864, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Le Roman—Dickens, tom. iv., pp. 3-69.</p></div> + +<p>—History of English Literature. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Novel—Dickens. Vol. iv., pp. 115-164.</p></div> + +<p>Taylor, Theodore.—Charles Dickens: the story of his life. New York, +n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>Thackeray, William Makepeace.—Early and late papers hitherto +uncollected. Boston, 1867, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens in France (a description of a performance of +Nicholas Nickleby in Paris), pp. 95-121. Appeared originally +in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, March 1842.</p></div> + +<p>Thomson, David Croal.—Life and Labours of Hablôt Knight Browne, +"Phiz." By David Croal Thomson. With one hundred and thirty +illustrations, etc. London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Contains a series of illustrations to Dickens, printed from +the original plates and blocks.</p></div> + +<p>Timbs, John.—Anecdote Lives of the later wits and humourists. By John +Timbs. 2 vols. London, 1874, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Vol. ii., pp. 201-255, relate to Dickens.</p></div> + +<p>Times, The.—A second series of Essays from <i>The Times</i>. London, 1854, +8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 320-338.</p></div> + +<p>—Eminent Persons: biographies reprinted from the <i>Times</i>, 1870-79. +London, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Charles Dickens—Leading Article, June 10, 1870; +Obituary notice, June 11, 1870, pp. 8-12.</p></div> + +<p>Tooley, Mrs. G.W.—Lives, Great and Simple. London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, pp. 183-197.</p></div> + +<p>Ward, Adolphus W.—Charles Dickens. A lecture by Professor Ward. +[<i>Science Lectures</i>, series 2.] Manchester, 1871, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Dickens. By Adolphus William Ward. [<i>English Men of Letters</i> +Series.] London, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Watkins, William.—Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections +of his life. Written and compiled by William Watkins. London [1870], +8vo.</p> + +<p>Watt, James Crabb.—Great Novelists. Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, +Lytton. By James Crabb Watt. Edinburgh, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another Edition. London [1885], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Weizmann, Louis.—Dickens und Daudet in deutscher Uebersetzung. Von +Louis Weizmann. Berlin, 1880, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Weller, Sam.—On the Origin of Sam Weller, and the real cause of the +success of the Posthumous Papers of the<span class="pagenum">[Pg 181]<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a></span> Pickwick Club, etc. London, +1883, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Welsh, Alfred H.—Development of English Literature and Language. 2 +vols. Chicago, 1882, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 438-454.</p></div> + +<p>World.—The World's Great Men: a Gallery of over a hundred portraits +and biographies, etc. London [1880], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Dickens, with portrait, pp. 125-128.</p></div> + +<p>Yates, Edmund.—Edmund Yates: his recollections and experiences. 2 +vols. London, 1884, 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A Dickens Chapter, vol. ii., pp. 91-128.</p></div> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Dramatic.</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Plays founded on Dickens's Works.</p></div> + +<p>Yankee Notes for English Circulation: a farce, in one act. By E. +Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 46.</p></div> + +<p>The Battle of Life: a drama, in three acts. By Edward Stirling. +London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57.</p></div> + +<p>The drama founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles Dickens, called +The Battle of Life: dramatized by Albert Smith. In three acts and in +verse. London (1846), 12mo.</p> + +<p>La Bataille de la Vie. Pièce en trois actes, etc. Par M.M. Mélesville +et André de Goy. Paris, 1853, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Bleak House; or, Poor "Jo:" a drama, in four acts. Adapted from +Dickens's "Bleak House," by George Lander. (<i>Dicks' Standard Plays</i>, +No. 388.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Lady Dedlock's Secret: a drama, in four acts. Founded on an episode in +Dickens's "Bleak House." By J. Palgrave Simpson. London, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>"Move On;" or, Jo, the Outcast: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by +James Mortimer.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>Poor "Jo:" a drama, in three acts. Adapted by Mr. Terry Hurst.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>Jo: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Charles Dickens's "Bleak +House." By J.P. Burnett.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>The Chimes: a Goblin Story. A drama, in four quarters, dramatised by +Mark Lemon and Gilbert A. A'Beckett. London, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. 11.</p></div> + +<p>A Christmas Carol. By C.Z. Barnett. London (1872), 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 94.</p></div> + +<p>The Cricket on the Hearth; or, a fairy tale of home: a drama, in three +acts. Dramatized by Albert Smith (<i>Dicks' Standard Plays</i>, No. 394). +London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home. By Edward Stirling. +(<i>Webster's "Acting National Drama</i>," vol. 12.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home in three chirps. By +W.T. Townsend. London (1860), 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 44.</p></div> + +<p>Dot: a Fairy Tale of Home. A drama, in three acts. From the "Cricket +on the Hearth,"<span class="pagenum">[Pg 182]<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a></span> by Charles Dickens. Dramatized by Dion Boucicault.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>David Copperfield: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's +popular work of the same name, by John Brougham. (<i>Dicks' Standard +Plays</i>, No. 474.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Little Em'ly: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Dickens's "David +Copperfield," by Andrew Halliday. New York, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>Dombey and Son: in three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham. (<i>Dicks' +Standard Plays</i>, No. 373.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Captain Cuttle: a comic drama, in one act. By John Brougham. (<i>Dicks' +Standard Plays</i>, No. 572.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Great Expectations: a Drama, in three acts, and a prologue. Adapted by +W.S. Gilbert.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>The Haunted Man: a drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens's Christmas +Story.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>Tom Pinch: a Domestic Comedy, in three acts. Adapted by Messrs. Dilley +and Clifton, from "Martin Chuzzlewit." London, n.d.</p> + +<p>Martin Chuzzlewit: or, his Wills and his Ways, etc. A drama, in three +acts. By Thomas Higgie. London [1872], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition, Supplement, vol. i.</p></div> + +<p>Tartüffe Junior, von H.C.L. Klein. [Play in five acts, after "The Life +of Martin Chuzzlewit."] Neuwied, 1864, 16mo.</p> + +<p>Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By E. Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 50.</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Harris! a farce, in one act. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., +12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57.</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Gamp's Party. (Adapted from "Martin Chuzzlewit.") In one act. +Manchester, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sarah Gamp's Tea and Turn Out: a Bozzian Sketch, in one act. By +B. Webster. London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Acting National Drama, vol. xiii.</p></div> + +<p>Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Webb. London, +n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>Master Humphrey's Clock: a domestic drama, in two acts. By F.F. +Cooper. (<i>Duncombe's British Theatre</i>, vol. xli.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by Mr. Charles +Dickens, Jun., from his father's novel.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>Mrs. Jarley's Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works, as arranged by G.B. +Bartlett. In two parts. London [1873], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Charles +Dickens's novel of the same name, by George Lander. (<i>Dicks' Standard +Plays</i>, No. 398.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in two acts. By E. Stirling. London +[1868], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. lxxvii.</p></div> + +<p>Barnaby Rudge: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's work by +Thomas Higgie. London [1854], 12mo.</p> + +<p>Barnaby Rudge: a domestic <span class="pagenum">[Pg 183]<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a></span>drama, in three acts. By Charles Selby and +Charles Melville. London [1875], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. ci.</p></div> + +<p>A Message from the Sea: a drama, in four acts. Founded on Charles +Dickens's tale of that name. By John Brougham. (<i>Dicks' Standard +Plays</i>, No. 459.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>A Message from the Sea: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Dickens and +William Wilkie Collins. London, 1861, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Infant Phenomenon, etc.: a domestic piece, in one act. Being an +episode in the adventures of "Nicholas Nickleby." Adapted by H. +Horncastle. London, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by H. Simms. +(<i>Dicks' Standard Plays</i>, No. 469.) London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Fortunes of Smike, or a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in +two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. ix.</p></div> + +<p>Nicholas Nickleby: a farce, in two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. v.</p></div> + +<p>Nicholas Nickleby: an Episodic Sketch, in three tableaux, based upon +an incident in "Nicholas Nickleby."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not published.</p></div> + +<p>L'Abîme, drame en cinq actes. [Founded on the story of "No +Thoroughfare."] Paris, 1868, 8vo.</p> + +<p>No Thorough Fare: a drama, in five acts, and a prologue. By Charles +Dickens and Wilkie Collins. New York, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>Identity; or, No Thoroughfare. A drama, in four acts. By Louis Lequêl. +New York, n.d., 8vo.</p> + +<p>Bumble's Courtship. From Dickens's "Oliver Twist." A Comic Interlude, +in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London [1874], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix.</p></div> + +<p>Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in three acts. By George Almar. +London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. vi.</p></div> + +<p>Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress: a domestic drama, in three +acts. By C.Z. Barnett. London, n.d., 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxix.</p></div> + +<p>Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in four acts. By George Almar. +New York, n.d.</p> + +<p>Sam Weller, or the Pickwickians: a drama, in three acts, etc. By W.T. +Moncrieff. London, 1837, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Pickwickians, or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller: a Comic Drama, +in three acts. Arranged from Moncrieff's adaptation of Charles +Dickens's work, by T.H. Lacy. London [1837], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Great Pickwick Case, arranged as a comic operetta. The words of +the songs by Robert Pollitt; the music arranged by Thomas Rawson. +Manchester [1884], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Pickwick Club ... a burletta, in three acts. By E. Stirling. +London [1837], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxvi.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 184]<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a></span></p> + +<p>The Peregrinations of Pickwick: an acting drama. By William Leman +Rede. London, 1837, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Bardell <i>versus</i> Pickwick; versified and diversified. Songs and +choruses. Words by T.H. Gem; music by Frank Spinney. Leamington +[1881], 12mo.</p> + +<p>The Dead Witness; or Sin and its Shadow. A drama, in three acts, +founded on "The Widow's Story" of The Seven Poor Travellers, by +Charles Dickens. The drama written by Wybert Reeve. London [1874], +12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix.</p></div> + +<p>A Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in two acts, etc. By Tom Taylor. London +[1860], 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xlv.</p></div> + +<p>The Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by H.J. +Rivers, etc. London [1862], 12mo.</p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Musical.</span></p> + +<p>All the Year Round; or, The Search for Happiness. A song. Words by +W.S. Passmore; music by John J. Blockley. London [1860], fol.</p> + +<p>Yankee Notes for English Circulation; or, Boz in A-Merry-Key. Comic +song, by J. Briton. Music by Loder. [1842.]</p> + +<p>Dolly Varden: a Ballad. Words and music by Cotsford Dick. London +[1880], fol.</p> + +<p>Maypole Hugh: a song. Words by Charles Bradberry; music by George E. +Fox. London [1881], fol.</p> + +<p>The Chimes Quadrille. (<i>Musical Bouquet</i>, No. 5.) London, n.d., fol.</p> + +<p>The Cricket on the Hearth: Quadrille. By F. Lancelott. (<i>Musical +Bouquet</i>, No. 57.) London [1846], fol.</p> + +<p>What are the Wild Waves Saying? A vocal duet. Written by Joseph E. +Carpenter; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol.</p> + +<p>A Voice from the Waves: a vocal duet, in answer to the above. Words by +R. Ryan; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol.</p> + +<p>Little Dorrit's Vigil. A Song. Written by John Barnes; composed by +George Linley. London [1856], fol.</p> + +<p>Who Passes by this Road so Late? Blandois' song, from "Little Dorrit." +Words by Charles Dickens. Music by H.R.S. Dalton, London [1857], fol.</p> + +<p>My Dear Old Home: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on Dickens's "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], fol.</p> + +<p>Floating Away: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on a passage in "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], +fol.</p> + +<p>The Nicholas Nickleby Quadrilles and Nickleby Galop. By Sydney Vernon. +London, 1839, fol.</p> + +<p>Little Nell: a melody. Composed by George Linley, and arranged for the +pianoforte by Carlo Zotti. London [1865], fol.</p> + +<p>The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Mrs. Henry Dale. London [1840], fol.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The song is introduced in chap. vi. of the "Pickwick Papers" +as a <span class="pagenum">[Pg 185]<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a></span>recitation by the clergyman of Dingley Dell.</p></div> + +<p>The Ivy Green: a song. Music by A. De Belfour. London [1843], fol.</p> + +<p>The Ivy Green. Arranged for the pianoforte by Ricardo Linter. London +[1844], fol.</p> + +<p>The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Henry Russell. London [1844], fol.</p> + +<p>The Ivy Green. Music by W. Lovell Phillips. London [1844], fol.</p> + +<p>Gabriel Grub. Cantata Seria Buffa. Adapted from "Pickwick." Music by +George E. Fox. London [1881], 4to.</p> + +<p>Sam Weller's Adventures: a song of the Pickwickians. (Reprinted in +<i>The Life and Times of James Catnach</i>, by Charles Hindley. London, +1878).</p> + +<p>The Tuggs's at Ramsgate. Versified from "Boz's" sketch.</p> + +<p>The Child and the Old Man: song in the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." +The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol.</p> + +<p>Love is not a feeling to pass away: a ballad in "The Village +Coquettes." Words by C. Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol.</p> + +<p>My Fair Home: air in "The Village Coquettes." Words by Charles +Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol.</p> + +<p>No light bound of stag or timid hare. Quintett in the Opera, "The +Village Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John +Hullah. London [1836], fol.</p> + +<p>Some Folks who have grown old. Song in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol.</p> + +<p>There's a Charm in Spring: a ballad in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol.</p> + +<p>The Cares of the Day: song with chorus, in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, composed by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol.</p> + +<p>In Rich and Lowly Station shine. Duet in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol.</p> + +<p>Autumn Leaves: air from the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." The words +by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1871], fol.</p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Parodies and Imitations.</span></p> + +<p>Change for the American Notes; or, Letters from London to New York. By +an American Lady. London, 1843, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Current American Notes. By "Buz." London, n.d.</p> + +<p>The Battle of London Life; or, "Boz" and his Secretary. By Morna. With +a portrait and illustrations by G.A. Sala. London, 1849.</p> + +<p>The Battle Won by the Wind. By Ch——s D*ck*ns, etc.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Published in <i>The Puppet Showman's Album</i>. Illustrated by +Gavarni.</p></div> + +<p>Bleak House: a Narrative of Real Life, etc. London, 1856.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 186]<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a></span></p> + +<p>Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen. By Quiz Junior. With +woodcut illustrations. London [1838].</p> + +<p>A Child's History of Germany. By H.W. Friedlaender. A Pendant to a +Child's History of England, by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861, 8vo.</p> + +<p>"Christmas Eve" with the Spirits ... with some further tidings of the +Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870.</p> + +<p>A Christmas Carol: being a few scattered staves, from a familiar +composition, re-arranged for performance, by a distinguished Musical +Amateur, during the holiday season, at H—rw—rd—n. With four +illustrations by Harry Furness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Punch</i>, Dec. 1885, pp. 304, 305.</p></div> + +<p>Micawber Redivivus; or, How to Make a Fortune as a Middleman, etc. By +Jonathan Coalfield [<i>i.e.</i> W. Graham Simpson?]. [London, 1883], 8vo. +[Transcriber's Note: The subtitle of this volume should be "How He +Made a Fortune as a Middleman, etc."]</p> + +<p>Dombey and Son Finished: a burlesque. Illustrated by Albert Smith.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Man in the Moon</i>, 1848, pp. 59-67.</p></div> + +<p>Dombey and Daughter: a moral fiction. By Renton Nicholson. London +[1850], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Dolby and Father, by Buz. [A satire on C. Dickens.] New York, 1868, +12mo.</p> + +<p>Hard Times (Refinished). By Charles Diggens.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Parody on <i>Hard Times</i>, published in "Our Miscellany." +Edited by H. Yates and R.B. Brough, pp. 142-156.</p></div> + +<p>The Haunted Man. By CH—R—S D—C—K—N—S. New York, 1870, 12mo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Condensed Novels, and Other Papers.</i> By F. Bret Harte.</p></div> + +<p>Mister Humfries' Clock. "Bos," Maker. A miscellany of striking +interest. Illustrated. London, 1840, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Master Timothy's Bookcase; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By +G.W.M. Reynolds. London, 1842.</p> + +<p>A Girl at a Railway Junction's Reply [to an article in the Christmas +number for 1866 of "All the Year Round," entitled "Mugby Junction."] +London [1867], 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Cloven Foot: being an adaptation of the English novel, "The +Mystery of Edwin Drood" to American scenes, characters, customs, and +nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. By Orpheus C. Kerr.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Piccadilly Annual</i>, Dec. 1870, pp. 59-62.</p></div> + +<p>The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. An adaptation. By O.C. Kerr. London +[1871], 8vo.</p> + +<p>John Jasper's Secret: a sequel to Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, +"The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Philadelphia [1871].</p> + +<p>The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Part the Second, by the Spirit Pen of +Charles Dickens, etc. Brattleboro' [U.S.], 1873.</p> + +<p>A Great Mystery Solved: being a sequel to "The Mystery of Edwin +Drood." By Gillian Vase. 3 vols. London, 1878, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Nickelbery. Containing the adventures of the family of +Nickelbery. By "Bos." With forty-three woodcut illustrations. London +[1838], 8vo.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 187]<a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a></span></p> + +<p>Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married ... being a sequel to the +"Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby." Edited by "Guess." With +twenty-one etched illustrations by "Quiz." London, 1840.</p> + +<p>No Thoroughfare: the Book in Eight Acts, etc.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Mask.</i> February 1868, pp. 14-18.</p></div> + +<p>No Throughfare. [A Parody upon Dickens's "No Thoroughfare."] By C——s +D——s, B. Brownjohn, and Domby. Second Edition. Boston [U.S.], 1868, +8vo.</p> + +<p>The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy. [Edited by +Bos.] London [1839]. 8vo.</p> + +<p>Posthumous Papers of the Cadger's Club. With sixteen engravings. +London [1837].</p> + +<p>Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, formerly of Camden +Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by "Poz." With eleven +illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by Point. London, 1838.</p> + +<p>The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club. Edited by "Bos." +Illustrated with 120 engravings. 2 vols. London [1839], 8vo.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>There are, in fact, 332 engravings.</p></div> + +<p>Pickwick in America! detailing all the ... adventures of taat [<i>sic.</i>] +individual in the United States. Edited by "Bos." Illustrated with +forty-six engravings. London [1840], 8vo.</p> + +<p>Pickwick Abroad; or, the Tour in France. By George W.M. Reynolds. +Illustrated with forty-one steel plates, by Alfred Crowquill, etc. +London, 1839, 8vo.</p> + +<p>—Another edition. London, 1864, 8vo.</p> + +<p>Lloyd's Pickwickian Songster, etc. London [1837].</p> + +<p>Pickwick Songster. With portraits, designed by C.J. Grant, of "Mr. +Pickwick as Apollo," and "Sam Weller brushing boots." London, n.d.</p> + +<p>The Pickwick Comic Almanac for 1838. With twelve comic woodcut +illustrations, drawn by R. Cruikshank. London, 1838.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pickwick's Collection of Songs. Illustrated. London [1837], 12mo.</p> + +<p>Pickwick Treasury of Wit; or, Joe Miller's Jest Book. Dublin, 1840.</p> + +<p>Sam Weller's Favourite Song Book. London [1837], 12mo.</p> + +<p>Sam Weller's Pickwick Jest-Book, etc. With illustrations by +Cruikshank, and portraits of all the "Pickwick" characters. London, +1837.</p> + +<p>The Sam Weller Scrap Sheet. With forty woodcut portraits of "all the +Pickwick Characters," etc. London, n.d.</p> + +<p>Facts and Figures from Italy. Addressed during the last two winters to +C. Dickens, being an appendix to his "Pictures." By Don Jeremy +Savonarola. London, 1847, 8vo.</p> + +<p>The Sketch Book. By "Bos." Containing tales, sketches, etc. With +seventeen woodcut illustrations. London [1837], 8vo.</p> + +<p> </p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 188]<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a></span></p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Poetical</span>.</p> + +<p>Impromptu. By C.J. Davids.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Bentley's Miscellany</i>, No. 2, March 1837, p. 297.</p></div> + +<p>Poetical Epistle from Father Prout to "Boz." A poem of seven verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Bentley's Miscellany</i>, Jan. 1838, p. 71.</p></div> + +<p>A Tribute to Charles Dickens. A poem of twelve lines. By the Hon. Mrs. +Norton.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>English Bijou Almanac</i>, 1842.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens on his proposed voyage to America, 1842. By Thomas +Hood.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>New Monthly Magazine</i>, Feb. 1842, p. 217.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens, on his "Christmas Carol." A poem of fifteen lines. +By W.W.G.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Illuminated Magazine</i>, Feb. 1844, p. 189.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens on his "Oliver Twist." By T.N. Talfourd.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Tragedies; to which are added a few Sonnets and Verses</i>, by +T.N. Talfourd, p. 244. London, 1844. 16mo.</p></div> + +<p>The American's Apostrophe to "Boz." A poem.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Book of Ballads</i> [<i>by T. Martin and W.E. Aytoun</i>]. +<i>Edited by Bon Gaultier</i>, pp. 81-86. London, 1845, 16mo.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens. A Sonnet.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine</i>, March 1845, p. 250.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Sonnet. By John Forster.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith</i>, by John +Forster. London, 1848, 8vo.</p></div> + +<p>To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Poem of two verses. By James +Ballantine.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Poems</i>, by James Ballantine. Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo.</p></div> + +<p>Au Revoir. A poem of four verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Judy</i>, Oct. 30, 1867, p. 37.</p></div> + +<p>A Welcome to Dickens. A poem of eighty-four lines. By F.J. Parmentier.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, Nov. 30, 1867, pp. 757, 758.</p></div> + +<p>Impromptu. A Humorous Verse of six lines.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Life of Charles Dickens</i>, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, p. 97. +Philadelphia [1870], 8vo.</p></div> + +<p>Charles Dickens reading to his daughters on the Lawn at Gadshill. A +poem of eight verses. By the Editor (C.W.).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Life</i>, Dec. 8, 1880, p. 1005.</p></div> + +<p>Memorial Verses, June 9, 1870. Fifteen verses. By F.T.P.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Daily News</i>, June 18, 1870, p. 5.</p></div> + +<p>Ode to the Memory of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens</i>, by A.B. Hume. +London, 1870, 8vo.</p></div> + +<p>Charles Dickens. Born February 7, 1812. Died June 9, 1870. A memorial +poem of fourteen verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Punch</i>, June 18, 1870, p. 244.</p></div> + +<p>In Memoriam. June 9, 1870. A poem of six verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Graphic</i>, June 18, 1870, p. 678.</p></div> + +<p>Charles Dickens. Born 7th February 1812; died 9th June 1870. A +memorial sonnet.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Judy</i>, June 22, 1870, p. 91.</p></div> + +<p>In Memory. A poem of ten verses, with an illustration by F. Barnard.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Fun</i>, June 25, 1870, p. 157.</p></div> + +<p>In Memoriam. A poem of seventy lines. By H.M.C.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, July 1, 1870, p. 22.</p></div> + +<p>To His Memory. A poem of five verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Argosy</i>, August, 1870, p. 114.</p></div> + +<p>A Man of the Crowd to Charles Dickens. A poem of a hundred-<span class="pagenum">[Pg 189]<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a></span>and-six +lines. By E.J. Milliken.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, August 1870, pp. 277-279.</p></div> + +<p>Dickens. A memorial poem of two verses. By O.C.K. (Orpheus C. Kerr).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Piccadilly Annual</i>, Dec. 1870, p. 72.</p></div> + +<p>In Memoriam. Charles Dickens. <i>Obiit</i>, June 9, 1870. Five verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections of his +life.</i> By William Watkins. London [1870], 8vo.</p></div> + +<p>Dickens in Camp. A poem of ten verses. By F. Bret Harte.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Poems</i>, by F. Bret Harte. Boston, 1871, 12mo.</p></div> + +<p>Dickens at Gadshill. A poem of eighteen verses. By C.K. (Charles +Kent).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Athenæum</i>, June 3, 1871, p. 687.</p></div> + +<p>Death of Charles Dickens. A poem of seventeen verses.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Circe and other Poems</i>, by John Appleby, 1873.</p></div> + +<p>At Gad's Hill. An obituary poem of fourteen verses. By Richard Henry +Stoddard.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and +Dickens</i>, p. 296. By Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, 1874, +8vo.</p></div> + +<p>At the Grave of Dickens. A sonnet. By Clelia R. Crespi.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Detroit Free Press</i>, July 1884.</p></div> + +<p>In Memoriam: Charles Dickens. Died June 9, 1870. A sonnet. By C.K.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Graphic</i>, June 6, 1885, p. 586.</p></div> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Magazine and Newspaper Articles</span>.</p> + +<p>Charles Dickens. <i>Revue Britannique</i>, Avril 1843, pp. +340-376.—<i>People's Journal</i> (portrait), by William Howitt, 1846, vol. +1, pp. 8-12.—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, by Arthur Dudley, March 1848, +pp. 901-922—<i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, April 1855, pp. +451-466; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, June 1855, pp. +200-214.—<i>Die Gartenlaube</i> (portrait), 1856, pp. 73-75.—<i>Saturday +Review</i>, May 1858, pp. 474, 475; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, +July 1858, pp. 263-265—<i>Town Talk</i>, June 1858, p. 76.—<i>National +Review</i>, vol. 7, 1858, pp. 458-486.—<i>Illustrated News of the World</i>, +Supplement, Oct. 9, 1858.—<i>National Review</i> (by W. Bagehot), Oct. +1858, pp. 458-486; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, 1858, pp. +643-659; and in "Literary Studies by the late Walter +Bagehot."—<i>Critic</i> (portrait), 1858, pp. 534-537.—<i>Harper's New +Monthly Magazine</i>, 1862, pp. 376-380.—<i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 1, 1866, +p. 79; vol. 9, p. 225.—<i>Harper's Weekly</i> (portrait), 1867, p. 757; +same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, 1867, pp. 688-690.—<i>North +American Review</i>, by C.E. Norton, April, 1868, pp. 671-672.—<i>Court +Suburb Magazine</i>, by B., Dec. 1868, pp. 142, 143.—<i>Contemporary +Review</i>, by George Stott, Feb. 1869, pp. 203-225; same article, +<i>Littell's Living Age</i>, March 1869, pp. 707-720.—<i>L'Illustration</i> +(portrait), by Jules Claretie, 18 Juin, 1870—<i>Le Monde Illustré</i> +(portrait), by Léo de Bernard, 25 Juin, 1870.—<i>Annual Register</i>, +1870, pp. 151-153.—<i>Illustrated London News</i> (portrait), June, 1870, +p. 639.—<i>Spectator</i>, 1870, pp. 716, 717.—<i>Ueber Land und Meer</i> +(portrait), No.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 190]<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a></span> 42, 1870, p. 19—<i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, July 1870, pp. +130-134.—<i>Putnam's Monthly Magazine</i>, by P. Godwin, vol. 16, 1870, p. +231.—<i>St. Paul's Magazine</i>, by Anthony Trollope, July 1870, pp. +370-375; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, Sept. 1870, pp. +297-301.—<i>Illustrated Magazine</i>, by "Meteor," 1870, pp. 164, +165.—<i>Illustrated Review</i>, with portrait, vol. 1, 1870, pp. +1-4.—<i>Hours at Home</i>, by D.G. Mitchell, 1870, pp. +363-368.—<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> (portrait), July 1870, pp. 21, +22.—<i>Graphic</i> (portrait), 1870, p. 687.—<i>Nation</i> (by J.R. Dennett), +1870, pp. 380, 381.—<i>Temple Bar</i>, by Alfred Austin, July 1870, pp. +554-562.—<i>St. James's Magazine</i> (portrait), 1870, pp. +696-699.—<i>Victoria Magazine</i>, by Edward Roscoe, vol. 15, 1870, pp. +357-363.—<i>Art Journal</i>, July, 1870, p. 224.—<i>Leisure Hour</i> +(portrait), by Miss E.J. Whately, Nov. 1870, pp. 728-732.—<i>New +Eclectic</i>, by B. Jerrold, vol. 7, 1871, p. 332.—<i>London Quarterly +Review</i>, Jan. 1871, pp. 265-286.—<i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, +June 1871, pp. 673-695; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, Sept. 1871, +pp. 257, 274; <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, July 1871, pp. +29-44.—<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, by George Barnett Smith, 1874, pp. +301-316.—<i>Social Notes</i>, by Moy Thomas (portrait), etc., Oct. 1879, +pp. 114-117.—<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, by Mowbray Morris, Dec. 1882, pp. +762-779.</p> + +<p>—About England with. <i>Scribner's Monthly</i>, by B.E. Martin +[illustrated], Aug. 1880, pp. 494-503.</p> + +<p>—Amateur Theatricals. <i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, Jan. 1871, pp. +206-215; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, March 1871, pp. +322-330.—<i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 10, p. 70.</p> + +<p>—As "Captain Bobadil" (portrait). <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 11, p. +295.</p> + +<p>—American Notes. <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, Nov. 1842, pp. +617-629.—<i>Monthly Review</i>, Nov. 1842, pp. 392-403.—<i>Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal</i>, Nov. 1842, pp. 348, 349, 356, 357.—<i>New Monthly +Magazine</i> (by Thomas Hood), Nov. 1842, pp. 396-406.—<i>Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine</i>, by Q.Q.Q., Dec. 1842, pp. 783-801.—<i>Tait's +Edinburgh Magazine</i>, vol. 9, 1842, pp. 737-746.—<i>Christian +Remembrancer</i>, Dec. 1842, pp. 679, 680.—<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, by James +Spedding, Jan. 1843, pp. 497-522. Reprinted in "Reviews and +Discussions," etc., by James Spedding; Note to the above, Feb. 1843, +p. 301.—<i>Eclectic Museum</i>, vol. 1, 1843, p. 230.—<i>North American +Review</i>, Jan. 1843, pp. 212-237.—<i>Quarterly Review</i>, March 1843, pp. +502-522.—<i>Westminster Review</i>, by H., 1843, pp. 146-160.—<i>New +Englander</i>, by J.P. Thompson, 1843, pp. 64-84.—<i>Southern Literary +Messenger</i>, 1843, pp. 58-62.—<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by Edwin P. Whipple, +April 1877, pp. 462-466.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 191]<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a></span></p> + +<p>—And Benjamin Disraeli. <i>Tailor and Cutter</i>, July 1870, pp. +401-402.</p> + +<p>—The Styles of Disraeli and. <i>Galaxy</i>, by Richard Grant White, Aug. +1870, pp. 253-263.</p> + +<p>—And Thackeray. <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, vol. 21, p. 224.—<i>Dublin +Review</i>, April 1871, pp. 315-350.</p> + +<p>—And Bulwer. A Contrast. <i>Temple Bar</i>, Jan. 1875, pp. 168-180.</p> + +<p>—Living Literati; Sir E. Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Charles Dickens. +<i>Eginton's Literary Railway Miscellany</i>, 1854, pp. 19-25, 174-188.</p> + +<p>—And Chauncy Hare Townshend. <i>London Society</i>, Aug. 1870, pp. +157-159.</p> + +<p>—And his Critics. <i>The Train</i>, by John Hollingshead, Aug. 1857, pp. +76-79; reprinted in "Essays and Miscellanies" by John Hollingshead.</p> + +<p>—And his Debt of Honour. <i>Land We Love</i>, vol. 5, p. 414.</p> + +<p>—And his Illustrators. With nine illustrations. <i>Christmas +Bookseller</i>, 1879, pp. 15-21.</p> + +<p>—And his Letters. Part 1. By Mary Cowden Clarke. <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, Dec. 1876, pp. 708-713.</p> + +<p>—And his Works. <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, April 1840, pp. 381-400.</p> + +<p>—Another Gossip about.—<i>Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine</i>, vol. +12, 1872, pp. 78-83.</p> + +<p>—As an Author and Reader. <i>Welcome</i>, with portrait, vol. 12, 1885, +pp. 166-170.</p> + +<p>—As a Dramatic Critic. <i>Longman's Magazine</i>, by Dutton Cook, May +1883, pp. 29-42.</p> + +<p>—As a Dramatist and a Poet. <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, by Percy +Fitzgerald, 1878, pp. 61-77.</p> + +<p>—As a Humaniser. <i>St. James's Magazine</i>, by Arnold Quamoclit, 1879, +pp. 281-291.</p> + +<p>—As a Journalist. <i>Journalist, A Monthly Phonographic Magazine</i>, by +Charles Kent, in Pitman's Shorthand, vol. 1, Dec. 1879, pp. 17-25. +Done into English—<i>Time</i>, July 1881, pp. 361-374.</p> + +<p>—As a Literary Exemplar. <i>University Quarterly</i>, by F.A. Walker, +vol. 1, p. 91, etc.</p> + +<p>—As a Moralist. <i>Old and New</i>, April 1871, pp. 480-483.</p> + +<p>—As a Moral Teacher. <i>Monthly Religious Magazine</i>, by J.H. Morison, +vol. 44, p. 129, etc.</p> + +<p>—As a Reader. <i>The Critic</i>, 1858, pp. 537, 538.</p> + +<p>—Eine Vorlesung von Charles Dickens. <i>Die Gartenlaube</i>, by Corvin +(portrait), 1861, pp. 612-614.</p> + +<p>—Readings by Charles Dickens. <i>Land We Love</i>, by T.C. De Leon, vol. +4, p. 421, etc.</p> + +<p>—Farewell Reading in London. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, pp. 242, +260.</p> + +<p>—Last Readings. <i>Graphic</i>, February 1870, p. 250.</p> + +<p>—New Reading. Illustrated. <i>Tinsley's Magazine</i>, by Edmund Yates, +1869, pp. 60-64.</p> + +<p>—At Home. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 2, p. 396. <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> +(by Percy Fitzgerald), November 1881, pp. 562-583.—<i>Cornhill +Magazine</i><span class="pagenum">[Pg 192]<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a></span> (by his eldest daughter), 1885, pp. 32-51.</p> + +<p>—At Gadshill Place. <i>Life</i>, 1880, pp. 1005, 1006.</p> + +<p>—Biographical Sketch of. <i>The Eclectic Magazine</i> (portrait), 1864, +pp. 115-117.</p> + +<p>—Bleak House. <i>Rambler</i>, vol. 1. N.S., 1854, pp. 41-45.</p> + +<p>—Boyhood of. <i>Thistle</i>, by J.D.D., vol. 1, pp. 51-55.</p> + +<p>—Childhood of. (Illustrated.) <i>Manchester Quarterly</i>, by Robert L. +Langton, vol. 1, 1882, pp. 178-180.</p> + +<p>—Early Life of. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 12, p. 60.</p> + +<p>—Boz. <i>The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine</i>, by J.T., July 1870, +pp. 14-16.</p> + +<p>—The "Boz" Ball. <i>Historical Magazine</i>, by P.M., pp. 110-113 and +291-294.</p> + +<p>—"Boz" in Paris.—<i>Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine</i>, vol. 10, pp. +186-189.</p> + +<p>—Boz <i>versus</i> Dickens. <i>Parker's London Magazine</i>, February 1845, +pp. 122-128.</p> + +<p>—Grip the Raven, in "Barnaby Rudge." <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, 542, +742, 749.</p> + +<p>—The Battle of Life. <i>Tait's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, 1847, pp. 55-60.</p> + +<p>—Bleak House. <i>Spectator</i> (by George Brimley), Sep. 1853, pp. +923-925. Reprinted in "Essays by the late George Brimley."—<i>United +States Magazine and Democratic Review</i>, Sep. 1853, pp. +276-280.—<i>North American Review</i> (by W. Sargent,) Oct. 1853, pp. +409-439.—<i>Eclectic Review</i>, Dec. 1853, pp. 665-679.</p> + +<p>—Characters in. <i>Putnam's Monthly Magazine</i> (by C.F. Riggs), 1853, +pp. 558-562.</p> + +<p>—Characters from Dickens [Illustrated]. <i>Jack and Jill</i>, 1885-6.</p> + +<p>—The Chimes. <i>Dublin Review</i>, Dec. 1844, pp. 560-568.—<i>Eclectic +Review</i>, 1845, pp. 70-88.—<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, Jan. 1845, pp. 181-189; +same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, May 1845, pp. 33-38.</p> + +<p>—Christmas Books. <i>Union Magazine</i>, 1846, pp. 223-236.</p> + +<p>—A Christmas Carol. <i>Dublin Review</i>, 1843, pp. 510-529.—<i>Fraser's +Magazine</i>, by M.A.T., Feb. 1844, pp. 167-169.—<i>Hood's Magazine</i>, +1844, pp. 68-75.—<i>Knickerbocker</i>, by S.G. Clark, March, 1844, pp. +276-281.</p> + +<p>—Controversy. <i>American Publishers' Circular</i>, June 1867, pp. +68-69.</p> + +<p>—Cricket on the Hearth. <i>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal</i>, 1846, pp. +44-48.—<i>Oxford and Cambridge Review</i>, vol. 2, 1846, pp. 43-50.</p> + +<p>—David Copperfield. <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, Dec. 1850, pp. 698-710; +same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, Feb. 1851, pp. 247-258.</p> + +<p>—David Copperfield and Arthur Pendennis. <i>Southern Literary +Messenger</i>, 1851, pp. 499-504.—<i>Prospective Review</i>, July 1851, pp. +157-191.—<i>North British Review</i> (by David Masson), May 1851, pp. +57-89; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, July 1851, pp. 97-110.</p> + +<p>—Schools; or, Teachers and Taught. <i>Family Herald</i>, July 1849, pp. +204-205.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 193]<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a></span></p> + +<p>—The Death of. Articles reprinted from the <i>Saturday Review</i>, the +<i>Spectator</i>, the <i>Daily News</i>, and the <i>Times</i>. <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, +Aug. 1870, pp. 217-224.—<i>Saturday Review</i>, June 11, 1870, pp. 760, +761.—<i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, 1870, p. 450.</p> + +<p>—Devonshire House Theatricals. <i>Bentley's Miscellany</i>, 1851, pp. +660-667.</p> + +<p>—Dictionary of (Pierce and Wheeler's). <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 11, +p. 258.</p> + +<p>—Dogs; or, the Landseer of Fiction. [Illustrated.] <i>London +Society</i>, July 1863, pp. 48-61.</p> + +<p>—Dombey and Son. <i>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal</i>, Oct. 1846, pp. +269, 270.—<i>North British Review</i>, May 1847, pp. 110-136.—<i>Rambler</i>, +vol. 1, 1848, pp. 64, 66.—<i>Sun</i> (by Charles Kent), April 13, 1848.</p> + +<p>— —Humourists: Dickens and Thackeray (Dombey and Son and Vanity +Fair). <i>English Review</i>, Dec. 1848, pp. 257-275; same article, +<i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, March 1849, pp. 370-379.</p> + +<p>— —The Wooden Midshipman (of "Dombey and Son"). (By Ashby +Sterry.) <i>All the Year Round</i>, Oct. 1881, pp. 173-179.</p> + +<p>—English Magazines on, 1870. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, p. 482.</p> + +<p>—Farewell Banquet to, 1867. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 4, p. 705.</p> + +<p>—A Few Words on. <i>Town and Country</i>, by A.J.H. Crespi, N.S., vol. +1, 1873, pp. 265-273.</p> + +<p>—Footprints of. <i>Harper's New Monthly Magazine</i>, by M.D. Conway. +1870, pp. 610-616.</p> + +<p>—Forster's Life of (Vol. 1). <i>Examiner</i>, by Herbert Wilson, Dec. +1871, pp. 1217, 1218; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, Feb. 1872, +pp. 237-240.—<i>Chambers's Journal</i> (by James Payn), Jan. 1872, pp. +17-21 and 40-45.—<i>Quarterly Review</i>, Jan. 1872, pp. +125-147.—<i>Nation</i>, 1872, pp. 42, 43.—<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, by J. +Herbert Stack, Jan. 1872, pp. 117-120.—<i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, Jan. +1872, pp. 105-113; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, March 1872, pp. +277-284.—<i>Canadian Monthly</i>, Feb. 1872, pp. 179-182.—<i>Lakeside +Monthly</i>, April 1872, pp. 336-340.—<i>Overland Monthly</i>, by George B. +Merrill, May 1872, pp. 443-451.</p> + +<p>—Forster's Life of (vol. 2). <i>Examiner</i>, Nov. 1872, pp. 1132, +1133.—<i>Nation</i>, 1873, pp. 28, 29.—<i>Chambers's Journal</i> (by James +Payn), Feb. 1873, pp. 74-79.—<i>Canadian Monthly</i>, Feb. 1873, pp. +171-173.—<i>Temple Bar</i>, May 1873, pp. 169-185.</p> + +<p>—Forster's Life of (vol. 3). <i>Examiner</i>, 1874, pp. 161, +162.—<i>Nation</i>, 1874, pp. 175, 176.—<i>Chambers's Journal</i> (by James +Payn), March 1874, pp. 177-180.—<i>Canadian Monthly</i>, April 1874, pp. +364-366.</p> + +<p>—Forster's Life of. <i>International Review</i>, May 1874, pp. +417-420.—<i>North American Review</i>, vol. 114, p. 413.—<i>Every +Saturday</i>, vol. 14, p. 608.—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, by Léon Boucher, +tom. 8, 1875, pp. 95-126.—<i>American Bibliopolist</i>, vol. 4, p. +125.—<i>Catholic World</i>, by J.R.G. Hassard, vol. 30, p. 692.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 194]<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a></span></p> + +<p>—Four months with. (1842.) <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by G.W. Putnam. +1870, pp. 476-482, 591-599.</p> + +<p>—French Criticism of. <i>People's Journal</i>, vol. 5, p. 228.</p> + +<p>—On the Genius of. <i>Knickerbocker</i>, by F.W. Shelton, May 1852, pp. +421-431.—<i>Putnam's Monthly Magazine</i>, by G.F. Talbot, 1855, pp. +263-272.—<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by E.P. Whipple, May 1867, pp. +546-554.—<i>Spectator</i>, 1870, pp. 749-751.—<i>New Eclectic</i>, vol. 7, +1871, p. 257</p> + +<p>—The "Good Genie" of Fiction. <i>St. Paul's Magazine</i>, by Robert +Buchanan, 1872, pp. 130-148; reprinted in "A Poet's Sketch-Book," +etc., by Robert Buchanan, 1883.</p> + +<p>—Great Expectations. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by Edwin P. Whipple, Sep. +1877, pp. 327-333.—<i>Eclectic Review</i>, Oct. 1861, pp. +458-477.—<i>Dublin University Magazine</i>, Dec. 1861, pp. 685-693.</p> + +<p>—Bygone Celebrities: I. The Guild of Literature and Art. +<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, by R.H. Horne, Feb. 1871, pp. 247-262.</p> + +<p>—Hard Times. <i>Westminster Review</i>, Oct. 1854, pp. +604-608.—<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by Edwin P. Whipple, March 1877, pp. +353-358.</p> + +<p>—The Home of. <i>Hours at Home</i>, by John D. Sherwood, July 1867, pp. +239-242.—<i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, p. 228.</p> + +<p>—In and Out of London with. <i>Scribner's Monthly</i>, by B.E. Martin. +[Illustrated.] May 1881, pp. 32-45.</p> + +<p>—In London with. <i>Scribner's Monthly</i>, by B.E. Martin. +(Illustrated). March 1881, pp. 649-664.</p> + +<p>—In the Editor's Chair. <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, by Percy +Fitzgerald, June 1881, pp. 725-742.</p> + +<p>—In Memoriam. By A.H. (Arthur Helps). <i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>, July +1870, pp. 236-240.—<i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, by Blanchard Jerrold, July +1870, pp. 228-241; reprinted, with additions, as "A Day with Charles +Dickens," in the "Best of all Good Company," by Blanchard Jerrold, +1872.</p> + +<p>—In New York (by J.R. Dennett). <i>Nation</i>, 1867, pp. 482, 483.</p> + +<p>—In Poet's Corner. <i>Illustrated London News</i>, June 1870, pp. 652 +and 662, 663.</p> + +<p>—In Relation to Christmas. <i>Graphic</i> Christmas Number, 1870, p, 19.</p> + +<p>—In Relation to Criticism. <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, by George Henry +Lewes, 1872, pp. 141-154; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1872, pp. +445-453; <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 12., p. 246, etc.</p> + +<p>—A Lost Work of (Is She His Wife? or, Something Singular). <i>The +Pen; a Journal of Literature</i>, by Richard Herne Shepherd, October +1880, pp. 311, 312.</p> + +<p>—Least known writings of. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, p. 471.</p> + +<p>—Letters of. <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, by William Minto, Dec. 1879, pp. +845-862; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, 1880, pp.<span class="pagenum">[Pg 195]<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a></span> 3-13; +<i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1880, pp. 165-175.—<i>Nation</i>, by W.C. Brownell, +December 1879, pp. 388-390.—<i>Literary World</i>, December 1879, pp. +369-371.—<i>Scribner's Monthly</i>, Jan. 1880, pp. 470, 471.—<i>Appleton's +Journal of Literature</i>, 1880, pp. 72-81.—<i>Contemporary Review</i>, by +Matthew Browne, 1880, pp. 77-85.—<i>North American Review</i>, by Eugene +L. Didier, March 1880, pp. 302-306.—<i>Westminster Review</i>, April 1880, +pp. 423-448; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, June 1880, pp. +707-720.—<i>Dublin Review</i>, by Helen Atteridge, April 1880, pp. +409-438.—<i>Month</i>, by the Rev. G. Macleod, May 1880, pp. +81-97.—<i>International Review</i>, by J.S. Morse, Jnn., vol. 8, p. 271.</p> + +<p>—Life and Letters of. <i>Catholic World</i>, vol. 30, pp. 692-701.</p> + +<p>—Little Boys and Great Men. <i>Little Folks</i>, by C.L.M. Nos. 64, 65.</p> + +<p>—Little Dorrit. <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, July 1857, pp. +124-156.—<i>Leader</i>, June 1857, pp. 616, 617.—<i>Sun</i>, by Charles Kent, +June 26, 1857.</p> + +<p>—Lives of the Illustrious. <i>The Biographical Magazine</i>, by J.H.F., +vol. 2, pp. 276-297.</p> + +<p>—Manuscripts, <i>Chambers's Journal</i>, Nov. 1877, pp. 710-712; same +article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1878, pp. 80-82; <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, +1878, pp. 252-254.—<i>Potter's American Monthly</i>, vol. 10, p. 156.</p> + +<p>—Life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. <i>Monthly Review</i>, Sept. +1844, pp. 137-146.—<i>National Review</i>, July 1861, pp. 134-150.</p> + +<p>—Master Humphrey's Clock. <i>Monthly Review</i>, May 1840, pp. +35-43.—<i>Christian Examiner</i>, March 1842, pp. 1-19.</p> + +<p>—Memories of Charles Dickens. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by J.T. Fields, +Aug. 1870, pp. 235-245; same article, <i>Piccadilly Annual</i>, 1870, pp. +66-72.</p> + +<p>—Bygone Celebrities: II. Mr. Nightingale's Diary. <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, by R.H. Horne. May 1871, pp. 660-672.</p> + +<p>—Modern Novelists. <i>Westminster Review</i>, Oct. 1864, pp. 414-441; +same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1865, pp. 42-59.</p> + +<p>—Modern Novels. Including the "Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas +Nickleby," and "Master Humphrey's Clock." <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>, +Dec. 1842, pp. 581-596.</p> + +<p>—Moral Services to Literature. <i>Spectator</i>, April 1869, pp. 474, +475; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, July 1869, pp. 103-106.</p> + +<p>—Mystery of Edwin Drood. <i>Graphic</i>, April 1870, p. 438.—<i>Every +Saturday</i>, 1870, vol. 9, pp. 291, 594.—<i>Spectator</i>, 1870, pp. 1176, +1177.—<i>Old and New</i>, (by George B. Woods), Nov. 1870, pp. +530-533.—<i>Southern Magazine</i>, 1873, vol. 14, p. 219.—<i>Belgravia</i> (by +Thomas Foster), June 1878, pp. 453-473.</p> + +<p>—How "Edwin Drood" was Illustrated. [Illustrated.] <i>Century +Magazine</i>, by Alice Meynell, Feb. 1884, pp. 522-528.</p> + +<p>—A Quasi-Scientific Inquiry into "The Mystery of Edwin<span class="pagenum">[Pg 196]<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a></span> Drood." +Illustrated. <i>Knowledge</i>, by Thomas Foster, Sep. 12, Nov. 14, 1884.</p> + +<p>—Suggestions for a Conclusion to "Edwin Drood." <i>Cornhill +Magazine</i>, March 1884, pp. 308-317.</p> + +<p>—Edwin Drood. Concluded by Charles Dickens, through a Medium. +<i>Transatlantic</i>, vol. 2, 1873, pp. 173-183.</p> + +<p>—In France. (Acting of Nicholas Nickleby in Paris.) <i>Fraser's +Magazine</i>, March 1842, pp. 342-352.</p> + +<p>—Nomenclature. <i>Belgravia</i>, by W.F. Peacock, 1873, pp. 267-276, +393-402.</p> + +<p>—Notes and Correspondence. <i>Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine</i>, vol. +11, 1871, pp. 91-95.</p> + +<p>—Novel Reading: The works of. <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, by Anthony +Trollope, 1879, pp. 24-43.</p> + +<p>—Novels and Novelists. <i>North American Review</i>, by E.P. Whipple, +October 1849, pp. 383-407; reprinted in "Literature and Life," etc., +by E.P. Whipple.</p> + +<p>—Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge. <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>, vol. +4, 1842, p. 581.—<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, January 1, 1884, pp. 11, 12.</p> + +<p>—The Old Lady of Fetter Lane (Old Curiosity Shop). (Illustrated.) +<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, January 5, 1884, p.</p> + +<p>—Oliver Twist. <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>, May 1837, pp. +323-325.—<i>London and Westminster Review</i>, July 1837, pp. +194-215.—<i>Dublin University Magazine</i>, December 1838, pp. +699-723.—<i>Quarterly Review</i>, June 1839, pp. 83-102.—<i>Christian +Examiner</i>, by J.S.D., Nov. 1839, pp. 161-174.—<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by +Edwin P. Whipple, Oct. 1876, pp. 474-479.</p> + +<p>—On Bells. <i>Belgravia</i>, by George Delamere Cowan, Jan. 1876, pp. +380-387.</p> + +<p>—Our Letter. <i>St. Nicholas</i>, by M.F. Armstrong, 1877, pp. 438-441.</p> + +<p>—Our Mutual Friend. <i>Eclectic Review</i>, Nov. 1865, pp. +455-476.—<i>Nation</i>, Dec. 1865, pp. 786, 787.—<i>Westminster Review</i>, +April 1866, pp. 582-585.</p> + +<p>—Our Mutual Friend in Manuscript. <i>Scribner's Monthly Magazine</i>, by +Kate Field, August 1874, pp. 472-475.</p> + +<p>—Pickwick Club. <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>, 1836, pp. 787, 788; +Sept. 1837, pp. 525-532.—<i>Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature</i>, +vol. 32, 1837, p. 195.—<i>Monthly Review</i>, Feb. 1837, pp. +153-163.—<i>Eclectic Review</i>, April 1837, pp. 339-355.—<i>Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal</i>, April 1837, pp. 109, 110.—<i>London and Westminster +Review</i>, July 1837, pp. 194-215.—<i>Quarterly Review</i>, Oct. 1837, pp. +484-518.—<i>Belgravia</i>, by W.S. (W. Sawyer), July 1870, pp. +33-36.—<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. 1876, pp. +219-224.</p> + +<p>— —Mr. Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby. [Illustrated.] +<i>Scribner's Monthly</i>, by B.E. Martin, Sept. 1880, pp. 641-656.</p> + +<p>— —From Faust to Mr. Pickwick. <i>Contemporary Re<span class="pagenum">[Pg 197]<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a></span>view</i>, by +Matthew Browne, July 1880, pp. 162-176.</p> + +<p>— —German Translation of the "Pickwick Papers." <i>Dublin Review</i>, +Feb. 1840, pp. 160-188.</p> + +<p>— —The Origin of the Pickwick Papers. <i>Society</i>, by R.H. +Shepherd, Oct. 4, 1884, pp. 18-20.</p> + +<p>— —The Portrait of Mr. Pickwick. <i>Belgravia</i>, by George Augustus +Sala, Aug. 1870, pp. 165-171.</p> + +<p>—Pictures from Italy. <i>Tait's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, vol. 13, 1846, +pp. 461-466.—<i>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal</i>, 1846, pp. +389-391.—<i>Dublin Review</i>, Sept. 1846, pp. 184-201.—<i>Sun</i>, by Charles +Kent, March 1846.</p> + +<p>—Poetic Element in the Style of. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, p. 811.</p> + +<p>—The Pressmen of, and Thackeray. <i>Graphic</i>, by T.H. North, 1881, p. +116.</p> + +<p>—Reception of. <i>United States Magazine and Democratic Review</i> +(portrait), April 1842, pp. 315-320.</p> + +<p>—Reminiscences of. <i>Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine</i>, by E.E.C., +vol. 10, 1871, pp. 336-344.</p> + +<p>—Remonstrance with. <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, April 1857, +pp. 490-503; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, May 1857, pp. +480-492.</p> + +<p>—Sale of the Effects of. <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9, p. +557.—<i>Chambers's Journal</i>, 1870, pp. 522-505.</p> + +<p>—Seasonable Words about. <i>The Overland Monthly</i>, by N.S. Dodge, +1871, pp. 72-82.</p> + +<p>—Secularistic Teaching. <i>Secular Chronicle</i>, by Harriet T. Law +(portrait). Dec. 1877, pp. 289-291.</p> + +<p>—Shadow on Life of. <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. +1877, pp. 227-233.</p> + +<p>—Sketches by Boz. <i>Monthly Review</i>, March 1836, pp. 350-357; 1837, +pp. 153-163.—<i>Mirror</i>, April 1836, pp. 249-250—<i>London and +Westminster Review</i>, July 1837, pp. 194-215.—<i>Quarterly Review</i>, Oct. +1837, pp. 484-518.</p> + +<p>— —The Boarding House (Sketches by Boz). <i>Chambers's Edinburgh +Journal</i>, April 1836, pp. 83, 84.</p> + +<p>— —Watkins Tottle and other Sketches (Sketches by Boz). +<i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>, 1836, pp. 457-460.</p> + +<p>—Son talent et ses [oe]uvres. <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, by H. Taine. +Feb. 1856, pp. 618-647.</p> + +<p>—Studien über Dickens und den Humor. <i>Westermann's Jahrbuch der +Illustrirten Deutschen Monatshefte</i>, Von Julian Schmidt (portrait), +April-July 1870.</p> + +<p>—Studies of English Authors. No. V. Charles Dickens. In eleven +chapters. <i>Literary World</i>, by Peter Bayne, March 21 to May 30, 1879.</p> + +<p>—Study. <i>Graphic</i> Christmas Number, by C.C. 1870.</p> + +<p>—A Tale of Two Cities. <i>Saturday Review</i>, Dec. 1859, pp. 741-743; +same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, Feb. 1860, pp. 366-369. <span class="pagenum">[Pg 198]<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></span><i>Sun</i>, +by Charles Kent, Aug. 11, 1859.</p> + +<p>—Tales. <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, Oct. 1838, pp. 75-97.</p> + +<p>—The Tendency of Works of. <i>Argosy</i>, by A.D., 1885, pp. 282-292.</p> + +<p>—The Tension in. <i>Every Saturday</i>, Dec. 1872, pp. 678-679.</p> + +<p>—A Tramp with. Through London by Night with the Great Novelist. +<i>Detroit Free Press</i>, April 7, 1883.</p> + +<p>—Tulrumble, and Oliver Twist. <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>, May +1837, pp. 323-325.</p> + +<p>—The "Two Green Leaves" (portrait). <i>Graphic</i>, March 26, 1870, pp. +388-390.</p> + +<p>—Unpublished Letters. <i>Times</i>, Oct. 27, 1883.</p> + +<p>—Satire on. <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i>, by S. Warren, vol. 60, 1846, +pp. 590-605; same article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, vol. 10, 1847, p. 65.</p> + +<p>—Use of the Bible. <i>Temple Bar</i>, September 1869, pp. 225-234; same +article, <i>Appleton's Journal</i>, Oct. 16, 23, 1869, pp. 265-267, 294, +295; <i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 8, p. 411.</p> + +<p>—Verse. <i>Spectator</i>, 1877, pp. 1651-1653; same article, <i>Littell's +Living Age</i>, 1878, pp. 237-241.</p> + +<p>—Visit to Charles Dickens by Hans Christian Andersen. <i>Bentley's +Miscellany</i>, 1860, pp. 181-185; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, +1860, pp. 692-695, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1864, pp. 110-114.</p> + +<p>— —Andersen's. <i>Temple Bar</i>, December 1870, pp. 27-46; same +article, <i>Eclectic Magazine</i>, 1871, pp. 183-196, <i>Every Saturday</i>, +vol. 9, p. 874, etc.; Appendix to <i>Pictures of Travels in Sweden</i>, +etc.</p> + +<p>— —Pilgrimage. [Visit to Gadshill.] <i>Lippincott's Magazine</i>, by +Barton Hill. Sept. 1870, pp. 288-293.</p> + +<p>—Voice of Christmas Past. (Illustrated.) <i>Harper's New Monthly +Magazine</i>, by Mrs. Z.B. Buddington, January 1871, pp. 187-200.</p> + +<p>—With the Newsvendors.—<i>Every Saturday</i>, vol. 9. p. 318.</p> + +<p>—Works. <i>London University Magazine</i>, by J.S. (James Spedding), +vol. 1, 1842, pp. 378-398.—<i>North British Review</i>, by J. Cleghorn, +May 1845, pp. 65-87; same article, <i>Littell's Living Age</i>, June 1845, +pp. 601-610.—<i>National Quarterly Review</i>, by H. Dennison, 1860, vol. +1, p. 91.—<i>British Quarterly Review</i>, Jan. 1862, pp. +135-159.—<i>Scottish Review</i>, Dec. 1883, <b>pp.</b> 125-147.</p> + +<p> </p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 199]<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a></span></p> + + +<p><b>VI.—CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.</b></p> + +<p> +Sketches by Boz 1836-37<br /> +Sunday under Three Heads 1836<br /> +The Village Coquettes 1836<br /> +The Strange Gentleman 1837<br /> +Pickwick Papers 1837<br /> +Oliver Twist 1838<br /> +Sketches of Young Gentlemen 1838<br /> +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi 1838<br /> +Nicholas Nickleby 1839<br /> +Sketches of Young Couples 1840<br /> +Master Humphrey's Clock (The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge) 1840-1<br /> +American Notes 1842<br /> +Christmas Carol 1843<br /> +Martin Chuzzlewit 1844<br /> +The Chimes 1845<br /> +Cricket on the Hearth 1846<br /> +Pictures from Italy 1846<br /> +Battle of Life 1846<br /> +Dombey and Son 1848<br /> +Haunted Man 1848<br /> +David Copperfield 1850<br /> +Mr. Nightingale's Diary 1851<br /> +Child's History of England 1852-4<br /> +Bleak House 1853<br /> +Hard Times 1854<br /> +Little Dorrit 1857<br /> +Hunted Down 1859<br /> +Tale of Two Cities 1859<br /> +Great Expectations 1861<br /> +Uncommercial Traveller 1861<br /> +Our Mutual Friend 1865<br /> +Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870</p> +<p> </p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span>, <i>Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne</i></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 201]<a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="GREAT_WRITERS" id="GREAT_WRITERS"></a>GREAT WRITERS.</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center">A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Edited by Professor</span> ERIC S. ROBERTSON.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Vol. I.—"LIFE OF LONGFELLOW."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">By Professor</span> ERIC S. ROBERTSON</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The object of '<span class="smcap">Great Writers</span>' is to 'furnish the +public with interesting and accurate accounts of the men and +women notable in modern literature.' The first volume, now +before us, is on Longfellow, by the Editor, and gives, in +the space of 180 pages, a detailed account of the poet's +life, an analysis of his work, and an essay on his place in +literature. It is as the household poet <i>par excellence</i> +that Longfellow may reasonably take the first place in such +a series as that now to be issued, and, as an accompaniment +to the reading of the poems themselves, nothing more is +wanted than will be found in these pages. The type is clear, +the paper good, the binding stout, and the size handy. +Altogether a remarkable shillingsworth, even in this day of +cheap books. Other numbers promised are 'Coleridge,' by Hall +Caine; 'Dickens,' by Frank Marzials; and 'Rossetti,' by +Joseph Knight. If the future numbers are as good as the +first, a great success may be anticipated."—<i>The Standard.</i></p></div> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p>Vol. II. is "LIFE OF COLERIDGE."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">By HALL CAINE.</span></p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p>Vol. III. will be "LIFE OF DICKENS."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">By FRANK T. MARZIALS.</span> [Ready Feb. 20.</p> + + +<p> </p> + + +<p>Vol. IV. will be "LIFE OF ROSSETTI."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">By JOSEPH KNIGHT.</span> [Ready March 20.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following Gentlemen have agreed to write the volumes +forming the First Year's Issue:—<span class="smcap">William Rossetti, Hall +Caine, Richard Garnett, Frank T. Marzials, William Sharp, +Joseph Knight, Augustine Birrell</span>, Professor <span class="smcap">D'Arcy +Thompson, R.B. Haldane, M.P., Austin Dobson</span>, Colonel +<span class="smcap">F. Grant</span>, and <span class="smcap">The Editor</span>.</p> + +<p>Library Edition of "Great Writers."—A Limited Issue of all +the Volumes in this Series will be published, printed on +large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, +price 2s. 6d. per volume.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">London:</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center">WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 202]<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="The_Canterbury_Poets" id="The_Canterbury_Poets"></a>The Canterbury Poets.</h2> + + +<p><i>In</i> SHILLING <i>Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo. Well printed on fine toned +paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each Volume +contains from 300 to 350 pages. With Introductory Notices by</i> +<span class="smcap">William Sharp, Mathilde Blind, Walter Lewin, John Hogben, A.J. +Symington, Joseph Skipsey, Eva Hope, John Richmond, Ernest Rhys, Percy +E. Pinkerton, Mrs. Garden, Dean Carrington, Dr. J. Bradshaw, Frederick +Cooper, Hon. Roden Noel, J. Addington Symonds, G. Willis Cooke, Eric +Mackay, Eric S. Robertson, William Tirebuck, Stuart J. Reid, Mrs. +Freiligrath Kroeker, J. Logie Robertson, M.A., Samuel Waddington</span>, +<i>etc., etc.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<i>Cloth, Red Edges</i> 1s.</p><p style="text-align: center"> +<i>Cloth, Uncut Edges</i> 1s.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<i>Red Roan, Gilt Edges</i> 2s. 6d.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<i>Silk Plush, Gilt Edges</i> 4s. 6d.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY</i></p> + +<p> +<b>CHRISTIAN YEAR.<br /> +</b>By Rev. John Keble.</p> +<p> +<b>COLERIDGE.<br /> +</b>Edited by Joseph Skipsey.</p> +<p> +<b>LONGFELLOW.<br /> +</b>Edited by Eva Hope.</p> +<p> +<b>CAMPBELL.<br /> +</b>Edited by J. Hogben.</p> +<p> +<b>SHELLEY.<br /> +</b>Edited by Joseph Skipsey.</p> +<p> +<b>WORDSWORTH.<br /> +</b>Edited by A.J. Symington.</p> +<p><b>BLAKE.<br /> +</b>Edited by Joseph Skipsey.</p> +<p> +<b>WHITTIER.<br /> +</b>Edited by Eva Hope.</p> +<p><b>POE.<br /> +</b>Edited by Joseph Skipsey.</p> +<p> +<b>CHATTERTON.<br /> +</b>Edited by John Richmond.</p> +<p> +<b>BURNS.</b> Poems.<b><br /> +BURNS.</b> Songs.<br /> +Edited by Joseph Skipsey.</p> +<p> +<b>MARLOWE.<br /> +</b>Edited by P.E. Pinkerton.</p> +<p> +<b>KEATS.<br /> +</b>Edited by John Hogben.</p> +<p> +<b>HERBERT.<br /> +</b>Edited by Ernest Rhys.</p> +<p><b>VICTOR HUGO.<br /> +</b>Translated by Dean Carrington.</p> +<p> +<b>COWPER.<br /> +</b>Edited by Eva Hope.</p> +<p> +<b>SHAKESPEARE:<br /> +</b>Songs, Poems, and Sonnets.<br /> +Edited by William Sharp.</p> +<p> +<b>EMERSON.<br /> +</b>Edited by Walter Lewin.</p> +<p><b>SONNETS of this CENTURY.<br /> +</b>Edited by William Sharp.</p> +<p> +<b>WHITMAN.<br /> +</b>Edited by Ernest Rhys.</p> +<p><b>SCOTT.</b> Marmion, etc.<b><br /> +SCOTT.</b> Lady of the Lake, etc.<br /> +Edited by William Sharp.</p> +<p> +<b>PRAED.<br /> +</b>Edited by Frederick Cooper.</p> +<p><b>HOGG.<br /> +</b>By his Daughter, Mrs. Garden.</p> +<p> +<b>GOLDSMITH.<br /> +</b>Edited by William Tirebuck.</p> +<p><b>LOVE LETTERS OF A +VIOLINIST.<br /> +</b> By Eric Mackay.</p> +<p> +<b>SPENSER.<br /> +</b>Edited by Hon. Roden Noel.</p> +<p> +<b>CHILDREN OF THE POETS.<br /> +</b>Edited by Eric S. Robertson.</p> +<p> +<b>BEN JONSON.<br /> +</b>Edited by J.A. Symonds.</p> +<p> +<b>BYRON</b> (2 Vols.)<br /> +Edited by Mathilde Blind.</p> +<p> +<b>THE SONNETS OF EUROPE.<br /> +</b>Edited by S. Waddington.</p> +<p><b>ALLAN RAMSAY.<br /> +</b>Edited by J. Logie Robertson.</p> +<p> +<b>SYDNEY DOBELL.<br /> +</b>Edited by Mrs. Dobell.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 203]<a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CAMELOT CLASSICS.</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED.</i></p> + + +<p> + </p><p> +ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR.</p><p> +<span class="smcap">By Sir T. MALORY.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Ernest Rhys</span>.</p><p> </p> +<p>WALDEN.</p> +<p> <span class="smcap">By HENRY DAVID THOREAU. </span>With Introductory Note by <span class="smcap">Will H. Dircks</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">By THOMAS DE QUINCEY.</span> With Introduction by +<span class="smcap">William Sharp</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">By WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.</span> With Introduction +by <span class="smcap">Havelock Ellis</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>PLUTARCH'S LIVES.</p> +<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">B.J. Snell, M.A.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, etc.</p> +<p>Edited, with Introduction, by <span class="smcap">John Addington Symonds</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>ESSAYS AND LETTERS.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.</span> Edited, with +Introduction, by <span class="smcap">Ernest Rhys</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT.</p> +<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">W. Lewin</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>MY STUDY WINDOWS.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.</span> Edited, with Introduction, +by <span class="smcap">Richard Garnett, LL.D.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.</span> Edited, with Introduction, +by <span class="smcap">William Sharp</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>LORD BYRON'S LETTERS.</p> +<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">M. Blind</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT.</p> +<p>Edited by <span class="smcap">A. Symons</span>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>LONGFELLOW'S PROSE WORKS.</p> +<p>Edited, with Introduction, by <span class="smcap">William Tirebuck</span>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Series is issued in two styles of Binding—Red Cloth, Cut Edges; +and Dark Blue Cloth, Uncut Edges. Either Style, <span class="smcap">Price One +Shilling</span>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 204]<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Price Sixpence; Crown 4to, 48 pages.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">PART I. READY 25th FEBRUARY 1887.</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center">THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">OF</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><b>North-Country Lore and Legend.</b></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>From the "Newcastle Weekly Chronicle."</i></p> + +<p>It has repeatedly been suggested that the valuable matter published +every week in the <i>Weekly Chronicle</i> should be reprinted in some +handier form, so as to be capable of permanent preservation. Not a few +of our readers take the trouble to cut out the articles in which they +are interested, paste them in scrap-books, and thus form a serviceable +collection of local and other literature. But this process involves +the purchase of special requisites, and the consumption of +considerable patience and time.</p> + +<p>We have, therefore, arranged with Mr. <span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span>, the +well-known publisher, of Felling-on-Tyne, and Warwick Lane, +Paternoster Row, London, to publish, in monthly parts, all the more +permanently interesting contributions that will appear in the future +issues of the <i>Weekly Chronicle</i>.</p> + +<p>This publication will be entitled the <i>Monthly Chronicle of +North-Country Lore and Legend</i>, and will be offered to the public in a +special wrapper at the price of sixpence. The size of the reprint will +be crown quarto, and each number will consist of forty-eight +double-column pages. The articles reprinted will be so revised that +the errors which necessarily creep into a weekly newspaper will, as +far as possible, be corrected or erased.</p> + +<p>The first number of the <i>Monthly Chronicle</i> (for March) will be +published on the 25th of February.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Published for the Proprietor of "The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle," by</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, London,</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">and newcastle-on-tyne.</span></p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 205]<a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>SCIENCE LECTURES</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center">DELIVERED BEFORE THE</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">TYNESIDE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Now Ready, Price Threepence Each.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<p>THE NATURAL HISTORY OF INSTINCT.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By G.J. ROMANES, F.R.S.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>ANIMAL LIFE ON THE OCEAN SURFACE.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By Professor H.N. MOSELEY, M.A., F.R.S.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>THE EYE AND ITS WORK.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By LITTON FORBES, M.D., F.R.C.S.E., L.R.C.P.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By ERNEST A. PARKYN, M.A.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>The RELATIONS BETWEEN NATURAL SCIENCE and LITERATURE.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By Professor H. NETTLESHIP, M.A.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>FACTS AND FICTIONS IN ZOOLOGY.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By Dr. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>THE ANIMALS THAT MAKE LIMESTONE.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By Dr. P. HERBERT CARPENTER, F.R.S.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p style="text-align: center">The Seven Lectures may be had in One Vol., Cloth, Price 1/6.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 206]<a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ELSWICK SCIENCE SERIES.</h2> + + +<p>The Elswick Series is intended to supply Teachers and Students with +good books, void of cram. They will be issued as rapidly as is +consistent with the caution necessary to secure accuracy. A great aim +will be to adapt them to modern requirements and improvement, and to +keep abreast with the latest discoveries in Science, and the most +recent practice in Engineering.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Already Issued. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d.</i></p> + +<p>PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL TRIGONOMETRY. By <span class="smcap">Henry Evers, +LL.D.</span>, Author of "Steam," "Navigation," etc.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>The following Works may be expected to appear shortly—</i></p> + +<p>MANUAL OF STEAM AND PRIME MOVERS. By <span class="smcap">Henry Evers, LL.D.</span>, +Author of "Steam," "Navigation," etc.</p> + +<p>ALGEBRA (an ELEMENTARY TREATISE). By Professor <span class="smcap">R.H. Jude</span>, of +Huddersfield Technical College, M.A. Cantab., D.Sc. London.</p> + +<p>DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. By <span class="smcap">T.H. Eagles, M.A.</span>, Instructor in +Geometrical Drawing and Lecturer in Architecture at the Royal Indian +Engineering College, Cooper's Hill.</p> + +<p>THEORETICAL MECHANICS. By <span class="smcap">W.M. Madden, M.A.</span>, Cantab. +Wrangler, Scholar of Queen's, etc.</p> + +<p>ELEMENTARY LECTURES OF PHYSICS AND ELECTRICITY. By <span class="smcap">William John +Grey, F.C.S.</span>, etc., Silver Medallist.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Others are in preparation or consideration, such as—</i></p> + +<p>MACHINE DESIGN. By <span class="smcap">H. Foster, M.E.</span> and D. Medallist.</p> + +<p>BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. By <span class="smcap">T.N. Andrews</span>, Esq.</p> + +<p>SPRINGS: IRON AND STEEL.</p> + +<p>APPLIED MECHANICS. By <span class="smcap">Henry Evers, LL.D.</span>, Medallist.</p> + +<p>A COURSE OF QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. By <span class="smcap">W.J. Grey</span>, F.C.S. +Medallist, etc.</p> + +<p>INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. By <span class="smcap">W.J. Grey</span>, F.C.S. Medallist, etc.</p> + +<p>ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. By <span class="smcap">Charles J. Evers, M.B., M.R.C.S.</span> +(London), Medallist, etc.</p> + +<p>A SERIES OF PRACTICAL LESSONS FOR BLACKBOARD TEACHING OF MACHINE +DRAWING.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 207]<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>NOW READY.</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Uniform in size with the "Canterbury Poets,"</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>365 pages,</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Cloth Gilt, price 1s. 4d.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">DAYS OF THE YEAR.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">A POETIC CALENDAR</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">OF PASSAGES FROM THE WORKS OF</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">ALFRED AUSTIN.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY A.S.</i></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center">With an Introduction by WILLIAM SHARP.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">London</span>: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[Pg 208]<a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Canterbury Poets.</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>In Crown Quarto, Printed on Antique Paper, Price 12s. 6d.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">EDITION DE LUXE.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With an Exhaustive and Critical Essay on the Sonnet,</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">By WILLIAM SHARP.</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center">This Edition has been thoroughly Revised, and several new Sonnets +added.</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>THE VOLUME CONTAINS SONNETS BY</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap">Lord Tennyson.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +Robert Browning.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +A.C. Swinburne.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +Matthew Arnold.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +Theodore Watts.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +Archbishop Trench.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +J. Addington Symonds.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +W. Bell Scott.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +Christina Rossetti.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +Edward Dowden.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +Edmund Gosse.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +Andrew Lang.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +George Meredith.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +Cardinal Newman</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<i>By the Late</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap">Dante Gabriel Rossetti.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap"> +Mrs. Barrett Browning.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap"> +C. Tennyson-Turner, etc.</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center">AND ALL THE BEST WRITERS OF THIS CENTURY.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center">London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 16787-h.txt or 16787-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/7/8/16787">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/7/8/16787</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Life of Charles Dickens + + +Author: Frank Marzials + + + +Release Date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #16787] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +E-text prepared by Jason Isbell, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Great Writers. + +Edited by + +Eric S. Robertson, M.A., + +Professor of English Literature and Philosophy in the University of +the Punjab, Lahore. + + + +[Illustration: Portrait of Dickens] + + + +LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS + +by + +FRANK T. MARZIALS + +London +Walter Scott +24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row + +1887 + + + + + + + +NOTE. + + +That I should have to acknowledge a fairly heavy debt to Forster's +"Life of Charles Dickens," and "The Letters of Charles Dickens," +edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, is almost a +matter of course; for these are books from which every present and +future biographer of Dickens must perforce borrow in a more or less +degree. My work, too, has been much lightened by Mr. Kitton's +excellent "Dickensiana." + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + PAGE + +The lottery of education; Charles Dickens born February 7, +1812; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood; +happy days at Chatham; family troubles; similarity between +little Charles and David Copperfield; John Dickens +taken to the Marshalsea; his character; Charles employed +in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about +this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into +family and prison circle; family in comparative comfort at +the Marshalsea; father released; Charles leaves the +blacking business; his mother; he is sent to Wellington +House Academy in 1824; character of that place of learning; +Dickens masters its humours thoroughly. 11 + + +CHAPTER II. + +Dickens becomes a solicitor's clerk in 1827; then a reporter; +his experiences in that capacity; first story published in +_The Old Monthly Magazine_ for January, 1834; writes more +"Sketches"; power of minute observation thus early +shown; masters the writer's art; is paid for his contributions +to the _Chronicle_; marries Miss Hogarth on April 2, +1836; appearance at that date; power of physical endurance; +admirable influence of his peculiar education; +and its drawbacks 27 + + +CHAPTER III. + +Origin of "Pickwick"; Seymour's part therein; first number +published on April 1, 1836; early numbers not a success; +suddenly the book becomes the rage; English literature +just then in want of its novelist; Dickens' kingship +acknowledged; causes of the book's popularity; its admirable +humour, and other excellent qualities; Sam Weller; +Mr. Pickwick himself; book read by everybody 40 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Dickens works "double tides" from 1836 to 1839; appointed +editor of _Bentley's Miscellany_ at beginning of 1837, and +commences "Oliver Twist"; _Quarterly Review_ predicts +his speedy downfall; pecuniary position at this time; +moves from Furnival's Inn to Doughty Street; death of +his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth; his friendships; absence +of all jealousy in his character; habits of work; riding and +pedestrianizing; walking in London streets necessary to the +exercise of his art 49 + + +CHAPTER V. + +"Oliver Twist"; analysis of the book; doubtful probability of +Oliver's character; "Nicholas Nickleby"; its wealth of +character; _Master Humphrey's Clock_ projected and begun +in April, 1840; the public disappointed in its expectations +of a novel; "Old Curiosity Shop" commenced, and miscellaneous +portion of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ dropped; +Dickens' fondness for taking a child as his hero or +heroine; Little Nell; tears shed over her sorrows; general +admiration for the pathos of her story; is such admiration +altogether deserved? Paul Dombey more natural; Little +Nell's death too declamatory as a piece of writing; Dickens +nevertheless a master of pathos; "Barnaby Rudge"; a +historical novel dealing with times of the Gordon riots 57 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Dickens starts for United States in January, 1842; had been +splendidly received a little before at Edinburgh; why he +went to the United States; is enthusiastically welcomed; +at first he is enchanted; then expresses the greatest disappointment; +explanation of the change; what the +Americans thought of _him_; "American Notes"; his +views modified on his second visit to America in 1867-8; +takes to fierce private theatricals for rest; delight of the +children on his return to England; an admirable father 71 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Dickens again at work and play; publication of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" begun in January, 1843; plot not Dickens' +strong point; this not of any vital consequence; a novel +not really remembered by its story; Dickens' books often +have a higher unity than that of plot; selfishness the +central idea of "Martin Chuzzlewit"; a great book, and +yet not at the time successful; Dickens foresees money embarrassments; +publishes the admirable "Christmas Carol" +at Christmas, 1843; and determines to go for a space to +Italy 84 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Journey through France; Genoa; the Italy of 1844; Dickens +charmed with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a +few weeks; his palace at Genoa; he sets to work upon "The +Chimes"; gets passionately interested in the little book; +travels through Italy to read it to his friends in London; +reads it on December 2, 1844; is soon back again in Italy; +returns to London in the summer of 1845; on January 21, +1846, starts _The Daily News_; holds the post of editor three +weeks; "Pictures from Italy" first published in _Daily News_ 93 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to +Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has +great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle +of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the +subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' +treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism +thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private +theatricals again; the "Haunted Man"; "David Copperfield" +begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point +in Dickens' career as a writer; _Household Words_ started +on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its +successor, _All the Year Round_; domestic sorrows cloud +the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year +from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins +"Bleak House"; story of the novel; its Chancery episodes; +Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant +quarters at Boulogne 102 + + +CHAPTER X. + +Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, +1853; was it _infra dig._ that he should read for money? he +begins his paid readings in April, 1858; reasons for their +success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their +dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them; how the +tones of Dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who +heard him 121 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"Hard Times" commenced in _Household Words_ for April 1, +1854; it is an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; +what Macaulay and Mr. Ruskin thought of it; +the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for "Administrative +Reform"; Dickens in the thick of the movement; +"Little Dorrit" and the "Circumlocution Office"; character +of Mr. Dorrit admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris +from December, 1855, to May, 1856; he buys Gad's Hill +Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with +his wife; and separation in May 1858; lying rumours; how +these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the +love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant +protest in _Household Words_; and writes an unjustifiable +letter 126 + + +CHAPTER XII. + +"The Tale of Two Cities," a story of the great French Revolution; +Phiz's connection with Dickens' works comes to +an end; his art and that of Cruikshank; both too essentially +caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the +illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; "Great Expectations"; +its story and characters; "Our Mutual Friend" +begun in May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens' +extraordinary sympathy for Eugene Wrayburn; generally +his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why +his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great real +refinement 139 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Dickens' health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident +in June, 1865; but bates no jot of his high courage, +and works on at his readings; sails for America on a +reading tour in November, 1867; is wretchedly ill, and yet +continues to read day after day; comes back to England, +and reads on; health failing more and more; reading has +to be abandoned for a time; begins to write his last and +unfinished book, "Edwin Drood"; except health all +seems well with him; on June 8, 1870, he works at his +book nearly all day; at dinner time is struck down; dies +on the following day, June the 9th; is buried in Westminster +Abbey among his peers; nor will his fame suffer +eclipse 149 + + +INDEX 163 + + + + +LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Education is a kind of lottery in which there are good and evil +chances, and some men draw blanks and other men draw prizes. And in +saying this I do not use the word education in any restricted sense, +as applying exclusively to the course of study in school or college; +nor certainly, when I speak of prizes, am I thinking of scholarships, +exhibitions, fellowships. By education I mean the whole set of +circumstances which go to mould a man's character during the +apprentice years of his life; and I call that a prize when those +circumstances have been such as to develop the man's powers to the +utmost, and to fit him to do best that of which he is best capable. +Looked at in this way, Charles Dickens' education, however untoward +and unpromising it may often have seemed while in the process, must +really be pronounced a prize of value quite inestimable. + +His father, John Dickens, held a clerkship in the Navy Pay Office, and +was employed in the Portsmouth Dockyard when little Charles first came +into the world, at Landport, in Portsea, on February 7, 1812. Wealth +can never have been one of the familiar friends of the household, nor +plenty have always sat at its board. Charles had one elder sister, and +six other brothers and sisters were afterwards added to the family; +and with eight children, and successive removals from Portsmouth to +London, and London to Chatham, and no more than the pay of a +Government clerk[1]--pay which not long afterwards dwindled to a +pension,--even a better domestic financier than the elder Dickens +might have found some difficulty in facing his liabilities. It was +unquestionably into a tottering house that the child was born, and +among its ruins that he was nurtured. + +But through all these early years I can do nothing better than take +him for my guide, and walk as it were in his companionship. Perhaps no +novelist ever had a keener feeling of the pathos of childhood than +Dickens, or understood more fully how real and overwhelming are its +sorrows. No one, too, has entered more sympathetically into its ways. +And of the child and boy that he himself had once been, he was wont to +think very tenderly and very often. Again and again in his writings he +reverts to the scenes and incidents and emotions of his earlier days. +Sometimes he goes back to his young life directly, speaking as of +himself. More often he goes back to it indirectly, placing imaginary +children and boys in the position he had once occupied. Thus it is +almost possible, by judiciously selecting from his works, and using +such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of +autobiography. Nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's +tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic +aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life +should convey a false impression. + +He was but two years old when his father left Portsea for London, and +but four when a second migration took the family to Chatham. Here we +catch our first glimpse of him, in his own word-painting, as a "very +queer small boy," a small boy who was sickly and delicate, and could +take but little part in the rougher sports of his school companions, +but read much, as sickly boys will--read the novels of the older +novelists in a "blessed little room," a kind of palace of enchantment, +where "'Roderick Random,' 'Peregrine Pickle,' 'Humphrey Clinker,' 'Tom +Jones,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Don Quixote, 'Gil Blas,' and +'Robinson Crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep him company." +And the queer small boy had read Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," too, and +knew all about Falstaff's robbery of the travellers at Gad's Hill, on +the rising ground between Rochester and Gravesend, and all about mad +Prince Henry's pranks; and, what was more, he had determined that when +he came to be a man, and had made his way in the world, he should own +the house called Gad's Hill Place, with the old associations of its +site, and its pleasant outlook over Rochester and over the low-lying +levels by the Thames. Was that a child's dream? The man's tenacity and +steadfast strength of purpose turned it into fact. The house became +the home of his later life. It was there that he died. + +But death was a long way forward in those old Chatham days; nor, as +the time slipped by, and his father's pecuniary embarrassments began +to thicken, and make the forward ways of life more dark and difficult, +could the purchase of Gad's Hill Place have seemed much less remote. +There is one of Dickens' works which was his own special favourite, +the most cherished, as he tells us, among the offspring of his brain. +That work is "David Copperfield." Nor can there be much difficulty in +discovering why it occupied such an exceptional position in "his heart +of hearts;" for in its pages he had enshrined the deepest memories of +his own childhood and youth. Like David Copperfield, he had known what +it was to be a poor, neglected lad, set to rough, uncongenial work, +with no more than a mechanic's surroundings and outlook, and having to +fend for himself in the miry ways of the great city. Like David +Copperfield, he had formed a very early acquaintance with debts and +duns, and been initiated into the mysteries and sad expedients of +shabby poverty. Like David Copperfield, he had been made free of the +interior of a debtor's prison. Poor lad, he was not much more than ten +or eleven years old when he left Chatham, with all the charms that +were ever after to live so brightly in his recollection,--the gay +military pageantry, the swarming dockyard, the shifting sailor life, +the delightful walks in the surrounding country, the enchanted room, +tenanted by the first fairy day-dreams of his genius, the day-school, +where the master had already formed a good opinion of his parts, +giving him Goldsmith's "Bee" as a keepsake. This pleasant land he left +for a dingy house in a dingy London suburb, with squalor for +companionship, no teaching but the teaching of the streets, and all +around and above him the depressing hideous atmosphere of debt. With +what inimitable humour and pathos has he told the story of these +darkest days! Substitute John Dickens for Mr. Micawber, and Mrs. +Dickens for Mrs. Micawber, and make David Copperfield a son of Mr. +Micawber, a kind of elder Wilkins, and let little Charles Dickens be +that son--and then you will have a record, true in every essential +respect, of the child's life at this period. "Poor Mrs. Micawber! she +said she had tried to exert herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. +The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great +brass-plate, on which was engraved 'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding +Establishment for Young Ladies;' but I never found that any young lady +had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or +proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to +receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of were +creditors. _They_ used to come at all hours, and some of them were +quite ferocious." Even such a plate, bearing the inscription, _Mrs. +Dickens's Establishment_, ornamented the door of a house in Gower +Street North, where the family had hoped, by some desperate effort, to +retrieve its ruined fortunes. Even so did the pupils refuse the +educational advantages offered to them, though little Charles went +from door to door in the neighbourhood, carrying hither and thither +the most alluring circulars. Even thus was the place besieged by +assiduous and angry duns. And when, in the ordinary course of such sad +stories, Mr. Dickens is arrested for debt, and carried off to the +Marshalsea prison,[2] he moralizes over the event in precisely the +same strain as Mr. Micawber, using, indeed, the very same words, and +calls on his son, with many tears, "to take warning by the Marshalsea, +and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent +nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; +but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched." + +The son was taking note of other things besides these moral apothegms, +and reproduced, in after days, with a quite marvellous detail and +fidelity, all the incidents of his father's incarceration. Probably, +too, he was beginning, as children will, almost unconsciously, to form +some estimate of his father's character. And a very queer study in +human nature _that_ must have been, giving Dickens, when once he had +mastered it, a most exceptional insight into the ways of +impecuniosity. Charles Lamb, as we all remember, divided mankind into +two races, the mighty race of the borrowers, and the mean race of the +lenders; and expatiated, with a whimsical and charming eloquence, upon +the greatness of one Bigod, who had been as a king among those who by +process of loan obtain possession of other people's money. Shift the +line of division a little, so that instead of separating borrowers and +lenders, it separates those who pay their debts from those who do not +pay them, and then Dickens the elder may succeed to something of +Bigod's kingship. He was of the great race of debtors, possessing +especially that _ideal_ quality of mind on which Lamb laid such +stress. Imagination played the very mischief with him. He had +evidently little grasp of fact, and moved in a kind of haze, through +which all clear outlines would show blurred and unreal. +Sometimes--most often, perhaps--that haze would be irradiated with +sanguine visionary hopes and expectations. Sometimes it would be +fitfully darkened with all the horrors of despair. But whether in +gloom or gleam, the realities of his position would be lost. He never, +certainly, contracted a debt which he did not mean honourably to pay. +But either he had never possessed the faculty of forming a just +estimate of future possibilities, or else, through the indulgence of +what may be called a vague habit of thought, he had lost the power of +seeing things as they are. Thus all his excellencies and good gifts +were neutralized at this time, so far as his family were concerned, +and went for practically nothing. He was, according to his son's +testimony, full of industry, most conscientious in the discharge of +any business, unwearying in loving patience and solicitude when those +bound to him by blood or friendship were ill or in trouble, "as +kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world." Yet as +debts accumulated, and accommodation bills shed their baleful shadow +on his life, and duns grew many and furious, he became altogether +immersed in mean money troubles, and suffered the son who was to shed +such lustre on his name to remain for a time without the means of +learning, and to sink first into a little household drudge, and then +into a mere warehouse boy. + +So little Charles, aged from eleven to twelve, first blacked boots, +and minded the younger children, and ran messages, and effected the +family purchases--which can have been no pleasant task in the then +state of the family credit,--and made very close acquaintance with the +inside of the pawnbrokers' shops, and with the purchasers of +second-hand books, disposing, among other things, of the little store +of books he loved so well; and then, when his father was imprisoned, +ran more messages hither and thither, and shed many childish tears in +his father's company--the father doubtless regarding the tears as a +tribute to his eloquence, though, heaven knows, there were other +things to cry over besides his sonorous periods. After which a +connection, James Lamert by name, who had lived with the family before +they moved from Camden Town to Gower Street, and was manager of a +worm-eaten, rat-riddled blacking business, near old Hungerford Market, +offered to employ the lad, on a salary of some six shillings a week, +or thereabouts. The duties which commanded these high emoluments +consisted of the tying up and labelling of blacking pots. At first +Charles, in consideration probably of his relationship to the manager, +was allowed to do his tying, clipping, and pasting in the +counting-house. But soon this arrangement fell through, as it +naturally would, and he descended to the companionship of the other +lads, similarly employed, in the warehouse below. They were not bad +boys, and one of them, who bore the name of Bob Fagin, was very kind +to the poor little better-nurtured outcast, once, in a sudden attack +of illness, applying hot blacking-bottles to his side with much +tenderness. But, of course, they were rough and quite uncultured, and +the sensitive, bookish, imaginative child felt that there was +something uncongenial and degrading in being compelled to associate +with them. Nor, though he had already sufficient strength of character +to learn to do his work well, did he ever regard the work itself as +anything but unsuitable, and almost discreditable. Indeed it may be +doubted whether the iron of that time did not unduly rankle and fester +as it entered into his soul, and whether the scar caused by the wound +was altogether quite honourable. He seems to have felt, in connection +with his early employment in a warehouse, a sense of shame such as +would be more fittingly associated with the commission of an unworthy +act. That he should not have habitually referred to the subject in +after life, may readily be understood. But why he should have kept +unbroken silence about it for long years, even with his wife, even +with so very close a friend as Forster, is less clear. And in the +terms used, when the revelation was finally made to Forster, there has +always, I confess, appeared to me to be a tone of exaggeration. "My +whole nature," he says, "was so penetrated with grief and humiliation, +... that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my +dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man, and +wander desolately back to that time of my life." And again: "From that +hour until this, at which I write, no word of that part of my +childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my +lips to any human being.... I have never, until I now impart it to +this paper, in any burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not +excepted, raised the curtain I then dropped, thank God." Great part, +perhaps the greatest part, of Dickens' success as a writer, came from +the sympathy and power with which he showed how the lower walks of +life no less than the higher are often fringed with beauty. I have +never been able to entirely divest myself of a slight feeling of the +incongruous in reading what he wrote about the warehouse episode in +his career. + +At first, when he began his daily toil at the blacking business, some +poor dregs of family life were left to the child. His father was at +the Marshalsea. But his mother and brothers and sisters were, to use +his own words, "still encamped, with a young servant girl from Chatham +workhouse, in the two parlours in the emptied house in Gower Street +North." And there he lived with them, in much "hugger-mugger," merely +taking his humble midday meal in nomadic fashion, on his own account. +Soon, however, his position became even more forlorn. The paternal +creditors proved insatiable. The gipsy home in Gower Street had to be +broken up. Mrs. Dickens and the children went to live at the +Marshalsea. Little Charles was placed under the roof--it cannot be +called under the care--of a "reduced old lady," dwelling in Camden +Town, who must have been a clever and prophetic old lady if she +anticipated that her diminutive lodger would one day give her a kind +of indirect unenviable immortality by making her figure, under the +name of "Mrs. Pipchin," in "Dombey and Son." Here the boy seems to +have been left almost entirely to his own devices. He spent his +Sundays in the prison, and, to the best of his recollection, his +lodgings at "Mrs. Pipchin's" were paid for. Otherwise, he "found +himself," in childish fashion, out of the six or seven weekly +shillings, breakfasting on two pennyworth of bread and milk, and +supping on a penny loaf and a bit of cheese, and dining hither and +thither, as his boy's appetite dictated--now, sensibly enough, on _a +la mode_ beef or a saveloy; then, less sensibly, on pudding; and anon +not dining at all, the wherewithal having been expended on some +morning treat of cheap stale pastry. But are not all these things, the +lad's shifts and expedients, his sorrows and despair, his visits to +the public-house, where the kindly publican's wife stoops down to kiss +the pathetic little face--are they not all written in "David +Copperfield"? And if so be that I have a reader unacquainted with that +peerless book, can I do better than recommend him, or her, to study +therein the story of Dickens' life at this particular time? + +At last the child's solitude and sorrows seem to have grown +unbearable. His fortitude broke down. One Sunday night he appealed to +his father, with many tears, on the subject, not of his employment, +which he seems to have accepted at the time manfully, but of his +forlornness and isolation. The father's kind, thoughtless heart was +touched. A back attic was found for Charles near the Marshalsea, at +Lant Street, in the Borough--where Bob Sawyer, it will be remembered, +afterwards invited Mr. Pickwick to that disastrous party. The boy +moved into his new quarters with the same feeling of elation as if he +had been entering a palace. + +The change naturally brought him more fully into the prison circle. He +used to breakfast there every morning, before going to the warehouse, +and would spend the larger portion of his spare time among the +inmates. Nor do Mr. Dickens and his family, and Charles, who is to us +the family's most important member, appear to have been relatively at +all uncomfortable while under the shadow of the Marshalsea. There is +in "David Copperfield" a passage of inimitable humour, where Mr. +Micawber, enlarging on the pleasures of imprisonment for debt, +apostrophizes the King's Bench Prison as being the place "where, for +the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of +pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by +importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no +knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal +service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely +at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the +tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in +his affliction by saying: "We are quiet here; we don't get badgered +here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors, +and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a +man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door-mat till he is. +Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's +freedom, sir, it's freedom!" One smiles as one reads; and it adds a +pathos, I think, to the smile, to find that these are records of +actual experience. The Marshalsea prison was to Mr. Dickens a haven of +peace, and to his household a place of plenty. Not only could he +pursue his career there untroubled by fears of arrest, but he +exercised among the other "gentlemen gaol-birds" a supremacy, a kind +of kingship, such as that to which Charles Lamb referred. They +recognized in him the superior spirit, ready of pen, and affluent of +speech, and with a certain grandeur in his conviviality. He it was +who drew up their memorial to George of England on an occasion no less +important than the royal birthday, when they, the monarch's +"unfortunate subjects,"--so they were described in the +memorial--besought the king's "gracious majesty," of his "well-known +munificence," to grant them a something towards the drinking of the +royal health. (Ah, with what keen eyes and penetrative genius did +little Charles, from his corner, watch the strange sad stream of +humanity that trickled through the room, and may be said to have +_smeared_ its approval of that petition!) And while Mr. Dickens was +enjoying his prison honours, he was also enjoying his Admiralty +pension,[3] which was not forfeited by his imprisonment; and his wife +and children were consequently enjoying a larger measure of the +necessaries of life than had been theirs for many a month. So all went +on merrily enough at the Marshalsea. + +But even under the old law, imprisonment for debt did not always last +for ever. A legacy, and the Insolvent Debtors Act, enabled Mr. Dickens +to march out of durance, in some sort with the honours of war, after a +few months' incarceration--this would be early in 1824;--and he went +with his family, including Charles, to lodge with the "Mrs. Pipchin" +already mentioned. Charles meanwhile still toiled on in the blacking +warehouse, now removed to Chandos Street, Covent Garden; and had +reached such skill in the tying, pasting, and labelling of the +bottles, that small crowds used to collect at the window for the +purpose of watching his deft fingers. There was pride in this, no +doubt, but also humiliation; and release was at hand. His father and +Lamert quarrelled about something--about _what_, Dickens seems never +to have known--and he was sent home. Mrs. Dickens acted the part of +the peacemaker on the next day, probably feeling that amid the shadowy +expectations on which she and her husband had subsisted for so long, +even six or seven shillings a week was something tangible, and not to +be despised. Yet in spite of this, he did not return to the business. +His father decided that he should go to school. "I do not write +resentfully or angrily," said Dickens, in the confidential +communication made long afterwards to Forster, and to which reference +has already been made; "but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall +forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent +back." + +The mothers of great men is a subject that has been handled often, and +eloquently. How many of those who have achieved distinction can trace +their inherited gifts to a mother's character, and their acquired +gifts to a mother's teaching and influence. Mrs. Dickens seems not to +have been a mother of this stamp. She scarcely, I fear, possessed +those admirable qualities of mind and heart which one can clearly +recognize as having borne fruit in the greatness and goodness of her +famous son. So far as I can discover, she exercised no influence upon +him at all. Her name hardly appears in his biographies. He never, that +I can recollect, mentions her in his correspondence; only refers to +her on the rarest occasions. And perhaps, on the whole, this is not to +be wondered at, if we accept the constant tradition that she had, +unknown to herself, sat to her son for the portrait of Mrs. Nickleby, +and suggested to him the main traits in the character of that +inconsequent and not very wise old lady. Mrs. Nickleby, I take it, was +not the kind of person calculated to form the mind of a boy of genius. +As well might one expect some very domestic bird to teach an eaglet +how to fly. + +The school to which our callow eaglet was sent (in the spring or early +summer of 1824), belonged emphatically to the old school of schools. +It bore the goodly name of _Wellington House Academy_, and was +situated in Mornington Place, near the Hampstead Road. A certain Mr. +Jones held chief rule there; and as more than fifty years have now +elapsed since Dickens' connection with the establishment ceased, I +trust there may be nothing libellous in giving further currency to his +statement, or rather, perhaps, to his recorded impression,[4] that the +head master's one qualification for his office was dexterity in the +use of the cane;--especially as another "old boy" corroborates that +impression, and declares Mr. Jones to have been "a most ignorant +fellow, and a mere tyrant." Dickens, however, escaped with +comparatively little beating, because he was a day-boy, and sound +policy dictated that day-boys, who had facilities for carrying home +their complaints, should be treated with some leniency. So he had to +get his learning without tears, which was not at all considered the +orthodox method in the good old days; and, indeed, I doubt if he +finally took away from Wellington House Academy very much of the book +knowledge that would tell in a modern competitive examination. For +though in his own account of the school it is implied that he resumed +his interrupted studies with Virgil, and was, before he left, head +boy, and the possessor of many prizes, yet this is not corroborated by +the evidence of his surviving fellow pupils; nor can we, of course, in +the face of their direct counter evidence, treat statements made in a +fictitious or half-fictitious narrative as if made in what professed +to be a sober autobiography. Dickens, I repeat, seems to have acquired +a very scant amount of classic lore while under the instruction of Mr. +Jones, and not too much lore of any kind. But if he learned little, he +observed much. He thoroughly mastered the humours of the place, just +as he had mastered the humours of the Marshalsea. He had got to know +all about the masters, and all about the boys, and all about the white +mice--of which there were many in various stages of civilization. He +acquired, in short, a fund of school knowledge that seemed +inexhaustible, and on which he drew again and again, with the most +excellent results, in "David Copperfield," in "Dombey," in such +inimitable short papers as "Old Cheeseman." And while thus, half +unconsciously perhaps, assimilating the very life of the school, he +was himself a thorough schoolboy, bright, alert, intelligent; taking +part in all fun and frolic; amply indemnifying himself for his +enforced abstinence from childish games during the dreary warehouse +days; good at recitations and mimic plays; and already possessed of a +reputation among his peers as a writer of tales. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] L200 a year "without extras" from 1815 to 1820, and then L350. See +"Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens," by Robert Langton, a very +valuable monograph. + +[2] Mr. Langton appears to doubt whether John Dickens was not +imprisoned in the King's Bench. But this seems scarcely a point on +which Dickens himself can have been mistaken. + +[3] According to Mr. Langton's dates, he would still be drawing his +pay. + +[4] See paper entitled "Our School." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Dickens cannot have been very long at Wellington House Academy, for +before May, 1827, he had been at another school near Brunswick Square, +and had also obtained, and quitted, some employment in the office of a +solicitor in New Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields. It seems clear, +therefore, that the whole of his school life might easily be computed +in months; and in May, 1827, it will be remembered, he was still but a +lad of fifteen. At that date he entered the office of a second +solicitor, in Gray's Inn this time, on a salary of thirteen shillings +and sixpence a week, afterwards increased to fifteen shillings. Here +he remained till November, 1828, again picking up a good deal of +information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but +such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. He would +seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, +from the topmost Tulkinghorns and Perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers +like Pell and Brass, and also to have given particular attention to +the parasites of the law--the Guppys and Chucksters; and altogether to +have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of +invaluable notes and observations. All very well, no doubt, as we +look at the matter now. But then it must often have seemed to the +ambitious, energetic lad, that he was wasting his time. Was he to +remain for ever a lawyer's clerk who has not the means to be an +articled clerk, and who can never, therefore, aspire to become a +full-blown solicitor? Was he to spend the future obscurely in the +dingy purlieus of the law? His father, in whose career "something," as +Mr. Micawber would have said, had at last "turned up," was now a +reporter for the press. The son determined to be a reporter too. + +He threw himself into this new career with characteristic energy. Of +course a reporter is not made in a day. It takes many months of +drudgery to obtain such skill in shorthand as shall enable the pen of +the ready-writer to keep up with the winged words of speech, and make +dots and lines that shall be readable. Dickens laboured hard to +acquire the art. In the intervals of his work he made it a kind of +holiday task to attend the Reading-room of the British Museum, and so +remedy the defects in the literary part of his education. But the best +powers of his mind were directed to "Gurney's system of shorthand." +And in time he had his reward. He earned and justified the reputation +of being one of the best reporters of his day. + +I shall not quote the autobiographical passages in "David Copperfield" +which bear on the difficulties of stenography. The book is in +everybody's hands. But I cannot forego the pleasure of brightening my +pages with Dickens' own description of his experiences as a reporter, +a description contained in one of those charming felicitous speeches +of his which are almost as unique in kind as his novels. Speaking in +May, 1865, as chairman of a public dinner on behalf of the Newspaper +Press Fund, he said: "I have pursued the calling of a reporter under +circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in England here, +many of my modern successors, can form no adequate conception. I have +often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important +public speeches, in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a +mistake in which would have been, to a young man, severely +compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark +lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, +and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of +fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled +into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, +the spot on which I once took, as we used to call it, an election +speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight +maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and +under such pelting rain, that I remember two good-natured colleagues, +who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my +note-book, after the manner of a State canopy in an ecclesiastical +procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back +row of the old gallery in the old House of Commons; and I have worn my +feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of +Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept +in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning +home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting +press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every +description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my +time, belated in miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or +fifty miles from London, in a wheel-less carriage, with exhausted +horses, and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for +publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the +late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of +hearts I ever knew." + +What shall I add to this? That the papers on which he was engaged as a +reporter, were _The True Sun_, _The Mirror of Parliament_, and _The +Morning Chronicle_; that long afterwards, little more than two years +before his death, when addressing the journalists of New York, he gave +public expression to his "grateful remembrance of a calling that was +once his own," and declared, "to the wholesome training of severe +newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my +first success;" that his income as a reporter appears latterly to have +been some five guineas a week, of course in addition to expenses and +general breakages and damages; that there is independent testimony to +his exceptional quickness in reporting and transcribing, and to his +intelligence in condensing; that to an observer so keen and apt, the +experiences of his business journeys in those more picturesque and +eventful ante-railway days must have been invaluable; and, finally, +that his connection with journalism lasted far into 1836, and so did +not cease till some months after "Pickwick" had begun to add to the +world's store of merriment and laughter. + +But I have not really reached "Pickwick" yet, nor anything like it. +That master-work was not also a first work. With all Dickens' genius, +he had to go through some apprenticeship in the writer's art before +coming upon the public as the most popular novelist of his time. Let +us go back for a little to the twilight before the full sunrise, nay, +to the earliest streak upon the greyness of night, to his first +original published composition. Dickens himself, and in his preface to +"Pickwick" too, has told us somewhat about that first paper of his; +how it was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and +trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court +in Fleet Street;" how it was accepted, and "appeared in all the glory +of print;" and how he was so filled with pleasure and pride on +purchasing a copy of the magazine in which it was published, that he +went into Westminster Hall to hide the tears of joy that would come +into his eyes. The paper thus joyfully wept over was originally +entitled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," and now bears, among the "Sketches +by Boz," the name of "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"; the periodical in +which it was published was _The Old Monthly Magazine_, and the date of +publication was January 1, 1834. + +"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" may be pronounced a very fairly told tale. +It is, no doubt, always easy to be wise after the event, in criticism +particularly easy, and when once a writer has achieved success, there +is but too little difficulty in showing that his earlier productions +were prophetic of his future greatness. At the risk, however, of +incurring a charge of this kind, I repeat that Dickens' first story is +well told, and that the editor of _The Old Monthly Magazine_ showed +due discernment in accepting it and encouraging his unknown +contributor to further efforts. Quite apart from the fact that the +author was only a young fellow of some two or three and twenty, both +this first story and the stories that followed it in _The Old Monthly +Magazine_, during 1834 and the early part of 1835, possessed qualities +of a very remarkable kind. So also did the humorous descriptive papers +shortly afterwards published in _The Evening Chronicle_, papers that, +with the stories, now compose the book known as "Sketches by Boz." Sir +Arthur Helps, speaking of Dickens, just after Dickens' death,[5] said, +"His powers of observation were almost unrivalled.... Indeed, I have +said to myself when I have been with him, he sees and observes nine +facts for any two that I see and observe." This particular faculty is, +I think, almost as clearly discernible in the "Sketches" as in the +author's later and greater works. London--its sins and sorrows, its +gaieties and amusements, its suburban gentilities, and central +squalor, the aspects of its streets, and the humours of the dingier +classes among its inhabitants,--all this had certainly never been so +seen and described before. The power of exact minute delineation +lavished upon the picture is admirable. Again, the dialogue in the +dramatic parts is natural, well-conducted, characteristic, and so used +as to help, not impede, the narrative. The speech, for instance, of +Mr. Bung, the broker's man, is a piece of very good Dickens. Of course +there is humour, and very excellent fooling some of it is; and +equally, of course, there is pathos, and some of that is not bad. Do I +mean at all that this earlier work stands on the same level of +excellence as the masterpieces of the writer? Clearly not. It were +absurd to expect the stripling, half-furtively coming forward, first +without a name at all, and then under the pseudonym of Boz,[6] to +write with the superb practised ease and mastery of the Charles +Dickens who penned "David Copperfield." By dint of doing blacksmith's +work, says the French proverb, one becomes a blacksmith. The artist, +like the handicraftsman, must learn his art. Much in the "Sketches" +betrays inexperience; or, perhaps, it would be more just to say, +comparative clumsiness of hand. The descriptions, graphic as they +undoubtedly are, lack for the most part the final imaginative touch; +the kind of inbreathing of life which afterwards gave such individual +charm to Dickens' word-painting. The humour is more obvious, less +delicate, turns too readily on the claim of the elderly spinster to be +considered young, and the desire of all spinsters to get married. The +pathos is often spoilt by over-emphasis and declamation. It lacks +simplicity. + +For the "Sketches" published in _The Old Monthly Magazine_, Dickens +got nothing, beyond the pleasure of seeing himself in print. The +_Chronicle_ treated him somewhat more liberally, and, on his +application, increased his salary, giving him, in view of his original +contributions, seven guineas a week, instead of the five guineas which +he had been drawing as a reporter. Not a particularly brilliant +augmentation, perhaps, and one at which he must often have smiled in +after years, when his pen was dropping gold as well as ink. Still, the +addition to his income was substantial, and the son of John Dickens +must always, I imagine, have been in special need of money. Moreover +the circumstances of the next few months would render any increased +earnings doubly pleasant. For Dickens was shortly after this engaged +to be married to Miss Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of one of his +fellow-workers on the _Chronicle_. There had been, so Forster tells +us, a previous very shadowy love affair in his career,--an affair so +visionary indeed, and boyish, as scarcely to be worthy of mention in +this history, save for three facts: first, that his devotion, +dreamlike as it was, seems to have had love's highest practical effect +in inducing him to throw his whole strength into the study of +shorthand; secondly, that the lady of his love appears to have had +some resemblance to Dora, the child-wife of David Copperfield; and +thirdly, that he met her again long years afterwards, when time had +worked its changes, and the glamour of love had left his eyes, and +that to that meeting we owe the passages in "Little Dorrit" relating +to poor Flora. This, however, is a parenthesis. The engagement to Miss +Hogarth was neither shadowy nor unreal--an engagement only in +dreamland. Better for both, perhaps--who knows?--if it had been. Ah +me, if one could peer into the future, how many weddings there are at +which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! Would +Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth have foreborne to plight their +troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely +the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?--They were +married on the 2nd of April, 1836. + +This date again leads me to a time subsequent to the publication of +the first number of "Pickwick," which had appeared a day or two +before;--and again I refrain from dealing with that great book. For +before I do so, I wish to pause a brief space to consider what manner +of man Charles Dickens was when he suddenly broke on the world in his +full popularity; and also what were the influences, for good and evil, +which his early career had exercised upon his character and intellect. + +What manner of man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that +he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing--bright, animated, eager, +with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was +when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when +Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on +the _Mirror_. So Carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this, +and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted +kindliness. "He is a fine little fellow--Boz, I think. Clear, blue, +intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive +rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme _mobility_, which he +shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular +manner while speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of +common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very +small, and dressed _a la_ D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick. +For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to +guess pretty well what he is and what others are."[7] Is not this a +graphic little picture, and characteristic even to the touch about +D'Orsay, the dandy French Count? For Dickens, like the young men of +the time--Disraeli, Bulwer, and the rest--was a great fop. We, of +these degenerate days, shall never see again that antique magnificence +in coloured velvet waistcoats. + +But to return. Dickens, it need scarcely be said, had by this +[time][8] long out-lived the sickliness of his earlier years. The +hardships and trials of his childhood and boyhood had served but to +brace his young manhood, knitting the frame and strengthening the +nerves. Light and small, as Carlyle describes him, he was wiry and +very active, and could bear without injury an amount of intellectual +work and bodily fatigue that would have killed many men of seemingly +stronger build. And as what might have seemed unfortunate in his youth +had helped perchance to develop his physical powers, so had it +assisted to strengthen his character and foster his genius. I go back +here to the point from which I started. No doubt a weaker man would +have been crushed by such a youth. He would have been indolently +content to remain a warehouse drudge, would have listlessly fallen +into his father's ways about money, would have had no ambition beyond +his desk and salary as a lawyer's clerk, would have never cared to +piece together and supplement the scattered scraps of his education, +would have rested on his oars when he had once shot into the waters of +ordinary journalism. With Dickens it was not so. The alchemy of a fine +nature had transmuted his disadvantages into gold. To him the lessons +of such a childhood and boyhood as he had had, were energy, +self-reliance, a determination to overcome all obstacles, to fight the +battles of life, in all honour and rectitude, so as to win. From the +muddle of his father's affairs he had taken away a lesson of method, +order, and punctuality in business and other arrangements. "What is +worth doing at all is worth doing well," was not only one of his +favourite maxims--it was the rule of his life. + +And for what was to be his life work, what better preparation could +there have been than that which he received? I am far from +recommending warehouses, squalid solitary lodgings, pawnshops, +debtors' prisons,--if such could now be found,--ill-conducted private +schools,--which probably could be found,--attorneys' offices, and the +hand-to-mouth of journalism, as constituting generally the highest +ideal of a liberal education. I am equally far from asserting that the +majority of men do not require more training of a purely scholastic +kind than fell to Dickens' lot. But Dickens was not a bookish man. His +genius did not lie in that direction. To have forced him unduly into +the world of books would have made him, doubtless, an average scholar, +but might have weakened his hold on life. Such a risk was certainly +not worth the running. Fate arranged it otherwise. What he was above +all was a student of the world of men, a passionately keen observer of +the ways of humanity. Men were to be his books, his special branch of +knowledge; and in order to graduate and take high honours in that +school, I repeat, he could have had no better training. Not only had +he passed through a range of most unwonted experiences, experiences +calculated to quicken to the uttermost his superb faculties of +observation and insight; but he had been placed in sympathetic +communication with a strange assortment of characters, lying quite out +of the usual ken of the literary classes. Knowledge and sympathy, the +seeing eye and the feeling heart--were these nothing to have +acquired? + +That so abnormal an education can have been entirely without +drawbacks, it is no part of my purpose to affirm. Tossed, as one may +say, to sink or swim amid the waves of life, where those waves ran +turbid and brackish, Dickens had emerged strengthened, triumphant. But +that some little signs should not remain of the straining and effort +with which he had won the land, was scarcely to be expected. He +himself, in his more confidential communications with Forster, seems +to avow a consciousness that this was so; and Forster, though he +speaks guardedly, lovingly, appears to be of opinion that a certain +self-assertiveness and fierce intolerance of advice or control[9] +occasionally discernible in his friend, might justly be attributed to +the harsh influence of early struggles and privations. But what then? +That system of education has yet to be devised which shall mould this +poor human clay of ours into flawless shapes of use and beauty. A man +may be considered fortunate indeed, when his training has left in him +only what the French call the "defects of his virtues," that is, the +exaggeration of his good qualities till they turn into faults. Without +his immense strength of purpose and iron will, Dickens might never +have emerged from obscurity, and the world would have been very +distinctly the poorer. One cannot be very sorry that he possessed +these gifts in excess. + +And now, at last, having slightly sketched the history of his earlier +years, and endeavoured to show, however perfectly, what influences had +gone to the formation of his character, I proceed to consider the book +that lifted him to fame and fortune. The years of apprenticeship are +over, and the master-workman brings forth his finished work in its +flower of perfection. Let us study "Pickwick." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1870. + +[6] It was the pet name of one of his brothers; that was why he took +it. + +[7] Froude's "Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London." + +[8] Transcriber's Note: The word "time" appears to be missing from the +original text. + +[9] "I have heard Dickens described by those who knew him," says Mr. +Edmund Yates, in his "Recollections," "as aggressive, imperious, and +intolerant, and I can comprehend the accusation.... He was imperious +in the sense that his life was conducted on the _sic volo sic jubeo_ +principle, and that everything gave way before him. The society in +which he mixed, the hours which he kept, the opinions which he held, +his likes and dislikes, his ideas of what should or should not be, +were all settled by himself, not merely for himself, but for all those +brought into connection with him, and it was never imagined they could +be called in question.... He had immense powers of will." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Dickens has told us, in his preface to the later editions, much of how +"Pickwick" came to be projected and published. It was in this wise: +Seymour, a caricaturist of very considerable merit, though not, as we +should now consider, in the first rank of the great caricaturists, had +proposed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, then just starting on their +career as publishers, a "series of Cockney sporting plates." Messrs. +Chapman and Hall entertained the idea favourably, but opined that the +plates would require illustrative letter-press; and casting about for +some suitable author, bethought themselves of Dickens, whose tales and +sketches had been exciting some little sensation in the world of +journalism; and who had, indeed, already written for the firm a story, +the "Tuggs at Ramsgate," which may be read among the "Sketches." +Accordingly Mr. Hall called on Dickens for the purpose of proposing +the scheme. This would be in 1835, towards the latter end of the year; +and Dickens, who had apparently left the paternal roof for some little +time, was living bachelorwise, in Furnival's Inn. What was his +astonishment, when Mr. Hall came in, to find he was the same person +who had sold him the copy of the magazine containing his first +story--that memorable copy at which he had looked, in Westminster +Hall, through eyes bedimmed with joyful tears. Such coincidences +always had for Dickens a peculiar, almost a superstitious, interest. +The circumstance seemed of happy augury to both the "high contracting +parties." Publisher and author were for the nonce on the best of +terms. The latter, no doubt, saw his opening; was more than ready to +undertake the work, and had no quarrel with the remuneration offered. +But even then he was not the man to play second fiddle to anybody. +Before they parted, he had quite succeeded in turning the tables on +Seymour. The original proposal had been that the artist should produce +four caricatures on sporting subjects every month, and that the +letter-press should be in illustration of the caricatures. Dickens got +Mr. Hall to agree to reverse that position. _He_, Dickens, was to have +the command of the story, and the artist was to illustrate _him_. How +far these altered relations would have worked quite smoothly if +Seymour had lived, and if Dickens' story had not so soon assumed the +proportions of a colossal success, it is idle to speculate. Seymour +died by his own hand before the second number was published, and so +ceased to be in a position to assert himself. It was, however, in +deference to the peculiar bent of his art that Mr. Winkle, with his +disastrous sporting proclivities, made part of the first conception of +the book; and it is also very significant of the book's origin, that +the design on the green wrapper in which the monthly parts made their +appearance, should have had a purely sporting character, and exhibited +Mr. Pickwick sleepily fishing in a punt, and Mr. Winkle shooting at +what looks like a cock-sparrow, the whole surrounded by a chaste +arabesque of guns, rods, and landing-nets. To Seymour, too, we owe the +portrait of Mr. Pickwick, which has impressed that excellent old +gentleman's face and figure upon all our memories. But to return to +Dickens' interview with Mr. Hall. They seem to have parted in mutual +satisfaction. At least it is certain Dickens was satisfied, for in a +letter written, apparently on the same day, to "my dearest Kate," he +thus sums up the proposals of the publishers: "They have made me an +offer of fourteen pounds a month to write and edit a new publication +they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and +each number to contain four wood-cuts.... The work will be no joke, +but the emolument is too tempting to resist."[10] + +So, little thinking how soon he would begin to regard the "emolument" +as ludicrously inadequate, he set to work on "Pickwick." The first +part was published on the 31st of March or 1st of April, 1836. + +That part seems scarcely to have created any sensation. Mr James +Grant, the novelist, says indeed, that the first five parts were "a +dead failure," and that the publishers were even debating whether the +enterprise had not better be abandoned altogether, when suddenly Sam +Weller appeared upon the scene, and turned their gloom into laughter. +Be that as it may, certain it is that before many months had passed, +Messrs. Chapman and Hall must have been thoroughly confirmed in a +policy of perseverance. "The first order for Part I.," that is, the +first order for binding, "was," says the bookbinder who executed the +work, "for four hundred copies only." The order for Part XV. had +risen to forty thousand. All contemporary accounts agree that the +success was sudden, immense. The author, like Lord Byron, some +twenty-five years before, "awoke and found himself famous." Young as +he was, not having yet numbered more than twenty-four summers, he at +one stride reached the topmost height of popularity. Everybody read +his book. Everybody laughed over it. Everybody talked about it. +Everybody felt, confusedly perhaps, but very surely, that a new and +vital force had arisen in English literature. + +And English literature just then was in one of its times of slackness, +rather than full flow. The great tide of the beginning of the century +had ebbed. The tide of the Victorian age had scarcely begun to do more +than ripple and flash on the horizon. Byron was dead, and Shelley and +Keats and Coleridge and Lamb; Southey's life was on the decline; +Wordsworth had long executed his best work; while of the coming men, +Carlyle, though in the plenitude of his power, having published +"Sartor Resartus," had not yet published his "French Revolution,"[11] +or delivered his lectures on the "Heroes," and was not yet in the +plenitude of his fame and influence; and Macaulay, then in India, was +known only as the essayist and politician; and Lord Tennyson and the +Brownings were more or less names of the future. Looking especially at +fiction, the time may be said to have been waiting for its +master-novelist. Five years had gone by since the good and great Sir +Walter Scott had been laid to rest in Dryburgh Abbey, there to sleep, +as is most fit, amid the ruins of that old Middle Age world he loved +so well, with the babble of the Tweed for lullaby. Nor had any one +shown himself of stature to step into his vacant place, albeit Bulwer, +more precocious even than Dickens, was already known as the author of +"Pelham," "Eugene Aram," and the "Last Days of Pompeii;" and Disraeli +had written "Vivian Grey," and his earlier books; while Thackeray, +Charlotte Bronte, Kingsley, George Eliot were all, of course, to come +later. No, there was a vacant throne among the novelists. Here was the +hour--and here, too, was the man. In virtue of natural kingship he +took up his sceptre unquestioned. + +Still, it may not be superfluous to inquire into the why and wherefore +of his success. All effects have a cause. What was the cause of this +special phenomenon? In the first place, the admirable freshness of the +book won its way into every heart. There is a fervour of youth and +healthy good spirits about the whole thing. In a former generation, +Byron had uttered his wail of despair over a worthless world. We, in +our own time, have got back to the dreary point of considering whether +life be worth living. Here was a writer who had no such misgivings. +For him life was pleasant, useful, full of delight--to be not only +tolerated, but enjoyed. He liked its sights, its play of character, +its adventures--affected no superiority to its amusements and +convivialities--thoroughly laid himself out to please and to be +pleased. And his characters were in the same mood. Their fund of +animal spirits seemed inexhaustible. For life's jollities they were +never unprepared. No doubt there were "mighty mean moments" in their +existence, as there have been in the existence of most of us. It +cannot have been pleasant to Mr. Winkle to have his eye blackened by +the obstreperous cabman. Mr. Tracy Tupman probably felt a passing pang +when jilted by the maiden aunt in favour of the audacious Jingle. No +man would elect to occupy the position of defendant in an action for +breach of promise, or prefer to sojourn in a debtors' prison. But how +jauntily do Mr. Pickwick and his friends shake off such discomforts! +How buoyantly do they override the billows that beset their course! +And what excellent digestions they have, and how slightly do they seem +to suffer the next day from any little excesses in the matter of milk +punch! + +Then besides the good spirits and good temper, there is Dickens' royal +gift of humour. As some actors have only to show their face and utter +a word or two, in order to convulse an audience with merriment, so +here does almost every sentence hold good and honest laughter. Not, +perhaps, objects the superfine and too dainty critic, humour of the +most delicate sort--not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality +can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of Lamb, or Sterne, +or Goldsmith, or Washington Irving. Granted freely; not humour of that +special character. But very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly +popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce--the humour that +finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous +situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and +eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How +thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time merry and +wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. Dickens was both. +With all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable +laughter, he never makes game of what is at all worthy of respect. +Here, as in his later books, right is right, and wrong wrong, and he +is never tempted to jingle his jester's bell out of season, and make +right look ridiculous. And if the humour of "Pickwick" be wholesome, +it is also most genial and kindly. We have here no acrid cynic +sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing +pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. Rather does +Dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering +memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of +unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. In +brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and +even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on them lovingly and +helpfully. + +So much the first readers of "Pickwick" might note as the book +unfolded itself to them, part by part; and they might also note one or +two things besides. They might note--they could scarcely fail to do +so--that though there was a touch of caricature in nearly all the +characters, yet those characters were, one and all, wonderfully real, +and very much alive. It was no world of shadows to which the author +introduced them. Mr. Pickwick had a very distinct existence, and so +had his three friends, and Bob Sawyer, and Benjamin Allen, and Mr. +Jingle, and Tony Weller, and all the swarm of minor characters. While +as to Sam Weller, if it be really true that he averted impending ruin +from the book, and turned defeat into victory, one can only say that +it was like him. When did he ever "stint stroke" in "foughten field"? +By what array of adverse circumstances was he ever taken at a +disadvantage? To have created a character of this vitality, of this +individual force, would be a feather in the cap of any novelist who +ever lived. Something I think of Dickens' own blood passed into this +special progeniture of his. It has been irreverently said that +Falstaff might represent Shakespeare in his cups, just as Hamlet might +represent him in his more sober moments. So I have always had a kind +of fancy that Sam Weller might be regarded as Dickens himself seen in +a certain aspect--a sort of Dickens, shall I say?--in an humbler +sphere of life, and who had never devoted himself to literature. There +is in both the same energy, pluck, essential goodness of heart, +fertility of resource, abundance of animal spirits, and also an +imagination of a peculiar kind, in which wit enters as a main +ingredient. And having noted how highly vitalized were the characters +in "Pickwick," I think the first readers might also fairly be expected +to note,--and, in fact, it is clear from Dickens' preface that they +did note--how greatly the book increased in scope and power as it +proceeded. The beginning was conceived almost in a spirit of farce. +The incidents and adventures had scarcely any other object than to +create amusement. Mr. Pickwick himself appeared on the scene with +fantastic honours and the badge of absurdity, as "the man who had +traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the +scientific world with the Theory of Tittlebats." But in all this there +is a gradual change. Mr. Pickwick is presented to us latterly as an +exceedingly sound-headed as well as sound-hearted old gentleman, whom +we should never think of associating with the sources of Hampstead +Ponds or any other folly. While in such scenes as those at the Fleet +Prison, the author is clearly endeavouring to do much more than raise +a laugh. He is sounding the deeper, more tragic chords in human +feeling. + +Ah, if we add to all this--to the freshness, the "go," the good +spirits, the keen observation, the graphic painting, the humour, the +vitality of the characters, the gradual development of power--if we +add to all this that something which is in all, and greater than all, +viz., genius, and genius of a highly popular kind, then we shall have +no difficulty in understanding why everybody read "Pickwick," and how +it came to pass that its publishers made some L20,000 by a work that +they had once thought of abandoning as worthless.[12] + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] See the Letters published by Chapman and Hall. + +[11] It was finished in January, 1837, and not published till six +months afterwards. + +[12] They acknowledged to Dickens that they had made L14,000 by the +sale of the monthly parts alone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Dickens was not at all the man to rest on his oars while "Pickwick" +was giving such a magnificent impetus to the boat that contained his +fortunes. The amount of work which he accomplished in the years 1836, +1837, 1838, and 1839 is, if we consider its quality, amazing. +"Pickwick," as we have seen, was begun with the first of these years, +and its publication continued till the November of 1837. Independently +of his work on "Pickwick," he was, in the year 1836, engaged in the +arduous profession of a reporter till the close of the parliamentary +session, and also wrote a pamphlet on Sabbatarianism, a farce in two +acts, "The Strange Gentleman," for the St. James's Theatre, and a +comic opera, "The Village Coquettes," which was set to music by +Hullah. With the very commencement of 1837--"Pickwick," it will be +remembered, going on all the while--he entered upon the duties of +editor of _Bentley's Miscellany_, and in the second number began the +publication of "Oliver Twist," which was continued into the early +months of 1839, when his connection with the magazine ceased. In the +April of 1838, and simultaneously, of course, with "Oliver Twist," +appeared the first part of "Nicholas Nickleby"--the last part +appearing in the October of the following year. Three novels of more +than full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, +besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work--certainly that was +"good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that _The +Quarterly Review_, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to +croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and +putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, +feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to +mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," so he +was in danger of "coming down like the stick." Small wonder, I say, +and yet to us now, how unjust the accusation appears, and how false +the prophecy. Rapidly as those books were executed, Dickens, like the +real artist that he was, had put into them his best work. There was no +scamping. The critics of the time judged superficially, not making +allowance for the ample fund of observations he had amassed, for the +genuine fecundity of his genius, and for the admirable industry of an +extremely industrious man. "The World's Workers"--there exists under +that general designation a series of short biographies, for which Miss +Dickens has written a sketch of her father's life. To no one could the +description more fittingly apply. Throughout his life he worked +desperately hard. He possessed, in a high degree, the "infinite +faculty for taking pains," which is so great an adjunct to genius, +though it is not, as the good Sir Joshua Reynolds held, genius itself. +Thus what he had done rapidly was done well; and, for the rest, the +writer, who had yet to give the world "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The +Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," and "Dombey," was not "coming +down like a stick." There were many more stars, and of very brilliant +colours, to be showered out by that rocket; and the stick has not even +yet fallen to the ground.[13] + +Naturally, with the success of "Pickwick," came a great change in +Dickens' pecuniary position. He had, as we have seen, been glad +enough, before he began the book, to close with the offer of L14 for +each monthly part. That sum was afterwards increased to L15, and the +two first payments seem to have been made in advance for the purpose +of helping him to defray the expenses of his marriage. But as the sale +leapt up, the publishers themselves felt that such a rate of +remuneration was altogether insufficient, and sent him, first and +last, a goodly number of supplementary cheques, for sums amounting in +the aggregate, as _they_ computed, to L3,000, and as Forster computes +to about L2,500. This Dickens, who, to use his own words, "never +undervalued his own work," considered a very inadequate percentage on +their gains--forgetting a little, perhaps, that the risks had been +wholly theirs, and that he had been more than content with the +original bargain. Similarly he was soon utterly dissatisfied with his +arrangements with Bentley about the editorship of the _Miscellany_ and +"Oliver Twist,"--arrangements which had been entered into in August, +1836, while "Pickwick" was in progress; and he utterly refused to let +that publisher have "Gabriel Varden, The Locksmith of London" +("Barnaby Rudge") on the terms originally agreed upon. With Macrone +also, who had made some L4,000 by the "Sketches," and given him about +L400, he was no better pleased, especially when that enterprising +gentleman threatened a re-issue in monthly parts, and so compelled him +to re-purchase the copyright for L2,000. But however much he might +consider himself ill-treated by the publishing fraternity, he was, of +course, rapidly getting far richer than he had been, and so able to +enlarge his mode of life. He had begun, modestly enough, by taking his +wife to live with him in his bachelor's quarters in Furnival's +Inn,--much as Tommy Traddles, in "David Copperfield," took _his_ wife +to live in chambers at Gray's Inn; and there, in Furnival's Inn, his +first child, a boy, was born on the 6th of January, 1837. But in the +March of that year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at 48, +Doughty Street, where he remained till the end of 1839, when still +increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at 1, +Devonshire Terrace, Regent's Park. But the house in Doughty Street +must have been endeared to him by many memories. It was there, on the +7th of May, 1837, that he lost, at the early age of seventeen, and +quite suddenly, a sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, to whom he was greatly +attached. The blow fell so heavily at the time as to incapacitate him +from all work, and delayed the publication of one of the numbers of +"Pickwick." Nor was the sorrow only sharp and transient. He speaks of +her in the preface to the first edition of that book. Her spirit +seemed to be hovering near as he stood looking at Niagara. He felt her +hallowing influence when in danger of growing too much elated by his +first reception in America. She came back to him in dreams in Italy. +Her image remained in his heart, unchanged by time, as he declared, to +the very end. She represented to his mind all that was pure and lovely +in opening womanhood, and lives, in the world created by his art, as +the Little Nell of "The Old Curiosity Shop." It was in Doughty Street, +too, that he began to gather round him the circle of friends whose +names seem almost like a muster-roll of the famous men and women in +the first thirty years of Queen Victoria's reign. I shall not +enumerate them. The list of writers, artists, actors, would be too +long. But this at least it would be unjust not to note, that among his +friends were included nearly all those who by any stretch of fancy +could be regarded as his rivals in the fields of humour and fiction. +With Washington Irving, Hood, Douglas Jerrold, Lord Lytton, Harrison +Ainsworth, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, and, save for a passing +foolish quarrel, with Thackeray, the novelist who really was his peer, +he maintained the kindliest and most cordial relations. Nor when +George Eliot published her first books, "The Scenes of Clerical Life" +and "Adam Bede," did any one acknowledge their excellence more freely. +Petty jealousies found no place in the nature of this great writer. + +It was also while living at Doughty Street that he seems, in great +measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which +every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and +idiosyncrasies. His favourite time for work was the morning, between +the hours of breakfast and lunch; and though, at this particular +period, the enormous pressure of his engagements compelled him to work +"double tides," and often far into the night, yet he was essentially a +day-worker, not a night-worker. Like the great German poet Goethe, he +preferred to exercise his art in the fresh morning hours, when the +dewdrops, as it were, lay bright upon his imagination and fancy. And +for relaxation and sedative, when he had thoroughly worn himself out +with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily +exercise. At first riding seems to have contented him--fifteen miles +out and fifteen miles in, with a halt at some road-side inn for +refreshment. But soon walking took the place of riding, and he became +an indefatigable pedestrian. He would think nothing of a walk of +twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous heyday of +youth, but afterwards, to the very last. He was always on those alert, +quick feet of his, perambulating London from end to end, and in every +direction; perambulating the suburbs, perambulating the "greater +London" that lies within a radius of twenty miles, round the central +core of metropolitan houses. In short, he was everywhere, in all +weathers, at all hours. Nor was London, smaller and greater, his only +walking field. He would walk wherever he was--walked through and +through Genoa, and all about Genoa, when he lived there; knew every +inch of the Kent country round Broadstairs and round Gad's Hill--was, +as I have said, always, always, always on his feet. But if he would +pedestrianize everywhere, London remained the walking ground of his +heart. As Dr. Johnson held that nothing equalled a stroll down Fleet +Street, so did Dickens, sitting in full view of Genoa's perfect bay, +and with the blue Mediterranean sparkling at his feet, turn in thought +for inspiration to his old haunts. "Never," he writes to Forster, when +about to begin "The Chimes," "never did I stagger so upon a threshold +before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I +left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to +it.... Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. If +they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the West +Middlesex Waterworks at Devonshire Terrace.... Put me down on Waterloo +Bridge at eight o'clock in the evening, with leave to roam about as +long as I like, and I would come home, as you know, panting to go on. +I am sadly strange as it is, and can't settle." "Eight o'clock in the +evening,"--that points to another of his peculiarities. As he liked +best to walk in London, so he liked best to walk at night. The +darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. He never +grew tired of it, would find pleasure and refreshment, when most weary +and jaded, in losing himself in it, in abandoning himself to its +mysteries. Looked at with this knowledge, the opening of the "Old +Curiosity Shop" becomes a passage of autobiography. And how all these +wanderings must have served him in his art! Remember what a keen +observer he was, perhaps one of the keenest that ever lived, and then +think what food for observation he would thus be constantly +collecting. To the eye that knows how to see, there is no stage where +so many scenes from the drama of life are being always enacted as the +streets of London. Dickens frequented that theatre very assiduously, +and of his power of sight there can be no question. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] I think critics, and perhaps I myself, have been a little hard on +this Quarterly Reviewer. He did not, after all, say that Dickens would +come down like a stick, only that he might do so if he wrote too fast +and furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"Pickwick" had been a novel without any plot. The story, if story it +can be called, bore every trace of its hasty origin. Scene succeeded +scene, and incident incident, and Mr. Pickwick and his three friends +were hurried about from place to place, and through adventures of all +kinds, without any particularly defined purpose. In truth, many +people, and myself among the number, find some difficulty in reading +the book as a connected narrative, and prefer to take it piecemeal. +But in "Oliver Twist" there is a serious effort to work out a coherent +plot, and real unity of conception. Whether that conception be based +on probability, is another point. Oliver is the illegitimate son of a +young lady who has lapsed from virtue under circumstances of great +temptation, but still lapsed from virtue, and who dies in giving him +birth. He is brought up as a pauper child in a particularly +ill-managed workhouse, and apprenticed to a low undertaker. Thence he +escapes, and walks to London, where he falls in with a gang of +thieves. His legitimate brother, an unutterable scoundrel, happens to +see him in London, and recognizing him by a likeness to their common +father, bribes the thieves to recapture him when he has escaped from +their clutches. Now I would rather not say whether I consider it quite +likely that a boy of this birth and nurture would fly at a boy much +bigger than himself in vindication of the fair fame of a mother whom +he had never known, or would freely risk his life to warn a sleeping +household that they were being robbed, or would, on all occasions, +exhibit the most excellent manners and morals, and a delicacy of +feeling that is quite dainty. But this is the essence of the book. To +show purity and goodness of disposition as self-sufficient in +themselves to resist all adverse influences, is Dickens' main object. +Take Oliver's sweet uncontaminated character away, and the story +crumbles to pieces. With mere improbabilities of plot, I have no +quarrel. Of course it is not likely that the boy, on the occasion of +his first escape from the thieves, should be rescued by his father's +oldest friend, and, on the second occasion, come across his aunt. But +such coincidences must be accepted in any story; they violate no truth +of character. I am afraid I can't say as much of Master Oliver's +graces and virtues. + +With this reservation, however, how much there is in the book to which +unstinted admiration can be given! As "Pickwick" first fully exhibited +the humorous side of Dickens' genius, so "Oliver Twist" first fully +exhibited its tragic side;--the pathetic side was to come somewhat +later. The scenes at the workhouse; at the thieves' dens in London; +the burglary; the murder of poor Nancy; the escape and death of the +horror-haunted Sikes,--all are painted with a master's hand. And the +book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to follow, +contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as +types,--characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in +themselves to sum up a whole class. Such are Bill Sikes, whose +ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the +Jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they +should _not_ go; and Master Dawkins, the Artful Dodger. Such, too, is +Mr. Bumble, greatest and most unhappy of beadles. + +Comedy had predominated in "Pickwick," tragedy in "Oliver Twist." The +more complete fusion of the two was effected in "Nicholas Nickleby." +But as the mighty actor Garrick, in the well-known picture by Sir +Joshua Reynolds, is drawn towards the more mirthful of the two +sisters, so, here again, I think that comedy decidedly bears away the +palm,--though tragedy is not beaten altogether without a struggle +either. Here is the story as it unfolds itself. The two heroes are +Ralph Nickleby and his nephew Nicholas. They stand forth, almost from +the beginning, as antagonists, in battle array the one against the +other; and the story is, in the main, a history of the campaigns +between them--cunning and greed being mustered on the one side, and +young, generous courage on the other. At first Nicholas believes in +his uncle, who promises to befriend Nicholas's mother and sister, and +obtains for Nicholas himself a situation as usher in a Yorkshire +school kept by one Squeers. But the young fellow's gorge rises at the +sickening cruelty exercised in the school, and he leaves it, having +first beaten Mr. Squeers,--leaves it followed by a poor shattered +creature called Smike. Meanwhile Ralph, the usurer, befriends his +sister-in-law and niece after his own fashion, and tries to use the +latter's beauty in furtherance of his trade as a money-lender. +Nicholas discovers his plots, frustrates all his schemes, rescues, and +ultimately marries, a young lady who had been immeshed in one of them; +and Ralph, at last, utterly beaten, commits suicide on finding that +Smike, through whom he had been endeavouring all through to injure +Nicholas, and who is now dead, was his own son. Such are the book's +dry bones, its skeleton, which one is almost ashamed to expose thus +nakedly. For the beauty of these novels lies not at all in the plot; +it is in the incidents, situations, characters. And with beauty of +this kind how richly dowered is "Nicholas Nickleby"! Take the +characters alone. What lavish profusion of humour in the theatrical +group that clusters round Mr. Vincent Crummles, the country manager; +and in the Squeers family too; and in the little shop-world of Mrs. +Mantalini, the fashionable dressmaker; and in Cheeryble Brothers, the +golden-hearted old merchants who take Nicholas into their +counting-house. Then for single characters commend me to Mrs. +Nickleby, whose logic, which some cynics would call feminine, is +positively sublime in its want of coherence; and to John Browdie, the +honest Yorkshire cornfactor, as good a fellow almost as Dandie +Dinmont, the Border yeoman whom Scott made immortal. The high-life +personages are far less successful. Dickens had small gift that way, +and seldom succeeded in his society pictures. Nor, if the truth must +be told, do I greatly care for the description of the duel between Sir +Mulberry Hawk and Lord Verisopht, though it was evidently very much +admired at the time, and is quoted, as a favourable specimen of +Dickens' style, in Charles Knight's "Half-hours with the Best +Authors." The writing is a little too _tall_. It lacks simplicity, as +is sometimes the case with Dickens, when he wants to be particularly +impressive. + +And this leads me, by a kind of natural sequence, to what I have to +say about his next book, "The Old Curiosity Shop;" for here, again, +though in a very much more marked degree, I fear I shall have to run +counter to a popular opinion. + +But first a word as to the circumstances under which the book was +published. Casting about, after the conclusion of "Nicholas Nickleby," +for further literary ventures, Dickens came to the conclusion that the +public must be getting tired of his stories in monthly parts. It +occurred to him that a weekly periodical, somewhat after the manner of +Addison's _Spectator_ or Goldsmith's _Bee_, and containing essays, +stories, and miscellaneous papers,--to be written mainly, but not +entirely, by himself,--would be just the thing to revive interest, and +give his popularity a spur. Accordingly an arrangement was entered +into with Messrs. Chapman and Hall, by which they covenanted to give +him L50 for each weekly number of such a periodical, and half +profits;--and the first number of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ made its +appearance in the April of 1840. Unfortunately Dickens had reckoned +altogether without his host. The public were not to be cajoled. What +they expected from their favourite was novels, not essays, short +stories, or sketches, however admirable. The orders for the first +number had amounted to seventy thousand; but they fell off as soon as +it was discovered that Master Humphrey, sitting by his clock, had no +intention of beguiling the world with a continuous narrative,--that +the title, in short, did not stand for the title of a novel. Either +the times were not ripe for the _Household Words_, which, ten years +afterwards, proved to be such a great and permanent success, or +Dickens had laid his plans badly. Vainly did he put forth all his +powers, vainly did he bring back upon the stage those old popular +favourites, Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Tony Weller. All was of no +avail. Clearly, in order to avoid defeat, a change of front had become +necessary. The novel of "The Old Curiosity Shop" was accordingly +commenced in the fourth number of the _Clock_, and very soon acted the +cuckoo's part of thrusting Master Humphrey and all that belonged to +him out of the nest. He disappeared pretty well from the periodical, +and when the novel was republished, the whole machinery of the _Clock_ +had gone;--and with it I may add, some very characteristic and +admirable writing. Dickens himself confessed that he "winced a +little," when the "opening paper, ... in which Master Humphrey +described himself and his manner of life," "became the property of the +trunkmaker and the butterman;" and most Dickens lovers will agree with +me in rejoicing that the omitted parts have now at last been tardily +rescued from unmerited neglect, and finds [Transcriber's Note: sic] a +place in the recently issued "Charles Dickens" edition of the works. + +There is no hero in "The Old Curiosity Shop,"--unless Mr. Richard +Swiveller, "perpetual grand-master of the Glorious Apollos," be the +questionable hero; and the heroine is Little Nell, a child. Of +Dickens' singular feeling for the pathos and humour of childhood, I +have already spoken. Many novelists, perhaps one might even say, most +novelists, have no freedom of utterance when they come to speak about +children, do not know what to do with a child if it chances to stray +into their pages. But how different with Dickens! He is never more +thoroughly at home than with the little folk. Perhaps his best speech, +and they all are good, is the one uttered at the dinner given on +behalf of the Children's Hospital. Certainly there is no figure in +"Dombey and Son" on which more loving care has been lavished than the +figure of little Paul, and when the lad dies one quite feels that the +light has gone out of the book. "David Copperfield" shorn of David's +childhood and youth would be a far less admirable performance. The +hero of "Oliver Twist" is a boy. Pip is a boy through a fair portion +of "Great Expectations." The heroine of "The Old Curiosity Shop" is, +as I have just said, a girl. And of all these children, the one who +seems, from the first, to have stood highest in popular favour, and +won most hearts, is Little Nell. Ay me, what tears have been shed over +her weary wanderings with that absurd old gambling grandfather of +hers; how many persons have sorrowed over her untimely end as if she +had been a daughter or a sister. High and low, literate and +illiterate, over nearly all has she cast her spell. Hood, he who sang +the "Song of the Shirt," paid her the tribute of his admiration, and +Jeffrey, the hard-headed old judge and editor of _The Edinburgh +Review_, the tribute of his tears. Landor volleyed forth his +thunderous praises over her grave, likening her to Juliet and +Desdemona. Nay, Dickens himself sadly bewailed her fate, described +himself as being the "wretchedest of the wretched" when it drew near, +and shut himself from all society as if he had suffered a real +bereavement. While as to the feeling which she has excited in the +breasts of the illiterate, we may take Mr. Bret Harte's account of the +haggard golddiggers by the roaring Californian camp fire, who throw +down their cards to listen to her story, and, for the nonce, are +softened and humanized.[14]--Such is the sympathy she has created. And +for the description of her death and burial, as a superb piece of +pathetic writing, there has been a perfect chorus of praise broken +here and there no doubt by a discordant voice, but still of the +loudest and most heartfelt. Did not Horne, a poet better known to the +last generation than to this, point out that though printed as prose, +these passages were, perhaps as "the result of harmonious accident," +essentially poetry, and "written in blank verse of irregular metres +and rhythms, which Southey and Shelley and some other poets have +occasionally adopted"? Did he not print part of the passages in this +form, substituting only, as a concession to the conventionalities of +verse, the word "grandames" for "grandmothers"; and did he not declare +of one of the extracts so printed that it was "worthy of the best +passages in Wordsworth"? + +If it "argues an insensibility" to stand somewhat unmoved among all +these tears and admiration, I am afraid I must be rather +pebble-hearted. To tell the whole damaging truth, I am, and always +have been, only slightly affected by the story of Little Nell; have +never felt any particular inclination to shed a tear over it, and +consider the closing chapters as failing of their due effect, on me at +least, because they are pitched in a key that is altogether too high +and unnatural. Of course one makes a confession of this kind with +diffidence. It is no light thing to stem the current of a popular +opinion. But one can only go with the stream when one thinks the +stream is flowing in a right channel. And here I think the stream is +meandering out of its course. For me, Little Nell is scarcely more +than a figure in cloudland. Possibly part of the reason why I do not +feel as much sympathy with her as I ought, is because I do not seem to +know her very well. With Paul Dombey I am intimately acquainted. I +should recognize the child anywhere, should be on the best of terms +with him in five minutes. Few things would give me greater pleasure +than an hour's saunter by the side of his little invalid's carriage +along the Parade at Brighton. How we should laugh, to be sure, if we +happened to come across Mr. Toots, and smile, too, if we met Feeder, +B.A., and give a furtive glance of recognition at Glubb, the discarded +charioteer. Then the classic Cornelia Blimber would pass, on her +constitutional, and we should quail a little--at least I am certain +_I_ should--as she bent upon us her scholastic spectacles; and a +glimpse of Dr. Blimber would chill us even more; till--ah! what's +this? Why does a flush of happiness mantle over my little friend's +pale face? Why does he utter a faint cry of pleasure? Yes, there she +is--he has caught sight of Floy running forward to meet him.--So am +I led, almost instinctively, whenever the figure of Paul flashes into +my mind, to think of him as a child I have actually known. But +Nell--she has no such reality of existence. She has been etherealized, +vapourized, rhapsodized about, till the flesh and blood have gone out +of her. I recognize her attributes, unselfishness, sweetness of +disposition, gentleness. But these don't constitute a human being. +They don't make up a recognizable individuality. If I met her in the +street, I am afraid I should not know her; and if I did, I am sure we +should both find it difficult to keep up a conversation. + +Do the passages describing her death and burial really possess the +rhythm of poetry? That would seem to me, I confess, to be as ill a +compliment as to say of a piece of poetry that it was really prose. +The music of prose and of poetry are essentially different. They do +not affect the ear in the same way. The one is akin to song, the other +to speech. Give to prose the recurring cadences, the measure, and the +rhythmic march of verse, and it becomes bad prose without becoming +good poetry.[15] So, in fairness to Dickens, one is bound, as far as +one can, to forget Horne's misapplied praise. But even thus, and +looking upon it as prose alone, can we say that the account of Nell's +funeral is, in the high artistic sense, a piece of good work. Here is +an extract: "And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by +night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a +living voice--rang its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so +beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming +youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride +of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn +of life--to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were +dim and senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years +ago, and still been old,--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, +the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that +earthly grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which +still could crawl and creep above it?" Such is the tone throughout, +and one feels inclined to ask whether it is quite the appropriate tone +in which to speak of the funeral of a child in a country churchyard? +All this pomp of rhetoric seems to me--shall I say it?--as much out of +place as if Nell had been buried like some great soldier or minister +of state--with a hearse, all sable velvet and nodding plumes, drawn by +a long train of sable steeds, and a final discharge of artillery over +the grave. The verbal honours paid here to the deceased are really not +much less incongruous and out of keeping. Surely in such a subject, +above all others, the pathos of simplicity would have been most +effective. + +There are some, indeed, who deny to Dickens the gift of pathos +altogether. Such persons acknowledge, for the most part a little +unwillingly, that he was a master of humour of the broader, more +obvious kind. But they assert that all his sentiment is mawkish and +overstrained, and that his efforts to compel our tears are so obvious +as to defeat their own purpose. Now it will be clear, from what I +have said about Little Nell, that I am capable of appreciating the +force of any criticism of this kind; nay, that I go so far as to +acknowledge that Dickens occasionally lays himself open to it. But go +one inch beyond this I cannot. Of course we may, if we like, take up a +position of pure stoicism, and deny pathos altogether, in life as in +art. We may regard all human affairs but as a mere struggle for +existence, and say that might makes right, and that the weak is only +treated according to his deserts when he goes to the wall. We may hold +that neither sorrow nor suffering call for any meed of sympathy. Such +is mainly the attitude which the French novelist adopts towards the +world of his creation.[16] But once admit that feeling is legitimate; +once allow that tears are due to those who have been crushed and left +bleeding by this great world of ours as it crashes blundering on its +way; once grant that the writer's art can properly embrace what +Shakespeare calls "the pity of it," the sorrows inwoven in all our +human relationships; once acknowledge all this, and then I affirm, +most confidently, that Dickens, working at his best, was one of the +greatest masters of pathos who ever lived. I can myself see scarce a +strained discordant note in the account of the short life and early +death of Paul Dombey, and none in the description of the death of Paul +Dombey's mother, or in the story of Tiny Tim, or in the record of +David Copperfield's childhood and boyhood. I consider the passage in +"American Notes" describing the traits of gentle kindliness among the +emigrants as being nobly, pathetically eloquent. Did space allow, I +could support my position by quotations and example to any extent. And +my conclusion is that, though he failed with Little Nell, yet he +succeeded elsewhere, and superbly. + +The number of _Master Humphrey's Clock_, containing the conclusion of +"The Old Curiosity Shop," appeared on the 17th of January, 1841, and +"Barnaby Rudge" began its course in the ensuing week. The first had +been essentially a tale of modern life. All the characters that made a +kind of background, mostly grotesque or hideous, for the figure of +Little Nell, were characters of to-day, or at least of the day when +the book was written; for I must not forget that that day ran into the +past some six and forty years ago. Quilp, the dwarf,--and a far finer +specimen of a scoundrel by the by, in every respect, than that poor +stage villain Monks; Sampson Brass and his legal sister Sally, a +goodly pair; Kit, golden-hearted and plain of body, who so barely +escapes from the plot laid by the afore-mentioned worthies to prove +him a thief; Chuckster, most lady-killing of notaries' clerks; Mrs. +Jarley, the good-natured waxwork woman, in whose soul there would be +naught save kindliness, only she cannot bring herself to tolerate +Punch and Judy; Short and Codlin, the Punch and Judy men; the little +misused servant, whom Dick Swiveller in his grandeur creates a +marchioness; and the magnificent Swiveller himself, prince among the +idle and impecunious, justifying by his snatches of song, and flowery +rhetoric, his high position as "perpetual grand-master" among the +"Glorious Apollers,"--all these, making allowance perhaps for some +idealization, were personages of Dickens' own time. But in "Barnaby +Rudge," Dickens threw himself back into the last century. The book is +a historical novel, one of the two which he wrote, the other being the +"Tale of Two Cities," and its scenes are many of them laid among the +No Popery Riots of 1780. + +A ghastly time, a time of aimless, brutal incendiarism and mad +turbulence on the part of the mob; a time of weakness and ineptitude +on the part of the Government; a time of wickedness, folly, and +misrule. Dickens describes it admirably. His picture of the riots +themselves seems painted in pigments of blood and fire; and yet, +through all the hurry and confusion, he retains the clearness of +arrangement and lucidity which characterize the pictures of such +subjects when executed by the great masters of the art--as Carlyle, +for example. His portrait of the poor, crazy-brained creature, Lord +George Gordon, who sowed the wind which the country was to reap in +whirlwind, is excellent. Nor is what may be called the private part of +the story unskilfully woven with the historical part. The plot, though +not good, rises perhaps above the average of Dickens' plots; for even +we, his admirers, are scarcely bound to maintain that plot was his +strong point. Beyond this, I think I may say that the book is, on the +whole, the least characteristic of his books. It is the one which +those who are most out of sympathy with his peculiar vein of humour +and pathos will probably think the best, and the one which the true +Dickens lovers will generally regard as bearing the greatest +resemblance to an ordinary novel. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] "Dickens in Camp." + +[15] Dickens himself knew that he had a tendency to fall into blank +verse in moments of excitement, and tried to guard against it. + +[16] M. Daudet, in many respects a follower of Dickens, is a fine and +notable exception. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The last number of "Barnaby Rudge" appeared in November, 1841, and, on +the 4th of the following January Dickens sailed with his wife for a +six months' tour in the United States. What induced him to undertake +this journey, more formidable then, of course, than now? + +Mainly, I think, that restless desire to see the world which is strong +in a great many men, and was specially strong in Dickens. Ride as he +might, and walk as he might, his abounding energies remained +unsatisfied. In 1837 there had been trips to Belgium, Broadstairs, +Brighton; in 1838 to Yorkshire, Broadstairs, North Wales, and a fairly +long stay at Twickenham; in 1839 a similar stay at Petersham--where, +as at Twickenham, frolic, gaiety and athletics had prevailed,--and +trips to Broadstairs and Devonshire; in 1840 trips again to Bath, +Birmingham, Shakespeare's country, Broadstairs, Devonshire; in 1841 +more trips, and a very notable visit to Edinburgh, with which Little +Nell had a great deal to do. For Lord Jeffrey was enamoured of that +young lady, declaring to whomsoever would hear that there had been +"nothing so good ... since Cordelia;" and inoculating the citizens of +the northern capital with his enthusiasm, he had induced them to offer +to Dickens a right royal banquet, and the freedom of their city. +Accordingly to Edinburgh he repaired, and the dinner took place on the +26th of June, with three hundred of the chief notabilities for +entertainers, and a reception such as kings might have envied. Jeffrey +himself was ill and unable to take the chair, but Wilson, the leonine +"Christopher North," editor of _Blackwood_, and author of those +"Noctes Ambrosianae" which were read so eagerly as they came out, and +which some of us find so difficult to read now--Wilson presided most +worthily. Of speechifying there was of course much, and compliments +abounded. But the banquet itself, the whole reception at Edinburgh was +the most magnificent of compliments. Never, I imagine, can such +efforts have been made to turn any young man's brain, as were made, +during this and the following year, to turn the head of Dickens, who +was still, be it remembered, under thirty. Nevertheless he came +unscathed through the ordeal. A kind of manly genuineness bore him +through. Amid all the adulation and excitement, the public and private +hospitalities, the semi-regal state appearance at the theatre, he +could write, and write truly, to his friend Forster: "The moral of +this is, that there is no place like home; and that I thank God most +heartily for having given me a quiet spirit and a heart that won't +hold many people. I sigh for Devonshire Terrace and Broadstairs, for +battledore and shuttlecock; I want to dine in a blouse with you and +Mac (Maclise).... On Sunday evening, the 17th July, I shall revisit +my household gods, please heaven. I wish the day were here." + +Yes, except during the few years when he and his wife lived unhappily +together, he was greatly attached to his home, with its friendships +and simple pleasures; but yet, as I have said, a desire to see more of +the world, and to garner new experiences, was strong upon him. The two +conflicting influences often warred in his life, so that it almost +seemed sometimes as if he were being driven by relentless furies. +Those furies pointed now with stern fingers towards America, though +"how" he was "to get on" "for seven or eight months without" his +friends, he could not upon his "soul conceive;" though he dreaded "to +think of breaking up all" his "old happy habits for so long a time;" +though "Kate," remembering doubtless her four little children, wept +whenever the subject was "spoken of." Something made him feel that the +going was "a matter of imperative necessity." Washington Irving +beckoned from across the Atlantic, speaking, as Jeffrey had spoken +from Edinburgh, of Little Nell and her far-extended influence. There +was a great reception foreshadowed, and a new world to be seen, and a +book to be written about it. While as to the strongest of the home +ties--the children that brought the tears into Mrs. Dickens' +eyes,--the separation, after all, would not be eternal, and the good +Macready, tragic actor and true friend, would take charge of the +little folk while their parents were away. So Dickens, who had some +time before "begun counting the days between this and coming home +again," set sail, as I have said, for America on the 4th of January, +1842. + +And a very rough experience he, and Mrs. Dickens, and Mrs. Dickens' +maid seem to have had during that January passage from Liverpool to +Halifax and Boston. Most of the time it blew horribly, and they were +direfully ill. Then a storm supervened, which swept away the +paddle-boxes and stove in the life-boats, and they seem to have been +in real peril. Next the ship struck on a mud-bank. But dangers and +discomforts must have been forgotten, at any rate to begin with, in +the glories of the reception that awaited the "inimitable,"--as +Dickens whimsically called himself in those days,--when he landed in +the New World. If he had been received with princely honours in +Edinburgh, he was treated now as an emperor in some triumphant +progress. Halifax sounded the first note of welcome, gave, as it were, +the preliminary trumpet flourish. From that town he writes: "I wish +you could have seen the crowds cheering the inimitable in the streets. +I wish you could have seen judges, law-officers, bishops, and +law-makers welcoming the inimitable. I wish you could have seen the +inimitable shown to a great elbow-chair by the Speaker's throne, and +sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the House of Commons, the +observed of all observers, listening with exemplary gravity to the +queerest speaking possible, and breaking, in spite of himself, into a +smile as he thought of this commencement to the thousand and one +stories in reserve for home." At Boston the enthusiasm had swelled to +even greater proportions. "How can I give you," he writes, "the +faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and +out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when I go out; +of the cheering when I went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, +letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, +assemblies without end?... There is to be a dinner in New York, ... to +which I have had an invitation with every known name in America +appended to it.... I have had deputations from the Far West, who have +come from more than two thousand miles' distance; from the lakes, the +rivers, the backwoods, the log-houses, the cities, factories, +villages, and towns. Authorities from nearly all the states have +written to me. I have heard from the universities, congress, senate, +and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind." All was +indeed going happy as a marriage bell. Did I not rightly say that the +world was conspiring to spoil this young man of thirty, whose youth +had certainly not been passed in the splendour of opulence or power? +What wonder if in the dawn of his American experiences, and of such a +reception, everything assumed a roseate hue? Is it matter for surprise +if he found the women "very beautiful," the "general breeding neither +stiff nor forward," "the good nature universal"; if he expatiated, not +without a backward look at unprogressive Old England, on the +comparative comfort among the working classes, and the absence of +beggars in the streets? But, alas, that rosy dawn ended, as rosy dawns +sometimes will, in sleet and mist and very dirty weather. Before many +weeks, before many days had flown, Dickens was writing in a very +different spirit. On the 24th of February, in the midst of a perfect +ovation of balls and dinners, he writes "with reluctance, +disappointment, and sorrow," that "there is no country on the face of +the earth, where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in +reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, than in" +the United States. On the 22nd of March he writes again, to Macready, +who seems to have remonstrated with him on his growing discontent: "It +is of no use, I _am_ disappointed. This is not the republic I came to +see; this is not the republic of my imagination. I infinitely prefer a +liberal monarchy--even with its sickening accompaniment of Court +circulars--to such a government as this. The more I think of its youth +and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it +appears in my eyes. In everything of which it has made a boast, +excepting its education of the people, and its care for poor children, +it sinks immeasurably below the level I had placed it upon, and +England, even England, bad and faulty as the old land is, and +miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison.... +Freedom of opinion; where is it? I see a press more mean and paltry +and silly and disgraceful than any country I ever knew.... In the +respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by +tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, I have suffered considerably." + +Extracts like these could be multiplied to any extent, and the +question arises, why did such a change come over the spirit of +Dickens? Washington Irving, at the great New York dinner, had called +him "the guest of the nation." Why was the guest so quickly +dissatisfied with his host, and quarrelling with the character of his +entertainment? Sheer physical fatigue, I think, had a good deal to do +with it. Even at Boston, before he had begun to travel over the +unending railways, water-courses, and chaotic coach-roads of the great +Republic, that key-note had been sounded. "We are already," he had +written, "weary at times, past all expression." Few men can wander +with impunity out of their own professional sphere, and undertake +duties for which they have neither the training nor acquired tastes. +Dickens was a writer, not a king; and here he was expected to hold a +king's state, and live in a king's publicity, but without the formal +etiquette that hedge a king from intruders, and make his position +tolerable. He was hemmed in by curious eyes, mobbed in the streets, +stared at in his own private rooms, interviewed by the hour, shaken by +the hand till his arm must often have been ready to drop off, waylaid +at every turn with formal addresses. If he went to church the people +crowded into the adjacent pews, and the preacher preached at him. If +he got into a public conveyance, every one inside insisted on an +introduction, and the people outside--say before the train +started--would pull down the windows and comment freely on his nose +and eyes and personal appearance generally, some even touching him as +if to see if he were real. He was safe from intrusion nowhere--no, not +when he was washing and his wife in bed. Such attentions must have +been exhausting to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. But there +was more than mere physical weariness in his growing distaste for the +United States. Perfectly outspoken at all times, and eager for the +strife of tongues in any cause which he had at heart, it horrified him +to find that he was expected not to express himself freely on such +subjects as International Copyright, and that even in private, or +semi-private intercourse, slavery was a topic to be avoided. Then I +fear, too, that as he left cultured Boston behind, he was brought into +close and habitual contact with natives whom he did not appreciate. +Rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for Brother Jonathan as +Brother Jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. He +was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough +familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all +means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for +literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and +expectorations. So when Dickens gets to "Niagara Falls, upon the +_English_ side," he puts ten dashes under the word English; and, +meeting two English officers, contrasts them in thought with the men +whom he has just left, and seems, by note of exclamation and italics, +to call upon the world to witness, "what _gentlemen_, what noblemen of +nature they seemed!" + +And Brother Jonathan, how did _he_ regard his young guest? Well, +Jonathan, great as he was, and greater as he was destined to be, did +not possess the gift of prophecy, and could not of course foresee the +scathing satire of "American Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." But +still, amid all his enthusiasm, I think there must have been a feeling +of uneasiness and disappointment. Part, as there is no doubt, of the +fervour with which he greeted Dickens, was due to his regarding +Dickens as the representative of democratic feeling in aristocratic +England, as the advocate of the poor and down-trodden against the +wealthy and the strong; "and"--thus argued Jonathan--"because we are +a democracy, therefore Dickens will admire and love us, and see how +immeasurably superior we are to the retrograde Britishers of his +native land." But unfortunately Dickens showed no signs of being +impressed in that particular way. On the contrary, as we have seen, +such comparison as he made in his own mind was infinitely to the +disadvantage of the United States. "We must be cracked up," says +Hannibal Chollop, in "Martin Chuzzlewit," speaking of his fellow +countrymen. And Dickens, even while feted and honoured, would not +"crack up" the Americans. He lectured them almost with truculence on +their sins in the matter of copyright; he could scarcely be restrained +from testifying against slavery; he was not the man to say he liked +manners and customs which he loathed. Jonathan must have been very +doubtfully satisfied with his guest. + +It is no part of my purpose to follow Dickens lingeringly, and step by +step, from the day when he landed at Halifax, to the 7th of June, when +he re-embarked at New York for England. From Boston he went to New +York, where the great dinner was given with Washington Irving in the +chair, and thence to Philadelphia and Washington,--which was still the +empty "city of magnificent distances," that Mr. Goldwin Smith declares +it has now ceased to be;--and thence again westward, and by Niagara +and Canada back to New York. And if any persons want to know what he +thought about these and other places, and the railway travelling, and +the coach travelling, and the steamboat travelling, and the prisons +and other public institutions--aye, and many other things besides, +they cannot do better than read the "American Notes for general +circulation," which he wrote and published within the year after his +return. Nor need such persons be deterred by the fact that Macaulay +thought meanly of the book; for Macaulay, with all his great gifts, +did not, as he himself knew full well, excel in purely literary +criticism. So when he pronounces, that "what is meant to be easy and +sprightly is vulgar and flippant," and "what is meant to be fine is a +great deal too fine for me, as the description of the Falls of +Niagara," one can venture to differ without too great a pang. The +book, though not assuredly one of Dickens' best, contains admirable +passages which none but he could have written, and the description of +Niagara is noticeably fine, the sublimity of the subject being +remembered, as a piece of impassioned prose. Whether satire so bitter +and unfriendly as that in which he indulged, both here and in "Martin +Chuzzlewit," was justifiable from what may be called an international +point of view, is another question. Publicists do not always remember +that a cut which would smart for a moment, and then be forgotten, if +aimed at a countryman, rankles and festers if administered to a +foreigner. And if this be true as regards the English publicist's +comment on the foreigner who does not understand our language, it is, +of course, true with tenfold force as regards the foreigner whose +language is our own. _He_ understands only too well the jibe and the +sneer, and the tone of superiority, more offensive perhaps than +either. Looked at in this way, it can, I think, but be accounted a +misfortune that the most popular of English writers penned two books +containing so much calculated to wound American feeling, as the +"Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." Nor are signs entirely wanting that, +as the years went by, the mind of Dickens himself was haunted by some +such suspicion. A quarter of a century later, he visited the United +States a second time; and speaking at a public dinner given in his +honour by the journalists of New York, he took occasion to comment on +the enormous strides which the country had made in the interval, and +then said, "Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in +five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had +nothing to learn, and no extreme impressions to correct when I was +here first." And he added that, in all future editions of the two +books just named, he would cause to be recorded, that, "wherever he +had been, in the smallest place equally with the largest, he had been +received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, +hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the +privacy daily enforced upon him by the nature of his avocation there" +(as a public reader), "and the state of his health." + +And now, with three observations, I will conclude what I have to say +about the visit to America in 1842. The first is that the "Notes" are +entirely void of all vulgarity of reference to the private life of the +notable Americans whom Dickens had met. He seems to have known, more +or less intimately, the chief writers of the time--Washington Irving, +Channing, Dana, Bryant, Longfellow, Bancroft; but his intercourse with +them he held sacred, and he made no literary capital out of it. +Secondly, it is pleasant to note that there was, so far, no great +"incompatibility of temper" between him and his wife. He speaks of +her enthusiastically, in his correspondence, as a "most admirable +traveller," and expatiates on the good temper and equanimity with +which she had borne the fatigues and jars of a most trying journey. +And the third point to which I will call attention is the thoroughly +characteristic form of rest to which he had recourse in the midst of +all his toil and travel. Most men would have sought relaxation in +being quiet. He found it in vigorously getting up private theatricals +with the officers of the Coldstream Guards, at Montreal. Besides +acting in all the three pieces played, he also accepted the part of +stage manager; and "I am not," he says, "placarded as stage manager +for nothing. Everybody was told that they would have to submit to the +most iron despotism, and didn't I come Macready over them? Oh no, by +no means; certainly not. The pains I have taken with them, and the +perspiration I have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in +amount anything you can imagine." What bright vitality, and what a +singular charm of exuberant animal spirits! + +And who was glad one evening--which would be about the last evening in +June, or the first of July--when a hackney coach rattled up to the +door of the house in Devonshire Terrace, and four little folk, two +girls and two boys, were hurried down, and kissed through the bars of +the gate, because their father was too eager to wait till it was +opened? Who were glad but the little folk aforementioned--I say +nothing of the joy of father and mother; for children as they were, a +sense of sorrowful loss had been theirs while their parents were away, +and greater strictness seems to have reigned in the good Macready's +household than in their own joyous home. It is Miss Dickens herself +who tells us this, and in whose memory has lingered that pretty scene +of the kiss through the bars in the summer gloaming. And she has much +to tell us too of her father's tenderness and care,--of his sympathy +with the children's terrors, so that, for instance, he would sit +beside the cot of one of the little girls who had been startled, and +hold her hand in his till she fell asleep; of his having them on his +knees, and singing to them the merriest of comic songs; of his +interest in all their small concerns; of the many pet names with which +he invested them.[17] Then, as they grew older, there were Twelfth +Night parties and magic lanterns. "Never such magic lanterns as those +shown by him," she says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was +dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he +practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, +lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight +rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private +theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest +himself in his children's occupations, lessons, amusements, and +general welfare." Clearly not one of those brilliant men, a numerous +race, who when away from their homes, in general society, sparkle and +scintillate, flash out their wit, and irradiate all with their humour, +but who, when at home, are dull as rusted steel. Among the many +tributes to his greatness, that of his own child has a place at once +touching and beautiful. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Miss Dickens evidently bears proudly still her pet name of +"Mamie," and signs it to her book. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +With the return from America began the old life of hard work and hard +play. There was much industrious writing of "American Notes," at +Broadstairs and elsewhere; and there were many dinners of welcome +home, and strolls, doubtless, with Forster and Maclise, and other +intimates, to old haunts, as Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath, +and similar houses of public entertainment. And then in the autumn +there was "such a trip ... into Cornwall," with Forster, and the +painters Stanfield and Maclise for travelling companions. How they +enjoyed themselves to be sure, and with what bubbling, bursting +merriment. "I never laughed in my life as I did on this journey," +writes Dickens, "... I was choking and gasping ... all the way. And +Stanfield got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often +obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could +recover him." Immediately on their return, refreshed and invigorated +by this wholesome hilarity and enjoyment, he threw himself into the +composition of his next book, and the first number of "Martin +Chuzzlewit" appeared in January, 1843. + +"Martin Chuzzlewit" is unquestionably one of Dickens' great works. He +himself held it to be "in a hundred points" and "immeasurably" +superior to anything he had before written, and that verdict may, I +think, be accepted freely. The plot, as plot is usually understood, +can scarcely indeed be commended. But then plot was never his strong +point. Later in life, and acting, as I have always surmised, under the +influence of his friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, he endeavoured to +construct ingenious stories that turned on mysterious disappearances, +and the substitution of one person for another, and murders real or +suspected. All this was, to my mind, a mistake. Dickens had no real +gift for the manufacture of these ingenious pieces of mechanism. He +did not even many times succeed in disposing the events and +marshalling the characters in his narratives so as to work, by +seemingly unforced and natural means, to a final situation and climax. +Too often, in order to hold his story together and make it move +forward at all, he was compelled to make his personages pursue a line +of conduct preposterous and improbable, and even antagonistic to their +nature. Take this very book. Old Martin Chuzzlewit is a man who has +been accustomed, all through a long life, to have his own way, and to +take it with a high hand. Yet he so far sets aside, during a course of +months, every habit of his life, as to simulate the weakest +subservience to Pecksniff--and that not for the purpose of unmasking +Pecksniff, who wanted no unmasking, but only in order to disappoint +him. Is it believable that old Martin should have thought Pecksniff +worth so much trouble, personal inconvenience, and humiliation? Or +take again Mr. Boffin in "Our Mutual Friend." Mr. Boffin is a simple, +guileless, open-hearted, open-handed old man. Yet, in order to prove +to Miss Bella Wilfer that it is not well to be mercenary, he, again, +goes through a long course of dissimulation, and does some admirable +comic business in the character of a miser. I say it boldly, I do not +believe Mr. Boffin possessed that amount of histrionic talent. Plots +requiring to be worked out by such means are ill-constructed plots; +or, to put it in another way, a man who had any gift for the +construction of plots would never have had recourse to such means. Nor +would he, I think, have adopted, as Dickens did habitually and for all +his stories, a mode of publication so destructive of unity of effect, +as the publication in monthly or weekly parts. How could the reader +see as a whole that which was presented to him at intervals of time +more or less distant? How, and this is of infinitely greater +importance, how could the writer produce it as a whole? For Dickens, +it must be remembered, never finished a book before the commencement +of publication. At first he scarcely did more than complete each +monthly instalment as required; and though afterwards he was generally +some little way in advance, yet always he wrote by parts, having the +interest of each separate part in his mind, as well as the general +interest of the whole novel. Thus, however desirable in the +development of the story, he dared not risk a comparatively tame and +uneventful number. Moreover, any portion once issued was unalterable +and irrevocable. If, as sometimes happened, any modification seemed +desirable as the book progressed, there was no possibility of +changing anything in the chapters already in the hands of the public, +and so making them harmonize better with the new. + +But of course, with all this, the question still remains how far +Dickens' comparative failure as a constructor of plots really detracts +from his fame and standing as a novelist. To my mind, I confess, not +very much. Plot I regard as the least essential element in the +novelist's art. A novel can take the very highest rank without it. +There is not any plot to speak of in Lesage's "Gil Blas," and just as +little in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and only a very bad one in +Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield." Coleridge admired the plot of "Tom +Jones," but though one naturally hesitates to differ from a critic of +such superb mastery and power, I confess I have never been struck by +that plot, any more than by the plots, such as they are, in "Joseph +Andrews," or in Smollett's works. Nor, if I can judge of other +people's memories by my own, is it by the mechanism of the story, or +by the intrigue, however admirably woven and unravelled, that one +remembers a work of fiction. These may exercise an intense passing +interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. But +afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly +vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full +coloured, for an indefinite time. Scott's "Guy Mannering" is a +well-constructed story. The plot is deftly laid, the events are +prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as +to be made to look as probable as may be. Yet we remember and love the +book, not for such excellences as these, but for Dandie Dinmont, the +Border farmer, and Pleydell, the Edinburgh advocate, and Meg +Merrilies, the gipsy. The book's life is in its flesh and blood, not +in its plot. And the same is true of Dickens' novels. He crowds them +so full of human creatures, each with its own individuality and +character, that we have no care for more than just as much story as +may serve to show them struggling, joying, sorrowing, loving. If the +incidents will do this for us we are satisfied. It is not necessary +that those incidents should be made to go through cunning evolutions +to a definite end. Each is admirable in itself, and admirably adapted +to its immediate purpose. That should more than suffice. + +And Dickens sometimes succeeds in reaching a higher unity than that of +mere plot. He takes one central idea, and makes of it the soul of his +novel, animating and vivifying every part. That central idea in +"Martin Chuzzlewit" is the influence of selfishness. The Chuzzlewits +are a selfish race. Old Martin is selfish; and so, with many good +qualities and possibilities of better things, is his grandson, young +Martin. The other branch of the family, Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son +Jonas, are much worse. The latter especially is a horrible creature. +Brought up to think of nothing except his own interests and the main +chance, he is only saved by an accident from the crime of parricide, +and afterwards commits a murder and poisons himself. As his career is +one of terrible descent, so young Martin's is one of gradual +regeneration from his besetting weakness. He falls in love with his +cousin Mary--the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye--and +quarrels about this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes +into the hard school of adversity. There he learns much. Specially +valuable is the teaching which he gets as a settler in the swampy +backwoods of the United States in company with Mark Tapley, jolliest +and most helpful of men. On his return, he finds his grandfather +seemingly under the influence of Pecksniff, the hypocrite, the English +Tartuffe. But that, as I have already mentioned, is only a ruse. Old +Martin is deceiving Pecksniff, who in due time receives the reward of +his deeds, and all ends happily for those who deserve happiness. Such +is something like a bare outline of the story, with the beauty +eliminated. For what makes its interest, we must go further, to the +household of Pecksniff with his two daughters, Charity and Mercy, and +Tom Pinch, whose beautiful, unselfish character stands so in contrast +to that of the grasping self-seekers by whom he is surrounded; we must +study young Martin himself, whose character is admirably drawn, and +without Dickens' usual tendency to caricature; we must laugh in +sympathy with Mark Tapley; we must follow them both through the +American scenes, which, intensely amusing as they are, must have +bitterly envenomed the wounds inflicted on the national vanity by +"American Notes," and, according to Dickens' own expression, "sent +them all stark staring raving mad across the water;" we must frequent +the boarding establishment for single gentlemen kept by lean Mrs. +Todgers, and sit with Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig as they hideously +discuss their avocations, or quarrel over the shadowy Mrs. Harris; we +must follow Jonas Chuzzlewit on his errand of murder, and note how +even his felon nature is appalled by the blackness and horror of his +guilt, and how the ghastly terror of it haunts and cows him. A great +book, I say again, a very great book. + +Yet not at the time a successful book. Why Fortune, the fickle jade, +should have taken it into her freakish head to frown, or half frown, +on Dickens at this particular juncture, who shall tell? He was wooing +her with his very best work, and she turned from him. The sale of +"Pickwick" and "Nicholas Nickleby" had been from forty to fifty +thousand copies of each part; the sale of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ +had risen still higher; the sale of even the most popular parts of +"Martin Chuzzlewit" fell to twenty-three thousand. This was, as may be +supposed, a grievous disappointment. Dickens' personal expenditure had +not perhaps been lavish in view of what he thought he could calculate +on earning; but it had been freely based on that calculation. Demands, +too, were being made upon his purse by relations,--probably by his +father, and certainly by his brother Frederic, which were frequent, +embarrassing, and made in a way which one may call worse than +indelicate. Any permanent loss of popularity would have meant serious +money entanglements. With his father's career in full view, such a +prospect must have been anything but pleasant. He cast about what he +should do, and determined to leave England for a space, live more +economically on the Continent, and gather materials in Italy or +Switzerland for a new travel book. But before carrying out this +project, he would woo fortune once again, and in a different form. +During the months of October and November, 1843, in the intervals of +"Chuzzlewit," he wrote a short story that has taken its place, by +almost universal consent, among his masterpieces, nay, among the +masterpieces of English literature: "The Christmas Carol." + +All Dickens' great gifts seem reflected, sharp and distinct, in this +little book, as in a convex mirror. His humour, his best pathos, which +is not that of grandiloquence, but of simplicity, his bright poetic +fancy, his kindliness, all here find a place. It is great painting in +miniature, genius in its quintessence, a gem of perfect water. We may +apply to it any simile that implies excellence in the smallest +compass. None but a fine imagination would have conceived the +supernatural agency that works old Scrooge's moral regeneration--the +ghosts of Christmas past, present, and to come, that each in turn +speaks to the wizened heart of the old miser, so that, almost +unwittingly, he is softened by the tender memories of childhood, +warmed by sympathy for those who struggle and suffer, and appalled by +the prospect of his own ultimate desolation and black solitude. Then +the episodes: the scenes to which these ghostly visitants convey +Scrooge; the story of his earlier years as shown in vision; the +household of the Cratchits, and poor little crippled Tiny Tim; the +party given by Scrooge's nephew; nay, before all these, the terrible +interview with Marley's Ghost. All are admirably executed. Sacrilege +would it be to suggest the alteration of a word. First of the +Christmas books in the order of time, it is also the best of its own +kind; it is in its own order perfect. + +Nor did the public of Christmas, 1843, fail to appreciate that +something of very excellent quality had been brought forth for their +benefit. "The first edition of six thousand copies," says Forster, +"was sold" on the day of publication, and about as many more would +seem to have been disposed of before the end of February, 1844. But, +alas, Dickens had set his heart on a profit of L1,000, whereas in +February he did not see his way to much more than L460,[18] and his +unpaid bills for the previous year he described as "terrific." So +something, as I have said, had to be done. A change of front became +imperative. Messrs. Bradbury and Evans advanced him L2,800 "for a +fourth share in whatever he might write during the ensuing eight +years,"--he purchased at the Pantechnicon "a good old shabby devil of +a coach," also described as "an English travelling carriage of +considerable proportions"; engaged a courier who turned out to be the +courier of couriers, a very conjurer among couriers; let his house in +Devonshire Terrace; and so started off for Italy, as I calculate the +dates, on the 1st of July, 1844. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] The profit at the end of 1844 was L726. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Ah, those eventful, picturesque, uncomfortable old travelling days, +when railways were unborn, or in their infancy; those interminable old +dusty drives, in diligence or private carriage, along miles and miles +of roads running straight to the low horizon, through a line of tall +poplars, across the plains of France! What an old-world memory it +seems, and yet, as the years go, not so very long since after all. The +party that rumbled from Boulogne to Marseilles in the old "devil of a +coach" aforesaid, "and another conveyance for luggage," and I know not +what other conveyances besides, consisted of Dickens himself; Mrs. +Dickens; her sister, Miss Georgina Hogarth, who had come to live with +them on their return from America; five children, for another boy had +been born some six months before; Roche, the prince of couriers; +"Anne," apparently the same maid who had accompanied them across the +Atlantic; and other dependents: a somewhat formidable troupe and +cavalcade. Of their mode of travel, and what they saw on the way, or +perhaps, more accurately, of what Dickens saw, with those specially +keen eyes of his, at Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, and other +places--one may read the master's own account in the "Pictures from +Italy." Marseilles was reached on the 14th of July, and thence a +steamer took them, coasting the fairy Mediterranean shores, to Genoa, +their ultimate destination, where they landed on the 16th. + +The Italy of 1844 was like, and yet unlike the Italy of to-day. It was +the old disunited Italy of several small kingdoms and principalities, +the Italy over which lowered the shadow of despotic Austria, and of +the Pope's temporal power, not the Italy which the genius of Cavour +has welded into a nation. It was a land whose interest came altogether +from the past, and that lay as it were in the beauty of time's sunset. +How unlike the United States! The contrast has always, I confess, +seemed to me a piquant one. It has often struck me with a feeling of +quaintness that the two countries which Dickens specially visited and +described, were, the one this lovely land of age and hoar antiquity, +and the other that young giant land of the West, which is still in the +garish strong light of morning, and whose great day is in the future. +Nor, I think, before he had seen both, would Dickens himself have been +able to tell on which side his sympathies would lie. Thoroughly +popular in his convictions, thoroughly satisfied that to-day was in +all respects better than yesterday, it is clear that he expected to +find more pleasure in the brand new Republic than his actual +experience warranted. The roughness of the strong, uncultured young +life grated upon him. It jarred upon his sensibilities. But of Italy +he wrote with very different feeling. What though the places were +dirty, the people shiftless, idle, unpunctual, unbusinesslike, and +the fleas as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? It +mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners +were so full of amenity. Your inn might be, and probably was, +ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors agape, the +windows banging--a contrast in every way to the palatial hotel in New +York or Washington. But then how cheerful and amusing were mine host +and hostess, and how smilingly determined all concerned to make things +pleasant. So the artist in Dickens turned from the new to the old, and +Italy, as she is wont, cast upon him her spell. + +First impressions, however, were not altogether satisfactory. Dickens +owns to a pang when he was "set down" at Albaro, a suburb of Genoa, +"in a rank, dull, weedy courtyard, attached to a kind of pink jail, +and told he lived there." But he immediately adds: "I little thought +that day that I should ever come to have an attachment for the very +stones in the streets of Genoa, and to look back upon the city with +affection, as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet." In +sooth, he enjoyed the place thoroughly. "Martin Chuzzlewit" had left +his hands. He was fairly entitled for a few weeks to the luxury of +idleness, and he threw himself into doing nothing, as he was +accustomed to throw himself into his work, with all energy. And there +was much to do, much especially to see. So Dickens bathed and walked; +and strolled about the city hither and thither, and about the suburbs +and about the surrounding country; and visited public buildings and +private palaces; and noted the ways of the inhabitants; and saw +Genoese life in its varied forms; and wrote light glancing letters +about it all to friends at home; and learnt Italian; and, in the end +of September, left his "pink jail," which had been taken for him at a +disproportionate rent, and moved into the Palazzo Peschiere, in Genoa +itself: a wonderful palace, with an entrance-hall fifty feet high, and +larger than "the dining-room of the Academy," and bedrooms "in size +and shape like those at Windsor Castle, but greatly higher," and a +view from the windows over gardens where the many fountains sparkled, +and the gold fish glinted, and into Genoa itself, with its "many +churches, monasteries, and convents pointing to the sunny sky," and +into the harbour, and over the sapphire sea, and up again to the +encircling hills--a view, as Dickens declared, that "no custom could +impair, and no description enhance." + +But with the beginning of October came again the time for work; and +beautiful beyond all beauty as were his surroundings, the child of +London turned to the home of his heart, and pined for the London +streets. For some little space he seemed to be thinking in vain, and +cudgelling his brains for naught, when suddenly the chimes of Genoa's +many churches, that seemed to have been clashing and clanging nothing +but distraction and madness, rang harmony into his mind. The subject +and title of his new Christmas book were found. He threw himself into +the composition of "The Chimes." + +Earnest at all times in what he wrote, living ever in intense and +passionate sympathy with the world of his imagination, he seems +specially to have put his whole heart into this book. "All my +affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became +as haggard as a murderer long before I wrote 'the end,'"--so he told +Lady Blessington on the 20th of November; and to Forster he expressed +the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time, +lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling +people that nothing could obliterate." This was the keynote of "The +Chimes." He intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on +behalf of the poor and down-trodden. His purpose, so far as I can make +it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings, +and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there linger traces +of goodness and kindly feeling. On this I shall have something to say +when discussing "Hard Times," which is somewhat akin to "The Chimes" +in scope and purpose. Meanwhile it cannot honestly be affirmed that +the story justifies the passion that Dickens threw into its +composition. The supernatural machinery is weak as compared with that +of the "Carol." Little Trotty Veck, dreaming to the sound of the bells +in the old church tower, is a bad substitute for Scrooge on his +midnight rambles. Nor are his dreams at all equal, for humour or +pathos, to Scrooge's visions and experiences. And the moral itself is +not clearly brought out. I confess to being a little doubtful as to +what it exactly is, and how it follows from the premises furnished. I +wish, too, that it had been carried home to some one with more power +than little Trotty to give it effect. What was the good of convincing +that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? +He knew it very well. Take from the book the fine imaginative +description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing +of the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions--and not +much more. + +Such, however, was very far from being Dickens' view. He had +"undergone," he said, "as much sorrow and agitation" in the writing +"as if the thing were real," and on the 3rd of November, when the last +page was written, had indulged "in what women call a good cry;" and, +as usually happens, the child that had cost much sorrow was a child of +special love.[19] So, when all was over, nothing would do but he must +come to London to read his book to the choice literary spirits whom he +specially loved. Accordingly he started from Genoa on the 6th of +November, travelled by Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice--where, +such was the enchantment of the place, that he felt it "cruel not to +have brought Kate and Georgy, positively cruel and base";--and thence +again by Verona, Mantua, Milan, the Simplon Pass, Strasbourg, Paris, +and Calais, to Dover, and wintry England. Sharp work, considering all +he had seen by the way, and how effectually he had seen it, for he was +in London on the evening of the 30th of November, and, on the 2nd of +December, reading his little book to the choice spirits aforesaid, all +assembled for the purpose at Forster's house. There they are: they +live for us still in Maclise's drawing, though Time has plied his +scythe among them so effectually, during the forty-two years since +flown, that each has passed into the silent land. There they sit: +Carlyle, not the shaggy Scotch terrier with the melancholy eyes that +we were wont to see in his later days, but close shaven and alert; and +swift-witted Douglas Jerrold; and Laman Blanchard, whose name goes +darkling in the literature of the last generation; and Forster +himself, journalist and author of many books; and the painters Dyce, +Maclise, and Stanfield; and Byron's friend and school companion, the +clergyman Harness, who, like Dyce, pays to the story the tribute of +his tears. + +Dickens can have been in London but the fewest of few days, for on the +13th of December he was leaving Paris for Genoa, and that after going +to the theatre more than once. From Genoa he started again, on the +20th of January, 1845, with Mrs. Dickens, to see the Carnival at Rome. +Thence he went to Naples, returning to Rome for the Holy Week; and +thence again by Florence to Genoa. He finally left Italy in the +beginning of June, and was back with his family in Devonshire Terrace +at the end of that month. + +To what use of a literary kind should he turn his Italian observations +and experiences? In what form should he publish the notes made by the +way? Events soon answered that question. The year 1845 stands in the +history of Queen Victoria's reign as a time of intense political +excitement. The Corn Law agitation raged somewhat furiously. Dickens +felt strongly impelled to throw himself into the strife. Why should he +not influence his fellow-men, and "battle for the true, the just," as +the able editor of a daily newspaper? Accordingly, after all the +negotiations which enterprises of this kind necessitate, he made the +due arrangements for starting a new paper, _The Daily News_. It was to +be edited by himself, to "be kept free," the prospectus said, "from +personal influence or party bias," and to be "devoted to the advocacy +of all rational and honest means by which wrong may be redressed, just +rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted." +His salary, so I have seen it stated, was to be L2,000 a year; and the +first number came out on the morning of the 21st of January, 1846. He +held the post of editor three weeks. + +The world may, I think, on the whole, be congratulated that he did not +hold it longer. Able editors are more easily found than such writers +as Dickens. There were higher claims upon his time. But to return to +the Italian Notes: it was in the columns of _The Daily News_ that they +first saw the light. They were among the baby attractions and charms, +if I may so speak, of the nascent paper, which is now, as I need not +remind my readers, enjoying a hale and vigorous manhood. And admirable +sketches they are. Much, very much has been written about Italy. The +subject has been done to death by every variety of pen, and in every +civilized tongue. But amid all this writing, Dickens' "Pictures from +Italy" still holds a high and distinctive position. That the +descriptions, whether of places and works of art, or of life's +pageantry, and what may be called the social picturesque, should be +graphic, vivid, animated, was almost a matter of course. But _a +priori_, I think one might have feared lest he should "chaff" the +place and its inhabitants overmuch, and yield to the temptation of +making merriment over matters which hoar age and old associations had +hallowed. We can all imagine the kind of observation that would occur +to Sam Weller in strolling through St. Mark's at Venice, or the +Vatican; and, guessing beforehand, guessing before the "Pictures" +were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens +should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller. Such +prophecies would have been falsified by the event. The book as a whole +is very free from banter or _persiflage_. Once and again the comic +side of some situation strikes him, of course. Thus, after the +ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory +of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says: "The whole +thirteen sat down to dinner; grace said by the Pope; Peter in the +chair." But these humorous touches are rare, and not in bad taste; +while for the historic and artistic grandeurs of Italy he shows an +enthusiasm which is _individual_ and discriminating. We feel, in what +he says about painting, that we are getting the fresh impressions of a +man not specially trained in the study of the old masters, but who yet +succeeds, by sheer intuitive sympathy; in appreciating much of their +greatness. His criticism of the paintings at Venice, for instance, is +very decidedly superior to that of Macaulay. In brief the "Pictures," +to give to the book the name which Dickens gave it, are painted with a +brush at once kindly and brilliant. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] He read "The Chimes" at his first reading as a paid reader. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The publication of the "Pictures," though I have dealt with it as a +sort of complement to Dickens' sojourn in Italy, carries us to the +year 1846. But before going on with the history of that year, there +are one or two points to be taken up in the history of 1845. The first +is the performance, on the 21st of September, of Ben Jonson's play of +"Every Man in his Humour," by a select company of amateur actors, +among whom Dickens held chief place. "He was the life and soul of the +entire affair," says Forster. "I never seem till then to have known +his business capabilities. He took everything on himself, and did the +whole of it without an effort. He was stage director, very often stage +carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master. +Without offending any one, he kept every one in order. For all he had +useful suggestions.... He adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, +invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced, +as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he +urged the necessity on others." Dickens had once thought of the stage +as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor +of very unusual power. But of course he only acted for his amusement, +and I don't know that I should have dwelt upon this performance, which +was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in Forster's +description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a +practical man. The second event to be mentioned as happening in 1845, +is the publication of another very pretty Christmas story, "The +Cricket on the Hearth." + +Though Dickens had ceased to edit _The Daily News_ on the 9th of +February, 1846, he contributed to the paper for some few weeks longer. +But by the month of May his connection with it had entirely ceased; +and on the 31st of that month, he started, by Belgium and the Rhine, +for Lausanne in Switzerland, where he had determined to spend some +time, and commence his next great book, and write his next Christmas +story. + +A beautiful place is Lausanne, as many of my readers will know; and a +beautiful house the house called Rosemont, situated on a hill that +rises from the Lake of Geneva, with the lake's blue waters stretching +below, and across, on the other side, a magnificent panorama of snowy +mountains, the Simplon, St. Gothard, Mont Blanc, towering to the sky. +This delightful place Dickens took at a rent of some L10 a month. Then +he re-arranged all the furniture, as was his energetic wont. Then he +spent a fortnight or so in looking about him, and writing a good deal +for Lord John Russell on Ragged Schools, and for Miss Coutts about her +various charities; and finally, on the 28th of June, as he announced +to Forster in capital letters, BEGAN DOMBEY. + +But as the Swiss pine with home-sickness when away from their own +dear land, so did this Londoner, amid all the glories of the Alps, +pine for the London streets. It seemed almost as if they were +essential to the exercise of his genius. The same strange mental +phenomenon which he had observed in himself at Genoa was reproduced +here. Everything else in his surroundings smiled most congenially. The +place was fair beyond speech. The shifting, changing beauty of the +mountains entranced him. The walks offered an endless variety of +enjoyment. He liked the people. He liked the English colony. He had +made several dear friends among them and among the natives. He was +interested in the politics of the country, which happened, just then, +to be in a state of peculiar excitement and revolution. Everything was +charming;--"but," he writes, "the toil and labour of writing, day +after day, without that magic-lantern (of the London streets) is +IMMENSE!" It literally knocked him up. He had "bad nights," was "sick +and giddy," desponding over his book, more than half inclined to +abandon the Christmas story altogether for that year. However, a short +trip to Geneva, and the dissipation of a stroll or so in its +thoroughfares, to remind him, as it were, of what streets were like, +and a week of "idleness" "rusting and devouring," "complete and +unbroken," set him comparatively on his legs again, and before he left +Lausanne for Paris on the 16th of November, he had finished three +parts of "Dombey," and the "Battle of Life." + +Of the latter I don't know that I need say anything. It is decidedly +the weakest of his Christmas books. But "Dombey" is very different +work, and the first five numbers especially, which carry the story to +the death of little Paul, contain passages of humour and pathos, and +of humour and pathos mingled together and shot in warp and woof, like +some daintiest silken fabric, that are scarcely to be matched in the +language. As I go in my mind through the motherless child's short +history--his birth, his christening, the engagement of the wet-nurse, +the time when he is consigned to the loveless care of Mrs. Pipchin, +his education in Dr. Blimber's Academy under the classic Cornelia, and +his death--as I follow it all in thought, now smiling at each +well-remembered touch of humour, and now saddened and solemnized as +the shadow of death deepens over the frail little life, I confess to +something more than critical admiration for the writer as an artist. I +feel towards him as towards one who has touched my heart. Of course it +is the misfortune of the book, regarding it as a whole, that the +chapters relating to Paul, which are only an episode, should be of +such absorbing interest, and come so early. Dickens really wrote them +too well. They dwarf the rest of the story. We find a difficulty in +resuming the thread of it with the same zest when the child is gone. +But though the remainder of the book inevitably suffers in this way, +it ought not to suffer unduly. Even apart from little Paul the novel +is a fine one. Pride is its subject, as selfishness is that of "Martin +Chuzzlewit." Mr. Dombey, the city merchant, has as much of the +arrogance of caste and position as any blue-blooded hidalgo. He is as +proud of his name as if he had inherited it from a race of princes. +That he neglects and slights his daughter, and loves his son, is +mainly because the latter will add a sort of completeness to the +firm, and make it truly Dombey _and Son_, while the girl, for all +commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his +pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his +confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, +first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into +large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries, +certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her +birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his +social prestige--she, with ungovernable pride equal to his own, +revolts against his authority, and, in order to humiliate him the +more, pretends to elope with Carker, whom in turn she scorns and +crushes. Broken thus in fortune and honour, Mr. Dombey yet falls not +ignobly. His creditors he satisfies in full, reserving to himself +nothing; and with a softened heart turns to the daughter he had +slighted, and in her love finds comfort. Such is the main purport of +the story, and round it, in graceful arabesques, are embroidered, +after Dickens' manner, a whole world of subsidiary incidents thronged +with all sorts of characters. What might not one say about Dr. +Blimber's genteel academy at Brighton; and the Toodles family, so +humble in station and intellect and so large of heart; and the +contrast between Carker the manager and his brother, who for some +early dishonest act, long since repented of, remains always Carker the +junior; and about Captain Cuttle, and that poor, muddled nautical +philosopher, Captain Bunsby, and the Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin, +and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix with wilful legs so little under +control, and yet to the core of him a gentleman; and the apoplectic +Major Bagstock, the Joey B. who claimed to be "rough and tough and +devilish sly;" and Susan Nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and +as sharp? Reader, don't you know all these people? For myself, I have +jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. They +are as much part of my life as the people I meet every day. + +But there is one person whom I have left out of my enumeration, not +certainly because I don't know him, for I know him very well, but +because I want to speak about him more particularly. That person is my +old friend, Mr. Toots; and the special point in his character which +induces me to linger is the slight touch of craziness that sits so +charmingly upon him. M. Taine, the French critic, in his chapters on +Dickens, repeats the old remark that genius and madness are near +akin.[20] He observes, and observes truly, that Dickens describes so +well because an imagination of singular intensity enables him to _see_ +the object presented, and at the same time to impart to it a kind of +visionary life. "That imagination," says M. Taine, "is akin to the +imagination of the monomaniac." And, starting from this point, he +proceeds to show, here again quite truly, with what admirable +sympathetic power and insight Dickens has described certain cases of +madness, as in Mr. Dick. But here, having said some right things, M. +Taine goes all wrong. According to him, these portraits of persons who +have lost their wits, "however amusing they may seem at first sight," +are "horrible." They could only have been painted by "an imagination +such as that of Dickens, excessive, disordered, and capable of +hallucination." He seems to be not far from thinking that only our +splenetic and melancholy race could have given birth to such literary +monsters. To speak like this, as I conceive, shows a singular +misconception of the instinct or set purpose that led Dickens to +introduce these characters into his novels at all. It is perfectly +true that he has done so several times. Barnaby Rudge, the hero of the +book of the same name, is half-witted. Mr. Dick, in "David +Copperfield," is decidedly crazy. Mr. Toots is at least simple. Little +Miss Flite, in "Bleak House," haunting the Law Courts in expectation +of a judgment on the Day of Judgment, is certainly not _compos +mentis_. And one may concede to M. Taine that some element of sadness +must always be present when we see a human creature imperfectly gifted +with man's noblest attribute of reason. But, granting this to the +full, is it possible to conceive of anything more kindly and gentle in +the delineation of partial insanity than the portraits which the +French critic finds horrible? Barnaby Rudge's lunatic symptoms are +compatible with the keenest enjoyment of nature's sights and sounds, +fresh air and free sunlight, and compatible with loyalty and high +courage. Many men might profitably change their reason for his +unreason. Mr. Dick's flightiness is allied to an intense devotion and +gratitude to the woman who had rescued him from confinement in an +asylum; there lives a world of kindly sentiments in his poor +bewildered brains. Of Mr. Toots, Susan Nipper says truly, "he may not +be a Solomon, nor do I say he is, but this I do say, a less selfish +human creature human nature never knew." And to this one may add that +he is entirely high-minded, generous, and honourable. Miss Flite's +crazes do not prevent her from being full of all womanly sympathies. +Here I think lies the charm these characters had for Dickens. As he +was fond of showing a soul of goodness in the ill-favoured and +uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered +intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. M. +Taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. I think myself it would be +possible to find a better adjective. + +Dickens was at work on "Dombey and Son" during the latter part of the +year 1846, and the whole of 1847, and the early part of 1848. We left +him on the 16th of November, in the first of these years, starting +from Lausanne for Paris, which he reached on the evening of the 20th. +Here he took a house--a "preposterous" house, according to his own +account, with only gleams of reason in it; and visited many theatres; +and went very often to the Morgue, where lie the unowned dead; and had +pleasant friendly intercourse with the notable French authors of the +time, Alexandre Dumas the Great, most prolific of romance writers; and +Scribe of the innumerable plays; and the poets Lamartine and Victor +Hugo; and Chateaubriand, then in his sad and somewhat morose old age. +And in Paris too, with the help of streets and crowded ways, he +wrote the great number of Dombey, the number in which little Paul +dies. Three months did Dickens spend in the French capital, the +incomparable city, and then was back in London, at the old life of +hard work; but with even a stronger infusion than before of private +theatricals--private theatricals on a grandiose scale, that were +applauded by the Queen herself, and took him and his troupe starring +about during the next three or four years, hither and thither, and +here and there, in London and the provinces. "Splendid strolling" +Forster calls it; and a period of unmixed jollity and enjoyment it +seems to have been. Of course Dickens was the life and soul of it all. +Mrs. Cowden Clarke, one of the few survivors, looking back to that +happy time, says enthusiastically, "Charles Dickens, beaming in look, +alert in manner, radiant with good humour, genial-voiced, gay, the +very soul of enjoyment, fun, good taste, and good spirits, admirable +in organizing details and suggesting novelty of entertainment, was of +all beings the very man for a holiday season."[21] The proceeds of the +performances were devoted to various objects, but chiefly to an +impossible "Guild of Literature and Art," which, in the sanguine +confidence of its projectors, and especially of Dickens, was to +inaugurate a golden age for the author and the artist. But of all +this, and of Dickens' speeches at the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, and +Glasgow Athenaeum, in the December of 1847, I don't know that I need +say very much. The interest of a great writer's life is, after all, +mainly in what he writes; and when I have said that "Dombey" proved to +be a pecuniary success, the first six numbers realizing as much as +L2,820, I think I may fairly pass on to Dickens' next book, the +"Haunted Man." + +This was his Christmas story for 1848; the last, and not the worst of +his Christmas stories. Both conception and treatment are thoroughly +characteristic. Mr. Redlaw, a chemist, brooding over an ancient wrong, +comes to the conclusion that it would be better for himself, better +for all, if, in each of us, every memory of the past could be +cancelled. A ghostly visitant, born of his own resentment and gloom, +gives him the boon he seeks, and enables him to go about the world +freezing all recollection in those he meets. And lo the boon turns out +to be a curse. His presence blights those on whom it falls. For with +the memory of past wrongs, goes the memory of past benefits, of all +the mutual kindlinesses of life, and each unit of humanity becomes +self-centred and selfish. Two beings alone resist his influence--one, +a creature too selfishly nurtured for any of mankind's better +recollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the spell, +and even, finally, to exorcise it in Mr. Redlaw's own breast. + +"David Copperfield" was published between May, 1849, and the autumn of +1850, and marks, I think, the culminating point in Dickens' career as +a writer. So far there had been, not perhaps from book to book, but on +the whole, decided progress, the gradual attainment of greater ease, +and of the power of obtaining results of equal power by simpler means. +Beyond this there was, if not absolute declension, for he never wrote +anything that could properly be called careless and unworthy of +himself, yet at least no advance. Of the interest that attaches to the +book from the fact that so many portions are autobiographical, I have +already spoken; nor need I go over the ground again. But quite apart +from such adventitious attractions, the novel is an admirable one. +All the scenes of little David's childhood in the Norfolk home--the +Blunderstone rookery, where there were no rooks--are among the most +beautiful pictures of childhood in existence. In what sunshine of love +does the lad bask with his mother and Peggotty, till Mrs. Copperfield +contracts her disastrous second marriage with Mr. Murdstone! Then how +the scene changes. There come harshness and cruelty; banishment to Mr. +Creakle's villainous school; the poor mother's death; the worse +banishment to London, and descent into warehouse drudgery; the strange +shabby-genteel, happy-go-lucky life with the Micawbers; the flight +from intolerable ills in the forlorn hope that David's aunt will take +pity on him. Here the scene changes again. Miss Betsy Trotwood, a fine +old gnarled piece of womanhood, places the boy at school at +Canterbury, where he makes acquaintance with Agnes, the woman whom he +marries far, far on in the story; and with her father, Mr. Wickham, a +somewhat port wine-loving lawyer; and with Uriah Heep, the fawning +villain of the piece. How David is first articled to a proctor in +Doctors' Commons, and then becomes a reporter, and then a successful +author; and how he marries his first wife, the childish Dora, who +dies; and how, meanwhile, Uriah is effecting the general ruin, and +aspiring to the hand of Agnes, till his villanies are detected and his +machinations defeated by Micawber--how all this comes about, would be +a long story to tell. But, as is usual with Dickens, there are +subsidiary rills of story running into the main stream, and by one of +these I should like to linger a moment. The head-boy, and a kind of +parlour-boarder, at Mr. Creakles' establishment, is one Steerforth, +the spoilt only son of a widow. This Steerforth, David meets again +when both are young men, and they go down together to Yarmouth, and +there David is the means of making him known to a family of +fisherfolk. He is rich, handsome, with an indescribable charm, +according to his friends' testimony, and he induces the fisherman's +niece, the pretty Em'ly, to desert her home, and the young +boat-builder to whom she is engaged, and to fly to Italy. Now to this +story, as Dickens tells it, French criticism objects that he dwells +exclusively on the sin and sorrow, and sets aside that in which the +French novelist would delight, viz., the mad force and irresistible +sway of passion. To which English criticism may, I think, reply, that +the "pity of it," the wide-working desolation, are as essentially part +of such an event as the passion; and, therefore, even from an +exclusively artistic point of view, just as fit subjects for the +novelist. + +While "David Copperfield" was in progress, Dickens started on a new +venture. He had often before projected a periodical, and twice, as we +have seen,--once in _Master Humphrey's Clock_, and again as editor of +_The Daily News_,--had attempted quasi-journalism or its reality. But +now at last he had struck the right vein. He had discovered a means of +utilizing his popularity, and imparting it to a paper, without being +under the crushing necessity of writing the whole of that paper +himself. The first number of _Household Words_ appeared on the 30th of +March, 1850. + +The "preliminary word" heralds the paper in thoroughly characteristic +fashion, and is, not unnaturally, far more personal in tone than the +first leading article of the first number of _The Daily News_, though +that, too, be it said in passing, bears traces, through all its +officialism, of having come from the same pen.[22] In introducing +_Household Words_ to his new readers, Dickens speaks feelingly, +eloquently, of his own position as a writer, and the responsibilities +attached to his popularity, and tells of his hope that a future of +instruction, and amusement, and kindly playful fancy may be in store +for the paper. Nor were his happy anticipations belied. All that he +had promised, he gave. _Household Words_ found an entrance into +innumerable homes, and was everywhere recognized as a friend. Never +did editor more strongly impress his own personality upon his staff. +The articles were sprightly, amusing, interesting, and instructive +too--often very instructive, but always in an interesting way. That +was one of the periodical's main features. The pill of knowledge was +always presented gilt. Taking _Household Words_ and _All the Year +Round_ together--and for this purpose they may properly be regarded as +one and the same paper, because the change of name and proprietorship +in 1859[23] brought no change in form or character,--taking them +together, I say, they contain a vast quantity of very pleasant, if not +very profound, reading. Even apart from the stories, one can do very +much worse than while away an hour, now and again, in gleaning here +and there among their pages. Among Dickens' own contributions may be +mentioned "The Child's History of England," and "Lazy Tour of Two Idle +Apprentices"--being the record of an excursion made by him in 1857, +with Mr. Wilkie Collins; and "The Uncommercial Traveller" papers. +While as to stories, "Hard Times" appeared in _Household Words_; and +"The Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," in _All the Year +Round_. And to the Christmas numbers he gave some of his best and +daintiest work. Nor were novels and tales by other competent hands +wanting. Here it was that Mrs. Gaskell gave to the world those papers +on "Cranford" that are so full of a dainty, delicate humour, and "My +Lady Ludlow," and "North and South," and "A Dark Night's Work." Here, +too, Mr. Wilkie Collins wove together his ingenious threads of plot +and mystery in "The Moonstone," "The Woman in White," and "No Name." +And here also Lord Lytton published "A Strange Story," and Charles +Reade his "Very Hard Cash." + +The year 1851 opened sadly for Dickens. His wife, who had been +confined of a daughter in the preceding August, was so seriously +unwell that he had to take her to Malvern. His father, to whom, +notwithstanding the latter's peculiarities and eccentricities, he was +greatly attached, died on the 31st of March; and on the 14th of April +his infant daughter died also. In connection with this latter death +there occurred an incident of great pathos. Dickens had come up from +Malvern on the 14th, to take the chair at the dinner on behalf of the +Theatrical Fund, and looking in at Devonshire Terrace on his way, +played with the children, as was his wont, and fondled the baby, and +then went on to the London Tavern.[24] Shortly after he left the +house, the child died, suddenly. The news was communicated to Forster, +who was also at the dinner, and he decided that it would be better not +to tell the poor father till the speech of the evening had been made. +So Dickens made his speech, and a brilliant one it was--it is +brilliant even as one reads it now, in the coldness of print, without +the glamour of the speaker's voice, and presence, and yet brilliant +with an undertone of sadness, which the recent death of the speaker's +father would fully explain. And Forster, who knew of the yet later +blow impending on his friend, had to sit by and listen as that dear +friend, all unconscious of the dread application of the words, spoke +of "the actor" having "sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of +suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part;" and then went +on to tell how "all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do +violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in fighting this +great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and +responsibilities." + +In this same year, 1851, Dickens left the house in Devonshire Terrace, +now grown too small for his enlarging household, and, after a long +sojourn at Broadstairs, moved into Tavistock House, in Tavistock +Square. Here "Bleak House" was begun at the end of November, the first +number being published in the ensuing March. It is a fine work of art +unquestionably, a very fine work of art--the canvas all crowded with +living figures, and yet the main lines of the composition +well-ordered and harmonious. Two threads of interest run through the +story, one following the career of Lady Dedlock, and the other tracing +the influence of a great Chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its +toils. From the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily +interwoven. Let us take Lady Dedlock's thread first. She is the wife +of Sir Leicester Dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a +great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though +no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of +manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. But in her +past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest +disposition walks her kindly course through the story, who might call +Lady Dedlock "mother." This secret, or perhaps rather the fact that +there is a secret at all, she reveals in a moment of surprise to the +family lawyer; and she lays herself still further open to his +suspicions by going, disguised in her maid's clothes, to the poor +graveyard where her former lover lies buried. The lawyer worms the +whole story out, and, just as he is going to reveal it, is murdered by +the French maid aforesaid. But the murder comes too late to save my +lady, nay, adds to her difficulties. She flies, in anticipation of the +disclosure of her secret, and is found dead at the graveyard gate. To +such end has the sin of her youth led her. So once again has Dickens +dwelt, not on the passionate side of wrongful love, but on its sorrow. +Now take the other thread--the Chancery suit--"Jarndyce _versus_ +Jarndyce," a suit held in awful reverence by the profession as a +"monument of Chancery practice"--a suit seemingly interminable, till, +after long, long years of wrangling and litigation, the fortuitous +discovery of a will settles it all, with the result that the whole +estate has been swallowed up in the costs. And how about the +litigants? How about poor Richard Carstone and his wife, whom we see, +in the opening of the story, in all the heyday and happiness of their +youth, strolling down to the court--they are its wards,--and wondering +sadly over the "headache and heartache" of it all, and then saying, +gleefully, "at all events Chancery will work none of its bad influence +on _us_"? "None of its bad influence on _us_!" poor lad, whose life is +wasted and character impaired in following the mirage of the suit, and +who is killed by the mockery of its end. Thus do the two intertwined +stories run; but apart from these, though all in place and keeping, +and helping on the general development, there is a whole profusion of +noticeable characters. In enumerating them, however baldly, one +scarcely knows where to begin. The lawyer group--clerks and all--is +excellent. Dickens' early experiences stood him in good stead here. +Excellent too are those studies in the ways of impecuniosity and +practical shiftlessness, Harold Skimpole, the airy, irresponsible, +light-hearted epicurean, with his pretty tastes and dilettante +accomplishments, and Mrs. Jellyby, the philanthropist, whose eyes "see +nothing nearer" than Borrioboola-Gha, on the banks of the far Niger, +and never dwell to any purpose on the utter discomfort of the home of +her husband and children. Characters of this kind no one ever +delineated better than Dickens. That Leigh Hunt, the poet and +essayist, who had sat for the portrait of Skimpole, was not altogether +flattered by the likeness, is comprehensible enough; and in truth it +is unfair, both to painter and model, that we should take such +portraits too seriously. Landor, who sat for the thunderous and kindly +Boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. Besides these one may +mention Joe, the outcast; and Mr. Turveydrop, the beau of the school +of the Regency--how horrified he would have been at the +juxtaposition--and George, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine +soldierly figure; and Mr. Bucket, the detective--though Dickens had a +tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. As to Sir +Leicester Dedlock, I think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best +study of the aristocracy, a direction in which Dickens' forte did not +lie, for Sir Leicester _is_ a gentleman, and receives the terrible +blow that falls upon him in a spirit at once chivalrous and human. + +What between "Bleak House," _Household Words_, and "The Child's +History of England," Dickens, in the spring of 1853, was overworked +and ill. Brighton failed to restore him; and he took his family over +to Boulogne in June, occupying there a house belonging to a certain M. +de Beaucourt. Town, dwelling, and landlord, all suited him exactly. +Boulogne he declared to be admirable for its picturesqueness in +buildings and life, and equal in some respects to Naples itself. The +dwelling, "a doll's house of many rooms," embowered in roses, and with +a terraced garden, was a place after his own heart. While as to the +landlord--he was "wonderful." Dickens never tires of extolling his +virtues, his generosity, his kindness, his anxiety to please, his +pride in "the property." All the pleasant delicate quaint traits in +the man's character are irradiated as if with French sunshine in his +tenant's description. It is a dainty little picture and painted with +the kindliest of brushes. Poor Beaucourt, he was "inconsolable" when +he and Dickens finally parted three years afterwards--for twice again +did the latter occupy a house, but not this same house, on "the +property." Many were the tears that he shed, and even the garden, the +loved garden, went forlorn and unweeded. But that was in 1856. The +parting was not so final and terrible in the October of 1853, when +Dickens, having finished "Bleak House," started with Mr. Wilkie +Collins, and Augustus Egg, the artist, for a holiday tour in +Switzerland and Italy. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] "History of English Literature," vol. v. + +[21] "Recollections of Writers," by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. + +[22] As, for instance, in such expressions as this: "The stamp on +newspapers is not like the stamp on universal medicine bottles, which +licenses anything, however false and monstrous." + +[23] The last number of _Household Words_ appeared on the 28th of May, +1859, and the first of _All the Year Round_ on the 30th of April, +1859. + +[24] There are one or two slight discrepancies between Forster's +narrative and that of Miss Dickens and Miss Hogarth. The latter are +clearly more likely to be right on such a matter. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +On his return to England, just after the Christmas of 1853, Dickens +gave his first public readings. He had, as we have seen, read "The +Chimes" some nine years before, to a select few among his literary +friends; and at Lausanne he had similarly read portions of "Dombey and +Son." But the three readings given at Birmingham, on the 27th, 29th, +and 30th December, 1853, were, in every sense, public entertainments, +and, except that the proceeds were devoted entirely to the local +Institute, differed in no way from the famous readings by which he +afterwards realized what may almost be called a fortune. The idea of +coming before the world in this new character had long been in his +mind. As early as 1846, after the private reading at Lausanne, he had +written to Forster: "I was thinking the other day that in these days +of lecturings and readings, a great deal of money might possibly be +made (if it were not _infra dig._) by one's having readings of one's +own books. I think it would take immensely. What do you say?" Forster +said then, and said consistently throughout, that he held the thing to +_be_ "_infra dig._," and unworthy of Dickens' position; and in this I +think one may venture to assert that Forster was wrong. There can +surely be no reason why a popular writer, who happens also to be an +excellent elocutionist, should not afford general pleasure by giving +sound to his prose, and a voice to his imaginary characters. Nor is it +opposed to the fitness of things that he should be paid for his skill. +If, however, one goes further in Dickens' case, and asks whether the +readings did not involve too great an expenditure of time, energy, +and, as we shall see, ultimately of life, and whether he would not, in +the highest sense, have been better employed over his books,--why then +the question becomes more difficult of solution. But, after all, each +man must answer such questions for himself. Dickens may have felt, as +the years began to tell, that he required the excitement of the +readings for mental stimulus, and that he would not even have written +as much as he did without them. Be that as it may, the success at +Birmingham, where a sum of from L400 to L500 was realized, the +requests that poured in upon him to read at other places, the +invariably renewed success whenever he did so, the clear evidence that +a large sum was to be realized if he determined to come forward on his +own account, all must have contributed to scatter Forster's objections +to the winds. On the 29th of April, 1858, at St. Martin's Hall, in +London, he started his career as a paid public reader, and he +continued to read, with shorter or longer periods of intermission, +till his death. But into the story of his professional tours it is not +my intention just now to enter. I shall only stay to say a few words +about the character and quality of his readings. + +That they were a success can readily be accounted for. The mere desire +to see and hear Dickens, the great Dickens, the novelist who was more +than popular, who was the object of real personal affection on the +part of the English-speaking race,--this would have drawn a crowd at +any time. But Dickens was not the man to rely upon such sources of +attraction, any more than an actress who is really an actress will +consent to rely exclusively on her good looks. "Whatever is worth +doing at all is worth doing well," such as we have seen was one of the +governing principles of his life; and he read very well. Of +nervousness there was no trace in his composition. To some one who +asked him whether he ever felt any shyness as a speaker, he answered, +"Not in the least; the first time I took the chair (at a public +dinner) I felt as much confidence as if I had done the thing a hundred +times." This of course helped him much as a reader, and gave him full +command over all his gifts. But the gifts were also assiduously +cultivated. He laboured, one might almost say, agonized, to make +himself a master of the art. Mr. Dolby, who acted as his "manager," +during the tours undertaken from 1866 to 1870, tells us that before +producing "Dr. Marigold," he not only gave a kind of semi-public +rehearsal, but had rehearsed it to himself considerably over two +hundred times. Writing to Forster Dickens says: "You have no idea how +I have worked at them [the readings].... I have tested all the serious +passion in them by everything I know, made the humorous points much +more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; ... I learnt +'Dombey' like the rest, and did it to myself often twice a day, with +exactly the same pains as at night, over, and over, and over again." + +The results justified the care and effort bestowed. There are, +speaking generally, two schools of readers: those who dramatize what +they read, and those who read simply, audibly, with every attention to +emphasis and point, but with no effort to do more than slightly +indicate differences of personage or character. To the latter school +Thackeray belonged. He read so as to be perfectly heard, and perfectly +understood, and so that the innate beauty of his literary style might +have full effect. Dickens read quite differently. He read not as a +writer to whom style is everything, but as an actor throwing himself +into the world he wished to bring before his hearers. He was so +careless indeed of pure literature, in this particular matter, that he +altered his books for the readings, eliminating much of the narrative, +and emphasizing the dialogue. He was pre-eminently the dramatic +reader. Carlyle, who had been dragged to "Hanover Rooms," to "the +complete upsetting," as he says, "of my evening habitudes, and +spiritual composure," was yet constrained to declare: "Dickens does it +capitally, such as _it_ is; acts better than any Macready in the +world; a whole tragic, comic, heroic, _theatre_ visible, performing +under one _hat_, and keeping us laughing--in a sorry way, some of us +thought--the whole night. He is a good creature, too, and makes fifty +or sixty pounds by each of these readings." "A whole theatre"--that is +just the right expression minted for us by the great coiner of +phrases. Dickens, by mere play of voice, for the gestures were +comparatively sober, placed before you, on his imaginary stage, the +men and women he had created. There Dr. Marigold pattered his +cheap-jack phrases; and Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig, with throats +rendered husky by much gin, had their memorable quarrel; and Sergeant +Buzfuz bamboozled that stupid jury; and Boots at the Swan told his +pretty tale of child-elopement; and Fagin, in his hoarse Jew whisper, +urged Bill Sikes to his last foul deed of murder. Ay me, in the great +hush of the past there are tones of the reader's voice that still +linger in my ears! I seem to hear once more the agonized quick +utterance of poor Nancy, as she pleads for life, and the dread +stillness after the ruffian's cruel blows have fallen on her upturned +face. Again comes back to me the break in Bob Cratchit's voice, as he +speaks of the death of Tiny Tim. As of old I listen to poor little +Chops, the dwarf, declaring, very piteously, that his "fashionable +friends" don't use him well, and put him on the mantel-piece when he +refuses to "have in more champagne-wine," and lock him in the +sideboard when he "won't give up his property." And I _see_--yes, I +declare I _see_, as I saw when Dickens was reading, such was the +illusion of voice and gesture--that dying flame of Scrooge's fire, +which leaped up when Marley's ghost came in, and then fell again. Nor +can I forbear to mention, among these reminiscences, that there is +also a passage in one of Thackeray's lectures that is still in my ears +as on the evening when I heard it. It is a passage in which he spoke +of the love that children had for the works of his more popular rival, +and told how his own children would come to him and ask, "Why don't +you write books like Mr. Dickens?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Chancery had occupied a prominent place in "Bleak House." +Philosophical radicalism occupied the same kind of position in "Hard +Times," which was commenced in the number of _Household Words_ for the +1st of April, 1854. The book, when afterwards published in a complete +form, bore a dedication to Carlyle; and very fittingly so, for much of +its philosophy is his. Dickens, like Kingsley, and like Mr. Ruskin and +Mr. Froude, and so many other men of genius and ability, had come +under the influence of the old Chelsea sage.[25] And what are the +ideas which "Hard Times" is thus intended to popularize? These: that +men are not merely intellectual calculating machines, with reason and +self-interest for motive power, but creatures possessing also +affections, feelings, fancy--a whole world of emotions that lie +outside the ken of the older school of political economists. +Therefore, to imagine that they can live and flourish on facts alone +is a fallacy and pernicious; as is also the notion that any human +relations can be permanently established on a basis of pure supply +and demand. If we add to this an unlimited contempt for Parliament, as +a place where the national dustmen are continually stirring the +national dust to no purpose at all, why then we are pretty well +advanced in the philosophy of Carlyle. And how does Dickens illustrate +these points? We are at Coketown, a place, as its name implies, of +smoke and manufacture. Here lives and flourishes Thomas Gradgrind, "a +man of realities; a man of facts and calculations;" not essentially a +bad man, but bound in an iron system as in a vice. He brings up his +children on knowledge, and enlightened self-interest exclusively; and +the boy becomes a cub and a mean thief, and the girl marries, quite +without love, a certain blustering Mr. Bounderby, and is as nearly as +possible led astray by the first person who approaches her with the +language of gallantry and sentiment. Mr. Bounderby, her husband, is, +one may add, a man who, in mere lying bounce, makes out his humble +origin to be more humble than it is. On the other side of the picture +are Mr. Sleary and his circus troupe; and Cissy Jupe, the daughter of +the clown; and the almost saintly figures of Stephen Blackpool, and +Rachel, a working man and a working woman. With these people facts are +as naught, and self-interest as dust in the balance. Mr. Sleary has a +heart which no brandy-and-water can harden, and he enables Mr. +Gradgrind to send off the wretched cub to America, refusing any +guerdon but a glass of his favourite beverage. The circus troupe are +kindly, simple, loving folk. Cissy Jupe proves the angel of the +Gradgrind household. Stephen is the victim of unjust persecution on +the part of his own class, is suspected, by young Gradgrind's +machinations, of the theft committed by that young scoundrel, falls +into a disused pit as he is coming to vindicate his character, and +only lives long enough to forgive his wrongs, and clasp in death the +hand of Rachel--a hand which in life could not be his, as he had a +wife alive who was a drunkard and worse. A marked contrast, is it not? +On one side all darkness, and on the other all light. The demons of +fact and self-interest opposed to the angels of fancy and +unselfishness. A contrast too violent unquestionably. Exaggeration is +the fault of the novel. One may at once allow, for instance, that +Rachel and Stephen, though human nature in its infinite capacity may +include such characters, are scarcely a typical working woman and +working man. But then neither, heaven be praised, are Coupeau the sot, +and Gervaise the drab, in M. Zola's "Drink"--and, for my part, I think +Rachel and Stephen the better company. + +"Sullen socialism"--such is Macaulay's view of the political +philosophy of "Hard Times." "Entirely right in main drift and +purpose"--such is the verdict of Mr. Ruskin. Who shall decide between +the two? or, if a decision be necessary, then I would venture to say, +yes, entirely right in feeling. Dickens is right in sympathy for those +who toil and suffer, right in desire to make their lives more human +and beautiful, right in belief that the same human heart beats below +all class distinctions. But, beyond this, a novelist only, not a +philosopher, not fitted to grapple effectively with complex social and +political problems, and to solve them to right conclusions. There are +some things unfortunately which even the best and kindest instincts +cannot accomplish. + +The last chapter of "Hard Times" appeared in the number of _Household +Words_ for the 12th of August, 1854, and the first number of "Little +Dorrit" came out at Christmas, 1855. Between those dates a great war +had waxed and waned. The heart of England had been terribly moved by +the story of the sufferings and privations which the army had had to +undergo amid the snows of a Russian winter. From the trenches before +Sebastopol the newspaper correspondents had sent terrible accounts of +death and disease, and of ills which, as there seemed room for +suspicion, might have been prevented by better management. Through +long disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed +to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. A great demand arose +for reform in the whole administration of the country. A movement, now +much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the +purpose of making the civil service more efficient, and putting John +Bull's house in order. "Administrative Reform," such was the cry of +the moment, and Dickens uttered it with the full strength of his +lungs. He attended a great meeting held at Drury Lane Theatre on the +27th of June, in furtherance of the cause, and made what he declared +to be his first political speech. He spoke on the subject again at the +dinner of the Theatrical Fund. He urged on his friends in the press to +the attack. He was in the forefront of the battle. And when his next +novel, "Little Dorrit," appeared, there was the Civil Service, like a +sort of gibbeted Punch, executing the strangest antics. + +But the "Circumlocution Office," where the clerks sit lazily devising +all day long "how _not_ to do" the business of the country, and devote +their energies alternately to marmalade and general insolence,--the +"Circumlocution Office" occupies after all only a secondary position +in the book. The main interest of it circles round the place that had +at one time been almost a home to Dickens. Again he drew upon his +earlier experiences. We are once more introduced into a debtors' +prison. Little Dorrit is the child of the Marshalsea, born and bred +within its walls, the sole living thing about the place on which its +taint does not fall. Her worthless brother, her sister, her +father--who is not only her father, but the "father of the +Marshalsea"--the prison blight is on all three. Her father especially +is a piece of admirable character-drawing. Dickens has often been +accused of only catching the surface peculiarities of his personages, +their outward tricks, and obvious habits of speech and of mind. Such a +study as Mr. Dorrit would alone be sufficient to rebut the charge. No +novelist specially famed for dissecting character to its innermost +recesses could exhibit a finer piece of mental analysis. We follow the +poor weak creature's deterioration from the time when the helpless +muddle in his affairs brings him into durance. We note how his +sneaking pride seems to feed even on the garbage of his degradation. +We see how little inward change there is in the man himself when there +comes a transformation scene in his fortunes, and he leaves the +Marshalsea wealthy and prosperous. It is all thoroughly worked out, +perfect, a piece of really great art. No wonder that Mr. Clennam +pities the child of such a father; indeed, considering what a really +admirable woman she is, one only wonders that his pity does not sooner +turn to love. + +"Little Dorrit" ran its course from December, 1855, to June, 1857, and +within that space of time there occurred two or three incidents in +Dickens' career which should not pass unnoticed. At the first of these +dates he was in Paris, where he remained till the middle of May, 1856, +greatly feted by the French world of letters and art; dining hither +and thither; now enjoying an Arabian Nights sort of banquet given by +Emile de Girardin, the popular journalist; now meeting George Sand, +the great novelist, whom he describes as "just the sort of woman in +appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly +nurse--chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed;" then studying French +art, and contrasting it with English art, somewhat to the disadvantage +of the latter; anon superintending the translation of his works into +French, and working hard at "Little Dorrit;" and all the while +frequenting the Paris theatres with great assiduity and admiration. +Meanwhile, too, on the 14th of March, 1856, a Friday, his lucky day as +he considered it, he had written a cheque for the purchase of Gad's +Hill Place, at which he had so often looked when a little lad, living +penuriously at Chatham--the house which it had been the object of his +childish ambition to win for his own. + +So had merit proved to be not without its visible prize, literally a +prize for good conduct. He took possession of the house in the +following February, and turned workmen into it, and finished "Little +Dorrit" there. At first the purchase was intended mainly as an +investment, and he only purposed to spend some portion of his time at +Gad's Hill, letting it at other periods, and so recouping himself for +the interest on the L1,790 which it had cost, and for the further sums +which he expended on improvements. But as time went on it became his +hobby, the love of his advancing years. He beautified here and +beautified there, built a new drawing-room, added bedrooms, +constructed a tunnel under the road, erected in the "wilderness" on +the other side of the road a Swiss chalet, which had been presented to +him by Fechter, the French-English actor, and in short indulged in all +the thousand and one vagaries of a proprietor who is enamoured of his +property. The matter seems to have been one of the family jokes; and +when, on the Sunday before his death, he showed the conservatory to +his younger daughter, and said, "Well, Katey, now you see _positively_ +the last improvement at Gad's Hill," there was a general laugh. But +this is far on in the story; and very long before the building of the +conservatory, long indeed before the main other changes had been made, +the idea of an investment had been abandoned. In 1860 he sold +Tavistock House, in London, and made Gad's Hill Place his final home. + +Even here, however, I am anticipating; for before getting to 1860 +there is in Dickens' history a page which one would willingly turn +over, if that were possible, in silence and sadness. But it is not +possible. No account of his life would be complete, and what is of +more importance, true, if it made no mention of his relations with his +wife. + +For some time before 1858 Dickens had been in an over-excited, +nervous, morbid state. During earlier manhood his animal spirits and +fresh energy had been superb. Now, as the years advanced, and +especially at this particular time, the energy was the same; but it +was accompanied by something of feverishness and disease. He could not +be quiet. In the autumn of 1857 he wrote to Forster, "I have now no +relief but in action. I am become incapable of rest. I am quite +confident I should rust, break, and die if I spared myself. Much +better to die doing." And again, a little later, "If I couldn't walk +fast and far, I should just explode and perish." It was the +foreshadowing of such utterances as these, and the constant wanderings +to and fro for readings and theatricals and what not, that led Harriet +Martineau, who had known and greatly liked Dickens, to say after +perusing the second volume of his life, "I am much struck by his +hysterical restlessness. It must have been terribly wearing to his +wife." On the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that his +wife wore _him_. "Why is it," he had said to Forster in one of the +letters from which I have just quoted, "that, as with poor David +(Copperfield), a sense comes always crushing on me now, when I fall +into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one +friend and companion I have never made?" And again: "I find that the +skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." Then +come even sadder confidences: "Poor Catherine and I are not made for +each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes +me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too, and much more so. +She is exactly what you know in the way of being amiable and +complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is +between us.... Her temperament will not go with mine." And at last, in +March, 1858, two months before the end: "It is not with me a matter of +will, or trial, or sufferance, or good humour, or making the best of +it, or making the worst of it, any longer. It is all despairingly +over." So, after living together for twenty years, these two went +their several ways in May, 1858. Dickens allowed to his wife an income +of L600 a year, and the eldest son went to live with her. The other +children and their aunt, Miss Hogarth, remained with Dickens himself. + +Scandal has not only a poisonous, but a busy tongue, and when a +well-known public man and his wife agree to live apart, the beldame +seldom neglects to give her special version of the affair. So it +happened here. Some miserable rumour was whispered about to the +detriment of Dickens' morals. He was at the time, as we have seen, in +an utterly morbid, excited state, sore doubtless with himself, and +altogether out of mental condition, and the lie stung him almost to +madness. He published an article branding it as it deserved in the +number of _Household Words_ for the 12th of June, 1858. + +So far his course of action was justifiable. Granted that it was +judicious to notice the rumour at all, and to make his private affairs +the matter of public comment, then there was nothing in the terms of +the article to which objection could be taken. It contained no +reflection of any kind on Mrs. Dickens. It was merely an honest man's +indignant protest against an anonymous libel which implicated others +as well as himself. Whether the publication, however, was judicious +is a different matter. Forster thinks not. He holds that Dickens had +altogether exaggerated the public importance of the rumour, and the +extent of its circulation. And this, according to my own recollection, +is entirely true. I was a lad at the time, but a great lover of +Dickens' works, as most lads then were, and I well remember the +feeling of surprise and regret which that article created among us of +the general public. At the same time, it is only fair to Dickens to +recollect that the lying story was, at least, so far fraught with +danger to his reputation, that Mrs. Dickens would seem for a time to +have believed it; and further, that Dickens occupied a very peculiar +position towards the public, and a position that might well in his own +estimation, and even in ours, give singular importance to the general +belief in his personal character. + +This point will bear dwelling upon. Dickens claimed, and claimed +truly, that the relation between himself and the public was one of +exceptional sympathy and affection. Perhaps an illustration will best +show what that kind of relationship was. Thackeray tells of two ladies +with whom he had, at different times, discussed "The Christmas Carol," +and how each had concluded by saying of the author, "God bless him!" +God bless him!--that was the sort of feeling towards himself which +Dickens had succeeded in producing in most English hearts. He had +appealed from the first and so constantly to every kind and gentle +emotion, had illustrated so often what is good and true in human +character, had pleaded the cause of the weak and suffering with such +assiduity, had been so scathingly indignant at all wrong; and he had +moreover shown such a manly and chivalrous purity in all his utterance +with regard to women, that his readers felt for him a kind of personal +tenderness, quite distinct from their mere admiration for his genius +as a writer. Nor was that feeling based on his books alone. So far as +one could learn at the time, no great dissimilarity existed between +the author and the man. We all remember Byron's corrosive remark on +the sentimentalist Sterne, that he "whined over a dead ass, and +allowed his mother to die of hunger." But Dickens' feelings were by no +means confined to his pen. He was known to be a good father and a good +friend, and of perfect truth and honesty. The kindly tolerance for the +frailties of a father or brother which he admired in Little Dorrit, he +was ready to extend to his own father and his own brother. He was most +assiduous in the prosecution of his craft as a writer, and yet had +time and leisure of heart at command for all kinds of good and +charitable work. His private character had so far stood above all +floating cloud of suspicion. + +That Dickens felt an honourable pride in the general affection he +inspired, can readily be understood. He also felt, even more +honourably, its great responsibility. He knew that his books and he +himself were a power for good, and he foresaw how greatly his +influence would suffer if a suspicion of hypocrisy--the vice at which +he had always girded--were to taint his reputation. Here, for +instance, in "Little Dorrit," the work written in the thick of his +home troubles, he had written of Clennam as "a man who had, +deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things +his life had been without," and had shown how this belief had "saved +Clennam still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of +holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come +into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in +the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the +basest elements." A touching utterance if it expressed the real +feeling of a writer sorely disappointed and in great trouble; but an +utterance moving rather to contempt if it came from a writer who had +transferred his affections from his wife to some other woman. I do not +wonder, therefore, that Dickens, excited and exasperated, spoke out, +though I think it would have been better if he had kept silence. + +But he did other things that were not justifiable. He quarrelled with +Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, his publishers, because they did not use +their influence to get _Punch_, a periodical in which Dickens had no +interest, to publish the personal statement that had appeared in +_Household Words_; and worse, much worse, he wrote a letter, which +ought never to have been written, detailing the grounds on which he +and his wife had separated. This letter, dated the 28th of May, 1858, +was addressed to his secretary, Arthur Smith, and was to be shown to +any one interested. Arthur Smith showed it to the London correspondent +of _The New York Tribune_, who naturally caused it to be published in +that paper. Then Dickens was horrified. He was a man of far too high +and chivalrous feeling not to know that the letter contained +statements with regard to his wife's failings which ought never to +have been made public. He knew as well as any one, that a literary man +ought not to take the world into his confidence on such a subject. +Ever afterwards he referred to the letter as his "violated letter." +But, in truth, the wrong went deeper than the publication. The letter +should never have been written, certainly never sent to Arthur Smith +for general perusal. Dickens' only excuse is the fact that he was +clearly not himself at the time, and that he never fell into a like +error again. It is, however, sad to notice how entirely his wife seems +to have passed out of his affection. The reference to her in his will +is almost unkind; and when death was on him she seems not to have been +summoned to his bedside. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Dickens did not accept the whole Carlyle creed. He retained a +sort of belief in the collective wisdom of the people, which Carlyle +certainly did not share. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Dickens' career as a reader reading for money commenced on the 29th of +April, 1858, while the trouble about his wife was at the thickest; +and, after reading in London on sixteen nights, he made a reading tour +in the provinces, and in Scotland and Ireland. In the following year +he read likewise. But meanwhile, which is more important to us than +his readings, he was writing another book. On the 30th of April, 1859, +in the first number of _All the Year Round_,[26] was begun "The Tale +of Two Cities," a simultaneous publication in monthly parts being also +commenced. + +"The Tale of Two Cities" is a tale of the great French Revolution of +1793, and the two cities in question are London and Paris,--London as +it lay comparatively at peace in the days when George III. was king, +and Paris running blood and writhing in the fierce fire of anarchy and +mob rule. A powerful book, unquestionably. No doubt there is in its +heat and glare a reflection from Carlyle's "French Revolution," a book +for which Dickens had the greatest admiration. But that need not be +regarded as a demerit. Dickens is no pale copyist, and adds fervour +to what he borrows. His pictures of Paris in revolution are as fine as +the London scenes in "Barnaby Rudge;" and the interweaving of the +story with public events is even better managed in the later book than +in the earlier story of the Gordon riots. And the story, what does it +tell? It tells of a certain Dr. Manette, who, after long years of +imprisonment in the Bastille, is restored to his daughter in London; +and of a young French noble, who has assumed the name of Darnay, and +left France in horror of the doings of his order, and who marries Dr. +Manette's daughter; and of a young English barrister, able enough in +his profession, but careless of personal success, and much addicted to +port wine, and bearing a striking personal resemblance to the young +French noble. These persons, and others, being drawn to Paris by +various strong inducements, Darnay is condemned to death as a +_ci-devant_ noble, and the ne'er-do-well barrister, out of the great +pure love he bears to Darnay's wife, succeeds in dying for him. That +is the tale's bare outline; and if any one says of the book that it is +in parts melodramatic, one may fitly answer that never was any portion +of the world's history such a thorough piece of melodrama as the +French Revolution. + +With "The Tale of Two Cities" Hablot K. Browne's connection with +Dickens, as the illustrator of his books, came to an end. The +"Sketches" had been illustrated by Cruikshank, who was the great +popular illustrator of the time, and it is amusing to read, in the +preface to the first edition of the first series, published in 1836, +how the trembling young author placed himself, as it were, under the +protection of the "well-known individual who had frequently +contributed to the success of similar undertakings." Cruikshank also +illustrated "Oliver Twist;" and indeed, with an arrogance which +unfortunately is not incompatible with genius, afterwards set up a +rather preposterous claim to have been the real originator of that +book, declaring that he had worked out the story in a series of +etchings, and that Dickens had illustrated _him_, and not he +Dickens.[27] But apart from the drawings for the "Sketches" and +"Oliver Twist," and the first few drawings by Seymour, and two +drawings by Buss,[28] in "Pickwick," and some drawings by Cattermole +in _Master Humphrey's Clock_, and by Samuel Palmer in the "Pictures +from Italy," and by various hands in the Christmas stories--apart from +these, Browne, or "Phiz," had executed the illustrations to Dickens' +novels. Nor, with all my admiration for certain excellent qualities +which his work undeniably possessed, do I think that this was +altogether a good thing. Such, I know, is not a popular opinion. But I +confess I am unable to agree with those critics who, from their +remarks on the recent jubilee edition of "Pickwick," seem to think his +illustrations so pre-eminently fine that they should be permanently +associated with Dickens' stories. The editor of that edition was, in +my view, quite right in treating Browne's illustrations as practically +obsolete. The value of Dickens' works is perennial, and Browne's +illustrations represent the art fashion of a time only. So, too, I am +unable to see any great cause to regret that Cruikshank's artistic +connection with Dickens came to an end so soon.[29] For both Browne +and Cruikshank were pre-eminently caricaturists, and caricaturists of +an old school. The latter had no idea of beauty. His art, very great +art in its way, was that of grotesqueness and exaggeration. He never +drew a lady or gentleman in his life. And though Browne, in my view +much the lesser artist, was superior in these respects to Cruikshank, +yet he too drew the most hideous Pecksniffs, and Tom Pinches, and Joey +B.'s, and a whole host of characters quite unreal and absurd. The +mischief of it is, too, that Dickens' humour will not bear +caricaturing. The defect of his own art as a writer is that it verges +itself too often on caricature. Exaggeration is its bane. When, for +instance, he makes the rich alderman in "The Chimes" eat up poor +Trotty Veck's little last tit-bit of tripe, we are clearly in the +region of broad farce. When Mr. Pancks, in "Little Dorrit," so far +abandons the ordinary ways of mature rent collectors as to ask a +respectable old accountant to "give him a back," in the Marshalsea +court, and leaps over his head, we are obviously in a world of +pantomime. Dickens' comic effects are generally quite forced enough, +and should never be further forced when translated into the sister art +of drawing. Rather, if anything, should they be attenuated. But +unfortunately exaggeration happened to be inherent in the +draftsmanship of both Cruikshank and Browne. And, having said this, I +may as well finish with the subject of the illustrations to Dickens' +books. "Our Mutual Friend" was illustrated by Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., +then a rising young artist, and the son of Dickens' old friend, Frank +Stone. Here the designs fall into the opposite defect. They are, some +of them, pretty enough, but they want character. Mr. Fildes' pictures +for "Edwin Drood" are a decided improvement. As to the illustrations +for the later _Household Edition_, they are very inferior. The designs +for a great many are clearly bad, and the mechanical execution almost +uniformly so. Even Mr. Barnard's skill has had no fair chance against +poor woodcutting, careless engraving, and inferior paper. And this is +the more to be regretted, in that Mr. Barnard, by natural affinity of +talent, has, to my thinking, done some of the best art work that has +been done at all in connection with Dickens. His _Character Sketches_, +especially the lithographed series, are admirable. The Jingle is a +masterpiece; but all are good, and he even succeeds in making +something pictorially acceptable of Little Nell and Little Dorrit. + +Just a year, almost to a day, elapsed between the conclusion of "The +Tale of Two Cities," and the commencement of "Great Expectations." The +last chapter of the former appeared in the number of _All the Year +Round_ for the 26th of November, 1859, and the first chapter of the +latter in the number of the same periodical for the 1st of December, +1860. Poor Pip--for such is the name of the hero of the book--poor +Pip, I think he is to be pitied. Certainly he lays himself open to the +charge of snobbishness, and is unduly ashamed of his connections. But +then circumstances were decidedly against him. Through some occult +means he is removed from his natural sphere, from the care of his +"rampageous" sister and of her husband, the good, kind, honest Joe, +and taken up to London, and brought up as a gentleman, and started in +chambers in Barnard's Inn. All this is done through the +instrumentality of Mr. Jaggers, a barrister in highest repute among +the criminal brotherhood. But Pip not unnaturally thinks that his +unknown benefactress is a certain Miss Havisham, who, having been +bitterly wronged in her love affairs, lives in eccentric fashion near +his native place, amid the mouldering mementoes of her wedding day. +What is his horror when he finds that his education, comfort, and +prospects have no more reputable foundation than the bounty of a +murderous criminal called Magwitch, who has showered all these +benefits upon him from the antipodes, in return for the gift of food +and a file when he, Magwitch, was trying to escape from the hulks, and +Pip was a little lad. Magwitch, the transported convict, comes back to +England, at the peril of his life, to make himself known to Pip, and +to have the pleasure of looking at that young gentleman. He is again +tracked by the police, and caught, notwithstanding Pip's efforts to +get him off, and dies in prison. Pip ultimately, very ultimately, +marries a young lady oddly brought up by the queer Miss Havisham, and +who turns out to be Magwitch's daughter. + +Such, as I have had occasion to say before in speaking of similar +analyses, such are the dry bones of the story. Pip's character is well +drawn. So is that of Joe. And Mr. Jaggers, the criminal's friend, and +his clerk, Wemmick, are striking and full of a grim humour. Miss +Havisham and her _protegee_, Estella, whom she educates to be the +scourge of men, belong to what may be called the melodramatic side of +Dickens' art. They take their place with Mrs. Dombey and with Miss +Dartle in "David Copperfield," and Miss Wade in "Little +Dorrit"--female characters of a fantastic and haughty type, and quite +devoid, Miss Dartle and Miss Wade especially, of either verisimilitude +or the milk of human kindness. + +"Great Expectations" was completed in August, 1861, and the first +number of "Our Mutual Friend" appeared in May, 1864. This was an +unusual interval, but the great writer's faculty of invention was +beginning to lose its fresh spring and spontaneity. And besides he had +not been idle. Though writing no novel, he had been busy enough with +readings, and his work on _All the Year Round_. He had also written a +short, but very graceful paper[30] on Thackeray, whose death, on the +Christmas Eve of 1863, had greatly affected him. Now, however, he +again braced himself for one of his greater efforts. + +Scarcely, I think, as all will agree, with the old success. In "Our +Mutual Friend" he is not at his best. It is a strange complicated +story that seems to have some difficulty in unravelling itself: the +story of a man who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a +changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young +woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. A +golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give +him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man +aforesaid, and who, to crown his virtues, pretends to be a miser in +order to teach the young woman, also aforesaid, how bad it is to be +mercenary, and to induce her to marry the unrecognized and seemingly +penniless son; their marriage accordingly, with ultimate result that +the bridegroom turns out to be no poor clerk, but the original heir, +who, of course, is not dead, and is the inheritor of thousands; +subsidiary groups of characters, of course, one which I think rather +uninteresting, of some brand-new people called the Veneerings and +their acquaintances, for they have no friends; and some fine sketches +of the river-side population; striking and amusing characters +too--Silas Wegg, the scoundrelly vendor of songs, who ferrets among +the dust for wills in order to confound the good dustman, his +benefactor; and the little deformed dolls' dressmaker, with her sot of +a father; and Betty Higden, the sturdy old woman who has determined +neither in life nor death to suffer the pollution of the workhouse; +such, with more added, are the ingredients of the story. + +One episode, however, deserves longer comment. It is briefly this: +Eugene Wrayburn is a young barrister of good family and education, and +of excellent abilities and address, all gifts that he has turned to no +creditable purpose whatever. He falls in with a girl, Lizzie Hexham, +of more than humble rank, but of great beauty and good character. She +interests him, and in mere wanton carelessness, for he certainly has +no idea of offering marriage, he gains her affection, neither meaning, +in any definite way, to do anything good nor anything bad with it. +There is another man who loves Lizzie, a schoolmaster, who, in his +dull, plodding way, has made the best of his intellect, and risen in +life. He naturally, and we may say properly, for no good can come of +them, resents Wrayburn's attentions, as does the girl's brother. +Wrayburn uses the superior advantages of his position to insult them +in the most offensive and brutal manner, and to torture the +schoolmaster, just as he has used those advantages to win the girl's +heart. Whereupon, after being goaded to heart's desire for a +considerable time, the schoolmaster as nearly as possible beats out +Wrayburn's life, and commits suicide. Wrayburn is rescued by Lizzie as +he lies by the river bank sweltering in blood, and tended by her, and +they are married and live happy ever afterwards. + +Now the amazing part of this story is, that Dickens' sympathies +throughout are with Wrayburn. How this comes to be so I confess I do +not know. To me Wrayburn's conduct appears to be heartless, cruel, +unmanly, and the use of his superior social position against the +schoolmaster to be like a foul blow, and quite unworthy of a +gentleman. Schoolmasters ought not to beat people about the head, +decidedly. But if Wrayburn's thoughts took a right course during +convalescence, I think he may have reflected that he deserved his +beating, and also that the woman whose affection he had won was a +great deal too good for him. + +Dickens' misplaced sympathy in this particular story has, I repeat, +always struck me with amazement. Usually his sympathies are so +entirely right. Nothing is more common than to hear the accusation of +vulgarity made against his books. A certain class of people seem to +think, most mistakenly, that because he so often wrote about vulgar +people, uneducated people, people in the lower ranks of society, +therefore his writing was vulgar, nay more, he himself vulgar too. +Such an opinion can only be based on a strange confusion between +subject and treatment. There is scarcely any subject not tainted by +impurity, that cannot be treated with entire refinement. Washington +Irving wrote to Dickens, most justly, of "that exquisite tact that +enabled him to carry his reader through the veriest dens of vice and +villainy without a breath to shock the ear or a stain to sully the +robe of the most shrinking delicacy;" and added: "It is a rare gift to +be able to paint low life without being low, and to be comic without +the least taint of vulgarity." This is well said; and if we look for +the main secret of the inherent refinement of Dickens' books, we shall +find it, I think, in this: that he never intentionally paltered with +right and wrong. He would make allowance for evil, would take pleasure +in showing that there were streaks of lingering good in its blackness, +would treat it kindly, gently, humanly. But it always stood for evil, +and nothing else. He made no attempt by cunning jugglery to change its +seeming. He had no sneaking affection for it. And therefore, I say +again, his attachment to Eugene Wrayburn has always struck me with +surprise. As regards Dickens' own refinement, I cannot perhaps do +better than quote the words of Sir Arthur Helps, an excellent judge. +"He was very refined in his conversation--at least, what I call +refined--for he was one of those persons in whose society one is +comfortable from the certainty that they will never say anything which +can shock other people, or hurt their feelings, be they ever so +fastidious or sensitive." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] His foolish quarrel with Bradbury and Evans had necessitated the +abandonment of _Household Words_. + +[27] See his pamphlet, "The Artist and the Author." The matter is +fully discussed in his life by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold. + +[28] Buss's illustrations were executed under great disadvantages, and +are bad. Those of Seymour are excellent. + +[29] I am always sorry, however, that Cruikshank did not illustrate +the Christmas stories. + +[30] See _Cornhill Magazine_ for February, 1864. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +But we are now, alas, nearing the point where the "rapid" of Dickens' +life began to "shoot to its fall." The year 1865, during which he +partly wrote "Our Mutual Friend," was a fatal one in his career. In +the month of February he had been very ill, with an affection of the +left foot, at first thought to be merely local, but which really +pointed to serious mischief, and never afterwards wholly left him. +Then, on June 9th, when returning from France, where he had gone to +recruit, he as nearly as possible lost his life in a railway accident +at Staplehurst. A bridge had broken in; some of the carriages fell +through, and were smashed; that in which Dickens was, hung down the +side of the chasm. Of courage and presence of mind he never showed any +lack. They were evinced, on one occasion, at the readings, when an +alarm of fire arose. They shone conspicuous here. He quieted two +ladies who were in the same compartment of the carriage; helped to +extricate them and others from their perilous position; gave such help +as he could to the wounded and dying; probably was the means of saving +the life of one man, whom he was the first to hear faintly groaning +under a heap of wreckage; and then, as he tells in the "postscript" to +the book, scrambled back into the carriage to find the crumpled MS. +of a portion of "Our Mutual Friend."[31] But even pluck is powerless +to prevent a ruinous shock to the nerves. Though Dickens had done so +manfully what he had to do at the time, he never fully recovered from +the blow. His daughter tells us how he would often, "when travelling +home from London, suddenly fall into a paroxysm of fear, tremble all +over, clutch the arms of the railway carriage, large beads of +perspiration standing on his face, and suffer agonies of terror.... He +had ... apparently no idea of our presence." And Mr. Dolby tells us +also how in travelling it was often necessary for him to ward off such +attacks by taking brandy. Dickens had been failing before only too +surely; and this accident, like a coward's blow, struck him heavily as +he fell. + +But whether failing or stricken, he bated no jot of energy or courage; +nay, rather, as his health grew weaker, did he redouble the pressure +of his work. I think there is a grandeur in the story of the last five +years of his life, that dwarfs even the tale of his rapid and splendid +rise. It reads like some antique myth of the Titans defying Jove's +thunder. There is about the man something indomitable and heroic. He +had, as we have seen, given a series of readings in 1858-59; and he +gave another in the years 1861 to 1863--successful enough in a +pecuniary sense, but through failure of business capacity on the part +of the manager, entailing on the reader himself a great deal of +anxiety and worry.[32] Now, in the spring of 1866, with his left foot +giving him unceasing trouble, and his nerves shattered, and his heart +in an abnormal state, he accepted an offer from Messrs. Chappell to +read "in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Paris," for L1,500, and the +payment of all expenses, and then to give forty-two more readings for +L2,500. Mr. Dolby, who accompanied Dickens as business manager in this +and the remaining tours, has told their story in an interesting +volume.[33] Of course the wear was immense. The readings themselves +involved enormous fatigue to one who so identified himself with what +he read, and whose whole being seemed to vibrate not only with the +emotions of the characters in his stories, but of the audience. Then +there was the weariness of long railway journeys in all seasons and +weathers--journeys that at first must have been rendered doubly +tedious, as he could not bear to travel by express trains. Yet, +notwithstanding failure of strength, notwithstanding fatigue, his +native gaiety and good spirits smile like a gleam of winter sunlight +over the narrative. As he had been the brightest and most genial of +companions in the old holiday days when strolling about the country +with his actor-troupe, so now he was occasionally as frolic as a boy, +dancing a hornpipe in the train for the amusement of his companions, +compounding bowls of punch in which he shared but sparingly--for he +was really convivial only in idea--and always considerate and kindly +towards his companions and dependents. And mingled pathetically with +all this are confessions of pain, weariness, illness, faintness, +sleeplessness, internal bleeding,--all bravely borne, and never for an +instant suffered to interfere with any business arrangement. + +But if the strain of the readings was too heavy here at home, what was +it likely to be during a winter in America? Nevertheless he +determined, against all remonstrances, to go thither. It would almost +seem as if he felt that the day of his life was waning, and that it +was his duty to gather in a golden harvest for those he loved ere the +night came on. So he sailed for Boston once more on the 9th of +November, 1867. The Americans, it must be said, behaved nobly. All the +old grudges connected with "The American Notes," and "Martin +Chuzzlewit," sank into oblivion. The reception was everywhere +enthusiastic, the success of the readings immense. Again and again +people waited all night, amid the rigours of an almost arctic winter, +in order to secure an opportunity of purchasing tickets as soon as the +ticket office opened. There were enormous and intelligent audiences at +Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia--everywhere. The sum which +Dickens realized by the tour, amounted to the splendid total of nearly +L19,000. Nor, in this money triumph, did he fail to excite his usual +charm of personal fascination, though the public affection and +admiration were manifested in forms less objectionable and offensive +than of old. On his birthday, the 7th of February, 1868, he says, "I +couldn't help laughing at myself ...; it was observed so much as +though I were a little boy." Flowers, garlands were set about his +room; there were presents on his dinner-table, and in the evening the +hall where he read was decorated by kindly unknown hands. Of public +and private entertainment he might have had just as much as he chose. + +But to this medal there was a terrible reverse. Travelling from New +York to Boston just before Christmas, he took a most disastrous cold, +which never left him so long as he remained in the country. He was +constantly faint. He ate scarcely anything. He slept very little. +Latterly he was so lame, as scarcely to be able to walk. Again and +again it seemed impossible that he should fulfil his night's +engagement. He was constantly so exhausted at the conclusion of the +reading, that he had to lie down for twenty minutes or half an hour, +"before he could undergo the fatigue even of dressing." Mr. Dolby +lived in daily fear lest he should break down altogether. "I used to +steal into his room," he says, "at all hours of the night and early +morning, to see if he were awake, or in want of anything; always +though to find him wide awake, and as cheerful and jovial as +circumstances would admit--never in the least complaining, and only +reproaching me for not taking my night's rest." "Only a man of iron +will could have accomplished what he did," says Mr. Fields, who knew +him well, and saw him often during the tour. + +In the first week of May, 1868, Dickens was back in England, and soon +again in the thick of his work and play. Mr. Wills, the sub-editor of +_All the Year Round_, had met with an accident. Dickens supplied his +place. Chauncy Hare Townshend had asked him to edit a chaotic mass of +religious lucubrations. He toilfully edited them. Then, with the +autumn, the readings began again;--for it marks the indomitable +energy of the man that, even amid the terrible physical trials +incident to his tour in America, he had agreed with Messrs. Chappell, +for a sum of L8,000, to give one hundred more readings after his +return. So in October the old work began again, and he was here, +there, and everywhere, now reading at Manchester and Liverpool, now at +Edinburgh and Glasgow, anon coming back to read fitfully in London, +then off again to Ireland, or the West of England. Nor is it necessary +to say that he spared himself not one whit. In order to give novelty +to these readings, which were to be positively the last, he had +laboriously got up the scene of Nancy's murder, in "Oliver Twist," and +persisted in giving it night after night, though of all his readings +it was the one that exhausted him most terribly.[34] But of course +this could not last. The pain in his foot "was always recurring at +inconvenient and unexpected moments," says Mr. Dolby, and occasionally +the American cold came back too. In February, in London, the foot was +worse than it had ever been, so bad that Sir Henry Thompson, and Mr. +Beard, his medical adviser, compelled him to postpone a reading. At +Edinburgh, a few days afterwards, Mr. Syme, the eminent surgeon, +strongly recommended perfect rest. Still he battled on, but "with +great personal suffering such as few men could have endured." +Sleeplessness was on him too. And still he fought on, determined, if +it were physically possible, to fulfil his engagement with Messrs. +Chappell, and complete the hundred nights. But it was not to be. +Symptoms set in that pointed alarmingly towards paralysis of the left +side. At Preston, on the 22nd of April, Mr. Beard, who had come +post-haste from London, put a stop to the readings, and afterwards +decided, in consultation with Sir Thomas Watson, that they ought to be +suspended entirely for the time, and never resumed in connection with +any railway travelling. + +Even this, however, was not quite the end; for a summer of comparative +rest, or what Dickens considered rest, seemed so far to have set him +up that he gave a final series of twelve readings in London between +the 11th of January and 15th of March, 1870, thus bringing to its real +conclusion an enterprise by which, at whatever cost to himself, he had +made a sum of about L45,000. + +Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1869, he had gone back to the old work, +and was writing a novel, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." It is a good +novel unquestionably. Without going so far as Longfellow, who had +doubts whether it was not "the most beautiful of all" Dickens' works, +one may admit that there is about it a singular freshness, and no sign +at all of mental decay. As for the "mystery," I do not think _that_ +need baffle us altogether. But then I see no particular reason to +believe that Dickens had wished to baffle us, or specially to rival +Edgar Allan Poe or Mr. Wilkie Collins in the construction of criminal +puzzles. Even though only half the case is presented to us, and the +book remains for ever unfinished, we need have, I think, no difficulty +in working out its conclusion. The course pursued by Mr. Jasper, Lay +Precentor of the Cathedral at Cloisterham, is really too suspicious. +No intelligent British jury, seeing the facts as they are presented to +us, the readers, could for a moment think of acquitting him of the +murder of his nephew, Edwin Drood. Take those facts seriatim. First, +we have the motive: he is passionately in love with the girl to whom +his nephew is engaged. Then we have a terrible coil of compromising +circumstances: his extravagant profession of devotion to his nephew, +his attempts to establish a hidden influence over the girl's mind to +his nephew's detriment and his own advantage, his gropings amid the +dark recesses of the Cathedral and inquiries into the action of +quicklime, his endeavours to foment a quarrel between Edwin Drood and +a fiery young gentleman from Ceylon, on the night of the murder, and +his undoubted doctoring of the latter's drink. Then, after the murder, +how damaging is his conduct. He falls into a kind of fit on +discovering that his nephew's engagement had been broken off, which he +might well do if his crime turned out to be not only a crime but also +a blunder. And his conduct to the girl is, to say the least of it, +strange. Nor will his character help him. He frequents the opium dens +of the East-end of London. Guilty, guilty, most certainly guilty. +There is nothing to be said in arrest of judgment. Let the judge put +on the black cap, and Jasper be devoted to his merited doom. + +Such was the story that Dickens was unravelling in the spring and +early summer of 1870. And fortune smiled upon it. He had sold the +copyright for the large sum of L7,500, and a half share of the profits +after a sale of twenty-five thousand copies, plus L1,000 for the +advance sheets sent to America; and the sale was more than answering +his expectations. Nor did prosperity look favourably on the book +alone. It also, in one sense, showered benefits on the author. He was +worth, as the evidence of the Probate Court was to show only too soon, +a sum of over L80,000. He was happy in his children. He was +universally loved, honoured, courted. "Troops of friends," though, +alas! death had made havoc among the oldest, were still his. Never had +man exhibited less inclination to pay fawning court to greatness and +social rank. Yet when the Queen expressed a desire to see him, as she +did in March, 1870, he felt not only pride, but a gentleman's pleasure +in acceding to her wish, and came away charmed from a long chatting +interview. But, while prosperity was smiling thus, the shadows of his +day of life were lengthening, lengthening, and the night was at hand. + +On Wednesday, June 8th, he seemed in excellent spirits; worked all the +morning in the Chalet[35] as was his wont, returned to the house for +lunch and a cigar, and then, being anxious to get on with "Edwin +Drood," went back to his desk once more. The weather was superb. All +round the landscape lay in fullest beauty of leafage and flower, and +the air rang musically with the song of birds. What were his thoughts +that summer day as he sat there at his work? Writing many years +before, he had asked whether the "subtle liquor of the blood" may not +"perceive, by properties within itself," when danger is imminent, and +so "run cold and dull"? Did any such monitor within, one wonders, warn +him at all that the hand of death was uplifted to strike, and that its +shadow lay upon him? Judging from the words that fell from his pen +that day we might almost think that it was so--we might almost go +further, and guess with what hopes and fears he looked into the +darkness beyond. Never at any time does he appear to have been greatly +troubled by speculative doubt. There is no evidence in his life, no +evidence in his letters, no evidence in his books, that he had ever +seen any cause to question the truth of the reply which Christianity +gives to the world-old problems of man's origin and destiny. For +abstract speculation he had not the slightest turn or taste. In no +single one of his characters does he exhibit any fierce mental +struggle as between truth and error. All that side of human +experience, with its anguish of battle, its despairs, and its +triumphs, seems to have been unknown to him. Perhaps he had the +stronger grasp of other matters in consequence--who knows? But the +fact remains. With a trust quite simple and untroubled, he held +through life to the faith of Christ. When his children were little, he +had written prayers for them, had put the Bible into simpler language +for their use. In his will, dated May 12, 1869, he had said, "I commit +my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, +and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the +broad teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put +no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or +there." And now, on this last day of his life, in probably the last +letter that left his pen, he wrote to one who had objected to some +passage in "Edwin Drood" as irreverent: "I have always striven in my +writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our +Saviour--because I feel it." And with a significance, of which, as I +have said, he may himself have been dimly half-conscious, among the +last words of his unfinished story, written that very afternoon, are +words that tell of glorious summer sunshine transfiguring the city of +his imagination, and of the changing lights, and the song of birds, +and the incense from garden and meadow that "penetrate into the +cathedral" of Cloisterham, "subdue its earthy odour, and preach the +Resurrection and the Life." + +For now the end had come. When he went in to dinner Miss Hogarth +noticed that he looked very ill, and wished at once to send for a +doctor. But he refused, struggled for a short space against the +impending fit, and tried to talk, at last very incoherently. Then, +when urged to go up to his bed, he rose, and, almost immediately, slid +from her supporting arm, and fell on the floor. Nor did consciousness +return. He passed from the unrest of life into the peace of eternity +on the following day, June 9, 1870, at ten minutes past six in the +evening. + +And now he lies in Westminster Abbey, among the men who have most +helped, by deed or thought, to make this England of ours what it is. +Dean Stanley only gave effect to the national voice when he assigned +to him that place of sepulture. The most popular, and in most +respects the greatest novelist of his time; the lord over the laughter +and tears of a whole generation; the writer, in his own field of +fiction, whose like we shall probably not see again for many a long, +long year, if ever; where could he be laid more fittingly for his last +long sleep than in the hallowed resting-place which the country sets +apart for the most honoured of her children? + +So he lies there among his peers in the Southern Transept. Close +beside him sleep Dr. Johnson, the puissant literary autocrat of his +own time; and Garrick, who was that time's greatest actor; and Handel, +who may fittingly claim to have been one of the mightiest musicians of +all time. There sleeps, too, after the fitful fever of his troubled +life, the witty, the eloquent Sheridan. In close proximity rests +Macaulay, the artist-historian and essayist. Within the radius of a +few yards lies all that will ever die of Chaucer, who five hundred +years ago sounded the spring note of English literature, and gave to +all after-time the best, brightest glimpse into mediaeval England; and +all that is mortal also of Spenser of the honey'd verse; and of +Beaumont, who had caught an echo of Shakespeare's sweetness if not his +power; and of sturdy Ben Jonson, held in his own day a not unworthy +rival of Shakespeare's self; and of "glorious" and most masculine John +Dryden. From his monument Shakespeare looks upon the place with his +kindly eyes, and Addison too, and Goldsmith; and one can almost +imagine a smile of fellowship upon the marble faces of those later +dead--Burns, Coleridge, Southey, and Thackeray. + +Nor in that great place of the dead does Dickens enjoy cold barren +honour alone. Nearly seventeen years have gone by since he was laid +there--yes, nearly seventeen years, though it seems only yesterday +that I was listening to the funeral sermon in which Dean Stanley spoke +of the simple and sufficient faith in which he had lived and died. But +though seventeen years have gone by, yet are outward signs not wanting +of the peculiar love that clings to him still. As I strolled through +the Abbey this last Christmas Eve I found his grave, and his grave +alone, made gay with the season's hollies. "Lord, keep my memory +green,"--in another sense than he used the words, that prayer is +answered. + +And of the future what shall we say? His fame had a brilliant day +while he lived; it has a brilliant day now. Will it fade into +twilight, without even an after-glow; will it pass altogether into the +night of oblivion? I cannot think so. The vitality of Dickens' works +is singularly great. They are all a-throb, as it were, with hot human +blood. They are popular in the highest sense because their appeal is +universal, to the uneducated as well as the educated. The humour is +superb, and most of it, so far as one can judge, of no ephemeral kind. +The pathos is more questionable, but that too, at its simplest and +best; and especially when the humour is shot with it--is worthy of a +better epithet than excellent. It is supremely touching. Imagination, +fancy, wit, eloquence, the keenest observation, the most strenuous +endeavour to reach the highest artistic excellence, the largest +kindliness,--all these he brought to his life-work. And that work, as +I think, will live, I had almost dared to prophesy for ever. Of +course fashions change. Of course no writer of fiction, writing for +his own little day, can permanently meet the needs of all after times. +Some loss of immediate vital interest is inevitable. Nevertheless, in +Dickens' case, all will not die. Half a century, a century hence, he +will still be read; not perhaps as he was read when his words flashed +upon the world in their first glory and freshness, nor as he is read +now in the noon of his fame. But he will be read much more than we +read the novelists of the last century--be read as much, shall I say, +as we still read Scott. And so long as he _is_ read, there will be one +gentle and humanizing influence the more at work among men. + + +THE END. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] For his own graphic account of the accident, see his "Letters." + +[32] He computed that he had made L12,000 by the two first series of +readings. + +[33] "Charles Dickens as I Knew Him." By George Dolby. Miss Dickens +considers this "the best and truest picture of her father yet +written." + +[34] Mr. Dolby remonstrated on this, and it was in connection with a +very slight show of temper on the occasion that he says: "In all my +experiences with the Chief that was the only time I ever heard him +address angry words to any one." + +[35] The Chalet, since sold and removed, stood at the edge of a kind +of "wilderness," which is separated from Gad's Hill Place by the high +road. A tunnel, constructed by Dickens, connects the "wilderness" and +the garden of the house. Close to the road, in the "wilderness," and +fronting the house, are two fine cedars. + + + + +INDEX. + + +A. + +"Administrative Reform" agitation, 129 + +_All the Year Round_, 114, 115 + +America, Dickens' first visit to United States in 1842, 71, 74-82, 94, + 95; second visit in 1867-8, 152-153 + +"American Notes," 68, 79-81 + + +B. + +"Barnaby Rudge," 52, 69-70, 108 + +Barnard, Mr., his illustrations to Dickens' works, 143 + +"Battle of Life," 104 + +_Bentley's Miscellany_ edited by Dickens, 49, 51 + +"Bleak House," 116-119 + +Boulogne, 119, 120 + +Bret Harte, Mr., on Little Nell, 64 + +Browne, or "Phiz," his illustrations to Dickens' works, 140-142 + + +C. + +Carlyle, his description of Dickens quoted, 35; + and of Dickens' reading, 124; + his influence on Dickens, 126, 127; + see also 98 and 139 + +Chapman and Hall, 40, 41, 42, 51, 61 + +Chatham, 13 + +Childhood, Dickens' feeling for its pathos, 12, 63 + +"Child's History of England," 115 + +"Chimes," 55, 96-99, 142 + +"Christmas Carol," 91-92, 125 + +"Christopher North," 72 + +Cowden Clarke, Mrs., quoted, 110 + +Cruikshank, his illustrations to "Sketches" and "Oliver Twist," 140-142 + + +D. + +_Daily News_, started with Dickens as editor, 99, 100, 103, 114 +"David Copperfield"--in many respects autobiographical, 14-16, 21, 133; + analysis of, 63, 68, 111-113 + +Dick, Mr., 107, 108 + +Dickens, Charles, birth, 12; + childhood and boyhood, 12-26; + school experiences, 25, 26; + law experiences, 27, 28; + experiences as reporter for the press, 28-30; + first attempts at authorship, 31-33; + marriage, 34; + his personal appearance in early manhood, 35, 36; + influence of his early training, 36-39; + pecuniary position after publication of "Pickwick," 51, 52; + habits of work and relaxation, 54-56; + reception at Edinburgh, 71, 72; + American experiences, 74-81; + affection for his children, 82, 83; + Italian experiences, 93-99; + appointed editor of _Daily News_, 99, 100; + efficiency in practical matters, 102, 103; + his charm as a holiday companion, 110; + first public readings in 1853, 121; + character of his reading, 124, 125; + purchase of Gad's Hill Place, 131, 132; + separation from his wife, 132-138; + general love in which he was held, 135, 136; + tendency to caricature in his art, 142; + essential refinement in his writing and in himself, 147, 148; + his presence of mind, 149; + his brave battle against failing strength, 149-155; + with what thoughts he faced death, 158, 159; + his death, 159; + resting-place in Westminster Abbey, 159-161; + love that clings to his memory, 161; + future of his fame, 161, 162 + +Dickens, John, his character, 16, 17; + his imprisonment, 22, 23, 28; + his death, 115 + +Dickens, Miss, biography of her father, quoted, 50, 83, 150 + +Dickens, Mrs. (Dickens' mother), 24, 25 + +Dickens, Mrs., 82; + separated from her husband, 132-138 + +Dolby, Mr., manager for the readings, 150, 151, 153 + +"Dombey and Son," 63, 103-107, 110 + +Dombey, Paul, 63, 65-66, 68, 105 + + +E. + +Edinburgh, Dickens' reception there, 71, 72 + +"Edwin Drood," 143, 155-157 + + +F. + +Fildes, Mr. L., A.R.A., illustrates "Edwin Drood," 143 + +Flite, Miss, 108, 109 + +Forster, John, 19, 38, 99, 116; + his opinion on the advisability of public readings, 121, 122 + + +G. + +Gad's Hill Place, 13; + purchase of, 131, 132 + +Genoa, 54, 55, 95-96, 98, 99 + +Grant, Mr. James, 42 + +"Great Expectations," 63, 143-145 + +H. + +"Hard Times," 126-129 + +"Haunted Man," The, 110-111 + +Helps, Sir Arthur, on Dickens' powers of observation, 32; + on his essential refinement, 148 + +Hogarth, Mary, her death and character, 52-53 + +Horne, on description of Little Nell's death and burial, 64, 66-67 + +_Household Words_, 113-115, 134 + +Humour of Dickens, 32, 33, 45, 46, 142, 161 + + +I. + +Italy in 1844, 94-95 + + +J. + +Jeffrey, his opinion of Little Nell, 63, 71, 72 + + +L. + +Landor, his admiration for Little Nell, 64; + his likeness to Mr. Boythorn, 119 + +Lausanne, 103, 104 + +Leigh Hunt, 118 + +"Little Dorrit," 22, 129-131, 142-143 + +Little Nell, criticism on her character and story, 63-67, 71, 72, 73 + +London, Dickens' knowledge of, and walks in, 32, 54-56 + + +M. + +Macaulay, 80, 128, 160 + +Macready, the tragic actor, 73, 76, 82, 83 + +Marshalsea Prison, Dickens' father imprisoned there, 16, 20, 21-23; + made the chief scene of "Little Dorrit," 130 + +"Martin Chuzzlewit," 84, 85, 88-90 + +_Master Humphrey's Clock_, 61, 62, 90, 141 + +Micawber, Mr., 15, 16, 22 + + +N. + +Nickleby, Mrs., 25 + +"Nicholas Nickleby," 50, 59-61, 90 + + +O. + +"Old Curiosity Shop," 61, 62-69 + +"Oliver Twist," 49, 51, 57-59, 63, 141 + +"Our Mutual Friend," 86, 143, 145-147 + + +P. + +Paris, 109, 131 + +Pathos of Dickens, 32, 33, 67-69, 161 + +"Pickwick," 40-48, 49, 51, 90, 141 + +"Pictures from Italy," 99, 100-101 + +Pipchin, Mrs., 20, 23 + +Plots, Dickens', 85-88 + + +Q. + +_Quarterly Review_ foretells Dickens' speedy downfall, 50, 51 + + +R. + +Readings, Dickens', 121-125, 139, 150-155 + +Ruskin, Mr., his opinion of "Hard Times," 128 + +S. + +Sam Weller, 46, 47 + +Scott, Sir Walter, 43, 87, 162 + +Seymour, his connection with "Pickwick," 40-42, 141 + +"Sketches by Boz," 31-33, 52, 140, 141 + +Stanley, Dean, 159, 161 + +Stone, Mr. Marcus, R.A., illustrates "Our Mutual Friend," 143 + + +T. + +Taine, M., his criticism criticised, 107-109 + +"Tale of Two Cities," 139-140 + +Thackeray, 53, 135, 145; + as a reader, 124, 125 + +Tiny Tim, 68, 125 + +Toots, Mr., 107, 108, 109 + + +W. + +Washington Irving, 73, 148 + +Westminster Abbey, Dickens place of burial, 159-161 + + +Y. + +Yates, Edmund, Mr., quoted, 38 + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + +BY + +JOHN P. ANDERSON + +_(British Museum)._ + + * * * * * + + I. WORKS. + + II. SELECTIONS. + +III. SINGLE WORKS. + + IV. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. + + V. APPENDIX-- + + Biographical, Critical, etc. + Dramatic. + Musical. + Parodies and Imitations. + Poetical. + Magazine and Newspaper Articles. + + VI. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. + + * * * * * + +I. WORKS. + +FIRST CHEAP EDITION. 19 vols. London, 1847-67, 8vo. + + This edition was in three series, the first and third being + published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the second by Messrs. + Bradbury and Evans. It was printed in double columns, with + frontispieces by Leslie, Hablot K. Browne, Cruikshank, etc. + +LIBRARY EDITION. 22 vols. London, 1858-59, 8vo. + +LIBRARY EDITION. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1861-1873. + + The original illustrations were added to the later issues of + the Library Edition, and the series completed in 30 vols. + +THE PEOPLE'S EDITION. 25 vols. London, 1865-1867, 8vo. + + A re-issue of the Cheap Edition. + +THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION. Illustrated. 21 vols. London, +1867-1873, 8vo. + +THE HOUSEHOLD EDITION. Illustrated. 22 vols. London, +1871-1879, 4to. + +ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. 30 vols. London, 1873-1876, 8vo. + +THE POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, +1878-1880, 8vo. + +THE POCKET EDITION. 30 vols. London, 1880, 16mo. + +THE DIAMOND EDITION. Illustrated. 14 vols. London, 1880, +16mo. + +EDITION DE LUXE. Illustrated. 30 vols. London, 1881, 4to. + + One thousand copies only of this Edition de Luxe were + printed for sale, each numbered, and it was dedicated to Her + Majesty the Queen. + +THE CABINET EDITION. Illustrated. London, 1885, etc., 16mo. + + A re-issue of the Pocket Edition. + + +II. SELECTIONS. + +The Beauties of Pickwick. Collected and arranged by Sam Weller. +London, 1838, 8vo. + +The Story Teller. A collection of tales, stories, and novels. By +Walter Scott, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, etc. Edited by +Hermann Schuetz. Siegen, 1850, 8vo. + +Immortelles from C.D. By Ich. London, 1856, 8vo. + +Novels and Tales reprinted from Household Words. 11 vols. (_Tauchnitz +Edition_). Leipzig, 1856-59, 16mo. + +Christmas Stories from the Household Words. Conducted by C.D. London +[1860], 8vo. + +The Poor Traveller: Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn; and Mrs. Gamp, by +C.D. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Arranged by Dickens for his Readings. + +Dialogues from Dickens. Arranged by W.E. Fette. Two Series. Boston, +1870-71, 8vo. + +A Cyclopaedia of the best thoughts of C.D. Compiled and alphabetically +arranged by F.G. De Fontaine. New York, 1873, 8vo. + +A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens. Being fac-similes of +original drawings by F. Barnard [with extracts from some of D.'s +works]. 2 pts. London [1879]-85, folio. + +----Another Edition. London, 1884, folio. + +The Dickens Reader. Character Readings from the stories of Charles +Dickens. Selected, adapted, and arranged by Nathan Sheppard, with +numerous illustrations by F. Barnard, New York, 1881, 4to. + +The Charles Dickens Birthday Book. Compiled and edited by his eldest +daughter (Mary Dickens). With illustrations by his youngest daughter +(Kate Perugini). London, 1882, 8vo. + +Readings from the works of C.D. Condensed and adapted by J.A. +Jennings. Dublin [1882], 8vo. + +The Readings of C.D. as arranged and read by himself. With +illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo. + +Chips from Dickens selected by Thomas Mason. Glasgow [1884], 32mo. + +Tales from Charles Dickens's Works. London [1884], 8vo. + +The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens. Selected by Chas. Kent. +London, 1884, 8vo. + +Child-Pictures from Dickens. [Illustrated.] London, 1885, 4to. + +Wellerisms from "Pickwick" and "Master Humphrey's Clock." Selected by +Charles F. Rideal, and Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Kent, +author of "The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens." London, 1886, +8vo. + + +III. SINGLE WORKS. + +American Notes for general circulation. 2 vols. London, 1842, 8vo. + +----[Other Editions. London, 1850, 8vo.; London, 1884, 8vo]. + +Bleak House. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London, 1853, 8vo. + +Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn, by Charles Dickens, as condensed by +himself for his readings. Boston, 1868, 8vo. + + The Holly-Tree Inn was the Christmas Number of "Household + Words" for 1855. Dickens contributed "The Guest," "The + Boots," and "The Bill." + +A Child's History of England. With a frontispiece by F.W. Topham. 3 +vols. London, 1852-54, 16mo. + +The Chimes: a Goblin Story of some bells that rang an old year out and +a new year in. By Charles Dickens. [Illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, +Leech, and Clarkson Stanfield.] London, 1845, 8vo. + + An edition with notes and elucidations by K. ten Bruggencate + was published at Groningen in 1883. + +Christmas Books. London, 1852, 8vo. + +Christmas Books. With illustrations by Sir E. Landseer, Maclise, +Stanfield, F. Stone, Doyle, Leech, and Tenniel. London, 1869, 8vo. + +A Christmas Carol in Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. By C.D. +With illustrations by John Leech. London, 1843, 8vo. + +----Condensed by himself, for his readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. By C.D. [Illustrated +by Maclise, Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Leech, and Landseer.] London, +1846, 16mo. + +The Battle of Life: A Love Story. [Illustrated by Maclise, Stanfield, +Doyle, and Leech.] London, 1846, 16mo. + +The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas Time. +[Illustrated by Stanfield, John Tenniel, Frank Stone, and John Leech.] +London, 1848, 16mo. + +Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, wholesale, retail, and for +exportation. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1848, 8vo. + +The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Revised by Dickens for his Readings. + +The Story of Little Dombey. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his +readings. Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 894.) +Leipzig, 1867, 16mo. + + The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1865. + Dickens contributed chap. i., "To be Taken Immediately;" + chap. vi., "To be Taken With a Grain of Salt;" and the + concluding chapter, "To be Taken for Life." + +Doctor Marigold. By C.D., as condensed by himself for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Great Expectations. By C.D. In three volumes. London, 1861, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in _All the Year Round_, December 1, + 1860, to August 3, 1861. An American edition was published + the same year with illustrations by J. McLenan. + +Hard Times. For these Times. By C.D. London, 1854, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in Household Words, April 1 to August + 12, 1854. + +Hunted Down. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 536.) Leipzig, 1860, 16mo. + + Appeared originally in the _New York Ledger_, August 20, 27, + Sept. 3, 1859, and _All the Year Round_, Aug. 4 and 11, + 1860. + +Hunted Down. A Story. By C.D. With some account of T.G. Wainewright, +the poisoner [by John Camden Hotten]. London [1870], 8vo. + +Is She his Wife? or, Something Singular. A comic burletta in one act. +Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo. + + First produced at the St. James's Theatre, March 6, 1837. + Mr. Shepherd says that this was first printed in 1837, but + no copy is known to exist. + +The Lamplighter: A Farce. By C.D. (1838). + + Only 250 copies were privately printed in 1879 from the MS. + copy in the Forster Collection at South Kensington; each + copy numbered. + +The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. With illustrations by +Phiz [_i.e._, H.K. Browne]. London, 1844, 8vo. + +Mrs. Gamp [extracted from "The Life and Adventures of Martin +Chuzzlewit"]. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With illustrations by +Phiz. London, 1839, 8vo. + + Contains a portrait of Dickens, and 39 illustrations. + +Nicholas Nickleby at the Yorkshire School [extracted from "The Life +and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby"]. By C.D., as condensed by +himself, for his readings. (Four Chapters). Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + + Another edition in three chapters was published at Boston + the same year. + +Little Dorrit. With illustrations, by H.K. Browne. London [1855]-57, +8vo. + +Master Humphrey's Clock. With illustrations by George Cattermole and +H.K. Browne. 3 vols. London, 1840-41, 8vo. + + Comprises two stories, "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby + Rudge," both subsequently issued as independent works, the + first in 1848, and the second in 1849. + +The Old Curiosity Shop. London, 1848, 8vo. + +Barnaby Rudge. A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. London, 1849, 8vo. + +Mr. Nightingale's Diary: a Farce, in one act. London, 1851, 8vo. + + Privately printed and extremely scarce. There is a copy in + the Forster Collection at South Kensington. + +----Another edition. Boston [U.S.], 1877, 16mo. + + This edition is now scarce. + +The Mudfog Papers. Now first collected. London, 1880, 8vo. + + Reprinted from Bentley's Miscellany. + +----Second edition. London, 1880, 8vo. + +The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With twelve illustrations by S.L. Fildes, +and a portrait. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. By "Boz." In three +volumes. [With illustrations by George Cruikshank.] London, 1838, 8vo. + + The second edition, with the title-page reading "Oliver + Twist, by Charles Dickens," appeared the following year; the + third edition, with a new preface, was published in 1841. + The edition of 1846, in one volume, bears the following + title-page:--"The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish + Boy's Progress. By Charles Dickens. With twenty-four + illustrations on Steel, by George Cruikshank." + +Our Mutual Friend. With illustrations by Marcus Stone. 2 vols. +London, 1865, 8vo. + +The Personal History of David Copperfield. With illustrations, by H.K. +Browne. London, 1850, 8vo. + +David Copperfield. By C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Pictures from Italy. By C.D. The vignette illustrations on wood, by +Samuel Palmer. London, 1846, 8vo. + + Appeared originally in the _Daily News_, from January to + March 1846, with the title of "Travelling Letters written on + the Road. By Charles Dickens." + +The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Being a 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 Phiz [H.K. +Browne], London, 1837, 8vo. + + In twenty monthly parts, commencing April 1836, and ending + November 1837, no number being issued for June 1837. + +----Another edition. V.D. Land, Launceston, 1838, 8vo. + + This edition of Pickwick is interesting from the fact that + it was published in Van Dieman's Land, the illustrations + being exact copies of the originals executed in lithography. + There is an additional title-page, engraved, bearing date + 1836. + +----The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, with notes and +illustrations. Edited by C. Dickens the younger, (Jubilee Edition.) 2 +vols. London, 1886, 8vo. + +Mr. Bob. Sawyer's Party [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Bardell and Pickwick [extracted from "The Posthumous Papers of the +Pickwick Club"] by C.D., as condensed by himself, for his readings. +Boston [U.S.], 1868, 8vo. + +Sketches by "Boz," illustrative of every-day life and every-day +people. In two volumes. Illustrations by George Cruikshank. London, +1836, 12mo. + +----Second edition. London, 1836, 12mo. + +Sketches by "Boz." Third edition. London, 1837, 12mo. + +----Second Series. London, 1837, 12mo. + +----First complete edition of the two series. With forty illustrations +by George Cruikshank. London, 1839, 8vo. + +----Sketches and Tales of London Life. [Selections from "Sketches by +Boz."] London [1877], 8vo. + +----The Tuggs's at Ramsgate [from "Sketches by Boz"]. London [1870], +8vo. + +Sketches of Young Gentlemen. Dedicated to the Young Ladies. With six +illustrations by "Phiz" (H.K. Browne). London, 1838, 8vo. + +Sketches of Young Couples; with an urgent Remonstrance to the +Gentlemen of England (being Bachelors or Widowers) on the present +alarming Crisis. With six illustrations by "Phiz" [H.K. Browne]. +London, 1840, 8vo. + + An edition was published in 1869 with the title "Sketches of + Young Couples, Young Ladies, Young Gentlemen. By Quiz. + Illustrated by Phiz." Only the first and third of these + sketches were written by Charles Dickens. "The Sketches of + Young Ladies" were by an anonymous author, who also assumed + the pseudonym of Quiz. + +Somebody's Luggage. (_Tauchnitz Edition_, vol. 888.) Leipzig, 1867, +16mo. + + The Christmas Number of _All the Year Round_ for 1862. + Dickens contributed "His leaving it till called for"; "His + Boots"; "His Brown-paper Parcel" and "His Wonderful End." + +The Strange Gentleman: A Comic Burletta. In two acts. By "Boz." First +performed at the St. James's Theatre, on Thursday, September 29, 1836. +London, 1837, 8vo. + +Sunday under Three Heads. As it is; as Sabbath bills would make it; as +it might be made. By Timothy Sparks. London, 1836, 12mo. + + Reproduced in fac-simile, London, 1884, and in Pearson's + Manchester Series of Fac-simile Reprints, Manchester, same + date. + +A Tale of Two Cities. With illustrations by H.K. Browne. London, 1859, +8vo. + + Originally issued in _All the Year Round_, between April 30 + and November 26, 1859. + +The Uncommercial Traveller. By C.D. London, 1861, 8vo. + + Consists of seventeen papers which originally appeared in + _All the Year Round_ with this title between January 28 and + October 13, 1860. The impression which was issued in 1868 in + the Charles Dickens Edition contains eleven fresh papers. + +The Village Coquettes: A Comic Opera. In two acts. By C.D. The music +by John Hullah. London, 1836, 8vo. + +----Songs, choruses, and concerted pieces in the Operatic Burletta of +The Village Coquettes as produced at St. James's Theatre. The drama +and words of the songs by "Boz." The music by John Hullah. London, +1837, 8vo. + + Editions of "The Village Coquettes" were published at + Leipzig, 1845, and at Amsterdam, 1868, in English, and it + was reprinted in 1878. _See_ also under _Music_. + + +IV. + +MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. + +All the Year Round. A weekly journal conducted by Charles Dickens. +London, 1859-1870, 8vo. + + Commenced on the 30th of April 1859. + +Bentley's Miscellany. [Successively edited by Boz, Ainsworth, Albert +Smith, etc.] Vol. 1-64. London, 1837-68, 8vo. + +Evenings of a Working Man, being the occupation of his scanty leisure. +By John Overs. With a preface relative to the author, by C.D. London, +1844, 16mo. + +Household Words: a weekly journal. Conducted by C.D. 19 vols. London, +1850-59, 8vo. + + This Journal commenced on the 30th March 1850, and was + continued to the 28th of May 1859, when it was incorporated + with _All the Year Round_. A cheap edition of Household + Words, in 19 vols. was published in 1868-73. + +----Christmas Stories from Household Words (1850-58). Conducted by +C.D. London, [1860], 8vo. + +Legends and Lyrics, by Adelaide Anne Procter. With an introduction by +C.D. New edition, illustrated by Dobson, Palmer, Tenniel, etc. London, +1866, 4to. + +The Letters of C.D. Edited by his sister-in-law (G. Hogarth) and his +eldest daughter (M. Dickens). 3 vols. London, 1880-1882, 8vo. + +----Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo. + +The Library of Fiction; or Family Story-Teller. [Edited by C.D.] +London, 1836-37, 8vo. + +The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. +London, 1839, 8vo. + + The notes and preface were written by Dickens. + +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Edited by "Boz." With illustrations by G. +Cruikshank. 2 vols. London, 1838, 12mo. + +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Another edition. Revised by C. Whitehead. +London, 1846, 8vo. + +----Another edition. London, 1853, 8vo. + +----Another edition. London, 1866, 8vo. + + Two other editions were published in 1884 by G. Routledge + and Sons, and J. Dicks. + +The Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution. Speeches on +behalf of the Institution by C.D. London, 1871, 8vo. + +The Pic-Nic Papers by various hands. Edited by C.D. With illustrations +by George Cruikshank. 3 vols. London, 1841, 8vo. + + Dickens contributed a preface and the opening tale, "The + Lamplighter's Story." + +The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens. With a few Miscellanies in +prose. Now first collected, edited, prefaced, and annotated by R.H. +Shepherd. 2 vols. London, 1882, 8vo. + + This work was almost immediately suppressed, as it contained + copyright matter. A new edition appeared in 1885, without + the copyright play of "No Thoroughfare." + +Religious Opinions of Chauncy Hare Townshend. Published as directed in +his Will, by his literary executor [Charles Dickens]. London, 1869, +8vo. + +Royal Literary Fund. A summary of facts in answer to allegations +contained in "The Case of the Reformers of the Literary Fund," stated +by C.D., etc. [London, 1858], 8vo. + +Speech delivered at the meeting of the Administrative Reform +Association. London, 1855, 8vo. + +Speech of C.D. as Chairman of the Anniversary Festival Dinner of the +Royal Free Hospital, 1863. [London, 1870], 12mo. + +The Speeches of C.D., 1841-1870, edited and prefaced by R.H. Shepherd. +With a new bibliography, revised and enlarged. London, 1884, 8vo. + +Speeches, letters, and sayings of C.D. To which is added a Sketch of +the author by G.A. Sala, and Dean Stanley's sermon. New York, 1870, +8vo. + +Speeches: Literary and Social. London [1870], 8vo. + +A Wonderful Ghost Story. With letters of C.D. to the author respecting +it. By Thomas Heaphy. London, 1882, 8vo. + + +V. APPENDIX. + +BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, ETC. + +Adshead, Joseph.--Prisons and Prisoners. London, 1845, 8vo. + + The Fictions of Dickens upon solitary confinement, pp. + 95-121. + +Allbut, Robert.--London Rambles "En Zigzag," with Charles Dickens. +London [1886], 8vo. + +Atlantic Almanac.--The Atlantic Almanac for 1871. Boston, 1871, 8vo. + + A short biographical notice of Dickens, with portrait and + view of Gad's Hill, pp. 20-21. + +Bagehot, Walter.--Literary Studies, by the late Walter Bagehot. 2 +vols. London, 1879, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens (1858), vol. 2, pp. 184-220. + +Bayne, Peter.--Essays in Biography and Criticism. By Peter Bayne. +First series. Boston, 1857, 8vo. + + The modern novel: Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, pp. 363-392. + +Behn-Eschenburg, H.--Charles Dickens. Von H. Behn-Eschenburg. Basel, +1872, 8vo. + + Hft. 6, of "Oeffentliche Vortraege gehalten in der Schweiz." + +Brimley, George.--Essays by the late George Brimley. Edited by William +George Clark. Cambridge, 1858, 8vo. + + "Bleak House," pp. 289-301. Reprinted from the _Spectator_, + September 24th, 1853. + +Browne, Hablot K.--Dombey and Son. The four portraits of Edith, +Florence, Alice, and Little Paul. London, 1848, 8vo. + +----Dombey and Son. Full-length portraits of Dombey and Carker, Miss +Tox, Mrs. Skewton, etc. London, 1848, 8vo. + +----Six illustrations to The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. +Engraved from original drawings by Phiz. London [1854], 8vo. + +Buchanan, Robert.--A Poet's Sketch-Book; selections from the prose +writings of Robert Buchanan. London, 1883, 8vo. + + The Good Genie of Fiction. Charles Dickens, pp. 119-140. + (Reprinted from _St. Paul's Magazine_, 1872, pp. 130-148.) + +Calverley, C.S.--Fly Leaves. Second Edition. By C.S. Calverley. +Cambridge, 1872, 8vo. + + An Examination Paper. "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick + Club," pp. 121-124. + +Canning, S.G.--Philosophy of Charles Dickens. By the Hon. Albert S.G. +Canning. London, 1880, 8vo. + +Cary, Thomas G.--Letter to a lady in France on the supposed failure of +a national bank ... with answers to enquiries concerning the books of +Captain Marryat and Mr. Dickens. [By Thomas G. Cary.] Boston [U.S.], +1843, 8vo. + +----Second Edition. Boston, [U.S.], 1844, 8vo. + +Chambers, Robert.--Cyclopaedia of English Literature. Edited by Robert +Chambers. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1844, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 630-633. + +----Another Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1860, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 644-650. + +----Third Edition, 2 vols. London, 1876, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. 515-521. + +Chapman, T.J.--Schools and Schoolmasters; from the works of Charles +Dickens. New York, 1871, 8vo. + +Clarke, Charles and Mary Cowden.--Recollections of Writers. By Charles +and Mary Cowden Clarke. With letters of Charles Lamb ... and Charles +Dickens, etc. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Cleveland, Charles Dexter.--English Literature of the Nineteenth +Century. A new edition. Philadelphia, 1867, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 718-730. + +Cochrane, Robert.--Risen by Perseverance; or, lives of self-made men. +By Robert Cochrane. Edinburgh, 1879, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 172-223. + +Cook, James.--Bibliography of the writings of Charles Dickens, with +many curious and interesting particulars relating to his works. By +James Cook. London, 1879, 8vo. + +Cruikshank, George.--George Cruikshank's Magazine. London, 1854, 8vo. + + February 1854, pp. 74-80, "A letter from Hop-o'-My-Thumb to + Charles Dickens, Esq., upon 'Frauds on the Fairies,' 'Whole + Hogs,' etc." + +D., H.W.--Ward and Lock's Penny Books for the People. Biographical +series. The Life of Charles Dickens. By H.W.D. Pp. 513-528. London, +1882, 8vo. + +Davey, Samuel.--Darwin, Carlyle and Dickens, with other essays. By +Samuel Davey. London, [1876], 8vo. + +Denman, Lord.--Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleak House, Slavery and Slave +Trade. Six articles by Lord Denman. London, 1853, 8vo. + +----Second Edition. London, 1853, 8vo. + +Depret, Louis.--Chez les Anglais. Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, +Longfellow, etc. Paris, 1879. + + Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, occupies pp. 71-130. + +Dickens, Charles.--Chas. Dickens. A critical biography. London, 1858, +8vo. + + No. 1 of a series entitled "Our Contemporaries," etc. + +----The Life and Times of Charles Dickens. With a portrait. (_Police +News_ edition.) London. [1870], 8vo. + +----The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1881], 8vo. + +----The Life of Charles Dickens. London [1882], 8vo. + + Part of Haughton's Popular Illustrated Biographies. + +----Some Notes on America to be re-written, suggested with respect to +Charles Dickens. Philadelphia, 1868, 8vo. + +----Catalogue of the beautiful collection of modern pictures, etc., of +Charles Dickens, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Christie, +Manson and Woods ... July 9, 1870. London [1870], 4to. + +----Dickens Memento, with introduction by F. Phillimore, and "Hints to +Dickens Collectors," by J.F. Dexter. Catalogue with purchasers' names, +etc. London [1884], 4to. + +----Mary.--Charles Dickens. By his eldest daughter (Mary Dickens). +London, 1885, 8vo. + + Part of the series "The World's Workers," etc. + +Dilke, Charles W.--The Papers of a Critic, etc. 2 vols. London, 1875, +8vo. + + Reference to the Literary Fund Controversy, with a letter + from C.D. to C.W. Dilke. Vol. i., pp. 79, 80. + +Dolby, George.--Charles Dickens as I knew him. The story of the +Reading Tours in Great Britain and America (1866-1870). By George +Dolby. London, 1885, 8vo. + +Drake, Samuel Adams.--Our Great Benefactors; short biographies, etc. +Boston, 1884, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 102-111, illustrated. + +Dulcken, A.--Scenes from "The Pickwick Papers," designed by A. +Dulcken. London [1861], obl. fol. + +----H.W.--Worthies of the World, a series of historical and critical +sketches, etc. Edited by H.W. Dulcken. London [1881], 8vo. + + Biography of Charles Dickens, with a portrait, pp. 513-528. + +Essays.--English Essays. 4 vols. Hamburg, 1870, 8vo. + + Vol. iv. contains an article reprinted from the _Illustrated + London News_, June 18, 1870, on Charles Dickens. + +Field, Kate.--Pen Photographs of Charles Dickens's Readings. Taken +from life. By Kate Field. Boston, [U.S.], [1868], 8vo. + +----Another edition. Illustrated. Boston (U.S.), 1871, 8vo. + +Fields, James T.--In and out of doors with Charles Dickens. By James +T. Fields. Boston, (U.S.), 1876, 16mo. + +----James T. Fields. Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches. Boston +[U.S.], 1881, 8vo. + + Pp. 152-160 relate to Dickens. + +Fitzgerald, Percy.--Two English Essayists. C. Lamb and C. Dickens. By +Percy Fitzgerald. London, 1864, 8vo. + + Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, series 2. + +----Recreations of a Literary Man. By Percy Fitzgerald. 2 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as an editor, vol. i., pp. 48-96; Charles + Dickens at Home, vol. i., pp. 97-171. + +Forster, John.--The Life of Charles Dickens. (With portraits.) 3 vols. +London, 1872-4, 8vo. + + Numerous editions. + +Friswell, J. Hain.--Modern Men of Letters honestly criticised. By J. +Hain Friswell. London, 1870, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 1-45. + +Frost, Thomas.--In Kent with Charles Dickens. By Thomas Frost. London, +1880, 8vo. + +Gill, T.--Report of the Dinner given to C.D. in Boston. Reported by T. +Gill and W. English. Boston [U.S.], 1842, 8vo. + +Hall, Samuel Carter.--A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the +Age, etc. By S.C. Hall. London, 1871, 4to. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 449-452. + +----Second edition. London, 1877, 4to. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 454-458. + +Ham, James Panton.--Parables of Fiction: a memorial discourse on C. +Dickens. By James Panton Ham. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Hanaford, P.A.--Life and Writings of C. Dickens. New York, 1882, 8vo. + +Hassard, John R.G.--A Pickwickian Pilgrimage. (Letters on "the London +of Charles Dickens.") By John R.G. Hassard. Boston (U.S.), 1881, 8vo. + +Heavisides, Edward Marsh.--The Poetical and Prose Remains of Edward +Marsh Heavisides. London, 1850, 8vo. + + The Essay on Dickens's writings, pp. 1-27. + +Hollingshead, John.--To-Day; Essays and Miscellanies. 2 vols. London, +1865, 8vo. + + Mr. Dickens and his Critics, vol. ii., pp. 277-283; Mr. + Dickens as a Reader, vol. ii., pp. 284-296. + +Hollingshead, John.--Miscellanies. Stories and Essays by John +Hollingshead. 3 vols. London, 1874, 8vo. + + Mr. Dickens and his critics, vol. iii., pp. 270-274; Mr. + Dickens as a Reader, vol. iii., pp. 275-283. + +Horne, Richard H.--A New Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne. 2 +vols. London, 1844, 12mo. + + Charles Dickens, with portrait, vol. i., pp. 1-76. + +Hotten, John Camden.--Charles Dickens, the Story of his Life. By the +Author of the Life of Thackeray (J.C. Hotten). With illustrations and +fac-similes. London (1870), 8vo. + +----Popular edition. London (1873), 12mo. + +Hume, A.B.--A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume. +1870, 8vo. + + Contains a fac-simile of Charles Dickens's letter to Mr. + J.W. Makeham, dated June 8, 1870, and an Ode to his memory. + +Hutton, Laurence.--Literary Landmarks of London. By Laurence Hutton. +London [1885], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, pp. 79-86. + +Irving, Walter.--Charles Dickens. [An essay.] By Walter Irving. +Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo. + +Jeaffreson, J. Cordy.--Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to +Victoria. By J. Cordy Jeaffreson. 2 vols. London, 1858, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 303-334. + +Jerrold, Blanchard.--The Best of All Good Company. Edited by Blanchard +Jerrold. Pt. 1., A Day with Charles Dickens. London, 1871, 8vo. + + Reprinted in 1872, 8 vo. + +Johnson, Charles Plumptre.--Hints to Collectors of original editions +of the works of Charles Dickens. By Charles Plumptre Johnson. London, +1885, 8vo. + +Johnson, Joseph.--Clever Boys of our Time, and how they became famous +men. Edinburgh [1878], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 40-63. + +Jones, Charles H.--Appleton's New Handy-volume Series. A short life of +Charles Dickens, etc. By Charles H. Jones. New York, 1880, 8vo. + +Joubert, Andre.--Andre Joubert. Charles Dickens, sa vie et ses +oeuvres. Paris, 1872, 8vo. + +Kent, Charles.--The Charles Dickens Dinner. An authentic record of the +public banquet given to Mr Charles Dickens ... prior to his departure +for the United States. [With a preface signed C.K. _i.e._, Charles +Kent.] London, 1867, 8vo. + +Kent, Charles.--Charles Dickens as a Reader. By Charles Kent. London, +1872, 8vo. + +Kitton, Fred. G.--"Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne.) A Memoir. Including a +selection from his Correspondence and Notes on his principal works. By +Fred. G. Kitton. With a portrait and numerous illustrations. London, +1882, 8vo. + + An account is given of the relationship that existed between + Dickens and Phiz. + +----Dickensiana. A Bibliography of the literature relating to Charles +Dickens and his writings. Compiled by Fred. G. Kitton. London, 1880, +8vo. + +Langton, Robert.--Charles Dickens and Rochester, etc. By Robert +Langton. London, 1886, 8vo. + +Langton, Robert.--The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, etc. By +Robert Langton. Manchester, 1883, 8vo. + +L'Estrange, A.G.--History of English Humour, etc. By the Rev. A.G. +L'Estrange. 2 vols. London, 1878, 8vo. + + Chapter 18 of vol. ii. is devoted to Dickens. + +Lynch, Judge.--Judge Lynch (of America), his two letters to Charles +Dickens (of England) upon the subject of the Court of Chancery. +London, 1859, 8vo. + +McCarthy, Justin.--A History of Our Own Times. A new edition. 4 vols. +London, 1882, 8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, vol. ii., pp. 255-259. + +McKenzie, Charles H.--The Religious Sentiments of C.D., collected from +his writings. By Charles H. McKenzie. Newcastle, 1884, 8vo. + +Mackenzie, R. Shelton.--Life of Charles Dickens, etc. By R. Shelton +Mackenzie. Philadelphia [1870], 8vo. + +Macrae, David.--Home and Abroad; Sketches and Gleanings. By David +Macrae. Glasgow, 1871, 8vo. + + Carlyle and Dickens, pp. 122-128. + +Masson, David.--British Novelists and their styles: being a critical +sketch of the history of British prose fiction. By David Masson. +Cambridge, 1859, 8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 233-253. + +Mateaux, C.L.--Brave Lives and Noble. By Miss C.L. Mateaux. London, +1883, 8vo. + + The Boyhood of Dickens, pp. 313-320. + +Mezieres, L.--Histoire Critique de la Litterature Anglaise, etc. +Seconde edition. 3 tom. Paris, 1841, 8vo. + + Dickens, Le Club Pickwick, tom. iii., pp. 469-496. + +Nicholson, Renton.--Nicholson's Sketches of Celebrated Characters. +London [1856], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens. By Renton Nicholson, p. 11. + +Nicoll, Henry J.--Landmarks of English Literature. By Henry J. Nicoll. +London, 1883, 8vo. + + Dickens noticed, pp. 378-385. + +Notes and Queries. General Index to Notes and Queries. Five Series. +London, 1856-80, 4to. + + Numerous references to C.D. + +Parley.--Parley's Penny Library. London, [1841], 18mo. + + Charles Dickens, with a portrait, vol. i. + +----Peter Parley's Annual for 1871, etc. London [1871], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as Boy and Man, pp. 320-335. + +Parton, James.--Illustrious Men and their achievements; or, the +people's book of biography. New York [1882], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens as a Citizen, pp. 831-841. + +----Some noted Princes, Authors, and Statesmen of our time. By Canon +Farrar, James T. Fields, Archibald Forbes, etc. Edited by James +Parton. New York [1886], 4to. + + Dickens with his children, by Mamie Dickens, pp. 30-47, + illustrated; Recollections of Dickens, by James T. Fields, + pp. 48-51. + +Payn, James.--The Youth and Middle Age of Charles Dickens. By James +Payn. Edinburgh, 1883, 8vo. + + Reprinted from _Chambers's Journal_, January 1872, February + 1873, March 1874. + +----Some literary recollections. By James Payn. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Chapter vi., First meeting with Dickens. Reprinted from _The + Cornhill Magazine_. + +Pemberton, T. Edgar.--Dickens's London; or, London in the works of +Charles Dickens. By T. Edgar Pemberton. London, 1876, 8vo. + +Perkins, F.B.--Charles Dickens: a sketch of his life and works. By +F.B. Perkins. New York, 1870, 12mo. + +Pierce, Gilbert A.--The Dickens Dictionary. A key to the characters +and principal incidents in the tales of Charles Dickens. By Gilbert A. +Pierce. Illustrated. Boston [U.S.], 1872, 12mo. + +----Another edition. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Poe, Edgar A.--The Literati: some honest opinions about autorial +merits and demerits, etc. By Edgar A. Poe. New York, 1850, 8vo. + + Notice of "Barnaby Rudge," pp. 464-482. + +----The works of E.A. Poe. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1875, 8vo. + + Vol. 3, Marginalia, Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop," and + Dickens and Bulwer, pp. 373-375. + +Powell, Thomas.--The Living Authors of England. By Thos. Powell. New +York, 1849, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 153-178. + +----Pictures of the Living Authors of Britain. By Thos. Powell. +London, 1851, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 88-115. + +Pryde, David.--The Genius and Writings of Charles Dickens. By David +Pryde. Edinburgh, 1869, 8vo. + +Reeve, Lovell A.--Portraits of men of eminence in literature, science, +and art, with biographical memoirs. [Vols. iii.-vi. by E. Walford]. 6 +vols. London, 1863-67, 8vo. + + Vol. iv., Charles Dickens, pp. 93-99. + +Richardson, David Lester.--Literary Recreations, etc. By David Lester +Richardson. London, 1852, 8vo. + + Dickens's "David Copperfield," and Thackeray's "Pendennis," + pp. 238-243. + +Rimmer, Alfred.--About England with Dickens. By Alfred Rimmer. With +fifty-eight illustrations. London, 1883, 8vo. + +Sala, Geo. A.--Charles Dickens. [An Essay.] London [1870], 8vo. + +Santvoord, C. Van.--Discourses on special occasions, and miscellaneous +papers. By C. Van Santvoord. New York, 1856, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens and his philosophy, pp. 333-359. + +Schmidt, Julian.--Charles Dickens. Eine charakteristik. Leipzig 1852, +8vo. + +Seymour, Mrs.--An account of the Origin of the "Pickwick Papers." By +Mrs. Seymour, etc. London, n.d. + +Shepard, William.--The Literary Life. Edited by William Shepard. Pen +Pictures of Modern Authors. New York, 1882, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 236-293. + +Shepherd, Richard Herne.--The Bibliography of Dickens. A +bibliographical list, arranged in chronological order, of the +published writings in prose and verse of Charles Dickens. From 1834 to +1880. Manchester, [1880], 8vo. + +Spedding, James.--Reviews and Discussions, literary, political, and +historical. By James Spedding. London, 1879, 8vo. + + Dickens's "American Notes," pp. 240-276. Reprinted from the + _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1843. + +Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn.--Sermon preached in Westminster Abbey, ... +the Sunday following the funeral of Dickens. London, 1870, 8vo. + +Stoddard, Richard Henry.--Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of +Thackeray and Dickens. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, +1874, 8vo. + +Taine, H.--Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise. Par H. Taine. 4 tom. +Paris, 1864, 8vo. + + Le Roman--Dickens, tom. iv., pp. 3-69. + +----History of English Literature. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1874, 8vo. + + The Novel--Dickens. Vol. iv., pp. 115-164. + +Taylor, Theodore.--Charles Dickens: the story of his life. New York, +n.d., 8vo. + +Thackeray, William Makepeace.--Early and late papers hitherto +uncollected. Boston, 1867, 8vo. + + Dickens in France (a description of a performance of + Nicholas Nickleby in Paris), pp. 95-121. Appeared originally + in _Fraser's Magazine_, March 1842. + +Thomson, David Croal.--Life and Labours of Hablot Knight Browne, +"Phiz." By David Croal Thomson. With one hundred and thirty +illustrations, etc. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Contains a series of illustrations to Dickens, printed from + the original plates and blocks. + +Timbs, John.--Anecdote Lives of the later wits and humourists. By John +Timbs. 2 vols. London, 1874, 8vo. + + Vol. ii., pp. 201-255, relate to Dickens. + +Times, The.--A second series of Essays from _The Times_. London, 1854, +8vo. + + Dickens and Thackeray, pp. 320-338. + +----Eminent Persons: biographies reprinted from the _Times_, 1870-79. +London, 1880, 8vo. + + Mr. Charles Dickens--Leading Article, June 10, 1870; + Obituary notice, June 11, 1870, pp. 8-12. + +Tooley, Mrs. G.W.--Lives, Great and Simple. London, 1884, 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, pp. 183-197. + +Ward, Adolphus W.--Charles Dickens. A lecture by Professor Ward. +[_Science Lectures_, series 2.] Manchester, 1871, 8vo. + +----Dickens. By Adolphus William Ward. [_English Men of Letters_ +Series.] London, 1882, 8vo. + +Watkins, William.--Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections +of his life. Written and compiled by William Watkins. London [1870], +8vo. + +Watt, James Crabb.--Great Novelists. Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, +Lytton. By James Crabb Watt. Edinburgh, 1880, 8vo. + +----Another Edition. London [1885], 8vo. + +Weizmann, Louis.--Dickens und Daudet in deutscher Uebersetzung. Von +Louis Weizmann. Berlin, 1880, 8vo. + +Weller, Sam.--On the Origin of Sam Weller, and the real cause of the +success of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, etc. London, +1883, 8vo. + +Welsh, Alfred H.--Development of English Literature and Language. 2 +vols. Chicago, 1882, 8vo. + + Dickens, vol. ii., pp. 438-454. + +World.--The World's Great Men: a Gallery of over a hundred portraits +and biographies, etc. London [1880], 8vo. + + Charles Dickens, with portrait, pp. 125-128. + +Yates, Edmund.--Edmund Yates: his recollections and experiences. 2 +vols. London, 1884, 8vo. + + A Dickens Chapter, vol. ii., pp. 91-128. + + +DRAMATIC. + + Plays founded on Dickens's Works. + +Yankee Notes for English Circulation: a farce, in one act. By E. +Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 46. + +The Battle of Life: a drama, in three acts. By Edward Stirling. +London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57. + +The drama founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles Dickens, called +The Battle of Life: dramatized by Albert Smith. In three acts and in +verse. London (1846), 12mo. + +La Bataille de la Vie. Piece en trois actes, etc. Par M.M. Melesville +et Andre de Goy. Paris, 1853, 8vo. + +Bleak House; or, Poor "Jo:" a drama, in four acts. Adapted from +Dickens's "Bleak House," by George Lander. (_Dicks' Standard Plays_, +No. 388.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Lady Dedlock's Secret: a drama, in four acts. Founded on an episode in +Dickens's "Bleak House." By J. Palgrave Simpson. London, n.d., 8vo. + +"Move On;" or, Jo, the Outcast: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by +James Mortimer. + + Not published. + +Poor "Jo:" a drama, in three acts. Adapted by Mr. Terry Hurst. + + Not published. + +Jo: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Charles Dickens's "Bleak +House." By J.P. Burnett. + + Not published. + +The Chimes: a Goblin Story. A drama, in four quarters, dramatised by +Mark Lemon and Gilbert A. A'Beckett. London, n.d., 8vo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. 11. + +A Christmas Carol. By C.Z. Barnett. London (1872), 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 94. + +The Cricket on the Hearth; or, a fairy tale of home: a drama, in three +acts. Dramatized by Albert Smith (_Dicks' Standard Plays_, No. 394). +London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home. By Edward Stirling. +(_Webster's "Acting National Drama_," vol. 12.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: a fairy tale of home in three chirps. By +W.T. Townsend. London (1860), 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. 44. + +Dot: a Fairy Tale of Home. A drama, in three acts. From the "Cricket +on the Hearth," by Charles Dickens. Dramatized by Dion Boucicault. + + Not published. + +David Copperfield: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's +popular work of the same name, by John Brougham. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 474.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Little Em'ly: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Dickens's "David +Copperfield," by Andrew Halliday. New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Dombey and Son: in three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham. (_Dicks' +Standard Plays_, No. 373.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Captain Cuttle: a comic drama, in one act. By John Brougham. (_Dicks' +Standard Plays_, No. 572.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +Great Expectations: a Drama, in three acts, and a prologue. Adapted by +W.S. Gilbert. + + Not published. + +The Haunted Man: a drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens's Christmas +Story. + + Not published. + +Tom Pinch: a Domestic Comedy, in three acts. Adapted by Messrs. Dilley +and Clifton, from "Martin Chuzzlewit." London, n.d. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: or, his Wills and his Ways, etc. A drama, in three +acts. By Thomas Higgie. London [1872], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition, Supplement, vol. i. + +Tartueffe Junior, von H.C.L. Klein. [Play in five acts, after "The Life +of Martin Chuzzlewit."] Neuwied, 1864, 16mo. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By E. Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 50. + +Mrs. Harris! a farce, in one act. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., +12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. 57. + +Mrs. Gamp's Party. (Adapted from "Martin Chuzzlewit.") In one act. +Manchester, n.d., 12mo. + +Mrs. Sarah Gamp's Tea and Turn Out: a Bozzian Sketch, in one act. By +B. Webster. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Acting National Drama, vol. xiii. + +Martin Chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Webb. London, +n.d., 12mo. + +Master Humphrey's Clock: a domestic drama, in two acts. By F.F. +Cooper. (_Duncombe's British Theatre_, vol. xli.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by Mr. Charles +Dickens, Jun., from his father's novel. + + Not published. + +Mrs. Jarley's Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works, as arranged by G.B. +Bartlett. In two parts. London [1873], 8vo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in four acts. Adapted from Charles +Dickens's novel of the same name, by George Lander. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 398.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Old Curiosity Shop: a drama, in two acts. By E. Stirling. London +[1868], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. lxxvii. + +Barnaby Rudge: a drama, in three acts. Adapted from Dickens's work by +Thomas Higgie. London [1854], 12mo. + +Barnaby Rudge: a domestic drama, in three acts. By Charles Selby and +Charles Melville. London [1875], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. ci. + +A Message from the Sea: a drama, in four acts. Founded on Charles +Dickens's tale of that name. By John Brougham. (_Dicks' Standard +Plays_, No. 459.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +A Message from the Sea: a drama, in three acts. By Charles Dickens and +William Wilkie Collins. London, 1861, 8vo. + +The Infant Phenomenon, etc.: a domestic piece, in one act. Being an +episode in the adventures of "Nicholas Nickleby." Adapted by H. +Horncastle. London, n.d., 8vo. + +Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in four acts. Adapted by H. Simms. +(_Dicks' Standard Plays_, No. 469.) London, n.d., 12mo. + +The Fortunes of Smike, or a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby: a drama, in +two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. ix. + +Nicholas Nickleby: a farce, in two acts. By Edward Stirling. London, +n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. v. + +Nicholas Nickleby: an Episodic Sketch, in three tableaux, based upon +an incident in "Nicholas Nickleby." + + Not published. + +L'Abime, drame en cinq actes. [Founded on the story of "No +Thoroughfare."] Paris, 1868, 8vo. + +No Thorough Fare: a drama, in five acts, and a prologue. By Charles +Dickens and Wilkie Collins. New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Identity; or, No Thoroughfare. A drama, in four acts. By Louis Lequel. +New York, n.d., 8vo. + +Bumble's Courtship. From Dickens's "Oliver Twist." A Comic Interlude, +in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London [1874], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix. + +Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in three acts. By George Almar. +London, n.d., 12mo. + + Webster's "Acting National Drama," vol. vi. + +Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress: a domestic drama, in three +acts. By C.Z. Barnett. London, n.d., 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxix. + +Oliver Twist: a serio-comic burletta, in four acts. By George Almar. +New York, n.d. + +Sam Weller, or the Pickwickians: a drama, in three acts, etc. By W.T. +Moncrieff. London, 1837, 8vo. + +The Pickwickians, or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller: a Comic Drama, +in three acts. Arranged from Moncrieff's adaptation of Charles +Dickens's work, by T.H. Lacy. London [1837], 8vo. + +The Great Pickwick Case, arranged as a comic operetta. The words of +the songs by Robert Pollitt; the music arranged by Thomas Rawson. +Manchester [1884], 8vo. + +The Pickwick Club ... a burletta, in three acts. By E. Stirling. +London [1837], 12mo. + + Duncombe's British Theatre, vol. xxvi. + +The Peregrinations of Pickwick: an acting drama. By William Leman +Rede. London, 1837, 8vo. + +Bardell _versus_ Pickwick; versified and diversified. Songs and +choruses. Words by T.H. Gem; music by Frank Spinney. Leamington +[1881], 12mo. + +The Dead Witness; or Sin and its Shadow. A drama, in three acts, +founded on "The Widow's Story" of The Seven Poor Travellers, by +Charles Dickens. The drama written by Wybert Reeve. London [1874], +12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xcix. + +A Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in two acts, etc. By Tom Taylor. London +[1860], 12mo. + + Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays, vol. xlv. + +The Tale of Two Cities: a drama, in three acts. Adapted by H.J. +Rivers, etc. London [1862], 12mo. + + +MUSICAL. + +All the Year Round; or, The Search for Happiness. A song. Words by +W.S. Passmore; music by John J. Blockley. London [1860], fol. + +Yankee Notes for English Circulation; or, Boz in A-Merry-Key. Comic +song, by J. Briton. Music by Loder. [1842.] + +Dolly Varden: a Ballad. Words and music by Cotsford Dick. London +[1880], fol. + +Maypole Hugh: a song. Words by Charles Bradberry; music by George E. +Fox. London [1881], fol. + +The Chimes Quadrille. (_Musical Bouquet_, No. 5.) London, n.d., fol. + +The Cricket on the Hearth: Quadrille. By F. Lancelott. (_Musical +Bouquet_, No. 57.) London [1846], fol. + +What are the Wild Waves Saying? A vocal duet. Written by Joseph E. +Carpenter; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol. + +A Voice from the Waves: a vocal duet, in answer to the above. Words by +R. Ryan; music by Stephen Glover. London [1850], fol. + +Little Dorrit's Vigil. A Song. Written by John Barnes; composed by +George Linley. London [1856], fol. + +Who Passes by this Road so Late? Blandois' song, from "Little Dorrit." +Words by Charles Dickens. Music by H.R.S. Dalton, London [1857], fol. + +My Dear Old Home: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on Dickens's "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], fol. + +Floating Away: a ballad. Words by J.E. Carpenter. Music by John J. +Blockley. [Founded on a passage in "Little Dorrit."] London [1857], +fol. + +The Nicholas Nickleby Quadrilles and Nickleby Galop. By Sydney Vernon. +London, 1839, fol. + +Little Nell: a melody. Composed by George Linley, and arranged for the +pianoforte by Carlo Zotti. London [1865], fol. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Mrs. Henry Dale. London [1840], fol. + + The song is introduced in chap. vi. of the "Pickwick Papers" + as a recitation by the clergyman of Dingley Dell. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by A. De Belfour. London [1843], fol. + +The Ivy Green. Arranged for the pianoforte by Ricardo Linter. London +[1844], fol. + +The Ivy Green: a song. Music by Henry Russell. London [1844], fol. + +The Ivy Green. Music by W. Lovell Phillips. London [1844], fol. + +Gabriel Grub. Cantata Seria Buffa. Adapted from "Pickwick." Music by +George E. Fox. London [1881], 4to. + +Sam Weller's Adventures: a song of the Pickwickians. (Reprinted in +_The Life and Times of James Catnach_, by Charles Hindley. London, +1878). + +The Tuggs's at Ramsgate. Versified from "Boz's" sketch. + +The Child and the Old Man: song in the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." +The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol. + +Love is not a feeling to pass away: a ballad in "The Village +Coquettes." Words by C. Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], +fol. + +My Fair Home: air in "The Village Coquettes." Words by Charles +Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +No light bound of stag or timid hare. Quintett in the Opera, "The +Village Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John +Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +Some Folks who have grown old. Song in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +There's a Charm in Spring: a ballad in "The Village Coquettes." Words +by Charles Dickens. Music by John Hullah. London [1836], fol. + +The Cares of the Day: song with chorus, in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, composed by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol. + +In Rich and Lowly Station shine. Duet in the Opera, "The Village +Coquettes." The words by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. +London [1858], fol. + +Autumn Leaves: air from the Opera, "The Village Coquettes." The words +by Charles Dickens, the music by John Hullah. London [1871], fol. + + +PARODIES AND IMITATIONS. + +Change for the American Notes; or, Letters from London to New York. By +an American Lady. London, 1843, 8vo. + +Current American Notes. By "Buz." London, n.d. + +The Battle of London Life; or, "Boz" and his Secretary. By Morna. With +a portrait and illustrations by G.A. Sala. London, 1849. + +The Battle Won by the Wind. By Ch----s D*ck*ns, etc. + + Published in _The Puppet Showman's Album_. Illustrated by + Gavarni. + +Bleak House: a Narrative of Real Life, etc. London, 1856. + +Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen. By Quiz Junior. With +woodcut illustrations. London [1838]. + +A Child's History of Germany. By H.W. Friedlaender. A Pendant to a +Child's History of England, by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861, 8vo. + +"Christmas Eve" with the Spirits ... with some further tidings of the +Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870. + +A Christmas Carol: being a few scattered staves, from a familiar +composition, re-arranged for performance, by a distinguished Musical +Amateur, during the holiday season, at H--rw--rd--n. With four +illustrations by Harry Furness. + + _Punch_, Dec. 1885, pp. 304, 305. + +Micawber Redivivus; or, How to Make a Fortune as a Middleman, etc. By +Jonathan Coalfield [_i.e._ W. Graham Simpson?]. [London, 1883], 8vo. +[Transcriber's Note: The subtitle of this volume should be "How He +Made a Fortune as a Middleman, etc."] + +Dombey and Son Finished: a burlesque. Illustrated by Albert Smith. + + _The Man in the Moon_, 1848, pp. 59-67. + +Dombey and Daughter: a moral fiction. By Renton Nicholson. London +[1850], 8vo. + +Dolby and Father, by Buz. [A satire on C. Dickens.] New York, 1868, +12mo. + +Hard Times (Refinished). By Charles Diggens. + + Parody on _Hard Times_, published in "Our Miscellany." + Edited by H. Yates and R.B. Brough, pp. 142-156. + +The Haunted Man. By CH--R--S D--C--K--N--S. New York, 1870, 12mo. + + _Condensed Novels, and Other Papers._ By F. Bret Harte. + +Mister Humfries' Clock. "Bos," Maker. A miscellany of striking +interest. Illustrated. London, 1840, 8vo. + +Master Timothy's Bookcase; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By +G.W.M. Reynolds. London, 1842. + +A Girl at a Railway Junction's Reply [to an article in the Christmas +number for 1866 of "All the Year Round," entitled "Mugby Junction."] +London [1867], 8vo. + +The Cloven Foot: being an adaptation of the English novel, "The +Mystery of Edwin Drood" to American scenes, characters, customs, and +nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870, 8vo. + +The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. By Orpheus C. Kerr. + + _The Piccadilly Annual_, Dec. 1870, pp. 59-62. + +The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood. An adaptation. By O.C. Kerr. London +[1871], 8vo. + +John Jasper's Secret: a sequel to Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, +"The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Philadelphia [1871]. + +The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Part the Second, by the Spirit Pen of +Charles Dickens, etc. Brattleboro' [U.S.], 1873. + +A Great Mystery Solved: being a sequel to "The Mystery of Edwin +Drood." By Gillian Vase. 3 vols. London, 1878, 8vo. + +Nicholas Nickelbery. Containing the adventures of the family of +Nickelbery. By "Bos." With forty-three woodcut illustrations. London +[1838], 8vo. + +Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married ... being a sequel to the +"Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby." Edited by "Guess." With +twenty-one etched illustrations by "Quiz." London, 1840. + +No Thoroughfare: the Book in Eight Acts, etc. + + _The Mask._ February 1868, pp. 14-18. + +No Throughfare. [A Parody upon Dickens's "No Thoroughfare."] By C----s +D----s, B. Brownjohn, and Domby. Second Edition. Boston [U.S.], 1868, +8vo. + +The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss, the Workhouse Boy. [Edited by +Bos.] London [1839]. 8vo. + +Posthumous Papers of the Cadger's Club. With sixteen engravings. +London [1837]. + +Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, formerly of Camden +Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by "Poz." With eleven +illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by Point. London, 1838. + +The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club. Edited by "Bos." +Illustrated with 120 engravings. 2 vols. London [1839], 8vo. + + There are, in fact, 332 engravings. + +Pickwick in America! detailing all the ... adventures of taat [_sic._] +individual in the United States. Edited by "Bos." Illustrated with +forty-six engravings. London [1840], 8vo. + +Pickwick Abroad; or, the Tour in France. By George W.M. Reynolds. +Illustrated with forty-one steel plates, by Alfred Crowquill, etc. +London, 1839, 8vo. + +--Another edition. London, 1864, 8vo. + +Lloyd's Pickwickian Songster, etc. London [1837]. + +Pickwick Songster. With portraits, designed by C.J. Grant, of "Mr. +Pickwick as Apollo," and "Sam Weller brushing boots." London, n.d. + +The Pickwick Comic Almanac for 1838. With twelve comic woodcut +illustrations, drawn by R. Cruikshank. London, 1838. + +Mr. Pickwick's Collection of Songs. Illustrated. London [1837], 12mo. + +Pickwick Treasury of Wit; or, Joe Miller's Jest Book. Dublin, 1840. + +Sam Weller's Favourite Song Book. London [1837], 12mo. + +Sam Weller's Pickwick Jest-Book, etc. With illustrations by +Cruikshank, and portraits of all the "Pickwick" characters. London, +1837. + +The Sam Weller Scrap Sheet. With forty woodcut portraits of "all the +Pickwick Characters," etc. London, n.d. + +Facts and Figures from Italy. Addressed during the last two winters to +C. Dickens, being an appendix to his "Pictures." By Don Jeremy +Savonarola. London, 1847, 8vo. + +The Sketch Book. By "Bos." Containing tales, sketches, etc. With +seventeen woodcut illustrations. London [1837], 8vo. + + +POETICAL. + +Impromptu. By C.J. Davids. + + _Bentley's Miscellany_, No. 2, March 1837, p. 297. + +Poetical Epistle from Father Prout to "Boz." A poem of seven verses. + + _Bentley's Miscellany_, Jan. 1838, p. 71. + +A Tribute to Charles Dickens. A poem of twelve lines. By the Hon. Mrs. +Norton. + + _English Bijou Almanac_, 1842. + +To Charles Dickens on his proposed voyage to America, 1842. By Thomas +Hood. + + _New Monthly Magazine_, Feb. 1842, p. 217. + +To Charles Dickens, on his "Christmas Carol." A poem of fifteen lines. +By W.W.G. + + _Illuminated Magazine_, Feb. 1844, p. 189. + +To Charles Dickens on his "Oliver Twist." By T.N. Talfourd. + + _Tragedies; to which are added a few Sonnets and Verses_, by + T.N. Talfourd, p. 244. London, 1844. 16mo. + +The American's Apostrophe to "Boz." A poem. + + _The Book of Ballads_ [_by T. Martin and W.E. Aytoun_]. + _Edited by Bon Gaultier_, pp. 81-86. London, 1845, 16mo. + +To Charles Dickens. A Sonnet. + + _Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine_, March 1845, p. 250. + +To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Sonnet. By John Forster. + + _The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith_, by John + Forster. London, 1848, 8vo. + +To Charles Dickens. A Dedicatory Poem of two verses. By James +Ballantine. + + _Poems_, by James Ballantine. Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo. + +Au Revoir. A poem of four verses. + + _Judy_, Oct. 30, 1867, p. 37. + +A Welcome to Dickens. A poem of eighty-four lines. By F.J. Parmentier. + + _Harper's Weekly_, Nov. 30, 1867, pp. 757, 758. + +Impromptu. A Humorous Verse of six lines. + + _Life of Charles Dickens_, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, p. 97. + Philadelphia [1870], 8vo. + +Charles Dickens reading to his daughters on the Lawn at Gadshill. A +poem of eight verses. By the Editor (C.W.). + + _Life_, Dec. 8, 1880, p. 1005. + +Memorial Verses, June 9, 1870. Fifteen verses. By F.T.P. + + _Daily News_, June 18, 1870, p. 5. + +Ode to the Memory of Charles Dickens. By A.B. Hume. + + _A Christmas Memorial of Charles Dickens_, by A.B. Hume. + London, 1870, 8vo. + +Charles Dickens. Born February 7, 1812. Died June 9, 1870. A memorial +poem of fourteen verses. + + _Punch_, June 18, 1870, p. 244. + +In Memoriam. June 9, 1870. A poem of six verses. + + _Graphic_, June 18, 1870, p. 678. + +Charles Dickens. Born 7th February 1812; died 9th June 1870. A +memorial sonnet. + + _Judy_, June 22, 1870, p. 91. + +In Memory. A poem of ten verses, with an illustration by F. Barnard. + + _Fun_, June 25, 1870, p. 157. + +In Memoriam. A poem of seventy lines. By H.M.C. + + _Gentleman's Magazine_, July 1, 1870, p. 22. + +To His Memory. A poem of five verses. + + _Argosy_, August, 1870, p. 114. + +A Man of the Crowd to Charles Dickens. A poem of a hundred-and-six +lines. By E.J. Milliken. + + _Gentleman's Magazine_, August 1870, pp. 277-279. + +Dickens. A memorial poem of two verses. By O.C.K. (Orpheus C. Kerr). + + _Piccadilly Annual_, Dec. 1870, p. 72. + +In Memoriam. Charles Dickens. _Obiit_, June 9, 1870. Five verses. + + _Charles Dickens, with anecdotes and recollections of his + life._ By William Watkins. London [1870], 8vo. + +Dickens in Camp. A poem of ten verses. By F. Bret Harte. + + _Poems_, by F. Bret Harte. Boston, 1871, 12mo. + +Dickens at Gadshill. A poem of eighteen verses. By C.K. (Charles +Kent). + + _Athenaeum_, June 3, 1871, p. 687. + +Death of Charles Dickens. A poem of seventeen verses. + + _The Circe and other Poems_, by John Appleby, 1873. + +At Gad's Hill. An obituary poem of fourteen verses. By Richard Henry +Stoddard. + + _Bric-a-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and + Dickens_, p. 296. By Richard Henry Stoddard. New York, 1874, + 8vo. + +At the Grave of Dickens. A sonnet. By Clelia R. Crespi. + + _Detroit Free Press_, July 1884. + +In Memoriam: Charles Dickens. Died June 9, 1870. A sonnet. By C.K. + + _Graphic_, June 6, 1885, p. 586. + + +MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES. + +Charles Dickens. _Revue Britannique_, Avril 1843, pp. +340-376.--_People's Journal_ (portrait), by William Howitt, 1846, vol. +1, pp. 8-12.--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Arthur Dudley, March 1848, +pp. 901-922--_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April 1855, pp. +451-466; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, June 1855, pp. +200-214.--_Die Gartenlaube_ (portrait), 1856, pp. 73-75.--_Saturday +Review_, May 1858, pp. 474, 475; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, +July 1858, pp. 263-265--_Town Talk_, June 1858, p. 76.--_National +Review_, vol. 7, 1858, pp. 458-486.--_Illustrated News of the World_, +Supplement, Oct. 9, 1858.--_National Review_ (by W. Bagehot), Oct. +1858, pp. 458-486; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1858, pp. +643-659; and in "Literary Studies by the late Walter +Bagehot."--_Critic_ (portrait), 1858, pp. 534-537.--_Harper's New +Monthly Magazine_, 1862, pp. 376-380.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 1, 1866, +p. 79; vol. 9, p. 225.--_Harper's Weekly_ (portrait), 1867, p. 757; +same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1867, pp. 688-690.--_North +American Review_, by C.E. Norton, April, 1868, pp. 671-672.--_Court +Suburb Magazine_, by B., Dec. 1868, pp. 142, 143.--_Contemporary +Review_, by George Stott, Feb. 1869, pp. 203-225; same article, +_Littell's Living Age_, March 1869, pp. 707-720.--_L'Illustration_ +(portrait), by Jules Claretie, 18 Juin, 1870--_Le Monde Illustre_ +(portrait), by Leo de Bernard, 25 Juin, 1870.--_Annual Register_, +1870, pp. 151-153.--_Illustrated London News_ (portrait), June, 1870, +p. 639.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 716, 717.--_Ueber Land und Meer_ +(portrait), No. 42, 1870, p. 19--_Fraser's Magazine_, July 1870, pp. +130-134.--_Putnam's Monthly Magazine_, by P. Godwin, vol. 16, 1870, p. +231.--_St. Paul's Magazine_, by Anthony Trollope, July 1870, pp. +370-375; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Sept. 1870, pp. +297-301.--_Illustrated Magazine_, by "Meteor," 1870, pp. 164, +165.--_Illustrated Review_, with portrait, vol. 1, 1870, pp. +1-4.--_Hours at Home_, by D.G. Mitchell, 1870, pp. +363-368.--_Gentleman's Magazine_ (portrait), July 1870, pp. 21, +22.--_Graphic_ (portrait), 1870, p. 687.--_Nation_ (by J.R. Dennett), +1870, pp. 380, 381.--_Temple Bar_, by Alfred Austin, July 1870, pp. +554-562.--_St. James's Magazine_ (portrait), 1870, pp. +696-699.--_Victoria Magazine_, by Edward Roscoe, vol. 15, 1870, pp. +357-363.--_Art Journal_, July, 1870, p. 224.--_Leisure Hour_ +(portrait), by Miss E.J. Whately, Nov. 1870, pp. 728-732.--_New +Eclectic_, by B. Jerrold, vol. 7, 1871, p. 332.--_London Quarterly +Review_, Jan. 1871, pp. 265-286.--_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, +June 1871, pp. 673-695; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Sept. 1871, +pp. 257, 274; _Littell's Living Age_, July 1871, pp. +29-44.--_Gentleman's Magazine_, by George Barnett Smith, 1874, pp. +301-316.--_Social Notes_, by Moy Thomas (portrait), etc., Oct. 1879, +pp. 114-117.--_Fortnightly Review_, by Mowbray Morris, Dec. 1882, pp. +762-779. + +----About England with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin +[illustrated], Aug. 1880, pp. 494-503. + +----Amateur Theatricals. _Macmillan's Magazine_, Jan. 1871, pp. +206-215; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, March 1871, pp. +322-330.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 10, p. 70. + +----As "Captain Bobadil" (portrait). _Every Saturday_, vol. 11, p. +295. + +----American Notes. _Fraser's Magazine_, Nov. 1842, pp. +617-629.--_Monthly Review_, Nov. 1842, pp. 392-403.--_Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal_, Nov. 1842, pp. 348, 349, 356, 357.--_New Monthly +Magazine_ (by Thomas Hood), Nov. 1842, pp. 396-406.--_Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine_, by Q.Q.Q., Dec. 1842, pp. 783-801.--_Tait's +Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. 9, 1842, pp. 737-746.--_Christian +Remembrancer_, Dec. 1842, pp. 679, 680.--_Edinburgh Review_, by James +Spedding, Jan. 1843, pp. 497-522. Reprinted in "Reviews and +Discussions," etc., by James Spedding; Note to the above, Feb. 1843, +p. 301.--_Eclectic Museum_, vol. 1, 1843, p. 230.--_North American +Review_, Jan. 1843, pp. 212-237.--_Quarterly Review_, March 1843, pp. +502-522.--_Westminster Review_, by H., 1843, pp. 146-160.--_New +Englander_, by J.P. Thompson, 1843, pp. 64-84.--_Southern Literary +Messenger_, 1843, pp. 58-62.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, +April 1877, pp. 462-466. + +----And Benjamin Disraeli. _Tailor and Cutter_, July 1870, pp. +401-402. + +----The Styles of Disraeli and. _Galaxy_, by Richard Grant White, Aug. +1870, pp. 253-263. + +----And Thackeray. _Littell's Living Age_, vol. 21, p. 224.--_Dublin +Review_, April 1871, pp. 315-350. + +----And Bulwer. A Contrast. _Temple Bar_, Jan. 1875, pp. 168-180. + +----Living Literati; Sir E. Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Charles Dickens. +_Eginton's Literary Railway Miscellany_, 1854, pp. 19-25, 174-188. + +----And Chauncy Hare Townshend. _London Society_, Aug. 1870, pp. +157-159. + +----And his Critics. _The Train_, by John Hollingshead, Aug. 1857, pp. +76-79; reprinted in "Essays and Miscellanies" by John Hollingshead. + +----And his Debt of Honour. _Land We Love_, vol. 5, p. 414. + +----And his Illustrators. With nine illustrations. _Christmas +Bookseller_, 1879, pp. 15-21. + +----And his Letters. Part 1. By Mary Cowden Clarke. _Gentleman's +Magazine_, Dec. 1876, pp. 708-713. + +----And his Works. _Fraser's Magazine_, April 1840, pp. 381-400. + +----Another Gossip about.--_Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. +12, 1872, pp. 78-83. + +----As an Author and Reader. _Welcome_, with portrait, vol. 12, 1885, +pp. 166-170. + +----As a Dramatic Critic. _Longman's Magazine_, by Dutton Cook, May +1883, pp. 29-42. + +----As a Dramatist and a Poet. _Gentleman's Magazine_, by Percy +Fitzgerald, 1878, pp. 61-77. + +----As a Humaniser. _St. James's Magazine_, by Arnold Quamoclit, 1879, +pp. 281-291. + +----As a Journalist. _Journalist, A Monthly Phonographic Magazine_, by +Charles Kent, in Pitman's Shorthand, vol. 1, Dec. 1879, pp. 17-25. +Done into English--_Time_, July 1881, pp. 361-374. + +----As a Literary Exemplar. _University Quarterly_, by F.A. Walker, +vol. 1, p. 91, etc. + +----As a Moralist. _Old and New_, April 1871, pp. 480-483. + +----As a Moral Teacher. _Monthly Religious Magazine_, by J.H. Morison, +vol. 44, p. 129, etc. + +----As a Reader. _The Critic_, 1858, pp. 537, 538. + +----Eine Vorlesung von Charles Dickens. _Die Gartenlaube_, by Corvin +(portrait), 1861, pp. 612-614. + +----Readings by Charles Dickens. _Land We Love_, by T.C. De Leon, vol. +4, p. 421, etc. + +----Farewell Reading in London. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, pp. 242, +260. + +----Last Readings. _Graphic_, February 1870, p. 250. + +----New Reading. Illustrated. _Tinsley's Magazine_, by Edmund Yates, +1869, pp. 60-64. + +----At Home. _Every Saturday_, vol. 2, p. 396. _Gentleman's Magazine_ +(by Percy Fitzgerald), November 1881, pp. 562-583.--_Cornhill +Magazine_ (by his eldest daughter), 1885, pp. 32-51. + +----At Gadshill Place. _Life_, 1880, pp. 1005, 1006. + +----Biographical Sketch of. _The Eclectic Magazine_ (portrait), 1864, +pp. 115-117. + +----Bleak House. _Rambler_, vol. 1. N.S., 1854, pp. 41-45. + +----Boyhood of. _Thistle_, by J.D.D., vol. 1, pp. 51-55. + +----Childhood of. (Illustrated.) _Manchester Quarterly_, by Robert L. +Langton, vol. 1, 1882, pp. 178-180. + +----Early Life of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 12, p. 60. + +----Boz. _The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, by J.T., July 1870, +pp. 14-16. + +----The "Boz" Ball. _Historical Magazine_, by P.M., pp. 110-113 and +291-294. + +----"Boz" in Paris.--_Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. 10, pp. +186-189. + +----Boz _versus_ Dickens. _Parker's London Magazine_, February 1845, +pp. 122-128. + +----Grip the Raven, in "Barnaby Rudge." _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, 542, +742, 749. + +----The Battle of Life. _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1847, pp. 55-60. + +----Bleak House. _Spectator_ (by George Brimley), Sep. 1853, pp. +923-925. Reprinted in "Essays by the late George Brimley."--_United +States Magazine and Democratic Review_, Sep. 1853, pp. +276-280.--_North American Review_ (by W. Sargent,) Oct. 1853, pp. +409-439.--_Eclectic Review_, Dec. 1853, pp. 665-679. + +----Characters in. _Putnam's Monthly Magazine_ (by C.F. Riggs), 1853, +pp. 558-562. + +----Characters from Dickens [Illustrated]. _Jack and Jill_, 1885-6. + +----The Chimes. _Dublin Review_, Dec. 1844, pp. 560-568.--_Eclectic +Review_, 1845, pp. 70-88.--_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1845, pp. 181-189; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, May 1845, pp. 33-38. + +----Christmas Books. _Union Magazine_, 1846, pp. 223-236. + +----A Christmas Carol. _Dublin Review_, 1843, pp. 510-529.--_Fraser's +Magazine_, by M.A.T., Feb. 1844, pp. 167-169.--_Hood's Magazine_, +1844, pp. 68-75.--_Knickerbocker_, by S.G. Clark, March, 1844, pp. +276-281. + +----Controversy. _American Publishers' Circular_, June 1867, pp. +68-69. + +----Cricket on the Hearth. _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, 1846, pp. +44-48.--_Oxford and Cambridge Review_, vol. 2, 1846, pp. 43-50. + +----David Copperfield. _Fraser's Magazine_, Dec. 1850, pp. 698-710; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Feb. 1851, pp. 247-258. + +----David Copperfield and Arthur Pendennis. _Southern Literary +Messenger_, 1851, pp. 499-504.--_Prospective Review_, July 1851, pp. +157-191.--_North British Review_ (by David Masson), May 1851, pp. +57-89; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, July 1851, pp. 97-110. + +----Schools; or, Teachers and Taught. _Family Herald_, July 1849, pp. +204-205. + +----The Death of. Articles reprinted from the _Saturday Review_, the +_Spectator_, the _Daily News_, and the _Times_. _Eclectic Magazine_, +Aug. 1870, pp. 217-224.--_Saturday Review_, June 11, 1870, pp. 760, +761.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9, 1870, p. 450. + +----Devonshire House Theatricals. _Bentley's Miscellany_, 1851, pp. +660-667. + +----Dictionary of (Pierce and Wheeler's). _Every Saturday_, vol. 11, +p. 258. + +----Dogs; or, the Landseer of Fiction. [Illustrated.] _London +Society_, July 1863, pp. 48-61. + +----Dombey and Son. _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, Oct. 1846, pp. +269, 270.--_North British Review_, May 1847, pp. 110-136.--_Rambler_, +vol. 1, 1848, pp. 64, 66.--_Sun_ (by Charles Kent), April 13, 1848. + +---- ----Humourists: Dickens and Thackeray (Dombey and Son and Vanity +Fair). _English Review_, Dec. 1848, pp. 257-275; same article, +_Eclectic Magazine_, March 1849, pp. 370-379. + +---- ----The Wooden Midshipman (of "Dombey and Son"). (By Ashby +Sterry.) _All the Year Round_, Oct. 1881, pp. 173-179. + +----English Magazines on, 1870. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 482. + +----Farewell Banquet to, 1867. _Every Saturday_, vol. 4, p. 705. + +----A Few Words on. _Town and Country_, by A.J.H. Crespi, N.S., vol. +1, 1873, pp. 265-273. + +----Footprints of. _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_, by M.D. Conway. +1870, pp. 610-616. + +----Forster's Life of (Vol. 1). _Examiner_, by Herbert Wilson, Dec. +1871, pp. 1217, 1218; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, Feb. 1872, +pp. 237-240.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James Payn), Jan. 1872, pp. +17-21 and 40-45.--_Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1872, pp. +125-147.--_Nation_, 1872, pp. 42, 43.--_Fortnightly Review_, by J. +Herbert Stack, Jan. 1872, pp. 117-120.--_Fraser's Magazine_, Jan. +1872, pp. 105-113; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, March 1872, pp. +277-284.--_Canadian Monthly_, Feb. 1872, pp. 179-182.--_Lakeside +Monthly_, April 1872, pp. 336-340.--_Overland Monthly_, by George B. +Merrill, May 1872, pp. 443-451. + +----Forster's Life of (vol. 2). _Examiner_, Nov. 1872, pp. 1132, +1133.--_Nation_, 1873, pp. 28, 29.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James +Payn), Feb. 1873, pp. 74-79.--_Canadian Monthly_, Feb. 1873, pp. +171-173.--_Temple Bar_, May 1873, pp. 169-185. + +----Forster's Life of (vol. 3). _Examiner_, 1874, pp. 161, +162.--_Nation_, 1874, pp. 175, 176.--_Chambers's Journal_ (by James +Payn), March 1874, pp. 177-180.--_Canadian Monthly_, April 1874, pp. +364-366. + +----Forster's Life of. _International Review_, May 1874, pp. +417-420.--_North American Review_, vol. 114, p. 413.--_Every +Saturday_, vol. 14, p. 608.--_Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Leon Boucher, +tom. 8, 1875, pp. 95-126.--_American Bibliopolist_, vol. 4, p. +125.--_Catholic World_, by J.R.G. Hassard, vol. 30, p. 692. + +----Four months with. (1842.) _Atlantic Monthly_, by G.W. Putnam. +1870, pp. 476-482, 591-599. + +----French Criticism of. _People's Journal_, vol. 5, p. 228. + +----On the Genius of. _Knickerbocker_, by F.W. Shelton, May 1852, pp. +421-431.--_Putnam's Monthly Magazine_, by G.F. Talbot, 1855, pp. +263-272.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by E.P. Whipple, May 1867, pp. +546-554.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 749-751.--_New Eclectic_, vol. 7, +1871, p. 257 + +----The "Good Genie" of Fiction. _St. Paul's Magazine_, by Robert +Buchanan, 1872, pp. 130-148; reprinted in "A Poet's Sketch-Book," +etc., by Robert Buchanan, 1883. + +----Great Expectations. _Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Sep. +1877, pp. 327-333.--_Eclectic Review_, Oct. 1861, pp. +458-477.--_Dublin University Magazine_, Dec. 1861, pp. 685-693. + +----Bygone Celebrities: I. The Guild of Literature and Art. +_Gentleman's Magazine_, by R.H. Horne, Feb. 1871, pp. 247-262. + +----Hard Times. _Westminster Review_, Oct. 1854, pp. +604-608.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, March 1877, pp. +353-358. + +----The Home of. _Hours at Home_, by John D. Sherwood, July 1867, pp. +239-242.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 228. + +----In and Out of London with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin. +[Illustrated.] May 1881, pp. 32-45. + +----In London with. _Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin. +(Illustrated). March 1881, pp. 649-664. + +----In the Editor's Chair. _Gentleman's Magazine_, by Percy +Fitzgerald, June 1881, pp. 725-742. + +----In Memoriam. By A.H. (Arthur Helps). _Macmillan's Magazine_, July +1870, pp. 236-240.--_Gentleman's Magazine_, by Blanchard Jerrold, July +1870, pp. 228-241; reprinted, with additions, as "A Day with Charles +Dickens," in the "Best of all Good Company," by Blanchard Jerrold, +1872. + +----In New York (by J.R. Dennett). _Nation_, 1867, pp. 482, 483. + +----In Poet's Corner. _Illustrated London News_, June 1870, pp. 652 +and 662, 663. + +----In Relation to Christmas. _Graphic_ Christmas Number, 1870, p, 19. + +----In Relation to Criticism. _Fortnightly Review_, by George Henry +Lewes, 1872, pp. 141-154; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1872, pp. +445-453; _Every Saturday_, vol. 12., p. 246, etc. + +----A Lost Work of (Is She His Wife? or, Something Singular). _The +Pen; a Journal of Literature_, by Richard Herne Shepherd, October +1880, pp. 311, 312. + +----Least known writings of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 471. + +----Letters of. _Fortnightly Review_, by William Minto, Dec. 1879, pp. +845-862; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, 1880, pp. 3-13; +_Eclectic Magazine_, 1880, pp. 165-175.--_Nation_, by W.C. Brownell, +December 1879, pp. 388-390.--_Literary World_, December 1879, pp. +369-371.--_Scribner's Monthly_, Jan. 1880, pp. 470, 471.--_Appleton's +Journal of Literature_, 1880, pp. 72-81.--_Contemporary Review_, by +Matthew Browne, 1880, pp. 77-85.--_North American Review_, by Eugene +L. Didier, March 1880, pp. 302-306.--_Westminster Review_, April 1880, +pp. 423-448; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, June 1880, pp. +707-720.--_Dublin Review_, by Helen Atteridge, April 1880, pp. +409-438.--_Month_, by the Rev. G. Macleod, May 1880, pp. +81-97.--_International Review_, by J.S. Morse, Jnn., vol. 8, p. 271. + +----Life and Letters of. _Catholic World_, vol. 30, pp. 692-701. + +----Little Boys and Great Men. _Little Folks_, by C.L.M. Nos. 64, 65. + +----Little Dorrit. _Edinburgh Review_, July 1857, pp. +124-156.--_Leader_, June 1857, pp. 616, 617.--_Sun_, by Charles Kent, +June 26, 1857. + +----Lives of the Illustrious. _The Biographical Magazine_, by J.H.F., +vol. 2, pp. 276-297. + +----Manuscripts, _Chambers's Journal_, Nov. 1877, pp. 710-712; same +article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1878, pp. 80-82; _Littell's Living Age_, +1878, pp. 252-254.--_Potter's American Monthly_, vol. 10, p. 156. + +----Life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. _Monthly Review_, Sept. +1844, pp. 137-146.--_National Review_, July 1861, pp. 134-150. + +----Master Humphrey's Clock. _Monthly Review_, May 1840, pp. +35-43.--_Christian Examiner_, March 1842, pp. 1-19. + +----Memories of Charles Dickens. _Atlantic Monthly_, by J.T. Fields, +Aug. 1870, pp. 235-245; same article, _Piccadilly Annual_, 1870, pp. +66-72. + +----Bygone Celebrities: II. Mr. Nightingale's Diary. _Gentleman's +Magazine_, by R.H. Horne. May 1871, pp. 660-672. + +----Modern Novelists. _Westminster Review_, Oct. 1864, pp. 414-441; +same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1865, pp. 42-59. + +----Modern Novels. Including the "Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas +Nickleby," and "Master Humphrey's Clock." _Christian Remembrancer_, +Dec. 1842, pp. 581-596. + +----Moral Services to Literature. _Spectator_, April 1869, pp. 474, +475; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, July 1869, pp. 103-106. + +----Mystery of Edwin Drood. _Graphic_, April 1870, p. 438.--_Every +Saturday_, 1870, vol. 9, pp. 291, 594.--_Spectator_, 1870, pp. 1176, +1177.--_Old and New_, (by George B. Woods), Nov. 1870, pp. +530-533.--_Southern Magazine_, 1873, vol. 14, p. 219.--_Belgravia_ (by +Thomas Foster), June 1878, pp. 453-473. + +----How "Edwin Drood" was Illustrated. [Illustrated.] _Century +Magazine_, by Alice Meynell, Feb. 1884, pp. 522-528. + +----A Quasi-Scientific Inquiry into "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." +Illustrated. _Knowledge_, by Thomas Foster, Sep. 12, Nov. 14, 1884. + +----Suggestions for a Conclusion to "Edwin Drood." _Cornhill +Magazine_, March 1884, pp. 308-317. + +----Edwin Drood. Concluded by Charles Dickens, through a Medium. +_Transatlantic_, vol. 2, 1873, pp. 173-183. + +----In France. (Acting of Nicholas Nickleby in Paris.) _Fraser's +Magazine_, March 1842, pp. 342-352. + +----Nomenclature. _Belgravia_, by W.F. Peacock, 1873, pp. 267-276, +393-402. + +----Notes and Correspondence. _Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, vol. +11, 1871, pp. 91-95. + +----Novel Reading: The works of. _Nineteenth Century_, by Anthony +Trollope, 1879, pp. 24-43. + +----Novels and Novelists. _North American Review_, by E.P. Whipple, +October 1849, pp. 383-407; reprinted in "Literature and Life," etc., +by E.P. Whipple. + +----Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge. _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. +4, 1842, p. 581.--_Pall Mall Gazette_, January 1, 1884, pp. 11, 12. + +----The Old Lady of Fetter Lane (Old Curiosity Shop). (Illustrated.) +_Pall Mall Gazette_, January 5, 1884, p. + +----Oliver Twist. _Southern Literary Messenger_, May 1837, pp. +323-325.--_London and Westminster Review_, July 1837, pp. +194-215.--_Dublin University Magazine_, December 1838, pp. +699-723.--_Quarterly Review_, June 1839, pp. 83-102.--_Christian +Examiner_, by J.S.D., Nov. 1839, pp. 161-174.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by +Edwin P. Whipple, Oct. 1876, pp. 474-479. + +----On Bells. _Belgravia_, by George Delamere Cowan, Jan. 1876, pp. +380-387. + +----Our Letter. _St. Nicholas_, by M.F. Armstrong, 1877, pp. 438-441. + +----Our Mutual Friend. _Eclectic Review_, Nov. 1865, pp. +455-476.--_Nation_, Dec. 1865, pp. 786, 787.--_Westminster Review_, +April 1866, pp. 582-585. + +----Our Mutual Friend in Manuscript. _Scribner's Monthly Magazine_, by +Kate Field, August 1874, pp. 472-475. + +----Pickwick Club. _Southern Literary Messenger_, 1836, pp. 787, 788; +Sept. 1837, pp. 525-532.--_Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature_, +vol. 32, 1837, p. 195.--_Monthly Review_, Feb. 1837, pp. +153-163.--_Eclectic Review_, April 1837, pp. 339-355.--_Chambers's +Edinburgh Journal_, April 1837, pp. 109, 110.--_London and Westminster +Review_, July 1837, pp. 194-215.--_Quarterly Review_, Oct. 1837, pp. +484-518.--_Belgravia_, by W.S. (W. Sawyer), July 1870, pp. +33-36.--_Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. 1876, pp. +219-224. + +---- ----Mr. Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby. [Illustrated.] +_Scribner's Monthly_, by B.E. Martin, Sept. 1880, pp. 641-656. + +---- ----From Faust to Mr. Pickwick. _Contemporary Review_, by +Matthew Browne, July 1880, pp. 162-176. + +---- ----German Translation of the "Pickwick Papers." _Dublin Review_, +Feb. 1840, pp. 160-188. + +---- ----The Origin of the Pickwick Papers. _Society_, by R.H. +Shepherd, Oct. 4, 1884, pp. 18-20. + +---- ----The Portrait of Mr. Pickwick. _Belgravia_, by George Augustus +Sala, Aug. 1870, pp. 165-171. + +----Pictures from Italy. _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. 13, 1846, +pp. 461-466.--_Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, 1846, pp. +389-391.--_Dublin Review_, Sept. 1846, pp. 184-201.--_Sun_, by Charles +Kent, March 1846. + +----Poetic Element in the Style of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. 811. + +----The Pressmen of, and Thackeray. _Graphic_, by T.H. North, 1881, p. +116. + +----Reception of. _United States Magazine and Democratic Review_ +(portrait), April 1842, pp. 315-320. + +----Reminiscences of. _Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_, by E.E.C., +vol. 10, 1871, pp. 336-344. + +----Remonstrance with. _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, April 1857, +pp. 490-503; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, May 1857, pp. +480-492. + +----Sale of the Effects of. _Every Saturday_, vol. 9, p. +557.--_Chambers's Journal_, 1870, pp. 522-505. + +----Seasonable Words about. _The Overland Monthly_, by N.S. Dodge, +1871, pp. 72-82. + +----Secularistic Teaching. _Secular Chronicle_, by Harriet T. Law +(portrait). Dec. 1877, pp. 289-291. + +----Shadow on Life of. _Atlantic Monthly_, by Edwin P. Whipple, Aug. +1877, pp. 227-233. + +----Sketches by Boz. _Monthly Review_, March 1836, pp. 350-357; 1837, +pp. 153-163.--_Mirror_, April 1836, pp. 249-250--_London and +Westminster Review_, July 1837, pp. 194-215.--_Quarterly Review_, Oct. +1837, pp. 484-518. + +---- ----The Boarding House (Sketches by Boz). _Chambers's Edinburgh +Journal_, April 1836, pp. 83, 84. + +---- ----Watkins Tottle and other Sketches (Sketches by Boz). +_Southern Literary Messenger_, 1836, pp. 457-460. + +----Son talent et ses oeuvres. _Revue des Deux Mondes_, by H. Taine. +Feb. 1856, pp. 618-647. + +----Studien ueber Dickens und den Humor. _Westermann's Jahrbuch der +Illustrirten Deutschen Monatshefte_, Von Julian Schmidt (portrait), +April-July 1870. + +----Studies of English Authors. No. V. Charles Dickens. In eleven +chapters. _Literary World_, by Peter Bayne, March 21 to May 30, 1879. + +----Study. _Graphic_ Christmas Number, by C.C. 1870. + +----A Tale of Two Cities. _Saturday Review_, Dec. 1859, pp. 741-743; +same article, _Littell's Living Age_, Feb. 1860, pp. 366-369. _Sun_, +by Charles Kent, Aug. 11, 1859. + +----Tales. _Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1838, pp. 75-97. + +----The Tendency of Works of. _Argosy_, by A.D., 1885, pp. 282-292. + +----The Tension in. _Every Saturday_, Dec. 1872, pp. 678-679. + +----A Tramp with. Through London by Night with the Great Novelist. +_Detroit Free Press_, April 7, 1883. + +----Tulrumble, and Oliver Twist. _Southern Literary Messenger_, May +1837, pp. 323-325. + +----The "Two Green Leaves" (portrait). _Graphic_, March 26, 1870, pp. +388-390. + +----Unpublished Letters. _Times_, Oct. 27, 1883. + +----Satire on. _Blackwood's Magazine_, by S. Warren, vol. 60, 1846, +pp. 590-605; same article, _Eclectic Magazine_, vol. 10, 1847, p. 65. + +----Use of the Bible. _Temple Bar_, September 1869, pp. 225-234; same +article, _Appleton's Journal_, Oct. 16, 23, 1869, pp. 265-267, 294, +295; _Every Saturday_, vol. 8, p. 411. + +----Verse. _Spectator_, 1877, pp. 1651-1653; same article, _Littell's +Living Age_, 1878, pp. 237-241. + +----Visit to Charles Dickens by Hans Christian Andersen. _Bentley's +Miscellany_, 1860, pp. 181-185; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, +1860, pp. 692-695, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1864, pp. 110-114. + +---- ----Andersen's. _Temple Bar_, December 1870, pp. 27-46; same +article, _Eclectic Magazine_, 1871, pp. 183-196, _Every Saturday_, +vol. 9, p. 874, etc.; Appendix to _Pictures of Travels in Sweden_, +etc. + +---- ----Pilgrimage. [Visit to Gadshill.] _Lippincott's Magazine_, by +Barton Hill. Sept. 1870, pp. 288-293. + +----Voice of Christmas Past. (Illustrated.) _Harper's New Monthly +Magazine_, by Mrs. Z.B. Buddington, January 1871, pp. 187-200. + +----With the Newsvendors.--_Every Saturday_, vol. 9. p. 318. + +----Works. _London University Magazine_, by J.S. (James Spedding), +vol. 1, 1842, pp. 378-398.--_North British Review_, by J. Cleghorn, +May 1845, pp. 65-87; same article, _Littell's Living Age_, June 1845, +pp. 601-610.--_National Quarterly Review_, by H. Dennison, 1860, vol. +1, p. 91.--_British Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1862, pp. +135-159.--_Scottish Review_, Dec. 1883, pp. 125-147. + + +VI.--CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. + +Sketches by Boz 1836-37 +Sunday under Three Heads 1836 +The Village Coquettes 1836 +The Strange Gentleman 1837 +Pickwick Papers 1837 +Oliver Twist 1838 +Sketches of Young Gentlemen 1838 +Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi 1838 +Nicholas Nickleby 1839 +Sketches of Young Couples 1840 +Master Humphrey's Clock +(The Old Curiosity Shop and +Barnaby Rudge) 1840-1 +American Notes 1842 +Christmas Carol 1843 +Martin Chuzzlewit 1844 +The Chimes 1845 +Cricket on the Hearth 1846 +Pictures from Italy 1846 +Battle of Life 1846 +Dombey and Son 1848 +Haunted Man 1848 +David Copperfield 1850 +Mr. Nightingale's Diary 1851 +Child's History of England 1852-4 +Bleak House 1853 +Hard Times 1854 +Little Dorrit 1857 +Hunted Down 1859 +Tale of Two Cities 1859 +Great Expectations 1861 +Uncommercial Traveller 1861 +Our Mutual Friend 1865 +Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870 + +_Printed by_ WALTER SCOTT, _Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne_ + + + + +GREAT WRITERS. + +A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. + +EDITED BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. 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SWINBURNE. +MATTHEW ARNOLD. +THEODORE WATTS. +ARCHBISHOP TRENCH. +J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS. +W. BELL SCOTT. +CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. +EDWARD DOWDEN. +EDMUND GOSSE. +ANDREW LANG. +GEORGE MEREDITH. +CARDINAL NEWMAN. + +_By the Late_ + +DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. +MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. +C. TENNYSON-TURNER, ETC. + +AND ALL THE BEST WRITERS OF THIS CENTURY. + + * * * * * + +London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16787.txt or 16787.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/7/8/16787 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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