UC-NRLF 
 
 B M 1D3 E37 
 

 CHARLES DICKENS AS A 
 
 READER. By CHARLES KENT. Illustrated 
 with Fac-similes. izmo. Extra cloth. $1.50. 
 
 "As vividly, perhaps, as it is possible to do so 
 through the medium of pen and ink, Mr. Kent 
 has brought before us the great lamented novelist 
 in his popular aspect as a public reader." London 
 School Board Chronicle. 
 
 "It is an intelligent, discriminating, and at 
 tractive representation of the great humorist in 
 his character as actor and reader." Boston Globe. 
 
 " The book is pleasantly and simply written, 
 and will be received with pleasure by all admirers 
 of perhaps the most finished elocutionist of his 
 day." American Athenseum. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 AS A KEADEB. 
 
 o " * I* , "> 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES KENT. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1872. 
 
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS, 
 
PR 456 
 
 Kef. 
 872. 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN FORSTER, 
 
 THE BIOGRAPHER OF CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 fcm faps m 
 
 M126C70 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As the title-page of this volume indicates, no 
 more is here attempted than a memorial of CHARLES 
 DICKENS in association with his Readings. It 
 appeared desirable that something in the shape 
 of an accurate record should be made of an 
 episode in many respects so remarkable in the 
 career of the most popular author of his genera 
 tion. A commemorative volume, precisely of 
 this character, was projected by the writer in the 
 spring of 1870. Immediately after the Farewell 
 Eeading in St. James s Hall, on the 15th of March, 
 CHARLES DICKENS wrote, in hearty approval of the 
 suggestion, " Everything that I can let you have 
 in aid of the proposed record (which, of course, 
 would be far more agreeable to me if done by 
 you than by any other hand) shall be at your 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 service." All the statistics, he added, should be 
 placed freely at the writer s command ; all the 
 marked books from which he himself read should 
 be confided to him for reference. In now realis 
 ing his long-postponed intention, the writer s 
 endeavour has been throughout to restrict the 
 purpose of his book as much as possible to 
 matters either directly or indirectly affecting 
 these famous Headings. 
 
 The Biography of CHARLES DICKENS having 
 been undertaken by the oldest and dearest of 
 his friends, all that is here attempted is to 
 portray, as accurately as may be, a single 
 phase in the career and character of one of the 
 greatest of all our English Humorists. What is 
 thus set forth has the advantage, at any rate, of 
 being penned from the writer s own intimate 
 knowledge. With the Novelist s career as a 
 Keader he has been familiar throughout. From 
 its beginning to its close he has regarded it ob 
 servantly. He has viewed it both from before 
 
PREFACE. Vli 
 
 and from behind the scenes, from the front of the 
 house as well as from within the shelter of the 
 screen upon the platform. When contrasted 
 with the writings of the Master-Humorist, these 
 readings of his, though so remarkable in them 
 selves, shrink, no doubt, to comparative insignifi 
 cance. But simply considering them as supple 
 mentary, and, certainly, as very exceptional, 
 evidences of genius on the part of a great 
 author, they may surely be regarded as having 
 been worthy of the keenest scrutiny at the time, 
 and entitled afterwards to some honest com 
 memoration. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CIIAELES DICKENS AS A READER 1 
 
 THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA . . . 36 
 THE CHRISTMAS CAROL . . . . . . .92 
 
 THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK . , . . . . . 109 
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD . . . . . . . .120 
 
 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH . , . . . . 131 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY . _ . . . . . . . 140 
 
 MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY . . , . . , . 152 
 THE CHIMES ......... 162 
 
 THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY . . . . . . 176 
 
 MR. CHOPS, THE DWARF 189 
 
 THE POOR TRAVELLER , , . . . . . . 195 
 
 MRS. GAMP 207 
 
 BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN . . . . . . 220 
 
 BARBOX BROTHERS . . . . , . . .231 
 
 THE BOY AT MTJGBY ........ 237 
 
 DOCTOR MARIGOLD . 243 
 
 SIKES AND NANCY ........ 253 
 
 THE FAREWELL READING . 263 
 
CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 AS 
 
 A KEADEE. 
 
 A CELEBRATED writer is hardly ever capable as a 
 Reader of doing justice to his own imaginings. Dr. 
 Johnson s whimsical anecdote of the author of The 
 Seasons admits, in point of fact, of a very general appli 
 cation. According to the grimly humorous old Doctor, 
 " He [Thomson] was once reading to Doddington, who, 
 being himself a reader eminently elegant, was so much 
 provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the, 
 paper from his hand, and told him that he did 
 not understand his own verses ! " Dryden, again, 
 when reading his Amphytrion in the green-room, 
 "though," says Gibber, who was present upon the 
 occasion, " he delivered the plain meaning of every 
 period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and 
 unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being 
 believed when I affirm it." Elsewhere, in his 
 Apology, when contrasting the creator with the 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 interpreter, the original delineator with the actual 
 impersonator of character, the same old stage gossip 
 remarks, how men would read Shakspere with higher 
 rapture could they hut conceive how he was played hy 
 Betterton ! " Then might they know," he exclaims, 
 with a delightful extravagance of emphasis and quaint- 
 ness of phraseology, "the one was born alone to speak 
 what the other only knew to write ! " The simple 
 truth of the matter being that for the making of a 
 consummate actor, reader, or impersonator, not only 
 is there required, to begin with, a certain histrionic 
 instinct or dramatic aptitude, but a combination very 
 rarely to be met with, indeed of personal gifts, of 
 physical peculiarities, of vocal and facial, nay, of subtly 
 and yet instantly appreciable characteristics. Referring 
 merely to those who are skilled as conversationalists, 
 Sir Richard Steele remarks, very justly, in the 
 Spectator (No. 521), that, " In relations, the force of 
 the expression lies very often more in the look, the 
 tone of voice, or the gesture, than in the words them 
 selves, which, being repeated in any other manner by 
 the undiscerning, bear a very different interpretation 
 from their original meaning." Whatever is said as 
 to all that is requisite in the delivery of an oration by 
 the master of all oratory, applies with equal distinct 
 ness to those who are readers or actors professionally. 
 All depends on the countenance, is the dictum of 
 Cicero,* and even in that, he says, the eyes bear sove- 
 
 * De Oratore iii., 59. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 3 
 
 reign sway. Elsewhere, in his great treatise, referring 
 to what was all-essential in oratorical delivery, accord 
 ing to Demosthenes, Tully, by a bold and luminous 
 phrase, declares Action to be, as it were, the speech 
 of the body, " quasi sermo corporis." Voice, eyes, 
 bearing, gesture, countenance, each in turn, all of them 
 together, are to the spoken words, or, rather than 
 that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions 
 of which those articulate sounds are but the winged 
 symbols, as to the barbed and feathered arrows are 
 the bowstring. How essential every external of this 
 kind is, as affording some medium of communication 
 between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated 
 upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of 
 the reductio ad absurdwm. Without insisting, for ex 
 ample, upon the impossibility of having a speech 
 delivered by one who is actually blind, and deaf, and 
 dumb, we need only imagine here its utterance, by some 
 wall-eyed stammerer, who has a visage about as wooden 
 and inexpressive as the figure-head of a merchantman. 
 Occasionally, it is true, physical defects have been 
 actually conquered, individual peculiarities have been 
 in a great measure counteracted, by rhetorical artifice, 
 or by the arts of oratorical delivery : instance the lisp 
 of Demosthenes, the stutter of Fox, the brogue of 
 Burke, and the burr of Brougham. 
 
 Sometimes, but very rarely, it has so happened that 
 an actor of nearly peerless excellence, that a reader of 
 all but matchless power, has achieved his triumphs, 
 
 B 2 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 has acquired his reputation, in very despite of almost 
 every conceivable personal disadvantage. Than the 
 renowned actor already mentioned, for example, 
 Thomas Betterton, a more radiant name has hardly 
 ever been inscribed upon the roll of English players, 
 from Burbage to Garrick. Yet what is the picture 
 of this incomparable tragedian, drawn by one who 
 knew him and who has described his person for us 
 minutely, meaning Antony Aston, in his theatrical 
 pamphlet, called the Brief Supplement ? Why it is 
 absolutely this, "Mr. Betterton," says his truthful 
 panegyrist, "although a superlative good actor, laboured 
 under an ill figure, being clumsily made, having a great 
 head, a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, 
 and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher 
 than his stomach. He had little eyes and a broad 
 face, a little pock-fretten, a corpulent body, and 
 thick legs, with large feet. His voice was low and 
 grumbling. He was incapable of dancing, even in a 
 country dance." And so forth ! Yet this was the 
 consummate actor who was regarded by the more dis 
 cerning among his contemporaries, but most of all by 
 the brother actors who were immediately around him, 
 as simply inimitable and unapproachable. 
 
 There was John Henderson, again, great in his time, 
 both as a tragic and a comic actor, greatest of all as a 
 reader or an impersonator. Hear him described by 
 one who has most carefully and laboriously written his 
 encomium, that is to say, by John Ireland, his bio- 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 5 
 
 grapher. What do we read of him ? That in height 
 he was below the common standard, that his frame was 
 uncompacted, that his limbs were short and ill-propor 
 tioned, that his countenance had little of that flexibility 
 which anticipates the tongue, that his eye had scarcely 
 anything of that language which, by preparing the 
 spectator for the coming sentence, enchains the atten 
 tion, that his voice was neither silvery nor mellifluous. 
 Nevertheless, by a subtlety of discrimination, that 
 seemed almost intuitive, by a force of judgment and a 
 fervency of mind, that were simply exquisite and 
 irresistible, this was the very man who could at any 
 moment, by an inflection of his voice or by the syncope 
 of a chuckle, move his audience at pleasure to tears or 
 to laughter. He could haunt their memories for years 
 afterwards with the infinite tenderness of his ejacula 
 tion as Hamlet, of " The fair Ophelia ! " He could 
 convulse them with merriment by his hesitating utter 
 ance as Falstaif of " A shirt and a half ! " Incident 
 ally it is remarked by the biographer of Henderson 
 that the qualifications requisite to constitute a reader 
 of especial excellence seem to be these, " a good ear, 
 a voice capable of inflexion, an understanding of, and 
 taste for, the beauties of the author." Added to this, 
 there must be, of course, a feeling, an ardour, an en 
 thusiasm sufficient at all times to ensure their rapid 
 and vivid manifestation. Eichly endowed in this way, 
 however, though Henderson was, his gifts were 
 weighted, as we have seen were those also of Betterton, 
 
6 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 by a variety of physical defects, some of which were 
 almost painfully conspicuous. Insomuch was this the 
 case, in the latter instance, that Tony Aston has 
 oddly observed, in regard to the all but peerless 
 tragedian, " He was better to meet than to follow ; 
 for his aspect [the writer evidently means, here, 
 when met] was serious, venerable, and majestic ; in 
 his latter time a little paralytic." Accepting at once 
 as reasonable and as accurate what has thus been 
 asserted by those who have made the art of elocution 
 their especial and chosen study for analysis, it is surely 
 impossible not to recognise at a glance how enormously 
 a reader must, by necessity, be advantaged, who, in 
 addition to the intellectual and emotional gifts already 
 enumerated, possesses those personal attributes and 
 physical endowments in which a reader, otherwise of 
 surpassing excellence, like Henderson, and an actor, 
 in other respects of incomparable ability, like Betterton, 
 was each in turn so glaringly deficient. 
 
 Whatever is here said in regard to Charles Dickens, 
 it should be borne in mind, is written and published 
 during the lifetime of his own immediate contempo 
 raries. He himself, his readings, the sound of his 
 voice, the ring of his footstep, the glance of his eye, 
 are all still vividly within the recollection of the 
 majority of those who will examine the pages of this 
 memorial. Everything, consequently, which is set 
 forth in them is penned with a knowledge of its in 
 evitable revision or endorsement by the reader s own 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 7 
 
 personal remembrance. It is in the full glare of that 
 public remembrance that the present writer refers to 
 the great novelist as an impersonator of his more 
 remarkable creations. Everybody who has seen him, 
 who has heard him, who has carefully watched him, 
 though it may be but at a single one of these memo 
 rable readings, will recognise at a glance the accuracy 
 or the inaccuracy of the delineation. 
 
 It is observable, in the first instance, in regard to 
 Charles Dickens, that he had in an extraordinary 
 degree the dramatic element in his character. It was 
 an integral part of his individuality. It coloured his 
 whole temperament or idiosyncracy. Unconsciously 
 he described himself, to a T, in Nicholas Nickleby. 
 " There s genteel comedy in your walk and manner, 
 juvenile tragedy in your eye, and touch-and-go farce 
 in your laugh," might have been applied to himself in 
 his buoyant youth quite as readily and directly as to 
 Nicholas. The author, rather than the hero of Nickleby, 
 seems, in that happy utterance of the theatrical mana 
 ger, to have been photographed. It cannot but now be 
 apparent that, as an unpremeditated preliminary to 
 Dickens s then undreamt-of career as a reader of his 
 own works in public and professionally, the Private 
 Theatricals over which he presided during several years 
 in his own home circle as manager, prepared the way 
 no less directly than his occasional Headings, later on, 
 at some expense to himself (in travelling and other 
 wise) for purely charitable purposes. His proclivity 
 
8 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 stagewards, in effect, the natural trending of liis line 
 of life, so to speak, in the histrionic or theatrical direc 
 tion, was, in another way. indicated at a yet earlier 
 date, and not one jot less pointedly. It was so, we 
 mean, at the very opening of his career in authorship, 
 when having just sprung into precocious celehrity 
 as the writer of the Sketches and of the earlier 
 numbers of Pickwick, he contributed an opera and a 
 couple of farces with brilliant success to the boards 
 of the St. James s Theatre. Braham and Parry and 
 Hullah winged with melody the words of " The Village 
 Coquettes ; " while the quaint humour of Harley ex 
 cited roars of laughter through the whimsicalities of 
 "Is She His Wife?" and "The Strange Gentle 
 man." Trifles light as air though these effusions 
 might be, the radiant bubbles showed even then, as by 
 a casual freak which way with him the breeze in his 
 leisure hours was drifting. A dozen years or more 
 after this came the private theatricals at Tavistock 
 House. Beginning simply, first of all, with his direc 
 tion of his children s frolics in the enacting of a 
 burletta, of a Cracker Bonbon for Christmas, and of 
 one of Planche s charming fairy extravaganzas, these 
 led up in the end through what must be called circuit- 
 ously Dickens s emendations of O Hara s version of 
 Fielding s burlesque of " Tom Thumb/ to the mani 
 festation of the novelist s remarkable genius for 
 dramatic impersonation : first of all, as Aaron Gurnock 
 in Wilkie Collins s " Lighthouse," and afterwards as 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 Bichard Wardour in the same author s " Frozen Deep." 
 Already he had achieved success, some years earlier, 
 as an amateur performer in characters not essentially 
 his own, as, for example, in the representation of the 
 senile blandness of Justice Shallow, or of the gasconad 
 ing humours of Captain Bobadil. Just, as afterwards, 
 in furtherance of the interests of the Guild of Litera 
 ture and Art, he impersonated Lord Wilmot in Lytton s 
 comedy of " Not so Bad as we Seem," and represented 
 in a series of wonderfully rapid transformations the 
 protean person of Mr. Gabblewig, through the medium 
 of a delightful farce called " Mr. Nightingale s Diary." 
 Whoever witnessed Dickens s impersonation of Mr. 
 Gabblewig, will remember that it included a whole 
 cluster of grotesque creations of his own. Among 
 these there was a stone-deaf old man, who, whenever 
 he was shouted at, used to sigh out resignedly, " Ah, 
 it s no use your whispering ! " Besides whom there 
 was a garrulous old lady, in herself the worthy double 
 of Mrs. Gamp ; a sort of half-brother to Sam Weller ; 
 and an alternately shrieking and apologetic valetudi 
 narian, who was, perhaps, the most whimsical of them 
 all. Nothing more, however, need here be said in 
 regard to Charles Dickens s share, either in these 
 performances for the Guild or in the other strictly 
 private theatricals. They are simply here referred 
 to, as having prepared the way by practice, for the 
 Headings, still so called, though, in all save costume 
 and general mis en scene, they were from first 
 
10 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADEK. 
 
 to last essentially and intensely dramatic representa 
 tions. 
 
 Headings of this character, it is curious to reflect for 
 a moment, resemble somewhat in the simplicity of their 
 surroundings the habitual stage arrangements of the 
 clays of Shakspere. The arena, in each instance, 
 might be described accurately enough as a platform, 
 draped with screens and hangings of cloth or of green 
 baize. The principal difference, in point of fact, be 
 tween the two would be apparent in this, that whereas, 
 in the one case any reasonable number of performers 
 might be grouped together simultaneously, in the other 
 there would remain from first to last before the audi 
 ence but one solitary performer. He, however, as a 
 mere matter of course, by the very necessity of his 
 position, would have to be regarded throughout as 
 though he were a noun of multitude signifying many. 
 Slashed doublets and trunk hose, might just possibly 
 be deemed by some more picturesque, if not in outline, 
 at least in colour and material, than the evening cos 
 tume of now-a-days. But, apart from this, whatever 
 would meet the gaze of the spectator in either instance 
 would bear the like aspect of familiarity or of incon 
 gruity, in contrast to or in association with, the cha 
 racters represented at the moment before actual con 
 temporaries. These later performances partake, of 
 course, in some sense of the nature of a monologue. 
 Besides which, they involve the display of a desk and 
 a book instead of the almost ludicrous exhibition of a 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 11 
 
 board inscribed, as the case might be, " Syracuse" or 
 " Verona." Apart from this, however, a modern read 
 ing is, in the very nature of it, like a reverting to the 
 primitive simplicity of the stage, when the stage, in 
 its social influences, was at its highest and noblest, 
 when, for the matter of that, it was all but paramount. 
 Given genius in the author and in the impersonator, 
 and that very simplicity has its enormous advantages. 
 
 The greatest of all the law-givers of art in this later 
 civilisation has more than merely hinted at what is 
 here maintained. Goethe has said emphatically, in 
 Wilhelm Meister, that a really good actor makes us 
 soon enough forget the awkwardness, even the mean 
 ness, of trumpery decorations ; whereas, he continues, 
 a magnificent theatre is precisely the very thing that 
 makes us feel the most keenly the want of actors of 
 real excellence.* How wisely in this Goethe, accord 
 ing to his wont, has spoken, we all of us, here in 
 England, know by our own experience. Of the truth 
 of his opinion we have had in this country, of late 
 years, more than one startling illustration. Archaeo 
 logical knowledge, scenic illusion, gorgeous upholstery, 
 sumptuous costumes, have, in the remembrance of 
 many, been squandered in profusion upon the boards 
 of one of our London theatres in the getting up of a 
 drama by the master-dramatist. All this has tended, 
 
 * " in gutcc 8d)auteler ntadjt un8 6atb cine cfenfce, unScIjtcfticlje tcforaticn 
 ttcrgeffen, tafyingcgen fca3 ^cfjonStc tfycvitei: fcen mancjet an gutcn gcl)auS)nc(ctn er^t 
 rccl;t fufyfbat mac(;t. ;i 
 
12 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 however, only to realise the more painfully the inade 
 quacy of the powers, no less of the leading star than 
 of his whole company, to undertake the interpretation 
 of the dramatic masterpiece. The spectacle which we 
 are viewing in such an instance is, no doubt, resplen 
 dent ; but it is so purely as a spectacle. Everything 
 witnessed is 
 
 " So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, 
 "We start, for soul is wanting there." 
 
 
 
 The result naturally is, that the public is disillusioned 
 and that the management is bankrupt. Another strik 
 ingly-contrasted experience of the present generation is 
 this, that, without any decorations whatever, enormous 
 audiences have been assembled together, in the old 
 world and in the new, upon every occasion upon which 
 they have been afforded the opportunity, to hear a story 
 related by the lips of the writer of it. And they have 
 been so assembled not simply because the story itself 
 (every word of it known perfectly well beforehand) 
 was worth hearing again, or because there was a very 
 natural curiosity to behold the famous author by whom 
 it had been penned ; but, above all, because his voice, 
 his glance, his features, his every movement, his whole 
 person, gave to his thoughts and his emotions, whether 
 for tears or for laughter, the most vivid interpre 
 tation. 
 
 How it happened, in this instance, that a writer of 
 celebrity like Charles Dickens became a reader of his 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 13 
 
 own works before large public audiences may be readily 
 explained. Before his first appearance in that character 
 professionally that is, as a public reader, on his own 
 account he had enjoyed more than twenty years of un 
 exampled popularity as a novelist. During that period 
 he had not only securely established his reputation in 
 authorship, but had evidenced repeatedly, at intervals 
 during the later portion of it, histrionic powers hardly 
 less remarkable in their way than those gifts w r hich had 
 previously won for him his wholly exceptional fame as 
 a writer of imagination. 
 
 Among his personal intimates, among all those who 
 knew him best, it had long come to be recognised that 
 his skill as an impersonator was only second to his 
 genius as a creator of humorous and pathetic character. 
 His success in each capacity sprang from his intense 
 sympathy and his equally intense earnestness. What 
 ever with him was worth doing at all, was worth doing 
 thoroughly. Anything he undertook, no matter what, 
 he went in at, according to the good old sea phrase, 
 with a will. He always endeavoured to accomplish 
 whatever had to be accomplished as well as it could 
 possibly be effected within the reach of his capabilities. 
 Whether it were pastime or whether it were serious 
 business, having once taken anything in hand, he 
 applied to it the whole of his energies. Hence, as an 
 amateur actor, he was simply unapproachable. He 
 passed, in fact, be} r ond the range of mere amateurs, 
 and was brought into contrast by right, with the most 
 
14 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 gifted professionals among his contemporaries. Hence, 
 again, as an after-dinner speaker, he was nothing less 
 than incomparable. "He spoke so well," Anthony 
 Trollope has remarked, "that a public dinner became 
 a blessing instead of a curse if he were in the chair 
 had its compensating twenty minutes of pleasure, even 
 if he were called upon to propose a toast or thank 
 the company for drinking his health." He did nothing 
 by halves, but everything completely. How completely 
 he gave himself up to the delivery of a speech or of 
 a reading, Mr. Arthur Helps has summed up in less 
 than a dozen words of singular emphasis. That keen 
 observer has said, indeed quite trulv, of Dickens, 
 "When he read or spoke, the whole man read or 
 spoke." It was thus with him repeatedly, and always 
 delightfully, in mere chance conversation. An incident 
 related by him often became upon the instant a little 
 acted drama. His mimetic powers were in many 
 respects marvellous. In voice, in countenance, in 
 carriage, almost, it might be said, at moments, in 
 stature, he seemed to be a Proteus. 
 
 According to a curious account which has been 
 happily preserved for us in the memoirs of the 
 greatest reader of the last century, Henderson first 
 of all exhibited his elocutionary skill by reciting (it 
 was at Islington) an Ode on Shakspere. So exactly 
 did he deliver this in Garrick s manner, that the 
 acutest ear failed to distinguish the one from the other. 
 One of those present declared, years afterwards, that 
 
CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 15 
 
 he was certain the speaker must le either Garrick or 
 Antichrist. 
 
 Imitative powers not one iota less extraordinary in 
 their way were, at any moment, seemingly, at the 
 command of the subject of this memorial. In one or 
 two instances that might be named the assumption 
 was all but identity. An aptitude of this particular 
 kind, as everyone can appreciate upon the instant, 
 would by necessity come wonderfully in aid of the 
 illusive effect produced by readings that were in point 
 of fact the mere vehicle or medium for a whole crowd 
 of vivid impersonations. Anyone, moreover, possess 
 ing gifts like these, of a very peculiar description, not 
 only naturally but inevitably enjoys himself every op 
 portunity that may arise for displaying them to those 
 about him, to his friends and intimates. "Man is of 
 a companionable, conversing nature," says Goethe 
 in his novel of The Renunciants, "his delight is 
 great when he exercises faculties that have been given 
 him, even though nothing further came of it." Seeing 
 that something further readily did come of it in the in 
 stance of Charles Dickens, it can hardly be matter for 
 surprise that the readings and impersonations which 
 were first of all a home delight, should at length 
 quite naturally have opened up before the popular 
 author what was for him an entirely new, but at the 
 same time a perfectly legitimate, career professionally. 
 
 Recitations or readings of his own works in public 
 by a great writer are, in point of fact, as old as 
 
16 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 literature itself. They date back to the very origin 
 of polite letters, both prose and poetic. It matters 
 nothing whether there was one Homer, or whether 
 there may have been a score of Homers, so far as the 
 fact of oral publication applies to the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey, nearly a thousand years (900) before the 
 foundation of Christianity. By the lips of a single 
 bard, or of a series of bards, otherwise of public de- 
 claimers or reciters, the world was first familiarised 
 with the many enthralling tales strung together in those 
 peerless masterpieces. Again, at a period of very nearly 
 five hundred years (484) before the epoch of the Ke- 
 demption, the Father of History came to lay the founda 
 tion, as it were, of the whole fabric of prose literature 
 in a precisely similar manner that is to say, by public 
 readings or recitations. In point of fact, the instance 
 there is more directly akin to the present argument. 
 A musical cadence, or even possibly an instrumental 
 accompaniment, may have marked the Homeric chant 
 about Achilles and Ulysses. Whereas, obviously, in 
 regard to Herodotus, the readings given by him at 
 the Olympic games were readings in the modern 
 sense, pure and simple. Lucian has related the inci 
 dent, not only succinctly, but picturesquely. 
 
 Herodotus, then in his fiftieth year, reflected for a 
 long while seriously how he might, with the least 
 trouble and in the shortest time, win for himself and 
 his writings a large amount of glory and reputation. 
 Shrinking from the fatigue involved in the labour of 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 17 
 
 visiting successively one after another the chief cities 
 of the Athenians, the Corinthians, and the Lacedae 
 monians, he ingeniously hit upon the notion of 
 appearing in person at the Olympian Games, and of 
 there addressing himself simultaneously to the very pick 
 and flower of the whole Greek population. Providing 
 himself beforehand with the choicest portions or select 
 passages from his great narrative, he there read or 
 declaimed those fragments of his History to the as 
 sembled multitude from the stage or platform of the 
 theatre. And he did this, moreover, with such an 
 evident captivation about him, not only in the style of 
 his composition, but in the very manner of its delivery, 
 that the applause of his hearers interrupted him re 
 peatedly the close of these recitations by the great 
 author-reader being greeted with prolonged and re 
 sounding acclamations. Nay, not only are these 
 particulars related as to the First Eeading recorded 
 as having been given by a Great Author, but, further 
 than that, there is the charming incident described 
 of Thucydides, then a boy of fifteen, listening en 
 tranced among the audience to the heroic occurrences 
 recounted by the sonorous and impassioned voice 
 of the annalist, and at the climax of it all burst 
 ing into tears. Lucian s comment upon that earliest 
 Reading might, with a change of names, be applied 
 almost word for word to the very latest of these 
 kinds of intellectual exhibitions. " None were igno 
 rant," he says, "of the name of Herodotus; nor 
 
18 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADEE. 
 
 was there a single person in Greece who had not 
 either seen him at the Olympics, or heard those speak 
 of him that came from thence : so that in what place 
 soever he came the inhabitants pointed with their 
 linger, saying This is that Herodotus who has written 
 the Persian Wars in the Ionic dialect, this is he who 
 has celebrated our victories. Thus the harvest which 
 he reaped from his histories was, the receiving in one 
 assembly the general applause of all Greece, and the 
 sounding his fame, not only in one place and by a 
 single trumpet, but by as many mouths as there had 
 been spectators in that assembly." As recently as 
 within these last two centuries, indeed, both in the 
 development of the career of Moliere and in the 
 writing of his biography jby Voltaire, the whole ques 
 tion as to the propriety of a great author becoming 
 the public interpreter of his own imaginings has been, 
 not only discussed, but denned with precision and in 
 the end authoritatively proclaimed. Voltaire, in truth, 
 has significantly remarked, in his " Vie de Moliere," 
 when referring to Poquelin s determination to become 
 Comedian as well as Dramatist, that among the Athe 
 nians, as is perfectly well known, authors not only fre 
 quently performed in their own dramatic productions, 
 but that none of them ever felt dishonoured by speaking 
 gracefully in the presence and hearing of their fellow- 
 citizens.* In arriving at this decision, however, 
 
 * "On salt quo cliez les Athenians, les auteurs jonaient souvent dans 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 19 
 
 it will be remarked that one simple but important 
 proviso or condition is indicated not to be dis 
 honoured they must speak with grace, that is, effec 
 tively. Whenever an author can do this, the fact 
 is proclaimed by the public themselves. Does he lack 
 the dramatic faculty, is he wanting in elocutionary 
 skill, is his delivery dull, are his features inexpressive, 
 is his manner tedious, are his readings marked only by 
 their general tameness and mediocrity, be sure of this, 
 he will speedily find himself talking only to empty 
 benches, his enterprise will cease and determine, his 
 name will no longer prove an attraction. Abortive 
 adventures of this kind have in our own time been 
 witnessed. 
 
 With Charles Dickens s Readings it was entirely 
 different. Attracting to themselves at the outset, 
 by the mere glamour of his name, enormous audiences, 
 they not only maintained their original prestige 
 during a long series of years during an interval 
 of fifteen years altogether but the audiences brought 
 together by them, instead of showing any signs 
 of diminution, very appreciably, on the contrary, in 
 creased and multiplied. Crowds were turned away 
 from the doors, w r ho w T ere unable to obtain admittance. 
 The last reading of all collected together the largest 
 audience that has ever been assembled, that ever can 
 by possibility be assembled for purely reading purposes, 
 
 leurs pieces, et qu ils n etoient point deshonores pour parler avec grace 
 devant leurs concitoyens." 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 within the walls of St. James s Hall, Piccadilly. 
 Densely packed from floor to ceiling, these audiences 
 were habitually wont to hang in breathless expectation 
 upon every inflection of the author-reader s voice, 
 upon every glance of his eye, the words he was about 
 to speak being so thoroughly well remembered by the 
 majority before their utterance that, often, the rippling 
 of a smile over a thousand faces simultaneously antici 
 pated the laughter which an instant afterwards greeted 
 the words themselves when they were articulated. 
 
 Altogether, from first to last, there must have been 
 considerably more than Four Hundred very nearly, 
 indeed, Five Hundred of these Headings, each one 
 among them in itself a memorable demonstration. 
 Through their delightful agency, at the very outset, 
 largess was scattered broadcast, abundantly, and with a 
 wide open hand, among a great variety of recipients, 
 whose interests, turn by turn, were thus exclusively 
 subserved, at considerable labour to himself, during a 
 period of several years, by this large-hearted entertainer. 
 
 Eventually the time arrived when it became neces 
 sary to decide, whether an exhausting and unremu- 
 nerative task should be altogether abandoned, or 
 whether readings hitherto given solely for the benefit of 
 others, should be thenceforth adopted as a perfectly 
 legitimate source of income for himself professionally. 
 
 The ball was at his feet : should it be rolled on, or 
 fastidiously turned aside by reason of certain fantastic 
 notions as to its derogating, in some inconceivable 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 21 
 
 way, from the dignity of authorship ? That was the 
 alternative in regard to which Dickens had to decide, 
 and upon which he at once, as became him, decided 
 manfully. The ball was rolled on, and, as it rolled, 
 grew in bulk like a snowball. It accumulated for him, 
 as it advanced, and that too within a wonderfully brief 
 interval, a very considerable fortune. It strengthened 
 and extended his already widely-diffused and intensely 
 personal popularity. By making him, thus, distinctly 
 a Reader himself, it brought him face to face with vast 
 multitudes of his own readers in the Old World and 
 in the New, in all parts of the United Kingdom, and 
 at last, upon the occasion of his second visit to 
 America, an expedition adventured upon expressly to 
 that end, in all parts of the United States. 
 
 And these Readings were throughout so conspicu 
 ously and so radiantly a success, that even in the 
 recollection of them, now that they are things of the 
 past, it may be said that they have already beneficially 
 influenced, and are still perceptibly advancing, the 
 wider and keener appreciation of the writings them 
 selves. In its gyrations the ball then rolling at the 
 Reader s foot imparted a momentum to one far nobler 
 and more lasting that of the Novelist s reputation, 
 one that in its movement gives no sign of slackening 
 " labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum." 
 
 The long continuance of the remarkable success 
 attendant upon the Readings all through, is only to be 
 explained by the extraordinary care and earnestness 
 
22 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER, 
 
 the Reader lavished continuously upon his task when 
 once it had been undertaken. In this he was only in 
 another phase of his career, consistently true to the 
 one simple rule adopted by him as an artist through 
 out. What that rule was anyone might see at a glance 
 on turning over the leaves of one of his books, it 
 matters not which, in the original manuscript. There, 
 the countless alterations, erasures, interpolations, 
 transpositions, interlineations, shew plainly enough 
 the minute and conscientious thought devoted to the 
 perfecting, so far as might be in any way possible, of 
 the work of composition. What reads so unaffectedly 
 and so felicitously, it is then seen, is but the result of 
 exquisite consideration. It is Sheridan s whimsical 
 line which declares that, 
 
 "Eas} writing s cursed hard reading." 
 
 And it is Pope who summarizes the method by which 
 not " easy writing" but " ease In writing " is arrived 
 at, where it is said of those who have acquired a 
 mastery of the craft, 
 
 " They polish all with so much life and ease, 
 You think tis nature and a knack to please : 
 But ease in writing flows from art, not chance ; 
 As those move easiest who have Icarn dto dance." 
 
 Precisely the same elaboration of care, which all 
 through his career was dedicated by Charles Dickens 
 to the most delightful labour of his life, that of writ 
 ing, w r as accorded by him to the lesser but still 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 23 
 
 eminently intellectual toil of preparing liis Readings 
 for representation. It was not by any means that, 
 having written a story years previously, he had, in his 
 new capacity as a reciter, merely to select two or three 
 chapters from it, and read them off with an air of 
 animation. Virtually, the fragmentary portions thus 
 taken from his larger works were re -written by him, 
 with countless elisions and eliminations after having 
 been selected. Reprinted in their new shape, each 
 as "A Reading," they were then touched and re 
 touched by their author, pen in hand, until, at the 
 end of a long succession of revisions, the pages came 
 to be cobwebbed over with a wonderfully intricate 
 network of blots and lines in the way of correction or 
 of obliteration. Several of the leaves in this way, 
 what with the black letter-press on the white paper, 
 being scored out or interwoven with a tracery in red 
 ink and blue ink alternately, present to view a cu 
 riously parti-coloured or tesselated appearance. As a 
 specimen page, however, will afford a more vivid illus 
 tration upon the instant of what is referred to, than 
 could be conveyed by any mere verbal description, a 
 fac-simile is here introduced of a single page taken 
 from the " Reading of Little Dombey." 
 
 Whatever thought was lavished thus upon the 
 composition of the Readings, was lavished quite as 
 unstintingly upon the manner of their delivery. 
 Thoroughly natural, impulsive, and seemingly artless, 
 though that manner always appeared at the moment, 
 
24 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 it is due to the Reader as an artist to assert that 
 it was throughout the result of a scarcely credible 
 amount of forethought and preparation. It is thus 
 invariably indeed with every great proficient in the 
 histrionic art, even with those who are quite erro 
 neously supposed by the outer public to trust nearly 
 everything to the momentary impulses of genius, and 
 who are therefore presumed to disdain anything 
 whatever in the way either of forethought or of actual 
 preparation by rehearsal. 
 
 According to what is, even down to this present day, 
 very generally conjectured, Edmund Kean, one of the 
 greatest tragedians who ever trod the stage, is popu 
 larly imagined to have always played simply, as might 
 be said, hap-hazard, trusting himself to the spur of 
 the moment for throwing himself into a part passion 
 ately; the fact being exactly the reverse in his 
 regard, according to the earliest and most accurate of 
 his biographers. Erratic, fitful though the genius of 
 Edmund Kean unquestionably was rendering him 
 peerless as Othello, incomparable as Overreach we 
 are told in Mr. Procter s life of him, that "lie 
 studied long and anxiously," frequently until many 
 hours after midnight.* No matter what his occu 
 pations previously might have been, or how profound 
 his exhaustion through rehearsing in the forenoon, 
 and performing in the evening, and sharing in con 
 vivialities afterwards, Barry Cornwall relates of him 
 * Barry Cornwall s Life of Edmund Kean, Vol. II. p. 85. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 25 
 
 that he would often begin to study when his family 
 had retired for the night, practising in solitude, after 
 he had transformed his drawing-room into a stage 
 in miniature. " Here," says his biographer, " with 
 a dozen candles, some on the floor, some on the 
 table, and some on the chimney-piece, and near the 
 pier-glass, he would act scene after scene : consider 
 ing the emphasis, the modulation of the verse, and the 
 fluctuations of the character with the greatest care." 
 And this, remember, has relation to one who was 
 presumably about the most spontaneous and impulsive 
 actor who ever flashed meteor-like across the boards 
 of a theatre. Whoever has the soul of an artist 
 grudges no labour given to his art, be he reader or 
 actor, author or tragedian. Charles Dickens certainly 
 spared none to his Readings in his conscientious en 
 deavour to give his own imaginings visible and audible 
 embodiment. The sincerity of his devotion to his 
 task, when once it had been taken in hand, was in its 
 way something remarkable. 
 
 Acting of all kinds has been pronounced by Mrs. 
 Butler herself in her own good day a rarely accom 
 plished reader and a fine tragic actress "a monstrous 
 anomaly." As illustrative of her meaning in which 
 phrase, she then adds, "John Kemble and Mrs. 
 Siddons were always in earnest in what they were 
 about; Miss O Neil used to cry bitterly in all her 
 tragic parts ; whilst Garrick could be making faces 
 * Fanny Kcmble s Journal, Vol. II. p. 130. 
 
26 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 and playing tricks in the middle of Iris finest points, 
 and Kean would talk gibberish while the people were 
 in an uproar of applause at his." Fanny Kemble 
 further remarks: In my own individual instance, 
 I know that sometimes I could turn every word I 
 am saying into burlesque," immediately observing 
 here, in a reverential parenthesis " (never Shakspere, 
 by-the-bye) and at others my heart aches and I cry 
 real, bitter, warm tears a-s earnestly as if I was in 
 earnest." Reading which last sentence, one might 
 very safely predicate that in the one instance, where 
 she could turn her words into burlesque, she would be 
 certain to act but indifferently, whereas in the other, 
 with the hot, scalding tears running down her face, 
 she could not by necessity do otherwise than act to 
 admiration. 
 
 So thorough and consistent throughout his reading 
 career was the sincerity of Dickens in his impersona 
 tions, that his words and looks, his thoughts and emo 
 tions were never mere make-believes, but always, so far 
 as the most vigilant eye or the most sensitive ear 
 could detect, had their full and original significance. 
 
 "With all respect for Miss O Neil s emotion, and for 
 that candidly confessed to by Mrs. Butler, as having 
 been occasionally evidenced by herself, the true art, 
 we should have said, subsists in the indication and the 
 repression, far rather than in the actual exhibition or 
 manifestation of the emotions that are to be represented. 
 Better by far than the familiar si vis me flere axiom of 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 27 
 
 Horace, who there tells us, "If you would have me 
 weep, you must first weep yourself," is the sagacious 
 comment on it in the Tatler, where (No. 68) the 
 essayist remarks, with subtle discrimination : " The 
 true art seems to be when you would have the person 
 you represent pitied, you must show him at once, in 
 the highest grief, and struggling to bear it with 
 decency and patience. In this case," adds the writer, 
 " we sigh for him, and give him every groan he sup 
 presses." As for the extravagant idea of any artist, 
 however great, identifying himself for the time being 
 with the part he is enacting, who is there that can 
 wonder at the snort of indignation with which Doctor 
 Johnson, talking one day about acting, asked Mr. 
 Kemble, " Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who 
 believe yourself transformed into the very character 
 you represent?" Kemble answering, according to 
 Boswell, that he had never himself felt so strong a 
 persuasion " To be sure not, sir," says Johnson, 
 "the thing is impossible." Adding, with one of his 
 dryly comical extravagances : " And if Garrick really 
 believed himself to be that monster Richard the Third, 
 he deserved to be hanged every time he performed 
 it." What Dickens himself really thought of these 
 wilder affectations of intensity among impersonators, 
 is, with delicious humour, plainly enough indicated 
 through that preposterous reminiscence of Mr. 
 Crummies, " We had a first-tragedy man in our com 
 pany once, who, when he played Othello, used to 
 
28 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 black himself all over ! But that s feeling a part, and 
 going into it as if you meant it ; it isn t usual more s 
 the pity." Thoroughly giving himself up to the 
 representation of whatever character he was endea 
 vouring at the moment to portray, or rather to im 
 personate, Charles Dickens so completely held his 
 judgment the while in equipoise, as master of his two 
 fold craft that is, both as creator and as elocutionist, 
 as author and as reader that, as an invariable rule, he 
 betrayed neither of those signs of insincerity, by the 
 inadvertent revelation of which all sense of illusion 
 is utterly and instantly dissipated. 
 
 Whatever scenes he described, those scenes his 
 hearers appeared to be actually witnessing themselves. 
 He realised everything in his own mind so intensely, 
 that listening to him we realised what he spoke of by 
 sympathy. Insomuch that one might, in his own 
 words, say of him, as David Copperfield says of Mr. 
 Peggotty, when the latter has been recounting little 
 Emily s wanderings : " He saw everything he related. 
 It passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that, in 
 the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what 
 he described to me with greater distinctness than I 
 can express. I can hardly believe writing now long 
 afterwards but that I was actually present in those 
 scenes ; they are impressed upon me with such an 
 astonishing air of fidelity." While, on the one hand, 
 he never repeated the words that had to be delivered 
 phlegmatically, or as by rote ; on the other hand, 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 29 
 
 lie never permitted voice, look, gesture, to pass the 
 limits of discretion, even at moments the most im 
 passioned ; as, for example, where Nancy, in the famous 
 murder-scene, shrieked forth her last gasping and de 
 spairing appeals to her brutal paramour. The same 
 thing may be remarked again in regard to all the 
 more tenderly pathetic of his delineations. His tones 
 then were often subdued almost to a whisper, every 
 syllable, nevertheless, being so distinctly articulated 
 as to be audible in the remotest part of a vast hall 
 like that in Piccadilly. 
 
 Whatever may be insinuated in regard to those par 
 ticular portions of the writings of our great novelist by 
 cynical depredators, who have not the heart to 
 recognise as did Lord Jeifrey, for instance, one of 
 the keenest and shrewdest critics of his age the 
 exquisite pathos of a death-scene like that of little 
 Nell or of little Paul Dombey, in the utterance by 
 himself of those familiar passages nothing but the 
 manliest emotion was visible and audible from first -to 
 last. Insomuch was this the case, that the least im 
 pressionable of his hearers might readily have echoed 
 those noble words, written years ago, out of an over 
 flowing heart, in regard to Charles Dickens, by his great 
 rival and his intense admirer, W. M. Thackeray : "In 
 those admirable touches of tender humour, who ever 
 equalled this great genius ? There are little words and 
 phrases in his books which are like personal benefits to 
 the reader. What a place to hold in the affections of 
 
30 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 men ! What an awful responsibility hanging over a 
 writer ! " And so on. Thackeray saying all this ! 
 Thackeray speaking thus in ejaculatory sentences indi 
 cative of his gratitude and of his admiration ! Passages, 
 that to men like William Thackeray and Francis Jeffrey 
 were expressive only of inimitable tenderness, might be 
 read dry-eyed by less keen appreciators, from the 
 printed page, might even be ludicrously depreciated by 
 them as mere mawkish sentimentality. But/even among 
 these, there was hardly one who could hear those very 
 passages read by Dickens himself without recognising 
 at last, what had hitherto remained unperceived and 
 unsuspected, the gracious and pathetic beauty animat 
 ing every thought and every word in the original 
 descriptions. Equally, it may be said, in the delinea 
 tion of terror and of pathos, in the murder-scene from 
 Oliver Twist, and in the death-scene of little Dombey, 
 the novelist-reader attained success by the simple 
 fact of his never once exaggerating. 
 
 It has been w r ell remarked by an eminent authority 
 upon the art of elocution, whose opinions have been 
 already quoted in these pages, to wit, John Ireland, that 
 " There is a point to which the passions must be raised 
 to display that exhibition of them which scatters con 
 tagious tenderness through the whole theatre, but 
 carried, though but the breadth of a hair, beyond that 
 point, the picture becomes an overcharged caricature, 
 as likely to create laughter as diffuse distress." Never, 
 perhaps, has that subtle boundary-line been hit with 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADEK. 31 
 
 more admirable dexterity, just within the hair s breadth 
 here indicated, than it was, for example, in Macready s 
 impersonation of Virginias, where his scream in the 
 camp-scene betrayed his instantaneous appreciation of 
 the wrong meditated by Appius Claudius against the 
 virginal purity of his daughter. As adroitly, in his 
 way, as that great master of his craft, who was for so 
 many years among his most cherished friends and 
 intimates, Dickens kept within the indicated lines of 
 demarcation, beyond which no impersonator, whether 
 upon the stage or upon the platform, can ever pass 
 for a single instant with impunity. 
 
 Speaking of Munden, in one of the most charming 
 of his Essays, Charles Lamb has said, " I have seen 
 him diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the 
 pulse of a crowded house beat like that of one man ; 
 when he has come in aid of the pulpit, doing good to 
 the moral heart of a people." The words, applied thus 
 emphatically to the humorous and often grotesque 
 comedian, are exactly applicable to Dickens as a 
 Header. And, as Elia remarks of Munden at another 
 moment, " he is not one, but legion ; not so much a 
 comedian as a company " any one might say identi 
 cally the same of Dickens, who bears in remembrance 
 the wonderful variety of his impersonations. 
 
 Attending his Readings, character after character 
 appeared before us, living and breathing, in the flesh, 
 as we looked and listened. It mattered nothing, just 
 simply nothing, that the great author was there all the 
 
32 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 while before his audience in his own identity. His 
 evening costume was a matter of no consideration 
 the flower in his button-hole, the paper-knife in his 
 hand, the book before him, that earnest, animated, 
 mobile, delightful face, that we all knew by heart 
 through his ubiquitous photographs all were equally 
 of no account whatever. We knew that he alone was 
 there all the time before us, reading, or, to speak more 
 accurately, re-creating for us, one and all while his 
 lips were articulating the familiar words his hand had 
 written so many years previously the most renowned 
 of the imaginary creatures peopling his books. 
 Watching him, hearkening to him, w r hile he stood there 
 unmistakably before his audience, on the raised plat 
 form, in the glare of the gas-burners shining down 
 upon him from behind the pendant screen immediately 
 above his head, his individuality, so to express it, 
 altogether disappeared, and we saw before us instead, 
 just as the case might happen to be, Mr. Pickwick, or 
 Mrs. Gamp, or Dr. Marigold, or little Paul Dombey, 
 or Mr. Squeers, or Sam Weller, or Mr. Peggotty, or 
 some other of those immortal personages. We were 
 as conscious, as though we saw them, of the bald head, 
 the spectacles, and the little gaiters of Mr. Pickwick 
 of the snuffy tones, the immense umbrella, and the 
 voluminous bonnet and gown of Mrs. Gamp of the 
 belcher necktie, the mother-of-pearl buttons and the 
 coloured waistcoat of the voluble Cheap Jack of little 
 Paul s sweet face and gentle accents of the one eye 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 33 
 
 and the well-known pair of Wellingtons, adorning the 
 head and legs of Mr. Wackford Sqneers of Sam s 
 imperturbable nonchalance and of Mr. Peggotty s 
 hearty, briny, sou -wester of a voice and general 
 demeanour ! 
 
 Even the lesser characters those which are intro 
 duced into the original works quite incidentally, 
 occupying there a wholly subordinate position, filling 
 up a space in the crowded tableaux, always in the 
 background were then at last brought to the fore in 
 the course of these Headings, and suddenly and for the 
 first time assumed to themselves a distinct importance 
 and individuality. Take, for instance, the nameless 
 lodging-housekeeper s slavey, who assists at Bob 
 Sawyer s party, and who is described in the original 
 work as "a dirty, slipshod girl, in black cotton stock 
 ings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter 
 of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circum 
 stances." No one had ever realised the crass stupidity 
 of that remarkable young person dense and impene 
 trable as a London fog until her first introduction in 
 these Readings, with "Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis 
 Raddle wants to speak to you! " the dull, dead-level 
 of her voice ending in the last monosyllable with a 
 series of inflections almost amounting to a chromatic 
 passage. Mr. Justice Stareleigh, again ! nobody had 
 ever conceived the world of humorous suggestiveness 
 underlying all the words put into his mouth until the 
 author s utterance of them came to the readers of 
 
 D 
 
34- CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 Pickwick with the surprise of a revelation. Jack 
 Hopkins in like manner nobody, one might say, had 
 ever dreamt of as he was in Dickens s inimitably droll 
 impersonation of him, until the lights and shades of the 
 finished picture were first of all brought out by the 
 Beading. Jack Hopkins ! with the short, sharp, quick 
 articulation, rather stiff in the neck, with a diyly comic 
 look just under the e} T elids, with a scarcely expressible 
 relish of his own for every detail of that wonderful 
 story of his about the " neckluss," an absolute and 
 implicit reliance upon Mr. Pickwick s gullibility, and 
 an inborn and ineradicable passion for chorusing. 
 
 As with the characters, so with the descriptions. 
 One was life itself, the other was not simply word- 
 painting, but realisation. There was the Great Storm 
 at Yarmouth, for example, at the close of David 
 Copperfield. Listening to that Reading, the very 
 portents of the coming tempest came before us ! 
 the flying clouds in wild and murky confusion, the 
 moon apparently plunging headlong among them, " as 
 if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, 
 she had lost her way and were frightened," the wind 
 rising " with an extraordinary great sound," the 
 sweeping gusts of rain coming before it " like showers 
 of steel," and at last, down upon the shore and by the 
 surf among the turmoil of the blinding wind, the flying 
 stones and sand, "the tremendous sea itself," that 
 came rolling in with an awful noise absolutely con 
 founding to the beholder ! In all fiction there is 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 35 
 
 110 grander description than that of one of the 
 sublimest spectacles in nature. The merest frag 
 ments of it conjured up the entire scene aided as 
 those fragments were by the look, the tones, 
 the whole manner of the Reader. The listener 
 was there with him in imagination upon the beach, 
 beside David. He was there, lashed and saturated 
 with the salt spray, the briny taste of it on his lips, 
 the roar and tumult in his ears the height to which 
 the breakers rose, and, looking over one another bore 
 one another down and rolled in, in interminable hosts, 
 becoming at last, as it is written in that wonderful 
 chapter (55) of David Copperfield, "most appal 
 ling!" There, in truth, the success achieved was more 
 than an elocutionary triumph it was the realisation 
 to his hearers, by one who had the soul of a poet, and 
 the gifts of an orator, and the genius of a great and 
 vividly imaginative author, of a convulsion of nature 
 when nature bears an aspect the grandest and the most 
 astounding. However much a masterly description, 
 like that of the Great Storm at Yarmouth, may be 
 admired henceforth by those who never had the oppor 
 tunity of attending these Readings, one might surely 
 say to them, as ^Eschines said to the Rhodians, when 
 they were applauding the speech of his victorious rival : 
 " How much greater would have been your admira 
 tion if only you could have heard him deliver it ! " 
 
THE HEADINGS 
 
 ix 
 
 ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 
 
 How it happened that Charles Dickens came to 
 give any readings at all from his own writings has- 
 already, in the preceding pages, been explained. 
 What is here intended to be done is to put on record, 
 as simply and as accurately as possible, the facts re 
 lating to the labours gone through by the Novelist 
 in his professional character as a Public Reader. It 
 will be then seen, immediately those facts have come to- 
 be examined in their chronological order, that they were 
 sufficiently remarkable in many respects, as an episode 
 in the life of a great author, to justify their being 
 chronicled in some way or other, if only as consti 
 tuting in their aggregate a wholly unexampled inci 
 dent in the history of literature. 
 
 No writer, it may be confidently asserted, has ever 
 enjoyed a wider popularity during his own life-time 
 than Charles Dickens ; or rather it might be said 
 more accurately, no writer has ever enjoyed so wide a 
 popularity among his own immediate contemporaries. 
 And it was a popularity in many ways exceptional. 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 37 
 
 It knew no fluctuation. It lasted without fading or 
 faltering during thirty-four years altogether, that is to 
 sa} T , throughout the whole of Dickens s career as a 
 novelist. It began with his very first book, when, as 
 Thackeray put it, " the young man came and took his 
 place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, as the 
 master of all the English humorists of his genera 
 tion." It showed no sign whatever of abatement, 
 when, in the middle of writing his last book, the pen 
 fell from his hand on that bright summer s day, and 
 through his death a pang of grief was brought home 
 to millions of English-speaking people in both hemis 
 pheres. For his popularity had, among other dis 
 tinctive characteristics, certainly this, it was so pecu 
 liarly personal a popularity, his name being endeared 
 to the vast majority who read his books with nothing 
 less than affectionate admiration. 
 
 Besides all this, it was his privilege throughout the 
 whole of his literary career to address not one class, 
 or tAvo or three classes, but all classes of the reading 
 public indiscriminately the most highly educated and 
 the least educated, young and old, rich and poor. 
 His writings obtained the widest circulation, of course, 
 among those who were the most numerous, such as 
 ;among the middle classes and the better portion of the 
 .artisan population, but they found at the same time 
 the keenest and cordialest appreciation among those 
 who were necessarily the best qualified to pronounce 
 .an opinion upon their merits, among critics as gifted 
 
38 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 as Jeffrey and Sydney Smith, and among rivals as 
 illustrious as Lytton and Thackeray. It seems appro 
 priate, therefore, that we should be enabled to add 
 now, in regard to the possession of this exceptional 
 reputation, and of a popularity in itself so instant, 
 sustained, personal, and comprehensive, that, thanks 
 entirely to these Readings, he was brought into more 
 intimate relations individually with a considerable 
 portion at least of the vast circle of his own readers, 
 than have ever been established between any other 
 author who could be named and his readers, since 
 literature became a profession. 
 
 Strictly speaking, the very first Reading given 
 by Charles Dickens anywhere, even privately, was 
 that which took place in the midst of a little 
 home-group, assembled one evening in 1843, for the 
 purpose of hearing the " Christmas Carol," prior 
 to its publication, read by him in the Lincoln s-Inn 
 Square Chambers of the intimate friend to whom, 
 eighteen years afterwards, was inscribed, as " of right," 
 the Library Edition of all the Novelist s works col 
 lectively. Thus unwittingly, and as it seems to us not 
 unbefittingly, was rehearsed on the hearth of Dickens & 
 future biographer, the first of the long series of Read 
 ings, afterwards to be given very publicly indeed, and 
 to vast multitudes of people on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 As nearly as possible ten years after this, the public 
 Readings commenced, and during the five next years- 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 39 
 
 were continued, though they were so but very inter- 
 mittingly. Throughout that interval they were in 
 variably given for the benefit of others, the proceeds 
 of each Beading being applied to some generous 
 purpose, the nature of which was previously an 
 nounced. It was in the Town Hall at Birmingham, 
 that immediately before the Christmas of 1853, the 
 first of all these public Readings took place in 
 the presence of an audience numbering fully two 
 thousand. About a year before that, the Novelist 
 had pledged himself to give this reading, or rather a, 
 series of three readings, for the purpose of increasing 
 the funds of a new Literary and Scientific Institution 
 then projected in Birmingham. On Thursday, the 6th 
 of January, 1853, a silver-gilt salver and a diamond 
 ring, accompanied by an address, expressive of the 
 admiration of the subscribers to the testimonial, had 
 been publicly presented in that town to the popular 
 author, at the rooms of the Society of Arts in Temple 
 Row. The kind of feeling inspiring this little incident 
 may be recognised through the inscription on the salver, 
 which intimated that it, " together with a diamond 
 ring, was presented to Charles Dickens, Esq., by a 
 number of his admirers in Birmingham, on the occa 
 sion of the literary and artistic banquet in that town, 
 on the 6th of January, 1853, as a sincere testimony 
 of their appreciation of his varied literary acquire 
 ments, and of the genial philosophy and high moral 
 teaching which characterise his writings." It was 
 
40 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 upon the morrow of the banquet referred to in this 
 inscription, a banquet which took place at Dee s Hotel 
 immediately after the presentation of the testimonial 
 to the Novelist, that the latter generously proposed to 
 give later on some public Readings from his own books, 
 in furtherance of the newly meditated Birmingham 
 and Midland Institute. 
 
 The proposition, in fact, was thrown out, gracefully 
 and almost apologetically, in a letter, addressed by him 
 to Mr. Arthur Ryland on the following clay, the 7th of 
 January. In this singularly interesting communica 
 tion, which was read by its recipient on the ensuing 
 Monday, at a meeting convened in the theatre of the 
 Philosophical Institution, not only did Charles Dickens 
 offer to read his " Christinas Carol " some time during 
 the course of the next Christmas, in the Town Hall at 
 Birmingham, but referring to the complete novelty of 
 his proposal, he thus plainly intimated that the occa 
 sion would constitute his very first appearance upon 
 any public platform as a Reader, while explaining, at 
 the same time, the precise nature of the suggested 
 entertainment. " It would," he said, " take about 
 two hours, with a pause of ten minutes half-way 
 through. There would be some novelty in the thing, 
 as I have never done it in public, though I have in 
 private, and (if I may say so) with a great effect on 
 the hearers." He further remarked, " I was so inex 
 pressibly gratified last night by the warmth and en 
 thusiasm of my Birmingham friends, that I feel half 
 
THE EEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 41 
 
 ashamed this morning of so poor an offer : but as I 
 decided on making it to you before I came down 
 yesterday, I propose it nevertheless." As a matter of 
 course the proposition was gratefully accepted, the 
 Novelist formally undertaking to give the proffered 
 Eeadings in the ensuing Christmas. This promise, 
 before the year was out, Dickens returned from abroad 
 expressly to fulfil hastening homeward to that end, 
 after a brief autumnal excursion in Italy and Switzer 
 land with two of his friends, the late Augustus Egg, 
 E. A., and Wilkie Collins, the novelist. On the 
 arrival of the three in Paris, they were there joined 
 by Charles Dickens s eldest son, who, having passed 
 through his course at Eton, had just then been com 
 pleting his scholastic education at Leipsic. The party 
 thus increased to a partie carree, hastened homewards 
 more hurriedly than would otherwise have been neces 
 sary, so as to enable the author punctually to fulfil his 
 long-standing engagement. 
 
 It was on Tuesday, the 27th of December, 1853, 
 therefore, that the very first of these famous Headings 
 came off in the Town Hall at Birmingham. The 
 weather was wretched, but the hall was crowded, and 
 the audience enthusiastic. The Beading, which was 
 the " Christmas Carol," extended over more than 
 three hours altogether, showing how very little of the 
 original story the then unpractised hand of the Header 
 had as yet eliminated. Notwithstanding the length of 
 the entertainment, the unflagging interest, more even 
 
42 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 than the hearty and reiterated applause of those who 
 were assembled, showed the lively sense the author s 
 first audience had of his newly-revealed powers as a 
 narrator and impersonator. On the next day but one, 
 Thursday, the 29th of December, he read there, to an 
 equally large concourse, the " Cricket on the Hearth." 
 Upon the following evening, Friday, the 30th of De 
 cember, he repeated the " Carol " to another densely 
 packed throng of listeners, mainly composed, this 
 time, according to his own express stipulation, of 
 workpeople. So delighted were these unsophisticated 
 hearers with their entertainer himself so long fami 
 liarly known to them, but then for the first time seen 
 and heard that, at the end of the Pleading, they 
 greeted him with repeated rounds of cheering. 
 
 Those three Headings at Birmingham added con 
 siderably to the funds of the Institute, enhancing 
 them at least to the extent of .400 sterling. In recog 
 nition of the good service thus effectively and delight 
 fully rendered to a local institution, to the presidency 
 of w 7 hich Charles Dickens himself was unanimously 
 elected, an exquisitely designed silver flower-basket 
 was afterwards presented to the novelist s wife. This 
 graceful souvenir had engraved upon it the follow 
 ing inscription : "Presented to Mrs. Charles Dickens 
 \>y the Committee of the Birmingham and Midland 
 Institute, as a slight acknowledgment of the debt of 
 gratitude due to her husband, for his generous liber 
 ality in reading the Christmas Carol/ and the 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 43 
 
 * Cricket on the Hearth, to nearly six thousand 
 persons, in the Town Hall, Birmingham, on the nights 
 of December 27, 29, and 30, 1853, in aid of the funds 
 for the establishment of the Institute." The incident 
 of these three highly successful Headings entailed upon 
 the Reader, as events proved, an enormous amount of 
 toil, none of which, however, did he ever grudge, in 
 affording the like good service to others, at uncertain 
 intervals, in all parts, sometimes the remotest parts, 
 of the United Kingdom. 
 
 It would be beside our present purpose to catalogue, 
 one after another, the various Headings given in this 
 way by the Novelist, before he was driven to the neces 
 sity at last of either giving up reading altogether, or 
 coming to the determination to adopt it, as he then 
 himself expressed it, as one of his recognised occupa 
 tions ; that is, by becoming a Reader professionally. 
 It is with his career in his professional capacity as a 
 Reader that we have here to do. Until he had formally 
 and avowedly assumed that position, his labours in 
 this way were, as a matter of course, in no respect 
 whatever systematised. They were uncertain, and in 
 one sense, as the sequel shewed, purely tentative or 
 preliminary. They yielded a world of delight, how 
 ever, and did a world of good at the same time ; while 
 they were, unconsciously to himself, preparing the way 
 effectually that is, by ripening his powers and per 
 fecting his skill through practice for the opening up 
 to himself, quite legitimately, of a new phase in his 
 
44 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 career as a man of letters. Previously, again and 
 again, with the pen in his hand, he had proved him 
 self to be the master-humorist of his time. He was 
 now vividly to attest that fact by word of mouth, by 
 the glance of his eye, by the application to the reading 
 of his own books, of his exceptional mimetic and 
 histrionic gifts as an elocutionist. Added to ail this, 
 by merely observing how readily he could pour, 
 through the proceeds of these purely benevolent Read 
 ings, princely largess into the coffers of charities or of 
 institutions in which he happened to be interested, 
 he was to realise, what must otherwise have remained 
 for him wholly unsuspected, that he had, so to speak, 
 but to stretch forth his hand to grasp a fortune. 
 
 During the lapse of five years all this was at first 
 very gradually, but at last quite irresistibly, brought 
 home to his conviction. A few of the Readings thus 
 given by him, out of motives of kindliness or generosity, 
 may here, in passing, be particularised. 
 
 A considerable time after the three Readings just 
 mentioned, and which were distinctly inaugurative of 
 the whole of our author s reading career, there was one, 
 which came off in Peterborough, that has not only been 
 erroneously described as antecedent to those three 
 Readings at Birmingham, but has been depicted, at the 
 same time, with details in the account of it of the most 
 preposterous character. The Reader, for example, 
 has been portrayed, in this purely apociyphal de 
 scription of what throughout it is always referred to 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 45 
 
 as though it were the first Reading of all, which it 
 certainly was not, as in a highly nervous state from 
 the commencement of it to its conclusion ! This being 
 said of one who, when asked if he ever felt nervous 
 while speaking in public, is known to have replied, 
 " Not in the least " adding, that " when first he took 
 the chair he felt as much confidence as though he had 
 already done the like a hundred times ! " As corrobora 
 tive of which remark, the present writer recalls to re 
 collection very clearly the fact of Dickens saying to 
 him one day, saying it with a most- whimsical air 
 by-the-b} T e, but very earnestly, " Once, and but once 
 only in nry life, I was frightened ! " The occasion 
 he referred to was simply this, as he immediately 
 went on to explain, that somewhere about the middle 
 of the serial publication of David Copperfield, hap 
 pening to be out of writing-paper, he sallied forth 
 one morning to get a fresh supply at the stationer s. 
 He was living then in his favourite haunt, at Fort 
 House, in Broadstairs. As he was about to enter the 
 stationer s shop, with the intention of buying the need 
 ful writing-paper, for the purpose of returning home 
 with it, and at once setting to work upon his next 
 number, not one word of which was yet written, he 
 stood aside for a moment at the threshold to allow 
 a lady to pass "in before him. He then went 011 to re 
 late with a vivid sense still upon him of mingled 
 enjoyment and dismay in the mere recollection how 
 the next instant he had overheard this strange lady 
 
4-G CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 asking the person behind the counter for the new 
 green number. When it was handed to her, " Oh, 
 this," said she, " I have read. I want the next one." 
 The next one she was thereupon told would be out 
 by the end of the month. " Listening to this, unre 
 cognised," lie added, in conclusion, " knowing the 
 purpose for which I was there, and remembering 
 that not one word of the number she was asking for 
 was yet written, for the first and only time in my 
 life, I felt frightened ! " So much for the circum 
 stantial account put forth of this Heading at Peter 
 borough, and of the purely imaginary nervous 
 ness displayed by the Reader, who, on the contrary, 
 there, as elsewhere, was throughout perfectly self- 
 possessed. 
 
 On Saturday, the 22nd December, 1855, in the 
 Mechanics Hall at Sheffield, another of these Readings 
 was given, it being the " Carol," as usual, and the 
 proceeds being in aid of the funds of that institution. 
 The Mayor of Sheffield, who presided upon the occa 
 sion, at the close of the proceedings, presented to the 
 author, as a suitable testimonial from a number of his 
 admirers in that locality, a complete set of table 
 cutlery. 
 
 An occasional Reading, moreover, was given at 
 Chatham, to assist in defraying the expenses of the 
 Chatham, Rochester, Strood, and Brompton Me 
 chanics Institution, of which the master of Gadshill 
 was for thirteen years the President. His titular or 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 47 
 
 official connection with this institute, in effect, was 
 that of Perpetual President. His interest in it in 
 that character ceased only with his life. Throughout 
 the whole of the thirteen years during which he pre 
 sided over its fortunes, he was in every imaginable 
 way its most effective and energetic supporter. Six 
 Readings in all were given by him at the Chatham 
 Mechanics Institution, in aid of its funds. The first, 
 which was the " Christmas Carol," took place on the 
 27th December, 1857, the new Lecture Hall, which was 
 appropriately decorated with evergreens and brilliantly 
 illuminated, being crowded with auditors, conspicuous 
 among whom were the officers of the neighbouring 
 garrison and dockyard. The second, which consisted 
 of "Little Dombe} 7 " and "The Trial Scene from 
 Pickwick," came off on the 29th December, 1858. 
 Long before any arrangement had been definitively 
 made in regard to this second Reading, the local news 
 paper, in an apparently authoritative paragraph, an 
 nounced, " on the best authority," that another Reading- 
 was immediately to be given, by Mr. Dickens, in 
 behalf of the Mechanics Institution. It is character 
 istic of him that he, thereupon, wrote to the Chatham 
 newspaper, "I know nothing of your best authority, 
 except that he is (as he always is) preposterously and 
 monstrously wrong." Eventually this Reading was 
 arranged for, nevertheless, and came off at the date 
 already mentioned. A third Reading at Chatham, 
 comprising within it " The Poor Traveller " (the 
 
48 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 opening of which had a peculiar local interest), 
 " Boots at the Holly Tree Inn," and " Mrs. Gamp," 
 took place in I860, on the 18th December. A fourth 
 was given there on the 16th January, 1862, when the 
 Novelist read his six selected chapters from "David 
 Copperfield." A fifth, consisting of "Nicholas Nickle- 
 by at Dotheboys Hall," and "Mr. Bob Sawyer s 
 Party," took place in 1863, on the 15th December. 
 Finally, there came off the sixth of these Chatham 
 readings, on the 19th December, 1865, when the 
 " Carol" was repeated, with the addition of the great 
 case of " Bardell versus Pickwick." Upwards of ^400 
 were thus, as the fruit of these exhilarating entertain 
 ments, poured into the coffers of the Chatham Insti 
 tute. It can hardly be wondered at that, in the annual 
 reports issued by the committee, emphatic expression 
 should have been more than once given to the deep 
 sense of gratitude entertained by them for the services 
 rendered to the institution by its illustrious president. 
 A fragmentary portion of that issued by the committee 
 in the January of 1864 referring, as it does, to 
 Charles Dickens, in association with his home and 
 his favourite haunts down at Gadshill we are here 
 tempted to give, as indicative of the feelings of pride and 
 admiration with which the great author was regarded 
 by his own immediate neighbours. After referring 
 to the large sums realised for the institution through the 
 Headings thus generously given by its president, the 
 committee went on to say in this report, at the be- 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 49 
 
 ginning of 1864, " Simply to have the name of one 
 whose writings have become household words at every 
 home and hearth where the English language is spoken, 
 associated with their efforts for the public entertain 
 ment and improvement, must be considered a great 
 honour and advantage. But, when to this is added 
 the large pecuniary assistance derived from such a 
 connection, your committee find that they and, of 
 course, the members whom they represent owe a 
 debt of gratitude to Mr. Dickens, which words can 
 but poorly express. They trust that the home which 
 he now occupies in the midst of the beautiful wood 
 lands of Kent, and so near to the scene of his boyish 
 memories and associations, may long be to him one of 
 happiness and prosperity. If Shakspere, our greatest 
 national poet, had before made Gadshill a classic spot, 
 surely it is now doubly consecrated by genius since 
 Dickens, the greatest and most genial of modern 
 humorists, as well as one of the most powerful and 
 pathetic delineators of human character, has fixed his 
 residence there. To those who have so often and so 
 lately been moved to laughter and tears by the humour 
 and pathos of the inimitable writer and reader, and 
 who have profited by his gratuitous services to the 
 institution, your committee feel that they need make 
 no apology for dwelling at some length upon this most 
 agreeable part of their report." Thus profound were 
 the feelings of respect, affection, and admiration with 
 which the master-humorist was regarded by those who 
 
50 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 lived, and who were proud of living, in his own im 
 mediate neighbourhood. 
 
 On the evening of Tuesday, the 30th June, 1857, 
 Charles Dickens read for the first time in London, at 
 the then St. Martin s Hall, now the Queen s Theatre, 
 in Long Acre. The occasion was one, in many respects, 
 of peculiar interest. As recently as on the 8th of 
 that month, Douglas Jerrold had breathed his last, quite 
 unexpectedly. Dying in the fulness of his powers, and 
 at little more than fifty years of age, he had passed 
 away, it was felt, prematurely. As a tribute of affec 
 tion to his memory, and of sympathy towards his 
 widow and orphan children, those among his brother 
 authors who had been more intimately associated with 
 him in his literary career, organised, in the interests 
 of his bereaved famity, a series of entertainments. 
 And in the ordering of the programme it was so 
 arranged that this earliest metropolitan reading of one 
 of his smaller works by Charles Dickens should be 
 the second of these entertainments. Densely crowded 
 in every part, St. Martin s Hall upon this occasion 
 was the scene of as remarkable a reception and of 
 as brilliant a success as was in any way possible. 
 It was a wonderful success financially. As an 
 elocutionary or, rather, as a dramatic display, it 
 was looked forward to with the liveliest curiosity. 
 The author s welcome when he appeared upon the 
 platform was of itself a striking attestation of his 
 popularity. 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 51 
 
 Upwards of fourteen years have elapsed since the 
 occasion referred to, yet we have still as vividly in our 
 remembrance, as though it were but an incident of 
 yesterday, the enthusiasm of the reception then ac 
 corded to the great novelist by an audience composed, 
 for the most part, of representative Londoners. The 
 applause with which he was greeted, immediately upon 
 his entrance, was so earnestly prolonged and sustained, 
 that it threatened to postpone the Beading indefinitely. 
 Silence having at last been restored, however, the 
 Header s voice became audible in the utterance of these 
 few and simple words, by way of preliminary : 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honour to read 
 "to you A Christmas Carol, in four staves. Stave 
 "one, Marley s Ghost. " The effect, by the way, 
 becoming upon the instant rather incongruous, as the 
 writer of this very well remembers, when, through 
 a sudden and jarring recollection of what the 
 occasion was that had brought us all together, the 
 Header began, with a serio-comic inflection, " Marley 
 was dead : to begin with. There s no doubt whatever 
 about that. The register of his burial was signed." 
 And so on through those familiar introductory sen 
 tences, in which Jacob Marley s demise is insisted 
 upon with such ludicrous particularity. The moment 
 ary sense of incongruit}^ here referred to was lost, 
 however, directly afterwards, as everyone s attention 
 became absorbed in the author s own relation to 
 us of his world-famous ghost-story of Christmas. 
 
 E 2 
 
5:> CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Whereas the First Beading of the tale down in the 
 provinces had occupied three hours in its delivery, 
 the First Reading of it in the metropolis had been 
 diminished by half an hour. Beginning at 8 r. M. y 
 and ending at very nearly 10.30 P. M., with merely five 
 minutes interruption about midway, the entertainment 
 so enthralled and delighted the audience throughout, 
 that its close, after two hours and a half of the keenest 
 attention, was the signal for a long outburst of cheers, 
 mingled with the waving of hats and handkerchiefs* 
 The description of the scene there witnessed is in no 
 way exaggerated. It is the record of our own re 
 membrance. 
 
 And the enthusiasm thus awakened among Charles 
 Dickens s first London audience can hardly be won 
 dered at, when we recall to mind Thackeray s expres 
 sion of opinion in regard to that very same story 
 of the Christmas Carol immediately after its publi 
 cation, when he wrote in Frascr, July, 1844, under 
 his pseudonym of M. A. Titmarsh: "It seems to me 
 a national benefit, and to every man and woman who 
 reads it a personal kindness ; " adding, " The last 
 two people I heard speak of it were women ; neither 
 knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way 
 of criticism, God bless him ! Precisely in the 
 same way, it may here be said, in regard to that first 
 night of his own public reading of it in St. Martin s 
 Hall, that there was a genial grasp of the hand in 
 the look of every kind face then turned towards the 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 53 
 
 platform, and a " God bless him " in every one of the 
 ringing cheers that accompanied his departure. 
 
 A Beading of the " Carol " was given by its author 
 in the following December down at Coventry, in aid 
 of the funds of the local institute. And about a twelve 
 month afterwards, on the 4th of December, 1858, in 
 grateful acknowledgment of what was regarded in those 
 cases always as a double benefaction (meaning the 
 Beading itself and its golden proceeds), the novelist 
 was entertained at a public banquet, at the Castle 
 Hotel, Coventry, when a gold watch was presented to 
 him as a testimonial of admiration from the leading 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Finally, as the last of all these non-professional 
 readings by our author, there was given on Friday 
 the 26th of March, 1858, a reading of the " Christinas 
 Carol," in the Music Hall at Edinburgh. His 
 .audience consisted of the members of, or subscribers 
 to, the Philosophical Institution. At the close of 
 the evening the Lord Provost, who had been pre 
 siding, presented to the Reader a massive and ornate 
 .silver wassail bowl. Seventeen years prior to that, 
 Charles Dickens had been publicly entertained in Edin 
 burgh, Professor Wilson having been the chairman 
 of the banquet given then in his honour. He had 
 been at that time enrolled a burgess and guildbrother 
 of the ancient corporation of the metropolis of Scot 
 land. He had, among other incidents of a striking 
 character marking his reception there at the same 
 
54 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 period, seen, on his chance entrance into the theatre, 
 the whole audience rise spontaneously in recognition 
 of him, the musicians in the orchestra, with a courtly 
 felicit} r , striking up the cavalier air of " Charley 
 is my Darling." If only out of a gracious remem 
 brance of all this, it seemed not inappropriate that 
 the very last of the complimentary readings should 
 have been given by the novelist at Edinburgh, and 
 that the Lord Provost of Edinburgh should, as if by 
 wa} T of stirrup-cup, have handed to the Writer and 
 Reader of the " Carol," that souvenir from its citizens, 
 in honour of the author himself and of his favourite 
 theme, Christmas. 
 
 It was in connection with the organisation of the 
 series of entertainments, arranged during the summer 
 of 1857, in memory of Jerrold, and in the interests of 
 Jerrold s family, that the attention of Charles Dickens- 
 was first of all awakened to a recognition of the possi 
 bility that he might, with good reason, do something* 
 better than carry out his original intention, that, 
 namely, of dropping these Readings altogether, as- 
 simply exhausting and unremunerative. He had long 
 since come to realise that it could in 110 conceivable 
 way whatever derogate from the dignity of his position 
 as an author, to appear thus in various parts of the 
 United Kingdom, before large masses of his fellow- 
 countrymen, in the capacity of a Public Reader. 
 His so appearing was a gratification to himself as an 
 artist, and was clearly enough also a gratification to his- 
 
THE EEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 55 
 
 hearers, as appreciators of liis twofold art, both as 
 Author and as Keader. He perceived clearly enough, 
 therefore, that his labours in those associated capaci 
 ties were perfectly compatible ; that, in other words, 
 he might, if he so pleased, quite reasonably accept 
 the duties devolving upon him as a Eeader, as among 
 his legitimate avocations. 
 
 Conspicuous among those who had shared in the get 
 ting up of the Jerrold entertainments including among 
 them, as we have seen, the first of his own Readings 
 in London the novelist had especially observed the 
 remarkable skill or aptitude, as a general organiser, 
 manifested from first to last by the Honorary Secretary, 
 into whose hands, in point of fact, had fallen the re 
 sponsibility of the entire management. This Honorary 
 Secretary was no other than Albert Smith s brother 
 Arthur one who was not only the right-hand, as it 
 were, of the Ascender of Mont Blanc, and of the Tra 
 veller in China, but who (behind the scenes, and un 
 known to the public) was the veritable wire-puller, 
 prompter, Figaro, factotum of that farceur among 
 story-tellers, and of that laughter-moving patterer 
 among public entertainers. Arthur Smith, full of re 
 source, of contrivance, and of readiness, possessed in 
 fact all the qualifications essential to a rapid organiser. 
 He was, of all men who could possibly have been hit 
 upon, precisely the very one to undertake in regard to an 
 elaborate enterprise, like that of a long series of Read 
 ings in the metropolis, and of a comprehensive tour 
 
56 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 of Headings in the provinces, the responsible duties of 
 its commercial management. Brought together acci 
 dentally at the time of the Jerrold testimonial, the 
 Honorary Secretary of the fund and the Author- 
 reader of the "Carol" came, as it seems now, quite 
 naturally, to be afterwards intimately associated with 
 one another, more in connection with the scheme of 
 professional Headings, which reasonably grew up at 
 last out of the previous five years Readings, of a 
 purely complimentary character. 
 
 Altogether, as has been said on an earlier page, 
 Charles Dickens cannot have given less than some 
 Five Hundred Readings. As a professional Reader 
 alone he gave considerably over Four Hundred. 
 Beginning in the spring of 1858, and ending in the 
 spring of 1870, his career in that capacity extended 
 at intervals over a lapse of twelve years : those twelve 
 years embracing within them several distinct tours in 
 England, Ireland, and Scotland, and in the United 
 States ; and many either entirely distinct or carefully 
 interwoven series in London at St. Martin s Hall, 
 at the Hanover Square Rooms, and at St. James s 
 Hall, Piccadilly. 
 
 The first series in the metropolis, and the first tour 
 in the United Kingdom, were made in 1858, under 
 Mr. Arthur Smith s management. The second pro 
 vincial tour, partly in 1861, partly in 1862, and two 
 sets of readings in London, one at the St. James s 
 Hall in 1862, the other at the Hanover Square Rooms 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 57 
 
 in 1863, took place under Mr. Thomas Headland s 
 management. As many as four distinct, and all of 
 them important tours, notably one on the other side 
 of the Atlantic, were carried out between 1866 and 
 1869, both years inclusive, under Mr. George Dolby s 
 management. As showing at once the proportion of 
 the enormous aggregate of 423 Headings, with which 
 these three managers were concerned, it may be added 
 here that while the first-mentioned had to do with 111, 
 and the second with 70, the third and last-mentioned 
 had to do with as many as 242 altogether. 
 
 It was on the evening of Thursday, the 29th of 
 April, 1858, that Charles Dickens first made his 
 appearance upon a platform in a strictly professional 
 character as a public Eeader. Although, hitherto, 
 he had never once read for himself, he did so then 
 avowedly not merely by printed announcement before 
 hand, but on addressing himself by word of mouth to 
 the immense audience assembled there in St. Martin s 
 Hall. The Heading selected for the occasion was 
 " The Cricket on the Hearth," but before its com 
 mencement, the author spoke as follows, doing so with 
 well remembered clearness of articulation, as though 
 he were particularly desirous that every word should 
 be thoroughly weighed by his hearers, and taken to 
 heart, by reason of their distinctly explaining the rela 
 tions in which he and they would thenceforth stand 
 towards each other : 
 
 "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It may, perhaps, be 
 
58 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 "known to you that, for a few years past I have been 
 accustomed occasionally to read some of my shorter 
 "books to various audiences, in aid of a variety of 
 " good objects, and at some charge to myself both in 
 " time and money. It having at length become im- 
 " possible in any reason to comply with these always 
 "accumulating demands, I have had .definitely to 
 " choose between now and then reading on my own 
 " account as one of my recognised occupations, or not 
 " reading at all. I have had little or no difficulty in 
 " deciding on the former course.* 
 
 " The reasons that have led me to it besides the 
 " consideration that it necessitates no departure what- 
 " ever from the chosen pursuits of my life are three - 
 "fold. Firstly, I have satisfied myself that it can 
 " involve no possible compromise of the credit and 
 "independence of literature. Secondly, I have long 
 " held the opinion, and have long acted on the opinion, 
 "that in these times whatever brings a public man 
 " and his public face to face, on terms of mutual con- 
 " fidence and respect, is a good thing. Thirdly, I 
 "have had a pretty large experience of the interest 
 "my hearers are so generous as to take in these occa- 
 " sions, and of the delight they give to me, as a tried 
 "means of strengthening those relations, I may 
 " almost say of personal friendship, which it is my 
 "great privilege and pride, as it is my great respon- 
 " sibility, to hold with a multitude of persons who will 
 "never hear my voice, or see my face. 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 59 
 
 " Thus it is that I come, quite naturally, to be here 
 " among you at this time. And thus it is that I pro- 
 " ceed to read this little hook, quite as composedly as 
 " I might proceed to write it, or to publish it in any 
 " other way." 
 
 Remembering perfectly well, as we do, the precision 
 with which he uttered every syllable of this little 
 address, and the unmistakable cordiality with which 
 its close was greeted, we can assert with confidence 
 that Header and Audience from the very first instant 
 stood towards each other on terms of mutually re 
 spectful consideration. Remembering perfectly well, 
 as we do, moreover, the emotion with which his last 
 words were articulated and listened to on the occasion 
 of his very last or Farewell Reading in the great hall 
 near Piccadilly and more than two thousand others 
 must still perfectly well remember that likewise we 
 may no less confidently assert that those feelings had 
 known no abatement, but on the contrary had, during 
 the lapse of many delightful years, come to be not 
 only confirmed but intensified. 
 
 Sixteen Readings were comprised in that first series 
 in London, at St. Martin s Hall. Inaugurated, as we 
 have seen, on the 29th of April, 1858, the series was 
 completed on the 22nd of the ensuing July. It may 
 here be interesting to mention that, midway in the 
 course of these Sixteen Readings, he gave for the first 
 time in London, on Thursday the 10th of June, " The 
 Story of Little Dombey," and on the following Thurs- 
 
60 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 day, the 17th of June, also for the first time in London, 
 "The Poor Traveller," " Boots at the Holly Tree 
 Inn," and "Mrs. Gamp." Whatever the subject of 
 the Reading, whatever the state of the weather, the 
 hall was crowded in every part, from the stalls to the 
 galleries. Eleven days after the London season 
 closed, the Reader and his business manager began 
 their enormous round of the provinces. 
 
 As many as Eighty- Seven Readings were given in 
 the course of this one provincial excursion. The first 
 took place on. Monday, the 2nd of August, at Clifton ; 
 the last on Saturday, the 13th of November, at 
 Brighton. The places visited in Ireland included 
 Dublin and Belfast, Cork and Limerick. Those tra 
 versed in Scotland comprised Edinburgh and Dundee, 
 Aberdeen, Perth, and Glasgow. As for England, 
 besides the towns already named, others of the first 
 importance were taken in quick succession, an extra 
 ordinary amount of rapid railway travelling being 
 involved in the punctual carrying out of the 
 prescribed programme. However different in their 
 general character the localities might be, the Readings 
 somehow appeared to have some especial attraction 
 for each, whether they were given in great manufac 
 turing towns, like Manchester or Birmingham ; in 
 fashionable watering-places, like Leamington or Scar 
 borough ; in busy outports, like Liverpool or South 
 ampton ; in ancient cathedral towns, like York or 
 Durham, or in seaports as removed from each other, 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. Gl 
 
 as Plymouth and Portsmouth. Localities as widely 
 separated as Exeter from Harrogate, as Oxford from 
 Halifax, or as Worcester from Sunderland, were 
 visited, turn by turn, at the particular time appointed. 
 In a comprehensive round, embracing within it Wake- 
 field and Shrewsbury, Nottingham and Leicester, 
 Derby and Huddersfield, the principal great towns 
 were taken one after another. At Hull and Leeds, no 
 less than at Chester and Bradford, as large and enthu 
 siastic audiences were gathered together as, in their 
 appointed times also were attracted to the Readings, 
 in places as entirely dissimilar as Newcastle and Dar 
 lington, or as Sheffield and "Wolverhampton. 
 
 The enterprise was, in its way, wholly unexampled. 
 It extended over a period of more than three months 
 altogether. It brought the popular author for the first 
 time face to face with a multitude of his readers in 
 various parts of the three kingdoms. And at every 
 place, without exception throughout the tour, the ad 
 venture was more than justified, as a source of artistic 
 gratification alike to himself and to his hearers, no 
 less than as a purely commercial undertaking, the 
 project throughout proving successful for beyond the 
 most sanguine anticipations. Though the strain upon 
 his energies, there can be no doubt of it, was very con 
 siderable, the Reader had brought vividly before him 
 in recompense, on Eighty-Seven distinct occasions, the 
 most startling proofs of his popularity the financial 
 results, besides this, when all was over, yielding sub- 
 
62 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 stantial evidence of his having, indeed, won " golden 
 opinions " from all sorts of people. 
 
 His provincial tour, it has been seen, closed at 
 Brighton on the 13th of November. Immediately 
 after this, it was announced that three Christmas 
 Headings would be given in London at St. Martin s 
 Hall the first and second on the Christmas Eve and 
 the Boxing Day of 1858, those being respectively 
 Friday and Monday, and the third on Twelfth Night, 
 Thursday, the 6th of January, 1859. Upon each of 
 these occasions the " Christinas Carol " and the 
 " Trial from Pickwick," were given to audiences that 
 were literally overflowing, crowds of applicants each 
 evening failing to obtain admittance. In consequence 
 of this, three other Readings were announced for 
 Thursday, the 13th, for Thursday, the 20th, and 
 for Friday, the 28th of January the "Carol" and 
 " Trial" being fixed for the last time on the 13th ; the 
 Reading on the second of these three supplementary 
 nights being " Little Dombey " and the " Trial from 
 Pickwick ; " the last of the three including within it, 
 besides the " Trial," " Mrs. Gamp " and the " Poor 
 Traveller." As affording conclusive proof of the 
 sustained success of the Readings as a popular en 
 tertainment, it may here be added that advertisements 
 appeared on the morrow of the one last mentioned, 
 to the effect that " it has been found unavoidable to 
 appoint two more Readings of the Christmas Carol 
 and the . Trial from Pickwick " those two, by the 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 63 
 
 way, being, from first to last, the most attractive of 
 all the Readings. On Thursday, the 3rd, and on 
 Tuesday, the 8th of February, the two last of these 
 supplementary Readings in London, the aggregate of 
 which had thus been extended from Three to Eight, 
 were duly delivered. And in this way were completed 
 the 111 Readings already referred to as having been 
 given under Mr. Arthur Smith s management. 
 
 Upwards of two years and a half then elapsed with 
 out any more of the Readings being undertaken, 
 either in the provinces or in the metropolis. During 
 1860, in fact, Great Expectations was appearing 
 from week to week in All the Year Hound. And it 
 was a judicious rule with our author broken only 
 at the last, and fatally, at the very end of his two 
 fold career as Writer and as Reader never to give 
 a series of Readings while one of his serial stories 
 was being produced. At length, however, in the late 
 summer, or early autumn of 1861, the novelist was 
 sufficiently free from literary pre-occupations for 
 another tour, and another series of Readings in 
 London to be projected. The arrangements for each 
 were sketched out by Mr. Arthur Smith, as the one 
 still entrusted with the financial management of the 
 undertaking. His health, however, was so broken by 
 that time, that it soon became apparent that he could 
 not reasonably hope to superintend in person the carry 
 ing out of the new enterprise. It was decided, there 
 fore, provisionally, that Mr. Headland, who, upon the 
 
64 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 former occasion, had acted with him, should now, under 
 his direction and as his representative, undertake 
 the actual management. Before the projected tour of 
 1861 actually commenced, however, Mr. Arthur Smith 
 had died, in September. The simply provisional 
 arrangement lapsed in consequence, and upon Mr. 
 Headland himself devolved the responsibility of carry 
 ing out the plans sketched out b} T his predecessor. 
 
 Although about the same time that had been allotted 
 to the First Tour, namely a whole quarter, had been 
 set apart for the Second, the latter included within 
 it but very little more than half the number of 
 Headings given in the earlier and more rapid round 
 of the provinces. The Second Tour, in point of 
 fact beginning on Monday, the 28th of October, 
 1861, at Norwich, and terminating on Thursday, the 
 30th of January, 1862, at Chester comprised within 
 it Forty- Seven, instead of, as on the former occasion, 
 Eighty- Seven readings altogether. Many of the 
 principal towns and cities of England, not visited 
 during the more comprehensive sweep made in 1858, 
 through the three kingdoms, were now reached 
 the tour, this time, being restricted within the 
 English boundaries. Lancaster and Carlisle, for 
 example, Hastings and Canterbury, Ipswich and Col 
 chester, were severally included in the new pro 
 gramme. Kesorts of fashion, like Torquay and 
 Cheltenham, were no longer overlooked. Preston in 
 the north, Dover in the south, were each in turn the 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 65 
 
 scene of a Reading. Bury St. Edmund s, in 1861, was 
 reached on the 30th of October, and on the 25th of 
 November an excursion was even made to the far-off 
 border town of Berwick-upon- Tweed. Less hurried 
 and less laborious than the first, this second tour 
 was completed, as we have said, at Chester, just before- 
 the close of the first month of 1862, namely, on the 
 30th of January. 
 
 Then came the turn once more of London, where 
 a series of Ten Headings was given in the St. 
 James s Hall, Piccadilly. These ten Readings, be 
 ginning on Thursday/ the 13th of March, were dis- 
 tributed over sixteen weeks, ending on Friday, the 
 27th of June. Another metropolitan series, still under 
 Mr. Headland s management, was given as nearly as 
 possible at the same period of the London season in 
 the following twelvemonth. The Hanover Square 
 Rooms were the scene of these Readings of 1863, 
 which began on Monday, the 2nd of March, and ended 
 on Saturday, the 13th of June, numbering in all not 
 ten, as upon the last occasion, but Thirteen. 
 
 During the winter of this year, Two notable 
 Readings were given by the Novelist at the British 
 Embassy, in Paris, their proceeds being devoted to 
 the British Charitable Fund in that capital. These 
 Readings were so brilliantly successful, that, by 
 particular desire, they were, a little time afterwards, 
 supplemented by a Third, which was quite as numer 
 ously attended as either of its predecessors. The 
 
66 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 audience upon each occasion, partly English, partly 
 French, comprised among their number many of 
 the most gifted and distinguished of the Parisians. 
 These three entertainments were given under the 
 immediate auspices of the Earl Cowley, then Her 
 Majesty s ambassador to the court of Napoleon III. 
 
 A considerable interval now elapsed, extending in 
 fact over nearly three years altogether, before the 
 author again appeared upon the platform in his capa 
 city as a Reader, either in London or in the Provinces. 
 During his last provincial tour, there had been some 
 confusion caused to the general arrangements by reason 
 of the abrupt but unavoidable postponement of a whole 
 week s Readings, previously announced as coining off, 
 three of them at Liverpool, one at Chester, and two at 
 Manchester. These six readings instead, however, of 
 duly taking place, as originally arranged, between the 
 16th and the 21st of December, 1861, had to be given 
 four weeks later on, between the 13th and the 30th of 
 the following January. The disarrangement of the 
 programme thus caused arose simply from the cir 
 cumstance of the wholly unlooked-for and lamented 
 death of H. R. H. the Prince Consort. Another con 
 fusion in the carefully prepared plans for one of the 
 London series, again, had been caused by an unexpected 
 difficulty, at the last moment, in securing the great Hall 
 in Piccadilly, that having been previously engaged 
 on the required evenings for a series of musical enter 
 tainments. Hence the selection for that season of the 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 67 
 
 Hanover Square Eooms, which, at any rate for the 
 West-end public, could not but be preferable to that 
 earliest scene of the London Readings, St. Martin s 
 Hall, Long Acre. Apart from every other considera 
 tion, however, the Novelist s remembrance of the con 
 fusions and disarrangements which had been incidental 
 to his last provincial tour, and to the last series of his 
 London Eeadings, rather disinclined him to hasten the 
 date of his re-appearance in his character as a public 
 Reader. As it happened, besides, after the summer of 
 1863, nearly two years elapsed, between the May of 
 1864 and the November of 1865, during which he was 
 in a manner precluded from seriously entertaining any 
 such project by the circumstance that the green 
 numbers of "Our Mutual Friend" were, all that 
 while, in course of publication. Even when that last 
 of his longer serial stories had been completed, it is 
 doubtful whether he would have cared to take upon 
 himself anew the irksome stress and responsibility 
 inseparable from one of those doubly laborious under 
 takings a lengthened series of Readings in London, 
 coupled with, or rather interwoven with, another 
 extended tour through the provinces. 
 
 As it fortunately happened, however, very soon after 
 the completion of " Our Mutual Friend," Charles 
 Dickens had held out to him a double inducement to 
 undertake once more the duties devolving upon him 
 in his capacity as a Reader. The toil inseparable 
 from the Readings themselves, as well as the fatigue 
 
 F 2 
 
68 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 resulting inevitably from so much rapid travelling 
 hither and thither by railway during the period 
 set apart for their delivery, would still be his. 
 But at the least, according to the proposition now 
 made to him, the Header would be relieved from 
 further care as to the general supervision, and at any 
 rate, from all sense of responsibility in the revived 
 project as a purely financial or speculative undertaking. 
 The Messrs. Chappell, of New Bond Street, a firm 
 skilled in the organizing of public entertainments of 
 various kinds, chiefly if not exclusively until then, 
 entertainments of a musical character, offered, in fact, 
 in 1866 to assume to themselves thenceforth the whole 
 financial responsibility of the Headings in the Metro 
 polis and throughout the United Kingdom. According 
 to the proposal originally submitted to the Novelist by 
 the Messrs. Chappell, and at once frankly accepted by 
 him, a splendid sum was guaranteed to him in remune 
 ration. Twice afterwards those terms were consider 
 ably increased, and upon each occasion, it should be 
 added, quite spontaneously. 
 
 Another inducement was held out to the Reader 
 besides that of his being relieved from all further 
 sense of responsibility in the undertaking as a merely 
 speculative enterprise. It related to the chance of 
 his finding himself released also from any further sense 
 of solicitude as to the conduct of the general business 
 management. The inducement, here, however, was of 
 course in no way instantly recognizable. Experience 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 69 
 
 alone could show the fitness for his post of the Messrs. 
 Chappell s representative. As good fortune would 
 have it, nevertheless, here precisely was an instance 
 in which Mr. Layard s famous phrase about the right 
 man in the right place, was directly applicable. 
 As a thoroughly competent business manager, and as 
 one whose companionship of itself had a heartening 
 influence in the midst of enormous toil, Mr. Dolby 
 speedily came to be recognised as the very man for 
 the position, as the very one who in all essential 
 respects it was most desirable should have been 
 selected. 
 
 A series of Thirty Eeadings was at once planned 
 under his supervision. It consisted for the first time 
 of a tour through England and Scotland, interspersed 
 with Readings every now and then in the Metropolis. 
 The Reader s course in this way seemed to be erratic, 
 but the whole scheme was admirably well arranged 
 beforehand, and once entered upon, was carried out 
 with the precision of clockwork. These thirty Read 
 ings, in 1866, began and ended at St. James s Hall, 
 Piccadilly. The opening night was that of Tues 
 day, the 10th of April, the closing night that of 
 Tuesday, the 12th of June. Between those dates 
 half-a-dozen other Readings were given from the same 
 central platform in London, the indefatigable author 
 making his appearance meanwhile alternately in the 
 principal cities of the United Kingdom. Besides 
 revisiting in this way (some of these places repeat- 
 
70 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 edly) in the north, Edinburgh and Glasgow and 
 Aberdeen, in the south and south-west, Clifton and 
 Portsmouth, as well as Liverpool and Manchester 
 intermediately Charles Dickens during the course of 
 this tour read for the first time at Bristol, at Green 
 wich, and in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. 
 
 The inauguration of the series of Headings now 
 referred to had a peculiar interest imparted to it by 
 the circumstance that, on the evening of Tuesday, 
 the 10th of April, 1866, there was first of all in 
 troduced to public notice the comic patter and 
 pathetic recollections of the Cheap Jack, Doctor 
 Marigold. 
 
 Half a year afterwards a longer series of the 
 Eeadings began under the organisation of the Messrs. 
 Chappell, and under the direction of Mr. Dolby as 
 their business manager. It took place altogether 
 under precisely similar circumstances as the last, with 
 this only difference that the handsome terms of re 
 muneration originally guaranteed to the author were, 
 as already intimated, considerably and voluntarily 
 increased by the projectors of the enterprise, the 
 pecuniary results of the first series having been so very 
 largely beyond their expectations. Fifty Eeadings 
 instead of thirty were now arranged for Ireland being 
 visited as well as the principal towns and cities of 
 England and Scotland. Six Eeadings were given at 
 Dublin, and one at Belfast ; four were given at Glas 
 gow, and two at Edinburgh. Bath, for the first time, 
 
THE EEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 71 
 
 had the opportunity of according a public welcome to 
 the great humorist, some of the drollest scenes in 
 whose earliest masterpiece occur in the city of 
 Bladud, as every true Pickwickian very well re- 
 mernhers. Then, also, for the first time, he was wel 
 comed hy old admirers of his in his capacity as an 
 author, new admirers of his thenceforth in his later 
 and minor capacity as a Eeader at Swansea and Glou 
 cester, at Stoke and Blackburn, at Hanley and War- 
 rington. Tuesday, the 15th of January, 1867, was 
 the inaugural night of the series, when " Barbox, 
 Brothers," and " The Boy at Mugby," were read for 
 the first time at St. James s Hall, Piccadilly. Monday, 
 the 13th of May, was the date of the last night of the 
 season, which was brought to a close upon the same 
 platform, the success of every Reading, without excep 
 tion, both in London and in the provinces, having 
 been simply unexampled. 
 
 It was shortly after this that the notion was first enter 
 tained by the Novelist of entering upon that Reading 
 Tour in America, which has since become so widely 
 celebrated. Overtures had been made to him repeat 
 edly from the opposite shores of the Atlantic, with a 
 view to induce him to give a course of Readings in the 
 United States. Speculators would gladly, no doubt, 
 have availed themselves of so golden an opportunity 
 for turning to account his immense reputation. There 
 were those, however, at home here, who doubted as to 
 the advisability of the author entering, under any 
 
72 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 conceivable circumstances, upon an undertaking ob 
 viously involving in its successful accomplishment an 
 enormous amount of physical labour and excitement. 
 Added to this, the project was inseparable in any 
 case however favourable might be the manner of its 
 ultimate arrangement from a profound sense of re 
 sponsibility all through the period that would have to 
 be set apart for its realisation. It was among the 
 more remarkable characteristics of Charles Dickens 
 that, while he was endowed with a brilliant imagina 
 tion, and with a genius in many ways incomparable, 
 he was at the same time gifted with the clearest and 
 soundest judgment, being, in point of fact, what is called 
 a thoroughly good man of business. Often as he had 
 shewn this to be the case during the previous phases 
 of his career, he never demonstrated the truth of it 
 so undeniably as in the instance of this proposed 
 Reading Tour in the United States. Determined to 
 understand at once whether the scheme, commended 
 by some, denounced by others, was in itself, to begin 
 with, feasable, and after that advisable, he despatched 
 Mr. Dolby to America for the purpose of surveying 
 the proposed scene of operations. Immediately on 
 his emissary s return, Dickens drew up a few pithy 
 sentences, headed by him, " The Case in a Nutshell." 
 His decision was what those more immediately 
 about him had for some time anticipated. He made 
 up his mind to go, and to go quite independently. 
 The Messrs. Chappell, it should be remarked at once, 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 73 
 
 had no part whatever in the enterprise. The Author- 
 Eeader accepted for himself the sole responsibility of 
 the undertaking. As a matter of course, he retained 
 Mr. Dolby as his business manager, despatching 
 him again across the Atlantic, when everything had 
 been arranged between them, to the end that all 
 should be in readiness by the time of his own 
 arrival. 
 
 Within the brief interval which then elapsed, 
 between the business manager s return to, and the 
 Author-Reader s departure for, America, that well- 
 remembered Farewell Banquet was given to Charles 
 Dickens, which w T as not unworthy of signalising his 
 popularity and his reputation. He himself, upon the 
 occasion, spoke of it as that "proud night," recognising 
 clearly enough, as he could hardly fail to do, in the 
 gathering around him, there in Freemasons Hall, on 
 the evening of the 2nd of November, 1867, one of 
 the most striking incidents in a career that had been 
 almost all sunshine, both from within and from with 
 out, from the date of its commencement. It was 
 there, in the midst of what he himself referred to, 
 at the time, as that " brilliant representative com 
 pany," while acknowledging the presence around him 
 of so many of his brother artists, " not only in litera 
 ture, but also in the fine arts," he availed himself of 
 the opportunity to relate very briefly the story of his 
 setting out once more for America. " Since I was 
 there before," he said, " a vast, entirely new gene- 
 
74 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 ration has arisen in the United States. Since I 
 was there before, most of the hest known of my 
 books have been written and published. The new 
 generation and the books have come together and have 
 kept together, until at last numbers of those who have 
 so widely and constantly read me, naturally desiring 
 a little variety in the relations between us, have ex 
 pressed a strong wish that I should read myself. 
 This wish at last conveyed to me, through public 
 channels and business channels, has gradually become 
 enforced by an immense accumulation of letters from 
 individuals and associations of individuals, all express 
 ing in the same hearty, homely, cordial, unaffected 
 way a kind of personal interest in me ; I had almost 
 said a kind of personal affection for me, which I am 
 sure you will agree with me, it would be dull insensi 
 bility on my part not to prize." Hence, as he ex 
 plained, his setting forth on that day week upon his 
 second visit to America, with a view among other 
 purposes, according to his own happy phrase, to use 
 his best endeavours "to lay down a third cable of 
 intercommunication and alliance between the old 
 world and the new." The illustrious chairman who 
 presided over that Farewell Banquet, Lord Lytton, 
 had previously remarked, speaking in his capacity as 
 a politician, "I should say that no time could be 
 more happily chosen for his visit ; " adding, " because 
 our American kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or 
 wrongfully, that they have some cause of complaint 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 75 
 
 against ourselves, and out of all England we could 
 not have selected an envoy more calculated to allay 
 irritation and to propitiate good will." As one whose 
 cordial genius was, in truth, a bond of sympathy 
 between the two great kindred nationalities, Charles 
 Dickens indeed went forth in one sense at that time, 
 it might almost have been said, in a semi-ambassa 
 dorial character, not between the rulers, but between 
 the peoples. The incident of his visit to America could 
 in no respect be considered a private event, but, from 
 first to last, was regarded, and reasonably regarded, as 
 a public and almost as an international occurrence. 
 " Happy is the man," said Lord Lytton, on that 2nd 
 of November, when proposing the toast of the evening 
 in words of eloquence worthy of himself and of his 
 theme, " Happy is the man who makes clear his title 
 deeds to the royalty of genius, while he yet lives to 
 enjoy the gratitude and reverence of those whom he 
 has subjected to his sway. Though it is by conquest 
 that he achieves his throne, he at least is a conqueror 
 whom the conquered bless, and the more despotically 
 he enthralls the dearer he becomes to the hearts of 
 men." Observing, in conclusion, as to this portion of 
 his argument, " Seldom, I say, has that kind of 
 royalty been quietly conceded to any man of genius 
 until his tomb becomes his throne, and yet there is 
 not one of us now present who thinks it strange that it 
 is granted without a murmur to the guest whom we 
 receive to-night." As if in practical recognition of 
 
76 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 the prerogative thus gracefully referred to by his 
 brother-author, a royal saloon carriage on Friday, the 
 8th of November, conveyed Charles Dickens from 
 London to Liverpool. On the following morning he 
 took his departure on board the Cuba for the United 
 States, arriving at Boston on Tuesday, the 19th, when 
 the laconic message " Safe and well," was flashed home 
 by submarine telegraph. 
 
 The Readings projected in America were intended 
 to number up as many as eighty altogether. They 
 actually numbered up exactly Seventy- Six. They were 
 inaugurated by the first of the Boston Readings on 
 Monday, the 2nd of December, 1867. Extending 
 over an interval of less than five months, they closed in 
 Steinway Hall on Monday, the 20th April, 1868, with 
 the last of the New York Readings. From beginning 
 to end, the enthusiasm awakened by these Readings 
 was entirely unparalleled. Simply to ensure a chance 
 of purchasing the tickets of admission, a queue of 
 applicants a quarter of a mile long would pass a whole 
 winter s night patiently waiting in sleet and snow, out 
 in the streets, to be in readiness for the opening of the 
 office-doors when the sale of tickets should have com 
 menced. Blankets and in several instances mattresses 
 were brought with them by some of the more provident 
 of these nocturnal wayfarers, many of whom of course 
 were notoriously middle-men who simply speculated, 
 with immense profit to themselves, in selling again at 
 enormously advanced prices the tickets which were 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 77 
 
 invariably dispensed -by the business manager at the 
 fixed charges originally announced. 
 
 As curiously illustrative of the first outburst of this 
 enthusiasm even before the Novelist s arrival on the 
 very eve of that arrival, as it happened mention may 
 here be made of the simple facts in regard to the sale 
 of tickets on Monday, the 18th of November. During 
 the whole of that day, from the first thing in the 
 morning to the last thing at night, Mr. Dolby sat there 
 at his desk in the Messrs. Ticknor and Fields book 
 store, literally doing nothing but sell tickets as fast as 
 he could distribute them and take the money. For 
 thirteen hours together, without taking bite or sup, with 
 out ever once for a passing moment quitting the office - 
 stool on which he was perched fortunately for him 
 behind a strong barricade he answered the rush of 
 applicants that steadily pressed one another onwards 
 to the pigeon-hole, each drifting by exhausted when 
 his claims were satisfied. The indefatigable manager 
 took in moneys paid down within those thirteen 
 consecutive hours as many as twelve thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 During the five months of his stay in America, four 
 Eeadings a week were given by the Novelist to 
 audiences as numerous as the largest building in each 
 town of a suitable character could by any contrivance 
 be made to contain. The average number of those pre 
 sent upon each of these occasions may be reasonably 
 estimated as at the very least 1500 individuals. Kerneni- 
 
78 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 bering that there were altogether seventy-six Readings, 
 this would show at once that upwards of one hundred 
 thousand souls (114,000) listened to the voice of the 
 great Author reading, what they had so often hefore 
 read themselves, and raising their own voices in return 
 to greet his ears with their ringing acclamations. At 
 a moderate estimate, again, just as we have seen that 
 each Eeading represented 1500 as the average number 
 of the audience, that audience represented, in its turn, 
 in cash, at the lowest computation, nett proceeds 
 amounting to fully $3000. At Eochester, for ex 
 ample, in the State of New York, was the smallest 
 house anywhere met with in the whole course of these 
 American Readings, and even that yielded $2500, the 
 largest house in the tour, on the other hand, netting 
 as much as $6000 and upwards. Multiplying, there 
 fore, the reasonably-mentioned average of $3000 by 
 seventy-six, as the aggregate number of the Readings, 
 we arrive at the astounding result that in this tour of 
 less than five months the Author-Reader netted alto 
 gether the enormous sum of $228,000. Supposing 
 gold to have been then at par, that lump sum would 
 have represented in our English currency what if 
 spoken of even in a whisper would, according to 
 Hood s famous witticism, have represented something 
 like " the roar of a Forty Thousand Pounder ! " Even 
 as it was, then, gold being at 39J per cent, premium, 
 with J per cent, more deducted on commission 
 virtually a drop of nearly 40 per cent, altogether! the 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 79 
 
 result was the winning of a fortune in what, but for 
 the fatigue involved in it, might have been regarded 
 as simply a holiday excursion. 
 
 The fatigue here referred to, however, must have 
 been something very considerable. Its influence was 
 felt all the more, no doubt, by reason of the Novelist 
 having had to contend during upwards of four hard 
 winter months, as he himself laughingly remarked 
 just before his return homewards, with " what he had 
 sometimes been quite admiringly assured, was a true 
 American catarrh ! " Nevertheless, even with its de 
 pressing and exhausting influence upon him, he not 
 only contrived to carry out the project upon which he 
 had adventured, triumphantly to its appointed close, 
 but even upon one of the most inclement days of an 
 unusually inclement season, namely, on Saturday, the 
 29th of February, 1868, he actually took part as one 
 of the umpires in the good-humoured frolic of a twelve- 
 mile walking match, up hill and down dale, through 
 the snow, on the Milldam road, between Boston and 
 Newton, doing every inch of the way, heel and toe, 
 as though he had been himself one of the competitors. 
 The first six miles having been accomplished by the 
 successful competitor in one hour and twenty-three 
 minutes, and the return six in one hour and twenty- 
 five minutes, the Novelist although, with his light, 
 springy step, he had observantly gone the whole dis 
 tance himself, as we have seen, in his capacity as 
 umpire, presided blithely, in celebration of this 
 
80 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 winter day s frolic, at a sumptuous little banquet, given 
 by him at the Parker House, a banquet that Lucullus 
 would hardly have disdained. Having appeared 
 before his last audience in America on the 20th of 
 April, 1868, at New York, the Author-Realler ad 
 dressed through them to all his other auditors in 
 the United States, after that final Beading was 
 over, a few genial and generous utterances of fare 
 well. Among other things, he said to them, " The 
 relations which have been set up between us, while 
 they have involved for me something more than mere 
 devotion to a task, have been sustained by you with 
 the readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledg 
 ment. Those relations must now be broken for ever. 
 Be assured, however, that you will not pass from my 
 mind. I shall often realise you as I see you now, 
 equally by my winter fire, and in the green English 
 summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere 
 audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, 
 and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and 
 consideration." Two days before that last of all these 
 American Headings, he had been entertained at a public 
 banquet in New York, on the 18th of April, at Del- 
 monico s. Two days after the final American Reading 
 and address of farewell, he took his departure from 
 New York on board the Russia, on Wednesday, the 
 22nd of April, arriving on Friday, the 1st of May, at 
 Liverpool. 
 
 Scarcely a month had elapsed after his return home- 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 81 
 
 wards, when, the prospective and definitive close of the 
 great author s career as a public Header was formally 
 announced. Again the Messrs. Chappell, of New 
 Bond Street, appeared between the Novelist and the 
 public as intermediaries. They intimated through 
 their advertisement, that " knowing it to be the 
 determination of Mr. Dickens finally to retire from 
 public Readings, soon after his return from America, 
 they (as having been honoured with his confidence on 
 former occasions) made proposals to him, while he 
 was still in the United States achieving his recent 
 brilliant successes there, for a final farewell series of 
 Readings in this country." They added that " their 
 proposals were at once accepted in a manner highly 
 gratifying to them ; " and that the series, which would 
 commence in the ensuing autumn, would comprehend, 
 besides London, several of the chief towns and cities 
 of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Looking back to 
 this preliminary advertisement now, there is a melan 
 choly significance in the emphasis with which it was 
 observed " It is scarcely necessary to add that any 
 announcement made in connection with these Farewell 
 Readings will be strictly adhered to and considered 
 final ; and that on no consideration whatever will Mr. 
 Dickens be induced to appoint an extra night in any 
 place in which he shall have been announced to read 
 for the last time." According to promise, in the au 
 tumn, these well-remembered Farewell Readings com 
 menced. They were intended to run on to the number 
 
82 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 of one hundred altogether. Beginning within the first 
 week of October, they were not to end until the third 
 week of the ensuing May. As it happened, Seventy- 
 Four Headings were given in place of the full hundred. 
 On Tuesday, the 6th of October, 1868, the series was 
 commenced. On Thursday, the 22nd of April, 1869, 
 its abrupt termination was announced, by a telegram 
 from Preston, that caused a pang of grief and anxiety 
 to the vast multitude of those to whom the very name 
 of Charles Dickens had, for more than thirty years, 
 been endeared. The intimation conveyed through 
 that telegram was the fact of his sudden and alarming 
 illness. Already, in the two preceding months, though 
 the public generally had taken no notice of the cir 
 cumstance, three of the Readings had, for various 
 reasons, been unavoidably given up one at Hull, fixed 
 for the 12th of March, and previously one at Glasgow, 
 fixed for the 18th, and another at Edinburgh, fixed for 
 the 19th of February. Otherwise than in those three 
 instances, the sequence of Readings marked on the 
 elaborate programme had been most faithfully adhered 
 to ; the Reader, indeed, only succumbing at last under 
 the nervous exhaustion caused by his own indomitable 
 perseverance. 
 
 It is, now, matter of all but absolute certainty that 
 his immense energies, his elastic temperament, and 
 his splendid constitution had all of them, long before 
 this, been cruelly overtaxed and overweighted. Un 
 suspected by any of us at the time, he had, there can 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 83 
 
 be little doubt of it, received the deadliest shock to 
 his whole system as far back as on the 9th of June, 
 1865, in that terrible railway accident at Staplehurst, 
 on the fifth anniversary of which fatal day, by a strange 
 coincidence, he breathed his last. His intense vitality 
 deceived himself and everybody else, however, until it 
 was all too late. The extravagant toil he was going 
 through for months together whirling hither and 
 thither in express trains, for the purpose of making 
 one exciting public appearance after another, each 
 of them a little world of animated impersonations 
 he accomplished with such unfailing and unflagging 
 vivacity, with such an easy step, such an alert carriage, 
 with such an animated voice and glittering eye, that 
 for a long while at least we were under the illusion. 
 Hurrying about England, Ireland, and Scotland as he 
 was during almost the whole of the last quarter of 
 1868 and during the whole of the first quarter of 1869 
 dividing his time not only between Liverpool and Man 
 chester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast, 
 with continual returns to his central reading-platform 
 in the great Hall near Piccadilly, but visiting after 
 wards as well nearly all the great manufacturing towns 
 and nearly all the fashionable watering-places the 
 wonder is now not so much that he gave in at last 
 to the exorbitant strain, but that he did not give in 
 much sooner. 
 
 A single incident will suffice to show the pace at 
 which he was going before the overwrought system 
 
 G 2 
 
CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 gave the first sign of its being overwrought. On the 
 evening of Thursday, the llth of March, 1869, an 
 immense audience crowded the Festival Concert Room 
 at York, the people there having only that one oppor 
 tunity of attending a Farewell Reading. As they en 
 tered the room, each person received a printed slip of 
 paper, on which was read, " The audience are respect 
 fully informed that carriages have been ordered to 
 night at half-past nine. Without altering his Reading 
 in the least, Mr. Dickens will shorten his usual pauses 
 between the Parts, in order that he may leave York 
 by train a few minutes after that time. He has been 
 summoned," it was added, " to London, in connection 
 with a late sad occurrence within the general know 
 ledge, but a more particular reference to which would 
 be out of place here." His attendance, in point of 
 fact, was suddenly required at the funeral of a dear 
 friend of his in the metropolis. To the funeral he 
 had to go. From the poignantly irksome duty of the 
 Reading he could not escape. Giving the latter even 
 as proposed, he would barely have time to catch the 
 up express, so as to arrive in town by the aid of rapid 
 night travelling, and be true to the melancholy ren 
 dezvous at the scene of his friend s obsequies. The 
 Readings that night were three, and they were given 
 in rapid succession, the Reader, after the first and 
 second, instead of withdrawing, as usual, for ten 
 minutes rest into his retiring room at the back of the 
 platform, merely stepping for an instant or two behind 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 85 
 
 the screen at the side of the platform, putting .his lips 
 to some iced champagne, and stepping back at once to 
 the reading-desk. The selected Readings were these 
 *" Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn," the murder scene of 
 " Sikes and Nancy," and the grotesque monologue of 
 " Mrs. Gamp." The Archbishop and the other prin 
 cipal people of York were there conspicuously noticeable 
 in the stalls, eagerly listening and keenly observant, 
 evidently in rapt attention throughout the evening, but 
 more especially during the powerfully acted tragic inci 
 dent from " Oliver Twist." The Reading, as a whole, 
 was more than ordinarily successful parts of it were 
 -exceptionally impressive. Directly it was over, the 
 Reader, having had a coupe previously secured for his 
 accommodation in the express, was just barely enabled, 
 .at a rush, to catch the train an instant or so before its 
 starting. Then only, after it had started, could he 
 give a thought to his dress, changing his clothes and 
 snatching a morsel of supper in the railway carriage as 
 he whirled on towards London. The occasion referred 
 to serves, at any rate, to illustrate the wear and tear 
 to which the Author had rendered himself, through 
 these Readings, more or less continually liable. 
 
 The jeopardy in which it placed his life at last was 
 .alarmingly indicated by the peremptory order of his 
 medical adviser, Mr. Frank Beard, of Welbeck Street 
 immediately on his arrival in Preston on the 22nd of 
 April, in answer to a telegram summoning him thither 
 upon the instant from London that the Readings 
 
H6 CHAELES DICKENS AH A READER. 
 
 must be stopped then and thenceforth. When this 
 happened, a fortnight had not elapsed after the grand 
 Banquet given in honour of Charles Dickens at St. 
 George s Hall, in Liverpool. As the guest of the 
 evening, he had, there and then, been " cheered to the 
 echo " by seven hundred enthusiastic admirers of his, 
 presided over by the Mayor of Liverpool. That was 
 on Saturday, the 10th of April, during a fortnight s 
 blissful rest in the whirling round of the Readings. 
 Immediately that fortnight was over, the whirling 
 round began again its momentarily interrupted gyra 
 tions. Three days in succession there was a Reading 
 at Leeds on Thursday, the 15th, Friday, the 16th, 
 and Saturday, the 17th of April. On Monday, the 
 19th, there was a Reading at Blackburn ; on Tuesday, 
 the 20th, another at Bolton ; on Wednesday, the 21st, 
 another at Southport. Then came the morning of the 
 22nd, on the evening of which Thursday he was to- 
 have read at Preston. By the time Dickens s medical 
 adviser had arrived from London, the audience had 
 already begun assembling. Thereupon, not only was that 
 particular Reading prohibited, but, by the same wise 
 mandate, all thought of resuming the course, or even 
 a portion of it, afterwards, was as peremptorily inter 
 dicted. In one sense, it is only matter for wistful 
 regret, now, that that judicious interdict was so far 
 removed, three-quarters of a year afterwards, that the 
 twelve Final Readings of Farewell which were given at 
 the St. James Hall in the spring of 1870, beginning 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 87 
 
 on Tuesday, the lltli of January, and ending on 
 Tuesday, the 15th of March, were assented to as in 
 any way reasonable. 
 
 That even these involved an enormous strain upon 
 the system, was proved to absolute demonstration by 
 the statistics jotted down with the utmost precision 
 during the Readings, as to the fluctuations of the 
 Reader s pulse immediately before and immediately 
 after each of his appearances upon the platform, mostly 
 two, but often three, appearances in a single evening. 
 The acceleration of his pulse has, to our knowledge, 
 upon some of these occasions been something extra 
 ordinary. Upon the occasion of his last and grandest 
 Reading of the Murder, for example, as he stepped 
 upon the platform, resolved, apparently, upon out 
 doing himself, he remarked, in a half-whisper to the 
 present writer, just before advancing from the cover of 
 the screen to the familiar reading-desk, " I shall tear 
 myself to pieces." He certainly never acted with more 
 impassioned earnestness though never once, for a 
 single instant, however, overstepping the boundaries 
 of nature. His pulse just before had been tested, as 
 usual, keenly and carefully, by his most sedulous and 
 sympathetic medical attendant. It was counted by 
 him just as keenly and carefully directly afterwards 
 the rise then apparent being something startling, 
 almost alarming, as it seemed to us under the circum 
 stances. 
 
 Those twelve Farewell Readings are all the more to 
 
88 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 be regretted now when we come to look back at them, 
 on our recalling to remembrance the fact that then, 
 for the first time since he assumed to himself the po 
 sition of a Public Reader professionally, Dickens con 
 sented to give a series of Headings at the very period 
 when he was producing one of his imaginative works 
 in monthly instalments. He appeared to give himself 
 no rest whatever, when repose, at any rate for a while, 
 was most urgently required. He seemed to have 
 become his own taskmaster precisely at the time 
 when he ought to have taken the repose he had 
 long previously earned, by ministering so largely and 
 laboriously to the world s enjoyment. 
 
 Summing up in a few words what has already been 
 related in detail, one passing sentence may here recall 
 to recollection the fact, that in addition to the various 
 works produced by the Novelist during the last three 
 lustres of his energetic life as a man of letters, he had 
 personally, within that busy interval of fifteen years, 
 given in round numbers at a moderate computation 
 some 500 of these Public Readings 423 in a strictly 
 professional capacity, the rest, prior to 1858, purely 
 out of motives of generosity, in his character as a 
 practical philanthropist. In doing this he had ad 
 dressed as many as five hundred enormous audiences, 
 whose rapt attention he had always secured, and who 
 had one and all of them, without exception, welcomed 
 his coming and going with enthusiasm. During this 
 period he had travelled over many thousands of miles, 
 
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 89 
 
 by railway and steam -packet. In a single tour, that 
 of the winter of 1867 and 1868, in America, he had 
 appeared before upwards of 100,000 persons, earning, 
 at the same time, over 200,000 dollars within an in 
 terval of very little more than four months altogether. 
 
 Later on, the circumstances surrounding the imme 
 diate close of this portion of the popular author s 
 life, as a Public Reader of his own works, will be de 
 scribed when mention is made of his final appearance 
 in St. James s Hall, on the night of his Farewell 
 Reading. Before any particular reference is made, 
 however, to that last evening, it may be advisable, as 
 tending to make this record more complete, that there 
 should now be briefly passed in review, one after 
 another, those minor stories, and fragments of the 
 larger stories, the simple recounting of which by his 
 own lips yielded so much artistic delight to a great 
 multitude of his contemporaries. Whatever may thus 
 be remarked in regard to these Readings will be written 
 at least from a vivid personal recollection ; the writer, 
 throughout, speaking, as before observed, from his 
 intimate knowledge of the whole of this protracted 
 episode in the life of the Novelist. 
 
 Whatever aid to the memory besides might have 
 been thought desirable, he has had ready to hand all 
 through, in the marked copies of the very books from 
 which the author read upon these occasions, or from 
 which, at the least, he had the appearance of reading. 
 For, especially towards the last, Charles Dickens hardly 
 
90 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READEE. 
 
 ever glanced, even momentarily, at the printed pages,, 
 simply turning the leaves mechanically as they lay 
 open before him on the picturesque little reading-desk. 
 Besides the Sixteen Readings actually given, there 
 were Four others which were so far meditated that they 
 were printed separately as " Readings," though the 
 reading copies of them that have been preserved, were 
 never otherwise prepared by their author-compiler for 
 representation. One of these the writer remembers 
 suggesting to the Novelist, as a characteristic com 
 panion or contrast to Dr. Marigold, meaning " Mrs. 
 Lirriper." Another, strange to sa}^, about the least 
 likely of all his stories one would have thought to 
 have been thus selected, was " The Haunted Man." 
 A third was " The Prisoner of the Bastile," which 
 would, for certain, have been one of Dickens s most 
 powerful delineations. The fourth, if only in remem 
 brance of the Old Bailey attorne} T , Mr. Jaggers, of the 
 convict Magwitch, and of Joe the blacksmith, the 
 majority would probably have been disposed to regret 
 almost more than Mrs. Lirriper. Though the lodging- 
 house keeper would have been welcome, too, for her 
 own sake, as who will not agree in saying, if merely 
 out of a remembrance of the "trembling lip " put up 
 towards her face, speaking of which the good motherly 
 old soul exclaims, " and I dearly kissed it; " or, bear 
 ing in mind, another while, her preposterous remi 
 niscence of the " impertinent little cock-sparrow of a 
 monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps, 
 
THE HEADINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 91 
 
 and playing the harp on the area railings with a hoop- 
 stick." Actually given or only meditated, the whole of 
 these twenty Readings meaning the entire collection 
 of the identical marked copies used by the Novelist 
 himself on both sides of the Atlantic have, for the 
 verification of this retrospect, been placed for the 
 time being in the writer s possession. Selecting from 
 among them those merely which are familiar to the 
 public, from their having been actually produced, he 
 here proposes cursorily to glance one by one through 
 the well-known series of Sixteen. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 IT can hardly be any matter for wonder that 
 the " Christmas Carol " was, among all the Read- 
 ings, the author s own especial favourite ! That it 
 was so, he showed from first to last unmistake- 
 ably. He began with it in 1853, and ended with 
 it in 1870, upon the latter occasion appending to 
 the long since abbreviated narrative, that other 
 incomparable evidence of his powers as a humorist, 
 "The Trial from Pickwick." Whoever went for 
 the first time to see and hear Charles Dickens read 
 one or other of his writings, did well in selecting a 
 night when he was going to relate his immortal ghost 
 story of Christmas. In compliance with the well- 
 known wish of the Novelist, the audience, as a rule, 
 contrived to assemble and to have actually taken their 
 places several minutes before the time fixed for the 
 Reader s appearance upon the platform. Occasionally 
 it happened, nevertheless, that a stray couple or so 
 would be still drifting in, here and there, among the 
 serried ranks of the stalls, when, book in hand, with a 
 light step, a smile on his face, and a flower in his 
 button-hole, the author had already rapidly advanced 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 93- 
 
 and taken his place before his quaintly constructed but 
 graceful little reading-desk. Then it was, perhaps, 
 at those very times, that a stranger to the whole scene 
 regarded himself almost as under a personal obligation 
 to these vexatious stragglers. For, until every one of 
 them had quietly settled down, there stood the Novelist, 
 cheerfully, patiently, glancing to the right and to the 
 left, taking the bearings of his night s company, as one 
 might sajr, with an air of the most perfect ease and 
 self-possession. Whosoever, consequently, was in at 
 tendance there for the first time, had an opportunity, 
 during any such momentary pause, of familiarising him 
 self with the appearance of the famous writer, with whose 
 books he had probably been intimately acquainted for 
 years upon years previously, but whom until then he 
 had never had the chance of beholding face to face. 
 
 Everyone, even to the illiterate wayfarers in the 
 public streets, had, to a certain extent, long since 
 come to know what manner of man Charles Dickens 
 was by means of his widely-scattered photographs. 
 But, there, better than any photograph, was the man 
 himself, the master of all English humorists, the 
 most popular author during his own lifetime that ever 
 existed; one whose stories for thirty years together 
 had been read with tears and with laughter, and whose 
 books had won for him personal affection, as well as 
 fame and fortune. Anyone seeing him at those 
 moments for the first time, would unquestionably 
 think How like he was to a very few indeed, how 
 
94 CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 utterly unlike the vast majority of liis countless 
 cartes-de-visites ! To the last there was the bright, 
 animated, alert carriage of the head phrenologically 
 a noble head physiognomically a noble countenance. 
 Encountering him within a veiy few weeks of his death, 
 Mr. Arthur Locker has said, " I was especially struck 
 with the brilliancy and vivacity of his eyes : " adding, 
 " there seemed as much life and animation in them as 
 in twenty ordinary pairs of eyes." Another keen 
 observer, Mr. Arthur Helps, has in the same spirit 
 exclaimed, " What portrait can do justice to the 
 frankness, kindness, and power of his eyes?" None 
 certainly that ever was painted by the pencil of the 
 sunbeam, or by the brush of a Eoyal Academician. 
 Fully to realise the capacity for indicating emotion 
 latent in them, and informing his whole frame his 
 hands for example, in their every movement, being 
 wonderfully expressive those who attended these 
 Headings soon came to know, that you had but to 
 listen to his variable and profoundly sympathetic voice, 
 and to watch the play of his handsome features. 
 
 The different original characters introduced in his 
 stories, when he read them, he did not simply describe, 
 he impersonated : otherwise to put it, for whomsoever 
 he spoke, he spoke in character. Thus, when every 
 thing was quiet in the crowded assembly, and when 
 the ringing applause that always welcomed his appear 
 ance, but which he never by any chance acknowledged, 
 had subsided when he began: "A Christmas Carol, 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 95 
 
 in four staves. Stave one, Marley s Gliost. Marley 
 was dead to begin with." Having remarked, yet fur 
 ther, that " there was no doubt whatever about that," 
 the register of his burial being signed by this function 
 ary, that and the other when he added, " Scrooge 
 signed it ; and Scrooge s name was good upon Change 
 for anything he chose to put his hand to " Scrooge 
 in the flesh was, through the very manner of the 
 utterance of his name, brought vividly and upon the 
 instant before the observant listener. " Oh ! but he 
 was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge ! " 
 That we knew instinctively, without there being any 
 need whatever for our hearing one syllable of the de 
 scription of him, admirably given in the book, but 
 suppressed in the Reading, judiciously suppressed 
 enough, because, for that matter, we saw and heard it 
 without any necessity for its being explained. As one 
 might say quoting here a single morsel from the 
 animated description of Scrooge, that was actually 
 illustrated by Scrooge s impersonator it all " spoke 
 out shrewdly in his grating voice ! " And it was thus, 
 not merely with regard to the leading personages of 
 the little acted drama, as, turn by turn, they were 
 introduced ; precisely the same artistic care was applied 
 by the impersonating realist to the very least among 
 the minor characters, filling in, so to speak, little 
 incidental gaps in the background. A great fat man 
 with a monstrous chin, for example, was introduced 
 just momentarily in the briefest street-dialogue, to- 
 
96 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 wards the close of this very Reading, who had only to 
 open his lips once or twice for an instant, yet whose 
 individuality was in that instant or two so thoroughly 
 realised, that he lives ever since then in the hearers 
 remembrance. When, in reply to some one s inquiry, 
 as to what was the cause of Scrooge s (presumed) 
 death ? this great fat man with the monstrous chin 
 answered, with a yawn, in two words, " God knows ! "" 
 he was before us there, as real as life, as selfish, and 
 as substantial. So was it also with the grey-haired 
 rascal, Joe, of the rag-and-bottle shop ; with Topper, 
 when he pronounced himself, as a bachelor, to be "a 
 wretched outcast;" with the Schoolmaster, when he 
 " glared on Master Scrooge with ferocious condescen 
 sion, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by 
 shaking hands with him," all of whom were indicated 
 by the merest touch or two, and yet each of whom was 
 a living and breathing and speaking verisimilitude. 
 
 There was produced, to begin with, however, a sense 
 of exhilaration in the very manner with which Dickens 
 commenced the Reading of one of his stories, and 
 which was always especially noticeable in the instance 
 of this particular ghost story of his about Christmas. 
 The opening sentences were alwa} r s given in those 
 cheery, comfortable tones, indicative of a double relish 
 on the part of a narrator to wit, his own enjoyment of 
 the tale he is going to relate, and his anticipation of 
 the enjoyment of it by those who are giving him their 
 attention. Occasionally, at any rate during the last 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 97 
 
 few years, his voice was husky just at the commence 
 ment, but as he warmed to his work, with him at all 
 times a genuine labour of love, everything of that kind 
 disappeared almost at the first turn of the leaf. The 
 genial inflections of the voice, curiously rising, in those 
 first moments of the Beading, at the end of every sen 
 tence, there was simply no resisting. Had there been 
 a wedding guest present, he would hardly have re 
 pined in not being able to obey the summons of the 
 loud bassoon. The narrator had his will with one 
 and all. However large and however miscellaneous 
 the audience, from the front of the stalls to the back 
 of the gallery, every one listened to the familiar words 
 that fell from his lips, from the beginning to the end, 
 with unflagging attention. There could be small room 
 for marvel at this, however, in the instance of the 
 41 Carol," on first reading which, Thackeray spoke of 
 its author as that " delightful genius ! " The Edin 
 burgh editor, Lord Jeffrey, at the very same time, 
 namely, towards the close of 1843, on the morrow of 
 the little book s original publication, avowing, in no less 
 glowing terms, that he had been nothing less than 
 charmed by the exquisite apologue : " chiefly," as he 
 declared, " for the genuine goodness which breathes 
 all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which 
 its genius has been awakened." Never since he had 
 first and that but a very few years previously taken 
 pen in hand as a story-teller, had this " delightful 
 genius " sat down in a happier vein for writing any- 
 
 H 
 
98 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 tiling, than when he did so for the purpose of recount 
 ing how Scrooge was converted, by a series of ghostly 
 apparitions, from the error of his utterly selfish way 
 in life, until then, as a tough-skinned, ingrained cur 
 mudgeon. 
 
 Characters and incidents, brought before us anew 
 in the Reading, were all so cordially welcomed, the 
 former being such old friends, the latter so familiarly 
 within our knowledge ! Insomuch that many passages 
 were, almost word for word, remembered by those who, 
 nevertheless, listened as if curious to learn what might 
 follow, yet who could readily, any one of them, have 
 prompted the Reader, that is the Author himself, sup 
 posing by some rare chance he had happened, just for 
 one moment, to be at fault. It is curious to observe, on 
 turning over the leaves of the marked copy of this 
 Reading, the sententious little marginal notes for his 
 own guidance, jotted down by the hand of this won 
 derful master of elocutionaiy effect. "Narrative" is 
 written on the side of p. 5 where Scrooge s office, on 
 Christmas Eve, is described, just before mention is 
 made of the Clerk s dismal little cell seeming to be "a 
 sort of tank," and of his fire being so small that it 
 looked like " one coal," and of his trying at last to 
 warm himself by the candle, " in which effort, not 
 being a man of strong imagination, he failed." Again, 
 "Cheerful" is penned on the side of p. 6, where 
 Scrooge s Nephew comes in at a burst with "A Merry 
 Christinas, uncle ! God save you ! " 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 99 
 
 After Scrooge s inhuman retort of " Bah ! hum 
 bug!" not a word was added of the descriptive 
 sentence immediately following. Admirable though 
 every word of it is, however, one could hardly regret 
 its suppression. Is it asked why ? Well then, for 
 this simple reason the force of which will be 
 admitted by anyone who ever had the happiness of 
 grasping Charles Dickens s hand in friendship that 
 his description of Scrooge s Nephew was, quite uncon 
 sciously but most accurately, in every word of it, a 
 literal description of himself, just as he looked upon any 
 day in the blithest of all seasons, after a brisk walk in 
 the wintry streets or on the snowy high road. " He 
 had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and 
 frost, this Nephew of Scrooge s, that he was all in a 
 glow ; his face was ruddy and handsome ; his eyes 
 sparkled, and his breath smoked again." The 
 Novelist himself was depicted there to a nicety. 
 No need, therefore, was there for even one syllable 
 of this in the Eeading. Scrooge s Nephew was visibly 
 before us, without a word being uttered. 
 
 To our thinking, it has always seemed as if the one 
 chink through which Scrooge s sympathies are got at 
 and his heart-strings are eventually touched, is discern- 
 able in his keen sense of humour from the very outset. 
 It is precisely through this that there seems hope, from 
 the very beginning, of his proving to be made of "pene 
 trable stuff." "When, after his monstrous " Out upon 
 merry Christmas!" he goes on to say, "If I had my will 
 
100 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 every idiot who goes about with ( merry Christmas on 
 his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and 
 buried with a stake of holly in his heart : he should !" 
 one almost feels as if he were laughing in his sleeve from 
 the very commencement. Instance, as yet more strik 
 ingly to the point in respect to what we are here main 
 taining, the wonderfully comic effect of the bantering 
 remarks addressed by him to the Ghost of Jacob Marley 
 all through their confabulation, even when the spectre s 
 voice, as we are told, was disturbing the very marrow 
 in his bones. True, it is there stated that, all through 
 that portentous dialogue, he was only trying to be 
 smart "as a means of distracting his own attention." 
 But the jests themselves are too delicious, one would 
 say, for mere make-believes. Besides which, hear his 
 laugh at the end of the book ! Hardly that of one really 
 so long out of practice " a splendid laugh, a most illus 
 trious laugh, the father of a long, long line of brilliant 
 laughs ! " A laugh, one might suppose, as contagious as 
 that of his own Nephew when he was "so inexpressibly 
 tickled that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and 
 stamp ! " Speaking of which our author writes so 
 delectably, " If you should happen by any unlikely 
 chance to know a man more blest in a laugh than 
 Scrooge s Nephew, all I can say is, I should like to 
 know him too. Introduce him to me, and I ll cultivate 
 his acquaintance." At which challenge one might 
 almost have been tempted anticipatively to say at a 
 venture Scrooge ! Good-humoured argument apart, 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 however, what creatures were those who, one by 
 one sometimes, it almost seemed, two or three 
 of them together appeared and disappeared upon 
 the platform, at the Reader s own good-will and 
 pleasure ! 
 
 After Scrooge s " Good afternoon ! " delivered with 
 irresistibly ludicrous iteration we caught something- 
 more than a distant glimpse of the Clerk in the tank, 
 when on Scrooge s surly interrogation, if he will 
 want all day to-morrow ? the Reader replied in the 
 thinnest and meekest of frightened voices, " If quite 
 convenient, sir ! " It brought into full view instanta 
 neously, and for the first time, the little Clerk whom 
 one followed in imagination with interest a minute 
 afterwards on his " going down a slide at the end of a 
 lane of boys twenty times in honour of Christmas, and 
 then, with the long ends of his white comforter dang 
 ling below his waist (for he boasted no greatcoat) 
 running home as hard as he could pelt to play at blind 
 man s buff." Instantly, upon the heels of this, we find 
 noted on the margin, p. 18, " Tone to mystery." The 
 spectral illusion of the knocker on Scrooge s house- 
 door, looking for all the world not like a knocker, but 
 like Marley s face, " with a dismal light about it 
 like a bad lobster in a dark cellar," prepared the way 
 marvellously for what followed. Numberless little 
 tid-bits of description that anybody else would have 
 struck out with reluctance, as, for instance, that of 
 Scrooge looking cautiously behind the street door 
 
DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 when he entered, " as if he half expected to be terrified 
 with the sight of Marley s pigtail sticking out into the 
 hall," were unhesitatingly erased by the Eeader, as, 
 from his point of view, not necessarily to the purpose. 
 Then, after the goblin incident of the disused bell slowly 
 oscillating until it and all the other bells in the house 
 rang loudly for a while afterwards becoming in turn 
 just as suddenly hushed we got to the clanking 
 approach, from the sub-basement of the old building, 
 of the noise that at length came on through the 
 heavy door of Scrooge s apartment ! " And " as the 
 Header said with startling effect, while his voice rose 
 to a hurried outcry as he uttered the closing exclama 
 tion " upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, 
 as though it cried, / know him ! Marley s Ghost f 
 The apparition, although the description of it was 
 nearly stenographically abbreviated in the Heading, 
 appeared to be, in a very few words, no less startlingly 
 realised. " Same face, usual waistcoat, tights, boots," 
 even to the spectral illusion being so transparent that 
 Scrooge (his own marrow, then, we may presume, 
 becoming sensitized) looking through his waistcoat 
 " could see the two back buttons on the coat behind " 
 with the incorrigible old joker s cynical reflection to 
 himself that " he had often heard Marley spoken of as 
 having no bowels, but had never believed it until then." 
 The grotesque humour of his interview with the spectre 
 seemed scarcely to have been realised, in fact, until 
 their colloquy was actually listened to in the Heading. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 103 
 
 Scrooge s entreaty addressed to the Ghost, when the 
 latter demanded a hearing, " Don t be flowery, Jacob, 
 .pray ! " was only less laughable, for example, than the 
 expression of the old dreamer s visage when Marley 
 informed him that he had often sat beside him 
 invisibly ! Promised a chance and hope in the future 
 a chance and hope of his dead partner s procuring 
 Scrooge s " Thank ee ! " full of doubt was a fitting 
 prelude to his acknowledgment of the favour when 
 explained. "You will be haunted," quoth the Ghost, 
 41 by three Spirits." The other faltering, " I I think 
 I d rather not : " and then quietly hinting afterwards, 
 " Couldn t I take em all at once, and have it over, 
 Jacob ? " 
 
 As for the revelations made to Ebenezer Scrooge by 
 those three memorable Spirits of Christmas Past, Pre 
 sent, and Future, who can ever hope to relate them and 
 impersonate them as they were related and imper 
 sonated by the Author himself of this peerless ghost- 
 story ! Fezziwig, for example, with his calves shining 
 like moons, who, after going through all the intri 
 cacies of the country dance, bow, corkscrew, thread- 
 the-needle, and back again to your place, cut " cut 
 so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and 
 came upon his feet again without a stagger ! " The very 
 Fiddler, who "went up to the lofty desk and made an 
 orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches ! " 
 Master Peter Cratchit, again, arrayed in his father s 
 shirt collars, who, rejoicing to find himself so galla ut ly 
 
104 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 attired, at one moment " yearned to show his linen in 
 the fashionable parks," and at another, hearing his 
 sister Martha talk of some lord who " was much about 
 as tall as Peter, pulled up his collars so high that 
 you couldn t have seen him if you had been there." 
 As for the pathetic portions of the narrative, it is 
 especially observable in regard to those, that they were 
 anything rather than made too much of. There, more 
 particularly, the elisions were ruthless. Looking 
 through the marked copy, it really would appear that 
 only a very few indeed of the salient points were left in 
 regard to the life and death of Tiny Tim. Bob s visit 
 to the death-bed was entirely unmeiitioned. Even the 
 words " Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was 
 from God ! " were never uttered. Two utterances 
 there were, however, the one breathing an exquisite 
 tenderness, the other indicative of a long-suppressed 
 but passionate outburst of grief, that thrilled to the 
 hearts of all who heard them, and still, we doubt not, 
 haunt their recollection. The one where the mother, 
 laying her mourning needlework upon the table, put 
 her hand up to her face. " The colour hurts my 
 eyes, she said. The colour? Ah ! poor Tiny Tim !" 
 The other, where the father, while describing the little 
 creature s grave, breaks down in a sudden agony of 
 tears. " It would have done you good to see how 
 green a place it is. But you ll see it often. I pro 
 mised him that I would walk there on a Sunday My 
 little, little child ! My little child ! " It was a touch o 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 105 
 
 nature that made the Header and his world of hearers, 
 upon the instant, kin. The tearful outcry brimmed to- 
 the eyes of those present a thousand visible echoes. 
 " He broke down all at once. He couldn t help it," 
 said the Header, adding in subdued accents the simple 
 words, "If he could have helped it, he and his child 
 would have been further apart perhaps than they 
 were." With that ended all reference to the home- 
 grief at Bob Cratchit s. Everything else in relation to- 
 the loss of Tiny Tim was foregone unhesitatingly. 
 
 The descriptive passages were cut out by wholesale. 
 While the Christmas dinner at Scrooge s Clerk s, and 
 the Christmas party at Scrooge s Nephew s, were left in 
 almost in their entirety, the street-scenes and shop- 
 window displays were obliterated altogether. Nothing 
 at all was said about the " great round, pot-bellied 
 baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly 
 old gentlemen lolling at the doors and tumbling into 
 the streets in their apoplectic opulence." Nothing 
 about the ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish 
 onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like 
 Spanish friars, and "winking from their shelves in 
 wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and 
 glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe." Nothing 
 about the canisters of tea and coffee "rattled up and 
 down like juggling tricks," or about the candied fruits 
 " so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make 
 the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently 
 bilious." 
 
106 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Nay, we were denied even a momentary glimpse, on 
 the snow-crusted pavement at nightfall, of that group 
 of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all 
 chattering at once, tripping lightly off to some near 
 neighbour s house, " where, woe upon the single man 
 who saw them enter artful witches, well they knew it 
 in a glow ! " Topper was there, however, and the 
 plump sister in the lace tucker, and the game of Yes- 
 and-No, the solution to which was, " It s your uncle 
 Scro-o-o-o-oge ! " Happiest of all these non-omis 
 sions, as one may call them, there was that charming 
 picture of Scrooge s niece by marriage, which as 
 brightly, exquisitely articulated by the lips of her 
 iniaginer was like the loveliest girl-portrait ever 
 painted by Greuze. (t She was very pretty, exceed 
 ingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital 
 face ; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be 
 kissed as no doubt it was ; all kinds of good little dots 
 about her chin, that melted into one another when she 
 laughed ; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in 
 any little creature s head. Altogether she was what you 
 would have called provoking, you know ; but satis 
 factory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory." The grave 
 face and twinkling eyes with which this cordial 
 acquiescence in the conclusion arrived at was ex- 
 pressed were irresistibly exhilarating. Just in the 
 same way there was a sort of parenthetical smack 
 of the lips in the self-communing of Scrooge when, 
 nt the very close of the story, after hesitating 
 
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. 107 
 
 awhile at his Nephew s door as to whether he 
 should knock, he made a dash and did it. " Is 
 your master at home, niy .dear?" said Scrooge. 
 "Nice girl! very" Then, as to the cordiality of 
 his reception by his Nephew, what could by possi 
 bility have expressed it better than the look, voice, 
 manner of the Eeader. " Will you let me in, 
 Fred ? Let him in ! It is a mercy he didn t shake 
 his arm off." The turkey that " never could have stood 
 upon its legs, that bird," but must have "snapped 
 em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax! " 
 the remarkable, boy who was just about its size, and who, 
 when told to go and buy it, cried out " Walk-En!" 
 Bob Cratchit s trying to overtake nine o clock with his 
 pen on his arriving nearly twenty minutes afterwards ; 
 his trembling and getting a little nearer the ruler when 
 regenerated Scrooge talks about raising his salary, prior 
 to calling him Bob, and, with a clap on the back, wishing 
 him a merry Christmas ! brought, hilariously, the 
 whole radiant Reading of this wonderful story to its 
 conclusion. It was a feast of humour and a flow of 
 fun, better than all the yule-tide fare that ever was 
 provided fuller of good things than any Christmas 
 pudding of plums and candied fruit-peel more warm 
 ing to the cockles of one s heart, whatever those may 
 be, than the mellowest wassail-bowl ever brimmed to 
 over-flowing. No wonder those two friends of 
 Thackeray, who have been already mentioned, and 
 who were both of them women, said of the Author of 
 
108 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 the " Carol," by way of criticism, " God bless him ! >r 
 This being exclaimed by them, as will be remembered, 
 simply after reading it to themselves. If only they 
 had heard him read it ! 
 
THE TKIAL FROM PICKWICK. 
 
 READER and audience about equally, one may say, 
 revelled in the " Trial from Pickwick." Every well- 
 known person in the comic drama was looked for 
 eagerly, and when at last Serjeant Buzfuz, as we were 
 told, "rose with more importance than he had yet 
 exhibited, if that were possible, and said, Call 
 Samuel Weller, " a round of applause invariably 
 greeted the announcement of perhaps the greatest of all 
 Dickens s purely humorous characters. The Reading 
 copy of this abbreviated report of the great case of 
 Bardell v. Pickivick has, among the complete set of 
 Readings, one very striking peculiarity. Half-bound 
 in scarlet morocco like all the other thin octavos in 
 the collection, its leaves though yellow and worn with 
 constant turning like the rest, are wholly unlike those of 
 the others in this, that the text is untouched by pen or 
 pencil. Beyond the first condensation of that memorable 
 34th chapter of Pickwick, there is introduced not one 
 single alteration by way of after- thought. Struck off 
 at a heat, as it was, that first humorous report of the 
 -action for breach of promise of marriage brought by 
 
110 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Martha Bardell against Samuel Pickwick admitted in 
 truth in no way whatever of improvement. Anything 
 like a textual change would have been resented by the 
 hearers every one of them Pickwickian, as the case 
 might be, to a man, woman, or child as in the esti 
 mation of the literary court, nothing less than a high 
 crime and misdemeanour. Once epitomised for the 
 Reading, the printed version, at least of the report, 
 was left altogether intact. Nevertheless, strange to 
 say, there was perhaps no Reading out of the whole 
 series of sixteen, in the delivery of which the 
 Author more readily indulged himself with an occa 
 sional gag. Every interpolation of this kind, however, 
 was so obviously introduced on the spur of the 
 moment, so refreshingly spontaneous and so ludi 
 crously apropos, that it was always cheered to the 
 very echo, or, to put the fact not conventionally but 
 literally, was received with peals of laughter. Thus it 
 was in one instance, as we very well remember, in 
 regard to Mr. Justice Stareleigh upon every occasion 
 that we saw him, one of the Reader s most whimsical 
 impersonations. The little judge described in the 
 book as " all face and waistcoat " was presented to 
 view upon the platform as evidently with no neck at 
 all (to speak of), and as blinking with owl-like stolidity 
 whenever he talked, which he always did under his 
 voice, and with apparently a severe cold in the head. 
 On the night more particularly referred to, Sam 
 Weller, being at the moment in the witness-box, had 
 
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK. Ill 
 
 just replied to the counsel s suggestion, that what ha 
 (Sam) meant by calling Mr. Pickwick s " a very good 
 service " was "little to do and plenty to get." " Oh, 
 quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they 
 ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes." There 
 upon glowering angrily at Sam, and blinking his eyes 
 more than ever Mr. Justice Stareleigh remarked, with 
 a heavier cold in the head than hitherto, in a severe 
 monotone, and with the greatest deliberation, " You 
 must not tell us what the soldier says unless the 
 soldier is in court, unless that soldier comes here in 
 uniform, and is examined in the usual way it s not 
 evidence." Another evening, again, we recall quite 
 as clearly to mind, when the Header was revelling 
 more even than was his wont, in the fun of this re 
 presentation of the trial-scene, he suddenly seemed to 
 open up the revelation of an entirely new phase in Mr. 
 Winkle s idiosyncrasy. Under the badgering of Mr. 
 Skimpin s irritating examination, as to whether he was 
 or was not a particular friend of Mr. Pickwick the 
 defendant, the usually placable Pickwickian s patience 
 upon this occasion appeared gradually and at last utterly 
 to forsake him. " I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as 
 
 well as I can recollect at this moment, nearly " 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are 
 you or are you not a particular friend of the de 
 fendant s ?" " I was just about to say " " Will 
 
 you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?" 
 " Why, God bless my soul, I was just about to say 
 
112 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 that " Whereupon the Court, otherwise Mr. Justice 
 
 Stareleigh, blinking faster than ever, blurted out 
 severely, " If yon don t answer the question you ll be 
 committed to prison, sir ! " And then, but not till then, 
 Mr. Winkle was sufficiently restored to equanimity to 
 admit at last, meekly, " Yes, he was ! " 
 
 In the Eeading of the Trial the first droll touch 
 was the well-remembered reference to the gentlemen 
 in wigs, in the barristers seats, presenting as a body 
 " all that pleasing variety of nose and whisker for 
 which the bar of England is so justly celebrated." 
 Even the allusion to those among their number 
 who carried a brief " scratching their noses with it to 
 impress the fact more strongly on the observation of 
 the spectators," and the other allusion to those who 
 hadn t a brief, carrying instead red-labelled octavos 
 with " that under-done-pie-crust cover, technically 
 known as law calf," was each, in turn, welcomed with 
 a flutter of amusement. Every point, however minute, 
 told, and told effectively. More effectively than if 
 each was heard for the first time, because all were 
 thoroughly known, and, therefore, thoroughly well 
 appreciated. The opening address of Serjeant Buzfuz 
 every one naturally enough regarded as one of the 
 most mirth-moving portions of the whole representa 
 tion. In the very exordium of it there w r as something 
 eminently absurd in the Serjeant s extraordinarily 
 precise, almost mincing pronunciation. As where 
 he said, that " never in the whole course of his pro- 
 
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK. 11.3 
 
 fessional experience never from the first moment of 
 his applying himself to the study and practice of the 
 law had he approached a case with such a heavy 
 sense of respon-see-hee-lee-ty imposed upon him a 
 respon-see-hee-lee-ty he could never have supported 
 were he not," and so forth. Again, a wonderfully 
 ridiculous eifect was imparted by the Reader to his 
 mere contrasts of manner when, at one moment, in 
 the bland and melancholy accents of Serjeant Buzfuz, 
 he referred to the late Mr. Bardell as having " glided 
 almost imperceptibly from the world to seek elsewhere 
 for that repose and peace which a custom-house can 
 never afford," adding, the next instant in his own 
 voice, and with the most cruelly matter-of-fact pre 
 cision, " This was a pathetic description of the decease 
 of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head 
 with a quart-pot in a public -house cellar." The 
 gravity of the Reader s countenance at these moments, 
 with, now and then, but very rarely, a lurking twinkle 
 in the eye, was of itself irresistibly provocative of 
 laughter. Even upon the Serjeant s mention. of the 
 written placard hung up in the parlour window of 
 Goswell Street, bearing this inscription, " Apartments 
 furnished for single gentlemen : inquire within," the 
 sustained seriousness with which he added, that. there 
 the forensic orator paused while several gentlemen of 
 the jury " took a note of the document," one of that 
 intelligent body inquiring, " There is no date to that, 
 is there, sir?" made fresh ripples of laughter spread 
 
 i 
 
114 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 from it as inevitably as the concentric circles on water 
 from the dropping of a pebble. The crowning extrava 
 gances of this most Gargantuan of comic orations were 
 always of course the most eagerly welcomed, such, for 
 example, as the learned Serjeant s final allusion to 
 Pickwick s coining before the court that day with "his 
 heartless tomato-sauce and warming-pans," and the 
 sonorous close of the impassioned peroration with the 
 plaintiff s appeal to "an enlightened, a high-minded, 
 a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a 
 sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised 
 countrymen." It was after this, however, that the true 
 fun of the Reading began with the examination and 
 cross-examination of the different witnesses. These, 
 as a matter of course, were acted, not described. 
 
 Mrs. Cluppins first entered the box, with her 
 feelings, so far as they could be judged from her 
 voice, evidently all but too many for her. Her flut 
 tered reply showed this at the very commencement, in 
 answer to an inquiry as to whether she remembered 
 one particular morning in July last, when Mrs. Bar- 
 dell was dusting Pickwick s apartment. " Yes, my 
 lord and jury, I do." " Was that sitting-room the 
 first-floor front?" "Yes, it were, sir" something 
 in the manner of Mrs. Crupp when at her faintest. 
 The suspicious inquiry of the red-faced little Judge, 
 What were you doing in the back-room, ma am?" 
 followed on her replying lackadaisically, " My lord 
 and jury, I will not deceive you" by his blinking 
 
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK. 115 
 
 at her more fiercely, "You had better not, ma am,"" 
 were only exceeded in comicality by Justice Stare- 
 leigli s bewilderment a moment afterwards, upon her 
 saying that she " see Mrs. BarclelTs street-door on 
 the jar." 
 
 JUDGE (in immense astonishment). " On the what?" 
 
 COUNSEL. "Partly open, my lord." 
 
 JUDGE (with more owl-like stolidity than ever). 
 " She said on the jar." 
 
 COUNSEL. " It s all the same, my lord." 
 
 Then blinking more quickly than before, with a 
 furtive glance at witness, and a doubtful look of ab 
 straction into space the little Judge made a note of it. 
 
 As in Mrs. Cluppins faintness there was a recog 
 nizable touch of Mrs. Crupp, when the spasms were 
 engendering in the nankeen bosom of that exemplary 
 female, so also in the maternal confidences volunteered 
 by the same witness, there was an appreciable re 
 minder of another lady who will be remembered 
 as having been introduced at the Coroner s Inquest 
 in Bleak House as " Anastasia Piper, gentlemen." 
 Regarding that as a favourable opportunity for inform 
 ing the court of her own domestic affairs, through the 
 medium of a brief dissertation, Mrs. Cluppins was 
 interrupted by the irascible Judge at the most interest 
 ing point in her revelations, when, having mentioned 
 that she was already the mother of eight children, she 
 added, that " she entertained confident expectations of 
 presenting Mr. Cluppins with a ninth about that day 
 
 i 2 
 
116 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 six months " whereupon the worthy lady was sum 
 marily hustled out of the witness-box. 
 
 Nathaniel Winkle, however, consoled us imme 
 diately. Don t we remember how, even before he 
 could open his lips, he was completely disconcerted ? 
 Namely, when, bowing very respectfully to the little 
 Judge, he had that complimentary proceeding acknow 
 ledged snappishly with, " Don t look at me, sir ; look 
 
 at the jury " Mr. Winkle, in obedience to the 
 
 mandate, meekly looking " at the place where he 
 thought that the jury might be." Don t we remember 
 also perfectly well how the worst possible construction 
 was cast by implication beforehand upon his probable 
 reply to the very first question put to him, namely, by 
 the mere manner in which that first question was put? 
 "Now, sir, have the goodness to let his lordship and 
 the jury know what your name is, will you? " Mr. 
 Skimpin, in propounding this inquiry, inclining his 
 head on one side and listening with great sharpness 
 for the answer, " as if to imply that he rather thought 
 Mr. Winkle s natural taste for perjury would induce 
 him to give some name which did not belong to him." 
 Giving in, absurdly, his surname only ; and being 
 asked immediately afterwards, if possible still more 
 absurdly, by the Judge, " Have you any Christian 
 name, sir ? " the witness, in the Reading, more 
 naturally and yet more confusedly even it seemed than 
 in the book, got that eminent functionary into a great 
 bewilderment as to whether he (Mr. Winkle) were called 
 
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK, 117 
 
 Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel. Bewildered 
 himself, in his turn, and that too almost hopelessly, came 
 Mr. Winkle s reply, " No, my lord ; only Nathaniel 
 not Daniel at all." Irascibly, the Judge s, " What did 
 you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?" Shame 
 faced and yet irritably, "I didn t, my lord." "You 
 did, sir ! " with great indignation, topped by this 
 cogent reasoning, " How could I have got Daniel on 
 my notes, unless you told me so, sir ? " Nothing at 
 all was said about it in the Reading ; but, again and 
 again, Mr. Winkle, as there impersonated, while endea 
 vouring to feign an easiness of manner, was made to 
 assume, in his then state of confusion, "rather the air 
 of a disconcerted pickpocket." 
 
 Better almost than Mr. Winkle himself, however, 
 as an impersonation, was, in look, voice, manner, 
 Mr. Skimpin, the junior barrister, under whose cheer 
 ful but ruthless interrogations that unfortunate gen 
 tleman was stretched upon the rack of examination. 
 His (Mr. Skimpin s) cheery echoing upon every occa 
 sion when it was at last extorted from his victim of 
 the latter s answer (followed instantly by his own 
 taunts and insinuations), remains as vividly as any 
 thing at all about this Reading in our recollection. 
 When at length Mr. Winkle, with no reluctance in the 
 world, but only seemingly with reluctance, answers 
 the inquiry as to whether he is a particular friend of 
 Pickwick, " Yes, I am ! " " Yes, you are ! " said Mr. 
 Skimpin (audibly to the court, but as if it were only 
 
118 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 to himself). " And why couldn t you say that at once, 
 sir ? Perhaps you know the plaintiff, too eh, Mr. 
 Winkle?" "I don t know her; I ve seen her!" 
 " Oh, you don t know her, but you ve seen her ? Now 
 have the goodness to tell the gentlemen of the jury 
 what you mean by that, Mr. Winkle." As to how this 
 unfortunate witness, after being driven to the confines 
 of desperation, on being at last released, " rushed with 
 delirious haste " to the hotel, "where he was discovered 
 some hours after by the waiter, groaning in a hollow 
 and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the 
 sofa cushions " not a word was said in the Beading. 
 
 A flavour of the fun of Mrs. Sanders s evidence was 
 given, but only a passing flavour of it, in reference to 
 Mr. Sanders having, in the course of their correspon 
 dence, often called her duck, but never chops, nor yet 
 tomato-sauce he being particularly fond of ducks 
 though possibly, if he had been equally fond of chops 
 and tomato -sauce, he might have called her that 
 instead, as a term of affection. 
 
 The evidence of all, however, was that of Sam 
 Weller, no less to the enjoyment of the Author, it was 
 plain to see, than to that of his hearers. After old 
 Weller s hoarse and guttural cry from the gallery, 
 "Put it down a w r ee, my lord," in answer to the 
 inquiry whether the immortal surname was to be spelt 
 with a V. or a W. ; Sam s quiet " I rayther suspect it 
 was my father, my lord," came with irresistible effect 
 from the Reader, as also did his recollection of some- 
 
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK. 119 
 
 thing " wery partickler " having happened 011 the 
 memorable morning, out of which had sprung the 
 whole of this trial of Bardell v. Pickwick, namely, that 
 he himself that clay had " a reg lar new fit out o 
 clothes." Beyond all the other Wellerisms, however, 
 was Sam s overwhelmingly conclusive answer to 
 counsel s inquiry in regard to his not having seen 
 what occurred, though he himself, at the time, was in 
 the passage, " Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller? " 
 " Yes, I have a pair of eyes ; and that s just it. If 
 they wos a pair o patent double -million magnifying 
 gas microscopes of hextra power, p r aps I might be 
 able to see through two flights o stairs and a deal 
 door ; but bein only eyes, you see, my wision s 
 limited." Better by far, in our estimation, never 
 theless, than the smart Cockney facetiousness of the 
 inimitable Sam; better than the old coachman s 
 closing lamentation, " Vy worn t there a alleybi ? " 
 better than Mr. Winkle, or Mrs. Cluppins, or Serjeant 
 Buzfuz, or than all the rest of those engaged in any 
 capacity in the trial, put together, was the irascible 
 little Judge, with the blinking eyes and the monotonous 
 voice himself, in his very pose, obviously, all face 
 .and waistcoat." Than Mr. Justice Stareleigh there 
 was, in the whole of this most humorous of all the 
 Readings, no more highly comic impersonation. 
 
DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 
 
 THE sea-beach at Yarmouth formed both the 
 opening and the closing scene of this Reading, in six 
 chapters, from " David Copperfield." In its varied 
 portraiture of character and in the wonderful de 
 scriptive power marking its conclusion, it was one of 
 the most interesting and impressive of the whole series 
 in its delivery. Through it, we renewed our acquaint 
 ance more vividly than ever with handsome, curly- 
 headed, reckless, heartless Steerforth! With poor, 
 lone, lorn Mrs. Gummidge, not only when everythink 
 about her went contrairy, but when her better nature 
 gushed forth under the great calamity befalling her 
 benefactor. With pretty little Emily, and bewitching 
 little Dora. With Mr. Micawber, his shirt-collar, his. 
 eye-glass, the condescending roll in his voice, and 
 his intermittent bursts of confidence. With Mrs. 
 Micawber, who, as the highest praise we can bestow 
 upon her, is quite worthy of her husband, and who is 
 always, it will be remembered, so impassioned in her 
 declaration that, come what may, she never will desert 
 
DAVID COrPERFIELD. 
 
 Mr. Micawber ! With Traddles, and his irrepressible 
 hair, even a love-lock from which had to be kept down 
 by Sophy s preservation of it in a clasped locket! 
 With Mr. Peggotty, in fine, who, in his tender love for 
 his niece, is, according to his own account, "not to 
 look at, but to think on," nothing less than a babby 
 in the form of .a great sea Porkypine ! Remem- 
 bering the other originals, crowding the pages of the 
 story in its integrity, how one would have liked to 
 have seen even a few more of them impersonated by 
 the protean Novelist ! That " most wonderful woman 
 in the world," Aunt Betsey, for example; or that most 
 laconic of carriers, Mr. Barkis ; or, to name yet one 
 other, Uriah Heep, that reddest and most writhing of 
 rascally attornies. As it was, however, there were 
 abundant realizations within the narrow compass of 
 this Reading of the principal persons introduced in 
 the autobiography of David Copperfield. The most 
 loveable, by the way, of all the young heroes por 
 trayed in the Dickens Gallery was there, to begin 
 with, for example the peculiar loveableness of 
 David being indicated as plainly as by any means 
 through the extraordinary variety of pet names given 
 to him by one or another in the course of the narra 
 tive. For, was he not the "Daisy" of Steerforth, 
 the "Doady" of Dora, the " Trotwood " of Aunt 
 Betsy, and the " Mas r Davy" of the Yarmouth 
 boatmen, just as surely as he was the "Mr. Copper- 
 full " of Mrs. Crupp, the "Master Copperfield" of 
 
122 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Uriah Heep, and the " Dear Copperfield " of Mr. 
 Wilkins Micawber ? 
 
 That " The Personal History and Experiences of 
 David Copperfield the Younger " was, among all its 
 author s works, his own particular favourite, he him 
 self, in his very last preface to it, in 1867, formally 
 acknowledged. Several years previously, while 
 sauntering with him to and fro one evening on 
 the grass-plot at Gadshill, we remember receiving 
 from him that same admission. " Which of all your 
 books do you think I regard as incomparably your 
 best ? " " Which ? " " David Copperfield." A 
 momentary pause ensuing, he added, readily and 
 without the smallest reservation, " You are quite 
 right." The acknowledgment then made as to 
 this being in fact his own opinion was thus simply 
 but emphatically expressed. Pen in hand, long after 
 wards, he made the same admission, only with yet 
 greater emphasis, when the Preface to the new edition 
 of the story in 1867 was thus closed by Charles 
 Dickens " Of all my books, I like this the best. 
 It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to 
 every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love 
 that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many 
 fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite 
 child. And his name is David Copperfield. " Having 
 that confession from his own lips and under his own 
 hand, it will be readily understood that the Novelist 
 always took an especial delight when, in the course 
 
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 123 
 
 of his Readings, the turn came for that of " David 
 Copperfield." 
 
 One of the keenest sensations of pleasure he ever 
 experienced as a Header as he himself related to us 
 with the liveliest gratification, evidently, even in the 
 mere recollection of the incident occurred in con 
 nection with this very Reading. Strange to say, 
 moreover, it occurred, not in England or in America, 
 in the presence of an English-speaking audience, but 
 in Paris, and face to face with an audience more than 
 half of which was composed of Frenchmen. And the 
 hearer who caused him, there, that artistic sense, one 
 might almost call it thrill of satisfaction was a 
 Frenchman ! All that was expressed on the part of 
 this appreciative listener, being uttered by him instan 
 taneously in a half-whispered, monosyllabic ejacu 
 lation. As we have already explained upon an 
 earlier page, the Readings which took place in Paris, 
 and which were in behalf of the British Charitable 
 Fund in that capital, were given there before a densely 
 crowded but very select audience at the British 
 Embassy, Lord Cowley being then her Majesty s 
 ambassador. The Reading on the occasion referred 
 to was " David Copperfield," and the Reader became 
 aware in the midst of the hushed silence, just after 
 he had been saying, in the voice of Steerforth, 
 giving at the same moment a cordial grasp of the 
 hand to the briny fisherman he was addressing : 
 " Mr. Peggotty, you are a thoroughly good fellow, and 
 
124 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 deserve to be as happy as you are to-niglit. My hand 
 upon it ! " when, turning round, he added, still as 
 Steerforth, but speaking in a very different voice and 
 offering a very different hand-grip, as though already 
 he were thinking to himself what a chuckle-headed 
 fellow the young shipwright was " Ham, I give you 
 joy, my boy. My hand upon that too ! " The always 
 keenly observant Novelist became aware of a French 
 man, who w r as eagerly listening in the front row of the 
 stalls, suddenly exclaiming to himself, under his breath, 
 "Ah h!" having instantly caught the situation! 
 The sound of that one inarticulate monosyllable, as he 
 observed, when relating the circumstance, gave the 
 Reader, as an artist, a far livelier sense of satisfaction 
 than any that could possibly have been imparted by 
 mere acclamations, no matter how spontaneous or 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 As a Reading, it always seemed to us, that "David 
 Copperfield" was cut down rather distressingly. That, 
 nevertheless, was unavoidable. Turning in off Yar 
 mouth sands, we went straight at once through the 
 "delightful door" cut in its side, into the old black 
 barge or boat, high and dry there on the sea-beach, 
 and which was known to us nearly as familiarly as to 
 David himself, as the odd dwelling-house inhabited by 
 Mr. Peggotty. All the still-life of that beautifully 
 clean and tidy interior we had revealed to us again, as 
 of old : lockers, boxes, table, Dutch clock, chest of 
 drawers even tea-tray, only that we failed to hear 
 
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 125 
 
 anything said about the painting on the tea-tray, 
 representing " a lady with a parasol, taking a walk 
 with a military-looking child, who was trundling a 
 hoop." The necessities of condensation in the same 
 way restricted the definition of Mr. Peggotty s occu 
 pation in the Heading, to the simple mention of the 
 fact that he dealt in lobsters, crabs, and craw-fish, 
 without any explanation at all as to those creatures 
 being heaped together in a little wooden out-house 
 "in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one 
 another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they 
 laid hold of." Little Emily appeared as a beautiful 
 young woman, and no longer as the prattling lassie 
 who, years before had confided to her playfellow, 
 David, how, if ever she were a lady, she would give 
 uncle Dan, meaning Mr. Peggotty, " a sky-blue coat, 
 with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet 
 waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver 
 pipe, and a box of money." Mrs. Gummidge, as 
 became a faithful widow, was still fretting after the 
 Old Un. Ham, something of Mr. Peggotty s own 
 build, as the latter described him, "a good deal o the 
 sou-wester in him, wery salt, but on the whole, a 
 honest sort of a chap, too, with his art in the right 
 place," had just made good his betrothal to the little 
 creature he had seen grow up there before him, "like 
 a flower," when, at the very opening of the Beading, 
 into the old Yarmouth boat, walked "Mas r Davy" 
 and his friend Steerforth. Mr. Peggotty s explanation 
 
126 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 to his unexpected but heartily welcomed visitors as 
 to how the engagement between Ham and Entity, had 
 but just then been brought about, opened up before 
 the audience in a few words the whole scheme of the 
 tragic little dramatic tale about to be revealed to them 
 through a series of vivid impersonations. 
 
 The idiomatic sentences of the bluff fisherman, as in 
 their racy vernacular they were blithely given utter 
 ance to by the manly voice of the Reader, seemed to 
 supply a fitting introduction to the drama, as though 
 from the lips of a Yarmouth Chorus. Scarcely had the 
 social carouse there in the old boat, on that memorable 
 evening of Steerforth s introduction, been recounted, 
 when the whole drift of the story was clearly foreshadowed 
 in the brief talk which immediately took place between 
 him and David as they walked townwards across the 
 sands towards their hotel. " Daisy, for though that s 
 not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave 
 you, you re such a fresh fellow, that it s the name I 
 best like to call you by and I wish, I wish, I wish 
 you could give it to me ! " That of itself had its 
 significance. But still more significant was David s 
 mention of his looking in at Steerforth s bed-room on 
 the following morning, before himself going away 
 alone, and of his there finding the handsome scape 
 grace fast asleep, " lying easily, with his head upon his 
 arm," as he had often seen him lie in the old school 
 dormitory. " Thus in this silent hour I left him," 
 with mournful tenderness, exclaimed the Header, in 
 
DAVID COPPEKFIELD. 127 
 
 the words and accents of his young hero. " Never 
 more, O God forgive you, Steerforth ! to touch that 
 passive hand in love and friendship. Never, never 
 more ! " The revelation of his treachery, towards the 
 pretty little betrothed of the young shipwright, followed 
 immediately afterwards, on the occasion of David s 
 next visit, some months later, to the old boat on the 
 flats at Yarmouth. 
 
 The wonder still is to us, now that we are recalling 
 to mind the salient peculiarities of this Beading, as we 
 do so, turning over leaf by leaf the marked copy of it, 
 from which the Novelist read ; the wonder, we repeat, 
 still is to us how, in that exquisite scene, the very words 
 that have always moved us most in the novel were 
 struck out in the delivery, are rigidly scored through 
 here with blue inkmarks in the reading copy, by the 
 hand of the Keader-Novelist. Those words we mean 
 which occur, where Ham, having on his arrival, made 
 a movement as if Em ly were outside, asked Mas r 
 Davy to " come out a minute," only for him, on his 
 doing so, to find that Em ly was not there, and that 
 Ham was deadly pale. " Ham ! what s the matter ? " 
 was gasped out in the Beading. But not what follows, 
 immediately on that, in the original narrative : " Mas r 
 Davy ! Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he 
 wept ! " Nor yet the sympathetic exclamations of 
 David, who, in the novel, describes himself as para 
 lysed by the sight of such grief, not knowing what he 
 thought or what he dreaded ; only able to look at him, 
 
128 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 yet crying out to him the next moment, " Ham ! 
 Poor, good fellow ! For heaven s sake tell me what s 
 the matter?" Nothing of this: only "My love, 
 Mas r Davy the pride and hope of my art, her that 
 I d have died for, and would die for now she s 
 gone ! " " Gone ? " " Em ly s run away ! " Ham, 
 not then adding in the Heading, " Oh, Mas r Davy, 
 think hoiv she s run away, when I pray my good and 
 gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear ahove all 
 things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace ! " 
 Yet, for all that, in spite of these omissions it can 
 hardly by any chance have been actually by reason of 
 them the delivery of the whole scene was singularly 
 powerful and affecting. Especially in the represen 
 tation of Mr. Peggotty s profound grief, under what is 
 to him so appalling a calamity. Especially also in the 
 revelation of Mrs. Gummidge s pity for him, her grati 
 tude to him, and her womanly tender-heartedness. 
 
 In charming relief to the sequel of this tragic 
 incident of the bereavement of the Peggottys, came 
 David s love passages with Dora, and his social 
 unbendings with Mr. Micawber. Eegaling the latter 
 inimitable personage, and his equally inimitable wife, 
 together with David s old schoolfellow, Traddles, 
 on a banquet of boiled leg of mutton, very red inside 
 and very pale outside, as well as upon a delusive 
 pigeon-pie, the crust of which was like a disappointing 
 phrenological head, " full of lumps and bumps, with 
 nothing particular underneath," David afforded us 
 
DAVID COPPERFIELD. 329 
 
 the opportunity of realising, within a very brief 
 interval, something at least of the abundant humour 
 associated with Mrs. Micawber s worldly wisdom, and 
 Mr. Micawber s ostentatious impecuniosity. A word, 
 that last, it always seems to us describing poverty, as 
 it does, with such an air of pomp especially provided 
 beforehand for Mr. Micawber (out of a prophetic 
 anticipation or foreknowledge of him) by the dictionary. 
 
 The mere opening of the evening s entertainment at 
 David Copperfield s chambers on this occasion, en 
 able d the Humorist to elicit preliminary roars of 
 laughter from his audience by his very manner of 
 saying, with a deliciously ridiculous prolongation 
 of the liquid consonant forming the initial of the last 
 word " As to Mrs. Micawber, I don t know whether 
 it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender water, or 
 the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but she came 
 out of my room comparatively speaking 1-1-lovely ! " 
 
 As deliciously ridiculous was the whole scene 
 between Dora and David, where the latter, at length, 
 takes courage to make his proposal "Jip barking 
 madly all the time " Dora crying the while and 
 trembling. David s eloquence increasing, the more he 
 raved, the more Jip barked each, in his own way, 
 getting more mad every moment ! Even when they 
 had got married by licence, "the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury invoking a blessing, and doing it as cheap 
 as it could possibly be expected," their domestic 
 experiences were sources of unbounded merriment. 
 
130 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 As, for example, in connection with their servant girl s 
 cousin in the Life Guards, "with such long legs that 
 he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody 
 else." Finally, closing the whole of this ingenious 
 epitome of the original narrative, came that grand and 
 wonderfully realistic description of the stupendous 
 storm upon the beach at Yarmouth, upon the extraor 
 dinary power of which as a piece of declamation we 
 have already at some length commented. There, in 
 the midst of the dying horrors of that storm there, 
 on those familiar sands, where Mas r Davy and Little 
 Em ly had so often looked for shells when they were 
 children, on the very spot where some lighter frag 
 ments of the old boat, blown down the night before, 
 had been scattered by the tempest, David Copperfield 
 was heard describing, in the last mournful sentence of 
 the Reading, how he saw him lying with his curly head 
 upon his arm, as he had often seen him lie when they 
 were at school together. 
 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 
 
 A FAIRY Tale of Home was here related, that in 
 its graceful and fantastic freaks of fancy might have 
 been imagined by the Danish poet, Hans Christian 
 Andersen. In its combination of simple pathos and 
 genial drollery, however, it was a story that no other 
 could by possibility have told than the great English 
 Humorist. If there was something really akin to the 
 genius of Andersen, in the notion of the Cricket with 
 its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounding through the 
 house, and seeming to twinkle in the outer darkness 
 like a star, Dickens, and no other could, by any chance, 
 have conjured up the forms of either Caleb Plummer, 
 or Gruff-and-Tackleton. The cuckoo on the Dutch 
 clock, now like a spectral voice, now hiccoughing on 
 the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for 
 joy; the little haymaker over the dial mowing down 
 imaginary grass, jerking right and left with his scythe 
 in front of a Moorish palace ; the hideous, hairy, red- 
 eyed jacks-in-boxes ; the flies in the Noah s arks, that 
 " an t on that scale neither as compared with ele 
 phants ; " the giant masks, having a certain furtive 
 
 K 2 
 
332 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 leer, " safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young 
 gentlemen between the ages of six and eleven, for the 
 whole Christmas or Midsummer vacation," were all of 
 them like dreams of the Danish poet, coloured into a 
 semblance of life by the grotesque humour of the Eng 
 lish Novelist. But dear little Dot, who was rather of 
 the dumpling s shape " but I don t myself object to 
 that " and good, lumbering John Peerybingle, her 
 husband, often so near to something or another very 
 clever, according to his own account, and Boxer, the 
 carrier s dog, " with that preposterous nothing of a fag- 
 end of a tail of his, describing circles of barks round 
 the horse, making savage rushes at his mistress, and 
 facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops," all bear 
 upon them unmistakably the sign-manual of Boz. 
 
 As originally recounted in the Christmas story-book, 
 the whole narrative was comprised within a very few 
 pages, portioned out into three little chirps. Yet the 
 letter-press was illustrated profusely by pencils as 
 eminent as those of Daniel Maclise, of Clarkson Stan- 
 field, of Richard Doyle, of John Leech, of Sir Edwin 
 Landseer. The charming little fairy tale, moreover, 
 was inscribed to Lord Jeffrey. It was a favourite of 
 his, as it still is of many another critic north and south 
 of the Tweed, light, nay trivial, though the materials 
 out of which the homely apologue is composed. It 
 can hardly be wondered at, however, remembering 
 how less than four years prior to its first publication, 
 a literary reviewer, no less formidable than Professor 
 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 133 
 
 Wilson while abstaining, in his then capacity as chair 
 man of the public banquet given to Charles Dickens 
 at Edinburgh, from attempting, as he said, anything 
 like " a critical delineation of our illustrious guest " 
 nevertheless, added emphatically, " I cannot but ex 
 press in a few ineffectual words the delight which every 
 human bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades 
 all his creations." Christopher North thus further 
 expressed his admiration then of the young English 
 Novelist " How kind and good a man he is," the great 
 Critic exclaimed, laying aside for a while the crutch 
 with which he had so often, in the Ambrosian Nights, 
 brained many an arrant pretender to the title of 
 genius or of philanthropist, and turning his lion-like 
 eyes, at the moment beaming only with cordiality, on 
 the then youthful face of Dickens, " How kind and 
 good a man he is I need not say, nor what strength of 
 genius he has acquired by that profound sympathy with 
 his fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happi 
 ness, or overwhelmed with unfortunate circumstances." 
 Purely and simply, in his capacity as an imaginative 
 writer, the Novelist had already (then in the June of 
 1841) impressed thus powerfully the heart and judg 
 ment of John Wilson, of Christopher North, of the 
 inexorable Rhadamanthus of Blackicood and the 
 " Noctes." Afterwards, but a very little more than 
 two years afterwards, came the " Carol." The follow 
 ing winter rang out the " Chimes." The Christmas 
 after that was heard the chirping of the " Cricket." 
 
134- CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Four years previously Professor Wilson, on the occa 
 sion referred to, had remarked of him most truly, "He 
 has not heen deterred by the aspect of vice and wicked 
 ness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of 
 good in things evil, but has endeavoured by the might 
 of genius to transmute what was base into what is 
 precious as the beaten gold ; " observing, indeed, yet 
 further " He has mingled in the common walks of 
 life ; he has made himself familiar with the lower 
 orders of society." As if in supplementary and con 
 clusive justification of those words, Dickens, within 
 less than five years afterwards, had woven his graceful 
 and pathetic fancies about the homely joys and sor 
 rows of Bob Cratchit, of Toby Veck, and of Caleb 
 Plummer, of a little Clerk, a little Ticket-porter, and a 
 little Toy-maker. His pen at these times was like the 
 wand of Cinderella s fairy godmother, changing the 
 cucumber into a gilded chariot, and the lizards into 
 glittering retainers. 
 
 At the commencement of this Reading but very 
 little indeed was said about the Cricket, hardly any 
 thing at all about the kettle. Yet, as everybody knows, 
 " the kettle began it " in the story-book. The same 
 right of precedence was accorded to the kettle in the 
 author s delivery of his fairy tale by word of mouth, 
 but otherwise its comfortable purring song was in a 
 manner hushed. One heard nothing about its first 
 appearance on the hearth, when " it would lean for 
 ward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very idiot of a 
 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 135 
 
 kettle," any more than of its final paean, when, after its 
 iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire, the lid 
 itself, the recently rebellious lid, performed a sort of 
 jig, and clattered "like a deaf and dumb young cymbal 
 that had never known the use of its twin brother." 
 Here, again, in fact, as with so many other of these 
 Headings from his own books by our Novelist, the 
 countless good things scattered abundantly up and 
 down the original descriptions inimitable touches of 
 humour that had each of them, on the appreciative 
 palate, the effect of that verbal bon-bon, the bon-mot 
 were sacrificed inexorably, apparently without a qualm, 
 and certainly by wholesale. What the Reader looked 
 to throughout, was the human element in his imagin 
 ings when they were to be impersonated. 
 
 Let but one of these tid-bits be associated directly with 
 the fanciful beings introduced in the gradual unfolding of 
 the incidents, and it might remain there untouched. 
 Thus, for example, when the Carrier s arrival at his home 
 came to be mentioned, and the Header related how 
 John Peerybingle, being much taller, as well as much 
 older than his wife, little Dot, " had to stoop a long 
 way down to kiss her" the words that followed 
 thereupon were happily not omitted: "but she was 
 worth the trouble, six foot six it itk the lumbago might 
 have done it" Several of John s choicest ail-but 
 jokes were also retained. As, where Dot is objecting 
 to be called by that pet diminutive, " Why, what 
 else are you ? returned John, looking down upon her 
 
126 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze 
 as his huge hand and arm could give, * A dot and - 
 here he glanced at the bab}" a dot and carry - I 
 won t say it, for fear I should spoil it ; but I was very 
 near a joke. I don t know as ever I was nearer." 
 Tilly Slowboy and her charge, the baby, were, upon 
 every mention of them in the Beading, provocative of 
 abundant laughter. The earliest allusion to Miss- 
 Slowboy recording these characteristic circumstances- 
 in regard to her costume, that it " was remarkable for 
 the partial development, on all possible and impossible 
 occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular struc 
 ture, also for affording glimpses in the region of the 
 back of a pair of stays, in colour a dead green." On 
 the introduction of the Mysterious Stranger appa 
 rently all but stone deaf from the Carrier s cart, 
 where he had been forgotten, the comic influence of 
 the Reading became irresistible. 
 
 STRAXGEH (on noticing Dot) interrogatively to- 
 John." Your Daughter ? " 
 
 CARRIER, with the voice of a boatswain. " Wife." 
 
 STRANGER, with his hand to his ear, being not quite 
 certain that he has caught it. " Niece ? " 
 
 CARRIER, with a roar. " Wife." 
 
 Satisfied at last upon that point, the stranger asks- 
 of John, as a new matter of curiosity to him, " Baby, 
 yours ? " Whereupon the Header, as John, "gave a 
 gigantic nod, equivalent to an answer in the affirma 
 tive, delivered through a speaking-trumpet." Stranger,. 
 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 137 
 
 still unsatisfied, inquiring, " Girl?" " Bo-o-oy ! " 
 was bellowed back by John Peerybingle. It was when 
 Mrs. Peerybingle herself took up the parable, however, 
 that the merriment excited among the audience became 
 fairly irrepressible. Scarcely had the nearly stone- 
 deaf stranger added, in regard to the " Bo-o-oy," 
 "Also very young, eh?" (a comment previously applied 
 by him to Dot) when the Reader, as Mrs. Peerybingle, 
 instantly struck in, at the highest pitch of his voice, 
 that is, of her voice (the comic effect of this being simply 
 indescribable) " Two months and three da-ays ! 
 Vaccinated six weeks ago-o ! Took very fine-ly ! Con 
 sidered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild ! 
 Equal to the general run of children at five months 
 o-old ! Takes notice in a way quite won-der-ful ! May 
 seem impossible to you, but feels his feet al-ready ! " 
 Directly afterwards, Caleb Plummer appeared upon 
 the scene, little imagining that in the Mysterious 
 Strangerwould.be discovered, later on, under the disguise 
 of that nearly stone-deaf old gentleman, his (Caleb s) 
 own dear boy, Edward, supposed to have died in the 
 golden South Americas. Little Caleb s inquiry of Mrs. 
 Peerybingle, "You couldn t have the goodness to let 
 me pinch Boxer s tail, Mum, for half a moment, could 
 you?" was one of the welcome whimsicalities of the 
 Reading. " Why, Caleb ! what a question ! " naturally 
 enough was Dot s instant exclamation. " Oh, never 
 mind, Mum!" said the little toy-maker, apologetically, 
 " He mightn t like it perhaps " adding, by way of 
 
138 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 explanation " There s a small order just come in, for 
 barking dogs ; and I should wish to go as close to 
 Natur as I could, for sixpence !" Caleb s employer, 
 Tackleton, in his large green cape and bull-headed 
 looking mahogany tops, was then described as enter 
 ing pretty much in the manner of what one might 
 suppose to be that of an ogrish toy-merchant. His 
 character came out best perhaps meaning, in another 
 sense, that is, at its worst when the fairy spirit of 
 John s house, the Cricket, was heard chirping ; and 
 Tackleton asked, grumpily, "Why don t you kill that 
 cricket ? I would ! I always do ! I hate their noise ! " 
 John exclaiming, in amazement, "You kill your 
 crickets, eh ? " " Scrunch an, sir ! " quoth Tackleton. 
 One of the most wistfully curious thoughts uttered 
 in the whole of the Reading was the allusion to the 
 original founder of the toy- shop of Gruff and Tackle - 
 ton, where it was remarked (such a quaint epitome 
 of human life !) that under that same crazy roof, 
 beneath which Caleb Plummer and Bertha, his blind 
 daughter, found shelter as their humble home, " the 
 Gruff before last had, in a small wa} r , made toys for 
 a generation of old boys and girls, who had played 
 with them, and found them out, and broken them, 
 and gone to sleep." Another wonderfully comic minor 
 character was introduced later on in the eminently 
 ridiculous person of old Mrs. Fielding in regard to 
 in-door gloves, a foreshadowing of Mrs. Wilfer in the 
 matter of her imaginary losses through the indigo 
 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 130 
 
 trade, a spectral precursor, or dim prototype, as one 
 might say, of Mrs. Pipchin and the Peruvian mines. 
 Throughout the chief part of the dreamy, dramatic 
 little story, the various characters, it will be remem 
 bered, are involved in a mazy entanglement of cross 
 purposes. Mystery sometimes, pathos often, terror 
 for one brief interval, rose from the Heading of the 
 " Home Fairy-Tale." There was a subdued tender 
 ness which there was no resisting in the revelation 
 to the blind girl, Bertha, of the illusions in which 
 she had been lapped for years by her sorcerer of a 
 father, poor little Caleb, the toy-maker. There was at 
 once a tearful and a laughing earnestness that took 
 the Reader s audience captive, not by any means un 
 willingly, when little Dot was, at the last, represented 
 as " clearing it all up at home " (indirectly, to the 
 great honour of the Cricket s reputation, by the way) 
 to her burly husband good, stupid, worthy, " clumsy 
 man in general," John Peerybingle, the Carrier. The 
 one inconsistent person in the whole story, it must be 
 admitted, was Tackleton, who turned out at the 
 very end to be rather a good fellow than otherwise. 
 Fittingly enough, in the Reading as in the book, when 
 the " Fairy Tale of Home " was related to its close, 
 when Dot and all the rest were spoken of as vanished, 
 a broken child s-toy, we were told, yet lay upon the 
 ground, and still upon the hearth was heard the song 
 of the Cricket. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 A VARIETY of attractive Headings might readily have 
 been culled from Nicholas Nickleby s Life and Ad 
 ventures. His comical experiences as a strolling- 
 player in the Company of the immortal Crummleses 
 his desperate encounter with Sir Mulberry Hawk on 
 the footboard of the cabriolet his exciting rescue of 
 Madeline from an unholy alliance with Gride, the 
 miser, on the very morning fixed for the revolting 
 marriage his grotesque association for a while with 
 the Kenwigses and their uncle Lillivick his cordial 
 relations with the Brothers Cheeryble and old Tim 
 Linkinwater any one of these incidents in the career 
 of the most high spirited of all the young heroes of 
 our Novelist, would have far more than simply justified 
 its selection as the theme of one of these illustrative 
 entertainments. Instead of choosing any one of those 
 later episodes in the fictitious history of Nicholas 
 Nickleby, however, the author of that enthralling 
 romance of everyday life, picked out, by preference, the 
 earliest of all his young hero s experiences those in 
 which, at nineteen years of age, he was brought into 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 temporary entanglement with the domestic economy of 
 Dotheboys Hall, and at the last into personal con 
 flict with its one-eyed principal, the rascally Yorkshire 
 school-master. 
 
 The Gadshill collection of thin octavos, compris 
 ing the whole series of Headings, includes within it two 
 copies of " Mrs. Gamp " and two copies of " Nicholas 
 Nickleby." Whereas, on comparing the duplicates 
 of Mrs. Gamp, the two versions appear to be so 
 slightly different that they are all but identical, a 
 marked contrast is observable at a glance between the 
 two Nicklebys. Each Reading is descriptive, it is 
 true, of his sayings and doings at the Yorkshire 
 school. But, even externally, one of the two copies is 
 marked " Short Time," the love-passages with Miss 
 S queers being entirely struck out, and no mention 
 whatever being made of John Browdie, the corn-factor. 
 The wretched school, the sordid rascal who keeps it, 
 Mrs. Squeers, poor, forlorn Smike, and a few of his 
 scarecrow companions these, in the short-time version, 
 and these alone, constitute the young usher s surround 
 ings. In here recalling to recollection the " Nicholas 
 Nickleby " Reading at all, however, we select, as a 
 matter of course, the completer version, the one for 
 which the generality of hearers had an evident prefer 
 ence : the abbreviated version being always regarded 
 as capital, so far as it went ; but even at the best, with 
 all the go and dash of its rapid delivery, insufficient. 
 
 Everything, even, we should imagine, to one un- 
 
142 CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 acquainted with the novel, was ingeniously explained 
 by the Reader in a sentence or two at starting. 
 Nicholas Nickleby was described as arriving early 
 one November morning, at the Saracen s Head, to 
 join, in his new capacity (stripling though he was) 
 as scholastic assistant, Mr. Squeers, " the cheap the 
 terribly cheap " Yorkshire schoolmaster. The words, 
 just given in inverted commas are those written in 
 blue ink in the Novelist s handwriting on the margin 
 of his longer Reading copy. As also are the following 
 words, epitomising in a breath the position of the 
 young hero when the story commences "Inexpe 
 rienced, sanguine, and thrown upon the world with 
 no adviser, and his bread to win," the manuscript 
 interpolation thus intimates : the letterpress then re 
 lating in its integrity that Nicholas had engaged 
 himself as tutor at Mr. Wackford Squeers s academy, 
 on the strength of the memorable advertisement in the 
 London newspapers. The advertisement, that is, com 
 prising within it the long series of accomplishments 
 imparted to the students at Dotheboys Hall, including 
 " single -stick " (if required), together with "fortifi 
 cation, and every other branch of classical literature." 
 The Reader laying particular stress, among other 
 items in the announcement, upon " No extras, 110 
 vacations, and diet unparalleled;" and upon the finish 
 ing touch (having especial reference to the subject in 
 hand), " An able assistant wanted : annual salary, 5 I 
 A master of arts would be preferred ! " Immediately 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 143 
 
 after this, in the Reading, came the description of 
 Mr. Squeers, several of the particulars in regard to 
 whose villainous appearance always told wonderfully : 
 as, where it was said "he had but one eye, and the 
 popular prejudice runs in favour of two ; " or, 
 again, where in reference to his attire it having been 
 mentioned that his coat-sleeves were a great deal too 
 long and his trousers a great deal too short it was, 
 added that "he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and 
 as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at 
 finding himself so respectable." Listening to the 
 Header, we were there, in the coffee-room of the 
 Saracen s Head the rascal Squeers in the full enjoy 
 ment of his repast of hot toast and cold round of 
 beef, the while five little boys sat opposite hungrily and 
 thirstily expectant of their share in a miserable meal 
 of two-penn orth of milk and thick bread- and butter 
 for three. " Just fill that mug up with lukewarm 
 water, William, will you? " "To the wery top, sir ? 
 Why the milk will be drownded ! " " Serve it right for 
 be my so dear ! " Squeers adding with a chuckle, as he 
 pounded away at his own coffee and viands, " Con 
 quer your passions, boys, and don t be eager after 
 wittles." To see the Reader as Squeers, stirring 
 the mug of lukewarm milk and water, and then 
 smacking his lips with an affected relish after tasting 
 a spoonful of it, before reverting to his own fare of 
 buttered toast and beef, was to be there with Nicholas, 
 n spectator on that wintry morning in the Snow Hill 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Tavern, watching the guttling pedagogue and the five 
 little famished expectants. Only when Squeers, imme 
 diately before the signal for the coach starting, wiped 
 his mouth, with a self-satisfied " Thank God for a 
 good breakfast," was the mug rapidly passed from 
 mouth to mouth at once ravenously and tantalizingly. 
 The long and bitter journey on the north road, 
 through the snow, was barely referred to in the Head 
 ing ; due mention, however, being made, and always 
 tellingly, of Mr. Squeers s habit of getting down at nearly 
 every stage " to stretch his legs, he said, and as he 
 always came back with a very red nose, and composed 
 himself to sleep directly, the stretching seemed to 
 answer." Immediately on the wayfarers arrival at 
 Dotheboys, Mrs. Squeers, arrayed in a dimity night- 
 jacket, herself a head taller than Mr. Squeers, was 
 always introduced with great effect, as seizing her 
 Squeery by the throat and giving him two loud kisses 
 in rapid succession, like a postman s knock. The 
 audience then scarcely had time to laugh over the inter 
 change of questions and answers between the happy 
 couple, as to the condition of the cows and pigs, and, 
 last of all, the boys, ending with Madame s intimation 
 that "young Pitcher s had a fever," followed up by 
 Squeers s characteristic exclamation, "No! damn 
 that chap, he s always at something of that sort" 
 when there came the first glimpse of poor Smike, in a 
 skeleton suit, and large boots originally made for tops, 
 too patched and ragged now for a beggar; around his 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 145 
 
 throat " a tattered child s frill only half concealed by 
 a coarse man s neckerchief." Anxiously observing 
 Squeers, as he emptied his overcoat of letters and 
 papers, the boy did this, we were told, with an air so 
 dispirited and hopeless, that Nicholas could hardly bear- 
 to watch him. " Have you did anybody has nothing 
 been heard about me?" were then (in the faintest, 
 frightened voice !) the first stammered utterances of 
 the wretched drudge. Bullied into silence by the 
 brutal schoolmaster, Smike limped away with a 
 vacant smile, when we heard the female scoundrel 
 in the dimity night-jacket saying, "I ll tell you 
 what, Squeers, I think that young chap s turning 
 silly." 
 
 Inducted into the loathsome school-room on the 
 following morning by Squeers himself, Nicholas, first of 
 all, we were informed, witnessed the manner in which 
 that arrant rogue presided over " the first class in 
 English spelling and philosophy," practically illus 
 trating his mode of tuition by setting the scholars to 
 clean the w-i-n win, d-e-r-s ders, winders to weed the 
 garden to rub down the horse, or get rubbed down 
 themselves if they didn t do it well. Nicholas assisted 
 in the afternoon, moreover, at the report given by Mr. 
 Squeers on his return homewards after his half- 
 yearly visit to the metropolis. Beginning, though this 
 last-mentioned part of the Reading did, with Squeers s 
 ferocious slash on the desk with his cane, and his 
 announcement, in the midst of a death-like silence 
 
J46 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 " Let any boy speak a word without leave, and I ll take 
 the skin off that boy s back ! " many of the particulars 
 given immediately afterwards by the Reader were, in 
 spite of the surrounding misery, irresistibly provoca 
 tive of laughter. Ample justification for this, in 
 truth, is very readily adduceable. Mr. Squeers having, 
 through his one eye, made a mental abstract of 
 Cobbey s letter, for example, Cobbey and the whole 
 school were thus feelingly informed of its contents 
 " Oh ! Cobbey s grandmother is dead, and his uncle 
 John has took to drinking. Which is all the news his 
 sister sends, except eighteen-pence which will just 
 pay for that broken square of glass ! Mrs. Squeers, 
 my dear, will you take the money ? " Another while, 
 Graymarsh s maternal aunt, who "thinks Mrs. Squeers 
 must be a angel," and that Mr. Squeers is too good for 
 this world, "would have sent the two pairs of stock 
 ings, as desired, but is short of money, so forwards a 
 tract instead," and so on; " Ah ! a delightful letter 
 very affecting, indeed ! " quoth Squeers. " It was 
 affecting in one sense!" observed the Reader; "for 
 Graymarsh s maternal aunt was strongly supposed by 
 her more intimate friends to be his maternal parent ! " 
 Perhaps the epistle from Mobbs s mother-in-law was 
 the best of all, however the old lady who " took to her 
 bed on hearing that he wouldn t eat fat ; " and who 
 " wishes to know by an early post where he expects to 
 go to, if he quarrels with his vittles ? " adding, " This 
 was told her in the London newspapers not by Mr. 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 147 
 
 Squeers, for he is too kind and too good to set any 
 body against anybody ! " 
 
 As an interlude, overflowing with fun, came Miss 
 Squeers s tea-drinking the result of her suddenly 
 falling in love with the new usher, and that chiefly 
 by reason of the straightness of his legs, "the 
 general run of legs at Dotheboys Hall being crooked." 
 How John Browdie (with his hair damp from washing) 
 appeared upon the occasion in a clean shirt 
 "whereof the collars might have belonged to some 
 giant ancestor," and greeted the assembled company, 
 including his intended, Tilda Price, " with a grin that 
 even the collars could not conceal," the creator of the 
 worthy Yorkshireman went on to describe, with a gusto 
 akin to the relish with which every utterance of John 
 Browdie s was caught up by the listeners. Whether 
 he spoke in good humour or in ill humour, the burly 
 cornfactor was equally delightful. One while saying, 
 laughingly, to Nicholas, across the bread-and-butter 
 plate which they had just been emptying between them, 
 "Ye wean t get bread-and-butther ev ry neight, I expect, 
 mun. Ecod, they dean t put too much intif em. Ye 11 be 
 nowt but skeen and boans if you stop here long eneaf. 
 Ho ! ho ! ho ! " all this to Nicholas s unspeakable 
 indignation. Or, another while, after chafing in 
 jealousy for a long time over the coquetries going on 
 between Tilda Price and Nicholas the Yorkshireman 
 flattening his own nose with his clenched fist again 
 and again, "as if to keep his hand in till he had an 
 
 L 2 
 
148 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 opportunity of exercising it on the nose of some other 
 gentleman," until asked merrily by his betrothed to 
 keep his glum silence no longer, but to say something : 
 " Say summat ? " roared John Browdie, with a mighty 
 blow on the table ; " Weal, then ! what I say s this 
 Dang my boans and boddy, if I stan this ony longer ! 
 Do ye gang whoam wi me ; and do yon loight and 
 toight young whipster look sharp out for a brokken 
 head next time he cums under my hond. Cum 
 whoam, tell e, cum whoam ! " After Smike s running 
 away, and his being brought back again, had been 
 rapidly recounted, what nearly every individual mem 
 ber of every audience in attendance at this Reading 
 was eagerly on the watch for all along, at last, in 
 the fullness of time, arrived, the execrable Squeers 
 receiving, instead of administering, a frightful beating, 
 in the presence of the whole school ; having carefully 
 provided himself beforehand, as all were rejoiced to 
 remember, with " a fearful instrument of flagellation, 
 strong, supple, wax-ended, and new ! " 
 
 So real are the characters described by Charles 
 Dickens in his life-like fictions, and so exactly do 
 the incidents he relates as having befallen them re 
 semble actual occurrences, that we recall to recollection 
 at this moment the delight with which the late ac 
 complished Lady Napier once related an exact case in 
 point, appealing, as she did so, to her husband, the 
 author of the "Peninsular War," to corroborate the 
 accuracy of her retrospect ! Telling how she perfectly 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 149 
 
 well remembered, when the fourth green number of 
 " Nicholas Nickleby " was just out, one of her home 
 group, who had a moment before caught sight of the 
 picture of the flogging in a shop-window, rushed in 
 with the startling announcement as though he were 
 bringing with him the news of some great victory 
 " What DO you think ? Nicholas has thrashed SqueersJ " 
 As the Novelist read this chapter, or rather the 
 condensation of this chapter, it was for all the world 
 like assisting in person at that sacred and refreshing 
 rite ! 
 
 " Is every boy here ? " 
 
 Yes, every boy was there, and so was every ob 
 servant listener, in eager and knowing what was 
 coming in delighted expectation. As Squeers was 
 represented as "glaring along the lines," to assure 
 himself that every boy really was there, what time 
 " every eye drooped and every head cowered down," 
 the Reader, instead of uttering one word of what the 
 ruffianly schoolmaster ought then to have added : 
 " Each boy keep to his place. Nickleby ! you go to 
 your desk, sir ! " instead of saying one syllable of 
 this, contented himself with obeying his own manu 
 script marginal direction, in one word POINTING ! 
 The effect of this simple gesture was startling particu 
 larly when, after the momentary hush with which it was 
 always accompanied, he observed quietly, " There was 
 a curious expression in the usher s face, but he took his 
 seat without opening his lips in reply." Then, when the 
 
150 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 schoolmaster had dragged in the wretched Smike by 
 the collar, " or rather by that fragment of his jacket 
 which was nearest the place where his collar ought to 
 have been," there was a horrible relish in his saying, 
 over his shoulder for a moment, " Stand a little out of 
 the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear ; I ve hardly got room 
 enough ! " The instant one cruel blow had fallen 
 " STOP! " was cried in a voice that made the rafters 
 ring even the lofty rafters of St. James s Hall. 
 
 SQUEEKS, with the glare and snarl of a wild beast. 
 " Who cried stop ? " 
 
 NICHOLAS. " I did ! This must not go on ! " 
 
 SQUEERS, again, with a frightful look. " Must not 
 go on ? " 
 
 NICHOLAS. " Must not ! Shall not ! I will prevent 
 it!" 
 
 Then came Nicholas Nickleby s manly denunciation 
 of the scoundrel, interrupted one while for an instant by 
 Squeers screaming out, " Sit down, you beggar ! " and 
 followed at its close by the last and crowning outrage, 
 consequent on a violent outbreak of wrath on the part 
 of Squeers, who spat at him and struck him a blow 
 across the face with his instrument of torture : when 
 Nicholas, springing upon him, wrested the weapon 
 from his hand, and pinning him by the throat don t 
 we all exult in the remembrance of it ? " beat the 
 ruffian till he roared for mercy." 
 
 After that climax has been attained, two other 
 particulars are alone worthy of being recalled to 
 
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 151 
 
 recollection in regard to this Beading. First, the 
 indescribable heartiness of John Browdie s cordial 
 shake-of-the-hand with Nicholas Nickleby on their en 
 countering each other by accident upon the high road. 
 "Shake honds? Ah! that I we el !" coupled with 
 his ecstatic shout (so ecstatic that his horse shyed at 
 it), " Beatteii schoolmeasther ! Ho ! ho ! ho ! Beatten 
 schoolmeasther ! Who ever heard o the loike o that, 
 noo ? Give us thee hond agean, yoongster ! Beatten 
 schoolmeasther ! Dang it, I loove thee for t ! " 
 Finally, and as the perfecting touch of tenderness 
 between the two cousins, then unknown to each other 
 as such, in the early morning light at Boroughbridge, 
 we caught a glimpse of Nicholas and Smike passing, 
 hand in hand, out of the old barn together. 
 
MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY. 
 
 QUITE as exhilarating in its way as the ail-but dra 
 matised report of the great breach of promise case 
 tried before Mr. Justice Stareleigh, was that other 
 condensation of a chapter from " Pickwick," descrip 
 tive of Mr. Bob Sawyer s Party. It was a Beading, 
 in the delivery of which the Header himself had 
 evidently the keenest sense of enjoyment. As a 
 humorous description, it was effervescent with fun, 
 being written throughout in the happiest, earliest style 
 of the youthful genius of Boz, when the green numbers 
 were first shaking the sides of lettered and unlettered 
 Englishmen alike with Homeric laughter. Besides this, 
 when given by him as a Beading, it comprised within it 
 one of his very drollest impersonations. If only as the 
 means of introducing us to Jack Hopkins, it would have 
 been most acceptable. But, inimitable though Jack was, 
 he was, at the least, thoroughly well companioned. 
 
 As a relish of what was coming, there was that 
 preliminary account of the locality in which the fes 
 tivities were held, to wit, Lant Street, in the borough 
 
A READING. 67 
 
 large black wooden beads . Child being fond of 
 
 -c**}4te. 
 toys, cribbed dfai necklace, hid M, played with 
 
 cut **m string, and * wallowed a bead. Child. 
 thought it capital fun, went back, next day, and 
 swallowed another bead.. 1 
 
 Bless ray hp^rf,r"-g;j,ll!l \\\> j- 1 1 & w I fl* f what a 
 dreadful thing! I beg your pardon, sir. Go 
 on. 
 
 k Next dav, child swallowed two beads; the day 
 after thai .Ha. treated himself to three ifiit so*on, 
 till in a week s time he had gpt through the neck 
 lace- five -and-twenty beads jfcaS 033f jsister,., 
 ^4^^^ff.>. ^jifi industrious g,irl,^^ seldom treated 
 herself to -v bit of finerv^cried tBf eyes out, at fefaf 
 
 loss of taar necklace; looked high and low for i 
 
 TiGcklaCQ-^ 
 but, I needn t say, didn t find \JH, ^ T^w days 
 
 afterwards, tBfe family tiLU at dinner baked 
 shoulder of mutton, and potatoes setosait tif 
 
 child, v&Q wasn t hungry, OB* playing about the 
 
 v/4"?t<.<j/ 
 room ; when suddenly there was heard a devil of a 
 
 noise j.likeii small hral storm. Don t do that, my 
 boy said ttte father. I a/mi a dom 1 .nothing; 
 
MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY. 153 
 
 of Southwark, the prevailing repose of which, we were 
 told, "sheds a gentle melancholy upon the soul"- 
 fully justifying its selection as a haven of rest by any 
 one who wished " to abstract himself from the world, 
 to remove himself from the reach of temptation, to 
 place himself beyond the possibility of any induce 
 ment to look out of window ! " As specimens of 
 animated nature, familiarly met with in the neighbour 
 hood, "the pot-boy, the muffin youth, and the baked 
 potato man," had about them a perennial freshness. 
 Whenever we were reminded, again, in regard to the 
 principal characteristics of the population that it was 
 migratory, " usually disappearing on the verge of 
 quarter-day, and generally by night," her Majesty s 
 revenues being seldom collected in that happy valley, 
 its rents being pronounced dubious, and its water 
 communication described as " frequently cut off," we 
 found in respect to the whole picture thus lightly- 
 sketched in, that age did not wither nor custom stale 
 its infinite comicality. 
 
 It was when the familiar personages of the story 
 were, one after another, introduced upon the scene, 
 however, that the broad Pickwickian humour of it 
 all began in earnest to be realised. After we had 
 listened with chuckling enjoyment to the ludi 
 crously minute account given of the elaborate pre 
 parations made for the reception of the visitors, 
 even in the approaches to Mr. Bob Sawyer s apart 
 ment, down to the mention of the kitchen candle 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 with a long snuff, that " burnt cheerfully on the ledge 
 of the staircase window," we had graphically rendered 
 the memorable scene between poor, dejected Bob and 
 his little spitfire of a landlady, Mrs. Raddle. So 
 dejected and generally suppressed was Bob in the 
 Reading, however, that we should hardly have re 
 cognised that very archetype of the whole genus of 
 rollicking Medical Students, as originally described 
 in the pages of Pickwick, where he is depicted 
 as attired in "a coarse blue coat, which, without 
 being either a great-coat or a surtout, partook of the 
 nature and qualities of both," having about him 
 that sort of slovenly smartness and swaggering gait 
 peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets 
 by day, and shout and scream in the same by night, 
 calling waiters by their Christian names, and altogether 
 bearing a resemblance upon the whole to something 
 like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe. Habited, Bob still 
 doubtless was, in the plaid trousers and the large, rough 
 coat and double-breasted waistcoat, but as for the 
 " swaggering gait " just mentioned not a vestige of it 
 remained. Nor could that be wondered at, indeed, 
 for an instant, beholding and hearing, as we did, the 
 shrill ferocity with which Mrs. Raddle had it out with 
 him about the rent immediately before the arrival of 
 his guests. 
 
 It is one of the distinctive peculiarities of Charles 
 Dickens as a humorous Novelist, that the cream 
 or quintessence of a jest is very often given by 
 
MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY. 155 
 
 him quite casually in a parenthesis. It was equally 
 distinctive of his peculiarities as a Eeader, that the 
 especial charm of his drollery was often conveyed by 
 the merest aside. Thus it was with him in reference 
 to Mrs. Eaddle s "confounded little bill," when in 
 between Ben Allen s inquiry, " How long has it been 
 running?" and Bob Sawyer s reply, "Only about a 
 quarter and a month or so" the Eeader parenthe 
 tically remarked, with a philosophic air, "A bill, by 
 the way, is the most extraordinary locomotive engine 
 that the genius of man ever produced : it would keep 
 on running during the longest lifetime without ever 
 once stopping of its own accord." Thus also was it, 
 when he added meditatively to Bob s hesitating expla 
 nation to Mrs. Eaddle, " the fact is that I have been 
 disappointed in the City to-day " " Extraordinary 
 place that City : astonishing number of men always are 
 getting disappointed there." Hereupon it was that 
 that fiercest of little women, Mrs. Eaddle, who had 
 entered "in a tremble with passion and pale with 
 rage," fairly let out at her lodger. Her incidental 
 bout with Mr. Ben Allen, when he soothingly (!) in 
 terpolated, " My good soul," was, in the Eeading, in 
 two senses, a memorable diversion. Beginning with a 
 sarcastic quivering in her voice, " I am not aweer, sir, 
 that you have any right to address your conversation 
 to me. I don t think I let these apartments to you, 
 sir " Mrs. Eaddle s anger rose through an indignant 
 crescendo, on Ben Allen s remonstrating, " But you are 
 
156 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 such an unreasonable woman" to the sharp and biting 
 interrogation, " I beg your parding, young man, but 
 will 3 r ou have the goodness to call me that again, 
 sir?" 
 
 BEN ALLEN, meekly and somewhat uneasy on his 
 own account, " I didn t make use of the word in any 
 invidious sense, ma am." 
 
 LANDLADY, louder and more imperatively, " I beg 
 your parding, young man, but who do you call a 
 woman ? Did you make that remark to me, sir?" 
 
 " Why, bless my heart ! " 
 
 " Did you apply that name to me, I ask of you, sir ? " 
 
 On his answering, Well, of course he did ! then, as 
 she retreated towards the open room-door, came the 
 last outburst of her invectives, high-pitched in their 
 voluble utterance, against him, against them both, 
 against everybody, including Mr. Raddle in the kitchen 
 "a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that s afraid 
 to come upstairs and face the ruffinly creaturs 
 that s afraid to come that s AFRAID ! " Ending with 
 her screaming descent of the stairs in the midst of a 
 loud double-knock, upon the arrival just then of the 
 Pickwickians, when, " in an uncontrollable burst of 
 mental agony," Mrs. Raddle threw down all the um 
 brellas in the passage, disappearing into the back 
 parlour with an awful crash. In answer to the 
 cheerful inquiry from Mr. Pickwick, " Does Mr. 
 Sawyer live here ? " came the lugubrious and mono 
 tonously intoned response, all on one note, of the 
 
MR. BOB SAWYERS PARTY. 157 
 
 aboriginal young person, the gal Betsey (one of the 
 minor characters in the original chapter, and yet, as 
 already remarked, a superlatively good impersonation 
 in the Eeading) " Yes ; first-floor. It s the door 
 straight afore you when you get s to the top of the 
 stairs " with which the dirty slipshod in black cotton 
 stockings disappeared with the candle down the kitchen 
 stair-case, leaving the unfortunate arrivals to grope 
 their way up as they best could. Welcomed rather 
 dejectedly by Bob on the first-floor landing, where Mr. 
 Pickwick put, not, as in the original work, his hat, 
 but, in the Heading, " his foot " in the tray of glasses, 
 they were very soon followed, one after another, by 
 the remainder of the visitors. Notably by a senti 
 mental young gentleman with a nice sense of honour, 
 and, most notably of all (with a heavy footstep, very 
 welcome indeed whenever heard) by Jack Hopkins. 
 Jack was at once the Hamlet and the Yorick of the 
 whole entertainment all- essential to it whose very 
 look (with his chin rather stiff in the stock), whose 
 very words (short, sharp, and decisive) had about 
 them a drily and ail-but indescribably humorous eifect. 
 As spoken by the Novelist himself, Jack Hop- 
 kins s every syllable told to perfection. His opening 
 report immediately on his arrival, of " rather a good 
 accident " just brought into the casualty ward 
 only, it was true, a man fallen out of a four-pair-of- 
 stairs window ; but a very fair case, very fair case 
 indeed ! was of itself a dexterous forefinger between 
 
158 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 the small ribs to begin with. Would the patient re 
 cover ? Well, no with an air of supreme indifference 
 110, he should rather say he wouldn t. But there must 
 be a splendid operation, though, on the morrow magni 
 ficent sight if Slasher did it ! Did he consider Mr. 
 Slasher a good operator ? " Best alive : took a boy s 
 leg out of the socket last week boy ate five apples 
 and a gingerbread cake exactly two minutes after it 
 was all over ; boy said he wouldn t lie there to be 
 made game of ; and he d tell his mother if they didn t 
 begin." To hear Dickens say this in the short, sharp 
 utterances of Jack Hopkins, to see his manner in 
 recounting it, stiff-necked, and with a glance under 
 the drooping eyelids in the direction of Mr. Pickwick s 
 listening face, was only the next best thing to hearing 
 him and seeing him, still in the person of Jack Hopkins, 
 relate the memorable anecdote about the child swal 
 lowing the necklace pronounced in Jack Hopkins s 
 abbreviated articulation of it, neck-luss a word re 
 peated by him a round dozen times at the least within 
 a few seconds in the reading version of that same 
 anecdote. How characteristically and comically the 
 abbreviations were multiplied for the delivery of it, by 
 the very voice and in the very person, as it were, 
 of Jack Hopkins, who shall say! As, for example 
 " Sister, industrious girl, seldom treated herself to bit 
 of finery, cried eyes out, at loss of neck-luss ; looked 
 high and low for neck-luss. Few days afterwards, 
 family at dinner baked shoulder of mutton and 
 
Reading of "Mr. Bob Sawyer s Party," a page covered 
 all over, as will be observed, with minute touches in 
 
 MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY. 359 
 
 potatoes, child wasn t hungry, playing about the room, 
 when family suddenly heard devil of a noise like small 
 hail-storm." How abbreviated passages like these 
 look, as compared with the original could only be 
 rendered comprehensible upon the instant, by giving 
 in this place a facsimile of one of the pages relating to 
 Jack Hopkins s immortal story about the neck-luss, 
 exactly as it appears in the marked copy of the 
 
 4 
 
 the Novelist s own handwriting. A , / 
 
 Nothing at all in the later version of this Beading 
 was said about the prim person in cloth boots, who 
 unsuccessfully attempted all through the evening to 
 make a joke. Of him the readers of " Pickwick" will 
 very well remember it to have been related that he 
 commenced a long story about a great public cha 
 racter, whose name he had forgotten, making a par 
 ticularly happy reply to another illustrious individual 
 whom he had never been able to identify, and, after 
 enlarging with great minuteness upon divers collateral 
 circumstances distantly connected with the anecdote, 
 could not for the life of him recollect at that precise 
 moment what the anecdote was although he had been 
 in the habit, for the last ten years, of telling the story 
 with great applause ! While disposed to regret the 
 omission of this preposterously natural incident from 
 the revised version of the Reading, and especially 
 Bob Sawyer s concluding remark in regard to it, 
 
160 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 that lie should very much like to hear the end of it, 
 for, so far as it went, it was, without exception, the 
 very best story he had ever heard " we were more 
 than compensated by another revisive touch, by which 
 Mr. Hopkins, instead of Mr. Gunter, in the pink shirt, 
 was represented as one of the two interlocutors in the 
 famous quarrel-scene : the other being Mr. Noddy, 
 the scorbutic youth, with the nice sense of honour. 
 Through this modification the ludicrous effect of the 
 squabble was wonderfully enhanced, as where Mr. 
 Noddy, having been threatened with being " pitched out 
 o window" by Mr. Jack Hopkins, said to the latter, " I 
 should like to see you do it, sir," Jack Hopkins curtly 
 retaliating " You shall feel me do it, sir, in half a 
 minute." The reconciliation of the two attained its 
 climax of absurdity in the Reading, when Mr. Noddy, 
 having gradually allowed his feelings to overpower 
 him, professed that he had ever entertained a devoted 
 personal attachment to Mr. Hopkins. Consequent 
 upon this, Mr. Hopkins, we were told, replied, that, 
 " on the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to 
 his own mother" the word standing, of course, as 
 " brother " in the original. Summing it all up, the Reader 
 would then add, with a rise and fall of the voice at 
 almost every other word in the sentence, the mere 
 sound of which was inexpressibly ludicrous "Every 
 body said the whole dispute had been conducted in a 
 manner" (here he would sometimes gag) "that did equal 
 credit to the head and heart of both parties concerned." 
 
MR. BOB SAWYER S PARTY. 161 
 
 Another gag, of which there is no sign in the marked 
 copy, those who attended any later delivery of this 
 Reading will well remember he was fond of intro 
 ducing. This was immediately after Mrs. Raddle had 
 put an end to the evening s enjoyment in the very 
 middle of Jack Hopkins song (with a chorus) of " The 
 King, God bless him," carolled forth by Jack to a 
 novel air compounded of the " Bay of Biscay " and 
 "A Frog he would a-wooing go" when poor, dis 
 comfited Bob (after turning pale at the voice of his 
 dreaded landlady, shrilly calling out, " Mr. Saw-?/*?? 1 / 
 Mr. Saw-7/e? 1 / ") turned reproachfully on the over- 
 boisterous Jack Hopkins, with, " I thought you were 
 making too much noise, Jack. You re such a fellow 
 for chorusing ! You re always at it. You came into 
 the world chorusing ; and I believe you ll go out of it 
 chorusing." Through their appreciation of which 
 more even than through their remembrance of Mrs. 
 Raddle s withdrawal of her nightcap, with a scream, 
 from over the staircase banisters, on catching sight 
 of Mr. Pickwick, saying, " Get along with you, you 
 old wretch ! Old enough to be his grandfather, you 
 willin ! You re worse than any of em ! " the hearers 
 paid to the Reader of Bob Sawyer s Party their last 
 tribute of laughter. 
 
THE CHIMES. 
 
 As poetical in its conception, and also, intermit 
 tently, in its treatment, as anything lie ever wrote, this 
 Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year 
 Out and a New Year In, was, in those purely goblin, 
 or more intensely imaginative portions of it, one of the 
 most effective of our Author s Readings. Hence its- 
 selection by him for his very first Reading on his own 
 account in St. Martin s Hall, Long Acre. Listening, 
 as we did, then and afterwards, to the tale, as it was 
 told by his own sympathetic lips, much of the incon 
 gruity, otherwise no doubt apparent in the narrative, 
 seemed at those times to disappear altogether. The 
 incongruity, we mean, observable between the queer 
 little ticket-porter and the elfin phantoms of the belfry ; 
 between Trotty Veck, in his "breezy, goose-skinned, 
 blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-toed, tooth-chattering" 
 stand-point by the old church-door, and the Goblin 
 Sight beheld by him when he had clambered up, up, up 
 among the roof-beams of the great church-tower. As 
 the story was related in its original form, it was rung 
 
THE CHIMES. 163 
 
 out befittingly from the Chimes in four quarters. As a 
 Reading it was subdivided simply into three parts. 
 
 Nothing whatever was preserved (by an error as it 
 always seemed to us) of the admirable introduction. 
 The story-teller piqued no one into attention by say 
 ing to begin with " There are not many people who 
 would care to sleep in a church." Adding immediately, 
 with delightful particularity, "I don t mean at sermon 
 time in warm weather (when the thing has actually 
 been done once or twice), but in the night, and alone." 
 Not a word was uttered in the exordium of the Read 
 ing about the dismal trick the night-wind has in those 
 ghostly hours of wandering round and round a build 
 ing of that sort, and moaning as it goes ; of its trying 
 with a secret hand the windows and the doors, fumbling 
 for some crevice by which to enter, and, having got in, 
 " as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may 
 be," of its wailing and howling to issue forth again ; of 
 its stalking through the aisles and gliding round and 
 round the pillars, and "tempting the deep organ; " of 
 its soaring up to the roof, and after striving vainly to 
 rend the rafters, flinging itself despairingly upon the 
 stones below, and passing mutteringly into the vaults ! 
 Anon, coming up stealthily the Christmas book goes 
 on to say "It has a ghostly sound, lingering within 
 the Altar, where it seems to chant in its wild way of 
 Wrong and Murder done, and false Gods worshipped, 
 in defiance of the Tables of the Law, which look so 
 fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken. Ugh ! 
 
 M 2 
 
164 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire ! it 
 has an awful voice that Wind at Midnight, singing in a 
 church ! " Of all this and of yet more to the like 
 purpose, not one syllable was there in the Reading, 
 which, on the contrary, began at once point-blank : 
 " High up in the steeple of an old church, far above 
 the town, and far below the clouds, dwelt the 
 1 Chimes I tell of." Directly after which the Reader, 
 haying casually mentioned the circumstance of their 
 just then striking twelve at noon, gave utterance to 
 Trotty Aleck s ejaculatory reflection : " Dinner-time, 
 eh ? Ah ! There s nothing more regular in its 
 coming round than dinner-time, and there s nothing 
 less regular in its coming round than dinner." 
 Followed by his innocently complacent exclamation : 
 * I wonder whether it would be worth any gentle 
 man s while, now, to buy that obserwatioii for the 
 Papers, or the Parliament ! " The Eeader adding 
 upon the instant, with an explanatory aside, that 
 " Trotty was only joking," striving to console himself 
 doubtless for the exceeding probability there was 
 before him, at the moment, of his going, not for the 
 first time, dinnerless. 
 
 In the thick of his meditations Trotty was startled 
 those who ever attended this Beading will remember 
 how pleasantly by the unlooked-for appearance of his 
 pretty daughter Meg. " And not alone ! " as she 
 told- him cheerily. " Why you don t mean to say," was 
 the wondering reply of the old ticket-porter, looking 
 
THE CHIMES. 165 
 
 curiously the while at a covered basket carried in 
 
 Margaret s hand, " that you have brought " 
 
 Hadn t she ! It was burning hot scalding ! He 
 must guess from the steaming flavour what it was ! 
 Thereupon came the by-play of the Humorist after 
 the fashion of Munden, who, according to Charles 
 Lamb, " understood a leg of mutton in its quiddity." 
 It was thus with the Reader when he syllabled, with 
 watering lips, guess after guess at the half-opened 
 basket. "It ain t I suppose it ain t polonies ? [sniff - 
 ing]. No. It s it s mellower than polonies. It s too 
 decided for trotters. Liver ? No. There s a mildness 
 about it that don t answer to liver. Pettitoes ? No. 
 It ain t faint enough for pettitoes. It wants the 
 stringiness of cock s heads. And I know it ain t 
 sausages. I ll tell you what it is. No, it isn t, 
 neither. Why, what am I thinking of ! I shall forget 
 my own name next. It s tripe ! " Forthwith, to 
 reward him for having thus hit it off at last so cleverly, 
 Meg, as she expressed it, with a flourish, laid the 
 cloth, meaning the pocket-handkerchief in which the 
 basin of tripe had been tied up, and actually offered 
 the sybarite who was going to enjoy the unexpected 
 banquet, a choice of dining-places ! " Where will you 
 dine, father ? On the post, or on the steps ? How 
 grand we are : two places to choose from ! " The 
 weather being dry, and the steps therefore chosen, 
 those being rheumatic only in the damp, Trotty Veck 
 was not merely represented b.y the Reader as feasting 
 
166 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 upon the tripe, but as listening meanwhile to Meg s 
 account of how it had all been arranged that she and 
 her lover Richard should, upon the very next day, 
 that is, upon New Year s Day, be married. 
 
 In the midst of this agreeable confabulation 
 Richard himself having in the interim become one of 
 the party the little old ticket-porter, the pretty 
 daughter, and the sturdy young blacksmith, were sud 
 denly scattered. The Reader went on to relate how 
 this happened, with ludicrous accuracy, upon the abrupt 
 opening of the door, around the steps of which they 
 were gathered a flunkey nearly putting his foot in 
 the tripe, with this indignant apostrophe, " Out of the 
 vays, here, will you ? You must always go and be a 
 settin on our steps, must you ? You can t go and 
 give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can t 
 you ? " Adding, even, a moment afterwards, with an 
 aggrieved air of almost affecting expostulation, "You re 
 always a being begged and prayed upon your bended 
 knees, you are, to let our door-steps be ? CAN T you 
 let em be ? " Nothing more was seen or heard of 
 that footman, and yet in the utterance of those few 
 words of his the individuality of the man somehow 
 was thoroughly realised. Observing him, listening 
 to him, as he stood there palpably before us, one 
 seemed to understand better than ever Thackeray s 
 declaration in regard to those same menials in plush 
 breeches, that a certain delightful " quivering swagger" 
 of the calves about them, had for him always, as he 
 
THE CHIMES. 167 
 
 expressed it, "a frantic fascination ! " Immediately 
 afterwards, however, as the Reader turned a new leaf, 
 in place of the momentary apparition of that particular 
 flunkey, three very different persons appeared to step 
 across the threshold on to the platform. Low-spirited, 
 Mr. Filer, with his hands in his trousers-pockets. The 
 red-faced gentleman who was always vaunting, under 
 the title of the " good old times," some undiscoverable 
 past which he perpetually lamented as his deceased 
 Millennium. And finally as large as life, and as 
 real Alderman Cute. As in the original Christmas 
 book, so also in the Heading, the one flagrant impro 
 bability was the consumption by Alderman Cute of the 
 last lukewarm tid-bit of tripe left by Trotty Veck down 
 fit the bottom of the basin its consumption, indeed, 
 l>y any alderman, however prying or gluttonous. 
 Barring that, the whole of the first scene of the 
 " Chimes " was alive with reality, and with a curious 
 diversity of human character. In the one that 
 followed, and in which Trotty conveyed a letter to Sir 
 Joseph Bowley, the impersonation of the obese hall- 
 porter, later on identified as Tugby, was in every way 
 iar beyond that of the pompous humanitarian member 
 of parliament. A hall-porter this proved to be whose 
 voice, when he had found it "which it took him 
 some time to do, for it was a long way off, and hidden 
 under a load of meat " was, in truth, as the Author s 
 lips expressed it, and as his pen had long before de- 
 scribed it in the book, " a fat whisper." Afterwards 
 
168 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 when re-introduced, Tugby hardly, as it appeared to 
 us, came up to the original description. When the 
 stout old lady, his supposititious wife, formerly, or 
 rather really, all through, Mrs. Chickenstalker, says, in 
 answer to his inquiries as to the weather, one especially 
 bitter winter s evening, " Blowing and sleeting hard, 
 and threatening snow. Dark, and very cold" Tugby s 
 almost apoplectic reply was delicious, no doubt, in its 
 suffocative delivery. " I m glad to think we had 
 muffins for tea, my dear. It s a sort of night that s 
 meant for muffins. Likewise crumpets ; also Sally 
 Limns." But, for all that, we invariably missed the 
 sequel which, once missed, could hardly be foregone 
 contentedly. We recalled to mind, for example, such 
 descriptive particulars in the original story as that, in 
 mentioning each successive kind of eatable, Tugby did 
 so "as if he were musingly summing up his good 
 actions," or that, after this, rubbing his fat legs and 
 jerking them at the knees to get the fire upon the yet 
 unroasted parts, he laughed as if somebody had 
 tickled him ! We bore distinctly enough in remem 
 brance, and longed then to have heard from the lips 
 of the Reader in answer to the dream -wife s remark, 
 " You re in spirits, Tugby, my dear ! " Tugby s fat, 
 gasping response, " No, No. Not particular. I m a 
 little elewated. The muffins came so pat !" Though,, 
 even if that addition had been vouchsafed, we should 
 still, no doubt, have hungered for the descriptive par 
 ticulars that followed, relating not only how the former 
 
THE CHIMES. 169 
 
 hall-porter chuckled until he was black in the face 
 having so much ado, in fact, to become any other colour, 
 that his fat legs made the strangest excursions into the 
 air but that Mrs. Tugby, that is, Chickenstalker, after 
 thumping him violently on the back, and shaking him 
 as if he were a bottle, was constrained to cry out, in 
 great terror, " Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy, 
 bless and save the man ! What s he a-doing ? " To 
 which all that Mr. Tugby can faintly reply, as he 
 wipes his e} r es, is, that he finds himself a little 
 "elewated!" 
 
 Another omission in the Reading was, if possible, 
 yet more surprising, namely, the whole of Will Fern s 
 finest speech : an address full of rustic eloquence that 
 one can t help feeling sure would have told wonderfully 
 as Dickens could have delivered it. However, the 
 story, foreshortened though it was, precisely as he 
 related it, was told with a due regard to its artistic 
 completeness. Margaret and Lilian, the old ticket- 
 porter and the young blacksmith, were the principal 
 interlocutors. Like the melodrama of Victorine, it 
 all turned out, of course, to be no more than " the 
 baseless fabric of a vision," the central incidents of the 
 tale, at any rate, being composed of " such stuff as 
 dreams are made of." How it all came to be evolved 
 by the " Chimes " from the slumbering brain of the 
 queer, little old ticket-porter was related more fully 
 and more picturesquely, no doubt, in the printed 
 narrative, but in the Reading, at the least, it was 
 
170 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 depicted with more dramatic force and passion. The 
 znerest glimmering, however, was afforded of the 
 ghostly or elfin spectacle, as seen by the " mind s 
 eye " of the dreamer, and which in the book itself was 
 so important an integral portion of the tale, as there 
 unfolded, constituting, as it did, for that matter, 
 the very soul or .spirit of what was meant by " The 
 Chimes." 
 
 Speaking of the collective chimes of a great city, 
 Victor Hugo has remarked in his prose master 
 piece that, in an ordinary way, the noise issuing from 
 a vast capital is the talking of the city, that at night it 
 is the breathing of the city, but that when the bells 
 are ringing it is the singing of the city. Descanting 
 upon this congenial theme, the poet-novelist observes, 
 in continuation, that while at first the vibrations of 
 each bell rise straight, pure, and in a manner sepa 
 rate from that of the others, swelling by degrees, 
 they blend, melt, and amalgamate in magnificent con 
 cert until they become at length one mass of sonorous 
 vibrations, which, issuing incessantly from innume 
 rable steeples, float, undulate, bound, whirl over the 
 city, expanding at last far beyond the horizon the 
 deafening circle of their oscillations. What has 
 been said thus superbly, though it may be some 
 what extravagantly, by Hugo, in regard to " that tutti 
 of steeples, that column of sound, that cloud or 
 sea of harmony," as he variously terms it, has been 
 said less extravagantly, but quite as exquisitely, by 
 
THE CHIMES. 171 
 
 Charles Dickens, in regard to the chimes of a single 
 belfry. After this New Year s tale of his was first 
 told, there rang out from the opposite shores of the 
 Atlantic, that most wonderful tintinnabulation in all 
 literature, The Bells" of Edgar Foe which is, among 
 minor poems, in regard to the belfry, what Southey s 
 " Lodore " is to the cataract, full, sonorous, and ex 
 haustive. And there it is, in that marvellous little 
 poem of " The Bells," that the American lyrist, as it 
 has always seemed to us, has caught much of the 
 eltrich force and beaut} 7 and poetic significance of 
 " The Chimes" as they were originally rung forth in 
 the prose-poetry of the English novelist : 
 
 " And the people ah, the people 
 They that dwell tip in the steeple, 
 
 All alone, 
 And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 
 
 In that muffled monotone, 
 Feel a glory in so rolling 
 
 On [or from] the human heart a stone 
 They are neither man nor woman 
 They are neither brute nor human 
 
 They are Ghouls : 
 And their king it is who tolls ; 
 And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
 
 Rolls 
 A paean from the bells." 
 
 Charles Dickens, in his beautiful imaginings in re 
 gard to the Spirits of the Bells something of the 
 grace and goblinry of which, Maclise s pencil shadowed 
 forth in the lovely frontispiece to the little volume in 
 
172 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 the form in which it was first of all published has 
 exhausted the vocabulary of wonder in his elvish de 
 lineation of the Goblin Sight beheld in the old church- 
 tower on New Year s Eve by the awe-stricken ticket- 
 porter. 
 
 In the Reading one would naturally have liked to have 
 caught some glimpse at least of the swarming out to 
 view of the " dwarf -phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures 
 of the Bells;" to have seen them " leaping, flying, 
 dropping, pouring from the Bells," unceasingly ; to 
 have realised them anew as a listener, just as the 
 imaginary dreamer beheld them all about him in his 
 vision " round him on the ground, above him in the 
 air, clambering from him by the ropes below, looking 
 down upon him from the massive iron-girded beams, 
 peeping in upon him through the chinks and loopholes 
 in the walls, spreading away and away from him in 
 enlarging circles, as the water-ripples give place to a 
 huge stone that . suddenly comes plashing in among 
 them." In their coming and in their going, the 
 sight, it will be remembered, was equally marvellous. 
 Whether as the Chimes rang out we read of the 
 dream -haunted, " He saw them [these swarming 
 goblins] ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. 
 He saw them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, 
 he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them 
 grim, he saw them dance, he heard them sing, he saw 
 them tear their hair, and heard them howl" diving, 
 soaring, sailing, perching, violently active in their 
 
THE CHIMES. 173 
 
 restlessness stone, brick, slate, tile, transparent to the 
 dreamer s gaze, and pervious to their movements the 
 bells all the while in an uproar, the great church tower 
 vibrating from parapet to basement ! Or, whether 
 when the Chimes ceased there came that instan 
 taneous transformation! " The whole swarm fainted; 
 their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them ; they 
 sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted 
 into air. One straggler," says the book, " leaped down 
 pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and 
 alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone before he 
 -could turn round." After it has been added that some 
 thus gambolling in the tower " remained there, spinning 
 over and over a little longer," becoming fainter, fewer, 
 feebler, and so vanishing we read, " The last of all 
 was one small hunchback, who had got into an echoing 
 corner, where he twirled and twirled, and floated by 
 himself a long time ; showing such perseverance, that at 
 last he dwindled to a leg, and even to a foot, before he 
 finally retired ; but he vanished in the end, and then 
 the tower was silent." Nothing of this, however, was 
 given in the Reading, the interest of which was 
 almost entirely restricted to the fancied fluctuation of 
 fortunes among the human characters. All of the 
 pathetic and most of the comic portions of the tale 
 were happily preserved. When, in the persons of the 
 Tugbys, " fat company, rosy-cheeked company, com 
 fortable company," came to be introduced, there was 
 nn instant sense of exhilaration among the audience. 
 
174 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 A roar invariably greeted the remark, " They were 
 but two, but they were red enough for ten." Similarly 
 pronounced was the reception of the casual announce 
 ment of the " stone pitcher of terrific size," in which 
 the good wife brought her contribution of " a little 
 flip " to the final merry-making. " Mrs. Chicken- 
 stalker s notion of a little flip did honour to her cha 
 racter," elicited a burst of laughter that was instantly 
 renewed when the Reader added, that " the pitcher 
 reeked like a volcano," and that " the man who 
 carried it was faint." The Drum, \)y the way braced 
 tight enough, as an} one might admit in the original 
 narrative seemed rather slackened, and was certainly 
 less effective, in the Reading. One listened in vain, 
 for the well-remembered parenthesis indicative of its 
 being the man himself, and not the instrument. 
 " The Drum (who was a private friend of Trotty s) 
 then stepped forward, and " offered evidently with a 
 hiccough or two his greeting of good fellowship, 
 "which," as we learn from the book, "was received 
 with a general shout." The Humorist added there 
 upon, in his character as Storyteller, not in his ca 
 pacity as Reader, " The Drum was rather drunk, by- 
 the-bye ; but never mind." A band of music, with 
 marrow-bones and cleavers and a set of hand-bells 
 clearly all of them under the direction of the Drum 
 then struck up the dance at Meg s wedding. But, after 
 due mention had been made of how Trotty danced with 
 Mrs. Chickenstalker "in a step unknown before or 
 
THE CHIMES. 175 
 
 since, founded on his own peculiar trot," the story 
 closed in the book, and closed also in the Reading, 
 with words that, in their gentle and harmonious flow, 
 seemed to come from the neighbouring church-tower 
 as final echoes from " The Chimes " themselves. 
 
THE STOEY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 
 
 THE hushed silence with which the concluding 
 passages of this Reading were always listened to, 
 spoke more eloquently than any applause could 
 possibly have done, of the sincerity of the emotions it 
 awakened. A cursory glance at the audience con 
 firmed the impression produced by that earlier evi 
 dence of their rapt and breathless attention. It is 
 the simplest truth to say that at those times many a 
 face illustrated involuntarily the loveliest line in the 
 noblest ode in the language, where Diyden has sung 
 even of a warrior 
 
 "And now and then a sigh he heaved, 
 And tears began to flow. 1 
 
 The subdued voice of the Header, moreover, accorded 
 tenderly with one s remembrance of his own acknow 
 ledgment ten j r ears after his completion of the book 
 from which this story was extracted, that with a heavy 
 heart he had walked the streets of Paris alone during 
 the whole of one winter s night, while he and his little 
 friend parted company for ever ! Charles Young s 
 
LITTLE DOMBEY. 
 
 33 
 
 I mean, Papa, what can it do? 1 
 
 Mr ""m-Thr- rlrmr hir nlinir 1 i rfr t 
 
 - You 1 11 know 
 
 better bye and bye, my man Money, Paul, can 
 do ajivtiiins-^ >klJic 
 
 un7 
 
 mone 
 
 y can do anything 5> /I wonder it didn t 
 
 save me my Mama,. It can t make me strong and 
 quite well, either. I am so tired sometimes and 
 my bones a^he so, that I don t "know wrLal to do! l1 
 
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 177 
 
 son, the vicar of Ilminster, lias, recently, in his own 
 Diary appended to his memoir of his father, the 
 tragedian, related a curious anecdote, illustrative, in a 
 very striking way, of the grief the profound and ovei^ 
 whelming grief excited in a mind and heart like those 
 of Lord Jeffrey, hy the imaginary death of another of 
 these dream-children of Charles Dickens. The editor of 
 the Edinburgh Review, we there read, was surprised by 
 Mrs. Henry Siddons, seated in his library, with his head 
 on the table, crying. " Delicately retiring," we are then 
 told, "in the hope that her entrance had been un 
 noticed," Mrs. Siddons observed that Jeffrey raised his 
 head and was kindly beckoning her back. The Diary 
 goes on : "Perceiving that his cheek was flushed and 
 his eyes suffused with tears, she apologised for her 
 intrusion, and begged permission to withdraw. When 
 he found that she was seriously intending to leave 
 him, he rose from his chair, took her by both hands, 
 and led her to a seat." Then came the acknowledg 
 ment prefaced by Lord Jeffrey s remark that he was 
 " a great goose to have given way so/ Little Nell 
 was dead! The newly published number of "Master 
 Humphrey s Clock" (No. 44) was lying before him, 
 in which he had just been reading of the general 
 bereavement ! 
 
 Eeferring to another of these little creatures deaths, 
 that of Tiny Tim, Thackeray wrote in the July number 
 of Fraser, for 1844, that there was one passage regard 
 ing it about which a man would hardly venture to speak 
 
178 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 in print or in public l any more than lie would of any 
 other affections of his private heart." 
 
 It has been related, even of the burly demagogue, 
 O Connell, that on first reading of Nell s death in the 
 Old Curiosity Shop, he exclaimed his eyes running- 
 over with tears while he flung the leaves indignantly 
 out of the window "he should not have killed her 
 he should not have killed her : she was too good ! " 
 
 Finally, another Scotch critic and judge, Lord Cock- 
 burn, writing to the Novelist on the very morrow of 
 reading the memorable fifth number of " Dombey and 
 Son," in which the death of Little Paul is so exquisitely 
 depicted offering his grateful acknowledgments to the 
 Author for the poignant grief he had caused him 
 added, " I have felt my heart purified by those tears, 
 and blessed and loved you for making me shed them." 
 
 Hardly can it be matter for wonder, therefore, re 
 marking how the printed pages would draw such tokens 
 of sympathy from men like Cockburn, and Jeffrey, and 
 Thackeray, and O Connell, that a mixed audience 
 showed traces of emotion when the profoundly sym 
 pathetic voice of Dickens himself related this story of 
 the Life and Death of Little Dombey. Yet the pathetic 
 beauty of the tale, for all that, was only dimly hinted at 
 throughout, the real pathos of it, indeed, being only 
 fully indicated almost immediately before its conclu 
 sion. Earlier in the Beading, in fact, the drollery of 
 the comic characters introduced of themselves irre 
 sistible would have been simply paramount, but for 
 
THE STOEY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 17D 
 
 the incidental mention of the mother s death, when 
 clinging to that frail spar within her arms, her little 
 daughter, " she drifted out upon the dark and unknown 
 sea that rolls round all the world." Paul s little 
 wistful face looked out every now and then, it is true, 
 from among the fantastic forms and features grouped 
 around him, with a growing sense upon the hearer of 
 what was really meant by the child being so " old- 
 fashioned." But the ludicrous effect of those sur 
 rounding characters was nothing less than all-mastering 
 in its predominance. 
 
 There was Mrs. Pipchin, for example, that grim old 
 lady with a mottled face like bad marble, who acquired 
 an immense reputation as a manager of children, by 
 the simple device of giving them everything they didn t 
 like and nothing that they did ! Whose constitution 
 required mutton chops hot and hot, and battered 
 toast in similar relays ! And with whom one of Little 
 Dombey s earliest dialogues in the Beading awakened 
 invariably such bursts of hearty laughter ! Seated in 
 his tall, spindle-legged arm-chair by the fire, staring 
 steadily at the exemplary Pipchin, Little Paul, we were 
 told, was asked [in the most snappish voice possi 
 ble], by that austere female, What he was thinking 
 about? 
 
 " You," [in the gentlest childlike voice] said Paul ? 
 without the least reserve. 
 
 "And what are you thinking about me ? " 
 
 " I m thinking how old you must be." 
 
 N 2 
 
180 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 " You mustn t say such things as that, young gentle 
 man. That ll never do." 
 
 " Why not [slowly and wonderingiy] ? " 
 
 "Never you mind, sir [shorter and sharper than 
 ever]. Remember the story of the little boy that was 
 gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions." 
 
 " If the bull [in a high falsetto voice and with greater 
 deliberation than ever] was mad, how did he know 
 that the boy asked questions ? Nobody can go and 
 whisper secrets to a mad bull. I don t believe that 
 story." 
 
 Little Dombey s fellow-sufferers at Mrs. Pipchin s 
 were hardly less ludicrous in their way than that bitter 
 old victim of the Peruvian mines in her perennial 
 weeds of black bombazeen. Miss Pankey, for instance, 
 the mild little blue-eyed morsel of a child who was 
 instructed by the Ogress that " nobody who sniffed 
 before visitors ever went to heaven ! " And her 
 associate in misery, one Master Bitherstone, from 
 India, who objected so much to the Pipchinian system, 
 that before Little Dombey had been in the house five 
 minutes, he privately consulted that gentleman if he 
 could afford him any idea of the way back to Bengal ! 
 What the Pipchinian system was precisely, the Reader 
 indicated perhaps the most happily by his way of 
 saying, that instead of its encouraging a child s mind 
 to develop itself, like a flower, it strove to open it by 
 force, like an oyster. Fading slowly away while he is 
 yet under Mrs. Pipchin s management, poor little 
 
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 181 
 
 Paul, as the audience well knew, was removed on to 
 Doctor Blimber s Academy for Young Gentlemen. 
 There the humorous company gathered around Paul 
 immediately increased. But, before his going amongst 
 them, the Reader enabled us more vividly to realise, by 
 an additional touch or two, the significance of the pecu 
 liarity of being " old fashioned," for which the fading 
 child appeared in everybody s eyes so remarkable. 
 
 Wheeled down to the beach in a little invalid- 
 carriage, he would cling fondly to his sister Florence. 
 He would say to any chance child who might come 
 to bear him company [in a soft, drawling, half- 
 querulous voice, and with the gravest look], " Go 
 away, if you please. Thank you, but I don t want 
 you." He would wonder to himself and to Floy what 
 the waves were always saying always saying ! At 
 about the middle of the 47th page of the Reading 
 copy of this book about Little Dombey, the copy from 
 which Dickens Read, both in England and America, 
 there is, in his handwriting, the word " Pause." 
 It occurs just in between Little Dombey s confiding to 
 his sister, that if she were in India he should die of 
 being so sorry and so lonely ! and the incident of 
 his suddenly waking up at another time from a long 
 sleep in his little carriage on the shingles, to ask her, 
 not only What the rolling waves are saying so con 
 stantly, but What place is over there ? far away ! 
 looking eagerly, as he inquires, towards some invisible 
 region beyond the horizon ! That momentary pause 
 
182 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 will be very well remembered by everyone who attended 
 this Eeading. 
 
 One single omission we are still disposed to regret 
 in the putting together of the materials for this parti 
 cular Reading from the original narrative. In ap 
 proaching Dr. Blimber s establishment for the first 
 time, we would gladly have witnessed the sparring- 
 match, as one may s&y, on the very threshold, between 
 Mrs. Pipchin the Ogress in bombazeen and the weak- 
 eyed young man-servant who opens the door! The 
 latter of whom, having "the first faint streaks or early 
 dawn of a grin on his countenance (it was mere 
 imbecility)" as the Author himself explains paren 
 thetically Mrs. Pipchin at once takes it into her 
 head, is inspired by impudence, and snaps at accor 
 dingly. Of this we saw nothing, however, in the 
 Eeading. We heard nothing of Mrs. Pipchin s explo 
 sive, " How dare you laugh behind the gentleman s 
 back? " or of the weak-eyed young man s answering in 
 consternation, " I ain t a laughing at nobody, ma am." 
 Any more than of the Ogress saying a while later, 
 " You re laughing again, sir!" or of the young man, 
 grievously oppressed, repudiating the charge with, " I 
 ain t. I never see such a thing as this ! " The old 
 lady as she passed on with, " Oh ! he was a precious 
 fellow," leaving him, who was in fact all meekness and 
 incapacity, " affected even to tears by the incident." 
 If we saw nothing, however, of that retainer of Dr. 
 Blimber, we were introduced -to another, meaning the 
 
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 183 
 
 blue-coated, bright-buttoned butler, " who gave quite a 
 winey flavour to the table-beer he poured it out so 
 superbly! " We had Dr. Blimber himself, besides, with 
 his learned legs, like a clerical pianoforte a bald head, 
 highly polished, and a chin so double, it was a wonder 
 how he ever managed to shave into the creases. We 
 had Miss Blimber, in spectacles, like a ghoul, " dry 
 and sandy with working in the graves of decease 1 
 languages." We had Mrs. Blimber, not learned her 
 self, but pretending to be so, which did quite as well, 
 languidly exclaiming at evening parties, that if she 
 could have known Cicero, she thought she could have 
 died contented. We had Mr. Feeder, clipped to the 
 stubble, grinding out his classic stops like a barrel- 
 organ of erudition. Above all, we had Toots, the 
 head boy, or rather "the head and shoulder boy," 
 he was so much taller than the rest! Of whom in 
 that intellectual forcing-house (where he had "gone 
 through " everything so completely, that one day he 
 41 suddenly left off blowing, and remained in the 
 establishment a mere stalk ") people had come at last 
 to say, " that the Doctor had rather overdone it with 
 young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers 
 he left off having brains." From the moment when 
 Young Toots s voice was first heard, in tones so deep, 
 and in a manner so sheepish, that "if a lamb had 
 roared it couldn t have been more surprising," saying 
 to Little Dombey with startling suddenness, " How 
 are you?" every time the Eeader opened his lips, as 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 speaking in that character, there was a burst of merri 
 ment. His boastful account always called forth 
 laughter that his tailor was Burgess and Co., 
 "fash nable, but very dear." As also did his con 
 stantly reiterated inquiries of Paul always as an 
 entirely new idea " I say it s not of the slightest 
 consequence, you know, but I should wish to mention 
 it how are you, you know ? " Hardly less provo 
 cative of mirth was Briggs s confiding one evening to 
 Little Dombey, that his head ached ready to split, and 
 " that he should wish himself dead if it wasn t for his 
 mother and a blackbird he had at home." 
 
 Wonderful fun used to be made by the Reader of the 
 various incidents at the entertainment given upon the 
 eve of the vacations by Doctor and Mrs. Blimber to 
 the Young Gentlemen and their Friends, when "the 
 hour was half-past seven o clock, and the object was 
 quadrilles." The Doctor pacing up and down in the 
 drawing-room, full dressed, before anybody had arrived, 
 " with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as if 
 he thought it barely possible that one or two people 
 might drop in by-and-by ! " His exclaiming, when 
 Mr. Toots and Mr. Feeder were announced by the 
 butler, and as if he were extremely surprised to see 
 them, "Aye, aye, aye! God bless my soul!" 
 Mr. Toots, one blaze of jewellery and buttons, so 
 undecided, "on a calm revision of all the circum 
 stances," whether it were better to have his waistcoat 
 fastened or unfastened both at top and bottom, as the 
 
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY. 185 
 
 arrivals thickened, so influencing him by the force of 
 example, that at the last he was " continually fingering 
 that article of dress as if he were performing on some 
 instrument ! " Thoroughly enjoyable though the whole 
 scene was in its throng of ludicrous particulars, it 
 merely led the way up appreciably and none the less 
 tenderly, for all the innocent laughter, to the last and 
 supremely pathetic incidents of the story as related 
 thenceforth (save only for one startling instant) sotto 
 voce, by the Reader. 
 
 The exceptional moment here alluded to, when his 
 voice was suddenly raised, to be hushed again the in 
 stant afterwards, came at the very opening of the final 
 scene by Little Dombey s death-bed, where the sun 
 beams, towards evening, struck through the rustling 
 blinds and quivered on the opposite wall like golden 
 water. Overwhelmed, as little Paul was occasionally,, 
 with " his only trouble," a sense of the swift and rapid 
 river, "he felt forced," the Reader went on to say, " to 
 try and stop it to stem it with his childish hands, or 
 choke its way with sand and when he saw it coming 
 on, resistless, HE CRIED OUT !" Dropping his voice 
 from that abrupt outcry instantly afterwards, to the 
 gentlest tones, as he added, "But a word from 
 Florence, who was always at his side, restored him 
 to himself" the Reader continued in those subdued 
 and tender accents to the end. 
 
 The child s pity for his father s sorrowing, was sur 
 passed only, as all who witnessed this Reading will 
 
186 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 readily recollect, by the yet more affecting scene with 
 his old nurse. Waking upon a sudden, on the last of 
 the many evenings, when the golden water danced in 
 shining ripples on the wall, waking mind and body, 
 sitting upright in his bed 
 
 " And who is this ? Is this my old nurse ? " asked 
 the child, regarding with a radiant smile a figure 
 coming in. 
 
 "Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed 
 those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear 
 boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No 
 other woman would have stooped down by his bed and 
 taken up his wasted hand and put it to her lips and 
 breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No 
 other woman would have so forgotten everybody there 
 but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and 
 pity." 
 
 The child s words coming then so lovingly: "Floy! 
 this is a kind good face ! I am glad to see it again. 
 Don t go away, old nurse ! Stay here ! Good bye ! " 
 prepared one exquisitely for the rest. " Not good 
 bye?" " Ah, yes! good-bye!" 
 
 Then the end ! The child having been laid down 
 again with his arms clasped round his sister s neck, 
 telling her that the stream was lulling him to rest, 
 that now the boat was out at sea and that there was 
 shore before him, and Who stood upon the bank! 
 Putting his hands together "as he had been used 
 to do at his prayers " not removing his arms to do 
 
THE STORY OP LITTLE DOMBEY. 187 
 
 it, but folding them so behind his sister s neck 
 "Mamma is like you, Floy!" he cried; "I know 
 her by the face ! But tell them that the picture on the 
 stairs at school is not Divine enough. The light about 
 the head is sliming on me as I go! " 
 
 Then came two noble passages, nobly delivered. 
 
 First when there were no eyes unmoistened among 
 the listeners 
 
 " The golden ripple on the wall came back again, 
 and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old 
 fashion ! The fashion that came in with our first 
 garments, and will last unchanged until our race has 
 run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up 
 like a scroll. The old, old fashion Death ! " 
 
 And lastly with a tearful voice 
 
 " Oh, thank GOD, all who see it, for that older 
 fashion yet of Immortality ! And look upon us, Angels 
 of young children, with regards not quite estranged, 
 when the swift river bears .us to the ocean ! " 
 
 Remembering which exquisite words as he himself 
 delivered them, having the very tones of his voice still 
 ringing tenderly in our recollection, the truth of that 
 beautiful remark of Dean Stanley s comes back anew 
 as though it were now only for the first time realised, 
 where, in his funeral sermon of the 19th June, 1870, he 
 said" that it was the inculcation of the lesson derived 
 from precisely such a scene as this which will always 
 make the grave of Charles Dickens seem " as though 
 it were the very grave of those little innocents whom 
 
188 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 lie created for our companionship, for our instruction, 
 for our delight and solace." The little workhouse- 
 boy, the little orphan girl, the little cripple, who "not 
 only blessed his father s needy home, but softened the 
 rude stranger s hardened conscience," were severally 
 referred to by the preacher when he gave this charm 
 ing thought its affecting application. But, foremost 
 among these bewitching children of the Novelist s 
 imagination, might surely be placed the child-hero of a 
 story closing hardly so much with his death as with 
 his apotheosis. 
 
ME. CHOPS, THE DWARF. 
 
 IT remains still a matter of surprise how so much 
 was made out of this slight sketch by the simple force 
 of its humorous delivery. " Mr. Chops, the Dwarf," as, 
 indeed, was only befitting, was the smallest of all the 
 Readings. The simple little air that so caught the 
 dreamer s fancy, when played upon the harp by 
 .Scrooge s niece by marriage, is described after all, as 
 may be remembered by the readers of the Carol, to 
 to have been intrinsically " a mere nothing ; you 
 might learn to whistle it in two minutes." Say that 
 in twenty minutes, or, at the outside, in half-an- 
 hour, any ordinarily glib talker might have rattled 
 through these comic recollections of Mr. Magsman, 
 jet, when rattled through by Dickens, the laughter 
 awakened seems now in the retrospect to have been 
 altogether out of proportion. In itself the subject was 
 anything but attractive, relating, as it did, merely to 
 the escapade of a monstrosity. The surroundings are 
 ignoble, the language is illiterate, the narrative from 
 first to last is characterised by its grotesque extrava- 
 
190 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADEE. 
 
 gance. Yet the whole is presented to view in so utterly 
 ludicrous an aspect, that one needs must laugh just as 
 surely as one listened. Turning over the leaves now, 
 and recalling to mind the hilarity they used to excite 
 even among the least impressionable audience when 
 ever they were fluttered (there are not a dozen of them 
 altogether) on the familiar reading-desk, one marvels 
 over the success of such an exceedingly small oddity 
 as over the remembrance, let us say, of the brilliant 
 performance of a fantasia on the jew s-harp by 
 Eulenstein. 
 
 Nevertheless, slight though it is, the limning all 
 through has touches of the most comic suggestiveness. 
 Magsman s account of the show-house during his 
 occupancy is sufficiently absurd to begin with " the 
 picter of the giant who was himself the heighth of the 
 house," being run up with a line and pulley to a 
 pole on the roof till "his ed was coeval with the 
 parapet ; " the picter of the child of the British 
 Planter seized by two Boa Constrictors, " not that we 
 never had no child, nor no Constrictors either;" 
 similarly, the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies, 
 " not that ice never had no wild asses, nor wouldn t 
 have had em at a gift." And to crown all, the picter 
 of the Dwarf who was " a uncommon small man, he 
 really was. Certainly not so small as he was made 
 out to be ; but where is your Dwarf as is ?" A picter 
 "like him, too (considerin ), with George the Fourth, 
 in such a state of astonishment at him as his Majesty 
 
MR. CHOPS, THE DWARF. 191 
 
 couldn t with his utmost politeness and stoutness ex 
 press." Wrote up the Dwarf was, we are told by Mr. 
 Magsman, as Major Tpschoffski "nobody couldn t 
 pronounce the name," he adds, " and it never was in 
 tended anybody should." Corrupted into Chopski by 
 the public, he gets called in the line Chops, partly for 
 that reason, " partly because his real name, if he ever 
 had any real name (which was dubious), was Stakes." 
 Wearing a diamond ring " (or quite as good to look 
 at)" on his forefinger, having the run of his teeth, 
 " and he was a Woodpecker to eat but all dwarfs 
 are," receiving a good salary, and gathering besides 
 as his perquisites the ha pence collected by him in a 
 Chaney sarser at the end of every entertainment, the 
 Dwarf never has any money somehow. Nevertheless, 
 having what his admiring proprietor considers "a 
 fine mind, a poetic mind," Mr. Chops indulges him 
 self in the pleasing delusion that one of these days he 
 is to Come Into his Property, his ideas respecting 
 which are never realised by him so powerfully as when 
 he sits upon a barrel-organ and has the handle turned ! 
 " Arter the wibration has run through him a little 
 time," says Mr. Magsman, " he screeches out, Toby, 
 I feel my property a-coming gr-r-rind away ! I feel 
 the Mint a-jingling in me. I m a-swelling out into 
 the Bank of England ! Such," reflectively observes 
 his proprietor, "is the influence of music on a poetic 
 mind ! " Adding, however, immediately afterwards, 
 " Not that he was partial to any other music but a 
 
192 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 barrel-organ; on the contrairy, hated it." Indulging 
 in day-dreams about Coming Into his Property and 
 Going Into Society, for which he feels himself formed, 
 and to aspire towards which is his avowed ambition, 
 the mystery, as to where the Dwarf s salary and 
 ha pence all go, is one day cleared up by his winning a 
 prize in the Lottery, a half-ticket for the twenty-five 
 thousand pounder. 
 
 Mr. Chops Comes Into his Property twelve thou 
 sand odd hundred. Further than that, he Goes Into 
 Society "in a chay and four greys with silk jackets." 
 It was at this turning-point in the career of his large- 
 headed but diminutive hero that the grotesque humour 
 of the Header would play upon the risible nerves of his 
 hearers, as, according to Mr. Disraeli s phrase, Sir 
 Kobert Peel used to play upon the House of Com 
 mons, "like an old fiddle." Determined to Go Into 
 Society in style, with his twelve thousand odd hundred, 
 Mr. Chops, we are told, " sent for a young man he 
 knowed, as had a very genteel appearance, and was a 
 Bonnet at a gaming-booth. Most respectable brought 
 up," adds Mr. Magsman "father having been immi 
 nent in the livery- stable line, but unfortunate in a 
 commercial crisis through painting a old grey ginger- 
 bay, and sellin him with a pedigree." In intimate 
 companionship with this Bonnet, " who said his name 
 was Normandy, which it warn t," Mr. Magsman, on 
 invitation by note a little while afterwards, visits Mr. 
 Chops at his lodgings in Pall Mall, London, where he 
 
MR. CHOPS, THE DWARF. 193 
 
 is found carousing not only with the Bonnet but with 
 a third party, of whom we were then told with uncon 
 scionable gravity, " When last met, he had on a white 
 Eoman shirt, and a bishop s mitre covered with leopard- 
 skin, and played the clarionet all wrong in a band at a 
 Wild Beast Show." How the reverential Magsman, 
 finding the three of them blazing away, blazes away 
 in his turn while remaining in their company, who, 
 that once heard it, has forgotten? "I made the 
 round of the bottles," he says evidently proud of his 
 achievement " first separate (to say I had done it), 
 and then mixed em altogether (to say I had done it), 
 and then tried two of em as half-and-half, and then 
 t other two ; altogether," he adds, " passin a pleasin 
 venin* with a tendency to feel muddled." How all 
 Mr. Chop s blazing away is to terminate everybody but 
 himself perceives clearly enough from the commence 
 ment. 
 
 Normandy having bolted with the plate, and " him 
 as formerly wore the bishop s mitre " with the jewels, 
 the Dwarf gets out of society by being, as he signifi 
 cantly expresses it, "sold out," and in this plight 
 returns penitently one evening to the show-house of 
 his still-admiring proprietor. Mr. Magsman happens 
 at the moment to be having a dull tete-a-tete with a 
 young man without arms, who gets his living by 
 writing with his toes, " which," says the low-spirited 
 narrator, " I had taken on for a month though lie 
 never drawed except on paper." Hearing a kicking 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 at the street-door, " Halloa ! I says to the young- 
 man, what s up ? He rubs his eyebrows with his- 
 toes, and he says, I can t imagine, Mr. Magsman 
 which that young man [with an air of disgust] never 
 could imagine nothiii , and was monotonous company. r 
 Mr. Chops " I never dropped the Mr. with him," 
 says his again proprietor; "the world might do it, 
 but not me " eventually dies. Having sat upon the 
 barrel-organ over night, and had the handle turned 
 through all the changes, for the first and only time 
 after his fall, Mr. Chops is found on the following 
 morning, as the disconsolate Magsman expresses \i f 
 " gone into much better society than either mine or 
 Pall Mall s." Out of such unpromising materials as 
 these could the alembic of a genius all-embracing in its- 
 sympathies extract such an abundance of innocent 
 mirth an illiterate showman talking to us all the while 
 about such people as the Bonnet of a gaming-booth r 
 or a set of monstrosities he himself has, for a few 
 coppers, on exhibition. Yet, as Mr. Magsman himself 
 remarks rather proudly when commenting on his own 
 establishment, " as for respectability, if threepence 
 ain t respectable, what is ?" 
 
THE POOR TRAVELLER. 
 
 APART altogether from the Readings of Charles 
 Dickens, has the reader of this book any remembrance 
 of the original story of " The Poor Traveller " ? If 
 he has, he will recognise upon the instant the truth 
 of the words in which we would here speak of it, 
 as of one of those, it may be, slight but exquisite 
 sketches, which are sometimes, in a happy moment, 
 thrown off by the hand of a great master. Compara 
 tively trivial in itself carelessly dashed off, apparently 
 Lap-hazard having no pretension about it in the 
 least, it is anything, in short, but a finished master 
 piece. Yet, for all that, it is marked, here and there, 
 by touches so felicitous and inimitable in their way, 
 that we hardly find the like in the artist s more highly 
 elaborated and ambitious productions. Not that one 
 would speak of it, however, as of a drawing upon toned 
 paper in neutral tint, or as of a picture pencilled in sepia 
 or with crayons; one would rather liken it to a radiant 
 water-colour, chequered with mingled storm and sun 
 shine, sparkling with lifelike effects, and glowing with 
 
 o 2 
 
196 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 brilliancy. And yet the little work is one, when you 
 come to look into it, that is but the product of a 
 seemingly artless abandon, in which without an effort 
 the most charming results have been arrived at, 
 obviously upon the instant, and quite unerringly. 
 
 Trudging down to Chatham, footsore and without a 
 farthing in his pocket, it is in this humble guise first 
 of all that he comes before us, this Poor Traveller. 
 Christian name, Richard, better known as Dick, his 
 own surname dropped upon the road, he assumes that 
 of Doubledick being thenceforth spoken of all through 
 the tale, even to the very end of it, by his new name, as 
 Richard Doubledick. A scapegrace, a ne er-do-well, 
 an incorrigible, hopeless of himself, despaired of by 
 others, he has "gone wrong and run wild." His 
 heart, still in the right place, has been sealed up. 
 " Betrothed to a good and beautiful girl whom he had 
 loved better than she or perhaps even he believed," 
 he had given her cause, in an evil hour, to tell him 
 solemnly that she would never marry any other man ; 
 that she would live single for his sake, but that her 
 lips, "that Mary Marshall s lips," would never address 
 another word to him on earth, bidding him in the end 
 Go ! and Heaven forgive him ! Hence, in point of 
 fact, this journey of his on foot down to Chatham, for 
 the purpose of enlisting, if possible, in a cavalry 
 regiment, his object being to get shot, though he him 
 self thinks in his devil-may-care indifference, that "he 
 might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of 
 
THE POOR TRAVELLER. 197 
 
 walking." Premising simply that his hero s age is at 
 this time twenty-two, and his height five foot ten, and 
 that, there being no cavalry at the moment in Chatham, 
 he enlists into a regiment of the line, where he is 
 glad to get drunk and forget all about it, the Author 
 readily made the path clear for the opening up of his 
 narrative. 
 
 Whenever Charles Dickens introduced this tale 
 among his Readings, how beautifully he related it ! 
 After recounting how Private Doubledick was clearly 
 going to the dogs, associating himself with the dregs 
 of every regiment, seldom being sober and constantly 
 under punishment, until it became plain at last to the 
 whole barracks that very soon indeed he would come 
 to be flogged, when the Reader came at this point to 
 the words " Now the captain of Doubleclick s company 
 was a young gentleman not above five years his senior, 
 whose eyes had an expression in them which affected 
 Private Doubledick in a very remarkable way" the 
 effect was singularly striking. Out of the Reader s 
 own eyes would look the eyes of that Captain, as the 
 Author himself describes them : " They were bright, 
 handsome, dark eyes, what are called laughing eyes 
 generally, and, when serious, rather steady than 
 severe." But, he immediately went on to say, they 
 were the only eyes then left in his narrowed world that 
 could not be met without a sense of shame by Private 
 Doubledick. Insomuch that if he observed Captain 
 Taunton coming towards him, even when he himself 
 
198 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 was most callous and unabashed, " lie would rather 
 turn back and go any distance out of the way, than 
 encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes." 
 Here it was that came, what many will still vividly 
 remember, as one of the most exquisitely portrayed 
 incidents in the whole of this Reading the interview 
 between Captain Taunton and Private Doubledick ! 
 
 The latter, having passed forty-eight hours in the 
 Black Hole, has been just summoned, to his great 
 dismay, to the Captain s quarters. Having about 
 him all the squalor of his incarceration, he shrinks 
 from making his appearance before one whose silent 
 gaze even was a reproach. However, not being so 
 mad yet as to disobey orders, he goes up to the 
 officers quarters immediately upon his release from 
 the Black Hole, twisting and breaking in his hands 
 as he goes along a bit of the straw that had formed 
 its decorative furniture. 
 
 " Come in ! 
 
 " Private Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride 
 forward and stood in the light of the dark bright 
 eyes." 
 
 From that moment until the end of the interview, 
 the two men alternately were standing there distinctly 
 before the audience upon the platform. 
 
 "Doubledick! do you know where you are going 
 to?" 
 
 To the devil, sir ! " 
 
 "Yes, and very fast." 
 
THE POOR TRAVELLER. 199 
 
 Thereupon one did not hear the words simply, one 
 saw it done precisely as it is described in the original 
 narrative : " Private Richard Double dick turned the 
 straw of the Black Hole in his mouth and made a 
 miserable salute of acquiescence." Captain Taunton 
 then remonstrates with him thus earnestly : " Double- 
 dick, since I entered his Majesty s service, a boy of 
 seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of 
 promise going that road ; but I have never been so 
 pained to see a man determined to make the shameful 
 journey, as I have been, ever since you joined the 
 regiment, to see you." At this point in the printed 
 story, as it was originally penned, one reads that 
 il Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film 
 stealing over the floor at which he looked ; also to 
 find the legs of the Captain s breakfast-table turning 
 crooked as if he saw them through water." Although 
 those words are erased in the reading copy, and were 
 not uttered, pretty nearly the effect of them was 
 visible when, after a momentary pause, the dis 
 heartened utterance was faltered out 
 
 " I am only a common soldier, sir. It signifies 
 very little what such a poor brute comes to." 
 
 In answer to the next remonstrance from his officer, 
 Doubledick s words are blurted out yet more de 
 spairingly 
 
 " I hope to get shot soon, sir, and then the regi 
 ment, and the world together, will be rid of me ! " 
 
 What are the descriptive words immediately fol- 
 
200 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 lowing this in tlie printed narrative ? They also were 
 visibly expressed upon the platform. Looking up 
 he met the eyes that had so strong an influence over 
 him. He put his hand berore his own eyes, and the 
 breast of his disgrace -jacket swelled as if it would fly 
 asunder." His observant adviser thereupon quietly 
 but very earnestly remarks, that he would rather see 
 this in him (Doubledick) than he would see five 
 thousand guineas counted out upon the table between 
 them for a gift to his (the Captain s) good mother, r 
 adding suddenly, "Have you a mother?" Double 
 dick is thankful to say she is dead. Keminded by the 
 Captain that if his praises were sounded from mouth 
 to mouth through the whole regiment, through the 
 whole army, through the whole countiy, he would wish 
 she had lived to say with pride and joy, " He is my 
 son!" Doubledick .cries out, "Spare me, sir! She 
 would never have heard any good of me. She would 
 never have had any pride or joy in owning herself my 
 mother. Love and compassion she might have had, 
 and would always have had, I know; but not spare 
 me, sir ! I am a broken wretch quite at your mercy." 
 By this time, according to the words of the writing, 
 according only to the eloquent action of the Reading, 
 "He had turned his face to the wall and stretched 
 out his imploring hand." How eloquently that " im 
 ploring hand " spoke in the agonised, dumb suppli 
 cation of its movement, coupled as it was with the 
 shaken frame and the averted countenance, those who- 
 
THE K)OR TRAVELLER. 201 
 
 witnessed this Beading will readily recall to their 
 recollection. As also the emotion expressed in the 
 next broken utterances exchanged by the interlocu 
 tors : 
 
 " My friend " 
 
 " God bless you, sir ! " 
 
 Captain Taunton, interrupted for the moment, 
 adding 
 
 "You are at the crisis of your fate, my friend. 
 Hold your course unchanged a little longer, and you 
 know what must happen. / know better than ever 
 you can imagine, that after that has happened you are 
 a lost man. No man who could shed such tears could 
 bear such marks." 
 
 Doubleclick, replying in a low shivering voice, " I 
 fully believe it, sir," the young Captain adds 
 
 " But a man in any station can do his duty, and in 
 doing it can earn his own respect, even if his case 
 should be so very unfortunate and so very rare, tliat 
 he can earn no other man s. A common soldier, poor 
 brute though you called him just now, has this advan 
 tage in the stormy times we live in, that he always 
 does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. 
 Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled 
 through a whole regiment, through a whole army, 
 through a whole country ? Turn while you may yet 
 retrieve the past and try." 
 
 With a nearly bursting heart Bichard cries out, " I 
 will ! I ask but one witness, sir ! " The reply is 
 
202 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 instant and significant, " I understand you. I will be 
 a watchful and a faithful one." It is a compact 
 between them, a compact sealed and ratified. " I 
 have heard from Private Doubledick s own lips," said 
 the narrator, and in tones how manly and yet how 
 tender in their vibration, "that he dropped down upon 
 his knee, kissed that officer s hand, arose, and went 
 out of the light of the dark bright eyes, an altered 
 man." From the date to them both of this memorable 
 interview he followed the two hither and thither among 
 the battle-fields of the great war between England in 
 coalition with the other nations of Europe and Napo 
 leon. 
 
 Wherever Captain Taunton led, there, " close to 
 him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the 
 sun, brave as Mars," would for certain be found that 
 famous soldier Sergeant Doubleclick. As Sergeant- 
 Major the latter is shown, later on, upon one desperate 
 occasion cutting his way single-handed through a mass 
 of men, recovering the colours of his regiment, and 
 rescuing his wounded Captain from the very jaws of 
 death "in a jungle of horses hoofs and sabres" for 
 which deed of gallantry and all but desperation, he is 
 forthwith raised from the ranks, appearing no longer 
 as a non-commissioned officer, but as Ensign Double- 
 dick. At last, one fetal day in the trenches, during 
 the siege of Badajos, Major Taunton and Ensign 
 Doubledick find themselves hurrying forward against 
 a party of French infantry. At this juncture, at the 
 
THE POOR TRAVELLER. 203 
 
 very moment when Doubleclick sees the officer at the 
 head of the enemy s soldiery " a courageous, hand 
 some, gallant officer of five-and- thirty " waving his 
 sword, and with an eager and excited cry rallying his 
 men, they fire, and Major Taunton has dropped. 
 The encounter closing within ten minutes afterwards 
 on the arrival of assistance to the two Englishmen, 
 " the best friend man ever had " is laid upon a coat 
 spread out upon the wet clay by the heart-riven 
 subaltern, whom years before his generous counsel 
 had rescued from ignominious destruction. Three 
 little spots of blood are visible on the shirt of Major 
 Taunton as he lies there with the breast of his uniform 
 opened. 
 
 "Dear Doubleclick, I am dying." 
 
 " For the love of Heaven, no ! Taunton ! My 
 preserver, my guardian angel, my witness ! Dearest, 
 truest, kindest of human beings ! Taunton ! For 
 God s sake ! " 
 
 To listen to that agonised entreaty as it started 
 from the trembling and one could almost have fancied 
 whitened lips of the Reader, was to be with him there 
 upon the instant on the far-off battle-field. Taunton 
 dies " with his hand upon the breast in which he had 
 revived a soul." Doubleclick, prostrated and incon 
 solable in his bereavement, has but two cares seem 
 ingly for the rest of his existence one to preserve a 
 packet of hair to be given to the mother of the friend 
 lost to him ; the other, to encounter that French 
 
204 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 officer who had rallied the men under whose fire that 
 friend had fallen. "A new legend," quoth the nar 
 rator, "now began to incubate among our troops; and 
 it was, that when he and the French officer came face 
 to face once more, there would be weeping in France." 
 Failing to meet him, however, through all the closing 
 scenes of the great war, Doubledick, by this time 
 promoted to his lieutenancy, follows the old regimental 
 colours, ragged, scarred, and riddled with shot, through 
 the fierce conflicts of Quatre Bras and Ligny, falling at 
 last desperately wounded all but dead upon the field 
 of Waterloo. 
 
 How, having been tenderly nursed during the total 
 eclipse of an appallingly lengthened period of un 
 consciousness, he wakes up at last in Brussels to 
 find that during a little more than momentary and 
 at first an utterly forgotten interval of his stupor, 
 he has been married to the gentle-handed nurse 
 who has been all the while in attendance upon him, 
 and who is no other, of course, than his faithful 
 first love, Mary Marshall ! How, returning home 
 wards, an invalided hero, Captain Doubledick becomes, 
 in a manner, soon afterwards, the adopted son of 
 Major Taunton s mother! How the latter, having 
 gone, some time later, on a visit to a French family 
 near Aix, is followed by her other son, her other self, 
 he has almost come to be, " now a hardy, handsome 
 man in the full vigour of life," on his receiving from 
 the head of the house a gracious and courtly invitation 
 
THE POOR TRAVELLER. 205 
 
 for " the honour of the company of cet liomme si juste- 
 ment celebre, Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Double- 
 dick ! " These were among the incidents in due 
 sequence immediately afterwards recounted ! 
 
 Arriving at the old chateau upon a fete-day, when 
 the household are scattered abroad in the gardens 
 and shrubberies at their rejoicings, Captain Double- 
 dick passes through the open porch into the lofty stone 
 hall. There, being a total stranger, he is almost 
 scared by the intrusive clanking of his boots. Sud 
 denly he starts back, feeling his face turn white ! For, 
 in the gallery looking down at him, is the French 
 officer whose picture he has carried in his mind so 
 long and so far. The latter, disappearing in another 
 instant for the staircase, enters directly afterwards 
 with a bright sudden look upon his countenance, 
 " Such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment," so 
 well and so terribly remembered ! All this was por 
 trayed with startling vividness by the Author of the 
 little sketch in his capacity as the sympathetic realizer 
 of the dreams of his own imagination. 
 
 Exquisite was the last glimpse of the delineation, when 
 the Captain after many internal revulsions of feeling, 
 while he gazes through the window of the bed-chamber 
 .allotted to him in the old chateau, "whence he could 
 see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards " 
 thinks musingly to himself, " Spirit of my departed 
 friend, is it through thee these better thoughts are rising 
 in my mind ! Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way 
 
206 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of 
 the altered time ! Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken 
 mother to me, to stay my angry hand ! Is it from thee 
 the whisper comes, that this man only did his duty as 
 thou didst and as I did through thy guidance, which 
 saved me, here on earth and that he did no more ! " 
 Then it was, we were told, there came to him the 
 second and crowning resolution of his life : " That 
 neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his 
 departed friend, nor to any soul while either of the 
 two was living, would he breathe what only he knew." 
 Then it was that the author perfected his Beading by 
 the simple utterance of its closing words " And when 
 he touched that French officer s glass with his own 
 that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him forgave 
 him in the name of the Divine Forgiver." With a 
 moral no less noble and affecting, no less grand and 
 elevating than this, the lovely idyll closed. The final 
 glimpse of the scene at the old Aix chateau was like 
 the view of a sequestered orchard through the ivied 
 porchway of a village church. The concluding words- 
 of the prelection were like the sound of the organ 
 voluntary at twilight, when the worshippers are dis 
 persing. 
 
MES. GAMP. 
 
 A WHIMSICAL and delightful recollection comes back 
 to the writer of these pages at the moment of inscribing 
 as the title of this Beading the name of the prepos 
 terous old lady who is the real heroine of " Martin Chuz- 
 zlewit." It is the remembrance of Charles Dickens s 
 hilarious enjo} T ment of a casual jest thrown out, upon 
 his having incidentally mentioned as conspicuous 
 among the shortcomings of the first acting version 
 of that stoiy upon the boards of the Lyceum the 
 certainly surprising fact that Mrs. Gamp s part, as 
 originally set down for Keele} T ,had not a single "which" 
 in it. " "Why, it ought actually to have begun with 
 one ! " was the natural exclamation of the person he 
 was addressing, who added instantly, with aifected 
 indignation, " Not one ? Why, next they ll be playing 
 Macbeth without the Witches ! " The joyous laugh 
 with which this ludicrous conceit was greeted by the 
 Humorist, still rings freshly and musically in our 
 remembrance. And the recollection of it is doubtless 
 all the more vivid because of the mirthful retrospect 
 
208 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 having relation to one of the most recent of Dickens s 
 blithe home dinners in his last town residence imme 
 diately before his hurried return to Gad s Hill in the 
 summer of 1870. Although we were happily with him 
 afterwards, immediately before the time came when we 
 could commune with him no more, the occasion referred 
 to is one in which we recall him to mind as he was 
 when we saw him last at his very gayest, radiant with 
 that sense of enjoyment which it was his especial 
 delight to diffuse around him throughout his life so 
 abundantly. 
 
 Among all his humorous creations, Mrs. Gamp is 
 perhaps the most intensely original and the most tho 
 roughly individualised. She is not only a creation of 
 character, she is in herself a creator of character. To 
 the Novelist we are indebted for Mrs. Gamp, but to 
 Mrs. Gamp herself we are indebted for Mrs. Harris. 
 That most mythical of all imaginary beings is certainly 
 quite unique ; she is strictly, as one may say, sui generis 
 in the whole world of fiction. A figment born from a 
 figment ; one fancy evolved from another ; the shadow 
 of a shadow. If only in remembrance of that one daring 
 adumbration from Mrs. Gamp s inner consciousness, that 
 purely supposititious entity " which her name, I ll not 
 deceive you, is Harris," one would sa}^ that Mr. Mould, 
 the undertaker, has full reason for exclaiming, in regard 
 to Mrs. Gamp, " I ll tell you what, that s a woman 
 whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in 
 life. That s a woman who observes and reflects in a 
 
MRS. GAMP. 209 
 
 wonderful manner." Mr. Mould becomes so strongly 
 impressed at last with a sense of her exceptional 
 merits, that in a deliciously ludicrous outburst of pro 
 fessional generosity he caps the climax of his eulogium 
 by observing, " She s the sort of woman, now, that one 
 would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing and do 
 it neatly, too ! " Thoroughly akin, by the way, to 
 which exceedingly questionable expression of goodwill 
 on the part of Mr. Mould, is Mrs. Gamp s equally 
 confiding outburst of philanthropy from her point of 
 view, where she remarks of course to her familiar, as 
 Socrates when communing with his Daemon " Mrs. 
 Harris, I says to her, don t name the charge, for if I 
 could afford to lay my fellow-creeturs out for nothink, 
 I would gladly do it, sich is the love I bears em. " 
 
 A benevolent unbosoming, or self-revelation, that 
 last, on the part of Mrs. Gamp, so astoundingly out 
 spoken of its kind, that it forces upon one, in regard 
 to her whole character, the almost inevitable reflection 
 that her grotesque and inexhaustible humour, like 
 Falstaff s irrepressible and exhilarating wit, redeems 
 what would be otherwise in itself utterly irredeemable. 
 For, as commentators have remarked, in regard to 
 Shakspere s Fat Knight, that Sir John is an unwieldy 
 mass of every conceivable bad quality, being, among 
 other things, a liar, a coward, a drunkard, a braggart, 
 a cheat, and a debauchee, one might bring, if not an 
 equally formidable, certainly an equally lengthened, 
 indictment against the whole character of Mrs. Gamp, 
 
210 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 justifying the validity of each disreputable charge upon 
 the testimony of her own evidence. 
 
 In its way, the impersonation of Mrs. Gamp by her 
 creator was nearly as surprising as his original delinea 
 tion of her in his capacity as Novelist. Happily, to 
 bring out the finer touches of the humorous in her 
 portraiture, there were repeated asides in the Reading, 
 added to which other contrasting characters were here 
 and there momentarily introduced. Mr. Pecksniff 
 hardly recognisable, by the way, as Mr. Pecksniff- 
 took part, but a very subordinate part, in the conver 
 sation, as did Mr. Mould also, and as, towards the 
 close of it, likewise did Mrs. Prig of Bartlemy s. But, 
 monopolist though Mrs. Gamp showed herself to be in 
 her manner of holding forth, her talk never degenerated 
 into a monologue. 
 
 Mr. Pecksniff setting forth in a hackney cabriolet to 
 arrange, on behalf of Jonas Chuzzlewit, for the funeral 
 of the latter s father, in regard to which he is enjoined 
 to spare 110 expense, arrives, in due course, in Kings- 
 gate-street, High Holborn, in quest of the female 
 functionary "a nurse and watcher, and performer of 
 nameless offices about the dead, whom the undertaker 
 had recommended." His destination is reached when 
 he stands face to face with the lady s lodging over the 
 bird-fancier s, " next door but one to the celebrated 
 mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite to the original 
 cats -meat warehouse." Here Mr. Pecksniff s per 
 formance upon the knocker naturally arouses the whole 
 
MRS. GAMP. 211 
 
 neighbourhood, it, the knocker, being so ingeniously 
 constructed as to wake the street with ease, without 
 making the smallest impression upon the premises to 
 which it was addressed. Everybody is at once under 
 the impression that, as a matter of course, he is " upon 
 an errand touching not the close of life, but the other 
 end " the married ladies, especially, crying out with 
 uncommon interest, " Knock at the winder, sir, knock 
 at the winder ! Lord bless you, don t lose no more 
 time than you can help, knock at the winder ! " 
 Mrs. Gamp herself, when roused, is under the same 
 embarrassing misapprehension. Immediately, how 
 ever, Mr. Pecksniff has explained the object of his 
 mission, Mrs. Gamp, who has a face for all occasions, 
 thereupon putting on her mourning countenance, the 
 surrounding matrons, while rating her visitor roundly, 
 signify that they would be glad to know what he means 
 by terrifying delicate females with " his corpses ! " 
 The unoffending gentleman eventually, after hustling 
 Mrs. Gamp into the cabriolet, drives off " overwhelmed 
 with popular execration." 
 
 Here it is that Mrs. Gamp s distinctive characteristics 
 begin to assert themselves conspicuously. Her labour 
 ing under the most erroneous impressions as to the 
 conveyance in which she is travelling, evidently con 
 founding it with mail-coaches, insomuch that, in regard 
 to her luggage, she clamours to the driver to " put it 
 in the boot," her absorbing anxiety about the pattens, 
 " with which she plays innumerable games of quoits 
 
 p 2 
 
212 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 upon Mr. Pecksniff s legs," her evolutions in that 
 confined space with her most prominently visible 
 chattel, " a species of gig umbrella," prepare the way 
 for her still more characteristic confidences. Then in 
 earnest she had spoken twice before that from her 
 window over the bird-fancier s but then in earnest, 
 on their approaching the house of mourning, her voice, 
 in the Heading, became recognisable. A voice snuffy, 
 husky, unctuous, the voice of a fat old woman, one so 
 fat that she is described in the book as having had a 
 difficulty in looking over herself a voice, as we read 
 elsewhere in the novel, having borne upon the breeze 
 about it a peculiar flagrance, "as if a passing fairy 
 had hiccoughed, and had previously been to a wine- 
 vaults." 
 
 " And so the gentleman s dead, sir ! Ah ! the 
 more s the pity ! (She didn t even know his name.) 
 * But it s as certain as being born, except that we can t 
 make our calculations as exact. Ah, dear ! : 
 
 Simply to hear those words uttered by the Reader 
 especially the interjected words above italicised was 
 to have a relish of anticipation at once for all that 
 followed. Mrs. Gamp s pathetic allusion, imme 
 diately afterwards, to her recollection of the time 
 " when Gamp was summonsed to his long home," and 
 when she " see him a-laying in the hospital with a 
 penny-piece on each eye, and his wooden leg under his 
 left arm," not only confirmed the delighted impression 
 of the hearers as to their having her there before them 
 
MRS. GAMP. 213 
 
 in her identity, but was the signal for the roars of 
 laughter that, rising and falling in volume all through 
 the Beading, terminated only some time after its 
 completion. 
 
 Immediately after came the first introduction by her 
 of the name of Mrs. Harris. " At this point," observed 
 the narrator, " she was fain to stop for breath. And," 
 he went on directly to remark, with a combination of 
 candour and seriousness that were in themselves irre 
 sistibly ludicrous, " advantage may be taken of the 
 circumstance to state that a fearful mystery surrounded 
 this lady of the name of Harris, whom no one in the 
 circle of Mrs. Gamp s acquaintance had ever seen ; 
 neither did any human being know her place of resi 
 dence the prevalent opinion being that she was a 
 phantom of Mrs. Gamp s brain, created for the purpose 
 of holding complimentary dialogues with her on all 
 manner of subjects." Eminently seasonable, as a pre 
 liminary nourish in this way, is the tribute paid by her to 
 Mrs. Gamp s abstemiousness, on the understanding that 
 is, that the latter s one golden rule of life, is complied 
 with " Leave the bottle on the chimbley -piece, and 
 don t ast me to take none, but let me put my lips to it 
 when I am so dispoged, and then, Mrs. Harris, I says, 
 I will do what I am engaged to, according to the best 
 of my ability. * Mrs. Gamp, she says, in answer, if 
 ever there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen- 
 pence a day for working people, and three-and-six for 
 gentlefolks, night -watching being a extra charge, 
 
214 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 you are that inwallable person. Never did I think, 
 till I know d you, as any woman could sick-nurse and 
 monthly likeways, on the little that you takes to drink. 
 * Mrs. Harris, ma am/ I says to her, none on us 
 knows what we can do till we tries ; and wunst I 
 thought so too. But now, I says, my half a pint of 
 porter fully satisfies ; perwisin , Mrs. Harris, that it s 
 brought reg lar, arid draw d mild. " Not but occa 
 sionally even that modest " sip of liquor " she finds so 
 far " settling heavy on the chest " as to necessitate, 
 every now and then, a casual dram by way of extra 
 quencher. 
 
 It was so arranged in the Reading that, immediately 
 upon the completion of Mrs. Gamp s affecting narra 
 tive of the confidential opinions of her sobriety enter 
 tained by Mrs. Harris, Mr. Mould, the undertaker, 
 opportunely presented to the audience his well-remem 
 bered countenance " a face in which a queer attempt 
 at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction." 
 The impersonation, here, was conveyed in something 
 better than the unsatisfactory hint by which that 
 attempted in regard to Mr. Pecksniff was alone to be 
 expressed. Speaking of Old Chuzzlewit s funeral, as 
 ordered by his bereaved son, Mr. Jonas, with " no 
 limitation, positively no limitation in point of expense," 
 the undertaker observes to Mr. Pecksniff, " This is 
 one of the most impressive cases, sir, that I have seen 
 in the whole course of my professional experience. 
 Anything so filial as this anything so honourable to 
 
MRS. GAMP. 215 
 
 human nature, anything so expensive, anything so 
 calculated to reconcile all of us to the world we live 
 in never yet came under my observation. It only 
 proves, sir, what was so forcibly expressed by the 
 lamented poet, buried at Stratford, that there is 
 good in eve^thing." Even the very manner of his 
 departure was delicious : " Mr. Mould was going away 
 with a brisk smile, when he remembered the occasion," 
 we read in the narrative and saw on the platform. 
 " Quickly becoming depressed again, he sighed; looked 
 into the crown of his hat, as if for comfort ; put it on 
 without finding any ; and slowly departed." 
 
 The spirit and substance of the whole Heading, how 
 ever, were, as a matter of course, Mrs. Gamp and her 
 grotesque remembrances, drawn, these latter from 
 the inexhaustible fund of her own personal and 
 mostly domestic experiences. " Although the blessing 
 of a daughter," she observed, in one of her confiding 
 retrospects, " was deniged me, which, if we had had 
 one, Gamp would certainly have drunk its little shoes 
 right off its feet, as with one precious boy he did, and 
 arterwards sent the child a errand to sell his wooden 
 leg for any liquor it would fetch as matches in the 
 rough ; which was truly done beyond his years, for 
 ev ry individgle penny that child lost at tossing for 
 kidney pies, and come home arterwards quite bold, to 
 break the news, and offering to drown d himself if such 
 would be a satisfaction to his parents." At another 
 moment, when descanting upon all her children col- 
 
216 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 lectively in one of her faithfully reported addresses, 
 to her familiar : " My own family, I says, has 
 fallen out of three-pair hacks, and had damp door 
 steps settled on their lungs, and one was turned up 
 smilin in a hedstead unbeknown. And as to hus 
 bands, there s a wooden leg gone likeways home to its 
 account, which in its constancy of walking into public - 
 ouses, and never coming out again till fetched by 
 force, was quite as weak as flesh, if not weaker." 
 
 Somehow, when those who were assisting at this 
 Beading, as the phrase is, had related to them the 
 manner in which Mrs. Gamp entered on her official 
 duties in the sick chamber, they appeared to be 
 assisting also at her toilette : as, for example, when 
 " she put on a yellow nightcap of prodigious size, in 
 shape resembling a cabbage, having previously di 
 vested herself of a row of bald old curls, which could 
 scarcely be called false they were so innocent of any 
 thing approaching to deception." One missed sadly 
 at this point in the later version of this Beading what 
 was included in her first conversation on the door 
 mat as to her requirements for supper enumerated 
 after this fashion, " in tones expressive of faintness," 
 to the housemaid : "I think, young woman, as I could 
 peck a little bit of pickled salmon, with a little sprig 
 of fennel and a sprinkling o white pepper. I takes- 
 new bread, my dear, with jest a little pat o fredge 
 butter and a mossel o cheese. With respect to ale, if 
 they draws the Brighton Tipper at any ouse nigh here,. 
 
MRS. GAMP. 217 
 
 I takes that ale at night, my love ; not as I cares for 
 it myself, but on accounts of its being considered 
 wakeful by the doctors ; and whatever you do, young 
 woman, don t bring me more than a shilling s worth of 
 gin-and-water, warm, when I rings the bell a second 
 time; for that is always my allowange, and I never 
 takes a drop beyond. In case there should be sich a 
 thing as a cowcumber in the ouse, I m rather partial 
 to em, though I am but a poor woman." Winding all 
 up, with one of those amazing confusions of a Scrip 
 tural recollection which prompts her at another time 
 in the novel to exclaim, in regard to the Ankworks 
 package, " I wish it was in Jonadge s belly, I do/ 
 appearing to confound the prophet with the whale in 
 that mysterious aspiration," by observing at thi& 
 point, " Eich folks may ride on camels, but it ain t so 
 easy for em to see out of a needle s eye. That is- 
 my comfort, and I hope I knows it." One whole 
 chapter of " Martin Chuzzlewit," with the exception of 
 the merest fragment of it the chapter pre-eminently 
 in relation to Mrs. Gamp we always regretted as- 
 having been either overlooked or purposely set aside 
 in the compilation both of the earlier and the later 
 version of this Reading, the chapter, that is, in which 
 Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. Prig converse together in the 
 former s sleeping apartment. 
 
 The mere description of the interior of that chamber, 
 related by the Author s lips, would have been so irre 
 sistibly ridiculous the tent bedstead ornamented with 
 
218 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 pippins carved in timber, that tumbled down on the 
 slightest provocation like a wooden shower-bath the 
 chest of drawers, from which the handles had long 
 been pulled off, so that its contents could only be got 
 at either by tilting the whole structure until all the 
 drawers fell out together, or by opening each of them 
 singly with knives like oysters the miscellaneous 
 salad bought for twopence by Betsey Prig on condition 
 that the vendor could get it all into her pocket (includ 
 ing among other items a green vegetable of an expan 
 sive nature, of such magnificent proportions that before 
 it could be got either in or out it had to be shut up 
 like an umbrella), which was happily accomplished in 
 High Holborn, to the breathless interest of a hackney- 
 coach stand. 
 
 One inestimable portion, however, of this memo 
 rable occasion of festivity between .those frequend 
 pardners, Betsey Prig and Sairey Gamp, was, by a 
 most ingenious dovetailing together of two disjointed 
 parts, incorporated with the adroitly compacted mate 
 rials of a Heading that was as brief as the laughter 
 provoked by it was boisterous and inextinguishable. 
 As to the manner of the dovetailing, it will be readily 
 recalled to recollection. Immediately upon Mrs. 
 Gamp s awaking at the close of her night watch, we 
 were told that Mrs. Prig relieved punctually, but that 
 she relieved in an ill temper. " The best among us 
 have their failings, and it must be conceded of Mrs. 
 Prig," observed the Header with a hardly endurable 
 
MRS. GAMP. 219 
 
 gravity of explanation, " that if there were a blemish 
 in the goodness of her disposition, it was a habit she 
 had of not bestowing all its sharp and acid properties 
 upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman 
 would have done), but of keeping a considerable re 
 mainder for the service of her friends." Looking 
 offensively at Mrs. Gamp, and winking her eye, as 
 Mrs. Prig does immediately upon her entrance, it is 
 felt by the former to be necessary that Betsey should 
 at once be made sensible of her exact station in 
 society; wherefore Mrs. Gamp prefaced a remon 
 strance with 
 
 "Mrs. Harris, Betsey " 
 
 " Bother Mrs. Harris ! " 
 
 Then it was that the Reader added : 
 
 " Mrs. Gamp looked at Betsey with amazement, 
 incredulity, and indignation. Mrs. Prig, winking her 
 eye tighter, folded her arms and uttered these tremen 
 dous words : 
 
 " I don t believe there s no sich a person ! 
 
 " With these expressions, she snapped her fingers, 
 once, twice, thrice, each time nearer to Mrs. Gamp, 
 and then turned away as one who felt that there was 
 now a gulf between them that nothing could ever 
 bridge across." 
 
 The most comic of all the Readings closed thus 
 abruptly with a roar. 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TEEE INN. 
 
 EVEN the immortal Boots at the White Hart, 
 Borough, who was first revealed to us in a coarse 
 striped waistcoat with hlack calico sleeves and blue 
 glass buttons, drab breeches and gaiters, and who 
 answered to the name of Sam, would not, we are 
 certain, have disdained to have been put in friendly 
 relations with Cobbs, as one in every way worthy of 
 his companionship. The Boots at the Holly Tree 
 Inn, though more lightly sketched, was quite as much 
 of an original creation in his way as that other Christ 
 inas friend of ours, the warm-hearted and loquacious 
 Cheap Jack, Doctor Marigold. And each of those 
 worthies, it should be added, had really about him an 
 equal claim to be regarded, as an original creation, 
 as written, or as impersonated by the Author. As a 
 character orally portrayed, Cobbs was fully on a par 
 with Doctor Marigold. Directly the Eeader opened 
 his lips, whether as the Boots or as the Cheap Jack, 
 the Novelist seemed to disappear, and there instead, 
 talking glibly to us from first to last just as the case 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN. 221 
 
 might happen to be, was either the patterer on the 
 cart footboard or honest Cobbs touching his hair with 
 a bootjack. His very first words not only lead up 
 to his confidences, but in the same breath struck the 
 key-note of his character. " Where had he been ? 
 Lord, everywhere ! What had he been ? Bless you, 
 everything a most. Seen a good deal ? Why, of 
 course he had. Would be easier for him to tell what 
 he hadn t seen than what he had. Ah ! A deal, it 
 would. What was the curiosest thing he d seen ? 
 Well ! He didn t know couldn t name it momently 
 unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him over at a Fair. 
 But" and here came the golden retrospect, a fairy 
 tale of love told by a tavern Boots, and told all 
 through, moreover, as none but a Boots could tell it 
 " Supposing a young gentleman not eight year old, 
 was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, 
 might I think that a queer start ? Certainly ! Then, 
 that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes 
 on and he d cleaned the shoes they run away in 
 and they was so little he couldn t get his hand into 
 era." Whereupon, following up the thread of his 
 discourse, Boots would take his crowd of hearers, 
 quite willingly on their part, into the heart of the 
 charming labyrinth. 
 
 The descriptive powers of Cobbs, it will be ad 
 mitted, were for one thing very remarkable. Master 
 Harry Walmers father, for instance, he hits off to a 
 nicety in a phrase or two. " He was a gentleman of 
 
222 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when 
 he walked, and had what you may call Fire about 
 him:" adding, that he wrote poetry, rode, ran, 
 cricketed, danced and acted, and " done it all equally 
 beautiful." Another and a very significant touch, by 
 the way, was imparted to that same portraiture later 
 on, just, in point of fact before the close of Cobbs s 
 reminiscence, and one so lightly given that it was con 
 veyed through a mere passing parenthesis namely, 
 where the young father was described by Boots as 
 standing beside Master Harry Walmers bed, in the 
 Holly Tree Inn, looking down at the little sleeping 
 face, "looking wonderfully like it," says Cobbs, who 
 adds, " (they do say as he ran away with Mrs. 
 Walmers)." Although Boots described Master Harry s 
 father from the first as " uncommon proud of him, as 
 his only child, you see," the worthy fellow took 
 especial care at once to add, that " he didn t spoil him 
 neither." Having a will of his own, and a eye of his 
 own, and being one that would be minded, while he 
 never tired of hearing the fine bright boy " sing his 
 songs about Young May Moons is beaming, love, and 
 When he who adores thee has left but the name, and 
 that: still," said Boots, "he kept the command over 
 the child, and the child ivas a child, and it s very 
 much to be wished more of em was." At the par 
 ticular period referred to in this portion of his 
 narrative, Boots informed us pleasantly, that he came 
 to know all about it by reason of his being in his 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN. 223 
 
 then capacity as Mr. Walmers under-gardener, always 
 about in the summer time, near the windows, on the lawn 
 " a-mowing and sweeping, and weeding and pruning, 
 and this and that " with his eyes and ears open, of 
 course, we may presume, in a manner befitting his 
 intelligence. 
 
 Perhaps, there was after all nothing better in the 
 delivery of the whole of this Beading, than the utter 
 ance of the two words italicised below in the first 
 dialogue, reported by Boots as having taken place 
 between himself and Master Harry Walmers, junior, 
 when "that mite," as Boots calls him, stops one day, 
 along with the fine young woman of seven already 
 mentioned, where Boots (then under-gardener, re 
 member) was hoeing weeds in the gravel : 
 
 " Cobbs, he says, I like you. 9 Do you, sir? 
 I m proud to hear it. Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do 
 I like you, do you think, Cobbs ? Don t know, 
 Master Harry, I m sure. Because Norah likes you, 
 Cobbs. Indeed, sir? That s very gratifying. 
 Gratifying, Cobbs ? It is better than millions of the 
 brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah ? Cer 
 tainly, sir. 1 " 
 
 Confirmed naturally enough in his good opinion of 
 Cobbs by this thorough community of sentiment, 
 Master Harry, who has been given to understand from 
 the latter that he is going to leave, and, further than 
 that, on inquiring, that he wouldn t object to another 
 situation "if it was a good un," observes, while tuck- 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 ing that other mite in her little sky-blue mantle under 
 his arm, " Then, Cobbs, you shall be our head 
 gardener when we are married." Boots, thereupon, 
 in the person of the Reader, went on to describe how 
 " the babies with their long bright curling hair, their 
 sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, rambled 
 about the garden deep in love," sometimes here, some 
 times there, always under his own sympathetic and 
 admiring observation, until one day, down by the 
 pond, he heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, 
 kiss me and say you love me to distraction." Altogether 
 Cobbs seemed exactly, and with delicious humour, to 
 define the entire situation when he declared, that " on 
 the whole the contemplation of them two babies had a 
 tendency to make him feel as if he was in love him 
 self only he didn t know who with ! " 
 
 The delightful gravity of countenance (with a covert 
 sparkle in the eye where the daintiest indications of fun 
 were given by the Reader) lent a charm of its own to 
 the merest nothing, comparatively, in the whimsical 
 dialogues he was reporting. Master Harry, for example, 
 having confided to Cobbs one evening, when the latter 
 was watering the flowers, that he was going on a visit 
 to his grandmama at York " Are you indeed, sir? I 
 hope you ll have a pleasant time. I m going into 
 Yorkshire myself, when I leave here. Are you going 
 to your grandmama s, Cobbs ? No, sir. I haven t 
 got such a thing. Not as a grandmama, Cobbs ? 
 No, sir. " Immediately after which, on the boy 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN. 225 
 
 observing to his humble confidant, that he shall be so 
 glad to go because "Norah s going," Cobbs, naturally 
 enough, as it seemed, took occasion to remark, " You ll 
 be all right then, sir, with your beautiful sweetheart by 
 your side." Whereupon we realised more clearly than 
 ever the delicate whimsicality of the whole delineation, 
 when we saw, as well as heard, the boy return a-flushing, 
 " Cobbs, I never let anybody joke about that when I 
 can prevent them," Cobbs immediately explaining in all 
 humility, " It wasn t a joke, sir wasn t so meant." 
 No wonder, Boots had exclaimed previously : " And 
 the courage of that boy ! Bless you, he d have 
 throwed off his little hat and tucked up his little 
 sleeves and gone in at a lion, he would if they d 
 happened to meet one, and she [Norah] had been 
 frightened." At the close of Boots s record of this 
 last- quo ted conversation with Master Harry, came one 
 of the drollest touches in the Eeading " Cobbs, 
 says that boy, I ll tell you a secret. At Norah s 
 house, they have been joking her about me, and [with 
 a wondering look] pretending to laugh at our being 
 engaged ! Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs ! 
 * Such, sir, I says, * is the depravity of human 
 natur. A glance during the utterance of which 
 words, either at the Reader himself or at his audience, 
 was something enjoyable. 
 
 Hardly less inspiriting in its way was the incidental 
 mention, directly after this by Cobbs, of the manner 
 in which he gave Mr. Walmers notice, not that he d 
 
 Q 
 
226 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 anything to complain of " Thanking you, sir, I find 
 myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be 
 anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I m a going to 
 seek my fortun. O, indeed, Cobbs ? he says, I hope 
 you may find it, >: Boots hereupon giving his audience 
 the assurance, with the characteristic touch of the boot 
 jack to his forehead, that " he hadn t found it yet I " 
 
 Then came the delectable account of the elope 
 ment full, true, and particular from the veracious- 
 lips of Cobbs himself, at that time, and again some 
 years afterwards, when he came to call up his recollec 
 tions, Boots at the Holly Tree Inn. Passages here 
 and there in his description of the incident were irri- 
 sistibl t y laughable. Master Harry s going down to the 
 old lady s in York, for example, " which old lady were 
 so wrapt up in that child as she would have give that 
 child the teeth in her head (if she had had any)." 
 The arrival of " them two children," again at the 
 Holly Tree Inn, he, as bold as brass, tucking her in 
 her little sky-blue mantle under his arm, with the 
 memorable dinner order, " Chops and cherry pudding 
 for two ! " Their luggage, even, when gravely enu 
 merated the lady having " a parasol, a smelling bottle, 
 a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight 
 peppermint drops, and a doll s hair-brush ; " the gen 
 tleman having " about half a dozen yards of string, a 
 knife, three or four sheets of writing paper folded up 
 surprisingly small, a orange, and a chaney mug with 
 his name on it." Several of the little chance phrases, 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN. 227 
 
 the merest atoms of exclamation here and there, will 
 still be borne in mind as having had an intense flavour 
 of fun about them, as syllabled in the Reading. 
 Boots s " Sir, to you," when his governor, the hotel- 
 keeper, proposes to run over to York to quiet their 
 friends minds, while Cobbs keeps his eye upon the 
 innocents ! Master Harry s replying to Boots sugges 
 tion, that they should wile away the time by a walk 
 down Love-lane " Get out with you, Cobbs ! that 
 was that there boy s expression." The glee of the chil 
 dren was prettily told too on their finding " Good Cobbs ! 
 Dear Cobbs!" among the strangers around them at 
 their temporary halting-place. They themselves appear 
 ing smaller than ever in his eyes, by reason of his 
 finding them "with their little legs entirely off the 
 ground, of course and it really is not possible to 
 express how small them children looked ! on a 
 e-normous sofa ; " immense at any time, but looking 
 like a Great Bed of Ware then by comparison. 
 
 How, during the governor s absence in search of 
 their friends, Cobbs, feeling himself all the while to be 
 " the meanest rascal for deceiving em, that ever was 
 born," gets up a cock and a bull story about a pony 
 he s acquainted with, who ll take them on nicely to 
 Gretna Green but who was not at liberty the first 
 day, and the next was only " half clipped, you see, and 
 couldn t be took out in that state for fear it should 
 strike to his inside " was related with the zest of one 
 who had naturally the keenest relish possible for every 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 humorous particular. Finding the lady in tears 
 one time when Boots goes to see how the runaway 
 couple are getting on, " Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, 
 fatigued, sir ? " asks Cobbs. " Yes, she is tired, Cobbs ; 
 but she is not used to be away from home, and she has 
 been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you 
 could bring a biffin, please?" "I ask your pardon, 
 sir, What was it you - -?" "I think a Norfolk 
 biffin would rouse her, Cobbs." Kestoratives of that 
 kind, Boots would seem to have regarded as too essen 
 tial to Mrs. Harry Walmers junior s happiness. Hence, 
 when he comes upon the pair over their dinner of 
 " biled fowl and bread-and-butter pudding," Boots 
 privately owns that " he could have wished to have 
 seen her more sensible to the woice of love, and less 
 abandoning of herself to the currants in the pudding." 
 According to Cobbs s own account of the gentleman, 
 however, it should be added that lie too could play his 
 part very effectively at table, for having mentioned 
 another while, how the two of them had ordered over 
 night sweet milk-and-water and toast and currant 
 jelly for breakfast when Cobbs comes upon them the 
 next morning at their meal, he describes Master 
 Harry as sitting behind his breakfast cup " a tearing 
 away at the jelly as if he had been his own father ! " 
 
 Remorseful in the thought of betraying them, Boots 
 at one moment declared, that rather than combine any 
 longer against them, he would by preference have had it 
 out in half-a-dozen rounds with the governor ! " And 
 
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN. 229 
 
 at another time, when the said governor had returned 
 from York, "with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady," 
 Boots, while conducting Mr. Walmers upstairs, could 
 not for the life of him help pausing at the room door, 
 with, " I beg your pardon, sir, I hope you are not 
 angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry s a 
 fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." 
 Boots signifying while he related the circumstance, 
 that "if the fine boy s father had contradicted him in 
 the state of mind in which he then was, he should 
 have fetched him a crack and took the consequences." 
 As for the appreciation of Master Harry by the female 
 dependents at the Holly Tree, there were two allusions 
 to that one general, as may be said, the other par 
 ticular that were always the most telling hits, the 
 two chief successes of the Reading. Who that once 
 heard it, for example, has forgotten the Author s in 
 imitable manner of saying, as the Boots " The way 
 in which the women of that house without exception 
 every one of em married and single took to that 
 boy when they heard the story, is surprising. It was 
 as much as could be done to keep em from dashing 
 into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all 
 sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at 
 him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep 
 at the key -hole ! " The climax of fun came naturally 
 at the close, however, when, having described how 
 Mr. Walmers lifted his boy up to kiss the sleeping 
 " little warm face of little Mrs. Harry Walmers, 
 
230 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 junior," at the moment of their separation, Boots, 
 that is the Reader, cried out in the shrill voice of one 
 of the chambermaids, "It s a shame to part em ! " 
 
 Two reflections indulged in by Boots during the 
 course of his narrative, being among the pleasantest 
 in connection with this most graceful of all the purely 
 comic Headings, may here, while closing these allusions 
 to it, be recalled to mind not inappropriately. One 
 where Cobbs "wished with all his heart there was 
 any impossible place where them two babies could 
 have made an impossible marriage, and have lived 
 impossibly happy ever afterwards." The other 
 where, with genial sarcasm, Boots propounds this 
 brace of opinions by way of general summing up 
 Firstly, that there are not many couples on their way 
 to be married who are half as innocent as them two 
 children. Secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing 
 for a great many couples on their way to be married, 
 if they could only be stopped in time, and brought 
 back separate." With which cynical scattering of 
 sugar-plums in the teeth of married and single, the 
 blithe Reading was laughingly brought to its conclusion. 
 
BAEBOX BKOTHEES. 
 
 NOBODY but the writer of this little freak of fancy 
 could possibly have rendered the Beading of it in public 
 worthy even of toleration. Perhaps no Beading that 
 could be selected presents within the same compass so 
 many difficulties to the audience who are listening, and 
 to the Beader who is hardy enough to adventure upon 
 its delivery. The closing incidents of the narrative are 
 in themselves so improbable, we had all but said so 
 impossible ! Polly, at once so quaint and -so capti 
 vating, when her words are perused upon the printed 
 page, is so incapable of having her baby-prattle repeated 
 by anybody else, without the imminent risk, the all 
 but certainty, of its degenerating into mere childishness. 
 It can scarcely be wondered, therefore, that " Barbox 
 Brothers," though it actually was Bead, and Bead 
 successfully, was hardly ever repeated. Everybody 
 who has once looked into the story will bear in mind 
 how, quite abruptly, almost haphazard, it comes to be 
 narrated. 
 
 The lumbering, middle-aged, grey-headed hero of it, 
 
232 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 in obedience to the whim of a moment, gets out of a 
 night train at the great central junction of the whole 
 railway system of England. A drenching rain-storm 
 and a windy platform, darkness and solitude are, to 
 begin with, the agreeable surroundings of this eccentric 
 traveller. He is stranded there, not high and dry, 
 anything but that on the contrary, soaked through 
 and through, and at very low level indeed during what 
 the local officials regard as their deadest time in all 
 the tw T enty-four hours : w r hat one of them, later on, 
 terms emphatically their deadest and buriedest time. 
 
 Already, even here, before the tale itself is in any 
 waj T begun, the Author of it, in his capacity as Reader, 
 somehow, by the mere manner of his delivery of a 
 descriptive sentence or two, contrived to realise to his 
 hearers in a wonderfully vivid way the strange inci 
 dents of the traffic in a scene like this, at those 
 blackest intervals between midnight and daybreak. 
 Now revealing "Mysterious goods trains, covered 
 with palls, and gliding on like vast weird funerals, 
 conveying themselves guiltily away, as if their freight 
 had come to a secret and unlawful end." Now, again 
 " Half miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, 
 following when they led, stopping when they stopped, 
 backing when they backed." One while the spectacle, 
 conjured up by a word or two was that of " Un 
 known languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, 
 and white characters." Another, with startling effect, 
 it was "An earthquake, with thunder and lightning, 
 
BARBOX BROTHERS. 233 
 
 going up express to London." Here it is that Barbox 
 Brothers, in the midst of these ghostly apparitions, is 
 eventually extricated from the melancholy plight in 
 which he finds himself saturated and isolated in the 
 middle of a spiderous web of railroads. 
 
 His extricator is Lamps ! A worthy companion por 
 trait to that of cinderous Mr. Toodles, the stoker, fami 
 liar to the readers of Dombey. Characters, those two, 
 quite as typical, after their fashion, of the later railway 
 period of Dickens, as even Sam Weller, the boots, and 
 Old Weller, the coachman, were of his earlier coaching 
 period in the days of Pickwick. To see him, in his 
 capacity as Lamps, when excited, take what he called 
 " a rounder" that is to say, giving himself, with his 
 oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, " an 
 elaborate smear from behind the right ear, up the 
 cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek, 
 behind his left ear," after which operation he is de 
 scribed as having shone exceedingly was to be with 
 him, again, at once, in his greasy little cabin, which 
 was suggestive to the sense of smell of a cabin in a 
 whaler. How it came to pass that Lamps sang comic 
 songs, of his own composition, to his bed-ridden 
 daughter Phoebe, by way of enlivening her solitude, 
 and how Phoebe, while manipulating the threads on 
 her lace-pillow, as though she were playing a musical 
 instrument, taught her little band of children to chant 
 to a pleasant tune the multiplication-table, and so fix 
 it and other useful knowledge indelibly upon the 
 
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 tablets of their memory, the Author- Reader would 
 then relate, as no other Reader, however gifted, who 
 was not also the Author, would have been allowed to do, 
 supposing this latter had had the hardihood to attempt 
 the relation. 
 
 As the Reading advanced, the difficulties not only 
 increased, they became tenfold, immediately upon the 
 introduction of Polly. Dickens, however, conquered 
 them all somehow. But to anybody else, setting forth 
 the story histrionically, impersonating the characters 
 as they appeared, these difficulties would by necessity 
 have been insuperable or simply overwhelming. 
 Catching the very little fair-haired girl s Christian 
 name readily enough, when she comes up to him in the 
 street, with the surprising announcement, " O ! if you 
 please, I am lost ! " Barbox Brothers can t for the life 
 of him conjecture what her surname is, carefully imi 
 tating, though he does, the sound that comes from the 
 childish lips, each time on its repetition. Hazarding 
 41 Trivits," first of all, then " Paddens," then " Tappi- 
 tarver." Eventually, when the two arrive hand-in-hand 
 at Barbox Brothers hotel, nobody there could make 
 out her name as she set it forth, "except one chamber 
 maid, who said it was Constantinople which it wasn t." 
 
 No wonder Barbox feels bigger and heavier in 
 person every minute when he is being catechised by 
 Polly ! Asked by her if he knows any stories, and 
 compelled to. answer, No ! " What a dunce you must 
 be, mustn t you ? " says Polly. Frightened nearly out 
 
BARBOX BROTHERS. 235 
 
 of his wits at the dinner-table, when the} are feasting 
 together, by her getting on her feet upon her chair to 
 reward him with a kiss, and then toppling forward 
 among the dishes he himself crying out in dismay, 
 " Gracious angels ! Whew ! I thought we were in 
 the fire, Polly ! " " What a coward you are, ain t 
 you ? " says Polly, when replaced. 
 
 Upon the next morning, when brought down to 
 breakfast, after a comfortable night s sleep, passed by 
 the child in a bed shared with "the Constantinopolitaii 
 chambermaid," Polly, "by that time a mere heap of 
 dimples," poses poor, unwieldy Barbox by asking him, 
 in a wheedling manner, "What are we going to do, you 
 clear old thing ? " On his suggesting their having a 
 sight, at the Circus, of two long-tailed ponies, speckled 
 all over " No, no, NO ! " cries Polly, in an ecstasy. 
 When he afterwards throws out a proposition that they 
 shall also look in at the toy-shop, and choose a doll 
 "Not dressed," ejaculates Polly; "No, no, NO not 
 dressed ! " Barbox replying, " Full dressed ; together 
 with a house, and all things necessary for housekeep 
 ing ! " Polly gives a little scream, and seems in 
 danger of falling into a swoon of bliss. "What a 
 darling you are ! " she languidly exclaims, leaning 
 back in her chair : " Come and be hugged." All this 
 will indicate plainly enough the difficulties investing 
 every sentence of this Beading, capped as they all are 
 by the astounding denouement of the plot Polly 
 turning out to be (sly little thing !) the purposely-lost 
 
236 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 daughter of Barbox Brothers old love, Beatrice, and 
 of her husband, Tresham, for whom Barbox had not 
 only been jilted, but by whom Barbox had been simul 
 taneously and rather heavily defrauded. 
 
 Perhaps the pleasantest recollection of the whole 
 Reading is, not Polly the small puss turns out 
 to be such a cunningly reticent little emissary 
 but her Doll, a " lovely specimen of Circassian de 
 scent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was 
 reconcileable with extreme feebleness of mouth," and 
 combining a sky-blue pelisse with rose-coloured satin 
 trousers, and a black velvet hat, " the latter seemingly 
 founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent." 
 One is almost reconciled to Polly, however, becoming 
 oblivious for the moment of her connivance in her 
 mother s secret device, and reminiscent only of her own 
 unsophisticated mixture of prattle and impertinence on 
 learning, immediately after this elaborate description 
 of the gorgeous doll of her choice, that " the name of 
 this distinguished foreigner was (on Polly s authority) 
 Miss Melluka." 
 
THE BOY AT MUGBY. 
 
 SEVERAL gamins have been contributed to our litera 
 ture by Dickens quite as t} r pical and quite as truthful 
 in their way, each of them, as Hugo s Gavroche. There 
 is Jo the poor crossing-sweeper. There is the im 
 mortal Dodger. There is his pal the facetious Charley 
 Bates. And there is that delightful boy at the end of 
 " The Carol," who conveys such a world of wonder 
 through his simple reply of " Why, Christmas Day ! " 
 The boy who is "as big," he says himself, as the prize 
 turkey, and who gets off at last quicker than a shot 
 propelled by the steadiest hand at a trigger ! Scat 
 tered up and down the Boz fictions, there are abundant 
 specimens of a genus that, in one instance, is actually 
 termed by the Humorist, " a town-made little boy" 
 this is in the memorable street scene where Squeers 
 hooks Smike by the coat-collar with the handle of 
 his umbrella. He is always especially great in his 
 delineation of what one might call the human cock- 
 sparrows of London. Kit, at the outset of his career, 
 is another example ; and Tom Scott yet another. 
 
238 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 Sloppy carries us away into the suburbs, thereby taking 
 us in a manner off the stones, and otherwise represents 
 in his own proper person, buttons and all, less one of 
 the dapper urchins we are now more particularly re 
 ferring to, than the shambling hobbledehoy. Even in 
 the unfinished story with which the Author s volu 
 minous writings were closed, there was portrayed an 
 entirely novel specimen, one marked by the most 
 grotesque extravagance, in the shape of that impish 
 malignant, " the Deput}^" whose pastime at once and 
 whole duty in life seemed to be making a sort of 
 vesper cock-shy of Durdles and his dinner-bundle. 
 
 Conspicuous among these comic boys of Dickens 
 may be remembered one who, instead of being intro 
 duced in any of the Novelist s larger w r orks, from 
 the Pickwick Papers down to Edwin Drood, inter 
 polates himself, as may be said, among one of the 
 groups of Christmas stories, through the medium of 
 a, shrill monologue. " The Boy at Mugby," to wit, the 
 one exhilarated and exhilarating appreciator of the 
 whole elaborate system of Kefreshmenting in this Isle 
 of the Brave and Land of the Free, by which he means, 
 to say Britannia. 
 
 Laconically, " I am the Boy at Mugby," he an 
 nounces. " That s about what I am." His exact loca 
 tion he describes almost with the precision of one 
 giving latitude and longitude explaining to a nicety 
 where his stand is taken. " Up in a corner of the 
 Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction," in the 
 
THE BOY AT MUG BY. 2 3D 
 
 height of twenty-seven draughts [he s counted em, 
 lie tells us parenthetically, as they brush the First 
 Class, hair twenty-seven waj^s], bounded on the nor - 
 west by the beer, and so on. He himself, he frankly 
 informs you in the event of your ever presenting 
 yourself there before him at the counter, in quest of 
 nourishment of any kind, either liquid or solid will seem 
 not to hear you, and will appear "in a absent manner 
 to survey the Line through a transparent medium 
 composed of your head and body," determined evi 
 dently not to serve you, that is, as long as you can 
 possibly bear it ! " That s me ! " cries the Boy at 
 Mugby, exultantly, adding, with an intense relish for 
 his occupation, "what a delightful lark it is ! " As 
 for the eatables and drinkables habitually set forth 
 upon the counter, by what he generally speaks of as 
 the Eefreshmenters, quoth the Boy at Mugby, in a 
 naif confidence, addressed to you in your capacity at 
 once as applicant and victim, " when you re tele 
 graphed, you should see em begin to pitch the stale 
 pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sang- 
 wiches under the glass covers, and get out the 
 ha, ha ! the sherry O, my eye, my eye ! for your 
 refreshment." Once or twice in a way only, " The 
 Boy at Mugby " was introduced among the Headings, 
 and then merely as a slight stop -gap or interlude. 
 Thoroughly enjoying the delivery of it himself, and 
 always provoking shouts of laughter whenever this 
 colloquial morsel was given, the Novelist seemed to 
 
240 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 be perfectly conscious himself that it was altogether 
 too slight and trivial of its kind, to be worthy of 
 anything like artistic consideration; that it was an 
 "airy nothing" in its way, to which it was scarcely 
 deserving that he should give more than name and 
 local habitation. 
 
 Critically regarded, it had its inconsistencies too, 
 both as a writing and as a Reading. There was alto 
 gether too much precocity for a genuine boy, in the 
 nice discrimination with which the Boy at Mugby 
 hit off the contrasting nationalities. The foreigner, 
 for example, who politely, hat in hand, " beseeched 
 Our Young Ladies, and our Missis," for a " leetel gloss 
 hoff prarndee," and who, after being repelled, on trying 
 to help himself, exclaims, " with hands clasped and 
 shoulders riz : Ah ! is it possible this ; that these 
 disdaineous females are placed here by the administra 
 tion, not only to empoisen the voyagers, but to affront 
 them ! Great Heaven ! How arrives it ? The Eng 
 lish people. Or is he then a slave ? Or idiot ? ! 
 Hardly would a veritable boy, even an urchin so 
 well " to the fore " with his epoch, as the Boy at 
 Mugby, depict so accurately, much less take off, with 
 a manner so entirely life-like, the astounded foreigner, 
 any more than he would the thoroughly wide-awake 
 and gaily derisive American. The latter he describes as 
 alternately trying and spitting out first the sawdust 
 and then the ha, ha ! the sherry, until finally, on 
 paying for both and consuming neither, he says, veiy 
 
THE BOY AT MUGBY. 241 
 
 loud, to Our Missis, and very good tempered, " I tell 
 Yew what tis ma arm. I la af. Theer ! I la af, I 
 Dew. I oughter ha seen most things, for I hail from 
 the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive 
 travelled right slick over the Limited, head on, through 
 Jeerusalem and the East, and like ways France and 
 Italy, Europe, Old World, and I am now upon the 
 track to the Chief European Village ; but such an 
 Institution as Yew and Yewer fixins, solid and liquid, 
 afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet ! And 
 if I hain t found the eighth wonder of Monarchical 
 Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer fixins, solid and 
 liquid, in a country where the people air not absolute 
 Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a nip 
 and frizzle to the innermost grit ! Wheerfore Theer ! 
 I la af ! I Dew, ma arm. I la af ! " A calotype, or ra 
 ther, literally, a speaking likeness, so true to the life as 
 that, would be a trifle, we take it, beyond the mimetic 
 powers and the keenly observant faculties even of a 
 Boy whose senses had been wakened up by the twenty- 
 seven cross draughts of the Eefreshment Koom at 
 Mugby. 
 
 As to the fun made of the bandolining by Our Young 
 Ladies, and of Our Missis s lecture on Foreign Refresh- 
 menting, and of Sniff s corkscrew and his servile dis 
 position, it is intentionally fooling, no doubt, but it is 
 excellent fooling ! As was admirably said in the 
 number of Macmillan for January, 1871, by the anony 
 mous writer of a Eeminiscence of the Amateur Thea- 
 
242 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADEE. 
 
 tricals at Tavistock House, the remark following 
 immediately after Charles Dickens s version of the 
 Ghost s Song in Henry Fielding s burlesque of Tom 
 Thumb, " Nonsense, it may be said, all this ; but 
 the nonsense of a great genius has always something 
 of genius in it." Had not Swift his " little language" 
 to Stella, to " Stellakins," to " roguish, impudent, 
 pretty M. D. ? " Than some of which little language, 
 quoth Thackeray, in commenting upon it, "I know 
 of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely 
 touching." Again, had not Pope, in conjunction 
 with the Dean, his occasional unbending also as 
 a farceur, in the wilder freaks and oddities of 
 Martinus Scriblerus ? So was it here with one who 
 was beyond all doubt, more intensely a Humorist than 
 either, when he wrote or read such harmless sarcasms 
 and innocent whimsicalities, as those alternately un 
 derlying, and overlaying the boyish fun of this juvenile 
 Refreshmenter at Mugby Junction. 
 
DOCTOR MARIGOLD. 
 
 ALREADY mention has been made of the extraordi 
 nary care lavished, as a general rule, by the Novelist 
 upon the preparation of these Readings before they 
 were, each in turn, submitted for the first time to 
 public scrutiny. A strikingly illustrative instance of 
 this may be here particularised. It occurred upon the 
 occasion of a purely experimental Reading of " Doctor 
 Marigold," which came off privately, on the evening of 
 the 18th of March, 1866, in the drawing-room of 
 Charles Dickens s then town residence, in Southwick 
 Place, Tyburnia. Including, among those present, the 
 members of his own home circle, his entire audience 
 numbered no more than ten persons altogether. 
 Four, at any rate, of that party may be here iden 
 tified, each of whom doubtless still bears the occasion 
 referred to vividly in his remembrance, Robert 
 Browning the poet, Charles Fechter the actor, Wilkie 
 ColHns the novelist, and John Forster the historian of 
 the Commonwealth. Even in private, Dickens had never 
 Read " Doctor Mangold" until that evening. Often as 
 
 K 2 
 
244 CHAELES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 he Eead it afterwards, he never Eead it with a more 
 contagious air of exhilaration. He hardly ever, in 
 fact, gave one of his almost wholly comic and but 
 incidentally pathetic Readings so effectively. In every 
 sentence there was a zest or relish that was irre 
 sistible. The volubility of the " poor chap in the 
 sleeved-waistcoat " sped the Reading on with a rapidity 
 quite beyond anticipation, when the time, which had 
 been carefully marked at the commencement of the 
 Reading, came to be notified at its conclusion. That 
 the merest first rehearsal should have run off thus 
 glibly seemed just simply incomprehensible. With 
 the sense of this surprise still fresh upon us, the 
 tentative Reading being at the time only a few seconds 
 completed, everything was explained, however, by a 
 half-whispered remark made, to the present writer, 
 in passing, by the Novelist made by him half- 
 weariedly, yet half-laughingly " There ! If I have 
 gone through that already to myself once, I have 
 gone through it two hundred times ! " It was 
 not lightly or carelessly therefore, as may now be seen, 
 that Charles Dickens, in his later capacity not pen-in- 
 hand, or through green monthly numbers, but stand 
 ing at a reading-desk upon a public platform under 
 took the office of a popular entertainer. 
 
 Resolved throughout his career as a Reader to 
 acquit himself of those newly-assumed responsi 
 bilities to the utmost of his powers, to the fullest 
 extent of his capabilities, both physical and intel- 
 
DOCTOR MAEIGOLD. 245 
 
 lectual, lie applied his energies to the task, with a 
 zeal that, it is impossible not to recognise now, 
 amounted in the end to nothing less than (literally) 
 self-sacrifice. But for the devotion of his energies thus 
 unstintingly to the laborious task upon which he had 
 adventured a task involving in its accomplishment 
 an enormous amount of rapid travelling by railway, 
 keeping him for months together, besides, in one 
 ceaseless whirl of bodily and mental excitement his 
 splendid constitution, sustained and strengthened as 
 it was by his wholesome enjoyment of out-of-door 
 life, and his habitual indulgence in bathing and pedes- 
 trianism, gave him every reasonable hope of reaching 
 the age of an octogenarian. 
 
 Bearing in mind in addition to the wear-and-tear of 
 the Headings in England and America, the nervous 
 shock of that terrible railway accident at Staplehurst, 
 on the 9th of June, 1865, the lamentable catastrophe 
 of exactly five years afterwards to the very day, that 
 of the 9th of June, 1870, becomes readily comprehen 
 sible. Because of his absorption in his task, however, 
 all through, he was unconscious for the most part of 
 the wasting influence of his labours, or, if he was so 
 at all towards the close of his career, he was so, even 
 then, only fitfully and at the rarest intervals. Pre 
 cisely in the same way, it may be remarked, in regard to 
 those who watched his whole course as a Eeader, that 
 so facile and so pleasureable to himself, as well as to 
 them, appeared to be the novel avocation which had 
 
246 CHARLES DICKENS AS A EEADER. 
 
 come of late years to be alternated with his more 
 accustomed toil as an author, that it rendered even the 
 most observant amongst them unconscious in their turn 
 of the disastrously exhausting influence of this unnatural 
 blending together of two professions. A remorseful 
 sense of this comes back upon us now, when it is all 
 too late, in our remembrance of that remark made by 
 the Novelist immediately after the Private Reading of 
 " Doctor Marigold," a remark then regarded as simply 
 curious and interesting, but now having about it an 
 almost painful significance. Never was work more 
 thoroughly or more conscientiously done, from first to 
 last, than in the instance of these Readings. 
 
 In the minute elaboration of the care with which 
 they were prepared, in the vivacity with which they were 
 one and all of them delivered, in the punctuality with 
 which, whirled like a shuttle in a loom, to and fro, 
 hither and thither, through all parts of the United King 
 dom and of the United States, the Reader kept, link by 
 link, an immensely-lengthened chain of appointments, 
 until the first link was broken suddenly at Preston 
 one can recognise at length the full force of those 
 simple words uttered by him upon the occasion of his 
 Farewell Reading, where he spoke of himself as " a 
 faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a 
 sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his 
 best." Among the many radiant illustrations that 
 have been preserved of how thoroughly he did his 
 best, not the least brilliant in its way was this 
 
DOCTOR MARIGOLD. 24-7 
 
 eminently characteristic Reading of " Doctor Mari- 
 gold." 
 
 All through it, from the very beginning down to the 
 very end of his Confidences, the Cheap Jack, in his 
 belcher neckcloth and his sleeved-waistcoat with the 
 mother-o -pearl buttons, was there talking to us, as 
 only he could talk to us, from the foot-board of his 
 cart. He remained thus before us from his first 
 mention of his own father having always consistently 
 called himself Willum to the moment when little 
 Sophy the third little Sophy comes clambering 
 up the steps, and reveals that she at least is not deaf 
 and dumb by crying out to him, " Grandfather ! " As 
 for the patter of Doctor Marigold, it is among the 
 humorous revelations of imaginative literature. Hear 
 him when he is perhaps the best worth listening to, 
 when he is in his true rostrum, when his bluchers 
 are on his native foot-board, and his name is, more in 
 tensely than ever, Doctor Marigold ! Don t we all re 
 member him there, for example, on a Saturday night in 
 the market-place "Here s a pair of razors that ll shave 
 you closer than the board of guardians; here s a flat-iron 
 worth its weight in gold ; here s a frying-pan artifici 
 ally flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree 
 that you ve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread 
 and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal 
 food ; here s a genuine chronometer-watch, in such a 
 solid silver case that you may knock at the door with 
 it when you come home late from a social meeting, and 
 
248 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker 
 for the postman; and here s half a dozen dinner-plates 
 that you may play the cymbals with to charm the 
 bahy when it s fractious. Stop ! I ll throw you in 
 another article, and I ll give you that, and it s a rolling- 
 pin ; and if the baby can only get it well into it s 
 mouth when its teeth is coming, and rub the gums 
 once with it, they ll come through double in a fit of 
 laughter equal to being tickled." And so on, ringing 
 the changes on a thousand wonderful conceits and 
 whimsicalities that come tumbling out one after 
 another in inexhaustible sequence and with uninter 
 rupted volubility. 
 
 The very Prince of Cheap Jacks, surely, is this 
 Doctor Marigold ! And, more than that, one who makes 
 good his claim to the title of wit, humorist, satirist, 
 philanthropist, and philosopher. 
 
 As for his philosophic contentment, what can equal 
 that as implied in his summing up of his own humble 
 surroundings ? "A roomy cart, with the large goods 
 hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when 
 on the road ; an iron-pot and a kettle, a fireplace for 
 the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging- 
 shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more 
 do you want ? You draw off on a bit of turf in a 
 green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old 
 horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon 
 the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and 
 you wouldn t call the Emperor of France your father." 
 
DOCTOR MARIGOLD. 249 
 
 As for his wit, hear him describe What ? " Why, 
 I ll tell you ! It s made of fine gold, and it s not 
 broke, though there s a hole in the middle of it, and 
 it s stronger than any fetter that was ever forged. 
 What else is it ? I ll tell you. It s a hoop of solid 
 gold wrapped in a silver curl-paper that I myself took 
 off the shining locks of the ever-beautiful old lady in 
 Threadneedle Street, London city. I wouldn t tell 
 you so, if I hadn t the paper to show, or you mightn t 
 believe it even of me. Now, what else is it ? It s a 
 man-trap, and a hand-cuff, the parish stocks and a leg- 
 lock, all in gold and all in one. Now, what else is it? 
 It s a wedding-ring ! " 
 
 As for something far better than any mere taste of his 
 skill as a satirist, see the whole of his delectable take off 
 in contradistinction to himself, the itinerant Cheap 
 Jack of the political Dear Jack in the public market 
 place. 
 
 As for his philanthropy, it is unobtrusively pro 
 claimed by the drift of his whole narrative, and 
 especially by two or three among the more remarkable 
 of its closing incidents. 
 
 As for his powers as a humorist, they may be found 
 there passim, being scattered broadcast all through 
 his autobiographic recollections. 
 
 To those recollections are we not indebted for a whole 
 gallery of inimitable delineations ? The Cheap Jack s 
 very dog, for instance, who had taught himself out of his 
 own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid 
 
250 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 as low as sixpence ! Or Pickleson the giant, with a 
 little head and less in it. Of whom, observes Doctor 
 Marigold, " He was a languid young man, which I 
 attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities." 
 About whom, when a sixpence is given to him by 
 Doctor Marigold, the latter remarks in a preposterous 
 parenthesis, " (for he was kept as short as he was 
 long !) " As for Dickens s high falsetto, when speak 
 ing in the person of this same Pickleson, with a 
 voice that, as Doctor Marigold says, seemed to come 
 from his eyebrows, it was only just a shade more 
 excruciatingly ridiculous than his guttural and growl 
 ing objurgations in the character of the giant s pro 
 prietor, the fe-rocious Mini. 
 
 With all his modest appetite for the simpler plea 
 sures of existence, Doctor Marigold betrays in one 
 instance, by the way, the taste of a gourmet. " I knocked 
 up a beefsteak-pudding for one," he says, " with two 
 kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms 
 thrown in : " adding, with a fine touch of nature 
 drawn from experience, "It s a pudding to put a man 
 in good humour with everything, except the two 
 bottom buttons of his waistcoat." 
 
 Incomparably the finest portion of all this wonder 
 fully original sketch of Doctor Marigold, both in the 
 Writing and in the Beading, was that in which the poor 
 Cheap Jack is represented as going through his cus 
 tomary patter on the foot-board with his poor little 
 Sophy the first of the three Sophies, his own by 
 
DOCTOR MARIGOLD. 251 
 
 birth, and not simply by adoption the while she is 
 slowly dying on his shoulder. Thackeray was right 
 when he said of the humour of Dickens, "It is a 
 mixture of love and wit." Laughter and tears, with 
 him, lay very near speaking of him as an author, we 
 may say by preference lie very near indeed together. 
 It is in those passages in which they come in astonish 
 ingly rapid alternation, and at moments almost simul 
 taneously, that he is invariably at his very best. The 
 incident here aUuded to is one of these more exquisite 
 descriptions, and it was one, that, by voice and look 
 and manner, he himself most exquisitely delineated. 
 When the poor Cheap Jack, with Sophy holding round 
 his neck, steps out from the shelter of the cart upon 
 the foot-board, and the waiting crowd all set up a 
 laugh on seeing them " one chuckle-headed Joskin 
 (that I hated for it) making a bid tuppence for 
 her! " Doctor Marigold begins his tragi-comic 
 allocution. It is sown thickly all through with the 
 most whimsical of his conceits, but it is interrupted 
 also here and there with infinitely pathetic touches of 
 tenderness. 
 
 Fragmentary illustrations of either would but dimly 
 shadow forth, instead of clearly elucidating, what is here 
 meant in the recollection of those who can still recall this 
 Reading of " Doctor Marigold" to their remembrance. 
 Those who never heard it as it actually fell from the 
 Author s lips, by turning to the original sketch, and 
 running through that particular portion of it to them- 
 
252 CHAKLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 selves, may more readily conjecture than by the aid of 
 mere piecemeal quotation, all that the writer of those 
 riant and tearful pages would be capable of accom 
 plishing by its utterance, bringing to its delivery, as he 
 could, so many of the rarer gifts of genius, and so 
 many also of the rarest accomplishments of art. 
 
SIKES AND NANCY. 
 
 ON Saturday, the 14th of November, 1868, there 
 were assembled together in front of the great plat 
 form in St. James s Hall, Piccadilly, as fit audience, 
 but few, somewhere about fifty of the critics, artists, 
 and literary men of London. A card of invitation, 
 stamped with a facsimile of the well-known autograph 
 of Charles Dickens, and countersigned by the Messrs. 
 Chappell and Company, had, with a witty significance, 
 bidden them to that rendezvous for a " Private Trial 
 of the Murder in Oliver Twist." The occasion, in 
 point of fact, was a sort of experimental rehearsal of 
 the last and most daring of all these vividly dramatic 
 Headings by the popular Novelist. 
 
 Conscious himself that there was a certain amount of 
 audacity in his adventuring thus upon a delineation so 
 really startling in its character, he was not unnaturally 
 desirous of testing its fitness for representation before 
 the public, first of all in the presence of those who 
 were probably the best qualified to pronounce a per 
 fectly dispassionate opinion. It certainly appeared 
 
254 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 somewhat dubious at the first, that question as to the 
 suitability for portrayal before mixed assemblages, of 
 one of the most powerfully tragic incidents ever de 
 picted by him in the whole range of his voluminous 
 contributions to imaginative literature. The passages 
 selected to this end from his famous story of 
 Oliver Twist were those relating more particularly 
 to the Murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes. A ghastlier 
 atrocity than that murder could hardly be imagined. 
 In the book itself, as will be remembered, the 
 crime is painted as with a brush dipped in blood 
 rather than pigment. The infamous deed is there 
 described in language worthy of one of the greatest 
 realists in fictitious narrative. Henri de Balzac, even 
 in his more sanguinary imaginings, never showed a 
 completer mastery of the horrible. 
 
 Eemembering all this, and feeling perfectly assured 
 at the same time, that the scene then about to be 
 depicted by the Author in person, would most certainly 
 lose nothing of its terror in the representation, the 
 acknowledgment may here be made by the writer 
 of these pages, that, on entering the Hall that evening, 
 he was in considerable doubt as to what might 
 be the result of the experiment. Compared with 
 the size of the enormous building, the group of 
 those assembled appeared to be the merest handful of 
 an audience clustered together towards the front 
 immediately below the platform of the orchestra. 
 Standing at the back of this group, the writer recalls 
 
SIKES AND NANCY. 255 
 
 to mind, in regard to that evening, a circumstance 
 plainly enough indicating how fully his own unex 
 pressed uncertainty was akin to that of the Author- 
 Reader himself. The circumstance, namely, that 
 Charles Dickens, immediately on entering the hall, 
 before taking his place at his reading-desk upon the 
 platform, came round, and after exchanging a few 
 words with him, uttered this earnest Aside, " I 
 want you to watch this particularly, for I am very 1 
 doubtful about it myself !" Before that Experimental 
 Beading was half over, however, all doubt upon the mat 
 ter was utterly dissipated. In the powerful eifect of it, 
 the murder-scene immeasurably surpassed anything he 
 had ever achieved before as an impersonator of his 
 own creations. In its climax, it was as splendid a piece 
 of tragic acting as had for many years been witnessed. 
 
 What, in effect, was Macready s comment upon it 
 some months afterwards, when, with an especial eye to 
 the great tragedian s opinion, " Sikes and Nancy "was 
 given at Cheltenham ? It was laconic enough, but it 
 afforded a world of pleasure to the Author- Actor when 
 his old friend himself the hero of so many tragic 
 triumphs summed up his estimate, by saying, cha 
 racteristically, " Two Macbeths !" 
 
 Four of the imaginary beings of the novel were 
 introduced, or, it should rather be said, were severally 
 produced before us as actual embodiments. Occa 
 sionally, during one of the earlier scenes, it is true 
 that the gentle voice of Eose Maylie was audible, 
 
256 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 while a few impressive words were spoken there also 
 at intervals by Mr. Brownlow. But, otherwise, the 
 interlocutors were four, and four only : to wit Nancy, 
 Bill Sikes, Morris Bolter, otherwise Noah Claypole, 
 and the Jew Fagin. Than those same characters no 
 four perhaps in the whole range of fiction could be 
 more widely contrasted. Yet, widely contrasted, 
 utterly dissimilar, though they are, in themselves, the 
 extraordinary histrionic powers of their creator, enabled 
 him to present them to view, with a rapidity of 
 sequence or alternation, so astonishing in its mingled 
 facility and precision, that the characters themselves 
 seemed not only to be before us in the flesh, but 
 sometimes one might almost have said were there 
 simultaneously. Each in turn as portrayed by him 
 meaning portrayed by him not simply in the book 
 but by himself in person was in its way a finished 
 masterpiece. 
 
 Looking at the Author as he himself embodied these 
 creations Fagin, the Jew, was there completely, 
 audibly, visibly before us, by a sort of transformation ! 
 Here, in effect as several years previously in the 
 midst of his impersonation of Wilmot in Lord Lytton s 
 comedy of Not so Bad as we Seem, namely, where, 
 in the garret, the young patrician affects for a while 
 to be Edmund Curll the bookseller the imper 
 sonator s very stature, each time Fagin opened his 
 lips, seemed to be changed instantaneously. When 
 ever he spoke, there started before us high-shoul- 
 
SIKES AND NANCY. 257 
 
 dered, with contracted chest, with birdlike claws, 
 eagerly anticipating by their every movement the pas 
 sionate words fiercely struggling for utterance at his 
 lips that most villainous old tutor of young thieves, 
 receiver of stolen goods, and very devil incarnate : his 
 features distorted with rage, his penthouse eyebrows 
 (those wonderful eyebrows ! ) working like the an- 
 tennre of some deadly reptile, his whole aspect, half- 
 vulpine, half- vulture -like, in its hungry wickedness. 
 
 Whenever lie spoke, again, Morris Bolter quite 
 as instantly, just as visibly and as audibly was there 
 upon the platform. Listening to him, though we 
 were all of us perfectly conscious of doing, through 
 the Protean voice, and looking at him through the 
 variable features of the Novelist, we somehow saw, 
 no longer the Novelist, but each time Noah Clay- 
 pole said a word that chuckle-headed, long-limbed, 
 clownish, sneaking varlet, who is the spy on Nancy, 
 the tool of Fagin, and the secret evil-genius of Sikes, 
 hounding the latter on, as he does, unwittingly, to the 
 dreadful deed of homicide. 
 
 As for the Author s embodiment of Sikes the 
 burly ruffian with thews of iron and voice of Stentor 
 it was only necessary to hear that infuriated voice, 
 and watch the appalling blows dealt by his ima 
 ginary bludgeon in the perpetration of the crime, to 
 realise the force, the power, the passion, informing 
 the creative mind of the Novelist at once in the 
 original conception of the character, and then, so 
 
"58 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 many years afterwards, in its equally astonishing 
 representation. 
 
 It was in the portrayal of Nancy, however, that the 
 genius of the Author-Actor found the opportunity, 
 beyond all others, for its most signal manifesta 
 tion. Only that the catastrophe was in itself, by 
 necessity so utterly revolting, there would have been 
 something exquisitely pathetic in many parts of that 
 affecting delineation. The character was revealed 
 with perfect consistency throughout from the scene 
 of suppressed emotion upon the steps of London 
 Bridge, when she is scared with the eltrich horror of 
 her forebodings, down to her last gasping, shrieking 
 apostrophes, to " Bill, dear Bill," when she sinks, 
 blinded by blood, under the murderous blows dealt 
 upon her upturned face by her brutal paramour. 
 
 Then, again, the horror experienced by the assassin 
 afterwards ! So far as it went, it was as grand a repre 
 hension of all murderers as hand could well have 
 penned or tongue have uttered. It had about it some 
 thing of the articulation of an avenging voice not 
 against Sikes only, but against all who ever outraged, 
 or ever dreamt of outraging, the sanctity of human 
 life. And it was precisely this which tended to sub 
 limate an incident otherwise of the ghastliest horror 
 into a homily of burning eloquence, the recollection 
 of which among those who once saw it revealed 
 through the lips, the eyes, the whole aspect of Charles 
 Dickens will not easily be obliterated. The moral 
 
SIKES AND NANCY. 259 
 
 drawn from it and there was this moral interpene 
 trating or impregnating the whole became appreci 
 able, it might even have been by Sikes himself, from 
 the first moment the ruffian realised that the crime 
 had been actually accomplished. It spoke trumpet- 
 tongued from the very instant when he recoiled from 
 "it!" Nancy no more, but thenceforth flesh and 
 blood " But such flesh, and so much blood ! " Never 
 theless, in that Experimental Heading of the 14th of 
 November, 1868, the effect of all this appeared, in the 
 estimation of the present writer, to have been in a 
 great measure marred by the abruptness with which, 
 almost the instant after the crime had been com 
 mitted, the Beading was terminated. Sikes burnt 
 upon the hearth the blood-stained weapon with which 
 the murder had been perpetrated was startled for a 
 moment by the hair upon the end of the club shrinking 
 to a light cinder and whirling up the chimney and 
 then, dragging the dog (whose very feet were bloody) 
 after him, and locking the door, left the house. 
 There, the Experimental Reading abruptly terminated. 
 It seemed not only insufficient, but a lost oppor 
 tunity. Insomuch, that the writer, on the following 
 day, remonstrated with the Novelist as earnestly as 
 possible, urging him to append to the Reading as it 
 then stood some fragmentary portion, at least, of the 
 chapter descriptive of the flight, so that the remorseful 
 horror of Sikes might be more fully realised. Of the 
 reasonableness of this objection, however, Dickens 
 
 8 2 
 
260 CHARLES DICKENS AS A HEADER. 
 
 himself was so wholly unconvinced, that, in the midst 
 of his arguments against it, he wrote, in a tone of 
 good-humoured indignation, "My dear fellow, helieve 
 me that no audience on earth could he held for ten 
 minutes after the girl s death. Give them time, and 
 they would be revengeful for having had such a strain 
 put upon them. Trust me to he right. I stand 
 there, and I know." Than this nothing could very 
 well have been more strongly expressed, as indicative 
 of the conclusion at which he had deliberately arrived. 
 
 So frankly open to conviction was he, nevertheless, 
 that, not disdaining to defer to the judgment of another 
 when his own had been convinced, the Reading was 
 eventually, after all, lengthened out by a veiy remark 
 able addition. The printed copy of this fragment of 
 Oliver Twist, artistically compacted together as "A 
 Heading," has, appended to it, in blue ink, three 
 pages of manuscript in the Novelist s familiar hand 
 writing, in which, with a cunning mastery of all 
 the powers of condensation, he has compacted together 
 in a few sentences what he always gave with wonderful 
 effect before the public, the salient incidents of the 
 murderer s flight, ending with his own destruction, 
 and even his dog s, from the housetop. 
 
 Nothing that could most powerfully realise to the 
 audience the ruffian s sense of horror and abhorrence 
 has been there overlooked. The ghastly figure follows 
 him everywhere. He hears its garments rustling in 
 the leaves. " If he stopped, it stopped. If he ran, it 
 
SIKES AND NANCY. 2G1 
 
 followed." Turning at times to beat the phantom off, 
 though it should strike him dead, the hair rises on his 
 head, and his blood stands still, for it has turned with 
 him and is behind him ! Throwing himself on his 
 back upon the road "At his head it stood, silent, 
 erect, and still : a human gravestone with its epitaph 
 in Blood." 
 
 What is as striking as anything in all this Heading, 
 however that is, in the Beading copy of it now lying 
 before us as we write is the mass of hints as to by 
 play in the stage directions for himself, so to speak, 
 scattered up and down the margin. "Fagiii raised 
 his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in 
 the air," is there, on p. 101, in print. Beside it, on 
 the margin in MS., is the word "Action." Not a 
 word of it was said. It was simply done. Again, 
 immediately below that on the same page Sikes 
 loquitur " Oh! you haven t, haven t you? passing 
 a pistol into a more convenient pocket [ Action, 
 again, in MS. on the margin.] * That s lucky for one 
 of us which one that is don t matter. Not a word 
 \vas said about the pistol the marginal direction was 
 simply attended to. On the opposite page, in print, 
 " Fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locked it 
 in the cupboard. But he did not take his eyes off 
 the robber for an instant." On the margin in MS., 
 oddly but significantly underlined, are the words, 
 * Cupboard Action." So again afterwards, as a 
 rousing self- direction, one sees notified in maim- 
 
262 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 script, on p. 107, the grim stage direction, " Murder 
 Coming." 
 
 As certainly as the " Trial from Pickwick" was the 
 most laughter-moving of all the Readings, and as the 
 " Story of Little Dombey," again, was the most pathetic, 
 " Sikes and Nancy " was in all respects the most 
 powerfully dramatic and, in the grand tragic force of 
 it, in many ways, the most impressive and remarkable. 
 
THE FAREWELL READING. 
 
 IN recording the incident of his Farewell Reading, 
 there comes back to us a yet later recollection of the 
 great Novelist; and illustrating, as it does, his pas 
 sionate love for the dramatic art, it may here be 
 mentioned not inappropriately. 
 
 It relates simply to a remark suddenly made by him 
 and which had been suggested, so far as we can 
 remember, by nothing we had been talking about pre 
 viously towards the close of our very last suburban 
 walk together. Going round by way of Lambeth one 
 afternoon in the early summer of 1870, we had skirted 
 the Thames along the Surrey bank, had crossed the 
 river higher up, and on our way back were returning 
 at our leisure through Westminster ; when, just as 
 we were approaching the shadow of the old Abbey at 
 Poet s Corner, under the roof-beams of which he was 
 so soon to be laid in his grave, with a rain of tears and 
 flowers, he abruptly asked 
 
 " What do you think would be the realisation of one 
 
264 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 of my most cherished day-dreams ? " Adding, instantly, 
 without waiting for any answer, " To settle down now 
 for the remainder of my life within easy distance of a 
 great theatre, in the direction of which I should hold 
 supreme authority. It should be a house, of course, 
 having a skilled and noble company, and one in every 
 way magnificently appointed. The pieces acted should 
 be dealt with according to my pleasure, and touched 
 up here and there in obedience to my own judgment ; 
 the players as well as the plays being absolutely 
 under my command. There," said he, laughingly, 
 and in a glow at the mere fancy, " that s my day 
 dream ! " 
 
 Dickens s delighted enjoyment, in fact, of everything 
 in any way connected with the theatrical profession, 
 was second only to that shown by him in the indul 
 gence of the master-passion of his life, his love of 
 literature. 
 
 The way in which he threw himself into his 
 labours, as a Reader, was only another indication 
 of his intense affection for the dramatic art. For, as 
 we have already insisted, the Readings were more than 
 simply Readings, they were in the fullest meaning of 
 the words singularly ingenious and highly elaborated 
 histrionic performances. And his sustained success 
 in them during fifteen years altogether, and, as we 
 have seen, through as many as five hundred repre 
 sentations, may be accounted for in the same way as 
 his still more prolonged success, from the beginning 
 
THE FAREWELL READING. 265 
 
 of his^career as a Novelist down to its very close, 
 from the Pickwick Papers to Edwin Drood, other 
 wise, during an interval of four-and-thirty consecu 
 tive years, as the most popular author of his gene 
 ration. 
 
 The secret of his original success, and of the long 
 sustainment of it in each of these two careers as 
 Writer and as Reader is in a great measure discover 
 able in this, that whatever powers he possessed he 
 applied to their very uttermost. Whether as Author 
 or as Impersonator, he gave himself up to his ap 
 pointed task, not partially or intermittingly, but tho 
 roughly and indefatigably. 
 
 His rule in life, in this way, he has himself 
 clearry explained in the forty - second chapter of 
 David Copperfield. What he there says about 
 David s industry and perseverance, applies as di 
 rectly to himself, as what he also relates in regard 
 to his young hero s earlier toils as a parliamentary 
 reporter, and his precocious fame as a writer of fiction. 
 Speaking at once for David and for himself, he there 
 writes for both or for either, " Whatever I have tried 
 to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do 
 well ; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have 
 devoted myself to completely; in great aims and in 
 small I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I 
 have never believed it possible that any natural or 
 improved ability can claim immunity from the com 
 panionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, 
 
266 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 and hope to gain its end. There is no substitute 
 for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. 
 Never to put one hand to anything on which I could 
 throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation 
 of my work, whatever it was, I find now to have heen 
 my golden rules." What is there said applies far 
 more recognisably to the real Charles Dickens than 
 to the imaginary David Copperfield. 
 
 Attestations of the truth of this were discoverable, at 
 every turn, in regard to his regular system, his constant 
 method, nay, his minutest tricks of habit, so to speak, 
 both as Reader and as Novelist. It was so when as 
 an Author, for example, note was taken, now of his 
 careful forecast of a serial tale on as many slips as 
 there were to be green monthly numbers ; now of his 
 elaborately corrected and recorrected manuscripts ; 
 now of the proof-sheets lying about, for revision at 
 any and every spare moment, during the month imme 
 diately before publication. Or, when, on the other 
 hand, in his capacity as a Reader, regard was had to the 
 scrupulous exactitude with which the seemingly trivial 
 minutiae of what one might call the mere accompani 
 ments, were systematically cared for or methodised. 
 Announced to read, for instance, for the first time in 
 some town he had never before visited for that pur 
 pose, or in some building in which his voice had never 
 before been raised, he would go down to the empty 
 hall long before the hour appointed for the Reading, 
 to take the bearings, as he would say, or, in other 
 
THE FAREWELL READING. 267 
 
 words, to familiarise himself with the place before 
 hand. His interest in his audience, again, was some 
 thing delightful. He was hardly less keenly observant 
 of them than they of him. Through a hole in the 
 curtain at the side, or through a chink in the screen 
 upon the platform, he would eagerly direct your atten 
 tion to what never palled upon his own, namely, the 
 effect of the suddenly brightened sea of faces on the 
 turning up of the gas, immediately before the moment 
 of his own appearance at the reading-desk. 
 
 The evening at length came for his very last appear 
 ance at that familiar little reading-desk, on Tuesday, 
 the 15th of March, 1870, on the platform of the St. 
 James s Hall, Piccadilly. The largest audience ever 
 assembled in that immense building, the largest, as 
 already intimated, that ever can be assembled there 
 for purely Reading purposes, namely, when the or 
 chestra and the upper end of the two side-galleries 
 have necessarily to be barred or curtained off from 
 the auditorium, were collected together there under 
 the radiant pendants of the glittering ceiling, every 
 available nook and corner, and all the ordinary gang 
 ways of the Great Hall being completely occupied. 
 The money value of the house that night was 422. 
 Crowds were unable to obtain admittance at the 
 entrances in the Quadrant and in Piccadilly, long 
 before the hour fixed for the Farewell Beading. Inside 
 the building 2034 persons were seated there, eagerly 
 
268 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 awaiting the Novelist s appearance. The enthusiasm 
 of his reception when eight o clock came, and he 
 advanced to the centre of the platform, of itself told 
 plainly enough, as plainly as the printed hills an 
 nouncing the fact in red, black, and yellow, that it was 
 his last appearance. 
 
 The Readings selected were, as the very best 
 that could have been chosen, his own favourites 
 " The Christmas Carol," and the " Trial from 
 Pickwick." He never read better in his life than 
 he did on that last evening. Evidently enough, he 
 was nerved to a crowning effort. And by sympathy 
 his audience his last audience responded to him 
 throughout by their instant and intense appreciation. 
 Not a point was lost. Every good thing told to the 
 echo, that is, through the echoing laughter. Scrooge, 
 Fezziwig, the Fiddler, Topper, every one of the 
 Cratchits, everybody in " The Carol," including the 
 Small Boy who is so great at repartee, all were wel 
 comed in turn, as became them, with better than 
 acclamations. It was the same exactly with the 
 " Trial from Pickwick " Justice Stareleigh, Serjeant 
 Buzfuz, Mr. Winkle, Mrs. Cluppins, Sam Weller, 
 one after another appearing for a brief interval, and 
 then disappearing for ever, each of them a delightfully 
 humorous, one of them in particular, the Judge, a 
 simply incomparable impersonation. 
 
 Then came the moment of parting between the 
 
THE FAREAYELL READING. 269 
 
 great Author and his audience that last audience 
 who were there as the representatives of his immense 
 public in both hemispheres. When the resounding 
 applause that greeted the close of that Final Beading 
 had died out, there was a breathless hush as Charles 
 Dickens, who had for once lingered there upon the 
 platform, addressed to his hearers, with exquisitely 
 clear articulation, but with unmistakably profound 
 emotion, these few and simple words of farewell : 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, It would be worse than 
 " idle, for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling, if I 
 " were to disguise that I close this episode in my life 
 " with feelings of very considerable pain. For some 
 fifteen years in this hall, and in many kindred places, 
 " I have had the honour of presenting my own che- 
 " risked ideas before you for your recognition, and in 
 " closely observing your reception of them have en- 
 " joyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction, 
 " which perhaps it is given to few men to know. In 
 " this task and in every other I have ever undertaken 
 "as a faithful servant of the public, always imbued 
 " with the sense of duty to them, and always striving 
 "to do his best, I have been uniformly cheered by the 
 " readiest response, the most generous sympathy, and 
 " the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have 
 " thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, 
 " to retire upon those older associations between us, 
 " which date from much further back than these, and 
 
270 CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER. 
 
 " thenceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art 
 " that first brought us together. Ladies and gentle- 
 " men, in two short weeks from this time I hope that 
 " you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series 
 " of readings at which nry assistance will be indispen- 
 " sable ; but from these garish lights I vanish now for 
 " evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and 
 " affectionate farewell." 
 
 The manly, cordial voice only faltered once at the 
 very last. The mournful modulation of it in the utter 
 ance of the words, " From these garish lights I vanish 
 now for evermore," lingers to this moment like a 
 haunting melody in our remembrance. Within a few 
 weeks afterwards those very words were touchingly 
 inscribed on the Funeral Card distributed at the doors 
 of Westminster Abbey on the day of the Novelist s 
 interment in Poet s Corner. As he moved from the 
 platform after the utterance of the last words of his 
 address and, with his head drooping in emotion, passed 
 behind the screen on his way to his retiring-room, a 
 cordial hand was placed for one moment with a sym 
 pathetic grasp upon his shoulder. The popularity 
 won by Charles Dickens, even among the million who 
 never saw him or spoke with him, amounted to nothing 
 less than personal affection. Among his friends and 
 intimates no great author has ever been more truly or 
 more tenderly beloved. The prolonged thunder of 
 applause that followed him to his secluded room at 
 
THE FAREWELL READING. 271 
 
 the back of the platform, whither he had withdrawn 
 alone, recalled him after the lapse of some minutes 
 for another instant into the presence of his last 
 audience, from whom, with a kiss of his hand, he then 
 indeed parted for evermore. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBCRT, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
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